Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
I think a large part of it is the idea that at people aged 22-26, fresh out of school, think they can immediately live like their parents do.
2000sq ft house, nice car, trips all the time etc.
I was just speaking to someone the other day who's in an entry level type position like me, fresh out of Uni and they drive a Beemer which they pay $500 a month for and have a $400k mtg.
My cheap Nissan is paid off and I have a $200k mtg and we make about the same amount of money. And the guy wonders why he's having a tough time making ends meet.
For the people who will retire later than they thought, I blame it on living beyond their means. So few people have any type of proper retirement savings. CPP is not going to be enough to live off of in 20-50 years, in fact it may not even be there anymore.
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They also don't know that when their parents bought their homes and the like, there were different financing rules in place...and those rules basically forced some economic scrutiny on the individual.
When we bought our first home:
a) Only the primary earner in the family could use their income for evaluation to procure a mortgage.
b) 20% or more was the standard downpayment
c) Only 30% of your income could be used towards a mortgage on your home
Going further from your post, our generation was much more focused on saving up to make our purchases. We never even got our first VISA card until late 70's, somewhere in there. Credit cards were not the norm except for some major department stores like Sears and Eatons.
And most of our generation still lives that way. Certainly we have credit cards now, but most of the time, only one, maybe two....and we pay them off diligently every month.
Another point, it is much harder to reach the financial security that my generation has. We were kind of at the pinnacle, and I think our children are the first generation that will not be better off than their parents.
Case in point, how easy it was to get my first job....I used to teach.
I was living in the Regina area, but after marriage would be living in Saskatoon, and that is where I would start teaching. My Dad took a day off from farming, drove me up to Saskatoon, without an appointment, without prior sending out resumes and the like. In fact, we never even knew where the school board offices were. However we found them quite readily, I was granted an interview, and walked out of there with a job.
At that time, mid 70's, graduating geologists from Saskatoon were kind of "wined and dined" by Alberta companies seeking new employees in the energy field. There was kind of a job search week when the companies came down to hire, you went there to be interviewed, taken out for dinner, and the like. My husband had 3 job offers, fresh out of university, within one week.
That does not exist today. It is much harder to get a job and it is much harder to reach financial security at your job. I think that might be part of the reason why there is such a "me" and "now" generation at the present time. However, that attitude of course, also alludes to why in many cases, people are living from pay cheque to pay cheque.
