BOOMING MARVELLOUS

There’s always someone, somewhere out to get you.  Call it mid-life paranoia if you like but I’m sure you get my (snow) drift.  You don’t get to my age by glibly accepting everything at face value.  There’s a conspiracy theory in every nook and cranny if you look hard enough and according to the media, us fifty-somethings should now be keeping a watchful eye for any furtive looking youngsters with an axe to grind. 

Our crime?  Being a BB - that’s street speak for Baby Boomer.  BB’s are racing up the Top Ten of Stuff Hated by Youth faster than a Stormzy single in the download charts.  We’re way up there on that list together with the Tax Man, parents and cleaning your bedroom. 

It seems that millennials, the generation raised on takeaways and Love Island, are complaining (again?) that BB’s have got it cushty.  Private pensions, nice houses and money in the bank – it’s that toxic trio of apparent youth envy.  If millennials had their way, BB’s would be hunted down and thrown into a deep pit seething with exceptionally ravenous crocodiles or euthanized on the spot.

Can millennials really justify their envious whinging or has all that youth and beauty they possess finally gone to their heads?  I feel this needs looking into a bit closer.

We’ll begin with pensions.  Whilst final salary schemes may have gone the way of the dodo, pretty much everyone in a job can have a private pension thanks to the Government’s auto-enrollment workplace pensions scheme.  Pensions are not just for workers either.  The self-employed or unemployed too can open a stakeholder pension to save for their old age at any time.  Just think how quickly you could amass a decent pension if you saved the cost of having an iphone or takeaways every month from the age of 16 until you retired.  Pension envy?  There’s no excuse.

Next, we’ll debunk the myth of property ownership. As a nation, we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that the measure of anyone’s success is to own a nice house but quite frankly this is a load of old bunkum designed to keep the financial industry in designer suits and Aston Martins.  Why shackle yourself to a 25-30 year debt that has to be continually serviced?  Why enslave yourself to an asset that has to be continually maintained?  Renting gives you the freedom to go wherever the action or work is.  Leaky pipe?  Just pick up the phone and hassle a landlord instead of fretting over finding a decent (and cheap) plumber.  In the same way you don't own hard copy books or CDs, you don’t NEED to own a house.

Then there’s money in the bank.  I’m not going to deny that in these uncertain times it can be tricky to stash away a few quid for a rainy day but it’s not impossible.  We all had to start somewhere, saving all those shiny shillings left by the tooth-fairy or the 10p deposits from returning bottles of R Whites lemonade to the local off licence.  But funny how even the poorest millennial always has money for an iphone, taxis or takeaways yet can’t spare any change for a savings account.  It’s all a question of perspective – do you want jam today or bread in your old age tomorrow? Think about it.

Personally, I feel its BB’s that should envy millennials and not the other way round.  The world today is a far superior place to that of the 60’s and 70’s I grew up in and smaller thanks to all those technological advances that us oldies didn’t have in our youth. 

Wish I could have been an internet vlogger instead of slaving away for years over a hot keyboard to earn a crust.  Wish I could have had the chance to backpack across the world in my teens instead of being expected to get married soon after I left school to bring up children and keep house.  Wish I could have gone to University instead of being pushed into employment to earn my keep.  Wish I could have had access to BoMaD (Bank of Mum & Dad) every time I needed a loan.  Wish there had been pioneering medical treatments that might have meant less aches and pains today.

The list of advantages available to youngsters today could circumnavigate the globe ten times over.  There’s a world full of opportunity and adventure out there but for many of us Boomers that ship sailed long ago and now we’re saddled with houses to decorate, aged parents to care for and grown up children to bankroll.  I’d swap my ‘cushty’ life for yours in an instant.

What’s more, millennials still have the one precious thing that all of us wrinklies envy them for more than anything else in this world – youth and beauty!

Wish I was a hare instead of a tortoise ...