Baby boomers and their aging parents have shared their tips on how Australians can survive the cost of living crisis as inflation particularly punishes younger generations.
Workers should start supplementing their pensions while they’re still young, forgo expensive restaurant meals and modern luxuries like Netflix, watch their spending and be grateful for what they have, they suggest.
The advice – shared by boomers and members of the Silent Generation in a series of interviews with Daily Mail Australia – comes as the cost of living remains stubbornly high.
The Big Four banks – Commonwealth, ANZ, Westpac and NAB – all expect the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates next Tuesday in a bid to eradicate stubbornly high inflation.
‘You suck it up’: Retired boss
Maurice Newman, 85, former chairman of the ABC and the Australian Securities Exchange, said he remembered what it was like to flee London as a five-year-old boy in 1943 during the Second World War.
Mr Newman said he survived on horse meat after being evacuated to a farm in Devon to avoid Nazi bombings.
“You don’t see them as hardships,” he told Daily Mail Australia – using a term meaning a lack of basic needs.
‘That’s how it is. Especially as a child, it is the way it is. You kind of suck it up.
Maurice Newman, former chancellor of Macquarie University of the Silent Generation, said younger people would struggle without a Netflix subscription, which now costs $23 a month
He wondered whether young people could do without today’s modern home entertainment
‘We never went without food on the table; we ate horse meat and whale meat, and things like that.”
Mr Newman, a former chancellor at Macquarie University, suggested younger people would struggle without a Netflix subscription, which now costs $23 a month.
“We didn’t have Netflix – I don’t know where people’s priorities are, I guess they probably see Netflix and home entertainment as a priority.
‘Without judging today’s youth, I would have to say that my generation is more resilient because it had to be that way – we didn’t have that kind of luxury.’
Grandma, 59, who works night shifts
Baby boomer and grandmother Rachel Wellstead, 59, works full-time night shifts at an Amazon warehouse and plans to do so until she turns 70 so she can retire comfortably.
Miss Wellstead clocks in at 6.15pm and is on duty until after 4am as a security coordinator in Melbourne so she can get the 30 per cent late-night fine.
To save for her retirement and the occasional cruise to Asia, she has avoided going to expensive, high-end restaurants that are beyond the budget of many Australians struggling with the cost of living.
Her frugal lifestyle and financially smart choice of working hours could be an example to many young Australians.
Rachel Wellstead, 59, clocks in at 6:15 p.m. and is on duty until after 4 a.m. as a security coordinator in Melbourne so she can get the 30 percent late night fine
“One of the reasons I do evenings is because the pay is a little higher,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I don’t need it to survive, it helps with my savings.
‘I could easily work a day shift and still pay the rent, that’s no problem.’
Miss Wellstead described herself as a harder-working, financially disciplined baby boomer, with this category including those born between 1946 and 1964.
Her goal is to move to Lakes Entrance, a coastal town 300km east of Melbourne, and retire after the occasional cruise, which is possible with super savings of $250,000.
Miss Wellstead’s advice to young Australians is to save up to top up their super when they are young.
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia recommends individuals have $595,000 in savings to live comfortably and receive the age pension at age 67.
For couples, the recommended savings amount is $690,000.
“I think if you start early enough, yes, but if you leave it too late, it wouldn’t be feasible because of the cost of living.”
Miss Wellstead said, ‘you get out of life what you put into it’.
‘If you want to do more things, you have to work harder.
‘We thought about continuing to work until we were seventy. We want to do things before we retire and after.”
The empty nester, who raised five children with her partner, said she worked nights so she could afford a cruise from Sydney to Singapore or a trip to Japan before she got too old.
“It’s just my choice to help with things I want to do in the future,” she said.
“Our next big plan is to do a cruise in the next few years, that’s what we’re looking at and planning at the moment, that’s the goal.”
To save money, Miss Wellstead no longer needs expensive restaurant meals, opting instead to eat at the local club occasionally.
‘If we go to dinner, we go to the local club.
‘We obviously watch our money – with big decisions we always discuss them and discuss them before we jump in.’
The mother of five said her offspring, aged between 20 and 30, was raised to be independent so she could thrive as an empty nester.
“While we don’t want to see our children struggle at all, we have set them up to be independent and self-sufficient,” she said.
“We don’t have the burden of maybe supporting them with money and things like that.
‘It’s our time, we have to enjoy life too, at least that’s how I see it.’
The baby boomer and grandmother works full-time night shifts at an Amazon warehouse and plans to do so until she turns 70 so she can retire comfortably
We boomers work later – from home: demographer
Demographer Bernard Salt, a baby boomer best known for using the phrase “crushed avocado” to mock millennials paying $22 for a cafe breakfast in a 2016 satirical magazine column, denied that his generation was moralizing to millennials about saving
Demographer Bernard Salt, a baby boomer who invoked “destroyed avocado” in a 2016 magazine column to mock millennials paying $22 for a cafe breakfast, denied that his generation was moralizing to millennials about saving.
Mr Salt, 67, instead noted that baby boomers, especially those in their early 60s, were more likely to volunteer – a Longeran survey of 1,405 Australians for Amazon found 54 per cent of adults did something extra on top of their full-time work. time.
‘When they retire they will be very focused on keeping fit, staying healthy, staying involved, contributing, volunteering where they can, helping their family where they can in some way, also equates to the evidence I have seen,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
Many baby boomers have achieved university degrees, thanks to the free education that existed between 1974 and 1989 as a result of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government.
That meant people like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, 60, benefited.
Salt said older baby boomers would continue to work from home part-time, with the research showing that 87 percent of people aged 60 and over want to gradually transition from full-time work before retiring.
Maurice Newman, who had to flee London during the bombings in World War II, remembers having to eat horse meat
“Baby boomers were the generation that really increased their tertiary education skills thanks to the Whitlam government in the 1970s,” he said.
‘So they have a better chance of getting a job as a knowledge worker, which means they can work longer if they want to.’
The 2021 Census found that one in five Australians worked from home, with older professionals more likely.
‘The number of people most likely to work from home increases from the 1950s through the 1960s and beyond – this could be because they hold senior positions or because they have the skills that will enable them to work from home. enable people to work from home,” Salt said.