Baby boomers as bad as ‘avocado brunch’ millennials

Older generation were as frivolous with money in their 20s as young people today, says bank boss

BABY boomers cannot blame young people for spending frivolously on their lifestyles because they were as bad, a bank chief executive has said.

Craig Donaldson, Metro Bank’s chief executive, said older generations had a similar spending culture in their 20s and suggested it was hypocritical of them to point the finger at so-called millennials’ expensive “avocado brunch” habits.

His comments are at odds with the image of millennials as a frivolous generation which created its money woes through irresponsible spending on brunches, holidays and clothes.

By contrast, baby boomers were stereotypically viewed as thrifty, with strict money morals. But Mr Donaldson, 45, who has annual earnings exceeding £1million, admitted that in his 20s he used to eat pasta with tomato ketchup at the end of the month as a result of overspending.

He said: “When the older generation look back at what they did, they did the same.

“We used to go to the greasy spoon to get a full English after playing rugby and being out the night before.

“We should celebrate young people having a good time. When they look back they’ll realise that actually we [older people] were just jealous.”

Many millennials graduated in the wake of the 2008 recession and struggled with job opportunities and stagnant wages and Mr Donaldson said he, too, graduated into a recession, in the Nineties.

“Graduating in a recession makes you work hard. It makes you appreciate what you’ve got,” he said.

His remarks contrast with those made by Tim Gurner, the Australian property developer, who caused controversy earlier this year when he suggested that young people could not afford to buy houses because they wasted their money on “avocado brunches”.

He said: “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.”

Mr Donaldson made his defence of the younger generation’s spending habits amid a renewed optimism for their financial futures. He said a wave of hi-tech banking apps would make them better equipped to deal with financial squeezes. “I think people are more resilient than we give them credit for,” he said.

Despite the popular belief that bank branches are mostly used by elderly people who do not use online banking, younger Metro Bank customers were the most likely to frequent them.

Mr Donaldson was speaking at Metro Bank’s latest “drive-through” branch in London, which opened yesterday.