Sucky when he gets to our age....he'll be telling his grand kids about the great plague of 2020 and how kids were forced into slave labour at Wetherspoons. Then the strikes, mustn't forget the strikes lol. Oh and how Liverpool were the best team in the world, until they played Man Utd in Aug 2022, but he might lose that bit of history.
The job market has changed dramatically, the area I lived was predominantly mining, the 3 local pits all more or less closed within a couple of years of one another, the area was devastated the knock on effect to other businesses was disastrous too but other industries eventually grew. I remember the 3 day week and 12% interest on mortgages, the average for years was 8%. We didn't have zero hour contracts but didn't have the rights they have now either, if a company wanted shut of you, you were gone, no tribunals, very few rights at all. Rents and costs of housing is astronomical and tents will only get higher as government squeeze landlords and make all the rule changes, which is raising costs to the landlords, who won't soak it up, they will just put up rent, especially as demand is outstripping supply with many private landlords selling up because of rule changes. Around our way you could get a very nice 2 bedroom flat for £450 pcm, 2 yrs ago, same places are £600-£625 now, ludicrous money
Fair points re worker rights etc and hadn't considered that. I also thought you were older than you might actually be lol. That last sentence just reminds me why I hate living down here. £450 a month wouldn't even get you a room in a shared house here. Not one that isn't in a crack den anyway. Even £650 for a nice 2 bed sounds cheap to me ffs. The big one for me is the ratio between housing costs and wages. A couple can't survive now on one income if it's less than the average wage. And if you leave home early and am renting then you're pretty much stuck.
When i moved in with the Mrs we certainly wouldn't have got by on one of our wages and even with 2 it was hard for years as any spare money went on furnishing the house as when we moved in the deposit took all our savings .
**** me, don't age me anymore than I am Things aren't easy mate and have never have been, unless you had a very good job when I bought, you still needed 2 wages to buy something decent. We were talking a few weeks back about how many folk we know who's kids still live with them , still in their lare 20's early 30's but were saying if the place is big enough and you get on, is it a bad thing. A lot of my work years back was for, Indian, Pakistani families, where you would often see 2 or 3 generations living in one house, the elderly weren't put in homes they were looked after by their own , when I moved in with my Mrs in her house, the neighbours were Pakistani's and they would say, they couldn't believe how the British treat their elderly.
