Who has it worse, the millennial — or her baby boomer mother?

KATHY, 30 Has a degree BUT can’t find a well-paid job Can’t afford a house BUT buys new clothes most weeks Enjoys an active social life BUT hasn’t found Mr Right KAREN, 60 Forced to leave school at 15 BUT loved being a housewife Bought a house at 24

THEY struggle to get on the housing ladder and complain they’ll never be able to save towards a decent pension. Many say they can’t afford to get married and start a family so are forced to live at home with their parents. Barely a day passes without hearing that the millennial generation (that’s those aged between 22 and 37) have it so much harder than their baby boomer parents did.

But do they really? Recent financial predictions have certainly painted a gloomy picture for them.

Households are spending more than they earn for the first time in 30 years, taking out £80 billion in loans last year. Now interest rates are beginning to creep up, financial analysts are warning that a decade of historically low interest rates, which have favoured borrowers over savers, could leave Britons without enough money to cover their escalating debt.

So, was life really easier a generation ago, or just simpler? And are spoiled millennials in part responsible for their predicament?

Here, Kathy Cakebread, 30, who is single and works in customer services, and her mum Karen, 60, a housewife from Chatham, Kent, give a fascinating insight into the real differences between the two generations . . .

HOUSING

KATHY SAYS: I can’t afford to leave home, which is awful. Renting a one-bedroom flat in our area costs £600 a month. If I was spending that sort of money, I would never be able to save a deposit to buy my own place.

Living at home means I have managed to put away £25,000 towards buying a flat of my own. I’ve saved £400 a month for more than five years.

I’m aiming to save around £60,000, leaving me with a mortgage of about £100,000 on a two-bedroom flat.

I don’t have a boyfriend, but if I did it would be awkward. How could I bring someone back to my parents’ house? It’s just embarrassing! KAREN SAYS: My husband Ian, now 64, and I bought our first home, a £25,000 two-bedroom terrace, as newlyweds when I was 24 after saving a £5,000 deposit. When we were Kathy’s age, we bought our current home, a three-bedroom end terrace, with a mortgage of £30,000.

It was a new-build and a bit of a struggle getting the money together to carpet and furnish it, so it was pretty bare for the first couple of years. We went without luxuries. We never had takeaways or ready meals — we couldn’t afford it.

Back then, in 1988, interest rates reached 12.8 per cent, compared with 0.75 per cent today, so the repayments were around £330 a month — a substantial chunk of our income.

My husband earned around £900 a month and I stayed at home to raise our children, Kathy and Andrew.

There was never much left over, so if the washing machine or fridge packed up, it meant months of repayments. The houses around us now sell for more than £250,000, which is way out of Kathy’s price range, or even for a couple with two salaries. When it comes to gaining independence, Kathy’s generation has it very hard.

EDUCATION

KATHY SAYS: After doing well in my A-levels — a mix of A and B grades — I went to the University of Canterbury and kept living at home. I did a degree in media and film studies and came out with a 2:1.

People told me I should make the most of my qualifications by going to university, and I listened to them. I thought it would be a good route to a lucrative career.

However, lots of companies want young people to do internships for free, which I couldn’t afford to do — so I never got a job in my field.

My degree feels like it was a waste of my time. In fact, if I could go back to being 18, I probably wouldn’t bother going to university.

I ran up debts of £10,000, which I’ll probably be repaying until I retire. KAREN SAYS: I left school aged 15 in 1974, a year before the Sex Discrimination Act — which made it illegal to favour men over women in the workplace and elsewhere — was introduced.

It never occurred to me or any of my friends to keep studying. It wasn’t something many women did back then.

Only about five per cent of school leavers did degrees, compared with around a third today. Do I feel I missed out by not going? Not really. I don’t see any huge advantages in studying until you’re 21, other than the freedom to do as you please more.

WORK & WAGES

KATHY SAYS: My first job after leaving university was as a receptionist, earning £18,000 a year, followed by a few administrative roles, paying a bit less. Now I work in customer services for a debt purchase company and earn £19,000, taking home £1,360 a month.

It’s enough for me to live on and to save £400 every month. I pay £40 a month into a pension scheme, and invest about £ 25 in stocks and shares, which I know isn’t enough.

Sometimes I envy Mum’s lifestyle when she was 30, because things seemed so straightforward back then. She had a three-bedroom house, a husband, two children and no need to worry about making money.

Things are very different for me. As well as my job, I also have a blog, which doesn’t earn me money but means I get to write, which I love — and get free things, like meals in restaurants, to review.

Mum finds this world of sharing things online, which didn’t exist when she was my age, completely baffling. KAREN SAYS: I was an administrative support worker in an advertising agency from leaving school until my mid-20s.

My husband didn’t want me to work after the kids came along. Like a lot of people back then, he believed they needed their mother at home.

I didn’t mind because around 60 per cent of mums with pre-schoolers were housewives in those days. We survived quite well on Ian’s wage, which rose steadily over the years until he retired recently with a good pension.

However, once the kids had started secondary school, it was difficult getting back into the workplace.

I did courses in computing and childcare in the hope of starting a new career, but it didn’t happen and I eventually felt too old to keep trying.

I don’t have many friends, which may be partly because I never had a career and the colleagues that would have come with that, so I now spend most of my time pottering around at home.

RELATIONSHIPS

KATHY SAYS: I’ve had boyfriends, but have never lived

with a man — and the older I get the harder it seems to meet someone. When my parents’ generation were young they met prospective partners on nights out, but nowadays most people meet through dating websites. It makes it trickier to know whether you have chemistry with someone.

I’d love to have kids one day, but only within a committed relationship. About 80 per cent of my friends have children and most of them are married or in long-term relationships. They’re all so stressed working and trying to keep everything afloat at home, it seems like really hard work.

KAREN SAYS: I met Ian when I was 23 through a dating agency and married him at 24. We had our first child, Andrew, when I was 27. Kathy followed three years later.

I was very happy when the children came along and did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry.

My husband didn’t like me going out with girlfriends on my own because he said he worried about me. It never occurred to me to object to that.

Most of our socialising was with neighbours — we’d go to their houses or they’d come round to ours for drinks.

SPLASHING OUT

KATHY SAYS: Clothes and make-up are my biggest indulgences and I spend a few hundred pounds a month on them. I buy a new outfit most weeks.

I go on holiday most years with family or friends. I’ve been to France, Spain, Holland and Germany, as well to various destinations in the UK.

I’m not a big drinker, but I meet up with my friends most weeks for a meal.

I also pay £80 a month on the loan for my Peugeot 208 car. Mum has never driven — something I would find very hard to live with. KAREN SAYS: When I was Kathy’s age there was very little spare money. Anything we had went on the children.

I hardly ever got new clothes and had to make the ones I had last for years, or I would buy things at charity shops.

I rarely wore make-up and kept my hair long so I didn’t need to visit the hairdresser’s often.

On special occasions we went to the local Beefeater or Harvester for meals as a family.

It’s hard to remember exactly, but I think it would cost £20 for the four of us. Mostly, we’d stay in and Ian and I might share a bottle of wine on a Saturday night.

We couldn’t afford a holiday every year but we’d save up and, every second or third year, take the children to Pontins or Butlins holiday camps.

Still, we were happy and I don’t resent Kathy her luxuries at all.

ASPIRATIONS

KATHY SAYS: Over the next decade I’d like to do some travelling, maybe to America or Australia. I’d also like to meet a man, marry and have a child or two.

At the same time, I want to progress in my career and for my wages to increase so my standard of living can, too — though I’m not sure how easy that will be.

I think it would be very unlikely for me to be a stay-at-home mum, because we’d need two incomes to buy a family home.

I don’t know how Mum did it for all those years.

I think it is better being 30 in 2018, rather than 1988, like Mum. Women have much greater equality with men today.

However, ‘ having it all’ also means there is more pressure on women to do it all: work, raise a family and still look good.

It’s also more difficult to create a secure financial future. So who’s had it hardest? I’d say me. But I wouldn’t swap places with Mum. KAREN SAYS: Young women today please themselves much more, when it comes to work and family life. I think they’re very fortunate to be able to do that.

I would never have wanted to miss out on having children, but, when I was 30, I’d have liked more independence and the chance to challenge myself professionally. But it felt insurmountable.

Who would look after the children if I went to work? In 1988, there wasn’t all this talk about women having it all. You were either a mum or a career girl.

I was so proud of Kathy when she went to university because I knew it could open all kinds of doors that were closed to me.

I know what she’s doing is not the career she planned, but she has a decent job and, while it would be lovely for her to have children one day, I’m not in any rush to become a grandmother.

My mum was only in her 40s when she became a grandma for the first time, which seems astonishing. She seemed so old at the time, but she was much younger than I am now.

Kathy is luckier than me in many ways: she has a degree, a career, her own money and a car, and more choice about what to do with her life.

But I do still feel sorry for her because building a future seems much harder than in my day.

Who had it hardest? I’d say Kathy probably has more stress and worry than I did — but she also has so many more opportunities. I’d rather live her life as a 30-year-old, than mine.