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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I got 'on the housing ladder', in my mid 20's, I had to jump through hoops just to get enough of a mortgage. Lenders were very strict in those days...

Come the late 90's, and lenders were falling over themselves to give away money.

But, it was all a house-of-cards....and come 2008, the bubble burst. {3 divorces didn't help either]

I have been renting privately for 10 years now...given my age [then & now] actually trying to regain the 'property ladder' wasn't a game I was prepared to play, into my old age.

I still rent, and have a home with facilities that allow me to indulge myself in my hobbies, as a retired person. My pensions are not what some would get out of bed for, but, hey ho.

But, my rent takes well over half of my income....[at least I dont have the expense of ongoing property maintenance to consider...perhaps a boone?]

I could go back into a workplace.....either at my last job, or use my licences....but retirement takes a certain frame of mind in order to be good at it. No one can say how long we'll live to enjoy it? The pressures of 'career' are off...I'm healthier than when I worked....I can do as I please..one way or the other...
The problem with that concept isn't the freedom to do as we want, but the desire to do anything like that at all. [never mind the wherewithal??]

Pensioners with final salary schemes, and property that has been paid off....? This is how any pensioner is typecast. Good for them, I say....why should youngsters have things any easier if they want to buy their own homes, than we did as youngsters? No-one was stood there fighting our corner at the time.

I blame the media for this attitude.....fake news, as folk are wont to say.

If today's youngsters cannot get on the property ladder..or, even get a council house, then consider why this is so, and do something about it. The bottom line is, it's all because of greed.
Life is all about money...the important things are forgotten, or cast aside.

It really wearies me whenever I get asked [and it's all too frequently], 'what's it worth?'
I couldn't care less 'what it is worth'....like a house, it's value is pointless unless one intends to realise that value.
So, I enjoy the usage of my old cars....they are in fine fettle, considering.
But, because they are old [technology], they don't have a fuel consumption of a modern...so the cheaper petrol becomes, the better I'll like it. I don't want a modern, because I don't like moderns....[I speak as an old school driver who drove for a living....I trained on London Transport, [age 21] on a bus with a pre-selector gearbox.....crash boxes soon became my bread 'n butter....Power steering? What's that? Joy is a 2 stroke Commer thrashing uphill.]
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V8 Nutter



Joined: 27 Aug 2012
Posts: 587

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think so many millennials forget we oldies started work when we were much younger. I was 15 when I started an apprenticeship in the machine tool industry. My higher education was day release and night school. I have been reliably informed my paper qualifications would be good enough for a decent degree now. Uni was for the chosen few, but nowadays starting work at 25 seems to be quite common. I must add probably 90% of what I learned in college was never used in a long career
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alanb



Joined: 10 Sep 2012
Posts: 516
Location: Berkshire.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I started work on my 15th birthday, had to have 20% deposit for our first house, we saved for three years no holidays no extras, drove a 20 year old car and had to do all our own repairs. Nowadays youngsters start work at 18 ,23 or later after a gap year globe trotting, expect new or almost new cars 2 or 3 foreign holidays a year clubbing every Saturday night, and then complain they can't afford a house. We oldies have it so easy on our old age pensions we worked 50 years to get. Life now is not easy, but then for most of us it never was, so if after 50 years of work we can't enjoy life a little then what was the point.
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater
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BigJohn



Joined: 01 Jan 2011
Posts: 954
Location: Wem, Shropshire

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alanb wrote:
I started work on my 15th birthday, had to have 20% deposit for our first house, we saved for three years no holidays no extras, drove a 20 year old car and had to do all our own repairs. Nowadays youngsters start work at 18 ,23 or later after a gap year globe trotting, expect new or almost new cars 2 or 3 foreign holidays a year clubbing every Saturday night, and then complain they can't afford a house. We oldies have it so easy on our old age pensions we worked 50 years to get. Life now is not easy, but then for most of us it never was, so if after 50 years of work we can't enjoy life a little then what was the point.


You forgot the 15% mortgage interest rates in the 80's, they were fun for those with savings, but not borrowers.
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alanb



Joined: 10 Sep 2012
Posts: 516
Location: Berkshire.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok my soapbox has now been put away, I went for a nice drive in my Morris 8 two seater this afternoon all country lanes and used less than a gallon of fuel.
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater
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petelang



Joined: 21 May 2009
Posts: 442
Location: Nottingham

PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All I know is, if you're on the lower tiers you pay a lot of tax and it's pretty well unavoidable. On the other hand, those who have endless ability to pay taxes seem to find any way of avoiding, mitigating or just dodging paying it.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It's been going on for centuries but today, the differential is much wider.
Just my view.
Peter
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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alanb wrote:
Ok my soapbox has now been put away, I went for a nice drive in my Morris 8 two seater this afternoon all country lanes and used less than a gallon of fuel.


Splendid......did similar in my Dellow day before....only covered around 70 miles! Used around 2 1/2 gallons of fuel...not very fuel efficient, is a twin carbed sidevalve Ford, even if only 1172cc!! Mustang can have very similar fuel consumption [being a 6 cylinder. 3.3 litre]...surprisingly. Both a darned good drive, in their own peculiar ways...Both undergo rolling-fettling. Daily driver is sitting on 3 wheels at present.....again, having fettling done, mostly welding, then, when I can be bothered, an MoT! Surprisingly it too, [with its old-school 2.8 4 pot diesel] delivers around 33 mpg..but it will burn anything that might go bang...veggie oil, sump oil, in fact, any sort of oily stuff, gin vodka etc, even petrol, once in a large quantity....a real ''pensioner's special''...Can't afford diesel? Nip down to local chippy, beg some used veggy oil? Or a trip to cash 'n carry? Or even, go round on blue bin day, empty dregs out of posh nobs chucked out spirit bottles? What with that, and scrumping any old dead wood [for log fire] and that's that! Oh, and nipping round pea fields after the viners have been in, they don't cut the edges, get a bucket of peas, chuck in freezer...same with potatoes....at local farm butchery, buy the cheapest shin of beef, ask for kidneys, they chuck them in for free....kidney is nice!! Oh yes, being retired is good...but no substitute for petrol can be found!!! [Yet!] Sad
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alanb



Joined: 10 Sep 2012
Posts: 516
Location: Berkshire.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As we have friends in Norfolk, Cambridge, Somerset and Devon, I still do a numbers of long journeys so I'm lucky my modern will do over 60 mpg. It's nice and comfortable and has automatic everything, but it's my little Morris that puts a smile on my face as I bounce around the lanes.
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater
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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moderns are for getting from A to B....driving licences become travel passes. Journeys become mere time lapses between doing what one was doing at A, and similar at B.

Old motors were for driving....enjoying the skills one needed to apply.

Better to travel hopefully...? [Than merely to arrive?]
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