New yuppies shun champagne lifestyle

By Katie Hunt
Business Reporter, BBC News

Today's young professionals are more cautious than in the 1980s

"A yuppie in training" is how 22-year-old Parm Samra likes to describe himself.

The London postgraduate student aspires to work at an investment bank in the City, lured by talk of six-figure salaries, juicy bonuses and a jet-set lifestyle.

"You could be in Amsterdam for breakfast and New York for dinner. I really, really want to have that kind of life. I couldn't just have a nine to five desk job," he says.

The term yuppie conjures up images of the brash 1980s, when bright young things lived a loadsamoney lifestyle of flash cars, lavish lunches and power dressing.

It was an era of playing hard and working hard.

"The accent was on enjoying ourselves, but there was a very strong work ethic," says Miles Gillman, who was creative director of a London advertising agency in the 1980s and a self-confessed yuppie.

"We had good salaries but spent them selfishly."

These days, young professionals are different.

New research suggests they are more cautious about money than yesterday's yuppies, who are struggling to maintain their once high-flying lifestyles.

Save not splurge

Officially, the yuppie era came to an end in October 1987 when stock market crashes in the US and UK and the subsequent recession ushered in the slacker sensibility of the early 1990s.

Being called a yuppie then would have made a young professional shudder.

Yesterday's yuppies played hard as well as worked hard

Today's go getters appear happy to reprise the term, having exchanged the Filofax and the Walkman for slimline Blackberries and iPods.

"The big City jobs - it's what I want. It's what every other person here wants," says Tiwa Owuye, Mr Samra's classmate, after attending a financial computing seminar at University College London's new virtual trading floor.

But Mr Owuye and Mr Samra want to save rather than splurge their first pay checks.

Less carefree

Research from Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, a financial services company, suggests that pensions, getting on the property ladder and paying off debts are bigger priorities for today's young professionals than living a champagne lifestyle.

Four in 10 young urban professionals in 2007 cite paying off debts as a financial concern, compared with a third in the 1980s, according to the research based on a survey of 2,409 adults.

Our research reveals that many former high flyers have ended up no better than the average midlife family Nigel Snell

Almost a third say that saving for retirement is one of their top three biggest financial worries, compared with just 12% of original yuppies.

With conspicuous consumption falling out of favour, today's young yuppies spend their hard-earned cash on organic food and green fashion.

Whereas only 3% ate organically and considered themselves environmentally friendly at the end of the 1980s, almost one in five do so now, Liverpool Victoria found.

But young go getters do enjoy the original yuppie love of gadgets, with 24% spending their money on technological wizardry compared with 18% in the late 1980s.

Property not Porsches

Mr Samra shares the concerns highlighted by the research.

He plans to save up his first bonus until he can afford to buy a house.

"Brick" mobile phones have been replaced by Blackberries

Saddled with huge debts before even starting work, he feels under pressure to get a good job.

"It's my fifth year of study and I've got a 30 grand debt," Mr Samra says. " I am not enjoying it."

His fears for the future are not without grounds.

The research suggests that those that enjoyed the fast life in the 1980s, no longer feel so flush.

Two decades on, almost half of yesterday's yuppies "struggle to live within their means".

More than 70% acknowledge they "should have put more aside for the future" and 46% have less than £250,000 of "worldly goods". Four in ten former yuppies now admit they did not save anywhere near enough during their early career.

"Despite the optimism of the time, our research reveals that many former high-flyers have ended up no better than the average midlife family," says Nigel Snell, director at Liverpool Victoria.

Mr Samra's cautious plans for the future notwithstanding, a bit of the old yuppie spirit survives.

Unlike most of the casually dressed students milling around campus, he sports a slick red shirt with a black business suit.

"Don't get me wrong. I would be tempted to get a Porsche," he says. "I've got my eyes on one, but I'd rather buy the house before the car."