Boomers - The Luckiest Generation?

I sometimes comfort myself with the thought that, one way and another, hard times are coming and these insulting, spoilt young people will find out just how privileged they are

Yes

I have noticed a difference in the chat of young hairdressers to the extent I now watch what I say.
Talk about cars, holiday's abroad, designer clothes, £100 squandered on a night out or a week-end away is fading away.

Reality looms.

I was pleased recently to find a new hairdresser, I have thick, unruly hair and she did the most effective cut I've ever had.
Why am I posting this?
Just before Christmas this hairdresser of, I would guess, 40 or thereabouts, launched into one of these diatribes. She had always worked so hard but 'boomers' had it all, the same as in the Op, I don't need to repeat.

She was a little surprised when I said I had grown up with a widowed mother in rented housing in relative poverty though my mum was a great, thrifty, good mother. I left school at 16, did a secretarial course and immediately started work and have always worked!
I decided to play devil's advocate and agreed that the triple lock was outdated now, she loved that! I kept my cool somehow and told her a few more 'facts' and left but I can't face going back which is a shame.
I sometimes comfort myself with the thought that, one way and another, hard times are coming and these insulting, spoilt young people will find out just how privileged they are.

I remember my DH had to get special dispensation from the bank to borrow £2,500 for our first house - his salary only allowed him to purchase up to £2,300 - and I was over the moon to be able to spend that much money!

Also remember sitting in an Estate Agents and hearing someone ask for particulars of houses around £5,000 and thinking he must be so rich.

Like a lot of our generation this initial investment has paid handsomely and I can understand the bitterness of some younger people who will not have the benefit of this with inheritance.

House buying for a lot of people was seen as a risk. My Grandmother said on hearing of the £2500 property investment 'I hope they get their money back'.

Occasionally I perceive a bit of an ageist war going on, which sometimes plays out on MN, one of the funniest but rather telling comments I read on there a while back was this "I don't know why people of a pensionable age have to clutter up the high street on Saturdays when they've had all week to go shopping" kind of illustrated that tacit resentment some, not all, have of the older age demographic.

Certainly I think in some respects we have been a very lucky generation, born late '53, should have been '54 but I arrived early, my parents generation had to live through the war which blighted many lives and the dismal austere years in the aftermath. By the time I arrived rationing was over and have vague memories of the '50s, we didn't have a lot of spare money in my early childhood, although we had a mortgage so owned our house, in it there was a lot of hand me downs old fashioned furniture, presumably from grandparents. No washing machine or telephone, I remember we got a television at the end of the 50s, I recall watching Bill and Ben, Billy Bunter and Mr Pastry. I don't remember having new clothes very often, some were hand me downs from an older cousin, I didn't have umpteen outfits or shoes, there was school uniform and school shoes, wellies and then maybe a couple of outfits and possibly best shoes for parties, (few and far between) and going to church on Sunday. We didn't have biscuits or squashes, maybe for very special occasions, snacking between meals didn't really happen and those meals, well they were put in front of us, I don't remember being faddy at home, just ate everything,I didn't have any particular dislikes. What we did have was freedom, holidays and weekends, we roamed around our local area, beyond the fence at the bottom of our garden was a stream that fed into a duck pond, beyond that a cricket pitch and a common, much of my childhood was spent with a friend or two set free for hours, amusing ourselves in camps and dens and we didn't return home till dinner time. helicopter parenting, what was that? didn't exist.

I have strong memories of being taken to the library from a very early age, it was always a treat to choose my own books. Birthdays and Christmas, some of my presents included books, I loved them. Like most, presents came only on those two occasions we didn't get treated to gifts in between. We did have occasional trips to the cinema and even the theatre often around Christmas time, we lived in Surrey so London by train was easily accessible, I remember being taken to the Natural History Museum aged about 5 and being agog on seeing the diplodocus skeleton in the main hall. On Saturdays we got pocket money and my brother and I went to Saturday Morning Cinema, Sunday it was mass and Fridays were Brownies, those events and school of course marked my week. School was far harsher than today, you could get the ruler on your hand for nothing much and there were often things to terrify, not understanding long division, thank God my mother was able to help me with that, having to learn Catechism by rote aged about 7, and getting the ruler if you couldn't parrot it off, and being forced to ingest the dreaded school diners, gagging on them and being sick, hated, hated the school milk, no ifs or buts you had to have it, I could have done with The Milk Snatcher in my school days, but she was still a good few years hence. All these things conspired to make school days a horrible experience at times.

Jumping forward, yes when the time came, I was in my mid twenties, getting on the property ladder was possibly easier than it is today, we, my ex and I didn't get help from parents, but we had an advantageous interest rate, a perk of him working for an American bank, our rate was 3%, I'm not sure what every one else was paying at the time, but a lot more. Later on down the line, in the late 80s or '90s, I remember coming back from France one year and overnight, our mortgage interest rate had skyrocketed to something like 13%, maybe more

I just perceive all generations are of their time, we didn't have the gadgetry that was available today. Possibly our expectations weren't so great in some respects, reading through other posts I concur with much of what everybody else has said. Sometimes we will recall with our own children what we earned when we first went to work, but of course it's all relative as to how far that went in purchasing power and probably as irrelevant to them as it would have been for us relating to the earnings of someone who worked through the '20s and '30s. I think much is made of the fact that "we had it so good" Boomers that is, I think there is an element of truth in that.

I was born in 1949, and despite growing up in an almost permanently skint family - hardly ever any spare cash for any extras, all cast-off clothes, etc. (dh was very much the same) I do think were were lucky in many ways. For a start, we didn’t have to pay university tuition fees, and maintenance grants were available. (Yes, I know I was very fortunate to be able to go, and to have parents who valued education.)

Later, house prices were relatively far more affordable, even on just one salary. My elder sister and her dh paid IIRC £3750 for a 3 bed new build in the very early 70s, and in the SE, London commuter belt.
By the time dh and I bought in 1977, prices had already shot up, but were still relatively affordable.

Nowadays young couples need two salaries to be able to afford to buy anything - at least anywhere around here - and childcare costs are crippling. I count myself very lucky that I didn’t need to work when dds were very small, although I did still manage to fit in some p/t, because I wanted to.

A plus of the early years was that my mother was a very good cook - all from scratch - able to make very nutritious meals relatively cheaply. I certainly appreciated her passed-on know-how during my very early years with dh, when we were exceedingly skint!

srn63

Nothing was given to us, we worked for everything and saved hard. We didn't have two or three holidays a year, a car each, multiple hen and stag do's lasting days. We didn't spend a fortune on take out coffee or take aways or eating out. Our children only got toys at Christmas and Birthdays and if they were really good as a treat, they didn't eat at Macdonalds etc, they ate good home cooked food at home, no ready meals, crisps biscuits etc, we couldn't afford them. We had no expectations of an inheritance our retirement is funded by savings. I could go on forever about how money is wasted now. Our generation coined the phrase "negative equity", many having to sell their home at a loss and losing everything. Remember 14% or even 16% interest mortgages? I do we had one. No free childcare for us either, that's why more women didn't work, often nursery cost more than a women could earn. We also didn't have "Boomer" parents or grandparents who could help us out with house deposits or our first car, my parents could have flown easier than give us the money for that. All of the younger ones remember that when you start moaning how well off us boomers are. Don't tell me we had it easy. Maybe if the younger generations took a leaf out of our generation's books they could look forward to a comfortable future. Not one penny has ever been given to us, we have worked then saved for everything.

Brilliant post. We saved up for things we wanted and did without. No eating out, no TV to begin with. Hit with rulers at school or at home. No snacks between meals. No childcare. No girls’ nights out. A picnic or a walk were our treats.

Yes, we had a grant to go to university. In order to have a chance to go to university from school you either had to be born into a family that could afford private education or pass the 11+ and go to a state grammar school (there were, of course, a few exceptions to this). You had to pass at least five O'Levels to be able to progress into the 6th form. Then you had to pass at least one university interview and get good enough A'Levels in three subjects to be able to take up a conditional offer of a place. Only a tiny minority managed to do all this. As there were more university places available for boys than girls the odds were further stacked against you if you were female.

It was not that easy to get on the property ladder as mortgage lending was hedged round with restrictions and lending rates were high. The gap between earnings and property prices was, of course smaller but you still needed to be able to put down a reasonable deposit to be considered for a mortgage. We had to live in rented accommodation for over nine years before we raised sufficient capital.

Even well qualified women found it difficult to earn as much as men as they seldom reached even junior managerial positions, so most women had to settle for lower paid jobs.

Childbirth was made more difficult than it should have been because of the common practice of lying women on their backs with their legs elevated in stirrups or held up instead of
letting gravity help the passage of the birth. Breastfeeding was discouraged and women were routinely given injections to dry up their milk.

I know that the present generation have their own, very real,
problems and it is wrong to trivialise them. It is also wrong to trivialise the equally real problems that boomers faced.

I’ve posted about bus passes before.

These are the latest Government statisitics.

There are 8.8 million older and disabled concessionary travel passes. About 10% of passes are for people under pension age with disabilities.

604 million concessionary bus journeys are taken a year.

£708 million is reimbursed to bus operators.

The local authorities reimburse the bus operators and central government reimburse the local authorities.

The net current expenditure by government on concessionary travel is £885 million.

Concessionary bus pass use provides funding to bus operators for routes that might otherwise be underused in the daytime to the point that the services are removed altogether. So that’s a benefit to younger users who might otherwise lose a vital service that they need to get to and from work.

Say each journey is for a purpose that results in the passenger spending some money at the destination. Not only does this help business, stimulates the economy, provides jobs for working age people, it produces revenue for the government.

If the average spend per journey is £10 on VATable items it would generate £1.2 billion in government revenue, exceeding the £885 net cost.

Most people I know who use their pass regularly are going into town to shop, to go to the cinema on Silver Screen days or other cultural evernts for which there is a small charge or collection, or to have have coffee or lunch. They are putting money into the economy when they might otherwise stay home. Why can’t the detractors see this? Why can they not see the social benefits for older people who might otherwise be isolated and lonely?

Pressed too soon. As well as liberal amounts of sugar. We were certainly not wealthy and didn't go on holiday every year until I was older, when it would be a week in a farmhouse in Cornwall, half board, which we enjoyed very much. We had a black and white television until I was eleven. Again, this was very common. I was very fortunate because I was able to pursue my dreams of being a musician. I had private piano lessons, but my violin lessons were at school under the excellent peripatetic system that was at its height in the seventies and eighties. I was also initially able to borrow a violin from school. My parents could not have afforded private lessons on two instruments, but were very supportive. Our family cars were old and the technology in my teenage bedroom was a basic cassette recorder, my Mum's old Dansette record player and, later, a clock radio. I will post my experiences as a young adult later.

srn63 could have been me speaking. Thank you x

I think we probably are the luckiest generation. We grew up with very little, had modest expectations and know how to find pleasure in small things.

I was born in 1951, so rationing was still in existence. We lived, until I was 11, in a rented house with an outside toilet and no bathroom, just a tin bath. No central heating and certainly no heating in the bedrooms. We were fortunate to have a car (a 1939 model) and our one holiday a year was usually camping.

When we got married we were practically laughed out of the building society for our "low" income (we were both teachers) but were fortunate to eventually get a council staff mortage 0.25% less than the commercial ones (10%+). The only new things in our house were 4 dining chairs and the wedding presents. Everything else was borrowed or donated. We were horrified by younger colleagues who expected their parents to provide new furniture for them.

We've had some very lean years and survived. The result is that having a regular income, albeit pension, gives constant pleasure because we can pay the bills without having to wait until the bank balance can take it.

Life is good now for sure but post war it was tough, water was a pump in the yard, toilet a privy at the bottom of the garden, bath was a tin one in front of the front room fire, water heating was a copper boiler in the kitchen.
Schooling was doing as you were told and penalties severe if you didn’t, I learned quickly and enjoyed school, left with 5 GCEs at 16 and went to work, qualified on the job, self employed at 21, still self employed at 75.

Because most were working from 16 buying your first home was easier, living with parents until you got married was usual, it was never easy because interest rates were high. A couple could do it today both working and saving for a deposit, today, after Uni, ending up with £60k debt and uncertain prospects is tough. As my GC are finding out

Thank you for your responses so far. I agree with so much. @Grandmabatty, I think we would all concur that we should not pit one generation against another, but I think it is important that we learn from previous generations so that we can appreciate what we have and are able to do now. My parents were born in the second world war, so I have always been aware of the post war period, both the good and the bad. One thing that is very common for people born around the time l was and who mostly had parents of a similar age, is that our parents were very keen that we should have a much more varied diet than they themselves had had with the best quality food and they could afford, so there was a lot of fresh fruit, especially oranges, and vegetables, plenty of full fat milk and butter

We lived in a prefab too. We also lived through the Cuban missile crisis which could have easily turned into a global nuclear conflict.

I was born in 1946 and consider that I have received many more benefits than my grandchildren ever will. I have twin grandchildren considering university. One has decided he can’t afford it and the other one will incur a heavy debt. My DH and I not only received a grant but we did not have to pay fees either.
Our first house cost £9,000 which we could afford on DH’s teacher’s salary.
I received my free bus pass and free prescriptions at the age of 60 plus my state salary. Will these be there for my grandchildren?
As a child I grew up without social media and prevalent knife crime and was free to roam the countryside without fear of danger.
Speaking for myself (which is all I can do) I do feel very lucky to have been a baby boomer.

I was born on a council estate in the late fifties. Almost everyone I knew lived in a council house- there was no one-upmanship, most people had jobs and most mums worked part-time if at all.
I do consider myself lucky, but not in a financial sense. As a teenager and young adult I knew what freedom was- we went everywhere on public transport with an occasional shared taxi after a cheap night out. We weren't fearful walking the streets. We accepted lifts. We walked everywhere most of the time.
My first job paid well, I had lots of spare cash. When I did my nurse training I lived in a nurses home for low rent and again was on a good salary.
It all finished when Thatcher got elected in 1979- the year I married.
I can't remember any time after that when I didn't struggle to pay a mortage and raise a family.
Now I live in a deprived area, own a very modest home with an equally modest pension after a lifetime of hard work.
Yet, I don't envy my children or grandchildren- they don't enjoy that freedom I experienced growing up.

The standard of living has increased for everyone during my lifetime. Born in 1948, my parents were working class but were buying a tiny semi, despite all the privations of 50/60s ie all earnings went on basic living expenses, we considered that we were pretty OK, now we would be considered as "poor".
The huge change has been the cost of housing. OH and I did the maths and we could not now have bought the properties we bought on the salaries we earned. Over the years our home has consistently earned more than we have and we both have good inflation linked pensions. That's why we're seen as lucky and we were.

Same as Tanith, born in 1948, shared a bedroom with 4 younger siblings. Outside toilet, tin bath, back yard. Terraced house liverpool 5

Life was very tough for all of us and our neighbours all pulled together. We had regular donations of outgrown clothing etc. Second hand shoes etc Our parents were loveing and so hard working, they had aspirations for the 7 children and we all became professionals ie medic, engineers, teachers. Our studying was done in the library, which was warm

That person on MN is obviously very jealous and without any empathy. She won`t have struggled as we did, we all married and we stayed together all through the years. Second hand furniture, no carpets and nothing on credit. She will never see it, she does not want to know, the bitter person that she is is all about self, herself.

I dislike setting generation against generation. Each age has it's benefits and it's downside. Certainly, born at the end of the 50s, I enjoyed the freedom of playing in largely car free roads, a grant for uni and other benefits, but huge hikes in mortgage rates in the late 80s and early 90s made life a challenge. At one point our interest rate hit 17%. We also had the fear of nuclear war at our backs for a long time. Unemployment in the 80s was a worry too.
Nowadays families may have material wealth that we didn't have, but they have worries that we didn't have. And children can't play outside with such freedom as well did. Social media is pervasive and can add to worries too. There are more opportunities for my grandsons than my children had, to occupy their free time but these have to be paid for and organised.
I would rather live in a world where we can respect each generation instead of misunderstanding them.

ViceVersa

One big difference that I see now is that many young people want everything 'new and shiny'. They want the big flashy house, the big flashy car, designer this, designer that - and are often in debt up to their eyeballs trying to pay for it all. It's like they are trying to outdo one another - and it's all for show. We 'boomers' usually had to make do with what we could afford, having been taught to save up for things rather than get them 'on tick'. We furnished our first homes with secondhand goods or hand-me-downs, bought much older cars etc and then worked our way up when we could afford to. I think we appreciated the value of the things we had a lot more then.

Totally agree

One big difference that I see now is that many young people want everything 'new and shiny'. They want the big flashy house, the big flashy car, designer this, designer that - and are often in debt up to their eyeballs trying to pay for it all. It's like they are trying to outdo one another - and it's all for show. We 'boomers' usually had to make do with what we could afford, having been taught to save up for things rather than get them 'on tick'. We furnished our first homes with secondhand goods or hand-me-downs, bought much older cars etc and then worked our way up when we could afford to. I think we appreciated the value of the things we had a lot more then.

I was born in the 60s, my husband is still working full time and I am self employed (part time). We drive 2 quite old cars, live in a modest house, I cook daily meals from scratch having an occasional take away. Rarely eat out now. Have worked since I left school at 16 (had part time jobs weekends/evenings before then), have never claimed unemployment benefits

A few years ago I worked with younger people and couldn't believe the amount of money they spent considering they were only earning minimum wage. Every morning they would arrive with coffee and breakfast bought from local shop, lunch would also be bought from same shop (even though they could purchase cooked meal from kitchen for £1), crazy money was spent on false nails, eye lashes, tans, lips, make up, hair extensions (not just for special occasions but regularly), they all had much newer cars than mine, the amount of money they spent on drink/meals out/hen parties/weddings/holidays etc was quite unbelievable. When it came to weddings £30,000 wasn't unusual.
Yet they then told me they couldn't afford to save a deposit for a house so would have to rent until parents/grandparents died.
Those with children spent crazy amounts on designer clothing. Hundreds of pounds on toys for birthdays and Christmas

My point being I think as boomers we studied hard, worked hard, were/are a lot more sensible (most of the time) with our money.
We deserve to be rewarded with a free bus/train pass surely

There have always been differences in the way people earn and spend their money, and some of our generation had a very hard few years after buying their first home. I think in some ways it was easier for us, speaking personally, when we were young. I always worked, and wanted to, and didn’t get married until I was 28, so was reasonably well paid when we got our first mortgage in 1985. My salary was taken into account (1 think it was 3 times his salary and 1 times mine from memory), but we bought within our means, so didn’t really struggle, even when mortgage rates were high. Nursery fees were proportionately cheaper than they are now, and my children are not close in age, so the first was out of nursery when the second started. What it comes down to more than anything I think is the choices different people make, then and now.

However, the cost of paying for housing as a proportion of salary has completely changed now, so people who are buying have to commit a higher proportion of their income to their mortgage (or if not, rent). Nursery fees are crippling for young families, who both have to work to pay the mortgage.

The other big benefit for many boomers has been the workplace pensions we receive, which are considerably better than our children can expect.

My own children, 50 and 48, sometimes seem resentful that DH and I are retired and fairly comfortable.

They seem to forget that when we were their age, we too were working hard and life wasn’t much fun, not much time for ourselves, just work, jobs to do at home, an endless routine really.

They both spend money in ways we never would have. One Christmas DD and her DH bought expensive bikes for their 3 children then grumbled they hardly ever used them. Why? Because they didn’t really want or need them, it was just something to get them as they couldn’t think of anything else! Very different to how we were with ours.

I was born in 1947 in the upstairs flat of a divided house with no heating but a coal fire and shared bath facilities. I had no opportunity at school to take GCE’s and did them later. Out to work in my teens and an early marriage, DH and I worked to get a home. The first furniture was two deckchairs in the living room and plenty of secondhand.
Yes a different life to today