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The stock market doesn’t seem like a safe retreat anymore.
Cars are wildly expensive and almost hard to get.
Homes…if you haven’t already bought one that ship has sailed.
Food prices are up…along with everything else.
When I think back over my life, it seems like people of my generation have been brutally clobbered.
Coming out of high school 2004+ and onward there was a huge push for everyone to go to college. I had a lot of friends take on massive debt for their education. Then the meltdown in 2008/2009 happened and these same people with degrees couldn’t even find jobs paying much over minimum wage. Fast forward less than a decade and now we are in the environment we have now.
Seems like a lot of people under 45 might be working until death. Perhaps retirement will be reserved for the top 10%.
The stock market is for long term investing, and as such, is as "safe" as it ever was. If you'd call it safe at all. Still, it's a reflection of how businesses are doing and over time, is one of the best investments you can make, if you invest wisely and keep risk low.
Home prices are coming down already. They come down as interest rates rise.
Food prices - we all deal with that. Seniors on fixed incomes are especially affected. But there are things you can do to economize. There are healthy, delicious meals you can make for pennies a serving. Turkey spaghetti, soups, pasta salad, tuna salad, sandwiches, beans...
Going to college is a great idea for many people. Going into massive debt for it seems to me a terrible idea. How about going to community college for 1st 2 years...working a couple of years beforehand to pay for it instead of going into debt? Then transfer to a state college...and only then get a loan, and work part time and live with your parents. Assuming you don't qualify for a scholarship or grant. In the state of Louisiana, the state picks up the college tab for graduating high school seniors if they go straight to college (a STATE college). What a deal!
If you are young, you have an exciting future in front of you. New fields are opening up, and women can now get jobs in many areas that were not open to them in my generation. Women get paid much more now than when I was young, too. Young married couples are likely 2-income families, whereas in my generation and my parents' generation, the husband shouldered all the financial responsibility. If they divorce in mid-life, he won't have alimony like in the old days, and she will be able to earn a decent living, if she worked to support the family like he did. It's a win-win.
Buy books on investing and start investing conservatively at a young age. A few bucks regularly adds up over time. You could retire a millionaire...TIME is a critical factor in successful investing for the future. You aren't taught this in school. You have to buy some books and teach yourself. Start with The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.
You have something that older people can't have. Time and a fast-changing world with new fields opening up. It's an exciting time. I wish I were 18 again.
Retirement, in the way it's portrayed by the media (golfing all day, traveling the world etc) is not actually the norm, now or historically. Most people, even those with good jobs, work until the are physically unable to sustain it. If you're very lucky, and have planned well, you can hang it up when medicare kicks in at 65.
I believe the trend is earlier retirements - the norm currently is 62 and many plan on 60 or earlier. Most people take advantage of retiring when they can afford to.
I'm a similar age and have had absolutely no issue getting ahead (way ahead) of my peers. Unpopular opinion, however the mindset of millennials sucks and causes them/us to feel they can't succeeded. Self inflicted.
The implication that millennials have "had it tougher" than other generations is historically false.
Bingo. Look at the economy in 1980. Inflation 13%. Escalating prices of everything. Mortgage rates 12-18%. All followed by a 2-year recession.
Nobody I work with us retiring at 60! In fact, looking at stocks today, several have commented they will stay until 70
I retired at 60 a few years ago as did my DW and some others - but there were certainly some that wanted to keep working by choice - there is a difference between working by choice and due to necessity.
The market today should have little impact on long term plans and certainly not 10 years.
I believe the trend is earlier retirements - the norm currently is 62 and many plan on 60 or earlier. Most people take advantage of retiring when they can afford to.
I don't know anyone retiring that early either. Most are going at 65 or at least waiting until FRA.
I don't know anyone retiring that early either. Most are going at 65 or at least waiting until FRA.
Really? - I know more than a few.
According to gallup - The average retirement age is 61. According to bls.gov, the average retirement was just under 67 in 1950s and dropped steadily to about 62 in the 2000s.
If it wasn't for the costs of education and housing, I would say that Millennials and Zs have it about the same as other generations. Even a bit better, because technology is better more convenient in a number of ways, we have better health care, nutrition, etc..
Oh and health care costs. That too.
But with what education and housing costs, they're definitely behind the Greatests, Boomers, and older Xers at least. Probably more analogous to pre-Great Depression generations when there was bad wealth inequality & it was more difficult & expensive to own property. The big lie was that after WWII, we thought each succeeding generation would be more prosperous than the last. Not happenning.
In fact I've done a project with students on this... the income/wealth situation is somewhat more like what was happening in the 1920s. I used rookie cop as a proxy for lower middle class, since we can find out easily what cops were paid 100 years ago and compare it to today.
Bingo. Look at the economy in 1980. Inflation 13%. Escalating prices of everything. Mortgage rates 12-18%. All followed by a 2-year recession.
Inflation was calculated more accurately back then; if you calculate it similarly today then inflation would match and possibly exceed what it was back then. Also, the boomers who started buying assets back then have enjoyed 30+ years of secular disinflation. Millennials / newer gens had to "buy in" to assets that had already went on a massive run and are now poised to underperform over the coming decades.
They were all bragging about how they invested $250 during the early parts of the pandemic stock bubble using their phone apps and doubling their money... throw the sheep a bone while the billionaires are concentrating more and more wealth and assets and prices are going through the roof.
Meanwhile many of their meme stocks have collapsed since then and housing prices are still high. How do you feel about the reckless QE monetary policy now? Ready to pop the bubbles milennials?
It's time to drive up rates and make easy credit a thing of the past. These zombie corporations gobble up wealth and then get bought out by larger entities. Communism is not the answer but concentration of wealth cannot be allowed to continue unchecked either.
I'm rooting for the markets to fall to historical valuations with some higher long term interest rates. That means dow 20K, nasdaq 8K, or lower. Enough of this making money from having money. We have infrastructure in this country that is falling apart, we are paying people to not work, wages are not keeping up with asset prices, which are way too high. Put people to work, pay them a decent wage, and make houses affordable again, instead of using assets like slot machines.
If that means you have to work longer because you don't get your asset bubbles, I don't care.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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I mentioned that some younger people have what I feel are skewed expectations which is why some might be disappointed where they are.
I know one that I advised to buy a home or an asset at age 23. He lives at home and bought a Porsche for 140k. He got loans so I’m pretty sure his parents co-signed for him. He makes 40k year.
If I was his parents I would say before you bought that car you need to move out and support yourself.
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