I know why Millenials can't afford houses and pay off their student loans..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European here. A lot of Americans don't appreciate the finer things in life, even though they can afford so much more. A Frenchman is fine renting, a small space too, because they want to be able to buy a niece piece of cheese and wine and fresh fish and a beautiful jacket. So if the millennials are doing what you say they are doing, kudos to them.

You really cannot compare Europe to the US. You have cradle to grave social benefits - we do not. What happens when these folks who have screwed off their entire life arrive at retirement with no money? They become a burden on their children or the state.

+1 And if they aren't complaining that they can't afford a big house, then fine. But, I bet many do. Many Americans feel that they are entitled to nice things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an older Millennial. When I started working post law school, I received much unsolicited personal advice re finances ("I could save $2 a day by not buying a tall Pike SB coffee.").

I married well. My husband pulled another 7 figures this year. One cup of SB tall coffee a day is worth a pair of shoes to me now, and I have enough shoes.

I should be providing unwelcome financial advice to those who use to degrade me, but I won't. Not worth my time or energy.

+1. Thank you. I'm a Millenial in a similar situation, and I would never be so rude and stupid enough to unfairly stereotype an entire generation. To all the people condemning the young people moving back into their parents' home, instead of living by themselves, why don't you blame their parents for letting them do it? Why didn't their parents teach them good spending habits? I bet most Millenials who blow their money and don't grow up were never taught to prioritize saving, and are now encouraged by their lonely parents to come back to live with them.

What do you do when there's no one left to blame? When do you as an adult take ownership of your decisions? You can fail many times in life, but you are not a failure until you start blaming others.

My point is why even start with the blame game? There are people who have it together and others who don't in every generation, so it's silly to point fingers at the ones who seem to be struggling, and blame an entire generation for being directionless and spendthrift...just as pointless as it is to blame their parents for being bad parents. If you decide to stupidly attack and blame an entire group of people, you bet they're going to defend themselves and blame you right back.

[Anonymous]

^^^^ Thank you 100x

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm an older millenial (34) and DH is 31. We lived cheaply with roommates for years in a very divey transitional neighborhood. We buckled down and paid of his high interest law school loans (we had no ugrad loans thankfully).

We bought our first house 6 years ago for just under 300k in an outer burb. We have a mortgage payment we can afford and our house is too small for our family of now 3. We had no help from parents for a downpayment, though many of my 40something Gen X friends had downpayment help, or were able to buy homes at a time that prices were more in line with income. So they are in a tony school district now and we are not.

As a millennial who has done everything right (saved, paid loans, works hard), I find it really rude that older people who truly did not have the same unfortunate economy as they were coming of age are so callous about how millennials live. Baby boomers fucked us all, Gen exers haven't helped either and now we are stuck with a baby boomer run government with Gen X chomping at the bit to take the reins and we will just be left here, hoping like hell that the retirement savings we are scrimping to put away are still there in 50 years. Because we will all surely be working until we are 80. Just remember that when you are retiring at 65 and shitting on us for wanting a work life balance. We know we have 20 plus more years of the working grind than you will have.

+1000

Also no family help, older millennial with two kids.

I think we all want to say we had it worse instead of imagining ourselves in the other person's shoes, and we have a lot of assumptions being made on this thread. I am 49. GenX to the max. Please don't think that you, millennial, have seen the only stock market crash since the great depression. Try Googling "Black Monday". That sucked my college money right down the drain and any help with grad school or down payment on a home right down with it.

I seem to recall being young and single and taking a ski weekend now and then.

That said, maybe Millennials aren't spending the way to OP wants them to, but that will be their problem years down the road. Aside from the OP needing Millenniasl to shore up Social Security, it should not be much of a concern to the OP.

You will not have it worse if you can retire before 70 and have some sort of social security.

[Anonymous]

Oh FFS, haven't read the whole thread but I was ready to defend the millennials - who face much higher student loan costs than we babyboomers did. I am really annoyed at the attacks on that generation who are facing a difficult economy not to mention that climate change is going to screw them as well.

But then I start reading all the comments blaming everything on the babyboomers as if everyone of us deliberately caused all this to happen to you. (Not to mention that later babyboomers like me also faced a terrible economy when we got out of school)

Time to stop this bigoted blaming of people based on what generation they belong to. I don't care which generation you belong to, when you behave this way, it's both childish and short-sighted. We need to work together to lift everyone up. Stop all this blaming crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh FFS, haven't read the whole thread but I was ready to defend the millennials - who face much higher student loan costs than we babyboomers did. I am really annoyed at the attacks on that generation who are facing a difficult economy not to mention that climate change is going to screw them as well.

But then I start reading all the comments blaming everything on the babyboomers as if everyone of us deliberately caused all this to happen to you. (Not to mention that later babyboomers like me also faced a terrible economy when we got out of school)

Time to stop this bigoted blaming of people based on what generation they belong to. I don't care which generation you belong to, when you behave this way, it's both childish and short-sighted. We need to work together to lift everyone up. Stop all this blaming crap.

Funny how only the comments blaming the boomers registered with you. There are plenty of nasty posts by older generations attacking millennials too...and plenty of millenials who have expressed your message in a far more eloquent and less crass manner than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh FFS, haven't read the whole thread but I was ready to defend the millennials - who face much higher student loan costs than we babyboomers did. I am really annoyed at the attacks on that generation who are facing a difficult economy not to mention that climate change is going to screw them as well.

But then I start reading all the comments blaming everything on the babyboomers as if everyone of us deliberately caused all this to happen to you. (Not to mention that later babyboomers like me also faced a terrible economy when we got out of school)

Time to stop this bigoted blaming of people based on what generation they belong to. I don't care which generation you belong to, when you behave this way, it's both childish and short-sighted. We need to work together to lift everyone up. Stop all this blaming crap.

Funny how only the comments blaming the boomers registered with you. There are plenty of nasty posts by older generations attacking millennials too...and plenty of millenials who have expressed your message in a far more eloquent and less crass manner than you.

Great. Are you signing up to take less of a social security payment? Not going to take Medicare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh FFS, haven't read the whole thread but I was ready to defend the millennials - who face much higher student loan costs than we babyboomers did. I am really annoyed at the attacks on that generation who are facing a difficult economy not to mention that climate change is going to screw them as well.

But then I start reading all the comments blaming everything on the babyboomers as if everyone of us deliberately caused all this to happen to you. (Not to mention that later babyboomers like me also faced a terrible economy when we got out of school)

Time to stop this bigoted blaming of people based on what generation they belong to. I don't care which generation you belong to, when you behave this way, it's both childish and short-sighted. We need to work together to lift everyone up. Stop all this blaming crap.

Funny how only the comments blaming the boomers registered with you. There are plenty of nasty posts by older generations attacking millennials too...and plenty of millenials who have expressed your message in a far more eloquent and less crass manner than you.

Oh jeez, you can't read, can you? My whole first paragraph was about defending the millennials against attacks. I don't know what generation you belong to and I don't care. You need to learn to read more carefully.

[Anonymous]

I am a millennial who has done well financially, and I know a lot of other millennials in a wide range of professions and financial circumstances. Some prioritize pleasures over saving but some do not. Some complain and some do not. I think stereotyping the entire generation is silly, just like stereotyping by race or gender.

[Anonymous]

This thread is depressing. I am at the cusp of GenX and the Boomers. I have worked for everything I had.

But, I was able to graduate college debt free. I remember the quarter tuition payments at Va Tech was about $600. Or, in other words, I payed about 2K/year in tuition and fees (in state). My parents could afford that.

Today, my daughter is looking at 12K at the same school. When I graduated, I could get a good job paying 25K; today, in my field it is 60K. So, wages are up 2.4x, whereas tuition is 6x.

My parents payed for my tuition, I will pay for my DD's tuition. But, not everyone is like me.

Now, I went to graduate school (Physics). I received a scholorship for that. Graduated in 1994 with a PhD.

Then, my salary was 50K, today, it would be about 80K. By the time I bought a house, I was up about 20%, or 64K, today that would be about 100K.

the house was 250K, which in those interest rates was was a 1535 which was 29% of my gross.

Today, the same house would cost 2470/mo (much lower interest rate), or 29.% of the income.

If you can buy, you are locking in the payment at that value. I am paying about 1300/mo today for the same house.

You buy today, in 20 years, you will still pay 2470/mo. If your career goes like mine, you will be earning 265K when you are in the mid 50's, with an affordable 2459/mo mortgage.

Then you can afford your Latte's

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh FFS, haven't read the whole thread but I was ready to defend the millennials - who face much higher student loan costs than we babyboomers did. I am really annoyed at the attacks on that generation who are facing a difficult economy not to mention that climate change is going to screw them as well.

But then I start reading all the comments blaming everything on the babyboomers as if everyone of us deliberately caused all this to happen to you. (Not to mention that later babyboomers like me also faced a terrible economy when we got out of school)

Time to stop this bigoted blaming of people based on what generation they belong to. I don't care which generation you belong to, when you behave this way, it's both childish and short-sighted. We need to work together to lift everyone up. Stop all this blaming crap.

Funny how only the comments blaming the boomers registered with you. There are plenty of nasty posts by older generations attacking millennials too...and plenty of millenials who have expressed your message in a far more eloquent and less crass manner than you.

Great. Are you signing up to take less of a social security payment? Not going to take Medicare?

No, I support raising the level of salary that can be taxed for Social Security because the wealthy don't pay their fair share. I also support immigration reform because immigration has kept US society younger than European societies. I support subsidizing young people's college tuition because they can't get established when they're struggling with student loan payments. This is especially important for the future of our country. So many young people can't get ahead because they are so deeply in debt - that hurts the economy and that's not good for all of us. I also support national health care - especially since we're the only advanced country that doesn't have national health care. There are many things we can do to improve our economy and these are just a few of them. And on a personal level, I exercise and eat right, which is keeping me very healthy so I won't cost you all that much as I age. I wish more people of my generation were doing that.

But it seems to make some people on this thread happy to blame people in other generations. And when you attribute behaviors to an entire class of people based on their demographic category, that's bigotry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a millennial who has done well financially, and I know a lot of other millennials in a wide range of professions and financial circumstances. Some prioritize pleasures over saving but some do not. Some complain and some do not. I think stereotyping the entire generation is silly, just like stereotyping by race or gender.

Babyboomer here. Yep, I saw the same variation among my fellow babyboomers when we were young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Millennial here.
Bought a starter townhouse at the bottom of the market. Still had student loans. Just sold and bought our forever house. Still have student loans to pay off, but can now afford to pay them off more quickly.
Contrary to this board, many people have student loans and mortgages. It is possible.
Get off your high horse.

Forever house already? Now, you see, that is the difference between thinking wisely and prudently. You shouldn't have bought your dream house while still paying off student loans. You should have stayed in the starter home until you paid off your other loans. You are proving OP's point. Too much, too soon.

If you read, Pp was lucky enough to buy at the bottom of the market. I'd also cash out if I were in her shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old millennial here -- and OP I tend to agree with you. Of course it isn't one coffee or luxury knife (not that I know what that is) that'll push anyone over the edge, but there is a SERIOUS desire for luxury goods in my generation whether the salary is there or not and a desperation to "follow their passions."

I have a bunch of friends in their upper 20s living with their parents - fine, to each their own. But in my mind, I've always thought that would mean they'd be making double/triple payments on student debt + 18k into the 401k + additional cash savings that can be used for a down payment etc., bc they have no housing or food costs. And across the board each of them has told me -- oh nooo, that's really hard to do. They all work jobs in the 40-60k range -- often in start ups or non profits bc they want to follow their "passion" and can't imagine "selling out" to a Fortune 500 -- and spend a TON of money on coffee, eating out, technology, and constant travel.

My favorite though is a cousin and her DH who are ~32. Wife switches jobs every 18 months and is now in some entry level insurance claims paying job in a major city. Her DH is STILL in school -- studying to be a chiropractor and is taking on decent debt for an endeavor that may or may not lead to sizeable income. And yet they take an international trip EVERY 6 months -- once they went to Asia on the cheap; the rest of the time they are in western Europe and no they aren't backpacking or staying in hostels. I don't understand the constant need to "do what makes them happy." For course they don't understand my constant need to invest in decidedly non-passionate things like index funds and tell me I'm a "sell out."

You assume that one can simple waltz into a high paying Fortune 500 gig.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Gen-Xer who spent my single years living in group rental housing, keeping my car for over a decade, mostly packing lunch, and all that good stuff. I got married fairly late in life, so I ended up having some millennial housemates over the years, and you know what? - they were doing the same exact thing, except that many of them didn't even own cars, so they were saving even more money! I'm not claiming that they were perfect - we all ordered takeout a little bit more than we probably should have - but overall, they did pretty well managing their money.

Most of the millennials that I've worked with seem to be living similar regular-joe semi-frugal lifestyles. In a lot of ways, millennials got a crappy deal with higher education costs (even state school tuition has sky-rocketed!), and entering into a professional world that seems to require more and more education to get ahead.....but overall, millennials seem to be doing the best that they can with moving forward. I really don't see what all the hand-wringing is about.

+1,000

Adding to this, salaries have stagnated while COL (from buying a house to shopping for groceries) has skyrocketed. Some of the older folks on this forum seem to forget that we were able to buy a starter home for 2x our starting salary.