A wealthy baby boomer couple who boasted of spending their adult children’s entire inheritance on lavish overseas holidays have been branded “selfish and pretentious” – even though their son supports their philosophy.
Leanne and Leon Ryland, a Victorian couple with two adult children, consulted a financial planner before retiring four years ago after a lifetime of saving and thrifting.
“We’ve done all the right things by investing in property, increasing our pension fund and making sure it’s healthy, while leaving a lot of things out,” Ryland told SBS Insight on Tuesday night.
‘And he said, “You’re crazy if you don’t retire when you can because you’ll spend most of your wealth on travel or whatever in the first 10 years and then it will slow down.”
“It’s about changing your mindset. You enter a phase where you actually spend instead of save.”
The couple have since spent $170,000 on luxury vacations and cruises to see the “wonders of the world,” including Machu Picchu in Peru, and trips to India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
They are scheduled to make another trip to the United States next month.
“I’m trying to convince him (her husband) that we have to spend it now because if we don’t spend it, you know he’s going to get it,” Ryland said, pointing to her son who also appeared on the show.
Baby boomers Leanne and Leon Ryland (pictured with son Alex) consulted a financial planner, who told them to spend their money and travel while they still could.
The couple’s son, Alex (pictured), supports his parents’ plans to spend their savings and said he never considered their money to be his own.
“We’re not going to be able to spend all that money, so let’s do it because in another 10 years we won’t be able to climb the Great Wall of China, we won’t be able to climb Machu Picchu.
“We’re not going to do those things. We have to do them now because what else is there?”
The couple run a private Facebook group called ‘SKIclub’ (which stands for ‘spending the kids’ inheritance’) where they share travel tips with other cash-rich retirees and travellers.
The couple joked that they had accumulated piles of cheap tourist trinkets from their far-flung destinations, which they described as a “shelf of crap”.
According to them, this would be all that their two children would inherit.
Their son Alex, who appeared on the show talking about “baby boomer economics” alongside them, could perhaps be forgiven for feeling bitter that his parents’ love of travel would likely leave him with nothing.
But he supported her plans and said he never considered the money to be his.
“It’s your money,” he said.
“They worked hard all their lives and invested well to get that money, so I think they should be able to do whatever they want with it.”
But not all viewers were so enamored of his philosophy.
The couple run a private Facebook group called ‘SKIclub’ (which stands for ‘spending the kids’ inheritance’) where they share travel tips with other wealthy retirees and travellers.
One viewer accused baby boomers of being “evil.”
‘They boast about holidays abroad without taking into account the environment, spending all their money so that their children do not inherit anything,’ they commented on X.
“They obstruct health care because they believe they have a right to health and refuse to die. They are selfish and privileged.”
Another commented: “Tonight’s SBS Insight is hilarious – baby boomer privilege at its finest and he’s still not aware of it. He’s entitled to it.”
Sonja Van Vliet, another boomer who appeared on the show, revealed she lived in a Sydney suburb where house prices averaged $3 million.
“We own our own home. We have a healthy retirement fund and a bit of investment,” Vliet said.
“So, you know, by Australian standards we would definitely be… we consider ourselves comfortable.
But Ms Vliet said she had been able to accumulate that wealth and security through “age”.
“Certainly when I started, I went straight from high school, I didn’t do college at the time, I was able to get a full-time job,” he recalled.
‘My parents were working class.We lived in the western suburbs, and we were definitely expected to get on our feet pretty quickly.
And so I did, and in my early twenties I was able to buy an apartment in the western suburbs for $42,000. At the time I was making $21,000, so it was a good deal.’
Ms. Vliet said she was then able to shop further into the city.
Fellow baby boomer Lorna Shuker recalled how she and her husband bought their first home for $62,000 without any help from their parents.
“My family was very poor, they never had a house of their own or even a car,” she told the programme.
“I went into nursing because I was getting paid at the same time as getting my degree and I just saved and saved.”
Ms Shuker has since been able to buy and sell several properties worth millions of dollars and describes her current life as “comfortable”.
He said he thought baby boomers were a “fabulous generation.”
“It was a very nice time to grow up,” he said.
“It wasn’t as fast-paced a life as it is now.”
As for younger generations, he said he did not think they were “brilliant at budgeting.”
“I think they’re the generation that sees something and wants it right now,” Shuker said.
‘And that’s why they will use services like Afterpay and live beyond their means.
Another baby boomer, Craig Doyle, spoke about how he had been able to use his retirement fund to buy five properties worth a total of $3 million, but complained that he was being hurt by high interest rates.