Some things do seem a little harder than when our parents were our age but people do blow a lot of their money. The baby boomers do, too, though. A lot of them don't have nearly enough saved for retirement. My dad was given his own franchise to run by a big pizza chain when he was 25, just because he had a few years experience working there. No one knows me here so I'll give real numbers. I'm 29, I make $38,000 a year. Up until about 3 years ago, I was making roughly $17,000 a year. My net worth currently is in the realm of $27,000. I have about $33,000 in assets and owe $6,000 on my car, which is financed at 1.99% so I'm in no hurry to pay it off. I worked two jobs for over 2 years in order to pay off my student loan and finished it last year. I currently put 12.5% of my salary into tax-deferred retirement accounts every month. Since finishing my student loan, I've found it incredibly easy to save money. I don't know how people save so little. I drive a 2013 car, split rent on a $1,300 apartment with my girlfriend, have decent clothes and shoes, TVs in every room, XboxOne, take vacations here and there, and still save the retirement amount plus a few hundred dollars each month. The only things that I think are different about me: My student loan had 6.5% interest, so I paid it off ASAP. I cook at home a lot and eat out rarely, which saves money and is healthier, plus I'm a good cook. We have Hulu, Netflix, and Moviepass, so entertainment budget is $18 a month. I pay my credit card balance at the end of every month and collect the cash back. And in general, I don't waste money on things I don't need. I spent $20 of a gift card on a stupid video game I don't like and I still regret it. I feel like most people would just let little things like that slide.
But I didn't reference this wackamole article with 2 million dollar saved from coffee, and I used the 173k, not the 50k, because one is calculated with equity returns vs. interest returns (the idea is to just invest it instead of buy it). So again, how have I been "had"? My goal is to just live life & travel the world. So sure, there's my emotional side. You have whatever goals you want. Don't recommend buying books: anything for pf can be found on Reddit. Pretty simple. They even have a nice flowchart on their subreddit. Both can agree here that suckers gonna get succed. The fact that you think it's either one side of the spectrum or another is distressing to me in a larger sense of how easily people are polarized: surely societal changes can help, but changing spending habits is the elephant in the room nobody wants to directly address. You think a pres is gonna go up there and be like "Hey, could cut out a lot of SS if y'all baby boomers were more responsible about retirement planning!". But they needed the bigger house, the fancier car... We both know very well prosperity is not found by cutting back into lattes, nice straw man. People don't save today, people didn't save yesterday, people won't save tomorrow. It's not like "back in the good ole days" we had all these fiscally responsible members of society. It was "hard" back then, it is "hard" today, it will be "hard" tomorrow. Many, not all, don't save because they are just financial idiots. Close friend of mine is paying off a 2% loan faster than one at 6%. Makes 70k a year, successful engineer, and also doesn't know what an IRA is. Dumb as **** there, smart guy elsewhere though. Hundreds of examples like this I've seen around personally. It's not just "spiritual advice": people spending money on stupid **** they can't afford is an epidemic in society. Seems we both prefer experiences over things though. Good for you. I agree with you. Kids bring more expenses. Don't have any if you can't afford it. Of course it doesn't. But the standard of living now vs. the past has improved on average, and will continue to do so in the future. Agree to disagree if you want; not trying to start a debate on this topic here. People can fight for societal changes, but also need to look in the mirror to identify personal accountability for their own fiscal decisions, because time and time again, as people get more money, they often spend more money recklessly. How many lottery winners go broke?
I think we may be talking about 2 different kinds of people here. I'm not talking about the people who are facing hard times and truly struggling to get by, I'm talking about the households making $100K+/year yet are still living paycheck to paycheck because of her brand new (financed) BMW and his brand new (financed) Dodge Ram sitting in the driveway. Or the lavish vacations they take every year (and charge to their credit card) just so they can post about it on Facebook. We all know people like this, they're everywhere. This is called "normal" in our culture. The debt thing, all I can say is that a couple of years ago we decided to pay off all of our debt (2 cars, 4 credit cards, 401K loan) and to never go into debt for anything ever again for the rest of our lives. Finished in December and it's working out well for us. The assload of money we used to spend on payments every month is now going into our emergency fund. Once that's built up to around 6 months of expenses, it will go towards kids college, our retirement and our mortgage. We plan on being 100% debt free before we retire. Normal people may make fun of this simple-minded plan, but normal people are broke. I don't take financial advice from broke people just like I don't take diet advice from fat people.
1. Unnecessary spending and living beyond your means. I hit the clubs quite often and grab bottle service yada yada. Last weekend, we were at Spire and then we see this other group. I wager most of these guys probably just got out of their HCC degree and think they can drop beyond what they can afford on bottles. That's irresponsible spending. Just go grab you a drink at little woodrows. 2. Student loans. People take $70K-80K on loans for a degree that may pay starting salary of $40K. That **** never ends and when you throw in a car payment and mortgage, you're living pay check to pay check. That **** is unacceptable. I am dropping 100K+ right now on a MBA, but I know in return I will probably make 200K+ after my degree so to me it is worth it.
Good luck to you - when you get that degree and make those big bucks..don't do what the vast majority of people do with those high loans and a high salary to match. Instead of upping your lifestyle with a fancy car, big house and expensive clothes...live on 60K, and use the rest to pay off the loans in the first year. You'll be glad you did. Unfortunately, most Doctors DON'T do that. They can barely pay their loans because they buy all the expensive toys. Make an actual budget and keep to it. It will change your life.
Thanks for the tips butIm not taking any loans. I'm paying out of pocket. I hate any form of debt except my house. I also paid for my car straight up cash few years back. That mofo dealer tried to sell me on some financing BS. I told him I have $25k straight up cash. Either give me the car or I'm going to the next dealer
66% of Millennials have nothing saved for retirement http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/retirement/millennial-retirement-savings/index.html
That's really great and it sounds like you are doing well on the income you are making. Now factor in if you had one of the following happen: - Unplanned pregnancy - Planned pregnancy - Car breaks down - Medical emergency - Job loss All of the above except for planning to have kids is out of your control. All would have the potential of wiping out all your savings or setting you back for years. Now imagine if your base salary was doubled. You would've paid off student debt earlier. You could've had a bigger retirement savings account and netted more from the stock market growth of the past 8 years. You'd easily be able to handle any of the situations above with savings.
Heck, that's what you should do when buying a car, regardless of how much you have, or what the car cost. If I buy a new car, which doesn't happen often (we'd rather spend our money on other things), I wear my walking shoes. If they can't beat the price I can find online for what we want, I simply walk out. We keep our vehicles for years, though, long after they're paid off. Like I said, we would rather spend our bread on other things. Haven't had a mortgage in years. We really enjoy traveling, both our kids graduated/are graduating with no college debt (the last semester for our youngest is ending in several weeks), because it's what my own parents gifted my sister and I with. Our oldest is making 6 figures here in Austin at age 26, putting his education to good use. We won't have that expense soon, which will be nice. Maybe we'll go back to Europe sooner than we intended. Going to Colorado first, though, before Goofus and his bizarre minion, Sessions the Weasel, screws the pooch for everyone. I'm enjoying the discussion. We've had these before, but it's a nice change from talking about the latest horror show happening in the White House, or Florida, or New Jersey. Wherever the idiot is when he opens his mouth or tweets his latest stupidity.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/09/592393083/episode-829-rigging-the-econom Economic inequality is complicated and emotional. Conservatives have one set of solutions. Liberals have another. Some groups don't think inequality is such a bad thing. Conversations about it often turn into partisan fights. But today on the show, we follow two thinkers—from opposite sides of the political spectrum—who have joined forces to find out what's causing inequality. They are Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles, and they are the authors of a new book called The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality.
I am just starting off at a full-time job at a small company with no benefits. If I had 401k matching, it would be a no-brainer to max it out. I did max out a Roth IRA for 2017, so I am in the 34% of millennials with something invested for retirement.
The biggest problem is we live in a play now pay later world. Even if people were to make more money I don't see many of them saving more than they are now. They are most likely going to find more things to spend it on. I know I'm guilty of it.
No benefits? Sounds like you have the right idea, but where you are now doesn't sound like it fits where you want to go. Good luck!
We've created a system where all the wealth goes to the 1% that use to be the retirement for mainstream America. Ultimately, this system will collapse and force a restructuring.
This thread is amusing. Before everyone decided go into their own personal rant about how this generation sucks and spends too much, did anyone bother to actually look at how this generation's savings compare to past generations? Hint: They are no worse at saving than previous generations. And median households today have a lot more savings than they did 50 years ago (in real dollars). This is from 2006, but good data. Income up 32% but networth up 83% compared to the 1960s. https://www.forbes.com/2006/10/16/d...ation-biz_cx_tvr_1017median.html#5bfdcc414675 Mr. and Mrs. Median's $46,326 in annual income is 32% more than their mid-'60s counterparts, even when adjusted for inflation, and 13% more than those at the median in the economic boom year of 1985. And thanks to ballooning real estate values, average household net worth has increased even faster. The typical American household has a net worth of $465,970, up 83% from 1965, 60% from 1985 and 35% from 1995. As SF says, there's growing inequality, which is a major problem. But the idea that young people these days just suck at savings compared to previous generations is nonsense. If you believe that, you may have become one of the "back in my day..." people.
