Welly wrote: 
My parents moved to Michigan in 1958... Dad is from Hungary, Mom is from Denmark... they started here with zero.  Real life immigration story!

We moved from Michigan to New England to have a more meaningful life.  Then we moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire because we couldn't come close to making ends meet in Mass.

 rosedraws wrote: 
I think it deopends on where you live. My Parents moved half way around the world to better their standard of living. I don't see North Americans doing that.

 Welly wrote: 
That's part of it, but isn't it way more expensive to live than it was a generation ago?  Income has not kept up with expense.  And I don't mean gadgets. 

The things my parents had:  A house the size of mine in a middle class suburb.  2 or 3 cars.  Full health and dental insurance.  Stereo, TV, nice furnishings... all the regular stuff.  They traveled, put an addition on the house, bought a summer home and a boat and all the nice furnishings for those things.

My dad was a regular guy with an engineering job.  Mom got an associate degree and started working when I was in High School... her job was exclusively to pay for our college education (3 of us). 

I don't know... it seems impossible to have those things these days. 

 hippiechick wrote: 
My parents both had blue collar jobs, my mother worked shifts. There were two of us kids. They put all their equity into their house and then took out a reverse mortgage when times got tight. My sis and I helped  them out of that about ten years ago and got them into a new condo, mortgage free. Granted, their house was in a market that hasn't crashed.
They have been able to get their feet back under them and although they live on a limited retirement income, they can still afford a vacation once a year and to run two cars.
The difference?
IMHO - Health care costs.

 Welly wrote: 
I can only speak for myself, but others I know have had similar situations.

Our incomes didn't go up much, but our expenses did, esp because we had kids. They are really expensive. My husband and I were both college educated, middle income people. I worked 4 part time jobs to be home with my kids. We had lost jobs, and illness. We borrowed out our equity. When we got divorced, there was absolutely nothing left.

We didn't live fancy; we had a regular tract house. Everyone in our neighborhood had about the same income. There were no jonese to keep up with, but we didn't want to slip into the next level down.

 Welly wrote: 
People are starting to refer to it as 'The Entitlement Generation' - sad. And French. 

 Welly wrote: 
WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT...............NOW!

EDIT: Not only did we grow up listening to this, but also the schoolmarms instructing us to periodically crawl under our desks during civil defense exercises. Know that I know why, I think I would rather have watched the....end....of....the....world.

 hippiechick wrote: 
Dip? More like eviscerate!

I think people fell into believeing they could have everything. Hell, my generation does it too.
And no end of warning in the media will convince them to live on less and put money aside for later.

The idea of sacrifice has disappeared within one generation. Astounding.

 Welly wrote: 
The working/middle class have been going backward, had job changes, etc., and have had to dip into their savings.

 Welly wrote: 
Isn't the guvmint supposed to take care of that for us?   

 hippiechick wrote: 
How did that happen? The wealthiest generation ever and no reitrement plan?

 Welly wrote: 
Yep. And lots of us have no retirement plan 

 jagdriver wrote: 


Yup.  Since my all-seasons are bald, when it's time to take the snow tires off, I too will have to retire.

 Welly wrote: 
The older boomers may be okay... those just about to retire.  But the younger boomers may be in a very different boat.  I wonder if that will split the power of the demographic.

I suppose. But I just got four new Michelins on the Explorer a while back, so my guess is the tread will still be good for a bit longer. Back when I actually did drive a (used) Jag, I blew the front right while at full interstate speed. That was an interesting exercise in car control, I can tell you.

 rosedraws wrote: 
I can't help but think that the onslaught of the baby boomers group, by dint of sheer numbers, will reshape retirement,  just as they re-shaped every other phase of life.
Society will have to change the way things are done and this group is the WalMart of generational cohorts. They are so big they are game changers.

 Manbird wrote: 

Somebody needs an ass whipping for the way things are...

 Welly wrote: 
Kids??  No way.  They can't even get by themselves.

My house was something of a retirement plan... I hoped the equity would be enough to buy a smaller home outright and not have a mortgage payment when we're old.  We'll have a small income from Social Security if that institution is still functioning.

But now that the house equity plan has tanked, looks like as soon as we can't work any more we'll be in poverty and wards of the state in some way.  What will that mean 25 years from now, especially when there will be so many of us?  Who knows.

I'll be lucky to live 3 more years without health care so what do I care. TIme flies. It'll all be over before I know it. Can't say it's been fun. 

 maryte wrote: 
So for all those people who have posted here saying they can't afford it - what will you do? I guess if you have kids then that could be some help.