'Are you an financial optimist for 2012?' poll 16 January 2012 at 1:32PM in MoneySaving polls 49 replies 6.3K views

Sepa74

My mother retired a couple of years ago (so was actually a war baby, rather than a babyboomer) and is very comfortable, thank you, for which I am devoutly grateful.

Yes, she like other people her age worked hard, saved, was thrifty, but she has two big advantages that I will not have:

1. A generous (state) defined benefits pension
2. Massive house-price appreciation

Boomers DO have a lot to be grateful for, and they DO need to recognise that a significant portion of their wealth is due to luck rather than hard work.

julie777

I'm amazed that there are evidently very few renters taking the poll they all seem to have property! I don't own property and never will despite being 48.
But I am grateful for being solvent, having no debts and £5000 in the bank. There are people a lot worse off!

Sulevia

tescobabe69 wrote: »

I would have thought age needed to be taken into account, to show how the baby boomers have all the money.

Generally agreed, but...

The baby boomers have all the money? I wish. I have 30k debt, live in a boat not a house (I'd never get a mortgage at my time of life having walked out of a dead relationship with basically 12k and no job and had to start again).

ifan.goch

Sepa74 wrote: »

My mother retired a couple of years ago (so was actually a war baby, rather than a babyboomer) and is very comfortable, thank you, for which I am devoutly grateful.

Yes, she like other people her age worked hard, saved, was thrifty, but she has two big advantages that I will not have:

1. A generous (state) defined benefits pension
2. Massive house-price appreciation

Boomers DO have a lot to be grateful for, and they DO need to recognise that a significant portion of their wealth is due to luck rather than hard work.

I don't consider it lucky that in order to make ends meet my husband had to work as a continental lorry driver and was away from home for 5 days out of 7 while I was at home with 3 children under the age of 8 and claiming Family Income Support to top up the wages. I even went to the butcher and asked for dog bones to feed my children. And this was for 4 years. Stop looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles for goodness sake. No portion of my "wealth" is due to luck and is solely due to hard work.

monkeysavingeggspurt

It doesn't surprise me that on this particular site we find people with at least some assets, after all that's the purpose of getting involved in your own finance management. I however find in rather annoying that after working for years to reduce mortgage/debts etc. that at a point where I can try to save for retirement interest rates are criminally low. It's about time they began to bring them back up to a reasonable level, after all it's the money of the frugal that keep the banks in business :-)

Mark_Beech

tescobabe69 wrote: »

I would have thought age needed to be taken into account, to show how the baby boomers have all the money.

I so wish that people would stop making sweeping assumptions about so called "baby boomers" having all the money at the expense of younger people.
I'm 57 .... so some would say that I'm a baby boomer ... but I was brought up as one of five kids in a three bed terraced house with no inside loo or bathroom until the age of 21. I worked hard at school then went to college (NOT uni) and then did a masters degree as a mature student later in life. Neither of my parents left me anything because they didn't have anything to leave.
Despite my modest upbringing I worked hard and managed to climb the ladder of my chosen job until I got pretty much near the top .... despite two kidney transplants, two new hips, gastric surgery, skin cancer, a heart condition and two cataracts along the way.
Sure ... I now live in a nice cottage in a nice village and have a nice car ..... but I have worked hard for all of it.

And you can do the same.

Rant over.

BobbinAlong

I'm a baby boomer and the only reason I'm now a saver rather than a debtor is because my mother died and I benefitted from the sale of her property and paid off the mortgage.
Inheritance is why baby boomers are better off and as each generation reaches our age, they'll generally receive inheritances too. It's not being a particular generation, just a particular age.

shropshirelady

I'm also a 'baby boomer' and am tired of hearing of us having all the money. I was born a year after the war and lived in a 3 bedroom terraced house (rented) along with 5 siblings, my parents and a grandparent. Outside toilet, no hot water or heating other than a coal fire, no bathroom and certainly nothing like a washing machine or fridge. When buying our first house, we started off with no carpets, central heating, washing machine, fridge or even a vacuum cleaner as all the money we'd saved (including selling our old car) went on the deposit. Nights out were limited to birthdays and we had no holidays for years. Into the eighties we were paying 18% interest on our mortgage.

I've worked non-stop for 50 years and am still working at 65 so to be able to maintain the small property I now own. I have no mortgage now but neither could I afford one on the measly pension I get which I paid into for many years. When I finally get to retire, the interest on my small savings will not be taking me above the personal allowance level.

I've never had the desire to be rich but, what I have got, I've worked hard for and resent the idea that we've had it easy.

coupleuk

ifan wrote:

I don't consider it lucky that in order to make ends meet my husband had to work as a continental lorry driver and was away from home for 5 days out of 7 while I was at home with 3 children under the age of 8 and claiming Family Income Support to top up the wages. I even went to the butcher and asked for dog bones to feed my children. And this was for 4 years. Stop looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles for goodness sake. No portion of my "wealth" is due to luck and is solely due to hard work.

Dont you think that is what people are doing now?

The difference - which was stated by Sepa74 is that the people doing it now dont have the "luck" of 10%-30% annual house price increases to bump up their "wealth".

(most) people have worked hard but those in retirement now have benefited hugely by just being "lucky" at the right time.

Sadly, they now want even more.

XRAT

I found this a difficult question to answer, in that my money is 'our' money.
Should I have halved it as we are a partnership? Or should 'I' have ticked a tenth of 'our' value..., until the kids have grown up?

I was quite surprised at how low the figures are actually, I thought the proportion of members in later life would have swung the assets higher.