a day in the life of a baby boomer - please give some info

silvercar

lostinrates wrote:

I know a fair few people who are saving for a home or paying a mortgage and whose pension suffers.

There is a whole board on here dedicated to being mortgage free. If they put half their mortgage overpayments into a pension, it would be the same effect to them as overpaying the mortgage excessively for a few years and then making biggish pension contributions for some years. The difference would be that their pension would have been established for longer, their money invested for longer and their resulting pension pot bigger.

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

There is a whole board on here dedicated to being mortgage free. If they put half their mortgage overpayments into a pension, it would be the same effect to them as overpaying the mortgage excessively for a few years and then making biggish pension contributions for some years. The difference would be that their pension would have been established for longer, their money invested for longer and their resulting pension pot bigger.

I want to join MFW but tbh think it might be a bit daunting ATM.:o A couple of years paid off, while getting the house sound without mewing might be the best we can hope for atm!

ukcarper

I was born in 1950s went to local secondary school and left at 16 unlike quite a few of my friends who left at 15, no one I knew went to university and I think that was pretty typical for my generation.

One of the big advantages I had over people leaving school now without a degree was that it was possible to a job that would offer you good prospects and give you training. This meant that although most of my friends left school with hardly any qualifications they did not have to go into dead end jobs. I personally got a job as an apprentice and had excellent training and was able to get good qualifications in electrical engineering. I don’t think the same opportunities would be open to me now and I think that that was a bigger advantage than lower house prices.

I got married and manage to buy a 3-bed terrace in 1972 using the same criteria (10% deposit 3.2x joint) today I would probably have settle for 2-bed flat.

Now after getting divorced and remarried I have take early retirement and I am living in a mortgage free 4-bed detached. I have a reasonable final salary pension which I realise I am very lucky to have.

I keep in contact with 4 of my old school friends and I am the only one with a final salary pension.

As for houses one friend owns a ex council 2 bed terrace which he bought on the open market, one owns a 3 bed ex council which he bought under right to buy, another has a 4 bed house but he moved to a cheaper part of the country to buy this and the last is still in a council house.

None of us own second properties, have vast sums in the bank or drive around in BMWs and I would think we are typical of a lot of babyboomers.

2010

The so-called BB`s were born in the years after the war ended in 45.
Times were hard and rationing continued into the mid fifties.
They respected authority, like the police and school teachers, and believe it or not

---

ADULTS.

They didn`t have coloured televisions,mobile phones, computers, they just didn`t have a tv at all.
When you left school, usually at 15, you got a job and worked, very few went to university.

When you got married, (in those days you had children AFTER you got married, unlike today when the kids are usually the pageboy and bridesmaid at their parents wedding)
you rented a council house because you couldn`t afford to buy.
You couldn`t afford to buy because you had to prove your income and could only borrow three and a half times it.
Unlike recently where mortgages were granted like confetti.

Basically you worked long and hard, paid your dues and got on with it.
Unlike today when anything happens there`s a councillor waiting round the corner to hold your hand and make you better.

BB`s got where they are today because of their hard efforts and because nobody carried them and held their hands when the going got tough.

The_White_Horse

i wish these stupid baby boomers would stop going on about 15% interest rates (which lasted for about a day). I can assure you that most people today would much rather pay 15% on a 35k mortgage than 5% on a 250k mortgage.

Generali

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Too much of the green eyed monster I think.

That and a failure to understand the impact of compound interest on savings.

Take a job a Maccas aged 16 paying £5 net an hour for 15 hours a week and save half the money for 5 years and then just stick it in an ISA making 7% pa and they'd have £300,000 at 65 if they never saved another penny.

chucky

The_White_Horse wrote: »

i wish these stupid baby boomers would stop going on about 15% interest rates (which lasted for about a day).

that's not true

1 Jun 92 - 10.65%
1 Mar 92 - 10.95%
1 Oct 91 - 11.50%
1 Aug 91 - 11.95%
1 Jul 91 - 12.45%
1 May 91 - 12.95%
1 Apr 91 - 13.75%
1 Nov 90 - 14.50%
1 Mar 90 - 15.40%
1 Nov 89 - 14.50%

http://www.moneyextra.com/dictionary/interest-rate-history-003455.html

the 1980s where basically the same too

chucky

FATBALLZ wrote: »

"paying 15% mortgage rates" - meaningless without more information like what house prices were at the time, disposable income, etc etc.

comparing even to now at an average mortgage rate of 4.5% vs 12.5% then; it is easier now to pay the interest portion on a mortgage on an average house price on an average salary then the 1980s/1990s.

2010

chucky wrote: »

comparing even to now at an average mortgage rate of 4.5% vs 12.5% then; it is easier now to pay the interest portion on a mortgage on an average house price on an average salary then the 1980s/1990s.

It`s also a lot easier to pay a mortgage when the BoE has kept rates artificially low at half a per for two years, effectively subsidising most mortgage holders.

StevieJ

p00hsticks wrote: »

I remember that - but you also have to remember that inflation was running at the same sort of level, so (employed) people were generally getting regular pay increases every six months or so, and also seeing their mortgage debt deflating rapidly as their house rose in value.

.

Who was that? maybe in the 70's certainly not in the 80's/90's.