Baby Boomers - the latest!

I don't have a pension, bought our house in 2005 on an interest only mortgage, so can't really say that I feel especially fortunate!

Full employment? I knew lots of contemporaries who were made redundant. When firms downsize they don't chuck out the young and keep the old.

And when DD1 worked in a job centre here twenty years ago, unemployment in many parts of this city, where tourists only see the prosperous-looking parts, was running at 14%. She then transferred to a small wealthy cathedral city where it was 1% (and she was thought to be exaggerating the conditions here) Perhaps that is what they are quoting.

They do pick and choose their facts, don't they.

Anyone else remember basic rate income tax at 33%?

Yes, was that in the 70s? We were poverty-stricken then, and income tax was a big chunk out of my husband's salary. I was at home with a toddler, and struggling to proved cheap, nutritious meals. Massive learning curve!

I do absent. Plus the mortgage going up every couple of months as interest rates soared. I also remember the very generous amount of superannuation deducted from my salary each month for over 25 years towards my eventual work pension.
I accept that things are now more difficult for the younger generations, but I don't accept that we had it easy, didn't pay our way and that these so-called generous pensions were handed to us on a plate.

I remember the huge rises in mortgage payments and the effect it had on everyone,you never knew what you where paying from one month to the next, the amount of tax we paid between us was obseen when I think about it now but we where all in the same boat at the time,mr.g. paid into a private pension and that crippled us for a long time but we are benifiting from it now to some degree.I used to dread opening my pay slip if I had done overtime or had bonus/commissions to claim I amy as well have just handed the lot to the tax man in a Christmas Card every year.I feel so sorry for the young families now they don't stand a chance to have the income we have when they retire.

I'm not an economist but I think the major difference between now and 30 odd years ago is the affordability of housing. I do think we had the best of times financially and in terms of freedom. I feel sorry for the 20 somethings who are struggling to buy their own place (well, make that 30 somethings) I'm in Surrey and the prices are a joke.

House prices are a joke here in the S.E. as well.

I know people who are my age who have struggled all their lives and are still struggling.

But I also know people who a) are much better off than their parents were and b) are much better off than their children are.

People who came from ordinary backgrounds into a work situation in the early 60s where jobs were plentiful and secure and housing easily affordable. Council housing was also much more readily available than it is now.

And then there were the final salary pensions, often two thirds of the pension for some people, by no means a small minority. I don't suppose we will ever see those again. They have certainly disappeared from banking and the policed force.

So although I realise it depends on what your own experience was, I do feel I was part of a fortunate generation.

House prices, especially in London and the South-east, really did spiral out of hand and I do feel sorry for young people wanting to buy a home. Mortgage rates, of course, are much lower than they ever been in my lifetime. As glammanana pointed out there was a horrible period when they seem to rocket up every couple of months. I can remember them being 14% and that was after MIRAS was scrapped. I think a 10% deposit was standard when I bought my first house and, in fact, was the deposit requested for the houses I have bought since moving out of London in 2010. Of course 10% of a smallish amount is a lot less than 10% of a large one. However, I think a lot of us have forgotten – and most young people don't realise – how small wages were in the old days. In my first job I was paid £1,520 per annum because I have a degree; otherwise it would have been £1,320. That was about the same time as the 33% base rate tax mentioned above.

Our generation is one that is currently badly affected by low interest rates as anyone with even small savings will tell you. Rental properties have become as expensive or even more expensive in some parts of the country as paying off a mortgage. When I was renting a flat after leaving university, it was cheap and cheerful.

I think it's all a bit swings and roundabouts – with the exception of university tuition fees. I think it was disgraceful to introduce them and even more disgraceful to increase them.

I agree with absentgrana - it is swings and roundabouts. We are babyboomers with 'goodish' pensions and a paid-for house. We even things out by giving our strapped-for-cash daughter and grandchildren an allowance each month. They live in London and are planning on moving out next year to where they can afford a house, hopefully back up North.

When we bought our first house in 1968 the interest rate was about 7.5 %. For the rest of our mortgage paying life, until 2008, except for the last few years the interest rate was never again so low. At one point interest rates went over 10%. Redundancy hit friends of ours in the mid 70s, although we didnt experience it for the first time until the mid 1980s. over the next 20nyears one or other of us was made redundant 4 times. I may have a good occupational pension but I have a poor state pension because by the time NI credits for time you spent at home looking after children came in I was past that stage and back at work.

Then of course we had to cope with rampant inflation in the 1970s and 80s, I think it hit 20% at one point. Now we are having to deal wth minimal interest on our hard-made savings and investments.

In difficult times it is always easy to look back through rose coloured spectacles to a time before yours when everything in the world was easy. usually people look back to their parents time. This is because when we are children life looks so simple and easy. As I remember the late 1940s and 1950s, when I was a child it was a period of calm, peace and pleasantness. In fact it was the period of post-war austerity when food, clothing and everything else was rationed, when WW3 was considered to be imminent and my parents faced many personal problems and difficulties that I was sublimely unaware of.

Right on FlicketyB. [raised arm salute (but not Hitler]

Statistics can usually say anything the 'producer' wants them to!