The Edcawber Principle

Karmacat

edinburgher wrote: »

Let's not have the "my mortgage was 25% and we ate coal" comparisons again How about we agree that while houses were significantly cheaper in the past, mortgage rates were typically more expensive and that the younger generations have a quality of life that would have blown minds in the 70s, they face less prospect of attaining security of tenure in their living arrangements?

Excellent summary :j

Courgette

Agreed - got it in one!

katep23

beanielou wrote: »

I dont think previous generations had it 'better'.
It was a different time.

{Delurks} I do think my particular age group (40 so several years older than Edinburgher and Alex) have a lot of advantages - we are probably the last age group to have real social mobility; we could create a career without having a degree; we know interest rates can only go one way and remember when they did, even if we didn't experience them ourselves; (as a woman) I cannot claim state pension at 60 as my mother did but I have sufficient time to make alternative arrangements unlike female relatives who are now turning 60 who had the rug pulled out from under them with relatively little notice.

badmemory

katep23 wrote: »

{Delurks} I cannot claim state pension at 60 as my mother did but I have sufficient time to make alternative arrangements unlike female relatives who are now turning 60 who had the rug pulled out from under them with relatively little notice.

I'm sorry but 20 years is not little notice (final advice 1993 plenty of what is likely to happen before then). In the 1960s we demanded equality, well this is it. Some of it may suck, such as equal retirement age, but being able to get a mortgage in our own name not dependent on some man guaranteeing it!

My aunt, earning more than my father, who was himself not exactly poor, had to ask my father to guarantee her mortgage, over child bearing age back then but even so needed some man to say he'd pay if she didn't. I got my first one in 1976 (divorced & 30) & just avoided needing my father to guarantee it. Do we really want to go back to that? You can't have it both ways, either we are equal or we are not.

Personally I will always prefer independence over dependency but that was how my Dad brought me up to be. After all he was the guy who had to guarantee his younger sisters mortgage & really really did not like it, not the guaranteeing part but the fact that some financial agency thought that it should be necessary.

If we want equality then we pay the price & I do want the equality!

ETA Sorry for the rant folks but some things do set me off & you got it!

katep23

Not wanting to derail the thread but need to respond.

I completely agree with the changes to standardise the pension age and never understood as a child why the state pension age was different for men and women.

My comment was more around the speed with which changes have been made, my understanding was that changes from 65 upwards for women happened with relatively little notice.

I would point out I was saying that I feel my age group are lucky rather than bemoaning the increase in state pension age!

edinburgher

I'd appreciate it if we leave the discussion around changes to pension age at that - there are hundreds of pages of bad tempered arguments on the topic over on the pensions board! In any case, some of the young 'uns posting on this thread won't be getting a penny until they are 68 (or older), in an age where (healthy) life expectency has started to slide again...

I appreciate the comments from katep23 (social mobility in particular) and badmemory (sexual inequality). Having read one too many threads on Mum5net , I am determined that DD will not depend on a partner (of any gender) for her future wellbeing to the extent that she has no choices - it's one of the key drivers behind our decision to invest for her future. That's probably sexist, patriarchal and patronising in its own way, but hearts were in the right place (top bit of the torso)

beanielou

Well said ed.
Did not want to say anything as not my thread.

Karmacat

edinburgher wrote: »

I am determined that DD will not depend on a partner (of any gender) for her future wellbeing to the extent that she has no choices - it's one of the key drivers behind our decision to invest for her future. That's probably sexist, patriarchal and patronising in its own way, but hearts were in the right place (top bit of the torso)

Of course its not a bad thing, not in any way ... you don't want your lovely little girl to *have* to be dependent on someone else. Shakespeare's fictional sister Judith, written about by Virginia Woolf, is a prime example. Long live options and choices, for all.

beanielou

I think it is a great thing to bring up any child/young person to be financially independant.

As an aside I will never have a joint account again with anyone.

edinburgher

One step forward, two steps back.

I have made two silly mistakes at work that have had unintended consequences and made me look a bit useless. Both related to not paying sufficient attention to detail. This has been an issue for me since I was a little person - arrogantly assuming I don't need to check my work because I am impatient

I am owning my mistakes and getting things fixed, but I worry that it has dented my (reasonably good) reputation.

Hey ho, what can I do other than fix it and learn from my mistakes?