Boomerang Generation

The wife's brother is 40 and still lives at home with his mum. At 26 I can probably forgive the guy in the article even if he does need to hurry up, grow a pair and live his own life.
 
And yet a job in London will fast track you many years faster than any job in Scotland will.

Though this is the corporate world, literally no sense in living in London to just work at a McDonald’s.

What nonsense. What do you mean by "fast track?", and to what end? I don't think that paying considerably more rent/mortgage/travel costs in London is worth the trade off in salary for a lot of people. Even if you earn 25% more in London, the cost of living far outweighs that in my research. Of course, there's the lifestyle shift which may or may not be a benefit.

Sure, some industries may have a benefit living in London but don't think that wages/salaries aren't very good elsewhere in the country.
 
What nonsense. What do you mean by "fast track?", and to what end? I don't think that paying considerably more rent/mortgage/travel costs in London is worth the trade off in salary for a lot of people. Even if you earn 25% more in London, the cost of living far outweighs that in my research. Of course, there's the lifestyle shift which may or may not be a benefit.

Sure, some industries may have a benefit living in London but don't think that wages/salaries aren't very good elsewhere in the country.

I think (anecdote, trusting other folks words on this, probably wrong) it’s mostly financial companies, there’s basically no point waiting for a career in Glasgow or Edinburgh for 10+ years when you can get the same advancement in 3-5 in Canary Wharf.

You can then move around more easily, though I guess the money spent on Londoning is perhaps not worth even in that scenario.
 
Indeed, London business seems to have the “benefit” of a mass exodus of young people once they hit about 30 once they realise how **** a place it is to actually live in, so they need to promote people in their early careers into more senior roles quicker.
 
I moved back in with my parents after university. I was working in an expensive part of the country and my salary was low and on top of commuting costs it would have been unworkable to rent. I did pay them rent which went up as my salary went up.

I moved out at 28 when I was able to land a job and pay rise in Nottingham where I could afford to do so. That was over 15 years ago now.

I don't have an issue with people living with their parents as long as they pay them some sort of rent, help out and as long as its ok with all parties. Yes, you shouldn't use it as an excuse to just slob around and buy shiny things and blow your money in different ways.
 
I don't know how they do it. I moved back to my Mums for 2 years while I saved up for a house deposit and couldn't wait to get back in to my own place.
 
Last edited:
Indeed, London business seems to have the “benefit” of a mass exodus of young people once they hit about 30 once they realise how **** a place it is to actually live in, so they need to promote people in their early careers into more senior roles quicker.
Yep, that's nigh on my situation - I was going to move outside the M25 and do the commute but now I think I just want to get as far away from the place as possible. Trying to get my ducks in a row :)

Living somewhere further away that ticks all my boxes still isn't cheap, though. I wish they'd abolish Stamp duty on sole residences, it's just not feasible to move home to take up job opportunities elsewhere without it costing an absolute fortune.
 
Last edited:
Part of the problem for students is this proliferation of quite high end student accommodation. The idea of 4 of you being in a drafty flat, and sharing the bills seems to be being replaced with executive studio apartments, where it’s all inclusive and they have all the mod cons.
I just think that they have it too easy, they don’t have to graft and the value of money is lost.

I don’t buy the idea rent is too much, instead expectations are too high.
Kids these days! Grumble grumble

I moved out when I was 16 and was forced to grow up. The kid in that article needs some tough love.

left home at 17 with a bag of clothes and started work. 44 with 4 bed house paid off, nice job. I have never asked anyone for help. people want it all straight away!
 
I know someone who worked at a charity shop for a while collecting and delivering furniture and some of the matresses bought by eastern Europeans (not beds just matresses) were to houses with matresses already in the front room and probably the rest of the house. It's easy to blame young adults and call them lazy but due to the free movement of people there is a surplus of labour not only making finding a job more difficult but keeping wages from rising. Not only that but you've got people treating housing like a commodity, buying up as many houses as they can and then renting them out at ever increasing rates due to a shortage they themselves are helping to perpetuate. Then on top of that you've got millions of economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East posing as refugees, they aren't in any danger in their native countries but thanks to Angela Merkel/EU policy and NGO people trafficking charities they simply come to western Europe for a better life and all of them need to be housed by councils and take priority.

Blaming young adults is just a distraction from all of those issues, it's like the way the homeless are all being portrayed as professional beggars after we've had a decade of austerity and explosion in food banks, there may be some who aren't really homeless but in the main it's just a cover to hide the fact there are an increasing amount of genuinely homeless. Why would the government ever admit to failing the British people if they can simply point to scapegoats? "it's not that we've resided over record homeless they're all just professional beggars!", "it's not that getting on the housing ladder is more difficult young people are just lazy!". Government enforcing EU policy has failed people and that's why you had Brexit but most remainers have had a cushy life and don't want anything to change. MP's who own 5 houses and rent 4 of them out don't want housing/rent prices to come down. They don't want to have to pay their secretaries/cleaners/gardeners 50% higher wages.
 
Last edited:
It's worse than that because they doubled the supply of labour by convincing women they wanted to work.
So now there's twice as many people working, each getting half the salary, and having to pay childcare costs too.
 
Part of the problem for students is this proliferation of quite high end student accommodation. The idea of 4 of you being in a drafty flat, and sharing the bills seems to be being replaced with executive studio apartments, where it’s all inclusive and they have all the mod cons.
I just think that they have it too easy, they don’t have to graft and the value of money is lost.

I don’t buy the idea rent is too much, instead expectations are too high.
Kids these days! Grumble grumble

I moved out when I was 16 and was forced to grow up. The kid in that article needs some tough love.


This is so frankly crazy and ridiculous I don't even know where to begin.

Firstly students didn't all go, wow, I'm not living in this old house I want to spend 4 times as much and be in much bigger debt when I leave uni, I will only live in a fancy apartment... developers went and bought up all the housing and modernised them, built blocks of flats and jacked up the rent.

Every single person I went to uni with in the 00's wanted more money, less debt and to be able to spend more on going out, or food, or drinking, clothes, etc, instead it was all getting sucked down in rent and tuition.

What you're actually saying is when you went to uni you had the OPTION of cheap rent which most people took and came out of uni with lower rents, higher paying jobs (compared to cost of living), less debt and a much easier time of it.

This is no different to current students being belittled by guys who grew up in the 60s who went to college for a few thousand for a year, bought a house for 30k on a cheap mortgage and left uni into a job that paid 30-40k in wages straight away when today college costs 10 times as much, housing costs 50 times as much and you walk out of uni to struggle to find jobs that pay the same starting wages as they did back then.

This kid is one example of a larger issue and not a good one. There were also lazy idiots in the 50s, and the 80s and the 00s, that is entirely nothing new. But deciding that people who are forced to pay crushing housing costs to attend university are somehow grafting less than you who lived in cheaper widely available accommodation is laughable.

You think everyone buying in London doesn't want a cheap house in the suburbs? They don't exist, the cheapest option is some crappy, noisy tiny apartment in a sterile block with people above, below, either side and across the hall, being bombarded by noise and stress and again they are being sucked dry on rent or mortgage payments to buy such apartments.

I knew one girl at uni who had a nicer newer flat and she shared it with another girl, it was relatively small and her rent was only about 10% higher than me paying for one room in a house with 5 guys. Even the cheap crappy houses are having their rents jacked up to insane amounts because landlords know they can get away with it.

Housing market is a disaster, wages not increasing with economic output is killing the average workers and everyone just got used to it and accepted it while the rich get richer. It's only going to get worse in the future as automation kills 100ks of jobs. Blaming people for being in newer apartments when the elite are buying up everywhere and jacking up housing prices regardless of if you live in that flat or a 5 person student house share is absurd.
 
It is still possible to own a house. Just bought one in Cheshire for £115k. Nice big 3 bedroom. I am on a low wage as is the Mrs. But we make meals from scratch, drive a Dacia and go on holiday to Haven or with Ryanair which is why we can afford it.
 
I think (anecdote, trusting other folks words on this, probably wrong) it’s mostly financial companies, there’s basically no point waiting for a career in Glasgow or Edinburgh for 10+ years when you can get the same advancement in 3-5 in Canary Wharf.

You can then move around more easily, though I guess the money spent on Londoning is perhaps not worth even in that scenario.

Most decent financial jobs are held in only a few hubs in the APAC/EMEA/America's .Its not a question of promotion but more actual opportunities. You'll have your back office either outsourced or in non regionals such as Bournemouth (JP Morgan), Chester (BAML), Manchester (BONY) so if you're content with that its fine. But primary decision makers are by and large in London. And the university system as a result of the last crash drove people into having to get expensive degrees to get not into the lucrative grad schemes but just in the door.

Its a vicious world, but then again people can't really be surprised at multinational companies wanting cheap imported/outsourced labour and rubbish conditions if we allow them to. Opening the border is like osmosis. :)
 
It is still possible to own a house. Just bought one in Cheshire for £115k. Nice big 3 bedroom. I am on a low wage as is the Mrs. But we make meals from scratch, drive a Dacia and go on holiday to Haven or with Ryanair which is why we can afford it.

Your point may stand if you could buy 3 bedroom houses for £115k everywhere, around my area that would not even get a 1 bed flat in reasonable condition!
 
I moved out for uni, came back at 22 until 25. Would never have afforded a house to buy if I was renting instead I saved £750 a month for 3 year (could have saved much more which still irritates me a little) my then girlfriend, now wife, did the same saving around £500 and after 3 years we got on the market, done the house up beautifully and haven't looked back since.

If you can tolerate your parents and they are happy having you it makes sense in this quite frankly mental rental market that you should.
 
Back
Top Bottom