No wonder millennials can't afford a mortgage

Vegeta wrote: »

As someone who wastes too much money on food, what do you bring in your packed lunches? Genuinely looking for ideas.

Dinner leftovers. I usually cook a bit more and pack that as lunch. Doesn't even have to be a huge portion, we'd have a proper dinner in the evening then.

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

From this thread I've just learned that I'm a millenial as I was born in 1985. Quite some time ago someone my age belonged to Gen X.

I'm 32 and had no issue getting a mortgage as a first time buyer. Had the deposit saved, didn't inherit a thing.

As regards lunch, it costs me very little. I go home every day and have toast with honey or brown bread and tuna. No point in having a big lunch when you're making dinner in the evening and you're not even hungry.

Depends on circumstance, I've had no bother either however I worked abroad for an Irish company for a couple of years that paid for the accom/car/bills over seas. I basically lived cost free for a couple of years. I count myself lucky.

Vegeta wrote: »

As someone who wastes too much money on food, what do you bring in your packed lunches? Genuinely looking for ideas.

I’m out on the road so no canteen/microwave/fridge
Always a large flask of water for tea.
Always some fruit

After that it could be;
Bowl of salad with cheese
Fresh baked brown bread cheese/chicken/ham
Wraps with salad
Homemade soup and home made bread
Boiled eggs, brown bread
Fresh bread and jam

A €7-8 piece of ham cooked will be lunch for four of us for two days. Mostly we have enough ham from our home reared pigs.

We bake brown bread twice a week, and use bread maker for white bread some other days.

With no access to a fridge I have a few 330ml water bottles frozen in the freezer and stick a frozen one in the bottom of my lunch bag and milk/youghert near that keeps it fresh.

Vegeta wrote: »

As someone who wastes too much money on food, what do you bring in your packed lunches? Genuinely looking for ideas.

Most of my lunches are composed of whatever meat I can get on offer from supermarket/butchers, whatever marinade I can get on offer, then I have that with some rice/lentils/mixed beans/noodles and a bit of soy sauce. Cheap and tasty.

Not a millennial or whatever.
Just call me old angry pretty disillusioned.

Yes a lot of people over borrowed from early 2000s up to bubble burst, but some people think the issue with high rents and high housing prices today is solely down to them.

IMHO the issue is that the whole construction and property industry from the 1990s onwards has been an ill thought out mess.
A lot of the stuff built during the bubble was not fit for purpose ala the section 23 houses built in Leitrim villages, the badly constructed apartment blocks without adequate services in suburbs, or the shoe box "flats", etc.

And the issue isn't banks not lending enough to mortgage applicants, it is banks not lending to developers (who are fault for a lot of the mess anyway) and absolutely cr** planning which includes inability or refusal of central and local government to force land into development promptly and with higher densities.
It is a supply and demand issue.
And until supply is met then prices will rise and people will be screwed.

We are on dangerous ground again as I heard ad this morning on radio for interest free buy to let loans.

And the OP's article does have point about consumption and attitudes, but it could be leveled at lots of people back into the 90s and not just some crowd born post 1985.

When people bought houses or "flats" back in 80s or early 90s they usually moved in with hand me downs and the basics.
They didn't run to Harvey Norman, Meadows & Byrne, Ez Living, DFS to buy a load of stuff right away.
There wasn't even an Ikea in Ireland and the most they ended up going for was Bargaintown.

That changed in late 90s and definitely changed in the bubble.

Today people complain they can't save and the price of houses in 1980s was so much less.
But check out the tax rates and the interest rates on mortgages in the 1980s ?

People nowadays don't cop on that people in the 1980s had to scrimp and save for a deposit due to very high taxes.
They didn't go on any weekend breaks throughout Europe, there were no stag weekends to Barca, they usually didn't go on foreign holidays, a couple had one car if they had a car, they didn't have mobile phones which were replaced every other year, they didn't have broadband costs, they didn't have tv subscription services.
They didn't go out to dinner, unless you count eating at a takeway or something like a Macaris or Caffolas.

And these were the lucky ones that didn't have to fooking leave the country to find a job.

When you got your leaving cert results you went on the p**s in the local town for the night not off to Magaluf for a week.
Of course that was assuming your weren't over in London already working.
If you went to college parking wasn't an issue because very very few students had a car, they made do with bicycles.

Times have changed and people now face new challenges, but I am sick and tired of one group blaming another for their problems or claiming ones that went before had it fooking easy.

Also I think it is time some people copped on they aint going to have a forever job, aint going to be able to live like their parents in semi D in a nice suburb just like I have long since copped on I will be working longer into retirement and have a shyte pension when I do retire in comparison to those who have gone before.

EDIT:
just thinking about it.
Not alone students having cars today, but how many people years ago had new cars ?
And the only person I knew in the 1980s with a BMW was a solicitor and the only one with a Merc was a business owner with 30 odd employees.
Hell the best car any of my teachers had was a new Ford Cortina or Toyota Carina.
Now I see numerous new Mercs outside of schools.

Vegeta wrote: »

As someone who wastes too much money on food, what do you bring in your packed lunches? Genuinely looking for ideas.

Down to Lidl/Aldi with you, bread, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes.

Top tip, buy cherry tomatoes and throw a few into the lunchbox whole. Sliced tomato makes sambos soggy.

Other options are pastrami, or buy a full ham and cook it yourself. Good eating in that.

Roast a chicken, pesto, pasta and some salad. Use bones to make soup. Alternatively buy breasts on the bone and roast them, smaller quantities.

steo_magra wrote: »

Skip breakfast most days and I currently spend about 30 euro a month on lunch as usually bring my own lunch to work,
I go out once a month and i work Overtime Saturday and Sundays most weekends.
I currently pay colossal rent while i'm trying to save to buy a house and when the time comes the bank probably wont give me enough for the house I want so Ill probably emigrate. Myself and my other half are both on above average salaries and I've never had avocado before.

Maybe if you ate an avocado you'd get a better paying job. It's a super food

there is a bit of a time bomb going to happen for some people with regard to mortgages. banks will only give you a mortgage term until your 65th birthday. so if you buy at 40 the maximum mortgage term you will get is 25 years etc which will of course push up your monthly repayments. on the plus side it should mean paying a lower amount of interest over the full term.

Bag of porridge usually does me for breakfast in work for a few weeks.
Spend maybe a tenner a week on bread and meat, cheese for lunch
Dinner maybe another 20 or 30 a week
Cycle everywhere

The issue is the insane cost of rent, something that was mainly caused by the ludicrous decision not to build anything for 8 years when it would have been the cheapest time to build

It used to be the case that a family could afford a house in a decent area near a school on a single middle class salary. The mother (usually) could stay home and look after the kids, and out decent food on the table. Over the last fifty years housing has gotten more and more expensive relative to income, and now it takes two salaries under "normal" conditions, and even that's not enough for a middle class lifestyle any more. iPhones and avocado toast isn't to blame for that.

I’d be more concerned what we spend on alcohol as a nation rather than our breakfast.