The younger 'milennial' generation certainly seem to spend a lot less than even my generation (late 30s) did. I can remember going for nights out in the late 90s and early 2000s when we were totally carefree, but back even then the housing situation was different for say a university graduate of a redbrick uni.

The usual attitude back then was, get your 2:1 but have lots of fun while you do it. Start a grad job on about £20k, after about 5 years or so you can be on £45k to £50k. Banks back then let you leverage up many multiples and so getting a mortgage of £200k was feasible and you would be able to get a house for that, even in London. I know people in areas like Dulwich who just sneaked in when they could buy for £250k in the 2000s, and houses in their area are going for £600k now.

You could still enjoy yourself back then - without going mad - and have a chance of getting on the property ladder, if you made some sensible prioritising decisions.

But when I see the younger graduates where I work now, their situation really is grim. They are much less in to partying than we were, they are much more health-conscious but their whole life choices are on a budget because they are trying to save up deposits which now in London really need to be six figures. And given what rents are, it's hard to save. The grads these days are on about £28k to £32k and even on those salaries, landlords are creaming off half their salary in rent, and not giving them much for it.

Mind you, those that end up buying the 'new builds' in London (usually due to an inheritance or wealthy parents) are on to a loser too. The quality of the building in these is poor and there are all sorts of problems, and management companies are just wealth extractors like landlords, taking huge service charges and not providing any proper service.

I know a lot of 'boomers' like to believe easy prejudices that 'the young of today just think the world owes them a living', but you need to wake up and see what the experience really is like for young people today. It's even massively different from my 'early milennial' generation who at least had a bit of a fair chance.

Thats why younger milennials are attracted to radical politics (Corbyn, green), and just saying, ah they will come to their senses when they get older and get a house and car won't wash, a lot of these are going to be angry 40-50 year olds still trapped in poor housing situations and that will be when the political sands turn. I don't think this is unique to the UK either, I expect in about a decade you will see a wave of green/far-left movements with a huge block of committed votes behind them.

Great post.

Would you welcome some form shift away from income tax, towards greater wealth and property taxation?

I would welcome no income/ni for anyone would earns less than £15k for a start and you don't start paying tax until you are 22.

Banks need to be encouraged to relax the rules around house lending - not give away 100% mortgages but make it possible for youngsters to get on the ladder but at reasonable levels say: £100k house = 5% deposit, £200k is 10%, £300k is £15% etc so the risk is more appropriate.

I thought you implied it was directly caused by Labour when that isn't true. I think the Tories - by their own admission - took austerity too far. To offer balance, retrospectively Labour were going to implement austerity measures too.

Your poverty question is one I asked myself too. How the hell can 4 million kids be in poverty. We dont see it on our streets and as you allude to when you think of poverty you think of African kids/Live Aid/Bob Geldof type appeals.

A child is said to be living in poverty when they are living in a family with an income below 60% of the UK's average after adjusting for family size. Two thirds of children living in poverty have at least one parent in work, which strengthens the argument for a rise in the national living wage so parents can feed their kids. A rise in food banks *41,000 in 2009, 1.6million in 2018* highlights the issue. How long can these emergency services keep up with demand before we see kids on the street? Do we need to see that before we take action?



Should we not expect (demand?) more from our political leaders? I think you're absolutely correct in his strategy, but if we cannot - or more so our PM refuses/ducks being held to account - then do we really live in a democracy?

Not true. I didn't get a penny from either mine or my partners parents and we were on average UK salaries (£25K each approx). What we did was save £250 each a month (our outgoings were low with living at home) and within 16 months (ish) we had a nice deposit saved up. We took advantage of the brilliant help to buy ISA scheme that paid for solicitors fees and we are on the ladder with a 3 bedroom semi detached house bought at £147K. However in that year and half saving we were disciplined. No holidays/no wild night outs and the discipline to pay yourself first every month (I.e save). I think in schools we should educate - or certainly as parents should educate - our children about money and how to make it work for you. A great book I read in my early 20s was "the richest man in babylon". Some really easy, digestible and instantly actionable measures you can take to be better off.

I think what definitely has changed is both my dad and my father in law were able to buy a property in their early 20s on their own. That is unheard of now. I think you absolutely need 2 people in full time employment as the cost of living has gone up since then. It was relatively easy (certainly easier than now) to get on the housing ladder. Even if you by some chance have the money on your own, getting a bank to grant you a mortgage on 1 full time wage is rare.

This is a very good question, and one I keep asking every time I see someone apologise for, cheerlead, or enable wrongdoing in politics.

When you look back at certain events in history, and think to yourself "how the hell was this allowed to happen? How did those people get into power? Why wasn't anyone doing anything about it?", you can't help but wonder if they were just sat back, egging them on, because they thought they were on their side.

If sections of the general public are happy for the potential future PM to duck and dive, avoid questioning, and send out other people on his behalf, even going as far as laughing it off and saying "it's just what Boris does", then it puts the country in a dangerous position. Say what you like about the other party leaders, at least they've put themselves in the firing line, even if they've set themselves up for a stinker in doing so.

It's great that you and your partner have managed to get on the property ladder.
However, a joint income of £50k is pretty good and or a "young" couple, I'd suggest that you are doing pretty well.

We could also go into stuff about the length of mortgage, which always used to be a standard 25 year term (quite often people are now being "sold" 35 year mortgages) and the other major issue currently, is the historical low on interest rates, something which the slightest uplift would cause huge problems for anyone with a significant loan.

No dout that you have done well to get where you are, especially without parental help but, I would be interested to hear how your peers are getting on ? - Thankfully, I've been there and done that and much of my time paying off a mortgage was when interest rates were in double figures, peaking at 15% under the Thatcher government- try not to think about that when you are having your cornflakes, it was the stuff of nightmares.

It's come to something when saving £250 a month is seen as a noteworthy sacrifice....in London the reality for a young person is having to try to save £500 to £750 a month, on top of paying rents of about £600 to £800. If your pay after tax is around £2000 on a typical graduate wage, that doesn't leave much on top of paying for Tube, bills etc.

6 years of saving £750 a month is £54,000, so if they have a partner who has done the same they have a chance. For those who are single, they are looking at a decade or more of that kind of personal austerity.

Now the standard answer from a lot of Tory-supporting types is, 'if you can't afford to live in London move somewhere else', which is what a lot of people are doing. But that isn't a sustainable model. Where are the teachers and nurses/emergency workers in London going to come from?

I'm guessing that was late 1980s....the time when the Thatcherite dream died for a lot of people who had been enabled in to home ownership in the mid 80s and then suddenly found interest rates spiking and being unable to pay off their mortgages. Negative equity beckoned for a lot of people. That was what probably killed off Thatcher, around the same time as the Poll Tax, as it undermined her with her own core constituency.

These days, we have had low interest rates for so long that it has exacerbated the difference between those who have been able to get on the property ladder and those who are trapped trying to save for a mortgage, as rents have been what has skyrocketed rather than interest rates, although they've stabilised somewhat recently.

Interest rates have become an accident waiting to happen.
With rates having been so low for a number of years, much of the population are now in a position that, should there be any kind of hike in interest rates, they will be stuffed.
Having said that, for those who had been used to much higher rates, there has been a huge saving.
Unfortunately, the cost of all of this has been property prices, which as you say, have spiralled, which has a substantial effect of rented accommodation.
Despite the positive story from the previous poster, I really dont envy the youngsters who are trying to invest in their own property.
Who would have though that renting a room would become so commonplace and flats the size of a large shoe box- it's not great.