Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a millennial Ive come to realize all my friends that somehow can buy a 800k plus home had a lot of help from mom and dad. No wonder home prices are so high and what you can afford on a normal yet high salary 150k at 30 will never be enough to buy a nice home.

As an actual-middle-class GenXer, I stopped feeling bad about not owning my own home in my late 20s when I realized all my UMC peers' parents had paid their six-figure downpayments. This is not a generational issue; this is a class issue. Well-off parents pay college, weddings, house downpayments, and all sorts of other things that parents in lower socioeconomic classes are not able to.

This. Also a gen-xer, and a coworker and I shared stories, we were two of the few people we worked with whose parents could not afford to buy us a house. Both of us felt lucky our parents were able to pay for college, but the parents of our UMC friends and coworkers we're providing house down payments, new Mini vans / SUVs, and college funds for friends kids.

It was unreal. Both of us knew we were lucky not to have student loans, and neither of us realized before that how much help our friends were getting from their parents.

Millennial here: it's only in the last two years have I realized how good I have it at my job. I have the three legged stool maximized - DB pension that will be 6-figures if I can stay here for 30 years, fully maxed 401k with 8% match, and then socking away extra in a backdoor Roth and 529 plans. We are having our first baby this year and will lower our taxable base by using the FSAs, plus the tax benefits from rental real estate we own.

I've come to discover that "smart money management" begins with (1.) lowering your taxable base as much as possible and (2.) finding a job with income growth potential and solid benefits. It's crazy how much the tax code is tilted in favor of savers and investors. I'm pretty sure this next year I'll be able to lower my taxable base by over $60K once I factor in deduction for pre-tax 401K investments, mortgage interest, and all other forms of tax-sheltered savings.

-Older Millennial

Anonymous wrote:As a millennial Ive come to realize all my friends that somehow can buy a 800k plus home had a lot of help from mom and dad. No wonder home prices are so high and what you can afford on a normal yet high salary 150k at 30 will never be enough to buy a nice home.

As an actual-middle-class GenXer, I stopped feeling bad about not owning my own home in my late 20s when I realized all my UMC peers' parents had paid their six-figure downpayments. This is not a generational issue; this is a class issue. Well-off parents pay college, weddings, house downpayments, and all sorts of other things that parents in lower socioeconomic classes are not able to.