Paying the mortgage

CLAPTON

DELETED USER wrote:

Longhton, you are not paying attention. We are talking about well educated graduates. Rent is crippling. You yourself didn't have to scrimp and save, you apparently got a fantastically well paid job and became a millionaire. You have no idea what life in the real world that most of us live in is like. Hint: a Tenner a month for a mobile phone isn't going to add up to a deposit on a house in a normal human lifespan.

I'm starting to think you are just trolling now.

ok

tell us what these well educated graduates are earning
and tell us where they are working

Loughton_Monkey

DELETED USER wrote:

Longhton, you are not paying attention. We are talking about well educated graduates. Rent is crippling. You yourself didn't have to scrimp and save, you apparently got a fantastically well paid job and became a millionaire. You have no idea what life in the real world that most of us live in is like. Hint: a Tenner a month for a mobile phone isn't going to add up to a deposit on a house in a normal human lifespan.

I'm starting to think you are just trolling now.

Well I'm certainly paying attention to the above load of codswallop.

I know very well what the 'real world' is like. I know very well what it's like to do a paper round from the age of 12 as my only source of pocket money. Being raised in a council house - by single parent (from the age of 14 owing to mother's death). My father worked on the factory floor (lowest wage grade) for 51 years, never seeking or getting promotion.

Maybe you don't understand my glee at passing the 11-plus - the greatest thing being that I got my first new jacket and trousers - previously always having hand-downs... Having to work every school holiday (and then University holiday) as the only way of having a few shillings to spend [Building sites, Tile factory, Bakery, Post Office, night shift... AND often do a second job serving in pubs until midnight...]

Starting married life (by choice) with total joint financial assets of £38 quid. No inheritance of any substance - not even a copper spoon let alone silver....

I know this is very far from the image you seem to have of 'boomers' but I expect the above was quite 'normal' and no different from thousands of others. My only 'assets' were a good education and a good work ethic. The former (I guess) you will attribute to something like the 'free' education of the time, but I didn't inherit it from parents who were both relatively 'uneducated' [but sensible all the same]. Only 5% of scholars got to University then, and we didn't get there by anything other than graft and working hard at school....

So if you're talking about 'educated graduates' - one of which I became in 1972, I guess you are going to suggest I walked into a highly paid job? Well wrong again, because (look it up) there was an almighty slump in the Chemical Engineering industry at that time. None of the big companies were recruiting at all. Absolutely not one person in my year got an engineering job. Every singly one of us had to look for whatever 'graduate jobs' were left over. We all had to find different careers.

My own starting salary was 25% below the 'standard' starting salary for engineers the previous year.

Every promotion I ever had was on merit. Every move to another employer was secured on merit. At one stage, when redundant, I didn't sit around, but rather set up my own company and 'consulted' for 3 years to earn my crust.

Yes, I ended up at Director level, but I guess you might put that down to something like "old boy network"? or "old school tie"? or "those were affluent times..."? Well they were not. And I have a reputation for sneering loudly at 'old school tie' nonsense which still abounded during some of my career. I detested it. I put it down to simple hard graft and career management.

I know 'hard times'. Even 12 years into my career I had to cough up £35 to mend an old boiler when £80 would have bought a far more efficient new one which would have paid for itself in 2 years. I didn't have the cash because that was all wrapped up in house value or pensions.... I wouldn't take a loan because I was already 'well overspent' due to costly problems with trees/drains that year.....

Financially I simply realised that it is imperative to live on substantially less than earnings because there is simply no other way (apart from inheriting/lottery win etc.) to continue a decent lifestyle after retirement. That's not any 'secret recipe' or 'magic wisdom'. Just simple mathematics!

Were I to have been born one (or two) generations later, I am convinced I would/could have done exactly the same or as well as I did, with the different shades of economic cycles and retired early just the same with the world as it is now (and will be).

So the answers to what you clearly believe are problems lie in only one place. And that's with yourself. Why you seek to blame a whole different generation for it I'll never know. The world is different now, agreed, but there are just as many swings as roundabouts.

I just laugh about how you would be behaving if confronted by 27% inflation. Ten years of double digit inflation. Judging by the whinging about today's 'hard times' I can only believe this board would be heavily depleted by mass suicides.....

Nevertheless, if you do wish to continue moaning, and believe the nanny-state scare-mongering rubbish turned out by journalists, and if you can't see that houses are not impossible to buy and no more so than in most generations, then my only suggestion would be to sell your mobile phone and buy yourself some brown trousers. Meanwhile, enjoy your whinging. Over an economic life of 40+ years, I can assure you there will be something different to moan about every single year. Always has been. Always will be.

I suspect people more adequate than yourself will do the obvious and just 'get on with it'. You, on the other hand, probably need the brown trousers, at least until you have thought long and hard about it and can understand the flaws in your thinking.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Well I'm certainly paying attention to the above load of codswallop.

I know very well what the 'real world' is like. I know very well what it's like to do a paper round from the age of 12 as my only source of pocket money. Being raised in a council house - by single parent (from the age of 14 owing to mother's death). My father worked on the factory floor (lowest wage grade) for 51 years, never seeking or getting promotion.

Maybe you don't understand my glee at passing the 11-plus - the greatest thing being that I got my first new jacket and trousers - previously always having hand-downs... Having to work every school holiday (and then University holiday) as the only way of having a few shillings to spend [Building sites, Tile factory, Bakery, Post Office, night shift... AND often do a second job serving in pubs until midnight...]

Starting married life (by choice) with total joint financial assets of £38 quid. No inheritance of any substance - not even a copper spoon let alone silver....

I know this is very far from the image you seem to have of 'boomers' but I expect the above was quite 'normal' and no different from thousands of others. My only 'assets' were a good education and a good work ethic. The former (I guess) you will attribute to something like the 'free' education of the time, but I didn't inherit it from parents who were both relatively 'uneducated' [but sensible all the same]. Only 5% of scholars got to University then, and we didn't get there by anything other than graft and working hard at school....

So if you're talking about 'educated graduates' - one of which I became in 1972, I guess you are going to suggest I walked into a highly paid job? Well wrong again, because (look it up) there was an almighty slump in the Chemical Engineering industry at that time. None of the big companies were recruiting at all. Absolutely not one person in my year got an engineering job. Every singly one of us had to look for whatever 'graduate jobs' were left over. We all had to find different careers.

My own starting salary was 25% below the 'standard' starting salary for engineers the previous year.

Every promotion I ever had was on merit. Every move to another employer was secured on merit. At one stage, when redundant, I didn't sit around, but rather set up my own company and 'consulted' for 3 years to earn my crust.

Yes, I ended up at Director level, but I guess you might put that down to something like "old boy network"? or "old school tie"? or "those were affluent times..."? Well they were not. And I have a reputation for sneering loudly at 'old school tie' nonsense which still abounded during some of my career. I detested it. I put it down to simple hard graft and career management.

I know 'hard times'. Even 12 years into my career I had to cough up £35 to mend an old boiler when £80 would have bought a far more efficient new one which would have paid for itself in 2 years. I didn't have the cash because that was all wrapped up in house value or pensions.... I wouldn't take a loan because I was already 'well overspent' due to costly problems with trees/drains that year.....

Financially I simply realised that it is imperative to live on substantially less than earnings because there is simply no other way (apart from inheriting/lottery win etc.) to continue a decent lifestyle after retirement. That's not any 'secret recipe' or 'magic wisdom'. Just simple mathematics!

Were I to have been born one (or two) generations later, I am convinced I would/could have done exactly the same or as well as I did, with the different shades of economic cycles and retired early just the same with the world as it is now (and will be).

So the answers to what you clearly believe are problems lie in only one place. And that's with yourself. Why you seek to blame a whole different generation for it I'll never know. The world is different now, agreed, but there are just as many swings as roundabouts.

I just laugh about how you would be behaving if confronted by 27% inflation. Ten years of double digit inflation. Judging by the whinging about today's 'hard times' I can only believe this board would be heavily depleted by mass suicides.....

Nevertheless, if you do wish to continue moaning, and believe the nanny-state scare-mongering rubbish turned out by journalists, and if you can't see that houses are not impossible to buy and no more so than in most generations, then my only suggestion would be to sell your mobile phone and buy yourself some brown trousers. Meanwhile, enjoy your whinging. Over an economic life of 40+ years, I can assure you there will be something different to moan about every single year. Always has been. Always will be.

I suspect people more adequate than yourself will do the obvious and just 'get on with it'. You, on the other hand, probably need the brown trousers, at least until you have thought long and hard about it and can understand the flaws in your thinking.

:T

That's certainly post of the month.

And a contender for post of the year.:)

John1993_2

DELETED USER wrote:

Aren't you extremely lucky. What does it have to do with young people not being able to afford a cardboard box to live in?

I am lucky to have a wonderful wife, yes. The job, that's not luck. I worked hard to get the right degree, then put in the right sort of effort in the right directions to do well at it.

I suppose if you can't be bothered to do the same then it could appear lucky to you, but people have far more input into their life than you seem to think.

John1993_2

DELETED USER wrote:

Longhton, you are not paying attention. We are talking about well educated graduates. Rent is crippling. You yourself didn't have to scrimp and save, you apparently got a fantastically well paid job and became a millionaire.

What a weird post. It is often BECAUSE people had to scrimp and save that they choose to change direction in life.

My fiirst job paid just under £12,000 / year, near London, whic means that I had to be extremely careful with money (I was repaying a student overdraft, and had taken out a loan for a motorbike to get me to work). This included going hungry or cold sometimes. It certainly means that holidays, trips to the cinema, or nights out just didn't happpen.

Why do you seem to assume that people who do well now always did?

OffGridLiving

John1993 wrote: »

Why do you seem to assume that people who do well now always did?

Probably because the thought that people who are doing well in life somehow had a 'leg up', 'helping hand', 'born with a silver spoon' or some other advantage to allow them to get on in life is comforting for the low achievers. They can convince themselves that they're not to blame for their lack of progress, life got in the way, it's someone else's fault, they didn't get a 'leg up'.

The stark reality is that some people are poor and work hard/smart to improve their circumstances. Other people do nothing except cry about it.

mystic_trev

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Well I'm certainly paying attention to the above load of codswallop.

Great post, wish I could thank it more than once.

In a recent post, I pointed out that me (a boomer) started work in a menial Clerical job. I worked as a Clerical Assistant for Post Office Telephones (now BT) in 1972. My salary was £600 a year, which would equate to around £6,500 in todays money. Starting salaries for such posts are now around £20,000,so three times as much. Most of us worked bloody hard to get where we are today.

[Deleted User]

John1993 wrote: »

I am lucky to have a wonderful wife, yes. The job, that's not luck. I worked hard to get the right degree, then put in the right sort of effort in the right directions to do well at it.

You assume that anyone can just "work hard" and get a post-graduate degree, then get a good job. Well, I can't just stop working and do a post-grad degree, even though I think I'm lucky enough to be capable of doing one. I suppose I could do one in the evenings, over several years, assuming I had the energy after work (chronic illness takes its toll). Realistically though I doubt it would be possible for me, and of course not everyone is capable of qualifying to that level anyway.

Your argument is ridiculous because you assume everyone is like you and it's their own fault for not being a millionaire.

[Deleted User]

Rather than replying individually, to all those who claim they worked hard when they were young: I don't doubt it. I work damn hard too. Damn hard. Shattered every day, in a highly skilled job. Not my first job either.

The current problems have nothing to do with how hard people work. Life is simply unaffordable for the majority of young people because wages are too low, rents are too high and house prices are too high. By definition most people are going to be somewhere near the average, and the average young person does work hard. Sure, there are plenty of !!!!less ones that the scummy newspapers like to trot out for everyone to vent their hatred at, but most of us are trying out best and don't waste money on frivolities.

For example a lot of people have car loans now. Older people say "don't buy a car if you can't afford it", but you need some form of transport to get to work. An old car sucks up money on maintenance and isn't reliable, hardly ideal for advancing your career. Rent is already crippling so saving up isn't an option, hence people have to get a loan. I'm lucky not to have one, but I can completely understand why so many people do.

Yes, things were hard when the boomers were young, no question. It wasn't nearly as hard as it is now though. The reason we have 35 year olds trapped living with their parents or in rented accommodation is NOT a lack of hard work.

PaulF81

I do all my own car maintenance, bar the cam belt, saves over 500 quid a year which gets piled straight against the mortgage. Older cars may be less reliable, but they are simpler to fix. A decent used shouldnt cost more than 4 grand, will cost next to nothing to maintain, and if you buy diesel, will cost little in fuel or road tax. Oil change every 6000 miles and the bad boy will run forever.