I’ll jump in. I don’t get it. I’m Generation Y. Neither a boomer bor a millennial. DH and I are 41/43.

Without a doubt boomers stole from future generations. Social security, health care and pensions that clearly I am paying for but will never benefit from.

But millennials are also leaches. As a group their parents pay for lots of lifestyle choices. They regularly eat out, buy organic everything, spend a fortune on housing (better locations, nicer housing stock and larger places than appropriate for their age). And they don’t comprehend that a professional job means working more than 40 house a week. I own a business with dozens of employees and the number of them (especially without college degrees)that get compensation packages in the $70k-$100k range and have no problem leaving deadline work Undone to get out literally at 5:00 and not 5:15 on an occasional basis is staggering. Those with college degrees in the $100k+ range have the exact same mentality.

In my small generation band we paid a lot for college (okay not as much as you but if you look at it as percentages most of the sharp increases in tuition had set in by the time we started. College cost us easily 10-20 what it costs our parents). Same is true with housing. We didn’t get the rapid appreciation of our parents generation and overwhelmingly bought houses and watched them lose value often waiting a decade or longer for them to rebound. We pay our own bills and almost always did. We make choices so that we have some nice thing and sacrifice others. We are paying back higher education debt over 20-30 years and we have good health insurance that we pay a lot for. Oh and we listen to our parents complain about they won’t have enough for their retirements because they are supporting our much younger siblings

I really do not get the whining. My parents were pre baby boom (1940) first generation college graduates and neither have a pension. They both are comfortably retired (they are divorced). Not rich, but planned at various levels for retirement. My dad didn’t really start planning for retirement until his mid 40s and he is doing fine, well by many standards. His advantage was his second wife is a saver and she was a very good influence in that regard.

We are planning for retirement. I get not everyone has a high income but most on DCUM seem to save in 401K/TSP/IRA/etc some amount and I would guess the split between those prepared for retirement and those not has remained fairly steady across generations. Not everyone got pensions before and not everyone has 401K’s now.

I am of the minority that think SS isn’t going anywhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thet screwed their children by taking away pensions and making it impossible to have a living wage. They are horrible people. My father makes 6 figures in retirement--way more than I have in my entire life as a working professional and my parents act like they are poor when my dh and I are working to scrape by. We don't buy anything extra aside from groceries and rent. But they seem to really be suffering as home owners their gated community and new cars.

Yup. My parents are good people who earned what they have...but my husband and I will never be able to retire at 60 with a six figure income of pension, SS, and investments. We invest what we can, but without the pension and with the likelihood of SS decreasing, we're never going to make up for the other two "legs of the stool."

So I'm not all that sympathetic.

+1.

I know alot of that generation worked hard for what they have, and I would never say they don't deserve it. However, my DH and I work hard too and yet we will NEVER be able to live out lives in the same comfortable situation that our parents do. Why don't some of the more cranky Baby Boomers recognize this. This is not whining on our parts, its a fact and it objectively sucks!

No, it was poor parenting early on and even worse parenting as the kids got older. My husband's son's girlfriend would call us regularly demanding we pay for all sorts of stuff, especially when they choose to have a baby right after college so she could SAHM. We told her if they can afford a rental house nicer than ours, two cars and a SAHP at 22, they can afford to pay their own cell phone, etc. and if baby needed something we'd buy directly for the baby only. Time to grow up.

Anonymous wrote:Ive made it very clear to my kids (22, 28, 31) we will not put our retirement at risk. What I am happy to offer that isn't money is free housing if necessary (move back home not me paying your rent) and free childcare. Those don't cost me money, they cost me space and time and that's something Im still willing to give freely since it doesn't put our future at risk!

+1

I'm a gen-Xer, so I am not in this position yet. But my thought is that I am happy to have junior life at home while saving up some cash. I'm also more than happy to support the production of grandkids by providing child care and babysitting.

But I won't be paying the cell phone bill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ive made it very clear to my kids (22, 28, 31) we will not put our retirement at risk. What I am happy to offer that isn't money is free housing if necessary (move back home not me paying your rent) and free childcare. Those don't cost me money, they cost me space and time and that's something Im still willing to give freely since it doesn't put our future at risk!

My parents did the same for me and my siblings. However, my brother - the middle child - seems to think he is entitled to continual help from my parents into his mid 30s. My parents have financially bailed him out so many times and he still thinks he deserves more. He can't hold a job, can't ever get in a financially stable state (and he has a wife and a teenage son). If it wasn't for my parents, my brother would be in jail and his mentally ill wife would be homeless.

So while you can set firm boundaries, not all your kids will listen. My sister and I did remarkably well living on our, balancing college/work/student loans, and now raising families in homes that we bought ourselves without parental help. My brother? He's acting as if he was raised in a completely different family.

It's really changed some of my views on the nature vs. nurture debate.

I wonder if your parents keep bailing him and his crazy wife out just to save the kid. My mother always bails out my sister, who is divorced with two kids and living with a crazy person. It drives me nuts, but then I realize that if my mother didn't give them money and gifts, those kids would be even more screwed than they already are. So, I forget about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You guys still at it with the generational wars? Stop getting baited by the media.

The WORLD ECONOMY HAS CHANGED. Parenting philosophies may have changed too, but not more than hard financial facts.

My philosophy that the Boomers are scum and should all hurry up and die has not changed.

Ok, they let you out for a day from the psych ward?

This is not a new phenomenon. Every generation has failure to launch kids. I'm a Gen Xer and several of my parents' friends have kids in their late 30s and 40s draining them dry.

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of genxers who mooch off their parents. I also know boomers who mooched off their parents (and are now in a comfortable place in retirement because of inheritances, not their own financial acumen or frugality).

Everybody on this board complains about how rich boomers are etc. I think it is because most people who frequent this board have well-off parents. A very high percentage of Boomers do not have retirement savings and the idea that all boomers have a pension to tap is also false. I think the range is like 25% of boomers have some sort of pension.

Paying for an adult child's cell phone on a family plan is not keeping people from saving for retirement. It is a lifetime of overspending.

Sometimes the problem is that a poster has parents who really suck but instead of facing the fact that their parents let them down, it feels better to blame their behavior on entire generation. Not saying that's true of everyone but I have noticed it now and then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You guys still at it with the generational wars? Stop getting baited by the media.

The WORLD ECONOMY HAS CHANGED. Parenting philosophies may have changed too, but not more than hard financial facts.

My philosophy that the Boomers are scum and should all hurry up and die has not changed.

Sorry to burst your bubble but I’m 56 and hoping not to die too soon. I suspect most of my friends feel the same way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You guys still at it with the generational wars? Stop getting baited by the media.

The WORLD ECONOMY HAS CHANGED. Parenting philosophies may have changed too, but not more than hard financial facts.

My philosophy that the Boomers are scum and should all hurry up and die has not changed.

Seek therapy.

Anonymous wrote:I really only see this happening in this area and with some friends who live in the Bay Area. Places where rent for apartments is exceptionally high.

My nephew moved to a large city in a mid-west state after graduation nearly two years ago and is doing really well. Is the paycheck as high as it would be here? No, but he's been able to pay his own bills, just bought a house that would sell for $700k here, and is paying down his student loan debt.

His parents are cheapskates if stuck kid with student loans so why would they be generous now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 millennial adult children. They both have good jobs - one makes over $100k and is only a couple years out of college. They are still on the family cell phone plan and yes we have a multi user Netflix account still but that’s not exactly breaking the bank. Together that’s less that $100/month. They can afford to pay their own rent, have employer health coverage and pay their own living expenses. They do take advantage of our beach house but it doesn't cost me anything and I enjoy it when they come for a weekend or a week. So not all millennials are mooches.

On a related point not all boomers are bad. I don’t get a pension, already pay for my own health insurance on the private market at an exorbitant rate, and have saved like crazy for retirement (as well as for my kids education, which we paid for in full). I also lived very frugally in my 20s and 30s in a way most millennials these days wouldn’t tolerate. Our first house was what people on this board would define as a shit shack. So we made different financial choices than many people today.

Why do you write "they can afford to pay their own rent," instead of they are paying their own rent? That struck me as odd. Are you paying their rent or are the living with you?

They are paying their own rent. They can afford it so I don't need to supplement it.

I really only see this happening in this area and with some friends who live in the Bay Area. Places where rent for apartments is exceptionally high.

My nephew moved to a large city in a mid-west state after graduation nearly two years ago and is doing really well. Is the paycheck as high as it would be here? No, but he's been able to pay his own bills, just bought a house that would sell for $700k here, and is paying down his student loan debt.

Anonymous wrote:The correct phrasing is Baby Boomers are Continuing to Helicopter Parent Their Children and Blowing Their Retirement in the Process.

Yes, this.

-not a millennial or boomer.