will our grandchildren have to work till they drop? I hope not[sad]

Hi, the whole situation with pensions is a minefield.
I am one of those people born in the mid-fifties, so will have to work until 66, an extra 6 years.
So many people still unaware of this huge seismic change.
There has been virtually no media coverage of this subject so most people (employers as well) are not prepared for people to be working into their late sixties.
There is a campaign group called WASPI and 2,500 of us did a protest in London back on the 29th June.
So......I don't know about our grandchildren, but our own children will soon be struggling with this issue in the next 35 years.
What concerns me also is the way that workplace pension are being dipped into as well!!

Hi all, i'm not new to gransnet ... but have never joined in before.
Speaking as a baby boomer, we did work long hard hours , did without things if we didn't have the money to buy and accepted other peoples cast off's ! my DGS is in his mid twenty's .. three years at uni , then a year doing his masters seems to have done nothing to educate him on how life really is now.. and when we mention that he needs to at least think about a good pension scheme he just shrugs and say's he will when he gets time .. sadly if todays youngsters don't get there act together soon they will have to work until they are much older than we are .

I think it's totally unrealistic to expect people to work into their late 60s and 70s.

I worked until 61 and my dh worked until 63 but we had to admit we were losing our energy, motivation and staying power.

As a boomer I do everything I can physically (baby sitting) and financially to help my adult children.

If all the scare mongering about pensions is true I think the situation needs to be seriously looked at by government.

How can a person of 80 do a demanding job for pity's sake, or will the older people be consigned to easier work within their field.

If the State Pension age continues to rise, then yes, they will have to work for longer. My concern is that there may not be sufficient jobs for both ends of the age spectrum ie those nearing the ever rising pension age and the young generation just entering the workforce.
Whether or not one chooses to save for a private pension, all employees shortly will be enrolled in a mandatory workplace pension to which both employer and employee are obligated to contribute. This is, of course, in addition to the National Insurance payments we make that in theory provide for our State Pension.
So yes, I foresee long working lives ahead for our children and grandchildren.

As a babyboomer myself I started work at 15 and both me and my husband often worked over 50 hours a week. I often see today's young adults not start work until they are in their twenties and then find more than 30 hours difficult. A generalisation I know but it would be nice if we could achieve a better work life balance through out our lives. Wind down gradually.

I am fed up with people blaming baby boomers for all that is wrong.

I am a baby boomer. I had to work and save for a deposit when buying a house. I had hardly any furniture, but saved up and bought things when I had enough money. In those days you had to pay 10% deposit if you wanted a cooker on credit. Washing machines and refrigerators were not classified as necessary therefore the deposit for credit was 33% deposit. I never had a washing machine until I had been married two years. I made do with soaking clothes in the bath and a spin dryer until I got the deposit together. I polished the tiles in the floor until I could afford a carpet. To days young expect every thing when they start living together.They are offered credit deferred for two years on everything. Perhaps the problem is too much easy credit, and because we had to 'make do' the off spring of the boomers take too much for granted

I think it may have been any questions. Unfortunately I didn't hear the question just the reply. I'll have to use catch up and listen again.

i was watching tv news this morning and they were talking about the next olympics in 2020 and thought bloody hell i will be 65 and still have another 2 years before pension as will hubby how will our bodies stand up to it he's a builder heavy manual work and we have sgo for 3 year old how will we cope?

GillT57, I wasnt being smug at all its what I see around me I was commenting on and yes it is their own fault for living beyond their means, Im not saying everyone is the same.

I suppose it all depends on the work that you do. It is interesting that some people over the age when they could collect their pension, do choose to continue to work. I suspect it is because their work is a vocation and has become their lives.

Granny123 agree with everything you say.I too am concerned about where things are going, in both the short term and the long term. Both of my children will be starting adult life with debts of around £45000 and that is after working in uni holidays and us being able to send weekly allowances for food.I honestly dont know how they will cope in the future, so much so that we are keeping a house that is really too big for us in order to provide them with accomodation after graduation should it be needed. Yes, I know that we are more fortunate than others that we can do so, but this can only be short term as all of our cash and assets are in this house, and sometime soon we will have to sell up in order to retire. Possibly too much detail here, but we are all struggling in our own ways. i do get a bit irritated by smug remarks such as yours Mumsy inferring that the situation that the current generation find themselves in is all their own fault, and if they had only saved a few quid everything would be ok, well no it won't actually.

I do not believe that the next generation are like sheep. I cannot envisage them accepting a life where they 'work till they drop' for little return, while watching the ultra rich get richer by devious means.

I have been following comments about the Olympic Games on face book and while there has been much praise for individual athletes there has also been a great deal of questioning about the funding of the event/athletes e.g. the cost to near bankrupt Brazil, the syphoning off of funds intended for charities to support a few elite athletes. There has been much talk of 'Bread and Circuses' rather than people bursting with pride in the reflected glory of the success of Team GB.

It was easy in postwar Britain to feel that we were all in this together and having dug for victory, people were prepared to work hard, make do and mend, save for a rainy day. As a reward there was Family Allowance, Old Age Pensions and the amazing NHS. Now we face a situation where it seems that 'those who work the hardest are the least rewarded', those who seek tertiary education are saddled with debt, savings lose value rather than gain interest and benefits and the free NHS are being eroded and privatised. for profit.

Two referenda and a GE have demonstrated that the Kingdom is far from United, The Labour Party seems hellbent on committing political suicide, The Liberals have all but disappeared and the Conservatives are engaged in internal point scoring. A Country can cope with some extremists and radicals but what can they do if the Middle Classes revolt en mass? I sense that there are big changes coming and can only hope that this 'revolution' is bloodless ultimately benefits all.

trouble is Mumsy living within their means is no longer an option for a lot of families, it wouldn't allow them to feed and clothe their children. The idea that an entire generation was just really careful with the pound in their pockets is insulting. I am okay but I work with people who are very, very poor, that's not their fault. there is no social housing, rents are through the roof, in a rich country I find that embarrassing, we all should.

Not saying it wasnt, I was merely pointing out that we didnt live beyond our means.

Mumsy - housing was always affordable and fuel was cheaper. I an incredibly careful with money, as is my husband.

perhaps us baby boomers were a lucky generation because we didnt spend what we didnt have and made do and were happy with our lot, credit today is so easy to get and we live in a keep up with the joneses and a throwaway society.

I don't expect to retire until I am in my seventies, the same for my husband, goodness knows how long my daughter will have to work for. My mum never worked outside the house and my dad retired in his late fifties. Happy days.

Age of death is going up too, jusno. Something has to be done to pay for the care of old people who no longer can work, including those who, at the moment, are young.

They have plenty of warning. They must take on board the fact that they will be responsible for their own futures.

No more spend, spend, spend. There must be some save, save, save.

It seems as if the pension age is getting moved up every couple of years, I know it's already predicted to be 69/70 for youngsters at the moment, so who knows what it will be when they eventually get older. I keep telling mine to make provisions if they don't want to be working until they drop. I was one who got caught by the jump to 66 from 60 so have learnt the importance of looking out for yourself.
It will probably end up with more and more people claiming invalidity or unemployment benefits.

The world is improving. I wish the doomsters'd shut up with their constant whining about how bad everything is and how everything is getting worse. It is different for young people now but it is not worse.

Apart from that, start them off on sensible saving with a Junior ISA.

I suppose the practical solution is to get together with their parents and start Junior SIPPs for them.

I know this isn't always possible from a financial point of view. But it's worth mentioning.

Sorry meant mid morning to early afternoon