What happened to my generation?

cathybird

filigree wrote:

Bought a flat in 1988 five minutes before the market crashed, with two flatmates on 100% mortgage, in the borough with the most expensive Poll Tax in the country :eek:

I still have nightmares about it.

There's more, but it's too depressing to list

oh dear!! I was actually half kidding - this sounds like it must have been awful at the time :eek: :eek:

vivaladiva

I agree with the OP. We seem to be a credit experiment that has gone horribly wrong. Credit is being offered at every turn - as though its a desirable thing. As another 40 something I remember that CCs were things that "posh" people had but were not necessarily good. To have multiple CC's would have been unheard of.

Pobby

Here I go with my same old mantra.Not all,by far,debt can be put down to people buying the latest geegaw.Often it is through business{as was my case and plenty of others here} or a bad turn of fortune.However there have and are plenty that follow the herd mentality and just plainly overspend.

As a baby boomer,we had something that you younger folks didn`t.INFLATION and loads of it.It also meant that wages soared in the main so that £8k house you bought in the 70`s was an easy thing to pay off.It was during the Thatcher years that borrowing became very relaxed and many of us saw the consequence of that.A similar state of affairs has been going on under Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Labour!In fact I think the lending activities of the financial houses are far worse now than under The Evil One.

It is difficult not to get sucked in.A daily bombardment of ads offering a persieved enhanced life style comes from all quarters but the fundamentals are the same----you borrow,you pay.

Kevicho

Bambam wrote:

Your attitude is typical of SOME of the younger generation. Get yourselves into all sorts of trouble and look around for somebody to blame.

My OH and myself have always been careful with money. It didn't stop my son getting himself into a mess, but the difference between you and him is that he's man enough to accept responsibility for his own mess.

You don't have to go down the same road your parents went down, you know, albeit good or bad.

Enjoy your day!

Thanks for the defence lynz and others, tbh I thought about ripping this post to shreads, but clearly the author of this post doesnt know me, or my extremist views, at all.

And also ive been busy with all 3 of my businesses yesterday, and my uni course, and sorting a work colleagues network out today, to reply to this.

Anyways back to my attitude

Put bluntly the government has been running this country into the ground for 20 years, we are lacking in schooling, technology investment, policing, healthcare (i have seen some of this incredible mismanagment first hand), and money is literally being thrown away on doomed projects, especially in IT.

Today you cannot rely on the government (and nor should you) to take care of you in your old age, so hence why i am working every hour of the day for a great future, and also learning as many new things as i can every day.

The fact of the matter is that the previous materialistic generations have done much harm to the environment (and continue too), and the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming vast, soon house prices will be too high for normal people, a trend we are seeing now.

I stand by my comment of people learning from there parents how to handle money, because in the vast cases it is true, im not saying people should just copy there parents, but there was no financial education when I was at school, instead my education comes from cummuta, kiyosaki, and so on.

All of these i had to go out of my way to find

Have a great evening

Kev x

Kevicho

Bambam wrote:

I applaud anyone who is trying to pull themselves out of debt, but it kind of takes the edge off that applause when people look to lay the blame at someone else's door for their debt.

I have re-read my post 3 times, and I dont see where I am blaming anyone else for my debt.

My comments were about society, not my own efforts to sort my life out.

I take 100% responsibility for my debt, just as im taking 100% responsibility for my future.

I do think, as others have said, that past generations do have an influence on people today, whether positive or negative.

And besides im not after applause, I geniunely do care about whats happening around us, and id like to improve things, whether thats helping friends and people on here sort there finances out, my debt website if it ever gets finished, or donating to charity.

Id also just like to point out that i would be debt free if it wasnt for going into business now, so my debt is good debt, also its helped someone else with there finances as well.

And that is the best decision i have ever made

Mrs_Sparkle

Well done Kev for dealing with the unfair criticism of you with such a polite reply.

Pobby

Kev as uaual I tend to agree to some of your points.However I can`t say that relying on the government to look after you in your old age should not be ruled out.Come on,there are loads of people out there that earn c-ap money,how do they save for a pension.Mrs.Pobby and I have been saving almost all of our working lives for a pension.And what a poor one we will receive with 10s of thousands paid in.

Why should I have to pay loads of tax and N.I without the benefit of seeing something back.Don`t want to {yawn} get into the benefits issue but I do know of plenty who do diddly squat but get some fair old hand outs.

For youngsters look at the future,rents and house prices out of reach,many jobs paying little,zooming utility bills,dumbed down by media rubbish.When we were young lots of us got off our asses and protested,Vietnam war,Thatcher and all sorts.Now give um ``reality tv``,Maccy Ds and all the other rubbish,pre masticated bubble gum for the brain.

Am I supposed to sit back thinking,wow middle aged,debt free,no mortgage,savings and stuff,don`t I feel smug.Not at all.I worry about how the system has created a bigger gap between rich and poor,the future for our kids,the crass way that our governments rule,the lack of morality or just basic caring.In spirit I could feel poorer now than at any time in my life.

Kevicho

Mrs_Sparkle wrote:

Well done Kev for dealing with the unfair criticism of you with such a polite reply.

TBH i can see exactly where bam bam is coming from, and they raised a good point

Too many people today do blame there problems on others (deja vu here to some of my other posts) and while the government is deserving of all the criticism i give it, its not that i use it as an excuse.

These past few months ive learned a lot about myself, and i see a lot of people really struggling, which is not how life is supposed to be, challenges yes, poverty nope.

Hence my strong views on these subjects

Mrs_Sparkle

Pobby wrote:

For youngsters look at the future,rents and house prices out of reach,many jobs paying little,zooming utility bills,dumbed down by media rubbish.When we were young lots of us got off our asses and protested,Vietnam war,Thatcher and all sorts.Now give um ``reality tv``,Maccy Ds and all the other rubbish,pre masticated bubble gum for the brain.

Am I supposed to sit back thinking,wow middle aged,debt free,no mortgage,savings and stuff,don`t I feel smug.Not at all.I worry about how the system has created a bigger gap between rich and poor,the future for our kids,the crass way that our governments rule,the lack of morality or just basic caring.In spirit I could feel poorer now than at any time in my life.

That brings back memories for me of protesting against student loans and poll tax. I find it all quite depressing that people like you have worked hard all their lives to fund a retirement and you won't exactly be rolling in it, and some people don't let it worry them and will they be any worse off for it? I don't know what the answer is but something's not right in this country.

Kevicho

Pobby, with that post you probably encapsulated most of my beliefs.

The UK really is in precarious times, someone today called them thatchers children, who dont want to work, but want to have the world handed to them on a plate.

The ones of us that do work could have an uprising against us because of our wealth (this is in 10 years time)

Simply put the uk is breeding a increasing amount of wayne and waynettas who are happy to sit on the dole, while people like me work and pay increasing taxes to subsidise them.

Weve also got to look at the baby boomer generation who will be retiring in the next 5 - 15 years, the ones who will be drawing a pension, which they deserve as they have paid in for all these years, is it any wonder the government are scampering to increase retirement ages and to keep people in work longer (and to get there tax money).

I dont begrudge anyone who has worked all there life, to achieve financial freedom, on the contrary thats where i want to be, but from a purely financial pov, the aging population means more expense in healthcare, thus increased taxes to pay for people.

I think that we have reached a crossroads here and it is going to be increasingly difficult for the government to take care of its elderly, without raising taxes of todays generation