No wonder millennials can't afford a mortgage

unkel · 18-09-2018 9:50am #1

Back 20 years ago we had a 5p bowl of cereal or toast with butter at home and then some free instant coffee at work, but these days it's a $18 "Deconstructed Avocado Toast with Feta Breakfast" plus a $10 Frappuccino :eek:

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If you're a millennial, with a full time job and no dependants, how much do you spend a week on breakfast / lunch on work days? Be honest!

Trasna1 · 18-09-2018 9:52am

Do people think millennials are the first generation to waste money?

Deebles McBeebles · 18-09-2018 9:52am

Never had one of those, not a millennial, still can't afford a mortgage.

Samuel T. Cogley · 18-09-2018 9:55am

That had beter be a line of off colour coke for that money!

joe stodge · 18-09-2018 10:02am

There's probably about €2 worth of food there at most.

it's gas that there's pricks out there willing to pay that money for trash like that.

amcalester · 18-09-2018 10:04am

I like the salt and pepper made to look like a line of coke.

A line of coke would probably cheaper though.

Mr. Incognito · 18-09-2018 10:05am

I eat out for lunch every day. I generally go to a pub and get a proper meal for that. Sambos are quite the rip off these days at €6 a pop.

Skip breakfast

I'd say a tenner a day by four weeks. €200 a month for lunch or so every month.

sbsquarepants · 18-09-2018 10:05am

Seems reasonable - the toast is a bit scabby but it looks like you get a line of coke with it to wake you up.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

jam_mac_jam · 18-09-2018 10:05am

Yeah that's what they have every morning for breakfast and nobody born before 1985 ever wastes money on food. There is no transfer of wealth that has happened over the past 30 years in favour of those who own property, its all about toast. Well done.

SilverPenney · 18-09-2018 10:09am

Am millennial, me and my partner only shop at Aldi and Lidl, bring packed lunches to work/university, comes to about 50 a week overall for food for the both of us. If houses were as affordable they were in my parents time (a 3 bed semi for 21 grand in 1990 and a two bed cottage for 14 grand in 1995, all within 30 minutes of a city), then I'm sure we'd be happily paying a mortgage off.

WoolyJumper · 18-09-2018 10:10am

Millennial's can't afford to buy a house because the gap between wages and the cost of living/inflation and grown massively from 20 years ago. I think for a lot of millennial's the idea of buying a house seems so far fetched that it's not even something we consider a possibility and thus many dont save for a mortgage. I am personally saving as much as I can on my wage but to be honest I'm not sure what I'm saving for. In the hopes that circumstances will change and buying a house will become a possibility, maybe use it to do a masters which would hopefully lead high paying job so I can buy a house or use it to emigrate to a country where buying a house is more of a possibility.

Kivaro · 18-09-2018 10:10am

Maybe the Millennial generation cannot afford a mortgage because the Irish aggressive tax scheme forces Irish workers to pay more in taxes than 10 years ago.

On the flip side, for those whose concept of working is alien to them, billions will be spent on social housing in the coming years so that they will get a forever home, and welfare spending will increase, so their free money will also increase.

How fair is that?

TerrorFirmer · 18-09-2018 10:14am

I spend €3.50 on lunch usually, pasta salad + OJ from Dunnes. Failing that, sub of the day at Subway for the same price.

I work with a guy who seems to spend a fortune on food. Every other day he gets takeaway delivered, I'd say it costs him around €15 based on what he orders.

EdgeCase · 18-09-2018 10:17am

They can't afford a mortgage because the previous generation spent all the money on a massive housing bubble and the banks and sector are trying to claw those losses back from the current generation.

That avocado toast comment came from an Australian interview with someone lecturing the current generation for daring to complain about their housing bubble.

If people have to skip breakfast and are at the pin of the collar to afford housing, that is terrible for the economy! It means people have no disposable income and that means no money circulating and fewer jobs and less investment.

Telling people to stop spending money = no shops, no cafes, no restaurants, dying Main Streets in small towns and 3 jobs at Aldi and anything else ordered online at lowest price possible.

We need to have realistically priced homes that people can actually afford, not lecturing people about a bit of fruit and a slice of toast.

It's unbelievably patronising.

If we don't get a bit realistic about housing here we will at best choke off economic growth due to lack of accessible housing or, we will go head first into another financial crash.

A properly functioning country has housing at an affordable price and can manage to actually have a good lifestyle. Being able to afford an avocado is hardly the measure of extreme opulence.

Hector Bellend · 18-09-2018 10:36am

I'm 41. I'm on my third college degree, have a good job and still have great difficulty getting a mortgage.

average_runner · 18-09-2018 10:40am

SilverPenney wrote: »

Am millennial, me and my partner only shop at Aldi and Lidl, bring packed lunches to work/university, comes to about 50 a week overall for food for the both of us. If houses were as affordable they were in my parents time (a 3 bed semi for 21 grand in 1990 and a two bed cottage for 14 grand in 1995, all within 30 minutes of a city), then I'm sure we'd be happily paying a mortgage off.

Do you think it was cheap in the 2000's when we had to buy them? Our's cost 450,000.

How Soon Is Now · 18-09-2018 10:40am

Who ever started everyone using this "millennial" term is a ****!

troyzer · 18-09-2018 10:41am

I'm a millenial. Depends on the day of course but most days I'd be getting lunch and dinner at around the €10-€15 mark. Weetabix in the morning. Job done.

I make €30k a year. That's why I can't afford a mortgage. You can buy a six pack of avocados in Lidl for €2. I don't know why old farts keep latching onto avocados as the reason why millenials have it ****. And we do have it ****.

Sound for leaving us all of that debt and making it impossible for us to ever leave the nest.

average_runner · 18-09-2018 10:42am

EdgeCase wrote: »

They can't afford a mortgage because the previous generation spent all the money on a massive housing bubble and the banks and sector are trying to claw those losses back from the current generation.

That avocado toast comment came from an Australian interview with someone lecturing the current generation for daring to complain about their housing bubble.

If people have to skip breakfast and are at the pin of the collar to afford housing, that is terrible for the economy! It means people have no disposable income and that means no money circulating and fewer jobs and less investment.

Telling people to stop spending money = no shops, no cafes, no restaurants, dying Main Streets in small towns and 3 jobs at Aldi and anything else ordered online at lowest price possible.

We need to have realistically priced homes that people can actually afford, not lecturing people about a bit of fruit and a slice of toast.

It's unbelievably patronising.

If we don't get a bit realistic about housing here we will at best choke off economic growth due to lack of accessible housing or, we will go head first into another financial crash.

A properly functioning country has housing at an affordable price and can manage to actually have a good lifestyle. Being able to afford an avocado is hardly the measure of extreme opulence.

No the banks have the right measures in place now. Alot of people did mess up in 2000's but alot didnt also. Some played it smart and bought what they could afford.

bloodless_coup · 18-09-2018 10:43am

Born 1985 so am a millennial apparently.

Own my house outright, no mortgage. Suck on that millennials!

StupidLikeAFox · 18-09-2018 10:46am

Assuming you buy that breakfast 3 times a week, and it costs you €30 a pop, that is a total of €3,120 per year that they are wasting.

Take an average house cost of around €250k. That means if they give up this avocado lifestyle they will be able to afford the deposit for the mortgage in around 8 years.

LollipopJimmy · 18-09-2018 10:46am

doylefe wrote: »

Born 1985 so am a millennial apparently.

Own my house outright, no mortgage. Suck on that millennials!

But where do you park your house?

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troyzer · 18-09-2018 10:46am

doylefe wrote: »

Born 1985 so am a millennial apparently.

Own my house outright, no mortgage. Suck on that millennials!

If you're 33 and own a house with no debt you either inherited it, are a drug dealer or have a particularly well paying job. Which is probably really rare and thus pointless to use as an example for the rest of us.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b · 18-09-2018 10:47am

EdgeCase wrote: »

They can't afford a mortgage because the previous generation spent all the money on a massive housing bubble and the banks and sector are trying to claw those losses back from the current generation.

Indeed.

Young people got royally screwed over during the recession, while older people were mostly protected. Not a cent was cut from the old-age pension, while the dole for under-25s was slashed to €100 a week in a transparent effort to encourage emigration. Incumbent public servants were mostly protected by a series of agreements with their unions, while new recruits to the public sector (and there weren't many, due to hiring freezes) got a much worse deal.

The last Census recorded that around 460,000 adults (that's 1 in 4 over-18s) remain living at home with their parents. Given the housing crisis and extortionate taxes, people in their 20s and 30s simply can't leave home -- even when they have college educations and jobs. Many are also postponing marriage and children, with the average Irish bride now 33 and the average groom 36. Fewer children means fewer future workers, which means that many of these Millennials will have reduced income in retirement as well -- because who is going to pay their pensions?

The main priority during the financial crisis was protecting the public sector and the welfare sector, even if it meant endless borrowing (Irish has the third highest public debt in the developed world -- now €200 billion, or €42,000 for every person in the country) and sky-high taxes on anyone who was working. Now we are seeing the implications of not protecting young people, not investing in housing, and not reducing taxes from the "emergency" levels they reached during the crisis.

troyzer · 18-09-2018 10:51am

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Assuming you buy that breakfast 3 times a week, and it costs you €30 a pop, that is a total of €3,120 per year that they are wasting.

Take an average house cost of around €250k. That means if they give up this avocado lifestyle they will be able to afford the deposit for the mortgage in around 8 years.

$28 is not €30.

The minimum wage is $18.30. If you ratio it for Ireland's minimum wage it would be a €14 breakfast.

Which is expensive but not unheard of. And to be honest, a person on minimum wage isn't able to buy a €14 breakfast. Nor is it necessarily a millenial. My boss is about 50 and murders a smoked salmon and avocado bagel most mornings for around €12.

TheIrishGrover · 18-09-2018 10:52am

Everybody looks down at the next generation as being lazy and entitled. It's nothing new and the stereotypes tend to be the same. I believe that avocado toast/mortgage thing was debunked a long time ago. However there does seem to be some evidence relating to the impatience of Millennials: The belief for rapid advancement of career and wages and the disillusionment when this does not happen. Bu, in general, it's just a stereotype.

In the same way that the younger generation believe that the previous generation have ruined it for them, are resistant to new ideas and change I bought my house in 2000. While not 1990, I still paid close to 180: Euro which was a lot of money at the time. One did not get a mortgage for 20K etc in the 1990's for a couple of reasons: 1) The Irish economy was in the toilet and 2) there is a base limit on how low something like a house will cost.
I worked a fulltime job and some weekend work and had a tennant and it still took me about 10 years before I was relatively comfortable paying my mortgage. I have one house that I live in. I didn't screw the economy by buying multiple houses etc and when I lost my job I moved other people in. I never missed one mortgage payment and took the minimal dole while I re-educated.
When I restarted employment I was on 60% of what I previously was on but my thought was "I have a foot in the door" I did not expect regular and quick advancement of wages or career.

Millenials are not the spendaholic snowflakes they are made out to be but Mellenials do need to have a realistic view of career path/advancement and do need to respect the fact that others may have opinions different from them.
Previous generation are not the prejudiced, resistant-to-change economy-ruiners that they are made out to be.Many of these people were hit extremely hard by a crises they had no part in creating but they too need to respect the fact that others may have opinions different from them.

ChippingSodbury · 18-09-2018 10:53am

"Deconstructed Avocado Toast with Feta Breakfast"

If it's "Deconstructed" does that not mean that it must have been constructed i.e. avocado spread on the toast beforehand?? If so, they did a great job in getting the avocado back in to its skin! Well worth the money for that talent and skill..

Your Face · 18-09-2018 10:53am

I can afford a mortgage but can't afford a mortgage for a decent house in a decent area.

Doctors room ghost · 18-09-2018 11:03am

My heart goes out to young people working jobs and finding it difficult to get by.meanwhile the politicians and pond rats thrive on either end of the scale.
And if the thread is aimed at sticking the boot into hard working Irish people struggling to get by why not try using euro symbols instead of the dollar symbols op.this is Ireland after all not the old usa €€€

Skylinehead · 18-09-2018 11:07am

Doctors room ghost wrote: »

And if the thread is aimed at sticking the boot into hard working Irish people struggling to get by why not try using euro symbols instead of the dollar symbols op.this is Ireland after all not the old usa €€€

It's actually Australia in the OP...

But yeah. Rich of the preceding generations to complain about "millennials" (I hate that term) when they ruined it for everyone a few years ago.

draiochtanois · 18-09-2018 11:10am

This post has been deleted.

No wonder millennials can't afford a mortgage

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