'I'm not a wealth hoarding boomer - my grandchildren want for nothing'

Money from boomers is propping up the next generation, rather than being hoarded, according to pensioner Gilda Smith.

She and her husband David own their Ayrshire home outright and have lived there for the last four decades - a dream that is out of reach for nearly half of young people today.

The latest government statistics show median household wealth is five times higher for the baby boomer generation, now aged in their 60s and 70s, than younger millennials.

The economic imbalance has caused some tension between the generations that MPs sought to address earlier this week with a report warning against ageism, including the stereotype of "wealth-hoarding boomers".

However, Gilda says her children and grandchildren "want for nothing" and enjoy gadgets and holidays abroad, in contrast with her own austere upbringing, while spending time and money on a stereotypical cruise would be her "worst nightmare".

The gran-of-four explained that one of the first essays she wrote was debating the statement 'Poverty, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder' and says "that's exactly right".

"It's all about perspective," she said. "Some people may perceive my husband and I as being pretty well off because we have got a car each.

"We're comfortable - we can pay the bills and we can help out my son if necessary -but we're not extremely well off and we both live on our pension."

Those pensions are not huge, she says, particularly as her husband David was "almost forced into early retirement" aged 51 years old from his civil engineering role.

Gilda says David was the victim of ageism and was targeted along with a group of colleagues also aged over 50 because the company wanted younger and cheaper workers "at the expense of experience".

The couple have lived frugally, worked "very, very hard" and saved up to afford their current home, she says, "unlike some younger people nowadays who are wanting too much, too soon".

Gilda and David moved into a small flat when they married in 1974 and their daughter Linda was born a few years later, followed by their son Graeme.

The pair went on their first holiday seven years later, followed by a second holiday in 1996, when they bought a second-hand caravan to travel around Scotland.

This is in stark contrast to Gilda's own childhood, where any school holidays were spent working on the family dairy farm, and "we brought ourselves up, really".

Now she can't imagine fulfilling the boomer stereotype of going on multiple holiday cruises per year, with more than half of cruises populated by over-60s.

"Going on a cruise would be my worst nightmare, no thank you," she said.

"I went to the Isle of Man on a catamaran and I was seasick twice."

She also started getting "funny pains on my arm" on the catamaran, that turned out to be the first signs of a heart attack, so she is "not a fan of boats".

Gilda is also not a fan of how hard her children are having to work to stay financially afloat, and with her son Graeme being a self-employed garage owner, "from time to time we have to help him out".

She said: "My son is such a kind-hearted soul and people take advantage.

"I hate to think how much money I've given him - it will be in the thousands - to keep the bills paid."

Her daughter Linda works as a maths teacher "so financially she's very astute" but Gilda says she still worries about her safety and her health.

"I worry about her safety - the other day she was trying to split up two girls going at each other with a chair - and she's working much harder than the teachers that I had, because there are so few teachers now," she said.

"If someone calls in sick, there is no cover and the other teachers just have to take more children into their classes."

Gilda is a firm believer that relationships are about more than money, and having lost her mother as a teenager and with a difficult relationship with her father, she lavishes time and attention on her grandchildren.

"My own grandchildren want for nothing, with their own phones and gadgets and loads of Lego," she said. "They don't know what it is not to have."

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