pressure today.

jetplane

How do people know so much about the OP?

I think many people look back with nostalgia, it is true that some things were easier, mortgages were more affordable in relation to annual income but could be difficult to obtain, social housing was readily available. We had longevity in employment contracts and new jobs were easier to secure but some people worked in awful conditions. We had a more fit for purpose benefit system where it would be a rare person who never worked through choice. However there were families and people who were still poor and still struggled.

We didn't live in a consumer society like we do today, one TV was enough, new clothes were for special events and holidays abroad or cars were an inaccessible luxury for many. We had strikes, power cuts, fuel shortage, 3 day working week and a recession.

Different time, different pressures, it's all relative I suppose.

meer53

jetplane wrote: »

How do people know so much about the OP?

I think many people look back with nostalgia, it is true that some things were easier, mortgages were more affordable in relation to annual income but could be difficult to obtain, social housing was readily available. We had longevity in employment contracts and new jobs were easier to secure but some people worked in awful conditions. We had a more fit for purpose benefit system where it would be a rare person who never worked through choice. However there were families and people who were still poor and still struggled.

We didn't live in a consumer society like we do today, one TV was enough, new clothes were for special events and holidays abroad or cars were an inaccessible luxury for many. We had strikes, power cuts, fuel shortage, 3 day working week and a recession.

Different time, different pressures, it's all relative I suppose.

Our first mortgage was at 15% interest !! That was in 1983.

thorsoak

j.e.j. wrote: »

You're probably talking about the baby boomer generation. Yes they did have it a lot easier, but try telling them that

I told you "Today, expectations and pressure on young couples are much, much higher - and I do think that we had the better time."

But we're not having it now! At 71, widowed, I've gone back to work. My OH's pension died with him, my private pension has dropped over the last 4 years - my fault - I chose to take it "with profits". We downsized and bought our current home nearly 6 years ago - just as the market dropped and had to take a drop of £50k at the very last minute on our sale in order to still buy this one outright, so left ourselves with very little savings. However I'm just above the pensions credit line - it has to be somewhere - so I am lucky to have been able to get a job locally - but it still means that 4 days a week I start work at 6.45.

I'm not bewailing my lot - just stating facts - we did live through the golden years and I'm grateful for that - and that we were able to help our 4 children on their path. x

jetplane

meer53 wrote: »

Our first mortgage was at 15% interest !! That was in 1983.

Yes your perfectly correct, what I meant was that a house price would be less times your annual income than it would today but forgot to mention the sky high interest rates

And while I'm on, I think holding down a full time job while bringing up two children as a single parent would sound like pressure to some. Like I said its all relative. Hats off to you :T

FatVonD

I left school (aged 16) in the summer of 1975, I had a job to go to but I didn't start until the September so I signed on for 6 weeks and signing on actually *meant* signing on, I had to turn up there once a week and I can still remember the person working there having a go at the bloke in front of me as he was clearly a mechanic and was trying to tell them he wasn't working and his car had broken down on the way 2 weeks running.

I didn't even bother putting my name down on the council waiting list as it was so long and I have never been a priority. However, unlike nowadays, I didn't expect to go from my family home to my own flat (rented or otherwise) and spent many years living in bedsits and flatshares.

When I bought my first flat (aged 21) with a boyfriend we both borrowed money for a deposit as you couldn't buy without at least a 10% deposit. Interest rates were high and our mortgage and bills swallowed all of my wages and then we lived on his wages day to day. When we split up and I took on the mortgage on my own I got a second job and lived on the wages from that.

Jobs were easier to come by and people actually wanted to work, I guess in those days benefits didn't pay unskilled people more to stay at home than to go to work.

SavingPennies_2

meer53 wrote: »

Our first mortgage was at 15% interest !! That was in 1983.

But that's relevant to salaries in the 8o's. Today house prices are much higher relative to todays salaries, so 15% in the 1980's is similar to first time buyers people getting a mortgage today at 5%.

ska_lover

red_devil wrote: »

Oh and i were talking about how life is much harder today and people are under so much pressure and no wonder people snap.

He grew up in the 60s. He said people met someone, married and it was so much more easier to get a house than it is today. Councils werent beseiged with requests for housing.

He briefly signec on for a few months while he wad between jobs and he said it was easier than it is today. You had a card stampef and uou got your money there and then. There wasnt all this jobseekers allowance rubbish and being put under pressure. You were unemployec and you were paid.

There were other things as well. Thought it was an interesting discussion. Why is life so pressurised. Its not suprising people snap sometimes.

It seems clear to me that the issues are almost entirely down to immigration. It is not a racist thing (as I don't care where they come from) more of a factual mathematic working out of our economy V's the amount of people that it now needs to support - and then compare that to the 60's. Incomparable. In the 70's they started flooding in, and it hasn't stopped since.

Councils have less houses to give out and benefits have to be so much more stringent with rules and regulations these days due to the people who are out to rip them off in some way

I don't think people want more (material possessions) than they did 30/40 years ago -no one I know has great expectations for this kind of stuff but most folk just want the same basic things - a place to live - and buying a house is an unrealistic dream for most people - even when both members of a couple are working

My parents definately it easier than me and my siblings do, - I think they had to wait six weeks for their first council house - nowadays it would be more like six years - or longer. It took both me and my husband working full time saving for almost five years to get a house deposit together - whilst paying extortionate prices of private renting.

I do think that in the UK, you are worse off and on occasion feel demoralised the harder you work and the more you try to be a decent citizen. The system is not set to reward hard work - just further tax your wages whilst letting so many immigrants in to further precious resources away from our children and future generations.

Then there are our kids, what real future is there for them? You bring them up to work hard etc, but nothing guarantees them getting a job even these days.

lostinrates

ska_lover wrote: »

It seems clear to me that the issues are almost entirely down to immigration. It is not a racist thing (as I don't care where they come from) more of a factual mathematic working out of our economy V's the amount of people that it now needs to support - and then compare that to the 60's. Incomparable. In the 70's they started flooding in, and it hasn't stopped since.

Councils have less houses to give out and benefits have to be so much more stringent with rules and regulations these days due to the people who are out to rip them off in some way

I don't think people want more (material possessions) than they did 30/40 years ago -no one I know has great expectations for this kind of stuff but most folk just want the same basic things - a place to live - and buying a house is an unrealistic dream for most people - even when both members of a couple are working

My parents definately it easier than me and my siblings do, - I think they had to wait six weeks for their first council house - nowadays it would be more like six years - or longer. It took both me and my husband working full time saving for almost five years to get a house deposit together - whilst paying extortionate prices of private renting.

I do think that in the UK, you are worse off and on occasion feel demoralised the harder you work and the more you try to be a decent citizen. The system is not set to reward hard work - just further tax your wages whilst letting so many immigrants in to further precious resources away from our children and future generations.

Then there are our kids, what real future is there for them? You bring them up to work hard etc, but nothing guarantees them getting a job even these days.

Why stop at considering immigration ( also why not consider emigration to offset that problem)

You mention parents and siblings....which might,in a tradition family suggest two parents and more than two children, so a more than replacement rate, also contributing to the mathematical problem.

barbiedoll

There may well have been plentiful social housing in Bedfordshire in the 60's and 70's but in London, it has always been in short supply. My parents were renting a one-bedroomed flat privately in the 60's and when I was born, they applied to the council for a flat/house.

The housing officer came round and said that there were no places available and that they would have to "put up a partition wall in the bedroom". My dad said that they wouldn't be allowed to do that as it was not their property. The housing guy then told them to look for somewhere bigger to rent. As far as my mum knows, she is still on the waiting list.....48 years later! :eek:

The local NHS hospital where I was due to be born was full to the brim on the day of my birth so my mum had to have a home birth. She had no choice in the matter, the doctor and midwife both told her not to go to hospital as there was no room. She had pre-eclampsia and had been on bed rest, she also had agonising back pain from a displaced coccyx bone. My brother was also born at home, again, she had PET and had been on bed rest for 3 months by the time he was born.

When I had my first mortgage, the interest rate was 15%. I can remember buying the house for £60,000. A year later, the neighbouring property sold for £83,000. By the time my ex and I sold up, four years later, the house went for £59,995....we were in negative equity by a fiver!

Some things never change!

FatVonD

I do remember bumping into a girl from school on the train home one night in the '70s and, as we went through Battersea, she pointed out her council flat to me. She had got it by queueing at the council offices when they were handing out flats that had been vandalised and you could get one, (only the one they offered you), even as a non-priority case, if you queued and were prepared to clean it up yourself.