So how much did it cost...

chewmylegoff

Young people blame old people, old people blame young people. Blah blah blah. Boring.

grizzly1911

We certainly didn't have Ipad1,2 ,3 + in quick sucession. We didn't have gaming with the same volume of multiple games either.

We also didn't have the need to move up in Laptop/PC every few year either.

We did have change it was slower and a format would live for 10 years plus.

Having to old teenage kids I know the stuff that they have "consumed" during their upbringing and we have kept them on a pretty tight rope.

Phones are interesting as back in 87 we had one phone. Well we had two one in the bedroom too run of an intricately laid extension.

Most people I know will have at least the landline plus a mobile even my MIL in her 70s. We have 5 , 1 landline, 4 mobiles 3 of which are on contract. Interestingly the 3 contract phones all rollover at the same time (there is a reason) all android smart phones this time (18 months in) which came with discounted medium + use tariffs. Funnily enough those tariffs now are no longer sufficient with each one being exceeded by 25% average per month.

We only had one TV (plus the old B&W portable) We now have 4 flat screens (42 plasma, 26 LED, 26 LCD (older) & 19 LCD). We have 3 PCs and 1 laptop (uni).

Admittedly this is for a family not the young but in the "olden days" you may have duplication but not tri and quad. I think the propensity to be first adopters is higher these days.

There is certainly much more temptation to consume now than there was. Whether you do is another matter.

GeorgeHowell

I have no idea whether inflation-adjusted how cost of renting TVs and VDRs compares with smart phones. The real issue is that in the main up to the 1970s people had what they could afford. Yes a lot smoked but they did not buy fags on ever-increasing credit card debts.

I have had a number of discussions about this whole baby boomer vs youth issue with people in both groups. Certainly there are two sides to it and housing, jobs, funding higher education, and pension provision are all tougher for today's youth than they were on average for baby boomers in their youth. On the other hand every boomer was not given a car and driving lessons at 17, there was no 'bank of mum and dad' for most because the parents could not afford it, and people were expected to find their own homes and be independent by about their mid 20s, which most did.

However one thing I have found gains almost universal agreement among the boomers is that, unlike them, today's youth expect and demand to have everything they want now, and do not accept the concept of building up their standard of living over time. Putting that same point to the young however I have not come across a single one who disputes it. Rather, they appear not to be able to comprehend it, or to understand how anyone could possibly accept not having everything now, and getting into debt if necessary to obtain it.

There is a huge life-philosophy and mind-set gap here which will make it very difficult to each side to appreciate the other's point of view.

Graham_Devon

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

However one thing I have found gains almost universal agreement among the boomers is that, unlike them, today's youth expect and demand to have everything they want now, and do not accept the concept of building up their standard of living over time. Putting that same point to the young however I have not come across a single one who disputes it. Rather, they appear not to be able to comprehend it, or to understand how anyone could possibly accept not having everything now, and getting into debt if necessary to obtain it.

To be fair, you have come across just this umpteen times on threads like this.

Closed ears (or eyes in this case) syndrome me thinks. As you said, theres a huge mindset gap, and this proved your point very succintly!

I don't even know how it's possible to have "everything now", let alone having it. What do you mean when you state "everything"?

Flat's would never have been built and sold if I think what you are describing is the case, as no FTB's would ever have bought them. FTB properties would never have existed, as no FTB's would have bought them. They were bought, so surely what you say can't be true?

Young people still go around in old Corsa's, Fiestas etc.

Young people still buy second hand clothes, as seen on ebay (and more recently charity shops have stated there is an increase in 20 somethings). Second hand baby and kids clothes are bought on ebay. Second hand toys are all bought in abundance. This wouldn't happen if your case was true.

GeorgeHowell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

To be fair, you have come across just this umpteen times on threads like this.

Closed ears (or eyes in this case) syndrome me thinks. As you said, theres a huge mindset gap, and this proved your point very succintly!

I don't even know how it's possible to have "everything now", let alone having it. What do you mean when you state "everything"?

Flat's would never have been built and sold if I think what you are describing is the case, as no FTB's would ever have bought them. FTB properties would never have existed, as no FTB's would have bought them. They were bought, so surely what you say can't be true?

Young people still go around in old Corsa's, Fiestas etc.

Young people still buy second hand clothes, as seen on ebay (and more recently charity shops have stated there is an increase in 20 somethings). Second hand baby and kids clothes are bought on ebay. Second hand toys are all bought in abundance. This wouldn't happen if your case was true.

What I mean, as I think you are aware, is that the mind-set is to aspire to have everything that they are ever going to have now. Of course in reality is that this is not possible, even with maximum debt. There is a limit to the amount of credit card debt that can be built up, to the size of mortgage that can be obtained etc. So some do have to settle for flats instead of houses, for second hand cars, for stuff from eBay etc.

But whereas the boomers largely accepted all that without resentment that their parents had more than they did -- on the assumption that if they worked hard and acted responsbly they would have the same as their parents one day -- many of today's younger generation appear unable to accept it without resentment. And that's why we have this constant dialogue in the press, on internet forums, etc about how the evil, greedy, outrageously fortunate baby boomers have blighted the lives of successive generations.

THE_DEZERVING_BOOMERZ

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

However one thing I have found gains almost universal agreement among the boomers is that, unlike them, today's youth expect and demand to have everything they want now, and do not accept the concept of building up their standard of living over time. Putting that same point to the young however I have not come across a single one who disputes it. Rather, they appear not to be able to comprehend it, or to understand how anyone could possibly accept not having everything now, and getting into debt if necessary to obtain it.

very true. saving is an alien concept to the majority of them.

Graham_Devon

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

But whereas the boomers largely accepted all that without resentment that their parents had more than they did -- on the assumption that if they worked hard and acted responsbly they would have the same as their parents one day -- many of today's younger generation appear unable to accept it without resentment. And that's why we have this constant dialogue in the press, on internet forums, etc about how the evil, greedy, outrageously fortunate baby boomers have blighted the lives of successive generations.

Did the parents of boomers actually have more than boomers did?

All the evidence appears to fly in the face of this theory. They didn't even have the NHS!

What items did the parents of boomers have that bomers aspired to? Even owning the house wasn't common. No benefits either. I'd be interested to know how boomers parents were better off than boomers?

It's factually documented that the younger generation today will not be able to match the lifestyle of the boomer today. It's not just some kind of myth. A 20 something today can't do anything to match the benefit or pension entitlements boomers enjoy....no matter how hard they try. It's gone. Maybe that's why it's in papers and articles, rather than a movement by the younger generation to simply whinge?

grizzly1911

Is some of the debate around 1.) having a job, 2.) when you start work 3.) the type of jobs.

I know there was till peaks of unemployment.

Many more people had jobs that could in part be learned on the the job. There were many more real "apprenticeships" lasting 4/6 years that built up skills and knowledge at the same time giving a degree of progression. The pyramid was steeper with more layers of oppurtunity. That goes for "engineering" through to the likes of banking/insurance/accounting and legal.

Quite often people would start work at 16 and 18 and by mid 20s had built up something behind them.

Yes you had graduates jobs but their was more of a springboard effect lesser numbers for higher level jobs and less debt incurred for many.

Fast forward and we the workforce is getting progressively more polarised with a lot more lower jobs that have a ceiling to them with the pyramid being squashed. They will always struggle to keep up with modern living.

At the upper level it is becoming more complex to enter requiring a degree minimum plus professional qualification. More people go to university and expect to get in to the upper level but don't make it. For all they are starting working life later and with sizable debts behind them including student loans. In effect they are perhaps 10 years behind.

Generali

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

But whereas the boomers largely accepted all that without resentment that their parents had more than they did -- on the assumption that if they worked hard and acted responsbly they would have the same as their parents one day -- many of today's younger generation appear unable to accept it without resentment. And that's why we have this constant dialogue in the press, on internet forums, etc about how the evil, greedy, outrageously fortunate baby boomers have blighted the lives of successive generations.

The Baby Boomers were richer than their parents though:



Ordinary working people could have been very unlikely to have such luxuries as fridges, telephones, indoor toilets or electric washing machines in the period 1910-1940. TVs were the preserve of a tiny elite in the 1930s yet vocal Baby Boomers seem to feel that they were being frugal by renting one just 30 or 40 years later!

The fact is that pretty much every generation has been richer than the previous one in the UK since the 1750s.

thorsoak

Young people (teenagers) of 16-20) have a completely different mindset to the mindset of teenagers in late 1950s/1960s.

I was born in 1943, and as a teenager, just leaving school at 17, I was one of the "different" ones, as I'd been to grammar school and stayed on to do A levels, though I didn't go into higher education. But the Monday after leaving school, I started work - not even a gap week, let alone a gap year .

Like the majority of my peers - whether grammar school leavers or those who'd left school at 15/16, I was going steady by the time I left school, and by the following April (before I was 18) I was engaged - and saving like mad and also collecting things for my "bottom drawer" - anyone else remember that?

And we (my friends and I) would be competing like mad to see who could get the most in the least time - and at the same time, saving as much as possible. Even those who weren't going steady would be starting their bottom drawer so that they could get a bed-sit and furnish it.

We (my generation) settled into domesticity early, encouraged I think by our parents who had gone through the war and who wanted to see us settled in our own homes when often they had been separated through the war.

When one remembers that at 18, boys were called into military service and were conscripted into the army, navy and airforce, and the girls into the forces/land army/essential factory work, it isn't surprising that they saw us as adults by the time we were 18 - although we were still disenfranchised (I was able to vote for the first time in 1964 when I was 21).

We, as a generation, allowed our children to be children for longer - allowing them to stay dependent upon us - and in turn, our children are doing the same with their children.

My own children laughed at my stories about saving/collecting for the bottom drawer - and in all honesty, I would have been horrified had my daughter announced as she left 6th form that she intended to get engaged as soon as I had.