No country for young men — UK generation gap widens

antrobus

I would like to point out that, if you started off with a position when hardly anybody bothered with saving for retirement and thus all pensioners were poor, and then you had successive generations who actually started saving for their retirement and therefore were able to enjoy higher incomes as pensioners then, yes, you would see the relative incomes of pensioners increasing when compared to the incomes of other age groups.

I'm not sure why anyone would think that was a bad thing.

lisyloo

"We did without iPhones and laptops".

This comes up a lot.
I do believe very much in living within your means, but stopping having a phone or laptop will really not get someone the deposit for a house.

reasonable commuting distance from London

Can you define reasonable commuting distance please?
I mean door-to-door i.e. including the walk/transfer to the train station each end and the waiting times.
I do have personal experience of this. I live in Wiltshire and the mainline commute is 75 mins, however when you add on the walk to the train station (20), waiting for the train (5), walk to bus stop (5), wait for bus (5), bus journey (30), walk from bus stop to work (5), then it doubles to 150 minutes each way and 5 hours a day is absolutely not desireable.
Obviously circumstances vary hugely, but I do know that you have to look at "door-to door" times and that houses right next to railway stations are much more expensive than those that are a mile away and take about 20 mins to walk twice a day,

Do you not think if it was that easy for everyone then they would be doing that?
I don't know which area you are referring to, but I'm certain you don't have a magic answer and my guess is that most likely most people's "door to door" commutes won't be as "reasonable" as they would like.

If you'd be good enough to post up an example then I'll work out mine and DH's commute and see how they come out.
If it's great, we might even but a house there :-)
I suspect it isn't great (because if it was then others would have found it and the house prices would be higher) but I'm willing to give it a punt on the off-chance.

Graham_Devon

michaels wrote: »

Doesn't this link back in with your QE post though? Yes the old of course have more assets than the young but perhaps the problem is that QE means those assets, based on the value of the income they create in a low interest rate environment, have appreciated sharply (just as you say the price of a bond fluctuates as interest rates move), much more quickly than assets can be built up via the traditional mechanism of working and saving.

Against this is the fact that the old vote and are thus served by the politicians, is here a chance that the young, especially if they have no stake in society, will chose a civil disturbance path rather than a democratic route to 'balance things out'? However there seems very little sign of this, as the young are only relatively poor not absolutely so still have their iPhones, xboxes and skunk to distract them from the inequality.

The disengagement of the young when voting I find uniquely interesting.

We now have absolute evidence that the young WILL vote. We saw it in the Scottish referendum.

So the question should maybe be, "why are the young disengaged"?

I know that of my peers, many are voting UKIP purely because they are different and offer hope of "that something different" or "the shake up".

So maybe the young will engage so long as theres something different to engage in.... The Scottish Referendum saw some great grass roots stuff, specifically from the young....and I think I'm right in saying it was the young who wanted the change? I.e. the young were, by majority, voting for independence.

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

This comes up a lot.
I do believe very much in living within your means, but stopping having a phone or laptop will really not get someone the deposit for a house.



Can you define reasonable commuting distance please?
I mean door-to-door i.e. including the walk/transfer to the train station each end and the waiting times.
I do have personal experience of this. I live in Wiltshire and the mainline commute is 75 ins, however when you add on the walk to the train station (20), waiting for the train (5), walk to bus stop (5), wait for bus (5), bus journey (30), walk from bus stop to work (5), then it doubles to 150 minutes each way.
Obviously circumstances vary hugely, but I do know that you have to look at "door-to door".

Do you not think if it was that easy for everyone then they would be doing that?
I don't know which area you are referring to, but I'm certain you don't have a magic answer and my guess is that most like most people's "door to door" commutes won't be as "reasonable" as they would like.

If you'd be good enough to post up an example then I'll work out mine and DH's commute and see how they come out.
If it's great, we might even but a house there :-) but I suspect it isn't.

Train journey 45min houses and flats 5min walk station + onward journey from mainline station. Many people commute from area, I worked in outer London most of my life commuting by car.

pollypenny

Here we go again!

I am a baby boomer, married at 20, OH 24. We rented at first and saved like mad for a 10% deposit. Mortgages were equally hard to get. We had to prove that we could save and were turned down by one building society as we had a car loan. Car needed for OH to get to work.

We didn't have holidays and our social life consisted of cinema, followed by fish and chips or friends round for the odd beer.

Houses were also more simple. Ours came with a sink unit in the kitchen and a gas Fire in the front room. We couldn't afford central heating as it was £350 more.

The truth of the matter is that most young people struggle when they start off, unless their families are well off and able to help. Maybe my generation did better as we tended to settle down early.

Graham_Devon

ukcarper wrote: »

Do you really need to save 2 years gross income for a property where I am in the south east reasonable commuting distance from London you can get a 2 bed house for £240k or 1 bed flat for £170k.

Probably.

The 1 bed flat wouldn't suit most people and is a bit of a niche really.

So looking at the 2 bed home.... 15% reasonable deposit = 36k. Then you have the fee's etc.

The average wage is running at around 26-28k. For that wage, you'd probably expect someone to be in their 30's, having progressed up the ladder a bit. (hence why I suugested a 1 bed flat is probably a bit of a niche area).

So disregarding the fact that they may have kids and need a 3 bed..... to buy that 2 bed, you are looking at saving a large amount - and the crux of the issue is that they will presumably be paying to live somewhere in the meantime. Your suggesting is that they also live within reasonable commuting distance to London...which is fantastic.... but commuting in and out each day will be another large expense, limiting their saving potential.

purch

We used to live in a rolled up newspaper in corner of cesspit..............on and on adnauseaum :eek:

purch

lisyloo wrote: »

Can you define reasonable commuting distance please?

When I worked in the City it was anywhere you could get a mini cab home to at 2AM for less than a ton.

Graham_Devon

pollypenny wrote: »

The truth of the matter is that most young people struggle when they start off, unless their families are well off and able to help. Maybe my generation did better as we tended to settle down early.

Indeed, and that will always be so. Stating from nothing and gaining money will always be an uphill slog.

But the graph suggests that the hill is now even steeper than it was. Doing without a mobile phone makes such a negligible difference to that hill that sometimes it's simply not worth going without after weighing up the pro's and con's. Sure, you might get your house 1 month earlier than you would have if you'd not shelled out on a mobile contract. But how much other stuff have you lost that a mobile phone gives you access too?

lisyloo

Train journey 45min houses and flats 5min walk station

So if my onward journey is 45 mins (5+5+30+5 as above), and I want to allow a 5 min wait for the train then that's 105 mins single, 210 mins return i.e 3.5 hours and that's without any delays.

I personally would not call that "reasonable" if I had to do it everyday.
I'm not saying I wouldn't consider it if a glittering career was on offer, but that's basically the reason why it isn't a highly desireable area and prices aren't higher.
I totally get that circumstances differ, but most people do have some onward travel and I don't think my example is outrageous, for example 5 min wait for main line train, or 5 min wait for a bus (or tube) are not exaggerated figures.

P.S I do live in London and have lived at many London locations (lived in temporary serviced apartments for a while precisely to try the options) so my experience is first hand and recent.

If you feel any of my numbers are wrong then please feel free to pick holes, but 5 mins for a bus or even walk round some tube stations is really not excessive.