As a child Helen Morris never knew what she wanted to do with her life. Her search took her to a private school where she got decent A-levels, to a university where she received the requisite 2:1, then to another university where she became a master of something professionally unsuggestive.

That is when daddy’s money ran out. No matter, thought Morris. At 23 she emptied her savings account, got a couple more credit cards and moved to London to work on a gossip magazine earning £250 a week. A year later, too poor to live, she applied for a job at the PR agency she remains with today. At 27, Morris earns £22,000 a year but thinks she owes more than that. She still doesn’t know what she wants to do.

If Morris’s story were atypical it would have been easier to accept the claims by some young people last week that the reason why so many are underpaid, uptight and unable to get on the property ladder is the government’s fault.

Reform, the think tank, had labelled 18 to 34-year-olds the Ipod generation — Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. “We just don’t get paid enough,” moaned Chris Fielding, 32, who left a well paid job because he found it unfulfilling. Amy Shields, 25, thought a £10,000 student debt “makes it really hard to realise your dreams”.

Which would all be heart-wrenching if these Ipods were not the same lot who choose to study away from home, marry in their thirties and spend the decade their parents raised their children in chasing dreams and drifting from career to career. How can it come as a surprise to any of them when they can’t afford a house?

I meet Morris in her favourite bar, where she orders a £9 cocktail. Then she opens with: “It’s depressing to think that it could be years before I can afford a place of my own.” Noticing the bar is filled with people just like her, I suggest she could save money by going out less. “Yes, probably. But it would mean becoming a different person. This,” she gestures to the lavish interior, “is who I am. I just need to find a better way of paying for the life I’ve got.”

Morris wears designer clothes, lives in a good part of town and has a fun (if poorly paid) job. “It’s a facade, though, because I’ve never got any money for the gas bill,” says the penniless party girl. The other week she tried to add up what she has spent on drink, fancy shoes, CDs and other non-essentials in the past five years. “I lost count after £30,000,” she says, biting her lip. That’s the deposit on a studio flat in Chelsea.

The Student Living Index shows that adults in education spend about three times as much money on booze as they do on books, while 84% of 18 to 30-year-olds describe their generation as binge drinkers. With lager prices having risen 160% in 10 years, is it any wonder they’re skint?

As they also like to feel independent from 18, they spend even more on rent, first in a university town, then in the big cities. The average weekly rent in London is £148. Mum and Dad might ask for only a quarter of that, but who wants their style cramped by living at home?

“I came back from uni in Bristol with nothing but debt,” says Jessica Ryan, a 26-year-old events organiser. “But on the back of an internship that paid me £80 a week, I left my parents’ house in Highgate and moved down the road to Camden to be with my friends. It might seem brattish to some, but I was young, in London and ready to party.”

Youth wasn’t always such a blast. “My dad lived with his parents till he got married,” says Sean Denny, a 29-year-old lawyer. “I could never, ever have done that.” Denny loves the freedom of bachelorhood, and even with a couple of long-term girlfriends, estimates that he sleeps with more than 20 women a year. “It’s an expensive business,” he smirks. “Drinks, dinner, and everything else most nights of the week. I’m on £45,000 but I don’t have a proper pension and I definitely don’t earn enough money to buy my own place.”

With the average Ipod waiting until 30 to marry, 10 years of the good life is taking its toll on wallets. Despite his devotion to the singles scene, however, Denny maintains that tax, not loose ladies, is the reason he can’t save. “How can I be expected to get a deposit together when I’m giving, like, 40% of my money to the tax man?” While fewer mojitos might ease Denny and Morris’s burdens, some think an even more serious threat plagues the age group: misguided ambition.

“Everyone knows it’s really hard to become a barrister,” says Mark Bonfield, 25, who after a recent pupillage has just failed to secure a permanent job in chambers. “But all of us have the arrogance to think we’ll be the one who does okay.” He counts himself lucky for only having £15,000 of debt. “I’m not sure what I’ll do now. Lots of people only want to work in law, finance or media but it’s like a very expensive lottery. There aren’t fewer jobs than there used to be, it’s just that more of us think we can get them.”

With material, professional and social aspirations beyond the scope of their parents, Sarah Halstead, also 25, an unemployed art expert, thinks her generation’s problems are caused by culture, not politics. “I grew up watching Friends,” she says. “They had great jobs and spent lots of time hanging out drinking coffee and I thought that’s what grown-ups did. Sometimes I think we’re all still trying to live like it’s a party every day. I think we need to grow up.”

Perhaps the Ipod acronym should stand for Infantile Posse of Over-indulged Drunks. An uncool saying already sums them up perfectly. They aren’t the Ipod generation, they’re the crickets who sang all summer.