KEY POINTS:
You know the stereotypes. Generation Y is the acquisitive one - demanding, impatient, with eggshell egos and the fortitude of a frappe. Baby boomers? Boringly consumed by their ongoing quests for self-fulfilment and security, but quick to lecture Y on the need to work for things. And the War Generation, pinched and stoic from years of privation and self-denial, watch their extravagant, flighty progeny with dismay, wondering whatever happened to commitment, or to waiting until you can afford it before you buy?
Except the stereotypes don't always hold up.
As the credit crunch fallout descends, the Herald on Sunday talks to three generations - ages 31, 62 and 92 - and finds their attitudes to money, savings and debt have more to do with upbringing than trends.
The youngster:
Niki Gribble, 31, textile designer
Bachelor of Design
Three main jobs so far
Flatted from 18-28
Now owns home with boyfriend of 11 years, Brad
Expecting first child
Aucklander Nicola Gribble makes a lie of almost all the Generation Y stereotypes. Spendthrift, fickle, high-maintenance? Hardly. She can't stand being in debt. She pays her credit card in full every month.
After her first year of a $20,000 bachelor of design degree in Wellington, she worked for two years to repay her loan. She cleared the second, $16,000 loan for the remainder of the degree within two years of graduating. "Back then, the minute you left school you started getting interest. That's what freaked me out. I didn't want to just pay the minimum, I wanted to get rid of it."
Her student debt was relatively modest (the average on graduation, including credit cards and overdraft, is $28,838, according to Student Union Association research). She sees others struggling with their debt. "When you're 18 you're not thinking about it, you're just taking what you can get. I saw that happening."
She met Brad in Wellington, and the couple moved to Auckland after university. They decided early to save for a house.
"It wasn't hard, we'd been living off hardly anything when we were students, and when we got decent jobs and started getting paid quite well, we didn't change the way we lived, we just put the money aside."
In 2005, they bought a three-bedroom villa in Onehunga for $465,000, with a 10 per cent deposit. Their interest rate recently jumped from 7.4 per cent to 9 per cent.
"Some of our friends, even some in their 40s, haven't got a house and spend everything they earn, whereas other people have a house.
"Generally if they've got kids they've got the house, and if they don't, they're living a great life. Both lifestyles are fine. We wanted the house before the kids."
She worked as a textile designer for the same company for six years, until she was made redundant shortly after she became pregnant this year. She started on $30,000 at the textile firm - less than she earned before her degree - but her pay more than doubled.
She was unusual among her peers for how long she stayed with one company. But she believes job-roaming among Gen Ys makes sense. "I think you should look for a chance to better yourself."
And if young people demand more from their jobs, their jobs demand more from them. Some weeks, she'd work 105 hours. "The 40-hour week is rare among my friends."
And the job-for-life is all but extinct. "I don't know if people who stay in their job that long love it or just don't know where to go. And businesses have changed - opening and closing, restructuring - so to have the chance to do that is rare."
Now she works part-time in retail. "I've come round to think it's a blessing. I've slowed right down, I'm starting to think of other things I can do. Before that I was definitely planning to go back to work after a few months of having a baby. Now I think we'll be fine - we used to live on $250 a week. People cope."
The mum:
Christine Gribble, 62, in business with her husband, Glenn
Four years at secondary school
Seven jobs
Married 35 years
Three children
Lived in house for 30 years
Christine Gribble always wanted to be a hairdresser, and became one after high school. There was a stint in England, then marriage to Glenn at age 27 - late for her peer group - and three children. She had the third at 36.
Property prices were rising, so the couple bought a unit while they were engaged in 1973 - $17,000, with a deposit of $3900 and two mortgages, at 8 per cent and 10 per cent interest.
They brought their second house, where they still live, shortly after. Over the years they built extensions, finally paying off the mortgage a couple of years ago. She and Glenn now run a mechanical repair business and driver training school. She still cuts the family's hair.
Of course women expect to keep working after having children now, and not just for the money, she says. "It's a totally different world from my mother's. People are looking for stimulation, fulfilment.
"I'm a little bit of both her generation and my children's. Mother's generation was everything for the husband and family, but you've got to remember that mothers are people too, they've had education, they have to fulfil their own needs."
But she thinks families have to be creative about juggling children and work. She is her mother's daughter: resourceful, a tailor and gardener and bargain-shopper.
The modern economy has brought more money and job opportunities, especially for women. But it's also brought conspicuous consumption and a more stratified society, she says.
"They were great times after the war, we had great opportunities, things our parents didn't have. We had all sorts of different people living nearby, bankers, lawyers, electricians.
"There were no differences in the children, they virtually had the same toys, the same opportunities."
She predicts the recession will hit hardest people who are hooked on designer lifestyles - "people who are getting their self-esteem from having the right designer stuff".
She's dubious of generational stereotypes. "It's a marketing thing. There's always a percentage of people living for the day in every generation. But you've also got to recognise the different times."
The grandma:
Jean Howe, 92
Three years of secondary school
One job
Married 65 years to Bill
Two children, five grandchildren
Lived in home for 61 years
Jean was at high school during the Depression. She remembers her mother wearing summer clothes in winter, making bead necklaces for her father to sell. At 14, she loaned her parents money. "For them to ask me for some money, that must have been the hardest thing in the world."
She remembers the mortification of wearing a blouse and skirt to school prize-giving instead of the required silk dress because her parents couldn't afford the fabric. But the family never went hungry.
As a child she'd get threepence: a penny for Barnado's, a penny for the bank, and a penny to spend. After school, she spent two years at home learning domestic skills, then got a job on the shop floor of department store Smith & Caughey's.
"You were expected to get a job. I'd booked into a business college but my aunties thought I should be on a shop floor because I was tall. They influenced my father."
She budgeted for every penny of her wage - 17 shillings and sixpence ($1.75), rising to £3 a week.
She quit after marrying Bill in 1943, aged 27. They bought their Mt Roskill, Auckland, house for £1200 with a Government rehab loan, available to returned servicemen (interest: 3 per cent). They had two daughters. Howe has had only one, temporary, paid job since.
Until Len started his own plumbing business, the young family had no phone, car or whiteware. She bought food daily from the local grocer and kept it cool in a ventilated safe. She'd call her mother from a phone box up the road, and get around by tram. Len was earning £6 a week (in 1948, a pound of cheese cost six pence; a pound of sirloin steak one shilling and four pence.)
In later years, she'd buy a dishwasher and CD-player as soon as they came out. The couple travelled broadly, and lived in Rarotonga for 18 months. But apart from her home loan, she has never been in debt.
"If you can't afford something I don't think you should buy it, and if you owe something you should get it paid off as quickly as possible. It's been probably ingrained into me as a child that I didn't owe anyone anything."
She understands how the economies of family life have changed. "It's different now. I used to make all my own clothes, and my children's. Everybody used to make jams. These days it's cheaper to buy those things. The saddest thing is that people are living on smaller sections now, so they haven't got the means to have gardens and fruit trees. And if they work they haven't got the time."
Despite drifting from self-sufficiency, she's optimistic we'll cope with the hard times ahead. "New Zealanders are resilient. They'll manage. They need to make sure they're budgeting. It'll probably be a little bit harder because things have been easier for a while now."
