Well...duh. So much of wealth accumulation is gated behind having wealth. If you don't have the wealth, well then you have debt and are even farther from building wealth. Getting that little...
Well...duh. So much of wealth accumulation is gated behind having wealth. If you don't have the wealth, well then you have debt and are even farther from building wealth. Getting that little wealth we do accumulate wiped out every few years because we don't punish the sycophants destroying the economy means you're starting from ground 0 almost every time. Yea, a 401k and similiar are OK-ish for retirement (not a proper replacement for a robust Social Security, but that's a huge sidebar), but they don't exactly help you pay rent or build usable wealth.
Some examples:
You can get a mortgage for less than 20% down payment....but if you do you pay extra for fees and higher interest. So people with more money get to build wealth faster than those with less.
As such, if you're building equity faster and saving more money (because your mortgage is cheaper), you can invest more in stocks.
If you're from a wealthy family, you don't have massive student loans. You can focus more on your studies because you can live off a stipend from your family.
That's not even getting into the nitty-gritty how being poor is more expensive than being wealthy. This is why Millennials (and Gen Y now too) are trending socialist more than any prior generations. We're being dealt a shit hand and being told to stop being ungrateful for the table scraps we do get.
Paywalled, but I cant help but think that this second financial crisis in a decade is going to absolutely destroy any hope my generation had of achieving a better life than their parents...
Paywalled, but I cant help but think that this second financial crisis in a decade is going to absolutely destroy any hope my generation had of achieving a better life than their parents generation had.
Personally, I have no economic hope whatsoever. My wife is a teacher, and I have been working significantly less in order to stay home and take care of our son. Even if I worked full time, though,...
Personally, I have no economic hope whatsoever. My wife is a teacher, and I have been working significantly less in order to stay home and take care of our son. Even if I worked full time, though, I would have about the same amount of money: I would simply be paying more toward my student loans. Financially, I see no way out (though I am very grateful for income-based repayment plans!).
That aside, though, I have invested primarily my time, though also a little money, such as for seeds and plants, in building a food forest. I'm still early on in it so have little to show for it (other than some patches of amazing soil due to "stealing" leaf bags other people left on the curb to cover and feed my soil), but over the years I will turn my property into a place that feeds my family and my friends and neighbors well. Not everyone has 14 acres like I do, but a lot can grow on a typical suburban lot, too. Working on my property this way gives me a lot of hope. As long as we can pay off the mortgage, which is going well so far, by the time I want to retire, my expenses will be minimal. I'm sure I won't be able to grow all of my food, but if I can hit 50%, that should be enough to get me by.
I say this to go along with your comment that there is no hope of our generation "achieving a better life than [our] parents['] generation had." I'm skipping back over my parents' and grandparents' lives and looking back to simple subsistence. I plan on a life of preserving food for winter, of making soap, hauling chicken (or duck?) poop around, crushing grapes for wine, and helping other people join me in sustainably growing their own food.
I'm actually fine with all of this. As long as I have enough to house, feed, and clothe my family and myself, I don't need anything special. I have no problem with a simple life like this and encourage others to join me, as, in looking at the lifestyles of the past few generations, I see unsustainability. I see lifestyles that have, at the bare minimum, caused global warming, but overall (in my very vague, admittedly somewhat uninformed opinion) have sold the future for the present, through pollution, overuse and destruction of natural resources, and unbalanced spending.
I bring all of this up not to suggest everyone leave cities and start their own homestead, but to encourage more people to start growing some of their own food as a means to save money. Lawns have their uses, but an unused corner of the lawn might be a great place to start a permaculture-style guild. Maybe it has an apple tree, some berry bushes, a small hazelnut tree, strawberries and clover as a ground cover, some comfrey to harvest nutrients from deep underground and feed it all, and native wildflowers to attract beneficial insects. Something small like this could (after the time/financial cost of establishing it) save a little money, provide fresh, free foods, and beautify the landscape.
This characterization of the process simplifies a lot and makes it sound like an easy change, which it of course is not. Learning how to do this and actually doing it takes time and effort. I'm simply suggesting that it's worth learning about and doing, especially for other millennials like me who are pretty much hopeless financially. If built right, a perennial food system can mostly maintain itself, and its produce could benefit anyone.
FWIW, people said the same thing about my generation when we graduated from college. We were in a recession (though obviously not as bad as the current one), and were starting to accumulate...
FWIW, people said the same thing about my generation when we graduated from college. We were in a recession (though obviously not as bad as the current one), and were starting to accumulate college-related debt, too (though again, not to quite the same degree as Millennials). It was very disheartening, so I feel where you're coming from.
Having said that, the recovery happened (then the dot com crash, then the recovery, then the housing bubble, then the recovery, and now this). One thing that helped me was implementing the sort of money management techniques you find in places like The Millionaire Next Door, r/personalfinance, BogleHeads or the Money Stack Exchange. Assuming you're able to get a job, living below your means and saving at least 10% of your income in an IRA or 401K or other interest-earning account, preferably in no-load market-tracking index funds, especially with tax benefits, really does take off after awhile. If you aren't familiar with those things, I highly recommend checking them out.
You're assuming that people can afford to do that in the first place. Luckily, my wife and I are both able to sock away some money and just barely make it. I know tons of friends who don't have...
living below your means and saving at least 10% of your income in an IRA or 401K or other interest-earning account, preferably in no-load market-tracking index funds, especially with tax benefits, really does take off after awhile
You're assuming that people can afford to do that in the first place. Luckily, my wife and I are both able to sock away some money and just barely make it. I know tons of friends who don't have that margin.
Yes, that can be a problem, which is why I added the caveat: It's more complicated than that, too. I live in Los Angeles where housing generally takes up about 50% of take-home pay for most...
Yes, that can be a problem, which is why I added the caveat:
Assuming you're able to get a job
It's more complicated than that, too. I live in Los Angeles where housing generally takes up about 50% of take-home pay for most people. That makes it much much harder to do. There will definitely be people who cannot do this, but many can, and I'd hate to see those people miss out on the opportunity just because they weren't aware of it.
Related post: Millennials are now the new lost generation If you're 40 years old and this is where you are as a generation them I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be waiting or preparing for the...
If you're 40 years old and this is where you are as a generation them I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be waiting or preparing for the world when I'm 40.
Thank goodness for our healthcare, at least. If I didn't have the drugs, I wouldn't be here now, no doubt about it. Ah well. I suppose we can still band together, turn things around and settle for...
Thank goodness for our healthcare, at least. If I didn't have the drugs, I wouldn't be here now, no doubt about it.
Ah well. I suppose we can still band together, turn things around and settle for being the cleanup generation. At least, those of us who aren't killed by preventable diseases, poverty and terrorism. I feel like I've already had a few lives, and at least one of them was pretty good and pretty lucky.
Well...duh. So much of wealth accumulation is gated behind having wealth. If you don't have the wealth, well then you have debt and are even farther from building wealth. Getting that little wealth we do accumulate wiped out every few years because we don't punish the sycophants destroying the economy means you're starting from ground 0 almost every time. Yea, a 401k and similiar are OK-ish for retirement (not a proper replacement for a robust Social Security, but that's a huge sidebar), but they don't exactly help you pay rent or build usable wealth.
Some examples:
That's not even getting into the nitty-gritty how being poor is more expensive than being wealthy. This is why Millennials (and Gen Y now too) are trending socialist more than any prior generations. We're being dealt a shit hand and being told to stop being ungrateful for the table scraps we do get.
Paywalled, but I cant help but think that this second financial crisis in a decade is going to absolutely destroy any hope my generation had of achieving a better life than their parents generation had.
Personally, I have no economic hope whatsoever. My wife is a teacher, and I have been working significantly less in order to stay home and take care of our son. Even if I worked full time, though, I would have about the same amount of money: I would simply be paying more toward my student loans. Financially, I see no way out (though I am very grateful for income-based repayment plans!).
That aside, though, I have invested primarily my time, though also a little money, such as for seeds and plants, in building a food forest. I'm still early on in it so have little to show for it (other than some patches of amazing soil due to "stealing" leaf bags other people left on the curb to cover and feed my soil), but over the years I will turn my property into a place that feeds my family and my friends and neighbors well. Not everyone has 14 acres like I do, but a lot can grow on a typical suburban lot, too. Working on my property this way gives me a lot of hope. As long as we can pay off the mortgage, which is going well so far, by the time I want to retire, my expenses will be minimal. I'm sure I won't be able to grow all of my food, but if I can hit 50%, that should be enough to get me by.
I say this to go along with your comment that there is no hope of our generation "achieving a better life than [our] parents['] generation had." I'm skipping back over my parents' and grandparents' lives and looking back to simple subsistence. I plan on a life of preserving food for winter, of making soap, hauling chicken (or duck?) poop around, crushing grapes for wine, and helping other people join me in sustainably growing their own food.
I'm actually fine with all of this. As long as I have enough to house, feed, and clothe my family and myself, I don't need anything special. I have no problem with a simple life like this and encourage others to join me, as, in looking at the lifestyles of the past few generations, I see unsustainability. I see lifestyles that have, at the bare minimum, caused global warming, but overall (in my very vague, admittedly somewhat uninformed opinion) have sold the future for the present, through pollution, overuse and destruction of natural resources, and unbalanced spending.
I bring all of this up not to suggest everyone leave cities and start their own homestead, but to encourage more people to start growing some of their own food as a means to save money. Lawns have their uses, but an unused corner of the lawn might be a great place to start a permaculture-style guild. Maybe it has an apple tree, some berry bushes, a small hazelnut tree, strawberries and clover as a ground cover, some comfrey to harvest nutrients from deep underground and feed it all, and native wildflowers to attract beneficial insects. Something small like this could (after the time/financial cost of establishing it) save a little money, provide fresh, free foods, and beautify the landscape.
This characterization of the process simplifies a lot and makes it sound like an easy change, which it of course is not. Learning how to do this and actually doing it takes time and effort. I'm simply suggesting that it's worth learning about and doing, especially for other millennials like me who are pretty much hopeless financially. If built right, a perennial food system can mostly maintain itself, and its produce could benefit anyone.
FWIW, people said the same thing about my generation when we graduated from college. We were in a recession (though obviously not as bad as the current one), and were starting to accumulate college-related debt, too (though again, not to quite the same degree as Millennials). It was very disheartening, so I feel where you're coming from.
Having said that, the recovery happened (then the dot com crash, then the recovery, then the housing bubble, then the recovery, and now this). One thing that helped me was implementing the sort of money management techniques you find in places like The Millionaire Next Door, r/personalfinance, BogleHeads or the Money Stack Exchange. Assuming you're able to get a job, living below your means and saving at least 10% of your income in an IRA or 401K or other interest-earning account, preferably in no-load market-tracking index funds, especially with tax benefits, really does take off after awhile. If you aren't familiar with those things, I highly recommend checking them out.
You're assuming that people can afford to do that in the first place. Luckily, my wife and I are both able to sock away some money and just barely make it. I know tons of friends who don't have that margin.
Yes, that can be a problem, which is why I added the caveat:
It's more complicated than that, too. I live in Los Angeles where housing generally takes up about 50% of take-home pay for most people. That makes it much much harder to do. There will definitely be people who cannot do this, but many can, and I'd hate to see those people miss out on the opportunity just because they weren't aware of it.
Related post: Millennials are now the new lost generation
If you're 40 years old and this is where you are as a generation them I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be waiting or preparing for the world when I'm 40.
Anyway, all I'm doing is complaining.
Thank goodness for our healthcare, at least. If I didn't have the drugs, I wouldn't be here now, no doubt about it.
Ah well. I suppose we can still band together, turn things around and settle for being the cleanup generation. At least, those of us who aren't killed by preventable diseases, poverty and terrorism. I feel like I've already had a few lives, and at least one of them was pretty good and pretty lucky.