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I’d say both these things are harder now, but not impossible.
It very much depends. As a public servant in a expensive city its impossible. I would have to live and work elsewhere to be able to even rent my own flat rather than flatshare and buying is just out of the question
Being active on this website from the beginning when it was a fun, friendly and speedy - and not the 'feature-laden' bloatware it's now become.
Being active on this website from the beginning when it was a fun, friendly and speedy - and not the 'feature-laden' bloatware it's now become.
[posting this from my alt-account as I can't post from the account I pay for!]
[EDIT - my original post has now appeared after taking 4 minutes to think about it!]
the-muffin-man
Being active on this website from the beginning when it was a fun, friendly and speedy – and not the ‘feature-laden’ bloatware it’s now become.
The hamster used to go for fag breaks quite regularly back then IIRC! 🙂 Some legendary threads though, badger, picolax, owned with bombers etc.
The high intrest rates where subsidised...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_interest_relief_at_source
i dont really see that things have got harder.
My degree was free (to me), graduated debt free.
I bought a 3 bed house 10 min walk from the centre of Cambridge for 3x a graduate salary and paid it off it 10 years without even trying hard.
My graduate job also had a fantastic final salary pension which I cashed in for £200k when it closed having paid only about £7k in.
None of those things are possible now...
but life in general is not hard.
today, thinking about both world wars.young blokes going and not returning. whole villages left without men.
a whole generation gone. or miners and steel workers, going to hard harsh dangerous jobs. for nothing or as near as.
hard today isnt hard at all really. hard is when you have nothing.
everyone has a mobile phone which costs a bomb, and some kind of pay per veiw. and a car. and this app and that app for food deliveries and other shyte.
hard times now........... nah.
.
Well compared to the black death and life before antibiotics etc, young blokes going off to war had it pretty easy. Black death wiped out somewhere between 5% and 40% of the world population with no health care and no social safety net.
I'm not really sure what your point is, someone else had it worse, so everyone else can't complain?
It's pretty obvious that financially, the latest generation entering the workforce will have a much tougher time achieving the same relative level of wealth as the generation before in terms of home ownership, pensions etc. I suspect my parents generation will be peak wealth accumulation due to asset price rises.
Yeah. If people would just cut back on the avocado toast.
the latest generation entering the workforce will have a much tougher time achieving the same relative level of wealth as the generation before in terms of home ownership, pensions etc.
which makes me wonder, what was the best year to have been born (in the UK) and benefit from free univ, affordable houses, decent pension, reasonable job market, cheapo overseas hols etc---I'd plump for 1964! graduating c.1984, mortgage paid by c.2000s, retiring around nowish...!?
I enjoyed my 1970s childhood, 1980s teens, 1990s post-graduate life 🙂 should have bought a house sooner though, and had kids earlier--but hey ho, I'm still here 🙂
not trying to make a point mate. just saying i dont think life is hard. nothing more than that.
Until now, noones been trying to say that generally things are harder overall.
which makes me wonder, what was the best year to have been born (in the UK) and benefit from free univ, affordable houses, decent pension, reasonable job market, cheapo overseas hols etc—I’d plump for 1964!
I would say much earlier than that. I was born in 61 and had the 70s / early 80s to grow up in / become an adult. High inflation and interest rates, massive unemployment- and it was the decade of hellish fashion. I'd say the folk who grew up in the 60s probably had it best. Post antibiotics, high social mobility, increasing prosperity ?????
A lot of stuff is so much better now in many ways but the whole housing thing is so messed up
GCSE’s
I paid 17% interest on my 1st housein the late 80’s which was half my wage.
sure, but inflation was broadly speaking the same as the interest
so after a year of making (tough) payments, around 15% of the value of the loan was wiped out, relative to prices. The same the next year. Which was why folk could then move on to a bigger house every three years.
when rates were low & inflation was low, but prices high, people made a year of payments and only 2-3% of the value was paid off.
it’s hard to compare, but 30yr 6x income mortgages aren’t the same as 80s mortgages.
I’d say the folk who grew up in the 60s probably had it best.
I guess the question is, better for whom? Good luck being female/in an ethnic minority/homosexual/etc.
Free university education
Driving test with 1 lesson
Buying several buy-to-lets for ~5k
Paying off mortgage at 33
Retiring at 52 with golden pension
signed, boomer.
/s
There was a natural lid on house prices back in the 70s and 80s too. Mortage would be max 25 years and usually based on one income.
Relaxed lending critery led to more people being able to get mortages and for bigger amounts fueling house price rises.
My grandad was a miner and in the 60s he bought his own house and everyone said he was a fool with a ‘noose’ around his neck.
Plot twist: I'm glad I got to go backpacking before it got easier.
I had many trips in the 00s when just travelling across a foreign country with a lonely planet was a genuine adventure. Before Uber, AirBnB, Tripadvisor and Google Translate made the vast majority of the world so easy and familar (which I recognise is beneficial in a whole load of ways).
It feels like adventure is so much harder to find nowadays, and I'm aware that makes me sound unimaginative.
Driving test with 1 lesson
Father in law was telling me about his driving tests in the 1960s:
#1 - Netherlands, standard car - drive round the block. You've passed
#2 - HGV test Australia - back the trailer around that corner. You've passed.
But, i'd say going to uni was more achievable when I went. I had a grant, scholarships and invested my student loans as I didn't need them to live on. Nowadays I think i'd be up to my eyeballs in debt.
Getting a job and a career of sorts without having to go to university.
This so much. My flat bought in 1992 was 2.5 times my salary. Now it would be 8 times the salary for the same job
in fairness though whilst there is a national trend, is it fair to say that in 1992 your flat was in an area that at the time estate agents would describe as “up and coming” ( = shit but it might improve) whereas now it is considered to be “desirable”? You can probably get a flat of similar size for less money in one of the less desirable areas (although probably not for 2.5x salary). However the mortgage market has also significantly changed since 1992… not all of it for the better but certainly some of it, and whilst I do hear people complaining about interest rates today they are lower and to a large extent more predictable than in 1992!
I so feel for those who are starting out in life now. Even rentals are ridiculously expensive. The flat at the time would have rented for 30% of monthly take home. Now it would be 60%
bear in mind that many of them have parents, or grandparents who have benefited from circumstance like you did… the unfairness comes when some are lucky enough to have access to large gifts/loans/inheritance and others do not. One thing which does seem to have changed in the intervening years - my recollection was young professionals sharing (and couples getting into long term relationships earlier?) whereas it seems from those I work with finding housing most expensive seem to live alone?
Glad to have got through teenage and Uni years before the invention of smartphones/cameras documenting everything! There is evidence of those times but likely living in a box under a bed or in a cupboard. I can imagine my friends kids clearing them out when they have passed away and laughing at the photos.
Student loans were a drag when I started working but nothing compared to what debt students come out with now.
Did regret not buying a house in the 90’s though!
Housing is such an issue but given so many people at the top can’t afford for the prices to drop I struggle to see how we solve the issue.
which makes me wonder, what was the best year to have been born (in the UK)
I think the generations that had it best were (if you had a 'good' war and the majority did) were the folks born between the mid twenties and the mid fifties. Technological changes made everyone's life easier, 25 years plus of economic boom - most jobs paid well enough for 1 worker to have house, car, family holidays. Free healthcare, free university, free, and generous pensions. By mid seventies, the whole thing is starting to crumble, and by mid eighties it's done.
I'm glad personally I made it onto the housing market. In my mid twenties I managed to buy a cottage for £46K and while interest rates did go mental for a bit it was the difference between paying £300 a month to about £550 a month for it.
so after a year of making (tough) payments, around 15% of the value of the loan was wiped out, relative to prices. The same the next year. Which was why folk could then move on to a bigger house every three years.
Hmm, I am not sure I am totally on-board with that. My memory may be a bit hazy, but I almost bought a house in 1991 – it was £40,000 and the repayments over 25 years would have been about £450 a month however, I didn't progress (I broke up with my fiance). I eventually bought a similar house in 1995 for £42,500 and the loan repayments were about £260 a month – so in that particular five-year period house prices hadn't increased much (and they didn't really start increasing until late 1990s). Of course there may have been other periods where house prices increased at different rates.
For comparison, I think the generation that had it worst (by a long way) were those born in the late 19thC and very early 20th (1890-1905) while empire is probably at it's height, you're working a shit job for very shit money with no safety and no rights, healthcare is probably un-affordable (and not really available) and if that's not bad enough; the great war is just around the corner, and if that doesn't get you, then the Spanish flu is going to.
I got into mountain biking in the 90s on a nice rigid hardtail before the modern focus on e-bikes, bike parks, and international travel. I don’t think young me would find it so accessible nowadays.
I got into mountain biking in the 90s on a nice rigid hardtail before the modern focus on e-bikes, bike parks, and international travel. I don’t think young me would find it so accessible nowadays.
I paid £437 for my first rigid, steel MTB in 1994, when we'd pedal for 20 miles just to link a few interesting sections of singletrack together. Today I can buy a similarly specced MTB, except with suspension, hydraulic brakes and decent rubber for the same price - noticeably better to ride - and have two areas of permitted MTB trails within 5 miles, numerous unofficial trails, and two or three trail centres within 20 miles. Because cycling in general is now more mainstream, I can ride to pubs or cafes run by riders, access riding groups virtually without ever having to meet face to face and see where all the locals are riding just by checking my phone.
I can't see where the barrier to entry is?
AFF. Any later and I would have been too old to really enjoy the first few hundred jumps. As it is I kind of wish I had done it years ago and got more of a headstart on it.
I'm so glad I got into 29" front / 26" rear full suspension park jump track downhill enduro, before it got harder to choose the right bike tyres to make the car park come alive.
Drink & drugs - started in the pubs at 15, seems it's a lot harder to be an underage drinker these days & also happy enough with the strength of dope back then, not sure I'd had come through that phase in life unscathed if strong skunk & spice had been readily available.
Drink & drugs – started in the pubs at 15, seems it’s a lot harder to be an underage drinker these days
My kids are between 13 and 21. I can pretty much guarantee that underage drinking isn't really any more difficult than it used to be.
Sorry if already asked but where was the desert pic of the old Bedford truck taken mate? Going to guess at Morocco? Loved the pics and write up by the way. Your daughter is a picture of happiness there. <Thumbs up.>
Growing up before the digital & social media age.
Like a lot of people, social media. I was in first popular phase of the oldschool, mailinglists and such, and then the glory days of forums, and the early days of FB etc and it was just so great. So much of what I did, my interests and activities, was made better by this stuff, I'd have definitely missed out if I'd been even a few years earlier, I know married couples that met on motorbike forums and scifi mailing lists and I met a bunch of great friends that way, but oh my god look at it now.
DoD Dad always used to say that life was a series of peaks and troughs and it depended whereabouts you landed on them.
I do think there was a sweet spot to be born in the late 60/70,s got you a lot of good times with music and the the 80’s and the general money that was around then , well apart from the constant fear of a nuclear war or dying of AIDS.
If you think its hard now what will it be like in x years , I can’t see the housing problems being sorted and I can’t see it going back to a single wage earner being able to buy a house and free education/nurseries,getting a drs appointment on the day your ill and getting a dentist all things that were a thing I had.
Getting my engineering Chartership (ooooh, hark at him) with a four year Honours degree, fully funded by the state, rather than a five year Masters degree, which I’d have to pay for.
Got to see the best band ever (Joy Division) when I was 16
crashed a car 2 weeks after getting my license and got that out of the way
Got over to Skye before the bridge got built and the millions followed
I managed to carry my amazing father and brother into church with incredible support for the last time while able, to then stand as straight as I could and talk about what beautiful people they were.