Do baby boomers feel guilty about shafting younger generations?

carolt

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

The only thing you have any right to resent is your own poor decision making. The opportunities to buy a house extremely cheaply were there. You failed to take advantage of them.

Totally true. I did - I was having a life - doing low-paid but 'fun' jobs, working abroad, having my first baby.

Obviously, had I been able to predict 300% HPI over the next decade, I would have bought before it not afterwards!

That does't mean that 300% HPI is reasonable - or indeed there to stay.

Luckily, whilst buying a house is important to me, it's - as Cleaver rightly says - only one of many areas that make up quality of life, and by no means the most important. If it was, I would have sacrificed other things that I chose to do - like having children or taking time off to spend those precious early years with them - in order to buy at all costs. And obviously, I don't regret those decisions. Houses have a large cost; some things, though are beyond price. (And no, Hamish, I know you'll never get your head round that... )

I suspect that other areas - pensions, for example (or lack of them) - will come to be a much more overwhelming issue for people of my age than house prices, as that time approaches.

And compared to the group Cleaver describes as 'resentful', I'm lucky - one of the last to enjoy free university education, access to grammar school, lived through periods of high employment (even if I did graduate in the middle of the last recession ), etc etc.

No, it's those in their early 20's who I think do have greater, reasonable cause for gripes.

If not, as I said, at the boomers, necessarily, so much as the current place in the economic cycle.

nearlyrich

Malcolm you are talking a load of guff!

I was born in 1961, no silver spoon, no inheritance, no cushy public sector pension. I own my home with my DH we have worked hard to enjoy what we have, we have supported chldren through uni and saved to afford a decent holiday etc. Now I am saving to retire and enjoy the rest of my life, I don't feel guilty, my first house was peanuts as you put it but compared to my wages at the time it was a really big committment, we had no car, no fancy holidays, didn't go out much, I had my first new suite at 30+, I know people who refurnish their house with all new furniture every two years on credit, you can't have it all on a plate sorry.

baby_boomer

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

women and part-timer [baby_boomers] were disadvantaged in [pensions]

Quite right.

And many baby_boomer women were also disadvantaged by being brought up to expect to marry and be supported by their husbands, only to find out - too late to do much about it - that the rules of the "game" had been changed forever .

No girl born in the last three decades would be stupid enough to make that mistake because the culture had changed.

iolanthe07

Women in the boomer generation get to draw their state pension at 60 (if they were born before 1950) while men have to wait until 65. Since women tend to live longer than men, it is hard to see how this is fair. Younger generations will have to wait longer to draw their pensions, but then they didn't leave school at age 15 and start work straight away (only 4% went to University in the 60's) - no 'gap years' or taking a year off to live in Thailand.

baby_boomer

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Women in the boomer generation get to draw their state pension at 60 (if they were born before 1950) while men have to wait until 65.

But how many qualified for the maximum?

Only 1/3 according to this article

Now they only have to have paid NI contributions for 30 years (at a time when most women are in full time employment), not 39 years (at a time when most women weren't in full time employment).

ukcarper

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I grew up in Surrey as well and there's no way I could've bought a property there at the start of the 70s.

Even in Hertfordshire, where I was living in 1972, a 1 bed flat cost 5 times my income and a year later (despite a decent salary rise) that multiple had gone up to 7 times.

Seriously, did you have a lot of help from your parents or a very well paid job?

I had no help and was only on the average wage. The house was 5.3 times my salary we managed to save the 10% deposit in just over a year. I managed to get a mortgage of just under 4.8 times my salary. Contrary to what people say now building societies would take into account wives earnings and it was just over 3 times our joint income. I had to move from what would now be just inside the M25 to the Hampshire border to find a house I could afford. If I had made up my mind to move out 3 months earlier I could have got the same house for 30% less. If I had waited another 6 months it would have cost me another 30% so I would not have been able to buy it.

Malcolm.

nearlyrich wrote: »

Malcolm you are talking a load of guff!

I was born in 1961, no silver spoon, no inheritance, no cushy public sector pension. I own my home with my DH we have worked hard to enjoy what we have, we have supported chldren through uni and saved to afford a decent holiday etc. Now I am saving to retire and enjoy the rest of my life, I don't feel guilty, my first house was peanuts as you put it but compared to my wages at the time it was a really big committment, we had no car, no fancy holidays, didn't go out much, I had my first new suite at 30+, I know people who refurnish their house with all new furniture every two years on credit, you can't have it all on a plate sorry.

The opening post was not written by me. I was merely quoting in order to open a debate on the topic. I did give recognition at the bottom.