You And Yours: Are You Worse Off Than Your Parents? Today 12:15

[campervanman]

"Barely replaced yourselves on a one to one basis if at all"

You obviously havn't looked at the birth rates between 1965 and 1975 then when the boomer generation started to have kids. As many children were born in the UK in the first 10 years of the Gen Xers as in the previous 10 years.

[Guest eight]

The argument that houses were cheaper for previous generations is not in question. What is in question is whether, as claimed by some, that everything else was.

I have somewhere some PDF's of mail order catalogues from the 80's. Almost everything then cost more in actual terms than they do now. Popular toys like Scalextrics and train sets, £150-£200, yet loads of people had them. How much was a Big Trak?

[crashmonitor]

There are a few things that are more expensive now as well as houses. Just a few things........

Fish and chips

Cinema tickets

Football tickets

Bus fares (well they don't need our fares anymore with the bus pass..some are more equal)

Coffee and bakeries

Energy

Council tax more than the former rates

But against that you have a cataclysmic collapse in the cost of clothes, electrical goods, furniture, cars and motoring costs and most especially food at the supermarket.

A lot of these increases are due to the rises in wages..The labour intensive thing that has actually gone down in price against all the odds is the pub meal. The guy who invented Wetherspoons should be made a Saint but for some f**k up at Vatican.

Edited October 25, 2014 by crashmonitor

[LiveinHope]

I have somewhere some PDF's of mail order catalogues from the 80's. Almost everything then cost more in actual terms than they do now. Popular toys like Scalextrics and train sets, £150-£200, yet loads of people had them. How much was a Big Trak?

I would say that "less is more". I certainly have a lot more toys and white goods at my age than my parents generation, and I can understand why they might say "if you didn't have those you could save for a house", they are wrong of course because I probably spend a similar amount proportionately, on a yearly basis because those goods are now cheaper. Other high end goods have come in eg., jet skis, but I don't buy those.

Am I better off ?

Probably not, because the UK is so fekked and preoccupied with house prices, and owning toys from abroad, above obtaining a quality of life.

Edited October 25, 2014 by LiveinHope

[Bear Goggles]

A high earning dual income household at 40-45% top tax and averaging 37% tax, might only take £135k PA net, so call it £11k per month net. If you have a mortgage of £2400, nanny costs of £2800, school fees (small kids) of £1400, plus car costs, electricity, gas etc, it doesn't leave a vast amount over. Now we could cut costs, but then a lot of that would then be picked up by the taxpayer.

It doesn't sound like the cost of housing is (directly) your problem. It is the cost of childcare, and the fact that you are being clobbered on income tax.

So the question is: If housing were cheaper, would you have much better lifestyle? Perhaps you'd be able to live in an area closer to where you work and have less childcare costs? Or live in a bigger house that you could feel was more fitting to your income? Or perhaps do less demanding jobs and have more free time?

In the context of lifestyle (rather than in purely financial terms) would you say you are better or worse off than your parents?

[Roman Roady]

"Barely replaced yourselves on a one to one basis if at all"

You obviously havn't looked at the birth rates between 1965 and 1975 then when the boomer generation started to have kids. As many children were born in the UK in the first 10 years of the Gen Xers as in the previous 10 years.

Same amount of births to a larger population.

The pyramid relies on the same number of births per person, not the the same number of births as an overall number.

[Kurt Barlow]

This is the position I am in - 45, so a GenX . My parents are too old to be boomers really - we fall between the cracks. Compared to my parents, I am materially far better off. Despite low house prices, they lived in a tiny flat in London, and I remember moving out to the country, my father spitting blood at handing over 20K for a 4 bed house that needed a shed load of work. The figures look stupidly low to us today, but so did his salary. In contrast I joined the job market in 1994, bought a house 2 years later and made an absolute killing on it. Basically if GenX ers were sensible, got a decent degree and didn't do anything stupid (like getting divorced) they should be in a very good place now.

Totally disagree with cars being expensive.They are as cheap as chips. I paid £1000 for a 2006 mondeo ghia tdci off ebay incredible car for the money. £200 pound a year with its life expectancy

Second hand cars are a bargain. New cars are outrageously expensive, which indeed why they are only affordable on monthly deals.

+1

[crashmonitor]

Pre-registered new small cars are about £7,000...I consider that cheap. The manufacturers are making not one penny from their production despite automation. We over produce cars in Europe and they get dumped in this country at a loss to the manufacturer. There is a lot of State subsidy going on especially in France.

You need a premium brand such as Mini before there is any chance of making a profit...most manufacturers don't.

New cars have never been so cheap in real terms.

Edited October 25, 2014 by crashmonitor

[winkie]

There are some good 'Tell Explain Describe' talks about inequality and growing generational inequality here.

http://www.ted.com/search?q=inequality

[Kurt Barlow]

Seeing as we’re doing our stories vs our parents, I’ll chip in. Hopefully this won’t come across as a narcissistic boast-post, cos that’s not the intention. Here goes…

My parents were both born in 1945. I grew up in a Victorian council maisonette in what was then an unfashionable part of North London, and only my dad worked for most of my childhood. Looking back, we were relatively poor, although at the time and place where I grew up I considered myself lucky because my dad worked in a secure job and none of my relatives were in prison. My parents bought their council flat in the mid 80s, and sold it many years later for a what was then considered a huge sum. Both retired in their early 60s and have now traded down and despite having separated, both enjoy good occupational pensions, no mortgages and comfortable middle class existences in nice provincial towns, foreign holidays at least twice a year, and yes, iPads. Plus more spare bedrooms than they have grandkids. Talk about being born in the right place at the right time.

I’m the tail end of Gen X - born mid 70s. It is possible that I could have bought a decent flat in around 2000 in London, or even earlier if I hadn’t spent a year of two backpacking and playing in a rock band (as you do). 1998 was around the time I got my first decently paid job after university and general crappy low-paid in-between jobs, plus a year or two to save a small deposit. Had I done that, I would just about have scraped onto the other side of the housing divide and could have traded up before prices started going totally mental about 5 years later.

But I didn’t do that, because I am an idiot. What I did instead was leave my job in the mid 2000s and start my own company. I sank absolutely everything I’d ever earned into it. I did this because I value what I do more than a bunch of bricks, and I generally pursue self-reliance and building something of true value, but like I say, it turns out that I am an idiot. From an economic perspective I have sacrificed having secure accommodation for my family, and missed out on a shed load of unearned equity, for a long time I watched friends ride the wave of asset appreciation, while I lived on baked beans in rented accommodation. The company I started went on to employ over 40 people. Jobs, you could argue that wouldn’t have existed if I had decided to do the right thing and buy a house while staying in my moderately paid IT job back in 2000. It was hard work starting out, and I had to live on virtually nothing for a number of years despite working harder and longer hours than my peers, and I can tell you I have felt some anger at the injustice of a financial system that rewards those who have speculated on property over those who have chosen to work hard and produce something of value.

Now I’m in a better position than those friends because I have freedom, a relatively passive income, and unlike them I am not enslaved to a massive mortgage. Despite what their houses might be ‘worth’, we live in a nicer area, with kids at better schools than they could afford, and we have more disposable income. I was lucky enough to able to take a sabbatical in 2013 and pursue my interests and reassess what I want to do for the next 10 years, I travelled the world with the wife and kids during the school holidays, and spent time learning new skills and indulging my geeky and sporty hobbies in between. There is NO WAY I would have been able to do that had I sunk everything into an overpriced house at age 21 (or at any point). I have now started a new venture and am beginning to have fun working hard again. I don’t know if it will be a success or whether I will lose everything I put in (although I have a hunch), but I do know I wouldn’t be doing what I want had I taken the red pill and got a massive mortgage.

And the council house I grew up in? It recently went on the market for £770k. Looks like my parents should have held on to it!

Madness. One of my great uncles got demobbed in 1946. Rejoined the postal service as a postie and became a supervisor around 1950 and was able to buy a reasonable 3 bed semi (his widow still lives in it today) in Eltham on a single wage with wife and child to support.

Not too dissimilar to this

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32572272.html

[cybernoid]

there's a sizeable number who are completely unaware of the obstacles facing younger people.

It would be nice if they knew of their own ignorance and kept their silly opinions to themselves.

[Starla]

This is the position I am in - 45, so a GenX . My parents are too old to be boomers really - we fall between the cracks. Compared to my parents, I am materially far better off. Despite low house prices, they lived in a tiny flat in London, and I remember moving out to the country, my father spitting blood at handing over 20K for a 4 bed house that needed a shed load of work. The figures look stupidly low to us today, but so did his salary. In contrast I joined the job market in 1994, bought a house 2 years later and made an absolute killing on it. Basically if GenX ers were sensible, got a decent degree and didn't do anything stupid (like getting divorced) they should be in a very good place now.

It will do me good to reply to this and illustrate why, as another 45 year old, Gen X'er, l'm not in that very good place now whereas others are. Whether that's down to "anything stupid" or rampant HPI I'm sure others will judge.

To answer whether I'm in a better place than my parents today. My parents were Boomers born in 46. Shotgun wedding in 1969 when I unexpectedly arrived, no money, sh*tty rental accomodation in London, mother walked out and never came back when I was 2. I lived with my Grandparents until aged 7 and then when my Dad remarried in 1976 we moved to the South East. Dad was a Van Driver, Step Mum was a Building Society Clerk and they bought a house which is marketed now for about 300k. They moved in 1982 to a house that in todays money is around £450k. We never had a lot of money and I was always making excuses why they couldn't afford to send me on school trips etc, but the type of house they could afford to buy is staggering in todays terms. They divorced and sold up when I was 16. Fast forward to today and my Dad is estranged/homeless/broke. Step Mum gave all her money to the church (code for a cult she joined run by a millionaire with a helicopter pad etc etc). Both have £0. In fact it anyone here isn't in a better position that my parents, I'd like to hear from you, it would take some doing!

At 16 I was out on my own but as RXE points out my Gen X birth date, was awesome timing to make something out of nothing (I feel for kids in that position today). I'd seen my parents do it easily with little work. So I started work at 16 got on with it.

1989 - Boyfriend at the time buys a flat in the South East (with BOMAD help) says I can joint own if I sign the paperwork and with no financial outlay. I decide just to live with him and pay rent. The smartest move of my life as that flat had lost 30% of it's value a few years later. He got bailed out anyway by the parents.

1995 - While everyone else is clambering out of the wreckage of the housing crash, I joint buy my first 2 up 2 down house for 72k. We saved 5k for the deposit etc. No help, brilliant timing and luck.

1997 - Sold first house for 87k. Joint bought second house for 115k

2001 - Broke up and sold house for 225k. After all expenses we both walk away with 56k each. I'd love to have kept that house but I couldn't buy him out due to HPI.

I could have done the sensible thing and bought my own flat immediately (HPI has priced me out of another house in my part of the SE, so my unearned equity and HPI isn't doing anyone any favours). Instead I decided to go travelling, saw the world, snowboarded down mountains. Some might call it being financially carefree. I call it life experience and living for once.

Late 2003 - I buy a 2 bed flat for 146k. 100k mortgage. It's borderline manageable and I have a flatmate to help with the cost. At this point I'm doing ok, until the obligatory nightmare relationship entered my life, without the gory details, but I ended up selling my flat, debts, and losing most of my belongings. I blame myself, sh*t happens to lots of people etc.

2006 - I'm in rental and watching house prices go through the roof, so I (panic) buy a 1 bed flat, 130k mortgage and I'm really feeling the financial pinch.

2008 - Interest rates are going up, economic carnage everywhere, it's reminding me too much of 1989, I can't afford for this to go wrong, plain and simple. I do the "sensible thing" and sell up and wait to re-enter the market in a better financial position when prices have fallen back in line with income ratio's. The sensible thing was my biggest mistake to date.

The original quote is correct that if Gen X'ers, born at the right time (which I was) they had great opportunities with housing. However, the turning point was 1997 where prices started to derail from average earnings, so providing you stayed in the same relationship, didn't have to deal with break up or divorce, had no forced life changes, and some financial help if needed along the way, you should indeed be ok.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Starla

[wherebee]

Gen-X er here.

Parents - father worked ships and then civil service. Got to middle management. Mother a part time teacher. You'd call them working class with middle class asperations (grandparents in service/forces). Bought a new build in the SE in about 1968 - one almost identical is on the market right now for 525,000. Bought another new build in 1975; that actual house is on now for 425,000 (thanks for this thread for making me look it up! wow!). Final move in 1979 to a larger house that cost them 33,000 (I remember my dad saying how much money that was, and the number stuck in my mind). Properties in that road now go for 1-2.5 Million.

So - my parents bought their 'lifetime' house when my dad hit early 40's, for 30,000. He wasn't well off, or highly paid, but had a secure job as a middle ranking civil servant. Always last to have the latest TV, didn't have a VCR until early 90's. etc. We watched the pennies, but never felt poor.

I earn in the top 1% of the UK salary curve (OK - live in HK, but similar jobs in the UK are actually paying more right now as a headline rate). Despite being in the topmost tier of legitimate incomes as an adult I could not afford to buy the house I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood in. Compared to both my parents, my pensions are fecked - moving jobs every few years, cross countries, means you end up with a pocket of feck all in schemes. Staying in one job was never an option, with job insecurity and lack of in job pay rises.

The boomers had it much, much better in three key areas:

i) whether you were rich or poor, affordable housing to bring up a family in was possible in the vast majority of the country

ii) social mobility was a real 'thing'. My dad was from a mining/services family, was very bright, and broke out of the village he was born in thanks to free education. Kids born in his old village today cannot do that. fact.

iii) employment was available to all - not full employment, but if you were willing to work, something was there. I have had that said to me by many elder relatives.

Gen-X and later:

i) internet/entertainment/travel much cheaper

ii) errr.

iii) did I mention Ipads?

I've been lucky and escaped so I should be financially independent very soon, and be able to help my kids in the same way. If I was being born now, I'd be truely fecked.

[winkie]

There is a very easy and simple way to measure prosperity.....two or three words....Freedom, Choices and Health/Security/safety.

No good having it all if you are having to sell your time to be where you don't want to be and/or working in a place you don't want to be working.

Freedom to move to where you want to be and having choices to do the work you want to do.....all the while being healthy at the same time of having the feeling of safety and security for yourself and your family/loved ones.

Money does not buy all of that......in fact having/needing less money can buy more of that.

[MattW]

Moi - grey area between X and Y.

My dad is 42 years older than me. He was my age (37) in the latter half of 1972, married, two young daughters, a 3 bedroomed council house and I think a car that was quite modern at that point. He was a self employed bricklayer.

Over the years I heard that life was a struggle. Their housing costs might have been reasonable but other living costs weren't. Mind they both had a '20 cigs a day habit' right up to the 1990s.

Despite my arrival in '77, the 1980s were probably the most financially secure for my family. Brickies were paid well and my mum earned reasonable money in her evening job. Enough for them to buy their council house for £10k in 1982/3 and renovate it a few times. They voted for Thatcher. Alas from 1990 things went bad with the building crash and my dad, despite being an excellent bricklayer, was finding it hard to find reasonably paid employment.

I suppose my situation is t'other way around than my parents in 1972. I'm guessing higher housing costs compared to income (49% of take my home pay currently) but after inflation, reasonable utility costs and food costs. And with no children of my own to support, maybe I am better off than my parents.

[campervanman]

@Stainlesssteelcat@Cybernoid

There are also a sizeable number with offspring who are "younger people" who hear of the obstacles facing younger people on a regular basis and who also have the experience of knowing some of the obstacles that have always faced younger people.

[Guest]

There is a very easy and simple way to measure prosperity.....two or three words....Freedom, Choices and Health/Security/safety.

No good having it all if you are having to sell your time to be where you don't want to be and/or working in a place you don't want to be working.

Freedom to move to where you want to be and having choices to do the work you want to do.....all the while being healthy at the same time of having the feeling of safety and security for yourself and your family/loved ones.

Money does not buy all of that......in fact having/needing less money can buy more of that.

Money certainly does buy all of that. If I want to move to Kensington and Chelsea a wad of cash is a prerequisite. A fat bank balance will provide safety and security to fall back on should I lose my job or want to change careers. You're only really free to work where and when you want if you don't depend on the income from work for survival. And how many health problems are ultimately down to stress - be it about work or about money?

Money buys security. Money buys options.

Downsizing and living frugally is great. But it only buys you freedom if you have enough capital to start with that you can free yourself from the biggest outgoing - the rent - with enough left over to give yourself a buffer against bad times. Otherwise 'having less money' is called destitution and you end up sanctioned on benefits. Without land of their own, to grow food and build shelter, no-one can 'opt out' enough to reduce their outgoings to zero.

The crime in the UK is that a measure of 'health/security/safety' is now out of reach of more and more people. Most of us are effectively serfs to the bankers or the landlords.

[winkie]

Money does not buy your health, money does not buy your friends and family, money does not buy fresh air, money does not buy love and peace of mind.

[campervanman]

Clothing, cars and food as well as anything electrical all seem cheaper relative to earnings than in the 1970's.

Edited October 25, 2014 by campervanman

[gf3]

Clothing, cars and food as well as anything electrical all seem cheaper relative to earnings than in the 1970's.

But on the other side of the coin. There is no money to be made selling them making them or fixing them.

[frozen_out]

And by 1997 you could buy a reasonably price home.

I was born in 1979, didn't get an average paying job till 2003 and then in 2013 I could buy... oh wait.

Pretty much my story. Except because I did a PhD I didn't get an average job until 2006. My stepsister was born in 75. Bought a house in 1995 (left school with no qualifications, 2 kids, her and her husband have only ever done menial jobs, raked it in in tax credits etc.). Thinks she was clever and I was stupid. It used to rile me up no end, but it really doesn't bother me now.

My dad and his wife are classic boomers (born early 50s). Even they can't fully understand how they managed to get to their early 60s having only ever done low-paid unskilled work and have their own house and enough money to spend 6 weeks a year all imclusive in a 5 star hotel in Mexico.

You could say we're an archetypal example of boomer/gen x/borderline and with my brother (born 1984) gen y. He's just sitting it out, he's currently shacked up somewhere abroad with a girl he met on the internet. No idea how he lives.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Pre-registered new small cars are about £7,000...I consider that cheap. The manufacturers are making not one penny from their production despite automation. We over produce cars in Europe and they get dumped in this country at a loss to the manufacturer. There is a lot of State subsidy going on especially in France.

You need a premium brand such as Mini before there is any chance of making a profit...most manufacturers don't.

New cars have never been so cheap in real terms.

So why is insurance 2 or 3 months minimum wagefor a young driver?

[Bear Goggles]

Pretty much my story. Except because I did a PhD I didn't get an average job until 2006. My stepsister was born in 75. Bought a house in 1995 (left school with no qualifications, 2 kids, her and her husband have only ever done menial jobs, raked it in in tax credits etc.). Thinks she was clever and I was stupid. It used to rile me up no end, but it really doesn't bother me now.

My dad and his wife are classic boomers (born early 50s). Even they can't fully understand how they managed to get to their early 60s having only ever done low-paid unskilled work and have their own house and enough money to spend 6 weeks a year all imclusive in a 5 star hotel in Mexico.

You could say we're an archetypal example of boomer/gen x/borderline and with my brother (born 1984) gen y. He's just sitting it out, he's currently shacked up somewhere abroad with a girl he met on the internet. No idea how he lives.

Yep, my dad jokes that he is the worst at making financial decisions and that if he was born at any other time in history would be a bum. He sold properties in 1989 (when my parents divorced), then rented/ shared and bought in 1994, then sold and traded down in early 2008. None of this was intentional, it was pure luck of the draw.

During my university summers - at the tail end of the early 90s recession - work was hard to come by and I was generally skint, he would tell me that when he was my age, he could just walk past the goods yards at St. Pancras and people would stand outside asking you if you wanted a day's work. You could haggle the rate up a bit and then do a few hours unloading goods wagons with your mates for some beer money. Of course he got a full maintenance grant when he was at uni, and didn't bother signing-on during the summer (you were allowed to back then) because it just made more sense to do a day's casual work when you needed the cash rather than fill out a load of boring forms and queue up with the down & outs.

To be fair, he didn't have that much disposable income until later in life, but despite not paying into a pension after the age of about 50 - he started a not very successful business that just ticked over for years (but required buying a large property in 1994) - his occupational pensions, and his having traded down, mean that he now lives a very nice lifestyle, spends most of the winter in southern Italy, where he and his wife have a small holiday home, and generally lives the boomer retirement dream.

He is fully aware of how lucky his generation has been, and does not have any sympathy at all for those in his generation that moan about young people being lazy, buying iPads etc.

A golden era.

p.s.

He also saw Hendrix live in London in 68, which is very very annoying. Although I saw Nirvana at Reading in 92, which according to a 21 year old I work with is apparently cooler. (It was cold and urinating it down in Reading 92 and someone head-butted me in the face in the mosh pit during the opening chords of smells like teen spirit - after which it was all over for me). You can bet that didn't happen to my dad during the summer of love. Bloody boomers!

Edited October 25, 2014 by Bear Goggles

[Kurt Barlow]

Gen-X er here.

Parents - father worked ships and then civil service. Got to middle management. Mother a part time teacher. You'd call them working class with middle class asperations (grandparents in service/forces). Bought a new build in the SE in about 1968 - one almost identical is on the market right now for 525,000. Bought another new build in 1975; that actual house is on now for 425,000 (thanks for this thread for making me look it up! wow!). Final move in 1979 to a larger house that cost them 33,000 (I remember my dad saying how much money that was, and the number stuck in my mind). Properties in that road now go for 1-2.5 Million.

So - my parents bought their 'lifetime' house when my dad hit early 40's, for 30,000. He wasn't well off, or highly paid, but had a secure job as a middle ranking civil servant. Always last to have the latest TV, didn't have a VCR until early 90's. etc. We watched the pennies, but never felt poor.

I earn in the top 1% of the UK salary curve (OK - live in HK, but similar jobs in the UK are actually paying more right now as a headline rate). Despite being in the topmost tier of legitimate incomes as an adult I could not afford to buy the house I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood in. Compared to both my parents, my pensions are fecked - moving jobs every few years, cross countries, means you end up with a pocket of feck all in schemes. Staying in one job was never an option, with job insecurity and lack of in job pay rises.

The boomers had it much, much better in three key areas:

i) whether you were rich or poor, affordable housing to bring up a family in was possible in the vast majority of the country

ii) social mobility was a real 'thing'. My dad was from a mining/services family, was very bright, and broke out of the village he was born in thanks to free education. Kids born in his old village today cannot do that. fact.

iii) employment was available to all - not full employment, but if you were willing to work, something was there. I have had that said to me by many elder relatives.

Gen-X and later:

i) internet/entertainment/travel much cheaper

ii) errr.

iii) did I mention Ipads?

I've been lucky and escaped so I should be financially independent very soon, and be able to help my kids in the same way. If I was being born now, I'd be truely fecked.

That's why I'm dumping the full $30K PA into Superannuation with a net tax relief of 31.5% (46.5% marginal rate - 15% contribution tax)

[gf3]

I agree with this. Just look at some of the old Woolworths Christmas special adverts on you tube (they had a habit of displaying prices in the Ads) . Things like video tapes (today's DVDs/BluRays) were clearly much more expensive in real terms. It is almost as if the UK has somehow artificially maintained its relative global wealth by paying less for manufactured items, and then by pulling off a fraud that our housing is worth more even as high skilled jobs left the UK.

And to answer the OP's original , I am better off than my parents, but as per the norm for society and to prove the exception to my self focused example our siblings are less well off. My parents had just above average working salaries most of their careers which got to around £28k and £15k in the mid 1990s when they retired, Their main benefit to me was that they put a strong emphasis on education. My wife and I (both graduates from top universities) have been earning salaries well above the national average for the last 10 years - each taking home at least £80k per year by 2008. My wife did then take a dip when we had kids in 2010, but by changing jobs I'd got my earnings up to £130k making up some of that difference. Since then my wife is now back to work on similar money to her old job (we employ a full time nanny) and I've increased my earnings again, though being in sales there is some variability

Again I don't want to be shot down by the jealous types on HPC, but I'd say we are now grossing between about £220k and £250k PA as a household. That said,we have a £450k mortgage( £2400 pcm) and a full time nanny (£2800 with employers NI) and all the other expenses plus the bulk of our earnings at 40pc tax I don't think we feel hugely well off. Yes we aren't debating whether to buy Heinz or Economy Beans, but I don't own a yacht on French Riviera. So whilst it is very good money, on post tax earnings we don't feel rich. Our neighbours who are on average 20 years older have and did have had far lower salaries than we do even allowing for salary inflation. That said, if we compared it with asset inflation things might look very different. I think a lot of employees and the jealous HPC types actually are focused on salary inflation (who is earning more than them) and then waste their time attacking the perceived 1%. Again, and I've said this before, it's not even the 1%, it is more like the 0.01% who are the problem. Also with decent unions, the average salary would certainly be higher and so £130k-150k wouldn't seem as much if overall salaries had kept pace.

A high earning dual income household at 40-45% top tax and averaging 37% tax, might only take £135k PA net, so call it £11k per month net. If you have a mortgage of £2400, nanny costs of £2800, school fees (small kids) of £1400, plus car costs, electricity, gas etc, it doesn't leave a vast amount over. Now we could cut costs, but then a lot of that would then be picked up by the taxpayer.

I don't want to shoot you down. I read your post just after you posted it,but then I remembered it when thinking about my Gran.

My Gran was the youngest of 11 children born 1902 (I think) very poor family when she was 13 she went to work in service. For those that don't know this meant she worked in a rich house hold cleaning ect. She was born in the forest of dean. Some one that had a similar life to my gran wrote a book "A child of the forest by Winifred foley" Employing some one to look after your kids just makes me think that things are going around again.