When you picture retirement, what comes to mind? Golf courses and leisurely brunches? Or carefully counting pennies and worrying about the next medical bill? The reality is that retirement looks dramatically different depending on which side of the economic divide you're standing on. Having grown up in a working-class family outside Manchester, I've watched this play out firsthand. My father spent decades in a factory, my mother in retail. Now, seeing how their retirement differs from some of my London colleagues' parents has been eye-opening.
Peter and I began by examining the gap between his fantasy of how Christmas should be celebrated and the reality of his actual Christmas celebrations in years past. Part of Peter's fantasy was that everyone in his family would get along well and have fun together on Christmas Day. The reality, however, was that his family invariably pick fights with each other, especially a few drinks in, and find fault with his cooking, his home and the way he is raising his young kids.
Before anyone received an official alert about the Eaton fire, a message lit up a pickleball group chat. "Everyone look up, there's a vegetation fire on Canyon Close," the message read. "If you're anywhere near Eaton Canyon, I'd evacuate." Over the next several days, the chat of about 50 people who met regularly at the Altadena Country Club pinged with updates about where the fire was headed, pleas to evacuate, offerings of safe-havens and status updates on what was lost.
If you're worrying about how you'll make a massive Thanksgiving spread when grocery prices are this high, or how you're going to get everything on your kids' wish lists for Christmas or Hanukkah, you're not alone. Chances are something will have to give. Maybe you're not going to be flying home for the holidays as you have in years past, or you'll have to forego the dinner and drinks with the girls where you usually exchange nice gifts.
Inflation is stubborn, unemployment is rising and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has even confirmed that Gen Z grads just can't get a break right now. But the youngest generation of workers already know that. In fact, they're so anxious about the state of the economy right now that they can't even sleep. So what are they doing about it? They're, perhaps counterintuitively, bed rotting and watching TV.
Surging property prices have ensured that the average Irish adult is now 30pc richer than their British counterparts, according to a report from Unio Wealth Management.
"Financially, emotionally, I'm stressed. I'm not able to sleep; it's heartbreaking," says Mangalathu, who's lived in the Morningside-Highway 401 area house for 26 years.
