Have baby boomers stolen the family silver

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/08/18/rise-in-eu-students-applying-to-british-universities-ahead-of-br/

"According to figures released by Ucas, there are now 26,800 EU students placed at universities as experts feared the number of those leaving the country without paying their loans back at their end of their degrees could rise.

Despite a steady rise in the number of EU students being accepted into British universities, the number of UK students entering higher education jumped by just 3 per cent this year.

While EU students are entitled to similar benefits as home students, it is not possible to make sure they pay back their loans once they return to their countries. Many students from the EU have in fact disappeared recently without repaying their loans, leaving the UK taxpayer to foot their bill."

At least Brexit will put a stop to this.

marionk I think that would be us
(Well not me as technically I am not a baby boomer)

Yes, or the 'elastic generation' , stretched to breaking point by the demands of elderly parents needing care, teenage or younger children, a job - if you hadn't been made redundant as DH was twice!

I don't know how we did it

And now we may have DGC to care for in our dotage.

And - I mentioned earlier that about 5% not 50% of our generation went to university therefore grants were feasible but they are not if half of young people want to go. Of course, not all do, some are quite sensibly gaining qualifications whilst working.

You made me smile Farnorth, I often think we should be put against a wall and done away with as we seem to have caused so much trouble. No one is saying it is not hard for anyone now but we also had some hard times however we had less choices of universities, careers, holidays etc and if it came to hard times again, it is our generation who would cope and make do and mend

We can't downsize as our provision of free childcare involves children staying overnight. Have helped adult children out financially in a significant and life-changing way. Looked after my mother until my brother insisted on putting her in a care home. Quite happy to be euthanised when my usefulness finally expires. Not sure what anyone else can expect of me - or whether it's any of their business!

Let's not forget that we used to get tax relief on those high mortgages back in the day! We do of course still pay tax on current earnings
House prices are astronomical in some areas partly I think because housing is now seen as the best way to invest
I think we are handing on something of a poisonous challenge to younger generations. We have had decades of poor financial management from both parties and now the threat of robots taking a huge no of jobs. I do feel sorry for them.

What I find really exasperating about the reporting on this issue is the way the media try to set one generation against the other. As we saw from the dreaded Brexit referendum there are far too many unhelpful divisions in society as it is and we dont need them magnifying - that way of thinking is bad for all of us. The best thing about the link in your first e-mail on this thread agran2 is the quote from Baroness Greengross:
"I would dispute the fact that the generations are at war," says Baroness Greengross, president of the Pensions Policy Institute. "The older generation has no desire to fight the younger generation... these are their children and grandchildren."

Here, Here FarNorth. Building little boxes for us to live in. I suppose it is one step nearer a smaller box. All bungalows are bought up by developers and a house built on the plot.

I remember not being able to join the pension fund and going on temporary staff once you were married. I didn't marry but I remember my friends being downgraded.

You're right chrislou, I know we would cope far better than todays generation if times got really hard again! (I still have my pressure cooker!!) Not only could our generation have done little or nothing about government policy of forty odd years ago, but also we couldn't possibly have known the long term consequences of ours or anyone else's actions. No one had the crystal ball! so it is grossly unfair to now paint us as selfish and uncaring when all we did was work hard, provide the best way we could,for our children, taking any job if necessary, oh, and caring (willingly)for our parents, all without feeling hard done by and certainly without any feeling of entitlement!

What a difference between me and my children ( who I have helped immensely by the way) I also love them all very much but their experience of life has been so different from mine.
We started with absolutely nothing and we lived in rented accommodation and saved. That meant no new clothes, a second hand everything. Stew and fresh food made from scratch, no foreign holidays. A car that was a liability, kept on the road by my husband's expertise. Nothing was thrown away and we went to sales and auction house to get furniture and I made my clothes and curtains etc.
My children don't do second hand. They don't go into charity shops and have never lived in a slum. They have never experienced the fear of the washing machine ( twin tub ) breaking down or poverty.
I hate been called the baby boomers and blamed for the present situation. The present situation has been cause by the policy of successive governments not us.

morgana there was only tax relief on the interest component of mortgage repayments and unless one had an interest-only endowment mortgage, consequently the tax relief was only partial. Anybody who had pinned their faith on an endowment mortgage would have got a nasty shock when it failed to clear the outstanding amount on maturity. But yes, you have a point and I imagine it was intended to help people out of renting and into buying. Ironically the only people to benefit from mortgage interest tax-relief nowadays are buy-to-let landlords. And don't get me started on them!

Whilst living in my own home is not hogging, I do understand why life is hard for our children given today's economy.

Has any one mentioned the fact that mortgage lenders did not take account of the wife's salary as she of course would stop working when she had children? And the Pill being a relative newcomer meant the GP would not prescribe it before you were married. I'm talking about 1968-9 . On the plus side we were offered a higher rate of 11% but this made us feel good whenthe rate went to 15%.

My life as a young Mum in the 70s:
A washing machine but no dryer (pegged out in the garden)
No dishwasher
a caravan holiday once a year
No ready meals (still no ready meals!)
Meal out only on special occasions.
Christmas Dinner cooked from scratch and served to the whole family.
Small car
Sunday afternoon home prepared picnics
No cleaner
No gardener
Home made dresses and woolies knitted by Gran

My kids' life in the noughties:
Washer, dryer, dishwasher, Freezer.
Cleaning help
Holidays abroad twice a year
M & S pre prepared Christmas food and/or Christmas dinner out.
Two high powered cars
Regular deliveries of online shopping, designer clothes, groceries.etc
Take aways and ready meals nearly every day
Astro turfed garden (to save trouble)
Enormous family tv and one in every bedroom
Multiple ipads, phones, tablets, hi fi systems
Binge drinking nights out

Yes, weren't we the selfish ones!

A lot will depend on where you live, but in London and much of the SE, house prices and rents are proportionately WAY more expensive than when we were dds' ages.

They are their partners are all graduates with good jobs, but they couldn't even begin to afford the house we bought when we were several years younger than they are. Not even with both of them working full time, and we are by no means in the most expensive part of SW London. When we bought ours, I wasn't even working.

Dds both live in a less expensive area of the SE, but prices are still crazy by historical standards. They have both managed to buy reasonable houses, but if we hadn't been able to help, they would have had to settle for rather less, in less nice areas.

And none of my dds or their partners are extravagant or always buying clothes or the latest gadgets. None of them has a flash car.

But we did bring up these children whose expectations are quite different from ours and we voted for governments which eroded the privileges we had; such as completely free education and completely free health care.

That's democracy for you. I doubt whether any of us thought 'I'll scupper my children's chances in life by voting for X of Y Party'.

Most of us were too busy working to pay the 11-15% mortgage rate to think too far into the future.

And my children's expectations are certainly not that different from those of my generation. Apart from the washing machine and colour TV of course...

We would love to downsize from our 4bed detached in Chelmsford but unless we move miles away into rural Suffolk it would cost us more to buy smaller than our current house is worth. Fathom the logic of that. Ideally I would love a bungalow but you can't get one near here for love or money.

When we married I was earning an excellent (for then) salary but my husband was a student so we could have 3 x his grant and 1/3 my salary provided my Dad (who earned far less than me) would guarentee the mortgage payments. The other way round would have bought us a good house. 18 months later when hubbie had been working long enough for banks to accept him for a mortgage, house prices had more than doubled.

7 years and 2 children later we traded up to our present home on the basis of a deposit that my Dad left us when he died. The mortgage interest rate was then 15%.

20 years ago my husband was working with young men who were spending 50-65% of their disposable income on their mortgage payments.

I don't think we necessarily had it better OR worse than the current generation. We've all had our problems - they are just different.

What does bother me is so-called "affordable housing". What's the definition of that? Chelmsford is expanding rapidly but the chances of my kids being able to buy locally are nil. A friend's daughter, established in her career, with a house to sell and earning far more than I ever did, went to look at some new houses on the outskirts, she said she had £400,000 (possibly £450,000) to spend on a 3 bed semi. She was literally laughed out of the sales office. How are young people expected to get on the ladder? And if there's no-one coming in at the bottom who is going to be able to move up the ladder to push those of us "hogging" bigger houses to move?

Which brings me back to where would we move to? Builders are keen to build "executive homes" that make them more money; they only build smaller properties when forced to by local regulations. We don't want to move into a "retirement apartment" (they certainly aren't cheaper) so we would be competing with the younger people for the same smaller houses.

What's that quote? - "it's complicated."

Not all the younger generations spend money like water! My D D and D S are very frugal and many of the young do not have a lot of money being on these terrible zero hours contracts.

I'm in mid-60s, mother in mid-nineties, children in late 30s. So archetype baby boomer. Parents bought mortgage-free owing to her parents' generosity. Mother inherited a very great deal of money and property in her late 40s (family trust), and had spent half of it by her 80s, travelling and foolish investments. She now sits in her resthome with the other half of the family trust firmly grasped in her hands. My children are struggling with mortgages and young children, I'm still working when I can get it to supplement my pension and to help my kids, despite health issues that might very well mean predeceasing my mother (as my sibling has already done). Don't give me the baby boomer thing. I had a 15% mortgage that caused severe anxiety and illness as a single parent many years ago.

I doubt whether any of us thought 'I'll scupper my children's chances in life by voting for X of Y Party'

Maybe we didn't, but we we can't deny that we did it.

It really annoys me all this baby boomer bashing. Each generation has people doing well and people doing badly. I believe it was easier to buy a house in the 90s so those younger than us and older than my kids had it much easier than I did or the youngsters now. In my case, my father's pension was more than I ever earned and my sons earn more than I ever did so it's just not true that the all the younger generation are worse off than us. I'm not pleading poverty, but I'm not rich either and I think most baby boomers are the same.

In the I today:

"Retired households' incomes have soared in recent years, while those of working age still have less money than they did before the economic downturn, according to an official report [the Office for National Statistics].

However, the report went on to say that "retired household incomes remained "considerably lower" than those of non-retired households.

So we have the situation where SOME retired people who were already on good incomes have benefited significantly over the last few years. That does not discount the fact that state pensions are low and those who don't have the benefit of a generous occupational pension are likely to be badly off.

That is why it is, to my mind, pointless to keep talking as if the situation of every young person and every elderly person is similar. There are wide disparities in both groups and it is still my opinion that this sort of combative talk is designed to distract rather than to illuminate.

Retired households' incomes have soared in recent years - I wish!

Yes, agree with your post Eloethan.

Yes, good post Eloethan good old common sense ( which is not so common.)

It is true that in the early 70's an average new or newish 2-3 bed house could be purchased outside London and the SE by a young married couple if the man (lenders usually assumed young women would be stopping work before long) earned the average industrial wage or above in secure employment and the woman had a permanent job. They would multiply his wage by three and add on an extra 25% for her contribution to work out borrowing capacity.It was also expected that they would have saved over a year or two during a formal engagement to put down a deposit.

Because today you need to multiply the average wage/salary by at least five instead of three to be able to afford the same standard of accommodation (over four decades, housing has become a scarce resource because not nearly enough ordinary homes have been built for rent or purchase); and because more people, in spite of better qualifications, are in insecure employment or in jobs that have not kept pace with inflation; it is harder for young people to get on the housing ladder.In spite of lower interest rates!

However, as a Gransnetter with a single son in his thirties who works in the health service and is only now beginning to think about moving out of a shared rented house to buy his own flat, I recognise that times and attitudes have changed.My son has not, in the past ten years, gone without holidays abroad, new clothes, or meals out in restaurants in order to save every penny towards his own place like we did.This I personally find irritating behaviour - a bit like the grasshopper in the Aesop's fable! BUT is this in part because he (like many others the same age) has not wanted to put off living his life as fully as possible outside work for years if it is going to take many years anyway to buy his own home?
Re living in a cheaper area - great if you can do it. But not so great for a younger person if no jobs there.

And yes, many of us would like to downsize, but find smaller single storey properties suitable for older age and disability also a scarce - and so in some areas very expensive - resource. Not everyone over 60