MSE Poll: Are you financially better off than your parents at your age?

sparrer · 18 April 2019 at 5:48PM

Considerably worse off than my parents at my age, they both worked in managerial positions until their 70's while I had to take early retirement at 58 due to heart/lung disease.

MovingForwards · 18 April 2019 at 6:09PM

Financially im better off (she was a single parent mostly on benefits / I work), tangible items I'm worse off (she had a 3 bed house with a small mortgage / I'm renting).

If I think of the situation with her mom then my mom was better off in both situations, my granddad worked, my nan was a stay at home mom with a football team sized set of kids in a 3 bed council house.

Murphybear · 19 April 2019 at 6:48AM

Sleazy wrote: »

What about "I never knew my parents"?

How about “my parents never lived to my current age”

Merlin's_Beard · 21 April 2019 at 5:24PM

I've tentatively put "worse off" for myself, though it depends on how you look at it and you could argue it the other way.

I've got a lot more disposable income than my parents (mid 60s) did at my age (early 30s).

However, at my age they owned a detached four bed house in a quiet suburban street, and they got that mortgage off one wage, whereas I'm still renting. House prices around where they bought then would be well out of reach for me; I'd be looking at a 2/3 bed semi detached at best. I also wouldn't be able to afford the two small children they had then on one wage and if I tried I'd be in a far worse position than they were with probably less disposable income.

Jenjenny · 24 April 2019 at 7:49AM

I think this survey could be a bit misleading. It was a different era when we were younger and when our parents were younger. The pressures on each generation are different. When our children were young, there were no in-work benefits available at all except for Child Benefit and a certain level of MIRAS mortgage relief and we struggled at times. House prices were much less, but so were wages. The killer, however, was mortgage interest rates, which often get forgotten in debates about housing costs. 16.5% was the highest we paid, if memory serves. It was down to 12.5% for a long time. Therefore, although the loan might have been less than someone would pay these days, repayments were very high. Our son, though, is working in the computing industry and started on nearly as much as my husband was at n and now earns far more.

aintreemaid · 24 April 2019 at 9:07PM

I am, in my seventies, substantially better off than my patents were at this age but at what cost?

We (as a society in general) have become so focussed on material wealth that we have lost sight of what really matters.

I would happily move from my four-bedroomed detached house with (largely) disinterested neighbours, to my patents' three bedroomed terraced house where neighbours cared for and looked after those around them.

Is this really progress?

MSE Poll: Are you financially better off than your parents at your age?

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