How can people be so greedy?

aztec21

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Don't be silly - someone who is now 50 was born in 1957-8, and by then almost all houses had electricity! Holidays - foreign holidays unlikely, UK holidays were normal. My father grew up in a working class family in Liverpool, and went on regular summer holidays to Wales. He left school at 18, and took part in the huge expansion of university education in the 1960s, becoming the first person in his family to stay on past the minimum leaving age, let alone get a degree.

He first went abroad aged 17, to work in a youth hostel in Germany between school and university.

I am not sure how good your geography is but Wales is only around 20 miles from Liverpool so saying your father went on summer holidays there only shows how much standards of living have improved since then.

andyrules

LittleTinker wrote: »

You know.....I was at Uni, not so long ago, as a Mature Student and I left Uni WITHOUT any debt. How did I do that?? I went to work. I didn't go living it up night after night in the student union, I didn't buy new clothes every two minutes and I didn't feel as though I HAD to take advantage of the loans available to me.....Younger generations just seem to want want want but are NOT prepared to live with any discomfort to get what they want!! .........By the way......your Uni education didnt do much for your spelling and grammar did it?

But did you have top-up fees? These can make a difference of around £12k to a student debt now.
btw, you did really well. I was a mature student 10 years ago and have a debt which I doubt I will ever pay off. It was certainly not down to clothes and clubs though, I worked as a child minder and cleaner while my children were at school and studied by night.

I sometimes wonder why :rolleyes:

neas

margaretclare wrote: »

The cottage I grew up in got electricity installed in 1958. I was a student nurse then. Before that I'd done homework by the light of an oil-lamp and gone to bed with a candle.

My mother's neighbours said to her 'How lovely for you - you'll be able to get a telly'.

Mum retorted: 'No chance. The first thing I'm getting will be a washing machine'. She did too. It was a second-hand top-loader with wringer. After all the years of washing, scrubbing, boiling etc she thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

However, there were people who chose a telly rather than a washing-machine.

Margaret

When referring to my fathers generation I meant ~50. Your the generation above that i guess or somewhere in between. My father was born 1956 etc.

Its those kind of speculators that had the chance to get a Buy to Let mortgage (20+ years until retirement age etc). The whole buy to let boom has been in the last 10 years etc..

Just my original reference was to those now aged 40-55 ish

andyrules

margaretclare wrote: »

The cottage I grew up in got electricity installed in 1958. I was a student nurse then. Before that I'd done homework by the light of an oil-lamp and gone to bed with a candle.

My mother's neighbours said to her 'How lovely for you - you'll be able to get a telly'.

Mum retorted: 'No chance. The first thing I'm getting will be a washing machine'. She did too. It was a second-hand top-loader with wringer. After all the years of washing, scrubbing, boiling etc she thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

However, there were people who chose a telly rather than a washing-machine.

Margaret

I was born in the 50s, and I can remember my grandmother getting (cold) water installed in the house! They boiled the kettle for hot water, and never did have a bathroom. You washed in a bowl in the kitchen, and trekked down the garden for anything else

They did have electricity though!

carolt

Love this thread! Keep it going...

This subject matter has been well-covered in previous threads and I'd like to think the 'we've got it harder now' brigade trounced the 'it were much harder when I were a lad' troupe by a good margin... (and yes, the Monty Python sketch is very apt ).

At the end of the day, facts prove that the current young generation do have to pay more relative to incomes to buy their first home, do enter the housing market at a historically late age etc etc - though that's not to necessarily agree with the OP's original claim that the older generation deliberately f*cked us over; they weren't to blame for house prices rising, as individuals, and if they rejoiced a bit at their enhanced balance sheet, who could blame them? Though that's not to say that those who entered BTL in a big way, deliberately out-bidding FTB's so they could rent the same pile of badly-looked after bricks and mortar back to them, didn't know exactly what they were doing, and DO hold responsibility, in my mind.

However, karma is coming, in the form of the imminent (already started) crash.

Hope you've chilled a bit, OP. Your situation sounds much more sensible than mine did at your age..Another couple of years of saving and falling prices and you should be in a position to get what you want.

Ultimately, no point in being bitter about it. In the meantime, get on with your life; at the end of the day, no-one looks back and says 'I wish I'd bought my first house at X age', whereas they do say 'I wish I hadn't left it so late to try and have kids'.

Thankfully, house buying doesn't come with biological clocks attached, and your house isn't going to care if the person kicking a football round it is 50 or 25.

A couple of years down the line, if prices fall substantially, you may be very glad you weren't old enough to buy just before prices fell....

Nicifer_noonoo

I sympathise, rant away But I'm 22, still currently a student and I have a mortgage on my own. It can be done.

Benefits_Blagger

margaretclare wrote: »

The cottage I grew up in got electricity installed in 1958. I was a student nurse then. Before that I'd done homework by the light of an oil-lamp and gone to bed with a candle.

My mother's neighbours said to her 'How lovely for you - you'll be able to get a telly'.

Mum retorted: 'No chance. The first thing I'm getting will be a washing machine'. She did too. It was a second-hand top-loader with wringer. After all the years of washing, scrubbing, boiling etc she thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

However, there were people who chose a telly rather than a washing-machine.

Margaret

so whats that got to do with anything ?

living standards and technology improve with time. the best example is the computer. the bottom of the range computer which is affordable by someone on benefits,is millions of times more powerful than computers 50 years ago which were worth millions at that time let alone in todays moneys.such machines took up a whole room and the only people who could afford them, were goverments and the very largest of corporations. nowadays everyone has one, even the poorest in society.

however one thing that should stay the same in relation to income is housing and it clearly hasnt, hence this thread.

neas

Nicifer_noonoo wrote: »

I sympathise, rant away But I'm 22, still currently a student and I have a mortgage on my own. It can be done.

I hope you arent overstretching yourself. A year in industry student at my work just entered a interest only mortgage while being in his 2nd year at uni... under the understanding that house prices wouldnt drop and that he will start earning more. If house prices drop and rates rise he is gonna be really shafted when he comes to remortgage in a years time (2 year fixed).

Just wondering.. how did you get a mortgage as a student? You wouldny have an income to prove???

neas

carolt wrote: »

Love this thread! Keep it going...





Hope you've chilled a bit, OP. Your situation sounds much more sensible than mine did at your age..Another couple of years of saving and falling prices and you should be in a position to get what you want.

Ultimately, no point in being bitter about it. In the meantime, get on with your life; at the end of the day, no-one looks back and says 'I wish I'd bought my first house at X age', whereas they do say 'I wish I hadn't left it so late to try and have kids'.

Thankfully, house buying doesn't come with biological clocks attached, and your house isn't going to care if the person kicking a football round it is 50 or 25.

A couple of years down the line, if prices fall substantially, you may be very glad you weren't old enough to buy just before prices fell....

You are correct, i'd prefer to just rent without worry, save for my first house and just continue my life as it goes.. so long as i can keep saving when i start a family i will be happy .

Nicifer_noonoo

I'm managing just great now my student loans are sorted I've got a baby on the way too, and even that is working out fine financially (finally) haha. My mortgage isn't interest only, it's fixed rate for two years. At the end of that, I'll just go back to the broker