Vent - My Mother (and her generation?)

heuchera

I think it was possible to live on one wage (the man's) in those days. You can't now.

mumps

Pollycat wrote: »

I was 25 before I lived in a house with central heating.
My parents' house had an open fire in the living room, a gas fire in the 'front' room - which was very rarely put on - we had a wall-mounted electric heater in the bathroom and that was it!

Oh - and no double glazing either.
When we woke up in the winter it was usual for the insides of the windows to be covered in frost.

I always loved the frost on the windows, such lovely patterns but it was cold.

We got central heating when I was about 25 and double glazing when I was in my 30s. We didn't have a car, neither of my parents ever learned to drive and my husband and I got our first car when I was 30.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

The main thing that was easier for my generation was the amount of work opportunities available and how easy it was to get and change jobs (if you weren't from an ethnic minority or disabled, of course).

The rest is all swings and roundabouts.

I was going "home" to Ireland one year, I was actually born in England but Ireland was always referred to as home. My boss, a sort of Joyce Grenfell type, asked why I was going there. I explained we were visiting family. She looked at me in horror and said, "I have never employed anyone who is Irish before." I had no idea what to respond. I was about 16 and she had always been very nice to me but it all changed after that.

mumps

fierystormcloud wrote: »

Have to agree with Person One. Sorry Pollypenny, but you're very wrong about this, and Person One is on the money.

My uncle bought a 4 bed detached house around 1970 for £5,000. Taking into account inflation, that should now be around £75,000, but the house is valued at £290,000, which means the house is 4 times higher than it should be. This is why it's nigh on impossible for many people to get on the property ladder/buy a house...

Also, my parents friend bought a small terraced house for £2,000 in 1975, and in today's money, that is about £20,000, yet the house is valued at £90,000. Again, about 4 times more.

Similarly, many jobs paid around £1.50 an hour around the early seventies; that is around £20 an hour now if you take inflation into account; yet the average pay for non-professionals now is about £6.50 an hour or so...

Also, the rent on a little 2 bed house my sister rented (privately) in the mid 1980s was £20 a week, and that's around £50 a week now. Yet the rent for that same house now is around £120 a week.

So taking all this into account, it's no wonder people struggle so badly to survive.

And yes there were a LOT less electrical points. My friend's old 30s house, only has 2 in her lounge; one either side of the fireplace... One for the tv and one for the radiogram haha

Well there were no sky boxes, or cable tv, or dvd players, or playstations then.

I think it depends where you start, your uncle bought in 1970 just before a boom I bought in 1973 just before the boom ended, he paid £5k I paid £5.2k he got a 4 bed detached I got a two up two down house, think Coronation St. It needed new windows, treatment for damp, the kitchen had a sink, no heating and no we weren't in London. My mother cried when she saw it.

If you could find one still in the state ours was in it would probably be about the £75k you quote but there don't seem to be many that haven't been done up. If you had looked at prices just a few years ago, say round 2008 you could have picked one up for far less.

So pick when you start and pick when you finish to prove what you want to prove.

You are right we didn't have sky, xbox, cable or whatever but of course you don't have to have them, it isn't compulsory.

seaspray10

It’s not just your mum’s generation, my grown up children have more than I did, I have more than my parents did, my parents had more than their parent did and so on…..
The bottom line is that if each generation have more than the previous generation, all parents should feel ecstatic! Isn’t this what we’re all aiming for?
She may be your mum but moaning martyrdom is incredibly tiresome, totally negative and smacks of attention seeking.
When you get a chance, nip to the library and get her one of the many books available relating to true life stories of people brought up in a third world country. That should give her food for thought.

seven-day-weekend

heuchera wrote: »

I think it was possible to live on one wage (the man's) in those days. You can't now.

It was....but not all women had a man to depend on.

balletshoes

heuchera wrote: »

I think it was possible to live on one wage (the man's) in those days. You can't now.

it depends on the wage, surely? along with what your outgoings are.

mumps

balletshoes wrote: »

it depends on the wage, surely? along with what your outgoings are.

Too true, when my husband joined the Police in the 1960s he was on £12 a week, no extras for anti social hours and no overtime, well there was overtime but it just wasn't paid.

missbiggles1

Person_one wrote: »

I'm certainly not trying to suggest that housing is affordable in the SE!

Just that, even though to somebody living in or near London, £120K for a two bed house with a yard seems like an absolute steal, or £150K for a three bed semi with a garden is amazing. If you're in an area with low average earnings and you're on 15K pa and renting privately then they're just as much out of your reach as a £500K flat in Camden. High rents are as much to blame for that as high selling prices.

I have literally no idea how low earners like care workers or shop assistants even survive in London. It boggles the mind. A family member of mine was offered a substantial pay rise to relocate to London. It seemed like a fortune, until they looked at property prices in London and realised that despite earning a huge amount more, their family's quality of life would actually be a lot less.

Whilst I agree that housing has become less affordable, I don't think it all that useful to compare low incomes with the cost of an average house. If you're in that situation, you start by buying a small flat, put some work into it, move somewhere bigger until you reach the point of being able to afford an average house. In Greater Manchester, for example, there seems to be plenty of 1 bed flats available for between £50 and £55k, affordable even for a young couple on minimum wage..

Unless you're on a very high income, that's what most people do and have always done in the south east. That's why we talk about getting on the property ladder.

mumps

ringo_24601 wrote: »

There's lies, damn lies and statistics.

Yes, that was my point about comparing prices then and now, you can make it look different by changing the start and end dates.