DO you imagine that the life of a 20-something is a fun, pleasurable thing? Think it's all about getting drunk, taking gap years (or, in a friend of mine's case, a gap decade), playing video games, watching too much TV, drinking, wearing designer clothes, copping off with unsuitable partners and buying yourself nice things whenever the urge takes you because you only plan to have kids when you are 39 and your party days are over? Well, you are sooo wrong. No, honestly. It's hell. Really, it is.

Well, at least according to the 'Reform' think tank which recently declared that the under 35s, far from living it up, are a miserable, pitiable lot. So much so that they've been dubbed the IPod Generation, not because of their dependence on the digital audio player but because they are, get the hankies out, "Insecure, pressured, overtaxed and debt ridden".

Don't you feel sorry for us? I feel sorry for myself, particularly since I didn't know I was three of those four. I wonder would they like to add depressed, now, as well?

Apparently we are insecure because we face too much competition for jobs, can't get on the property ladder because we are overtaxed, are forced by poor wages to live with our parents and generally leave University with £20,000 worth of debt (and a beer belly.)

Having said that, there's a clue that some of these money issues might not be entirely the government's fault in a further piece of research, which revealed that some young people think an ISA is an accessory for an IPod and, furthermore, that many adults would rather read the back of a cereal packet than their financial mail. That's not so much of a shocker. Who wouldn't rather get an update on the Honeymonster than eyeball their overdraft over a plate of crumpets?

But there is something a bit pathetic about it the way we can't handle our money, particularly when the report reveals that some people think sorting finances can be a bit like "rocket science". Perhaps a University education might not have quite been worth the £20,000?

As a 29-year-old graduate in rented accommodation who likes a drink (hmm, that's catchy. I might save that for a personal ad), I'd say there's a bit of truth in both these depictions of our generation. For first time buyers, the property ladder is more of a slippery slide. We pay a lot of tax considering our fledgling wages. Education no longer comes cheap. But, this seems to have made us more, not less hedonistic.

We put off getting 'proper' jobs until our late 20s and, unlike our parents, embrace credit. And we aren't anything like as responsible as our parents, who, by their 20s had already been working for 10 years and had two kids.

So, the idea of feeling sorry for the under 35s doesn't quite ring true: in debt and financially clueless we undoubtedly are, but we're still having a ball.

Which leads me to wonder: what's the average age of a think tank member?