Boomers' Billion-Dollar Bonanza: The Unseen Hoarding Behind Millennial Struggles
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Anonymous
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I just don't see millennials + Gen Z being as frugal and focused on saving as previous generations. My parents were just visiting and I got so much criticism for things they perceived as food waste, overconsumption, etc. My and DH's parents are both in the late 40s/early 50s and all grew up pretty poor and have always been very frugal, and both sets of them have managed to build up a lot of wealth over the past 20 years in particular.
DH and I rented until our late 30s because we could not afford to buy a home. When we did, we bought a small townhouse, knowing it would be our "starter home" and hoping that we could build up some equity and buy a larger home later - which we did just this year at ages 46 and 47. So, nope, not buying into millennial whining. You have to start small. |
Anonymous
+1000 |
Anonymous
No, that would be stupid. The studies literally compare them at equivalent ages. Boomers can’t be troubled to actually read the data before arguing that they are special and misunderstood! |
Anonymous
First, all this talk about Gen Z is ridiculous. I have a 10 year old who is Gen Z and some nieces in college who are Gen Z. None of them have a clue. Millennials are all adults and if they can only find extremists on either side they aren’t doing very well coming up with new leaders. |
Anonymous
I'm a boomer who struggled financially to a degree, bills were paid, but it was tight- until around retirement, and we are pretty middle class- no great wealth here. College, 2 grad degrees, professional job, same with spouse. There were literally zero breaks - stock market, mortgage rates, day care, everything. No hand outs. No large house, used cars, a beach trip to OC once a year. Not a lot of perks. All our peers are in the same boat, many are in higher paying fields,too, including law and medicine. This was a reality for Boomers born in the late 50s, early 60s- there was absolutely no big wealth going on unless there was a special circumstance- I have Iranian friends who came here with a great deal of family money. We know 2 married dentists who did very well. A lawyer who traveled 80 % of the time, but was never home. Yeah, they were wealthy. But most? No. We got a little boost in the last 2 years only with housing inflation due to the shortage, but frankly that made up for being completely underwater in 2008 , for quite awhile, with the recession. And, it's only about 100k more than in 2015. That's not a windfall. Inflation happens in every generation. How can we be lacking in self awareness when we actually lived it? Not every Boomer inherited wealth, and most didn't. I have friends who still have their parents who are in their 90s and older! There isn't any $$ left. These metrics presented are very nuanced toward some bias, and skewed beyond belief. Most of this has to do with the generation before us, our parents, and the very oldest Boomers, not the parents of millennials at all. You are very misinformed but clearly are just mad at something. How about just grow up? An idea for you. Sorry, but you have to go to work. We did- 60 hour weeks most of the time. Nothing handed to us. |
Anonymous
We pretty much did the same- bought our "starter" home in our mid-30s, but I doubt we'll move up. It's actually a lesson learned from my less frugal parents- they bought their starter home in their mid-20s and then traded up to a bigger house in their late 30s to something they really couldn't afford. A couple re-finances later, they sold after 30 years and didn't net much because they weren't close to paying off their house. Our starter home is big enough for our family of 4 and I'd rather be conservative and have extra money to save for college, etc. So yeah, not all boomers were frugal and saved a lot. The median retirement savings for that age group is only something like $200k. |
Anonymous
Feelings >> Data. |
Anonymous
Oh gosh, I'm sorry you had it so rough.... 
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Anonymous
Uh, aren't YOU the whiner here, sweetie? Get over yourself. |
Anonymous
+1000 Many grew up with much more money and "stuff" than previous generations. They get out of college and expect to live in a 2500 sq ft+ home that is less than 5 years old, drive new cars, etc. They forget/don't understand that their parents lived when a 1200-1500 sq ft home was considered large, and if you had a full 2nd bathroom you were royalty. They grew up eating majority of meals at home, packing lunches for school and the office/job and if they got coffee outside the house, it was from the brewed pot in the office that they chipped in a quarter for each week. Going out to eat was a real treat and only happened once ever 2-3 weeks. Cable tv was a luxury and to change the channel on the tv someone (ie the kids) had to get up and walk to the tv to physically do it. That said TV was so big and bulky, once you got it into your house you were keeping it until it died (10+ years) and it was the only tv in the house---because remember there were not 3 families rooms/rec rooms, no space for that in a 1400 sq ft home. |
Anonymous
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I'd just like to note that I am perfectly happy with my life as an elder millennial. I am not rolling in dough and live in a condo instead of a house. I am also still paying of school debt in my 40s, which isn't great. But I don't run around feeling like crap about my life. My condo is nice and in a good neighborhood. I'm married and have a kid, who is happy. Our local schools are not great but not terrible, and we've found that with a little determination you can get your kid what they need even in a mediocre school -- it's about parental support more than anything else.
You know who thinks my life is a travesty? My boomer parents. They are embarrassed that I'm not more professionally successful (I mommy tracked when I had a kid because I wanted to be present in my child's life), that my spouse doesn't make more money (I married a good person for love and didn't go hunting for a wallet). They are ashamed I live in a condo. They think we're too frugal and should spend more of our money on vacations (to visit them of course) and consumer goods that they could brag to their friends about. I think my life is good but my boomer parents think it can't possibly be because I don't have a 4 bedroom house in the best school district and 2 brand new cars and vacations to Disneyland and Mexico every year and nicer furniture and clothes and my kid in expensive activities and sports. When we explain that our frugality is so that we can pay down debt faster and be debt free by the time we hit our 50s and before our kid goes to college, they scoff at this like it's a silly plan. So sometimes I wonder, when I read stuff like this thread, how much of how Millenials feels frustrated about their lot in life is about externally imposed expectations of what their lives *should* look like at this point. I remember my dad looking down on me for living with roommates in my 20s, or buying a used car when technically I could have afford something nicer. My parents and their siblings are very invested in external markers of financial success, and not so concerned about personal fulfillment or happiness, the hard work of being a present parent, or focusing on the meaning in life instead of jumping from one milestone to the next. Maybe the problem with millennials is that they have internalized their parents' backwards value systems. And if you are a boomer who doesn't think millennials should complain about stuff like the cost of housing or childcare, I hope you also tell your own millennial kids that it's totally fine to rent longterm or buy a condo or townhouse you can afford, that their value as people cannot be represented by their paychecks or the stuff they own. Might be worth looking inward a bit on this. (Cue some boomer coming along to tell me that all her children are much more wildly successful than me, personal fulfilled and also stinking rich, blah blah blah) |
Anonymous
You have lots of interesting and valid ideas here. My reaction as the Gen X parent of teenagers is the gentle parenting types with toddlers who tell me about “the hard work of being a present parent” sound incredibly judgmental of different parenting styles that raised perfectly fine young people for generations. Maybe your boomer parents don’t like you telling them that they did it all wrong and you should also be less judgy? |
Anonymous
Lol I'm the PP and I am indeed judgmental of my parents "different parenting style" which involved slapping us across the face with open hands and whipping us with a belt until we were nearly teens. So yes, I am sure I do come off as judgmental when I say things like "an adult should never hit a child" or whatever. I'm sure that's why they are so disapproving and judgmental of me -- because I have chosen to parent my own kid differently than they parented me. |
Anonymous
This sounds familiar. My parents were teen parents right out of high school. My father went to night school to get a bachelor’s degree which took all of his 20s. He worked and my mother stayed home. Five children and my mother lived for us. He bought our first tiny house at around 32 years old. A few years after that he had a bigger house built for us. Very basic. Everything was pretty basic. I admired my father for supporting such a large family on his own. No two income family for us. |
Anonymous
Who raised these millennials to have such bad manners? Parenting fail. |