A British millennial belatedly realizes that his parents’ spending on their travel addiction is rendering impossible his ability to buy a home and build a family:
As an impecunious 34-year-old millennial in an impossibly expensive property market, I am relying on, at some stage, a handout from them. But all I can see is my money receding into the distance on a long-haul trip to Bali.
With many of my friends in a similar position, and the cost of living crisis still at full throttle, the question troubling us over the generational divide is this. Who is being selfish? Us for wanting them to save their money so we can one day have it? Or them, for splurging it all so freely on themselves?
At the start of their travel spree, about five years ago, I loved the bravery and ambition of it. Growing up, we usually went to Devon or Cornwall once a year. But when there was just the two of them (my younger sister and I have long since flown the nest), they could afford to globe trot. For a bit.
Well, good for them, I thought. Let them, in their late 60s, have a couple of lovely holidays, before settling into a cosy retirement at home.
The problem was it didn’t stop at just one or two. It didn’t even stop at three or four…
How can I ever settle down and give them grandchildren if there isn’t any money in the pipeline to support them? Do they want to go on holiday more than they want me to be able to have and bring up children?
I’m not alone in agonising over where my parents’ hard-earned money is going. According to a survey by an online wealth management advice firm called Moneyfarm, two in five adult children feel their ‘blood boiling’ at the idea their parents are blowing their inheritance on luxury holidays.
Among adult children aged between 35 and 50, 40 per cent thought their parents should provide them with an inheritance (compared with 25 per cent aged over 65) — and 20 per cent had already argued with them about what was going to be left.
Another friend admits she puts phone notifications from her mum on silent when her parents go ‘gallivanting abroad’ — because all the pictures of dreamy destinations make her jealous. And resentful.
‘My inheritance is currently being drunk through a straw in a coconut in the Caribbean,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be slim pickings at this rate.’
These Millennials are not being selfish or ungrateful. And their expectations were not unreasonable. What these parents are doing is flat-out wrong. It is unquestionably evil.
There will be no short of foolish and philosophically-bent individuals who will defend these wicked Boomers as simply “living their best life” or “spending their own money”. But those are both obvious lies. Even setting aside the very different economic climates facing the generations concerned, the Boomers inherited more financial resources from their parents and grandparents than any generation in human history. And, on average, what they are leaving behind them is considerably less than they themselves received.
Nota Bene: 10 percent of the total UK tax receipts are spent funding Boomer state pensions.
And as far as the “it’s their money, not yours”, the Bible is very, very clear on what a good man is supposed to do with regards to providing for his children. The Contemporary English Version even spells it out slowly in simple language for the benefit of even the most retarded reader.
If you obey God, you will have something to leave your grandchildren. If you don’t obey God, those who live right will get what you leave.
UPDATE: We have definite confirmation that it’s almost entirely Boomers reading The Daily Mail these days. This is the second-worst rated comment, with a highly negative ratio of 38 upvotes and 620 downvotes.
If I was this young man’s parent I would make sure he and sister were on the property ladder and can rent rooms out before going off on Jollies. I sincerely hope the house is left to the two children.