Honestly the complete disregard for GenX financial strain is getting old

[Anonymous]

Oh and as an addendum to the above post: the lovely young family who bought their house on 2 acres turned in into an Airbnb!! So no young family gained a home.

[Anonymous]

i have no sympathy for genx and consider themesles as the same as boomers, their enablers they can rot and die

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GenX is sitting here waiting to see how we’ll get screwed next. The boomers have absolutely pulled the ladder up behind them. We haven’t really started to retire yet - pensions are miniscule or completely gone, keep raising the age for social security, people keep eying increasing the taxes, raising means testing, or phasing out benefits for people who have managed to pull together some retirement wealth — all that is going to hit GenX.

GenX has screwed themselves for overwhelming backing Trumpy billionaires.

--GenX who has lost all affinity for my so-called friends

[Anonymous]

I graduated college in 1992 with an almost 8 percent unemployment rate. I temped/lower wage worked for a couple years trying to break into my desired field (i graduated summa cum laude from an ivy but did not want to do management consulting, law school or finance like so many of my peers--kind of wish I had been more pragmatic) and so I went to grad school for a phd. I had a full ride and almost no student loans undergrad, so I was pretty fortunate there, and I had saved money from working after college since I lived with my parents and only paid nominal rent. That got me through grad school. I graduated and got my first real job in 1999, making under 34k in DC (started as a GS 9). I scrimped and saved to buy a condo in 2005 and sold in 2010 in order to buy a home with spouse (I essentially broke even). Buying that home together was the first good financial decision, but unlike my parents, who had owned a home, had two kids, and a generally good middle class life by their late 30s, living mostly on one salary, we were struggling with buying a house, childcare costs, etc. We got new jobs, sold in 2016 and moved to a MCOL, which made things more bearable although also meant losing my federal pension and healthcare (I'll still have one but small). Recently, my mother spent the last 3 years of her life in assisted living/memory care (and before then, with hired help) and it opened my eyes to how much we will need for LTC. We have enough for a decent retirement and help pay for college for kids, but not enough for LTC.

Not sure any of that is specific to Gex X. What is most specific to Gen X, I think, was the total lack of any kind of financial advice or education I received but also....I guess I had the self sufficiency to figure it out or at least, we didn't feel as powerless as young people do now. Maybe because we didn't know better.

As for finances, getting a well paying job, how to be self sufficient, how to take care of a home, car, etc--my parents never discussed it. They helped with college and then they figured I'd just get a job, get married, buy a house, etc. My dad had a very stable job and retired with a full pension, my mom worked only intermittently, etc. I really didn't know the first thing about investing and although I started saving in my TSP once I started earning money, I would have done things very differently if I had been more financially savvy. My spouse also grew up poor--not quite food stamps but close--and was similarly poorly educated in terms of personal finance.

I dont know if I can leave my kids in as good a position as I would like--their future will more likely be harder and more complicated for all kinds of reasons. They look at marriage, kids, and home ownership as either undesirabley or unattainable, and they dont really let themselves dream about a career. Its sad. But I am going to try ,and also try to educate them and support them so they feel they have a future.

[Anonymous]

70% of the wealth in the U.S. is in the hands of the baby boomer generation. Work and leadership positions are hard to generalize but in terms of economics, voting numbers and political leadership, power is still firmly in the hands of baby boomers. They are very unwilling to let go. As their numbers decrease we will start to see a change, but by then Gen will be hitting all the major pot holes left by the baby boomers. I.e. National debt and Social security trust fund running dry leading to cuts, taxes, and age changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boomers have very good social security benefits with no means testing. They do not NEED to keep working and delaying retirement. They also won’t give up their family sized homes that younger people need to start families.

Meanwhile they complain that they don’t have many grandchildren. And that it’s expensive to hire people to cut their grass, repair their spare 2 bathrooms, snowblower their long driveways. It’s ridiculous. Poor them.

They just care A LOT about their peers’ opinions.
My parents had an enormous house on 2 acres of land. I convinced them to downsize and when they saw houses that would be an appropriate size (no stairs, 2 bedrooms) they were appalled. My mom said “I need to be PROUD of my home! My friends wouldn’t be impressed by this.” They ended up in a huge “luxury” townhouse with two flights of stairs. But at least they got rid of the yardwork problem.

Your mom is right. Those tiny 2br "retirement" homes are depressing. Most of them don't even have enough space for a proper dining table that would seat 8-10 people. Tiny closets, no storage. We are not ready to downsize yet (youngest still at home) but what I have seen is not very encouraging. We will likely either stay put and remodel or do a partial downsize to something like a large townhome for 10 or so years before downsizing again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GenX is sitting here waiting to see how we’ll get screwed next. The boomers have absolutely pulled the ladder up behind them. We haven’t really started to retire yet - pensions are miniscule or completely gone, keep raising the age for social security, people keep eying increasing the taxes, raising means testing, or phasing out benefits for people who have managed to pull together some retirement wealth — all that is going to hit GenX.

GenX has screwed themselves for overwhelming backing Trumpy billionaires.

--GenX who has lost all affinity for my so-called friends

I'm a younger GenX and know very few Trump supporters. I actually know more millennial Trump supporters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boomers have very good social security benefits with no means testing. They do not NEED to keep working and delaying retirement. They also won’t give up their family sized homes that younger people need to start families.

Meanwhile they complain that they don’t have many grandchildren. And that it’s expensive to hire people to cut their grass, repair their spare 2 bathrooms, snowblower their long driveways. It’s ridiculous. Poor them.

They just care A LOT about their peers’ opinions.
My parents had an enormous house on 2 acres of land. I convinced them to downsize and when they saw houses that would be an appropriate size (no stairs, 2 bedrooms) they were appalled. My mom said “I need to be PROUD of my home! My friends wouldn’t be impressed by this.” They ended up in a huge “luxury” townhouse with two flights of stairs. But at least they got rid of the yardwork problem.

Your mom is right. Those tiny 2br "retirement" homes are depressing. Most of them don't even have enough space for a proper dining table that would seat 8-10 people. Tiny closets, no storage. We are not ready to downsize yet (youngest still at home) but what I have seen is not very encouraging. We will likely either stay put and remodel or do a partial downsize to something like a large townhome for 10 or so years before downsizing again.

Oh no! How will they entertain? Lol. My mom got a two bedroom condo and I had to talk her into the second bedroom. If she wanted to entertain that many people, she’d go out to dinner. She happily got rid of her junk and stores some boxes in her storage unit. That’s all she needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gen X has been pretty lucky in recent stock market returns— easily makes up for the lost years. And I graduated into a recession but I’d actually prefer job hunting in a 1990s recession over whatever the hell this economy is.

Well yeah. The kids of GenX (GenZ) are F’ed too. That tracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the 2000-2010 period was a great time to invest. Bear markets are your friend.

Many of us were paying off student loans then. Money for investing wasn’t something we had.

Well it is time for people to stop taking massive student loans. We had $80K in student loans in early 90s. Choose to live in a decent (but not as nice as our jobs would indicate we could afford) and live off of one income for 2-3 years to pay them off and save for a downpayment. And then the house we bought was similar costs to our apartment costs. So we still aggressively saved for another 2-3 years so we were financially stable.

Would we have rather taken nicer vacations (or any vacation that wasn't just a drive), get lunch out more at work, go out more for drinks, etc? Sure. But don't regret what path we did for a minute as we were well set for the future by forgoing in our 20s.

Buying a house in early 90s is all that matters. No one is not able to buy a house because they went for lunch or drinks. That’s avocado toast nonsense that has been disproven time and again. People do end up spending more recently on vacations etc , because of financial nihilism — they are doomed no matter what so might as well enjoy what they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the 2000-2010 period was a great time to invest. Bear markets are your friend.

Many of us were paying off student loans then. Money for investing wasn’t something we had.

Well it is time for people to stop taking massive student loans. We had $80K in student loans in early 90s. Choose to live in a decent (but not as nice as our jobs would indicate we could afford) and live off of one income for 2-3 years to pay them off and save for a downpayment. And then the house we bought was similar costs to our apartment costs. So we still aggressively saved for another 2-3 years so we were financially stable.

Would we have rather taken nicer vacations (or any vacation that wasn't just a drive), get lunch out more at work, go out more for drinks, etc? Sure. But don't regret what path we did for a minute as we were well set for the future by forgoing in our 20s.

$80k in early 90s is like $200k today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GenX is sitting here waiting to see how we’ll get screwed next. The boomers have absolutely pulled the ladder up behind them. We haven’t really started to retire yet - pensions are miniscule or completely gone, keep raising the age for social security, people keep eying increasing the taxes, raising means testing, or phasing out benefits for people who have managed to pull together some retirement wealth — all that is going to hit GenX.

GenX has screwed themselves for overwhelming backing Trumpy billionaires.

--GenX who has lost all affinity for my so-called friends

The largest cohort or younger Trump voters were the manosphere Millennials and GenZ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of pitting different generations against each other, you should realize that each generation is at the mercy of historical booms and busts, OP. It's not the fault of anyone in particular. I object to your narrow-minded characterization.

I am late gen X, born in 1980.

You are more of a millennial.

-1971 baby

The author Douglas Copeland was born in 1962. Census defines generation as every 10 years until the iPhone introduction (now 5 years)

I am extremely concerned the millennials will go for GEN X taxable 401K (this is where demographics and democracy collide).

I see a very dysfunctional relationship between boomer parents and their millennial children: but they share a common trait that compounds: liberal mindset when they’re spending other people’s money. Arch conservative with their own.

What does the bolded mean?

I’m not sure what it means either but if there’s any way that Gen X will be disproportionately screwed over retirement-wise it will be through social security, not
401ks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers have very good social security benefits with no means testing. They do not NEED to keep working and delaying retirement. They also won’t give up their family sized homes that younger people need to start families.

Meanwhile they complain that they don’t have many grandchildren. And that it’s expensive to hire people to cut their grass, repair their spare 2 bathrooms, snowblower their long driveways. It’s ridiculous. Poor them.

If your parents won’t give you their family sized house, take it up with them.

If it’s other people’s parents whose house you covet, you can always offer them some money, you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-vs-boomers-charts-e6f1971b


I know it’s non stop Boomers and Millenials but many GenX were ruined by the dot.com and housing busts and had the lost decade up to the GFC. Careers haven’t advanced because boomers WILL NOT LEAVE.

The boomers are all 65 or older. The working boomers that I know are all working jobs because they need jobs to pay the bills.
Most work parttime around 20-25 hours a week. One does factory work assembly, one is a bookkeeper for an engineer, one is a part time delivery driver for NAPA, some work as grocery baggers.

If you want to work there are jobs out there.

Boomers working part time jobs doing factory assembly, bookkeeping, and delivery driving and baggers are not holding you back.

Look at our Congress and its obvious boomers don’t want to leave.