Inequality between generations

[styles]

I do wish people would stop trying to compare life now as it was back in the 60s and 70s; it was a world that was so different that you'd be as well sending someone back to the 1800s and asking them to cope. In fact, the experiences of someone born at the beginning of that century will likely be very different to someone who was born at the end; it was also a time of huge technological and social change.

I don't think that people of that era were less materialistic. The desires and aspirations would have been similar to those of today but the goods were very much more expensive relative to peoples' earnings.

Indeed. A 55" flat screen 4K smart TV can be found on Amazon for £250 today, including wall mounting installation. The previous generations wanted TVs, but in today's prices the cost was many times higher. The US tracks TV prices in their consumer price index and between 1950 and 2026 the average rate of TV price inflation was -6.5% per year.

How can you make a judgement about peoples' expectations? I've no doubt that many people setting up home would like to have new things, but having to make do with second-hand furniture is still very much the reality for many people. When I had my first flat, I couldn't afford to buy anything new and was grateful to have friends and family who helped out with stuff they no longer needed.

We bought our first house last year and we're still picking things up off Freecycle. Ok part of it is that I prefer to reuse for the environmental impact and a dislike of 'throwaway society', but it's also that a decent first-hand sofa is over a grand. That plus a couole of armchairs is just money we don't have sitting around.

Again, times have changed. Washing machines and vacuum cleaners would be seen as luxuries once but they're necessities now. Mobile phones are every bit as essential these days as it becomes progressively difficult to access services without them.

They're also relatively inexpensive. I'm not sure we'd save much money in our house by hand washing our clothes in the bath. Not to mention how long they'd take to try from hand-wringing them rather than a minute of 1600rpm at the end up a washing machine cycle. We don't have a tumble dryer and hang our clothes on airers, for both the cost and environmental aspects.

Regarding food, just because ready meals and takeaways are more widely available doesn't mean that everyone uses them, or can afford them. Sometimes people don't have time to cook a proper meal and others will lack the skills to do so. Workplaces don't have the same catering facilities these days, so people have to adapt.

I must admit that I find this one a bit odd. The amount I see one of our neighbours use Just Eat/similar I think their monthly spend on it must be huge. I remember being at a Tube station a few years ago and there was an advert for Getir, and how quickly you could get a bottle of water delivered. I found it a bit depressing really. In London in an area served by Getir you're surely never more than a couple of minutes walk to a convenience store. Yes some people have disabilities which services like this are very useful for, but I'm surprised how often people are happy to pay quite inflated prices to get McDonald's or bread and milk delivered. The bottled water aspect of the advert was particularly ridiculous I thought, given we have some of the safest tap water in the world. Getting bottled water, delivered, on a moped, I don't know, it just struck me the wrong way.

That was a very different world. To begin with, clothes are much cheaper these days, mainly because we've outsourced their production to sweat shops in Asia. If clothes cost the same relative to peoples' income as they once did, we wouldn't have the same "fast fashion" mentality that we do today. We also don't have the same skills; my mum, grandmothers and aunties could all knit and my mum was a dab-hand with a sewing machine but how many of today's grandmothers have those same skills or the time to pass them on? What's the likelihood of grannie living nearby these days?

One of my nieces is in Cub Scouts, and her mum was saying she's been asked by a number of the other mums to stitch badges onto the Cub jumpers. I remember being in Cubs and stitching a badge on was part of the 'Home Help' badge. In fact, that's basically how you finished earning the badge - you could have it if you could sew it onto your jumper

I recently got a darning mushroom. I have a twist in my walk and wear through socks like nobody's business. It's quite relaxing sitting in front of the TV darning socks, but I know literally nobody else in my family or friendship circles who does this. Bin and buy new. Why bother when they're 70p a pair in Sports Direct?

At least you still received a grant, and you wouldn't have had to pay for tuition fees. Students are expected to cover fees and living expenses these days, resulting in eye-watering amounts of debt at the end of it.

The student loans system is an utter shambles. Most graduates will never pay them off in full and instead are taxed an extra 9% on a big chunk of their income for a whopping 40 years, basically nearly their full working life. I was 'fortunate' to get a Plan 1 student loan with a more reasonable interest rate, and am on track to pay it off well before it would be wiped off. If I wanted to pursue my career with a degree, I didn't really have a choice but to take out the loans, as my parent didn't have the money for tuition fees and maintenance/living costs to give or lend me. So even if young people don't like the terms of the loans (which can be and sometimes are changed retrospectively), many of them have no choice but to accept them. The system doesn't even work for universities either - they had their teaching grants severely cut in exchange for higher tuition fees, and some universities have lost out. The redundancies and cutting of arts and humanities courses is what we have to show for it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It was a very different world back in the 1960’s and 70’s when most people in working class communities lived far less materialistic lives than people do these days.

I don't think that's true at all. The consumerism may have been different, but it wasn't any less consumeristic.

You mention fashion. My late grandfather, born in 1930 and as working class as they come, was a Teddy Boy in the 1950s. Teddy Boy fashion certainly didn't come cheap, its no different in cost to the expensive trainers and designer labels you can get now if you are so inclined. Same consumerism, different product.

Same with holidays. People still had their week's holiday, but they could only afford a week in Blackpool or Mablethorpe or wherever. Come the early 70s and the jet age, suddenly a week in Benidorm cost the same as a week in Blackpool and so everyone went to the Med instead. Same consumerism, different product.

That lack of skills is a function of time and capability. If you don't know how to cook from scratch, and you've not been properly introduced to it, it will seem difficult and off-putting. If you also have very little time (e.g. working long hours, doing childcare), then buying it in will seem far easier - no matter how much cheaper cooking from scratch is.

I'm not always convinced that cooking from scratch is any cheaper.

Take a lasagne, for instance. A 700g Tesco Finest lasagne, which feeds two, costs about £7. But 500g of beef mince alone will cost £5, before you've bought the pasta or the cheese or made the ragu.

Certainly the home-made version will be healthier, but cheaper?

 

[Snow1964]

It was a very different world back in the 1960’s and 70’s when most people in working class communities lived far less materialistic lives than people do these days. They did work hard but probably not working such long hours as some have to these days,

Although it was normal to stop for proper tea breaks, and whole hour lunch in a works or office canteen (not still working at your desk) and when you finished for the day that was it, no work emails

When I look back now to how my parents and grandparents lived I realise just how little money they had and how difficult times were. If you were lucky enough to be able to own your own home it was usually furnished with second hand furniture handed down from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Bathrooms and kitchens were very basic many people still didn’t have the central heating or luxuries such as fitted carpets

There was very little credit then, these days people might have stuff, but most people have huge negative cash balance when include loans, mortgages, and card debts.

Back in 1960s even those with a mortgage would not have owed more than 3 times their annual salary, nowadays some owe 10 times their salary (if your income for next 10 years only covers debt, nothing spare to eat and live etc, then arguably in worse position

We were loved and well cared for but had none of the things which people today see as necessities. There were no mobile phones, computers, large televisions and home cinema and all the other electronic devices and gaming things which are part of young people’s lives today.

Just look at how much people tend to have in lofts, cupboards, sheds, or littering up their garage. Not really a necessity if hasn't been used for months / years. A lot of people only use tiny fraction of what is at their home so most isn't a necessity.

When I look at old school photos of my primary school days in the 1960’s we all look as though we are from a workhouse with boys wearing homemade knitted jumpers and girls in homemade dresses which grandmothers had invariably made. There were none of the nice clothes children wear today including branded clothes and desirable sportswear. If we were lucky we were dressed in cheap basic clothes from Woolworths. Looking back at my old college photos from the 1970’s again we all looked quite poorly dressed in tatty jeans, basic t shirts and baggy jumpers. None of the designer clothes and expensive trainers which many students wear today.

I agree with that too, most child's clothes in 1970s were like that. Nowadays I buy clothes when I need them, no one I know from my generation (born early 1960s) buys clothes for a label, they buy for comfort and hard wearing.

I‘m not making this up. It is how it was. Today perhaps anyone living like that would be seen as being as living in poverty.When I went to college, even though my parents didn’t have much money I still didn’t get a full grant and my parents were expected to pay some money to supplement my grant. I never accepted anywhere near the full amount they were expected to pay as I knew they couldn’t afford it. At least we didn’t have have the dreadful student loans that todays youngsters are stuck with.

Same here, had to work all summer to earn enough, so my parents didn't have to top up grant. Aimed to earn £1000 each summer by doing long shifts. Might not seem much by today's money value, but back in mid 1980s student rooms were about £15 per week. They are about 12 times that nowadays, and being able to earn £12k in summer break nowadays to cover accommodation is unlikely

I know that many young people today are having a very difficult time and will probably never be able to afford their own home and so in the long run will not be as fortunate as I eventually was.

Possibly why many are moving abroad, the UK is no longer a good place to live for the younger generation.

It must be difficult for them to now see people like me as being wealthy pensioners.

Yes, and politicians are bad here too, being generous to pensioners. Let's be honest many pensioners are not hard up, over 1m pensioners pay tax at 40%, and another 7.8m earn enough to pay basic rate tax. (HMRC data)

It really annoys me when I speak to so many people of my age who are now intending to vote Reform as I don’t think that is the answer. However, at the moment I have no idea who I would vote for.

To some extent, a large number of people, when country is not doing well will vote for anyone but current lot. But yes none of them have any strategic direction.

I know many people didn't like Margaret Thatcher, and her policies broke some historic communities. But at least she did what she said, and kept in same direction for 10-15 years so some sectors could grow. The current Government flip flops, and reverses policies every few weeks discouraging investment in business and jobs.

I too don't know who to vote for currently, my gut feeling is some of the smaller parties can't do any worse than recent Governments. But definitely not Reform, they are all catchy headlines and soundbites with no method on how to achieve anything. Unless we get a party (or parties in a coalition) that sets out a 20 year rebuild Britain plan, I can't see some of the younger Generation having a decent future, instead will just drown under debt and no quality of life.

 

[35B]

I'm not always convinced that cooking from scratch is any cheaper.

Take a lasagne, for instance. A 700g Tesco Finest lasagne, which feeds two, costs about £7. But 500g of beef mince alone will cost £5, before you've bought the pasta or the cheese or made the ragu.

Certainly the home-made version will be healthier, but cheaper?

That depends on the comparison being made. An Italian may wince, but my wife can get the cost per portion of that down significantly by upping the vegetable content - she'll use 500g of mince and get 4 portions out of it.

More generally, though, I see a lot of the comparisons being made not because they're practical, but as a moral criticism of "the youth of today", from a position in which understanding and empathy seem remarkably absent. I find that odd when today's youth live in the world that their parents and grandparents have helped form.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I do wish people would stop trying to compare life now as it was back in the 60s and 70s; it was a world that was so different that you'd be as well sending someone back to the 1800s and asking them to cope. In fact, the experiences of someone born at the beginning of that century will likely be very different to someone who was born at the end; it was also a time of huge technological and social change.

The point is more that people "these days" are classing far more things as essential, when they're really not, and then claiming that they have far less disposable income.

Yes a mobile phone is pretty much essential these days. However, paying £60+ per month to have one of the latest, top spec models on contract absolutely is not essential.

Sky/Virgin TV, Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, Discovery+ etc etc - all not essential, there's plenty of programming available on Freeview and free streaming platforms. Same goes for things like Spotify - radio exists.

Birthday parties have become a weekend away in Benidorm or Málaga or Amsterdam with friends. Holidays are a cruise or the Caribbean or Mexico, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Japan etc. And no, I'm not saying everyone should be restricted to a week in a caravan in Skegness. But where a holiday was once a week or two per year, people are going abroad multiple times a year, and going further.

Young people used to drive around in cheap second hand cars. Now they're driving around in brand new - often "premium" brand - cars because leasing/PCP deals have made them more affordable. But they're still more expensive than purchasing and owning a used car outright.

Eating/drinking out. Yes, Starbucks. Takeaways. Fast food and casual dining restaurants. Meals out aren't for special occasions anymore. Pricey coffee shops are a daily visit. A takeaway isn't a payday treat.

I could probably go on. Yes, some of those things sound a bit cliche. In isolation, some of those things don't sound that bad. But they don't tend to be enjoyed in isolation. They're all combined. Worse still, I'm regularly seeing and hearing people include all these sorts of things in their breakdown of living expenses and then going on to complain that they have little to no "disposable" income left over. Those things are your disposable income!

 

[styles]

I'm not always convinced that cooking from scratch is any cheaper.

Take a lasagne, for instance. A 700g Tesco Finest lasagne, which feeds two, costs about £7. But 500g of beef mince alone will cost £5, before you've bought the pasta or the cheese or made the ragu.

Certainly the home-made version will be healthier, but cheaper?

A 700g Tesco Finest lasagne is currently £7.60.

It is 30% beef, so has a mere 210g of beef in it.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/315581175

A pack of 250g beef steak mince is £2.69 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/279704092
Lasagne sheets 75p https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/250211327
Sauces are either £3.50 for Dolmio https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/316790692 / https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/316932168
Or £1.36 for Tesco https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/268012570 / https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/305054095

So between £4.80-£6.94 and if you're making it for two people you'd have more than half of your sauce and lasagne sheets leftover.

If we did a per-portion basis for the sauce and pasta, it's £3.53-£4.39 for two people compared to £7.60 ready meal.

And that contains ~20% more beef. Though I'd personally swap some of that for pancetta and mushrooms for about the same cost.

And that's before considering making the sauces yourself.

Basically close to half price and with 20% more beef.

For say 340 days of the year, that's a saving of about a grand, just on dinner. Making own sandwiches instead of a meal deal for lunch, call it another grand.

 

[jfollows]

Things are different.
The one thing I never buy into is “the good old days” which Reform seems to latch on to. For me, rickets and diptheria were the “good old days”. I lived in accommodation as a student which would be condemned now. But above all, like Thatcher, I believe that things improve over time in general.

Yes, my first house cost less than my last car, which I bought with cash. Yes, I have good memories of student life in 1980. But I don’t want to go back to then.

A lot of interesting points made here. Learning to cook as a student was a revelation for me, and set me up for life.

Lots of material things are way cheaper in real terms today than they used to be. On another thread I surmised that a basic kettle in 1960 cost the equivalent of £100 today.

 

[styles]

That depends on the comparison being made. An Italian may wince, but my wife can get the cost per portion of that down significantly by upping the vegetable content - she'll use 500g of mince and get 4 portions out of it.

That's actually more beef per person than the Tesco Finest lasagne contains (about 20% more).

More generally, though, I see a lot of the comparisons being made not because they're practical, but as a moral criticism of "the youth of today", from a position in which understanding and empathy seem remarkably absent. I find that odd when today's youth live in the world that their parents and grandparents have helped form.

Yes there is something in this. My mum was a single parent. She has had health problems and disabilities for as long as I've been alive. She knew that there was a good chance she'd end up in hospital and we as kids would have to 'fend for ourselves'. So from the age of about 10, we were cooking full roast dinners. We could do the washing, the ironing (not that I iron things much any more!), wash the pots, make the beds, paint walls and fences, cut the grass, etc at this age. Because we were in Scouts/Guides, we were taught things like woodwork, sewing, baking, etc as well as the obvious scouty things like pitching tents and making fires and whatever. I'm very grateful to my mum for teaching me these skills. And they did come in handy when she was hospitalised while I was doing my A-Levels and I was home alone for a few weeks.

However I remember going to university and the people I lived with in first year were not prepared for "life" in the same way. Domino's and unhealthy ready meals were staples, if things broke they binned them and bought new instead of trying to fix, and I'm sure if our halls didn't have cleaners coming in, the bathrooms and kitchen areas would be in a pretty sorry state. We had a laundry building with both washers and dryers, but I remember one lass who took her washing home every weekend and her mum did it for her. I was quite selective about who I buddied up with for renting a house in 2nd/3rd year! I was close friends with a Lebanese lad who cooked the most amazing comfort food

 

[Oxfordblues]

When I arrived at the Students' Union bar at Salford University in October 1971 I was disappointed to find that, after decimalisation, the price of a pint of beer was now a whopping 12p (nearly half a crown!) As I sipped my pint I took an envelope from my pocket. In it was my annual grant-cheque for £335. I quickly calculated that I could afford to drink eight pints of beer every day for the entire academic year! Of course I'd forgotten to take into account food and rent, but there were no tuition fees to worry about.

So, yes, we were a privileged generation and I feel some guilt that both my children were saddled with student loans, but the Bank of Mum & Dad came to their rescue, thank goodness.

 

[DarloRich]

but the Bank of Mum & Dad came to their rescue, thank goodness.

no bank of mummy and daddy for me. Everything I have I have paid for including my student loan! I did get a very small grant because I came from a broken home but it didn't do much more than buy a few textbooks.

I am not even that old but there is a generational difference. Someone who is 20 today seems a lot less "world wise" than I was at 20. They seem to live very empty and superficial lives governed by what some simpleton "influencer" tells them.

 

[Snow1964]

Lots of material things are way cheaper in real terms today than they used to be. On another thread I surmised that a basic kettle in 1960 cost the equivalent of £100 today.

My (passed) dad used to talk in terms of how long it took to earn to buy something.

Eg our first colour TV (about 1974 ?) cost about 8 months wages, wanted to buy in bulk and save money so got a chest freezer (1976 ?) was 2 months wages.

They could only get something every couple of years, an automatic washing machine to replace aging twin tub etc.

 

[35B]

no bank of mummy and daddy for me. Everything I have I have paid for including my student loan! I did get a very small grant because I came from a broken home but it didn't do much more than buy a few textbooks.

I am not even that old but there is a generational difference. Someone who is 20 today seems a lot less "world wise" than I was at 20. They seem to live very empty and superficial lives governed by what some simpleton "influencer" tells them.

I think the role of "influencers" has replaced the roles of magazines in pop culture - young people have always followed fashions and tribes. As for the less worldly wise, I'd agree - I know I was worrying as a parent about my 16 year old son doing journeys (complete with mobile phone and remote IT support) that I'd been doing on my own without anything of the sort much younger. I come back to my point that, as an adult generation, we have helped create the world that our children inhabit

 

[DarloRich]

I know I was worrying as a parent about my 16 year old son doing journeys (complete with mobile phone and remote IT support) that I'd been doing on my own without anything of the sort much younger. I come back to my point that, as an adult generation, we have helped create the world that our children inhabit

I regularly went to away games on the train on my own from about 14. Obviously only payphones to make any contact with home. One day me and my mate told our parents we were staying at each others houses and bunked off to London to watch the match. We didn't have any train tickets...............

The same sort of dangers existed then as exist today yet i doubt kids of 14 are getting the train all over the country to watch the football!

( we got caught on the way HOME but the guard, after giving us a bit of a rocket, asked about the match and what we had told our parents I think he could see it was a bit of high jinks and weren't going to cause any bother for him)

 

[RT4038]

The point is more that people "these days" are classing far more things as essential, when they're really not, and then claiming that they have far less disposable income.

Yes a mobile phone is pretty much essential these days. However, paying £60+ per month to have one of the latest, top spec models on contract absolutely is not essential.

Sky/Virgin TV, Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, Discovery+ etc etc - all not essential, there's plenty of programming available on Freeview and free streaming platforms. Same goes for things like Spotify - radio exists.

Birthday parties have become a weekend away in Benidorm or Málaga or Amsterdam with friends. Holidays are a cruise or the Caribbean or Mexico, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Japan etc. And no, I'm not saying everyone should be restricted to a week in a caravan in Skegness. But where a holiday was once a week or two per year, people are going abroad multiple times a year, and going further.

Young people used to drive around in cheap second hand cars. Now they're driving around in brand new - often "premium" brand - cars because leasing/PCP deals have made them more affordable. But they're still more expensive than purchasing and owning a used car outright.

Eating/drinking out. Yes, Starbucks. Takeaways. Fast food and casual dining restaurants. Meals out aren't for special occasions anymore. Pricey coffee shops are a daily visit. A takeaway isn't a payday treat.

I could probably go on. Yes, some of those things sound a bit cliche. In isolation, some of those things don't sound that bad. But they don't tend to be enjoyed in isolation. They're all combined. Worse still, I'm regularly seeing and hearing people include all these sorts of things in their breakdown of living expenses and then going on to complain that they have little to no "disposable" income left over. Those things are your disposable income!

I broadly agree with this - things have got a lot better since my childhood for the younger generation up to leaving education. It is the expectation gap after that point that is the problem. It is a bit like the parable of the Prodigal Son - they are getting the benefits all up front, and then having a problem once it is their turn to make their way in life, because they find they cannot afford the same standard of living that their parents have been providing for them. This is exacerbated by student loans.

The boomers probably didn't go to University (only a small percentage did, and got grants to do so), and more than likely stayed at home until they got married. Even then they probably stayed in a small flat. As other posters have pointed out, society has changed a lot since the days of the boomers starting out in life - women going out to work, more single people, more divorces, more money available for couples to pay more for their houses, far more graduates expecting graduate pay and status etc etc. There is a huge gap between the wealth of a couple with both members working (especially if both are 'professionals') compared to a single person professional or not. These things just were not an issue when the boomers were children. People selling houses are particularly aiming for the 'Professional' couple! There is no-one cause that is to 'blame' for the younger generation expectation gap - society has changed, for good and for bad, and this will not be turned back easily.

Far too many youngsters have gone to University - but that is not necessarily their fault. Further Education has been used as a safety valve for the structural adjustment of UK society - to mask unemployment and skills overcapacity during the transition from an Industrial and manufacturing base. The glacial speed that policy changes are made often mean that when society changes, education changes even slower, leaving skill shortages/mismatches that are required to be filled by immigration. However, 50% of 18 year olds going to University, with maintenance grants and no tuition fees is simply unaffordable (at least without huge sacrifice somewhere else), and anyway is unnecessary.

I think your parents are a different generation to mine, perhaps? "Boomer" is like most of the generations quite wide, and there is a fair difference between early Xers and late Xers. My parents were big beneficiaries of Thatcher. Yes, they were (and are) middle class, my Dad was a manager at the TSB, however when they bought their first house I think he was still a cashier. And they had only one income until I was in my teens (mid 40s now) when my Mum went back to work because she was bored at home with no kids to look after.

no bank of mummy and daddy for me. Everything I have I have paid for including my student loan! I did get a very small grant because I came from a broken home but it didn't do much more than buy a few textbooks.

Everyone's experience is different. My parents, with three children, lived in a two bedroom council flat in central London. They could only afford to buy a 3 bedroom terraced house (1969) 50 miles away (my Dad was, at that time a bottom rung manager on the Railway). He could do this because he got a cheap season ticket. For the next three years we were skint [two sets of clothes - school and other] and things only improved because (a) my Mum could then get a part time job, and (b) inflationary pay increases started to reduce the relative % of mortgage payments . But we were happy! I didn't go to University - I got a job, could work plenty (and I mean plenty) of overtime and got on my financial feet for a house deposit when I left home for a job elsewhere.

There is no 'blame'on any generation - individuals also need to have a life plan and realise that financial security comes with all sorts of compromises on the way!

I am not sure that cutting the wealth of older people (specifically), many of whom will have worked long and hard during their lifetime, in order that the younger generation can have a better standard of living than they could have hoped for at that age, is particularly fair. Of course, the other problem is that there is such a wide variation in circumstances that requires close government intervention in our financial affairs - perhaps the answer to the specific envy of @Bletchleyite and his parents is to tax cruises.......

 

[ChrisC]

Once again, you're making a lot of assumptions. How do you know that students are wearing designer clothes and expensive trainers?

I quite often visit the art gallery which is in the grounds of Nottingham University. A large number of students are walking around the university grounds wearing the expensive North Face jackets which cost around £350. There are not insignificant numbers wearing Canada Goose and Moncler jackets which can cost in excess of £1,000. Not all students are wearing designer clothes and expensive trainers, but a significant number are.

I think the whole situation regarding tuition fees and student grants is appalling. I just can’t believe the huge debts students are leaving university with these days. I know that I had it easy in comparison in the 1970’s but I also remember what terrible inadequate basic accommodation I lived in for 3 years when I was at college and how little I was able to spend on clothing.

 

[bleeder4]

no bank of mummy and daddy for me. Everything I have I have paid for including my student loan! I did get a very small grant because I came from a broken home but it didn't do much more than buy a few textbooks.

I am not even that old but there is a generational difference. Someone who is 20 today seems a lot less "world wise" than I was at 20. They seem to live very empty and superficial lives governed by what some simpleton "influencer" tells them.

Yes, I'm early 40s but cannot relate at all to someone in their 20s. I'm the last generation that grew up without the Internet and technology. I get on much better with the older generations. They can describe their upbringing to me and life experiences and what they got up to and it will be similar to mine, we will be able to compare notes about so many things. But if a 20 year old described their upbringing and life experiences to me it would be incomprehensible. The gap between my generation and the generation that came after me is a huge chasm.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am not sure that cutting the wealth of older people (specifically), many of whom will have worked long and hard during their lifetime, in order that the younger generation can have a better standard of living than they could have hoped for at that age, is particularly fair.

I disagree. I think it's very fair. Particularly if you do it at inheritance.

Of course, the other problem is that there is such a wide variation in circumstances that requires close government intervention in our financial affairs - perhaps the answer to the specific envy of @Bletchleyite and his parents is to tax cruises.......

I think calling it envy is wrong. As a middle class GenXer I sit in the middle - I could afford a house for instance. It's the GenZ and Gen Alpha I feel for.

Having said that I would struggle to disagree with the idea of taxing premium foreign holidays, on carbon grounds if nothing else. Ships are awful for carbon emissions, something that is often ignored. Long distance international travel is not taxed even nearly enough.

 

[Bantamzen]

A 700g Tesco Finest lasagne is currently £7.60.

It is 30% beef, so has a mere 210g of beef in it.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/315581175

A pack of 250g beef steak mince is £2.69 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/279704092
Lasagne sheets 75p https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/250211327
Sauces are either £3.50 for Dolmio https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/316790692 / https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/316932168
Or £1.36 for Tesco https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/268012570 / https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/305054095

So between £4.80-£6.94 and if you're making it for two people you'd have more than half of your sauce and lasagne sheets leftover.

If we did a per-portion basis for the sauce and pasta, it's £3.53-£4.39 for two people compared to £7.60 ready meal.

And that contains ~20% more beef. Though I'd personally swap some of that for pancetta and mushrooms for about the same cost.

And that's before considering making the sauces yourself.

Basically close to half price and with 20% more beef.

For say 340 days of the year, that's a saving of about a grand, just on dinner. Making own sandwiches instead of a meal deal for lunch, call it another grand.

Crikey, lasagne was very much a luxury food for most people when I was growing up (I'm nearly 56). In fact the first time I had one was when I went to Italy with my mates in 1988 (we drove there and back, never again). Growing up the closest to "exotic" foods you got from the supermarkets were Vesta curries! Thankfully growing up in Bradford and with quite a lot Asian mates at school, I was introduced early on to real Asian cooking (especially home made samosas, ooooh!) so I was occasionally privileged enough to something different than meat & veg pretty much every day. Which was pretty much all we ever ate, meat and two veg. And anyone with a Liverpool background will tell you about "Scouse". An absolute Scousers staple, usually consisting of any leftovers from previous day's meals made into a stew, and if you were dead lucky with a pie crust. But you had to be dead lucky. So the meat and two veg leftovers became a meat and two veg stew.

The choice of foods available today was pretty much unthinkable 40 or 50 years ago.

 

[styles]

Crikey, lasagne was very much a luxury food for most people when I was growing up (I'm nearly 56). In fact the first time I had one was when I went to Italy with my mates in 1988 (we drove there and back, never again). Growing up the closest to "exotic" foods you got from the supermarkets were Vesta curries! Thankfully growing up in Bradford and with quite a lot Asian mates at school, I was introduced early on to real Asian cooking (especially home made samosas, ooooh!) so I was occasionally privileged enough to something different than meat & veg pretty much every day. Which was pretty much all we ever ate, meat and two veg. And anyone with a Liverpool background will tell you about "Scouse". An absolute Scousers staple, usually consisting of any leftovers from previous day's meals made into a stew, and if you were dead lucky with a pie crust. But you had to be dead lucky. So the meat and two veg leftovers became a meat and two veg stew.

The choice of foods available today was pretty much unthinkable 40 or 50 years ago.

Oh I 100% agree. I'm in my 30s for context. My mum was very much meat, spuds, and two veg. If we had lasagne it was a ready meal.

It was when I went to uni with housemates from Lebanon and India that I started to explore different foods. We now eat mainly 'Asian' cuisine (I'm aware this is a very broad term) and Mediterranean. I'll still make British comfort food like pies and bangers n mash, but for most of the year we're on cuisines which my mum hadn't even tried, despite her service in the Army. Tonight I'm making spanikopita, which I doubt my mum has ever eaten (and now probably can't due to the vitamin K content).

Speaking of Scouse, I'm reminded of a scout camp when I was I'd guess about 14. The camp leader had asked the cook (who was actually a full time chef) to use whatever we had left. He took it literally. That soup didn't just have beef and rice, it had brown sauce and ground crisps and chocolate. Suffice to say, nobody ever told him to use whatever we had left again

 

[35B]

I quite often visit the art gallery which is in the grounds of Nottingham University. A large number of students are walking around the university grounds wearing the expensive North Face jackets which cost around £350. There are not insignificant numbers wearing Canada Goose and Moncler jackets which can cost in excess of £1,000. Not all students are wearing designer clothes and expensive trainers, but a significant number are.

And Nottingham university is well known for attracting a high intake of public school students - what my son (at Durham, which has many such) refers to as the "rahs".

I am not sure that cutting the wealth of older people (specifically), many of whom will have worked long and hard during their lifetime, in order that the younger generation can have a better standard of living than they could have hoped for at that age, is particularly fair.

No one is suggesting cutting anything. The issue of inter-generational equity is the way that a set of policies have, as a set, undermined the stake of the young in society by putting a lot of costs on them and not providing them with the same ladders that many of us had. A shift in the balance would not cut the position of the older part of society, but would help the younger significantly - particularly those who aren't obvious and wearing the designer gear. Some of that would simply be through policy changes like reducing the ability of objectors to prevent building projects; others might be more contentious (e.g. taxing the state pension when a pensioner receives more than the personal allowance, stopping the triple lock).

 

[ChrisC]

Crikey, lasagne was very much a luxury food for most people when I was growing up (I'm nearly 56). In fact the first time I had one was when I went to Italy with my mates in 1988 (we drove there and back, never again). Growing up the closest to "exotic" foods you got from the supermarkets were Vesta curries! Thankfully growing up in Bradford and with quite a lot Asian mates at school, I was introduced early on to real Asian cooking (especially home made samosas, ooooh!) so I was occasionally privileged enough to something different than meat & veg pretty much every day. Which was pretty much all we ever ate, meat and two veg. And anyone with a Liverpool background will tell you about "Scouse". An absolute Scousers staple, usually consisting of any leftovers from previous day's meals made into a stew, and if you were dead lucky with a pie crust. But you had to be dead lucky. So the meat and two veg leftovers became a meat and two veg stew.

The choice of foods available today was pretty much unthinkable 40 or 50 years ago.

I’m nearly 70 now so was a child during the 1960’s. Most of our meals were meat and vegetables although we did have fish at least once a week. My dad was a keen gardener and so we always had plenty of fresh vegetables. He also grew salad items like lettuce, raddish, cellary and had a greenhouse full of tomatoes. Everything was seasonal and not available all year round like it is these days. We only really ate salads in summer and I can remember the excitement of getting the first small new potatoes each year and green beans and peas.

My mum used to get a relative large joint of meat for Sunday lunch and the leftovers lasted well into the week used in pies, stews, soups etc and eaten cold on salads. I was reading an article written by a local butcher recently who is due to retire soon, he was saying how few of the younger generation now buy a joint of meat at the weekend because they don’t cook the traditional Sunday lunch.

We certainly used to eat lot more bread than I do now. I can remember regularly eating bread and jam which is a thing I rarely have these days. We also had lots of home made fruit pies, crumbles and sponge puddings. All cake eaten was homemade and never from a shop.

I suppose in those days school meals and the meals that I had for 3 years when I was at college were almost the same being mostly meat and veg.
I didn’t have my first takeaway meal until I was in my late teens and that was from a Chinese takeaway. I still don’t have takeaway food now because living in a village it means getting in the car and driving to the nearest town to get one.

 

[Tetchytyke]

quite often visit the art gallery which is in the grounds of Nottingham University. A large number of students are walking around the university grounds wearing the expensive North Face jackets which cost around £350. There are not insignificant numbers wearing Canada Goose and Moncler jackets which can cost in excess of £1,000. Not all students are wearing designer clothes and expensive trainers, but a significant number are.

And Nottingham university is well known for attracting a high intake of public school students - what my son (at Durham, which has many such) refers to as the "rahs".

I'm a Durham graduate from 20-odd years ago and I've since spent a lot of my career working at Durham and Newcastle universities.

Top-tier universities, which includes the likes of Nottingham, Durham, and Newcastle, have significant numbers of extremely rich students. When I was a student there were people within my wider social circle whose parents simply bought them a house rather than paying to rent one. They didn't have student loans because their parents funded their subsistence in its entirety. And yes, they were wearing the luxury designer brands of the time. And they were holidaying in Verbier during the winter break and holidaying in Mustique or Barbados in the summer. They could afford it, why wouldn't they?

This is where the student loan is particularly unfair, in my opinion. The very rich don't need them and so don't take them out. The poorer students do need them and do take them out. So you can have two people earning the same money doing the same job, yet one of them earns 9% more than the other simply because of what their parents had.

It is much fairer to simply make it a 9% graduate tax and make it apply to all graduates.

Crikey, lasagne was very much a luxury food for most people when I was growing up (I'm nearly 56).

Oh I 100% agree. I'm in my 30s for context. My mum was very much meat, spuds, and two veg. If we had lasagne it was a ready meal.

I'm in my 40s and grew up in Bradford and it wasn't a luxury meal by that stage. It was home-made by my mother, who is a good cook and taught me how to cook, rather than shop-bought. And it was a good filling meal to make using relatively cheap meat and pasta. Stews and corned beef hash were other staples for the same reason.

We did have takeaways. It was mostly curry from the Kashmir curry house on Morley Street. It's not what it was, but back in the day it was full of Asian families all eating at the long formica tables. It was cheap, hot, good quality food. There's no way we could have made it at home for less. Clearly the same applied to the families dining there.

Lasagne was was just an example of how ready meals often aren't cheaper, or aren't significantly cheaper, than cooking from scratch. You might save 50p or £1 per person by cooking from scratch compared to buying a ready meal and bunging it in the oven for half an hour. But you've had to spend an extra half an hour in the kitchen cooking, and an extra half an hour washing all the pans afterwards, in order to save at most a couple of quid.

If you're poor and you're out at work for 10-12 hours a day at HMP Amazon Prime Delivery Centre, the last thing you have time for is to faff around for an hour cooking when you can do a microwave dinner in three minutes.

Actually, the time issue applies right across the board: money can't buy you time. Which is why the very rich don't cook either, they're wealthy enough to pay someone else to do it for them, so that's what they do. Again, they have the money, why not?

 

[styles]

Lasagne was was just an example of how ready meals often aren't cheaper, or aren't significantly cheaper, than cooking from scratch.

But... it wasn't? As I demonstrated, it's about half the cost to make it yourself, with 20% more beef, and for a couple that can come to a grand a year just for one meal of the day?

 

[35B]

I'm a Durham graduate from 20-odd years ago and I've since spent a lot of my career working at Durham and Newcastle universities.

Top-tier universities, which includes the likes of Nottingham, Durham, and Newcastle, have significant numbers of extremely rich students. When I was a student there were people within my wider social circle whose parents simply bought them a house rather than paying to rent one. They didn't have student loans because their parents funded their subsistence in its entirety. And yes, they were wearing the luxury designer brands of the time. And they were holidaying in Verbier during the winter break and holidaying in Mustique or Barbados in the summer. They could afford it, why wouldn't they?

Precisely - which is why stereotyping is such a risk. When I visit Durham, it's the richer students who tend to be obvious, not the more "ordinary" ones.

This is where the student loan is particularly unfair, in my opinion. The very rich don't need them and so don't take them out. The poorer students do need them and do take them out. So you can have two people earning the same money doing the same job, yet one of them earns 9% more than the other simply because of what their parents had.

It is much fairer to simply make it a 9% graduate tax and make it apply to all graduates.

Completely agree - though as a graduate tax it would be paid rather than written off by many, I'd suggest that it could probably afford to be lower than 9%.

 

[Tetchytyke]

But... it wasn't? As I demonstrated, it's about half the cost to make it yourself, with 20% more beef, and for a couple that can come to a grand a year just for one meal of the day?

You didn't really, though. My example was a premium ready meal and you've chosen cheaper ingredients and, even then, you demonstrated you'd struggle to make a lasagne to feed two people for much less than a fiver. So you might save £1-£1.50 per person. But you'll spend an hour in the kitchen to save three quid.

For context, you can get a frozen lasagne from Iceland to feed one person for £1.15. Yes, the biggest ingredient is water. Yes, it only has the merest smear of meat inside it. But it is £1.15.

I cook from scratch when I can because I have more control over what goes into it. It's definitely healthier. I bulk it out with other things, like cooking bacon lardons and mushrooms (look away now Italians). It's possibly even a couple of quid cheaper. Maybe a bit more if I go heavier on the pasta and lighter on the meat ragu sauce. But it is certainly not a life-changing amount of money.

 

[styles]

You didn't really, though. My example was a premium ready meal and you've chosen cheaper ingredients and, even then, you demonstrated you'd struggle to make a lasagne to feed two people for much less than a fiver. So you might save £1-£1.50 per person. But you'll spend an hour in the kitchen to save three quid.

I actually gave examples of cheaper ingredients and premium ingredients and showed it to still be much cheaper.

For context, you can get a frozen lasagne from Iceland to feed one person for £1.15. Yes, the biggest ingredient is water. Yes, it only has the merest smear of meat inside it. But it is £1.15.

Well we're shifting the goalposts here aren't we. We started with a premium lasagne and the suggestion that it wouldn't be much more expensive than making yourself. I demonstrated that you could have 20% more meat for about half the price making it yourself.

Now we're talking about a £1.14 frozen lasagne? It has 28g of beef in a 500g product and is clearly not the same product. I could run the numbers again to make this Iceland equivalent product and it would still be cheaper to make it yourself. As a starting point, buying the same 250g of beef I linked to the first time, 28g of that would cost a mere 30p. Water costs pennies, and is the main ingredient. Without bothering to check all the individual ingredients costs is estimate you could make that same Iceland lasagne for about half the price.

That's before even considering that we should be discouraging consumption of such awful ready meals. If someone regularly eats this watery ready meal they will be deficient in protein, fiber, vitamins, and over consuming salt and sugar, based on the nutrition table.

I cook from scratch when I can because I have more control over what goes into it. It's definitely healthier. I bulk it out with other things, like cooking bacon lardons and mushrooms (look away now Italians). It's possibly even a couple of quid cheaper. Maybe a bit more if I go heavier on the pasta and lighter on the meat ragu sauce. But it is certainly not a life-changing amount of money.

Maybe you don't consider £2k a year a significant amount of money but many people do.

 

[AM9]

I think the role of "influencers" has replaced the roles of magazines in pop culture - young people have always followed fashions and tribes. As for the less worldly wise, I'd agree - I know I was worrying as a parent about my 16 year old son doing journeys (complete with mobile phone and remote IT support) that I'd been doing on my own without anything of the sort much younger. I come back to my point that, as an adult generation, we have helped create the world that our children inhabit

Your last sentence (in bold) is so true. I'm probably older than most posting in this thread, - (wrong side of 75), but in the '80s when i lived and worked in Hampshire, I was chatting a work colleague who was probably in his early '60s. He grew up in a Victorian part of Fratton, Portsmouth, that was at that time being cleared for development. He thought it was a shame and the conversation drifted as it often did to 'the youth of today' subject. His comment was "when I lived there, you could leave your front door unlocked and nobody would steal anything, - not like it would be now!". My answer was nobody had much to steal, everybody in the area was in the same position. He then moved on to say, "why is there so much crime on the equivalent estates now" (citing Paulsgrove and Leigh Park as examples). My answer was that comparing the days of his youth to then (the '80s):

wealthier people tended to live away from very poor areas, and mobility, - even for the very poor was much more common than 50 years ago​

awareness of relative wealth was generally understoood in pre-war years, but in general the have-nots could just ignore it and get on with their lives in their own communities.​

By the '80s the advent of commercial TV and commercial radio was fed to the population with a never ending undertone to advertisements that, if you didn't have this product you were a lesser person.​

For many, acquisition of whatever asset by getting into debt was not good so some chose the criminal route to becoming a person that the advertisement described, - meaning that they could look down onto others.​

He sort of accepted the argument, but didn't seem to realise just how much pressure the 'must get' publicity was impacting on the have-nots.
So how do I think this relates to the topic of this thread? There are impoverished adults at all ages in society, but the imperative of business is to keep plugging away for more sales (i.e.profits) by any available means, if appropriate, weaponising poverty, culture differences and in many influencer situations, deception. With continuous online access to the the public, the pressures are immense, particularly when it is applied to those with limited adult life experience. This is in my view the biggest hurdle that young adults need to master.

 

[Lewisham2221]

With continuous online access to the the public, the pressures are immense, particularly when it is applied to those with limited adult life experience. This is in my view the biggest hurdle that young adults need to master.

This is a very apt point also. Somebody mentioned up thread about influencers being the modern equivalent of magazines. This is true to certain degree. However social media has amplified this and also brings about an increased amount of keeping up with the Jones'People see someone else their age going on holiday to Dubai and think they must be failing in life because they aren't holidaying in Dubai. But they fail to take into account the whole set of circumstances.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I am not even that old but there is a generational difference. Someone who is 20 today seems a lot less "world wise" than I was at 20. They seem to live very empty and superficial lives governed by what some simpleton "influencer" tells them.

My dad left school in the early 1970s at 15 with nothing- he thought CSEs were a waste of time, so simply refused to take them- and went and got a job. He worked up from there.

Legally, that wouldn't be allowed now. In England, you can only leave school at 16 if you stay in full-time education, start an apprenticeship, or spend 20 hours or more a week working or volunteering while in part-time education or training. So effectively the school leaving age in England is now 18. You can't legally just go and get a job.

I get why the law was changed, but I think that a consequence of the change is that it infantilises people in their late teens.

As for influencers, young people have always followed fashion tribes. My granddad was a Teddy Boy, my dad was a Mod. Social media has replaced magazines and influencers are just the modern iteration of the models you saw in years gone by. The likes of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton from back in the 60s are no different to the Instagram influencers of today. There really is nothing new under the sun.

 

[RT4038]

No one is suggesting cutting anything.

And then a few sentences later

Some of that would simply be through policy changes like reducing the ability of objectors to prevent building projects; others might be more contentious (e.g. taxing the state pension when a pensioner receives more than the personal allowance, stopping the triple lock).

Cutting wealth and income of pensioners.... Let's call a spade, a spade. Not sure how much objecting to building projects is really an issue - like building more roads , the more housing availability the more homes we build the more people will want to live in them instead of what they are doing now - less living at home with parents, less living at home or in 'shares' , more divorces or transient living, more single occupation, more immigrants etc. Soon be filled. Then what - more houses?

There may well be some cuts that are justified - National Insurance payment when working over state pension age for instance, but remember that not everyone is in the same position (a pensioner still renting for instance)

I'm a Durham graduate from 20-odd years ago and I've since spent a lot of my career working at Durham and Newcastle universities.

Top-tier universities, which includes the likes of Nottingham, Durham, and Newcastle, have significant numbers of extremely rich students. When I was a student there were people within my wider social circle whose parents simply bought them a house rather than paying to rent one. They didn't have student loans because their parents funded their subsistence in its entirety. And yes, they were wearing the luxury designer brands of the time. And they were holidaying in Verbier during the winter break and holidaying in Mustique or Barbados in the summer. They could afford it, why wouldn't they?

This is where the student loan is particularly unfair, in my opinion. The very rich don't need them and so don't take them out. The poorer students do need them and do take them out. So you can have two people earning the same money doing the same job, yet one of them earns 9% more than the other simply because of what their parents had.

It is much fairer to simply make it a 9% graduate tax and make it apply to all graduates.

There are always going to be poor and rich people. There is always going to be people better off because of what their parents had. That is life. There is a limit to how that can or should be levelled up. We are not born equal, or ever equal in life. Don't go to University if you don't have the motivation and effort to work and pay off the loan. I work with a youngster who went to Uni to do a Criminology degree. Racked up £70k debt. Does a Criminology degree but doesn't want to work for the Police! Did a Crown Court ushers job for a few months but didn't like that. Now doing an admin job, keeping the salary under the minimum amount to start paying off the loan. What a waste.