Why do people think Boomers had it so good?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the difference between me and my peers and our boomer parents is that they are just far more frugal than we are. My parents saved and scrimped and said "no" a lot. I will fully admit that I spend so much more, and my kids have so much more than I did at their ages. A lot of this is about spending vs saving. We could all do better.

BINGO!!

My parents also scrimped and saved and said "no" majority of time to anything that was not a need.
Heck, I was in college before they got a Color TV (I'm early 50s now) and didn't have cable/streaming until they were in their 60s.
Dining out when I was in MS/HS was Pizza or a trip to "Golden Corral" (entire family eats for $5-6 each person)

SO while it's not all about saving vs spending, you have to admit most people have a significantly longer list of "needs" now than our parents did.

I think it obviously varies a lot. My in-laws are MC BIG spenders: dinners out several times a week always, restaurants, drinks, many many clothes, three TVs. These types of boomers are not doing well financially. They're the first in line for pricey phone upgrades, still pay for expensive cable. In my mind boomers do not equate good financial sense or frugality at all. If anything they are a model of how not to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the difference between me and my peers and our boomer parents is that they are just far more frugal than we are. My parents saved and scrimped and said "no" a lot. I will fully admit that I spend so much more, and my kids have so much more than I did at their ages. A lot of this is about spending vs saving. We could all do better.

BINGO!!

My parents also scrimped and saved and said "no" majority of time to anything that was not a need.
Heck, I was in college before they got a Color TV (I'm early 50s now) and didn't have cable/streaming until they were in their 60s.
Dining out when I was in MS/HS was Pizza or a trip to "Golden Corral" (entire family eats for $5-6 each person)

SO while it's not all about saving vs spending, you have to admit most people have a significantly longer list of "needs" now than our parents did.

I think it obviously varies a lot. My in-laws are MC BIG spenders: dinners out several times a week always, restaurants, drinks, many many clothes, three TVs. These types of boomers are not doing well financially. They're the first in line for pricey phone upgrades, still pay for expensive cable. In my mind boomers do not equate good financial sense or frugality at all. If anything they are a model of how not to be.

Definately varies! For my parents, both grew up poor, very poor. Think working on a farm and paying your own way to college poor. And other was sole child with single parent (not that common in 1940s), so that child (my parent) started working 20-30 hr/week last 2 years of HS and never had a chance to even go to college. So parents continued to be frugal.

Now it paid off, they had enough saved to go to a CCRC (well not enough themselves, we had to pay the entry fee, but otherwise they have enough), and are now living the best life in their 70/80s+ with people who are worth 10-20X+ what they have.

But it is still hard to convince them to spend anything, despite fact I've told them I dont' need it (we don't).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They retired early. By 45-55, most boomers could retire especially if they had a pension. There were certain city jobs like police officers where if you work 20 years, you get a pension for the rest of your life. You would still be young enough to vacation, pay off a house, and afford your kids’ college tuition.

Now the tuition is the cost of a house and pensions don’t exist. The concept of working for the same company for 20 years is something that died with boomers and maybe a few older Gen X. Such a concept is foreign and completely alien to millenials.

You're joking, right? I don't know anyone who retired at that age. But go on, fantasize about this mythical generation that had it soooo good instead of acknowledging that different people had different experiences.

By chance, are your parents jerks? Sometimes I find that people resent their boomer parents and apply that resentment to everyone that age. But, regardless, how about doing some actual research before making absurd statements about "most boomers"?

I only know older people who did that. People born in the 30s worked at some good places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They retired early. By 45-55, most boomers could retire especially if they had a pension. There were certain city jobs like police officers where if you work 20 years, you get a pension for the rest of your life. You would still be young enough to vacation, pay off a house, and afford your kids’ college tuition.

Now the tuition is the cost of a house and pensions don’t exist. The concept of working for the same company for 20 years is something that died with boomers and maybe a few older Gen X. Such a concept is foreign and completely alien to millenials.

You're joking, right? I don't know anyone who retired at that age. But go on, fantasize about this mythical generation that had it soooo good instead of acknowledging that different people had different experiences.

By chance, are your parents jerks? Sometimes I find that people resent their boomer parents and apply that resentment to everyone that age. But, regardless, how about doing some actual research before making absurd statements about "most boomers"?

+1 I think the concept of "retiring early" had emerged with the tech boom (business not requiring initial huge capital investments unlike other traditional businesses) and creation of the young millionaire class, which was pretty much a unicorn concept many decades ago. Wealthy young people were primarily those inheriting their wealth, vs. current generations of young entrepreneurs able to sell their companies in their 30s to retire with many millions or reinvest into other startups. Crypto created a slew of new millionaires who tend to skew young as most older people with money are too cautious. I feel overall younger generation now is wealthier due to capital infusion into various startups (for every sphere of life) and job hopping for better pay becoming a norm as well as juggling multiple streams of income. Yes, it's way harder to have to hustle than to work the same job for decades and get hooked up with pension and never skip a beat on health insurance. Which is another thing dragging us all down, the atavistic attachment of health insurance to Full time employment for a large company.

Many opportunities and juggling different streams of wealth creation is why younger people feel screwed over, it's hard to manage all the info and make decisions, and there is no "recipe" but they still have more tools in the toolbox than older generations to get the wealth IMHO.

[Anonymous]

My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

[Anonymous]

It was easier to afford a single family house back then for sure. You could buy a house in Bethesda in the 1960’s on the equivalent of an 80k salary in 2024 dollars.

Everything is less affordable now than before. Doesn’t matter that the average house is bigger now because we don’t have the option of a tinier brand new house close in to the city anymore. Everything new is branded is “luxury” which massively jacked up prices, even cars.

You now need to earn $300,000-400,000 in the DC region to even think about buying a home that isn’t a condo or townhouse. Standard of living is less than it was before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was easier to afford a single family house back then for sure. You could buy a house in Bethesda in the 1960’s on the equivalent of an 80k salary in 2024 dollars.

Everything is less affordable now than before. Doesn’t matter that the average house is bigger now because we don’t have the option of a tinier brand new house close in to the city anymore. Everything new is branded is “luxury” which massively jacked up prices, even cars.

You now need to earn $300,000-400,000 in the DC region to even think about buying a home that isn’t a condo or townhouse. Standard of living is less than it was before.

There is no incentive and it's not affordable for the developers to build more modest housing as our "standards" had gone up. It's also due to the fact that there are way more people living in many major metro areas now than before. There is more competition for the well located housing, more demand generates incentives for the developers to build higher end homes as there are more people with money who will compete to get them and developers no longer need to cater to the middle class or working poor to sell their construction. Places that people don't want to live in are still cheap and it's where the affordable housing is built.

But if you look back.. a lot of areas that are now very $$$$ used to be way dumpier when Boomers bought and in no way competitive. Boomers who didn't buy back then are broke today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

I'm PP, forgot to mention my in-laws parents(wife's maternal and paternal grandparents) had it even better when it came to housing. Both sides owned homes in Tenleytown, bought for the equivalent of 225k, single income, 4-5 children. Those same homes are between 1.5-2 million today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

I'm PP, forgot to mention my in-laws parents(wife's maternal and paternal grandparents) had it even better when it came to housing. Both sides owned homes in Tenleytown, bought for the equivalent of 225k, single income, 4-5 children. Those same homes are between 1.5-2 million today.

What was tenleytown back then when they bought for 225K? My in-laws almost bought near Dupont back then when it was cheap and it was a no-go zone for most people as you could get jump and there was a red light district. They would have paid less and would have been sitting on more than one million today. Now, do people who bought in San Jose which was a total sh** hole with nothing around before Silicon Valley. Who cares. People were prescient and many didn't want to live in these areas back then and those who did sometimes sold before prices went way up and never "cashed out". How many areas never went up in price at all or not enough to barely keep with inflation? Inflation itself would make 225K home be worth 3x this depending on how many decades ago, that's not appreciation.. It's the deterioration of the buying power of your dollar.

[Anonymous]

It’s not hard today if you live the way people used to. Live in a 1950s Wheaton rambler, No dinners out, no air travel, no cable, no air condition, heat set at 60, flip phone only mint mobile, no eating out, minimal Walmart clothing, used Nissan Sentra, use McDonald’s parking lot Wi-Fi, Walmart / Aldi groceries no name brands.

The money piles up and invest it.

Have some discipline like the boomers grew up in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

$250000 in 1987 is $697000 in todays dollars. Rates were 10 percent then and are only 7 percent now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

$250000 in 1987 is $697000 in todays dollars. Rates were 10 percent then and are only 7 percent now.

They meant 250k in todays dollars so more like 90k back then

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was easier to afford a single family house back then for sure. You could buy a house in Bethesda in the 1960’s on the equivalent of an 80k salary in 2024 dollars.

Everything is less affordable now than before. Doesn’t matter that the average house is bigger now because we don’t have the option of a tinier brand new house close in to the city anymore. Everything new is branded is “luxury” which massively jacked up prices, even cars.

You now need to earn $300,000-400,000 in the DC region to even think about buying a home that isn’t a condo or townhouse. Standard of living is less than it was before.

According to posters they make more than $300,000 so it appears the salaries have increased just as rapidly as housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boomer inlaws had to deal with 10% mortgage rates in the late 80s, adjusted for inflation their house was 250K

We have 7% mortgage rates, and that same house is approaching 500k.

When you adjust for inflation, its 51% increase in mortgage costs for the same house today.

Your outlaws probably earned $35k a year in the 80s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It’s not hard today if you live the way people used to. Live in a 1950s Wheaton rambler, No dinners out, no air travel, no cable, no air condition, heat set at 60, flip phone only mint mobile, no eating out, minimal Walmart clothing, used Nissan Sentra, use McDonald’s parking lot Wi-Fi, Walmart / Aldi groceries no name brands.

The money piles up and invest it.

Have some discipline like the boomers grew up in.

Is your advice to live the decades of your life in poverty, pinching pennies and dealing with the discomfort of extreme weather while earning well and putting away cash and hope to enjoy it in old age hopefully if you don't drop dead before you get there?