Research from the Home Builders Federation has suggested that first time buyers would have to save every single penny that they earned for two years in order to have enough money for a deposit to buy a house. Even if first time buyers hold out for 5 years it will still take 45% of their monthly wage to afford the £37,000 deposit to buy an average starter home. Obviously depending on where you live this can greatly vary, London is far more expensive.

I am in this category and with rent prices and general living costs saving 45% of my income is simply not possible. One of my friends is lucky enough to have managed to save enough for a deposit but when she started to look there was a lack of affordable housing. Even when she did find somewhere the bank was far from forthcoming to offering her a mortgage, essentially shutting young people out of the housing market.

Now the average age of people buying homes without the help of their parents is 37. People even have to live with their parents for longer. A third of men between 20 – 34 are living with their parents and a fifth of women are doing the same. I’m not sure who I feel sorrier – for probably their parents!

It seems as though everything just keeps getting worse and worse for the 20 and 30 something generations.

As I look around at the economic landscape I just have to dispair these days. On the one hand the government suggests a bright future with great high paying jobs available for all graduates, and on the other hand there is the reality of Britain’s and the indeed most of the rest of the world’s economic situation.

- Difficulties getting onto the first rung of the property ladder
- Younger workers representing the majority of those losing their jobs in the current economic climate
- Increased debt at the start of working life due to the removal of student grants
- Few genuine “graduate” level jobs which actually provide the increased pay rates and prospects widely touted
- and now announcements about pensions deficits meaning companies can no longer provide decent final-salary schemes to either new or existing members of staff and that the retirement age will have to rise too.

Even the safety net of the public state pension, and all those index-linked civil service pensions, which have for a long time been seen as sacrosanct, are in serious difficulties due to shortfalls. The Adam Smith Institute seems to be despairing at the situation as well, “The government’s pension schemes would not even pass its own laws and regulations. Indeed, if the cabinet were private-sector pension trustees, they would all have been carted off to Pentonville Jail long ago. Now there’s a thought to keep you happy in an impoverished retirement.”

This dinosaur knows that there have always been financial difficulties for those just starting out on their working lives, but currently it seems as though almost everyday something new comes along to compound the issue.

There must be some good news out there? Surely.