70% of millennials live paycheck to paycheck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re a millennial (27-41 years old) and aren’t making at least $80k you did something very, very wrong.

Well since the median income for a 35-year-old is $57,500, it looks like a lot of them screwed up in your eyes.

They did. 21 y/o dental hygienists who went to NoVa CC & truck drivers make far more than that.

Dental hygienists living where? Most Americans can’t afford to live in Northern Virginia, obviously.

Is this a joke? I'm an immigrant and live in Northern Virginia, in a paid off house.

Immigrant doesn’t imply anything about SES. Tons of immigrants who were rich prior to coming here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We live “paycheck to paycheck” after 529, savings, med school student loans, HSA, taxes and more savings.

After savings doesn't count. Aaaaah!

It does when you survey people asking if they’re living paycheck to paycheck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re a millennial (27-41 years old) and aren’t making at least $80k you did something very, very wrong.

I agree. I'm 33 and don't understand how anyone is under $80k in high cost of living cities.

[Anonymous]

Is this a joke? I'm an immigrant and live in Northern Virginia, in a paid off house.

Immigrant doesn’t imply anything about SES. Tons of immigrants who were rich prior to coming here.

You are right- there could be rich immigrants coming to this country, but that is probably less than 1%. I'm the immigrant who wrote this comment, and I wasn't rich by any means. I came to USA to pursue American dream over 20 years ago with about $200 in my pocket. No help from family. I made my way through. And yes, I made it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rent costs $2500-3000 per mo. A modest Honda is gonna set you back $400-500 per mo. We aren’t even covering childcare, health expenses, and utilities that keep going up. Food prices keep going up and up and up. You will feel poor on a $120k salary these days.

Where are you guys living? I make over $200k and my rent is still under $2000k. And I live in a "luxury" building in Arlington and it's a 1 bed/1bath.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent costs $2500-3000 per mo. A modest Honda is gonna set you back $400-500 per mo. We aren’t even covering childcare, health expenses, and utilities that keep going up. Food prices keep going up and up and up. You will feel poor on a $120k salary these days.

Not everyone can afford to live in a trendy, desirable major city. Some people will have to move. They’ll survive.

If you have a portable career like teacher or nurse you can get a job anywhere, and if you have a corporate desk job you have WFH so you might only need to come in once a week. You commute from Baltimore County once a week. No big deal.

I never quite understood some of these arguments. First, teachers and nurses make crap in LCOL areas. And second, HCOL needs nurses and teachers. Are you saying they should just suck it up and commute 2 hours to HCOL areas so people like you won't go without essential workers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent costs $2500-3000 per mo. A modest Honda is gonna set you back $400-500 per mo. We aren’t even covering childcare, health expenses, and utilities that keep going up. Food prices keep going up and up and up. You will feel poor on a $120k salary these days.

Where are you guys living? I make over $200k and my rent is still under $2000k. And I live in a "luxury" building in Arlington and it's a 1 bed/1bath.

Since the pp referenced childcare clearly they are looking for something bigger than a 1 bed 1 bath.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re a millennial (27-41 years old) and aren’t making at least $80k you did something very, very wrong.

I agree. I'm 33 and don't understand how anyone is under $80k in high cost of living cities.

Really depends on where you live and your profession. In the dc area, sure. Middle of nowhere Iowa and Nebraska making 60k at 30 years old is totally reasonable.

[Anonymous]

I mean what is paycheck to paycheck? Lots of my friends say that, but they're still maxing out their 401ks, adding $500 to each kids 529 every month and putting the last bit in a savings account for their big vacation. Unless you're independently wealthy, we all need that next paycheck.

Paycheck to paycheck for me would mean that you don't have any money left after mortgage, groceries and bills.

[Anonymous]

the vast majority of people live paycheck to paycheck. This isn't news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re a millennial (27-41 years old) and aren’t making at least $80k you did something very, very wrong.

I agree. I'm 33 and don't understand how anyone is under $80k in high cost of living cities.

In Fairfax County a teacher doesn’t make $80k until year 17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a great idea to restart student loan payments then. This is a very large generation of voting age.

Should they be paused forever, because of ... COVID?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m gen x and same. Passion job and still renting.

Were you a white person who grew up in a LCOL area in the Midwest or South? Everyone else (except for people in this demographic I think) knows that “passion jobs” are only for trust funders or those with a rich spouse.

Wow, how did you know my background? I’m GenX, white LMC from very rural LCOL in South, and I totally followed my passion to my peril — and by the time I tried to pivot to make real money, I’ve made zero headway despite hundreds of job applications and job training certificates over a decade

Why do you point out that combo so distinctly?

I guess my prediction was accurate. You should read this:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/210/791426.page

Here's how this happens. It's not ultra common, but it does happen, and it's not so simple as "make better choices". Because many of the choices are made before the person has the necessary info, and often they are working on information that is bad or very misleading:

- Larla grows up in rural or remote part of the country. Low cost of living, middle or working class parents who don't struggle a ton to make ends meet because low COL. Larla has pleasant childhood without a lot of class strife thanks to this.

- Larla is very good at school, and opportunities in this area are limited. It's not near a larger city. The area doesn't have a ton of arts, culture, or commerce. Larla very quickly develops interest in leaving area because of these limitations and because they are very successful academically, this starts to feel like a real possibility.

- Larla goes to college far away, a "good school" likely with some or a lot of merit aid. Larla's grades and test scores qualified her for school, but her admission probably has a lot to do with her - background too -- these schools like diversity and being from some remote place stands out.

- Maybe the school is in a big city, but maybe in little college town, but either way, winds up in a student population with people from much more cosmopolitan backgrounds. Some are wealthy, some are UMC, some might be MC or WC but from places with greater diversity (of people and experiences). This means everyone understands a lot more about how the world works than Larla, even the other kids on financial aid and who have to work. Larla is straight up naive.

- Larla makes friends, and her friends educate her a bit about the world. The problem is, they are naive too, because they don't even understand what they know. They explain stuff to Larla, but it overemphasizes the fairness of the system. They gloss over stuff like the value of family connections or the fact that they are from families that really, really support and emphasize higher education (something Larla's family probably doesn't value to the same degree because of very different environments and circumstances). Larla starts to think she's figuring things out, but she's only getting a very small part of the picture.

- Larla makes career choices, decides where to move after school, based on her naive assumptions coupled with a pretty incomplete explanation of the world gleaned from young people who are really still just figuring it out. What Larla could really use at this point is a parent or relative who can say "Whoa, wait -- some of these kids have trust funds. Some of them can live in their aunt's apartment while they intern. Some of them have parents who will will do anything to cover the cost of a graduate degree because it's important to them. You need to make different choices based on your specific situation. How about Philly instead of NYC? How about marketing instead of publishing? Maybe what you really want is to write -- get an ed degree, teach high school English, and write! Or pursue an academic degree but get used to living in midwestern college towns, which are at least cheap."

- So instead, Larla figures this out on her own over the course of a decade or so. It's revealed in fits and starts, and often she only learns a key piece of information after it's too late to do much with it (like that an MFA is treated as required in publishing, but has no actual value in terms of earning, something that should actually be a required release of info before anyone enrolls in an MFA program). She also gets deeper into a career and social circle that will simply reinforce her value system, making it harder and harder to pull herself out. She might contemplate moving to Chicago or Portland or Denver, but her NY friends will say "OMG no, I could never" and she's only 28 and her family doesn't understand her anymore either, so she holds onto those values even though they don't serve her.

It's a sucky thing. Yes, she was naive and stupid and made bad choices. But it's also kind of hard to blame her because she's kind of been thrown to the wolves. Her university probably should have offered her some kind of practical economic education, but that would require being honest about their student body and their funding and the value of their degree, so: no. Same with the MFA. Her friends are self-interested in believing that they earned their way (to a degree they may have, in other ways not). Also, Larla doesn't have a stereotypical hard luck upbringing. She's not from poverty, her parents have steady jobs, she had a nice childhood. The fact that it in no way prepared her for the life she is now leading doesn't concern anyone because she is a [almost certainly white] middle class lady with a fancy college degree. It's just that none of those things are really helping her right now and she'd have to go back in time, or totally upend her entire values system, to change it. It's what she should do, but it's understandable that she is struggling.

I feel really bad for people in this situation. This is why it helps to have savvy parents who get how the world works, why you are lucky to find mentors or honest friends who tell it like it is. It can save you. Some people never get that and they get stuck.

this whole scenario about the very rare Larla from a bucolic rural town and salt-of-the-earth family getting recruited to a prestigious out of state university, etc., etc. is certainly plausible for a few kids, but, by definition, can not account for the 70% statistic in the article.

and i think the article is bullshit whining, anyway, but still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m gen x and same. Passion job and still renting.

Were you a white person who grew up in a LCOL area in the Midwest or South? Everyone else (except for people in this demographic I think) knows that “passion jobs” are only for trust funders or those with a rich spouse.

Wow, how did you know my background? I’m GenX, white LMC from very rural LCOL in South, and I totally followed my passion to my peril — and by the time I tried to pivot to make real money, I’ve made zero headway despite hundreds of job applications and job training certificates over a decade

Why do you point out that combo so distinctly?

I guess my prediction was accurate. You should read this:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/210/791426.page

Here's how this happens. It's not ultra common, but it does happen, and it's not so simple as "make better choices". Because many of the choices are made before the person has the necessary info, and often they are working on information that is bad or very misleading:

- Larla grows up in rural or remote part of the country. Low cost of living, middle or working class parents who don't struggle a ton to make ends meet because low COL. Larla has pleasant childhood without a lot of class strife thanks to this.

- Larla is very good at school, and opportunities in this area are limited. It's not near a larger city. The area doesn't have a ton of arts, culture, or commerce. Larla very quickly develops interest in leaving area because of these limitations and because they are very successful academically, this starts to feel like a real possibility.

- Larla goes to college far away, a "good school" likely with some or a lot of merit aid. Larla's grades and test scores qualified her for school, but her admission probably has a lot to do with her - background too -- these schools like diversity and being from some remote place stands out.

- Maybe the school is in a big city, but maybe in little college town, but either way, winds up in a student population with people from much more cosmopolitan backgrounds. Some are wealthy, some are UMC, some might be MC or WC but from places with greater diversity (of people and experiences). This means everyone understands a lot more about how the world works than Larla, even the other kids on financial aid and who have to work. Larla is straight up naive.

- Larla makes friends, and her friends educate her a bit about the world. The problem is, they are naive too, because they don't even understand what they know. They explain stuff to Larla, but it overemphasizes the fairness of the system. They gloss over stuff like the value of family connections or the fact that they are from families that really, really support and emphasize higher education (something Larla's family probably doesn't value to the same degree because of very different environments and circumstances). Larla starts to think she's figuring things out, but she's only getting a very small part of the picture.

- Larla makes career choices, decides where to move after school, based on her naive assumptions coupled with a pretty incomplete explanation of the world gleaned from young people who are really still just figuring it out. What Larla could really use at this point is a parent or relative who can say "Whoa, wait -- some of these kids have trust funds. Some of them can live in their aunt's apartment while they intern. Some of them have parents who will will do anything to cover the cost of a graduate degree because it's important to them. You need to make different choices based on your specific situation. How about Philly instead of NYC? How about marketing instead of publishing? Maybe what you really want is to write -- get an ed degree, teach high school English, and write! Or pursue an academic degree but get used to living in midwestern college towns, which are at least cheap."

- So instead, Larla figures this out on her own over the course of a decade or so. It's revealed in fits and starts, and often she only learns a key piece of information after it's too late to do much with it (like that an MFA is treated as required in publishing, but has no actual value in terms of earning, something that should actually be a required release of info before anyone enrolls in an MFA program). She also gets deeper into a career and social circle that will simply reinforce her value system, making it harder and harder to pull herself out. She might contemplate moving to Chicago or Portland or Denver, but her NY friends will say "OMG no, I could never" and she's only 28 and her family doesn't understand her anymore either, so she holds onto those values even though they don't serve her.

It's a sucky thing. Yes, she was naive and stupid and made bad choices. But it's also kind of hard to blame her because she's kind of been thrown to the wolves. Her university probably should have offered her some kind of practical economic education, but that would require being honest about their student body and their funding and the value of their degree, so: no. Same with the MFA. Her friends are self-interested in believing that they earned their way (to a degree they may have, in other ways not). Also, Larla doesn't have a stereotypical hard luck upbringing. She's not from poverty, her parents have steady jobs, she had a nice childhood. The fact that it in no way prepared her for the life she is now leading doesn't concern anyone because she is a [almost certainly white] middle class lady with a fancy college degree. It's just that none of those things are really helping her right now and she'd have to go back in time, or totally upend her entire values system, to change it. It's what she should do, but it's understandable that she is struggling.

I feel really bad for people in this situation. This is why it helps to have savvy parents who get how the world works, why you are lucky to find mentors or honest friends who tell it like it is. It can save you. Some people never get that and they get stuck.

this whole scenario about the very rare Larla from a bucolic rural town and salt-of-the-earth family getting recruited to a prestigious out of state university, etc., etc. is certainly plausible for a few kids, but, by definition, can not account for the 70% statistic in the article.

and i think the article is bullshit whining, anyway, but still.

I do agree with the PP that a lot of kids/young adults are not getting the necessary financial literacy- from their parents or at school. And that leads to poor financial decisions. I can identify with that. I really could have used a dose of reality at 17/18, instead my parents bought into my ambition to go to a private LAC and co-signed private loans to do it. I was dumb, but I didn't have a lot of guidance or an example to save and be frugal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent costs $2500-3000 per mo. A modest Honda is gonna set you back $400-500 per mo. We aren’t even covering childcare, health expenses, and utilities that keep going up. Food prices keep going up and up and up. You will feel poor on a $120k salary these days.

Not everyone can afford to live in a trendy, desirable major city. Some people will have to move. They’ll survive.

If you have a portable career like teacher or nurse you can get a job anywhere, and if you have a corporate desk job you have WFH so you might only need to come in once a week. You commute from Baltimore County once a week. No big deal.

I never quite understood some of these arguments. First, teachers and nurses make crap in LCOL areas. And second, HCOL needs nurses and teachers. Are you saying they should just suck it up and commute 2 hours to HCOL areas so people like you won't go without essential workers?

I work as a nurse in federal government. I make $118K as a staff nurse. I would never make that much LCOL. I live in Northern Virginia in a $1.2 mln house which is paid off by the way. My husband is also government employee, so our combined income is over $250K. We are doing fine. We are not rich, but there are plenty families like us who don't need to move to LCOL areas.