A boomer relative of mine is quite condescending yet he got a degree in religion and got to work at a bank in technology right out of college. I got a degree in technology with a minor in accounting and it’s so competitive I can’t get into the industry. I won all sort of competitions and awards and did tech part time jobs in college and he worked as a lifeguard. Times have changed
A lot of Boomers and older don't realize that without connections it often takes several months to actually get hired at crappy jobs like McDonalds. Every Boomer relative just drove around, saw a "Now Hiring" sign, filled out an app, talked to the manager, and "can you start tomorrow?!"
a work colleague of my mom got a manager position and has a major in theology...while now-a-days if someone would like to enter the same position would need multiple years of experience
My boomer dad is a hard worker but he left at 9am, came home for lunch, and was home again by 5pm most days. You used to be able to work the actual hours you were paid for and get enough to buy a house, raise kids, save for retirement, etc.
Absolutely, I totally agree. It's the same with my parents in law (almost 70 by now), she was a stay at home mom, he worked a 8-5 job (yes it's called 8-5 in Germany) , builded a few houses and never had or still have financial problems, go on vacation four times a year.. we on the other hand are considered lazy and "spoiled", that's why we can't afford a house because in their eyes. We spent everything on unnecessary stuff (by that they probably mean our rent, our car, Netflix, my gym membership, kids clothes and shoes, school stuff etc).
Yup. Same. Raised by boomer parents. No college education. They bought a house and 6 acres with cash on one 9-5 income. Paid cash for every car. Had 1 month paid vacation. Retirement. Savings. Pension. Really good medical insurance. 1 dog, 2 cats, 4 goats, 1 horse and 20 chickens. And raised 3 kids on one income. They act like my generation is just supposed to go get a job and all that will just magically happen, and it when it hasn't (because the money from that job just doesn't go as far as it used to, no matter how much I save), then it's my fault. The deck has been stacked against us.
All the excesses of modern life did not exist for boomers. My parents first home had 2 bedrooms, one bath no central heat and air. My parents never paid for cell service or cellphones, cable or internet, or subscriptions (except the newspaper). TV was a single console in the living room. Only had one car-no A/C, am/fm radio only. Every vegetable we ate came from the gardens in the back yard. All our clothes were sewn from patterns mom traded with other moms or from Salvation Army. Furniture was second hand and mother refinished a lot of tables and chairs by hand. Mine and Dads clothes were patched and used until thread bare. I had two pairs of shoes, sneakers and church shoes. Coupon cutting was a Sunday morning ritual. Meals were planned weeks out. Lunches were brown bagged, dad’s morning coffee was in a green thermos. They never bought a new home. Always bought older homes that needed work and we spent every free hour tearing out walls and and wiring and plumbing and when we left the homes were sold with a little profit. Mother went back to work as soon as I was old enough to put a key around my neck. Every penny that wasn’t spent was saved…for decades. You think inflation is tough now? Try living through the late 70’s and early 80’s. My boomer parents scraped and scrambled for everything they have and are enjoying the fruit of their sacrifices in their retirement years. They still live frugally and are averse to spending on anything that isn’t vital. It is ingrained in them. Now tell me please how any Millennial has ever worked like that? Or close to it. I’ll wait while the barista finishes your venti Latte and you can think of a witty reply to send from your iPhone. Yes, millennials take for granted the luxuries they have today and the sweat and sacrifice those “awful, selfish” boomers had to endure to make the comfortable world you live in now possible. You only see the end result of their labor, not the effort to get us here.
@@whetwilly1 Maybe this was your Boomer parents, but this was not mine. They are a lot more financially well off. The average Boomer did much better than your parents.
@@danceswithcoyotes8273 No doubt. That is life throughout modern history. My parents grew up in large families and were relatively poor. My Mother’s family had a solid home with an Air Force Dad and stay at home Mom. Unfortunately my Dad’s mother passed when he was young. Extended family helped where they could, but life was more hard scrabble for him. But all boomers benefited from the lack of extravagant extra’s that nibble away at millennial income. We have mastered the art of keeping up with the Jones’. Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok shame young people into believing they should have and deserve the best of everything-right now. CC’s have made instant gratification possible, loans for oversized, tech laden cars. Houses that are big and costly to maintain. I agree most jobs today will not pay for a modern lifestyle, but I bet it would if millennials lived like their parents/grandparents. Even if just for a time to get established. Find work, put away money in savings, find a partner (if desired), drive a beater, buy that rough looking house near the tracks, or rent with a roomie. A comfortable life was never guaranteed-never was. In fact I would suggest a little hardship is good for perspective…
@@ryanthen1047Men become motivated when they have a family to work for, and support. Men become demotivated from nagging, or no clear goal or agenda. If a woman wants a more productive man, then she should compliment him in what he works to achieve. If a woman wants a less productive man, then she should nag and belittle him.
I am 34 and my wife and I just found out that we will be having our first child this year, We make about 80k a year, and bought a house using a first time homebuyer down payment. I think we are generally doing ok, BUT with a future child in mind, It does not feel like its enough. and I am totally flabbergasted by it all. how the hell is it not enough. I work 60 hours a week and somehow its not enough. We make decent money, not fantastic, just decent. it should be enough, and I just feel like my whole life and future and my present happiness and hope for a family has been held hostage so that some geriatric could live the highlife while my wife and I just barely scrape by on an income that would be more than sufficient just 20 years ago.
@@ryanthen1047 fatherhood bonus. Having a family elevates a man's status in the eyes of management. They are more likely than their peers to get raises and promotions because people's default mindset is that the man is the sole provider. And the opposite is true for women, there's a motherhood penalty.
Regarding the whole "work your way up" myth: A former employer of mine recently laid off a bunch of people, including senior folks and people that had been there for many years...and then literally a month later listed many of their jobs on LinkedIn at lower ranks so they could pay them less. That sort of thing is happening all over tech these days it seems. So getting good enough at your job is almost a BAD thing now because if you're not in a mission critical role, then even if you're a rockstar they may not hesitate to kick you out the door and replace you with someone cheaper. How is anyone supposed to believe in the idea of long term job security when stuff like that is happening?
The key is "work" your way up. I hired hundreds of employees for many years and the vast majority did not understand that concept. Just vegetating in a position won't cut it.
There is no such thing as 'long term job security'. That concept - in practice - hasn't existed for at least 40 years. There is no such thing as a 'mission critical role'. Everyone is replaceable. Understand that you work for _yourself_ - not the company. You are only _lending_ the company your value and only for a time. 'working your way up' isn't about moving up in the company, it's about growing your skillset - which is transferrable to another company. If you understand this, you'll have a much easier time in life and with a lot less stress.
You sound like an awful business owner then. You don't work harder and hope for more pay. The business owner pays you more and you work harder. It's a simple concept really. @@comicus6769
@@comicus6769 I remember watching a video about the flaws in the "work your way up" mentality. Mainly it was about you may not have the skills or talent to work your way up because the work is so specialized today. Say if you work in software and start at a Jr development role and are really good at it. You might work your way up to a Sr dev role and be really good at that. Then you might target a project management position, where you might not be as good. You're then stuck in that position, able to do the day to day work well enough to not get fired or demoted but not excelling enough for another promotion or raises in wage to be feasible. You're not vegetating in a position, it's just that your skills, talent, and training are worlds away from what you started out as. The employer doesn't want to pay more for you to do that Sr. Dev or Jr. Dev job, however as cost of living and inflation increases you cannot just waste away at the same job for 40 years and not get a raise.
My 71 year old dad actually apologized for pushing me to go to college. I think he even said, "Dude I don't know what to tell you, it's fucked up out there"
In my 60’s now. College has gotten too expensive. It’s a joke. I would go to the trades. Electric, plumbing mechanics or something of that nature. It would not be an easy life but it’s a living.
Boomer here. To my parents' credit, they understood the toll on the body of a blue collar job. Most people's bodies wear down. I believe their motivation in encouraging college was to get an easier-on-the-body white collar managerial job. Actually, we need people in the trades! Plumbers, carpenters, etc. But many of these jobs are injury prone. We might treat these folks more like professional athletes: higher wages knowing career tenure in that profession is likely going to be short, and the best long term financial outcome may be for a trades person to work for themselves. But my point is that I have not really heard folks talking about health impacts of blue or green collar jobs. I know it's something my depression era parents thought about.
You do what you have to do. You are not ALL going to be white collar management. There are management jobs at factories. Tool and dye makers don't have a high injury rate. Most management positions anywhere require long hours. So what's your point? Did you know that the average law associate at a big law firm works 80 plus hours a week? did you know that successful entrepeneurs work almost 24/7? Everybody who got anywhere got there by huge sacrifices. It hasn't changed.
@@kareno7848 not sure if you were addressing your reply specifically to me, but yes to both of your questions. Earlier in my career I worked in a consulting environment. I understand long hours and long commutes. My depression baby parents were small business owners so I also get the always on culture of entrepreneurial mindset.
@@joanmancuso6978 @Karen O I think the key there is you can put those hours in to build your own dream, or you can put those hours in to build *someone else's* dream. I wish I understood more of what I understand now as a young man, then I would not have spent the bulk of my life working my fingers to the bone on someone else's projects for a less than adequate wage. A lot of that comes from fear - not knowing and believing that you can do it outside on your own, and in my case, having a family to feed. The safe is the enemy of the good, imho. Finally, just because a system is a certain way doesn't make it right for society, and doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change it to make it better - to Joan's point: our expectations as a society should drive changes to laws and how corporations are expected to act towards their workers. Not the other way around.
omg my mother's boyfriend is currently going through this, he's had the same job for 13 years raised one kid during that time but only makes 13.00 an hour while I work at another factory making 21.00 it's sad that he thinks he will be rewarded for his dedication when clearly they don't.
@@kathleengivant-taylor2277 Mom's BF may be unable to switch corporations (His age, his skills, the current status of his health insurance, job security/seniority in the company, corporate-supplied matching funds for a pension)
I once had a co-worker who was a late Boomer and was having a rough day. She complained that she and her husband were still in their "starter home" and couldn't afford to get a "nicer" (maybe larger?) house. I as a millennial looked at her and honestly asked because I did not know, "what's a starter home?" 🙃
I feel like in Europe there is no starter home thing. Like if you upgrade to a bigger house, it is most likely because you are going to have kids. Not because you just want a bigger house^^
@@perthfanny3017 That's what it usually is in the US too. Starter home is for one baby, by the time the second is on the way it's either they share a room or you move...
@@jtidema which is another reason I didn't understand why my coworker wanted a nicer/bigger home. She has no kids just her husband and a cat. But I guess she wanted to "keep up with the Jones" because other people in her age group had bigger homes? Yeah im never going to have that problem. 😆
I hate the term starter home, it was invented by realtors to make money. My husband and I bought our house in 2012, and the first thing my boomer uncle said when he saw it “it’s a decent starter home.” I was so offended by that- it’s literally an insult.
@@thecozyintrovert I feel that way too. Not everyone wants a gigantic 3,000+ square foot home. It's perfectly okay and normal to have a "starter home" for any time in your life, not just as your first home. If it fits your needs and brings you joy, who cares?
This was sobering. I (an 18 year old) recently had an argument with my aunt (a 70 year old) about how difficult it is to live nowadays. She went on a spiel about how kids my age want everything handed to us. How we don't want to have to work to get the things we need, we just want to get them. She kept talking about unemployment money and how no one wants to work. All I said was that I didn't think it's fair that I'm expected to go to college when I could never pay that loan off. Even if I worked every single day a week for 9-10 hours every day for 10 YEARS. I would still be in debt. She got mad at *me* for that being my reality. Why are you angry at the victims of the system for being "lazy" instead of the system for being unfair ?
@@halnovemila9698 The funniest part is that I'm joining the military for free college and she's 100% behind that ! Having an education paid for and "handed" to me is okay so long as I'm working in the military while it happens lol
Pretty much every unsympathetic boomer ever. They say "When I was your age it was possible", and the hamster wheel stops spinning there. Sympathetic boomers will look at how costs have scaled since the 70s, and income hasn't, and say "We're probably going to kill each other inside a week, but you should move in with us, stop wasting money on rent."
From a 65 YO boomer to 20 and 30 somethings: YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR YOUR PREDICAMENT! This “these Gen Xers, Gen whatever’s, are lazy bums.” This is entirely BS! I - we. - created this and did you a disservice. Mortgaging a 4-year college education - what??? - that is OBSCENE. I let that happen! (I was able to attend college tuition free - NO OBSCENE TUITION PRICING!) Being unable to launch with OBSCENE housing costs - how can any body expect or hold it to someone for not launching. YOUNG PEOPLE: you are NOT lazy, STUPID, UNMOTIVATED. I know many Gen whatever’s who are hard working, and who - if I owned by own company - I would hire in a microsecond. And BOOMERS: please, please stop “dissing” these young people! This 65 YO fellow boomer is sick and tired of it!
@misspoppyp When you join the military and serve. NO ONE is handing you anything. You WILL earn it. Just not the way you thought you would. Good for you! (Text is sometimes hard to interpret. I mean that sincerely, no snarkiness, I swear.) My dad was career military and one of my boys is in the Army while the other toils away in college. One is seeing the world while the other is seeing the inside walls of his classrooms. I have high hopes for both of them...and for you as well. Good luck!
What is frustrating about needing a bachelor's degree to get any decent paying job is that the skills I learned in college clearly aren't important, just the idea that I can learn them is. I graduated with one degree but got a job in a completely different industry, and I learned EVERYTHING on the job. Companies already know they have to teach their new employees how to do the job, so why they put so much importance on that 2-5 year degree boggles me.
You answered yourself before your question. College is mostly a (admittedly faulty) filter. It keeps out people who couldn’t pass college courses (unfortunately also keeping out people who can’t/don’t attend college but could have passed if they had).
It's also an indicator for drive and commitment (besides being a raw means test, of course). Like, do you have the maturity to push through the hard stuff? If you're privileged, could you do the bare minimum of just getting the degree?
Because there is frequently a difference in professionalism, communication skill, and learning speed / plasticity. Employers put the value on the degree because the additional education often makes a difference in onboarding and performance.
I'm gonna let you in on a few secrets about job hunting: *1. Apply anyway.* Most recruiters don't know shit about what qualifications are necessary and are inundated with apps. So they throw in a few roadblocks like a degree, years of experience, knowledge about certain tools/programs, etc. They're hoping you're going to give up applying, which reduces the number of -headaches- applicants they have to deal with. _Btw did you know women only apply to a job if they're 100% qualified, whereas men will apply if they're 60% qualified?_ Play the system to your advantage! Get your foot into an interview and then highlight your strengths to compensate for what you lack. *2. Copy & paste.* Well, not literally. But do use the same verbiage as the job posting, bc it's all a numbers game. Recruiters don't even look at resumes, some are so lazy that they copy-paste the job listings of competing companies verbatim - I kid you not! Anyhow, resumes get fed through an ATS system, and the resumes that match the correct algorithm of words are filtered to the next stage. Don't be the one who gets weeded out. _Did you know that the resumes that do get read are only skimmed for 30 seconds tops?_ Again, it's the interview that matters. Also, bold and bullet points are appreciated by resume reviewers. *3. Network.* The best gateway into a field isn't what you know, it's who you know! 😜 Look for conferences, hiring events, meetups, and online communities for your industry. Ask your friends or school colleagues. Also, use LinkedIn and Slack to connect. The more shoulders you rub, the more likely you'll get an inside ticket to job placement. _Did you know that 80% of available positions in the job market are internal hires or referrals from friends?_ That's why networking is so valuable, so put yourself out there. _4. Be selective._ Don't "spam-apply" companies. They can tell when you do this, it's a waste of time: yours and theirs. Make a list of 50 dream jobs you want to work for in 1 hour. 2 hours at most! Do not take more time than this. Then spend the next 15 min whittling it down to 20. After a day, I want you to take 5 min to cut the fat some more and shrink it down to your top 10. Don't think too hard about it, bc you already had 24 hrs to simmer over your choices. Those 10 companies are now your targets. Study their history, their backgrounds, their white papers, social media posts, job listings, etc. Now get to work refining your resume to mold to their requirements. You should have anywhere from 6 to 10 resumes completed. Go to LinkedIn and stalk their HR dept. DM an introduction and kindly ask if they'd take a moment to peek at your CV. Don't be pushy or weird. If you're brave enough, ask if they have a moment to clarify questions about the job or company. Either way, you're putting yourself out there, but best of all it's right in front of your dream company. _5. Follow up._ I cannot tell you how many people just allow themselves to be ghosted or dropped. It doesn't take much to inquire about the status of your app. And if you get a rejection, it also doesn't take much to politely thank them for considering you and to have them keep you in mind the next time a slot becomes available. _Did you know recruiters will often call/email back previous interviewees if the prospect they chose abandons the job?_ Make sure to find out if it was a family/health incident or a better job offer. If the prospect left bc they discovered your dream job is actually a toxic place, you might wanna sus that out just to be safe. Bonus tip: This one peeves me off, but it's possible to get invited for an interview to fulfill a quota and never intended to be hired. That's bc if HR plans on hiring an existing employee, most companies require a certain amount of interviews to be from outside the company. Make sure to ask if they've already decided to hire someone internally. It you're unwilling to ask, look for signs of boredom or the recruiter being distracted with their computer/phone, or worst of all if they're interrupting you and rushing the Q&A. Those are red flags that you're just "filler" to meet stupid hiring requirements. I'd get up, thank them for taking YOUR personal time, and invest your wonderful self into someone who won't relegate you to a quota. *_Hope these tips helped! Tbh I debated sharing my tips bc I'm currently job-seeking, however I know that I learned these secrets from people who didn't hold these close to their chest, so I'm paying it forward. And if we end up competing, then I'm glad it's with fellow TFD'ers_* 😉
College teaches you how to think critically. It’s not necessarily about what you learned from books (which is important) but more so on learning how to think things through. Companies can’t teach that
The pressure to have kids is so insane. No parent should ever wish financial struggle on their child and yet I am always being told by my dad that it will all turn out ok and "remember how happy we were when we had so little" (which we weren't happy, my parents are actually both pretty abusive). The cost of living is way too high to be able to have kids willy nilly and it makes me want to scream when people act like the kids will just thrive and everything will work out.
The manipulation my mother put me through is why I don't want to have kids. I'm worried that my apple would fall too close to her tree. Also the fact that I had 2 years without a raise in the last 5 isn't making me super confident... But mostly the apple thing. Our parents don't seem to understand that we don't have anything. We might have something once THEY pass away, but until that happens, we're left eating rice and beans for a month every couple years while they complain that their freezer is too full and they need a bigger one.
I understand what you’re saying. From your parents perspective, they just want to see their genes live on which is just a carnal drive that can’t be erased. You’re both right but society has changed way too much. Now if there was abuse, I’m sorry you had to go through that and can’t imagine how that would impact things.
Am 58 retiring next year but the thought of retirement gives me weakness. My apologies to everyone who have retired and filing social security during this time after putting in all those years of work just to lose everything to a problem you never imagined to happen. It’s so difficult for people who are retired and have no savings or loved ones to fall back on.
True, It has never been easier to understand how to build your money after retirement than it is right now with the inflation, when you may study and experience a completely variegated market passively by employing a successful portfolio-advisor. The impacts of the U.S. dollar's gain or fall on investments, in my opinion, are complex.
Even if you’re not skilled, it is still possible to hire one. I was a project manager and my personal portfolio of approximately $850k of my retirement pension took a big hit in April due to the crash. I quickly got in touch with a financial-planner that devised a defensive strategy to protect my funds and make profit from my portfolio this red season. I’ve made over $250k since then.
There are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’Colleen Rose Mccaffery” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
Re College: Don't discount Trade Schools. My husband went trade school and got a job with a *much* higher starting salary than my 4 year degree got me, and much less debt as well.
Depends on the field, but in tech at least certifications cost way less than college and are way more likely to land you a job and progress your career. The problem with trade school etc is you are pretty much stuck in the field you trained for unless you go through the whole process again. The benefit of college is that any degree you get will improve your chances at getting most any job, especially at large corporations where they filter out resumes without college degrees (you can honestly just lie most of the time though, they rarely check, that's what I do). There are some jobs though that definitely require the training you receive from a college degree (like being a doctor or scientist). I would say take your time and decide, but getting student loans after age 24 or so is really difficult, so try a lot of things in your teens and hope you make a good choice (whatever it is). I should have gone to art school when I was young but I didn't since it seemed like a less secure choice at the time, but in the long run had I gone I would be at least as successful and would have had better quality of life. It all depends on things you won't know till many years later though, so you kind of have to gamble and hopefully not regret your choices.
@@danielmantell8751 agreed. Went to a medical trade school and found out afterwards the market was flooded with people in the same profession. Made more working in a restaurant. I went to another trade for tech and the field was wide open with few candidates so I could earn a lot more money.
I won't discount trade schools. They are a great option. They still require additional time and investment than a simple high school diploma, so I still lump them into the "go to college to get a better job" category, albeit a more efficient version of it.
I sadly learned the hard way that working your way up no longer happens. I spent 13 years at the same company, directly out of university. Age 22-35, I never got promoted beyond the entry-level job where I started, even though colleagues would recommend me for the managerial position and I had to fill in as de facto manager for 3 months when the previous one quit. 3 Months during which, as I was told later by the regional manager, we did better than we had in years. I even trained some new people who had been hired from outside to be my new boss on how to be our boss. I knew how to do the job and corporate knew I could even teach someone how to do it, but I was flat-out told I would never even be considered for the position. I finally quit after they hired an 18-year old with no qualifications to be my new boss and she would call me 50+ times a day asking me how to do her job that I was much more qualified to do.
Sounds about right. It seems like you did your job too well, replacing skilled workers is a pain in the ass so they'll milk you as long as they can. Managers are a dime a dozen and any dumb fuck can do the job as long as the employees they manage are competent.
That's called NEPOTISM my dear! That 18 year old idiot (that they hired to be your BOSS (effin unbelievable) but couldn't even finnish college, obviously has a VERY well conected and influential parents! Hang in there girlfriend, the BEST think you did was leaving that asshole company!!!
Older millenial here - I definitely took almost all of this terrible advice at some point. Fully admit I am "thriving" (in the loosest sense of the word) despite myself, not because I listened to my parents who weren't even good with money. I'm still tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a bachelors and a masters that I never used. I stuck with one company, at first doing a job for which I did not actually need all that education, for way longer than most people with any sense would. A lot of that was because I graduated into the Great Recession, and unless your family had money to support you while you lived at home indefinitely holding out for that perfect job, you took what you could. I did manage to work my way into a technical role that is in demand and I make ok money (enough to own a tiny condo and be able to pay off my student loans right now if I really wanted to). That is largely because I work for a company where internal mobility is in many ways prioritized, but, I still know I am underpaid for the type of work I do and the number of hours I put in. There would be no way I could afford kids (if I really wanted them) unless I found a partner who makes twice as much as I do and we could afford to live in a bigger house in this area. And the sad part is, I'm probably better off than most. My story is probably one of the better outcomes for people following boomer advice but didn't have any money to begin with. (And yes, I am definitely examining making some job changes in the new year when I find another role that has a reasonable work from home policy).
My parents (Gen X, not Boomers) pushed me (Gen Z) towards community college, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs - and I'm so so grateful they did! Since I have no student debt, I was able to buy a house in my early 20s. So grateful for that advice!
I’m an “elder millennial” raising Gen z. He’s a junior this year and I’m trying to steer him toward trade schools and community colleges as well. He was already leaning that way after watching me pay off grad school loans that have decreased in balance approximately zero dollars in the 12 years or so I’ve been paying on them. I’ve also opened a Roth IRA for him and told him to start investing immediately.
I feel sad that young and talented people lost opportunities to study creative and sometimes useless subjects like poetry or Greek mythology. This idea that world will be better when run by shameless and calculating technocrats is the losing game. Without creativity, waste and so called "useless " knowledge like philosophy, psychology or sociology world development will stagnate. Knowledge is like sun - you sort of don't notice it, but without it you just can't bloom.
I’m dropping out this year. I’m going to do short courses that give me a certificate each level I complete. I do have to pay each year but it’s so much cheaper than university and I’ll be debt free. I can at least tell my kids I went to university. I have the acceptance letter 🤷🏿♀️
I'm so happy it sounds like gen x to their credit are largely the ones breaking this pattern. I hope millenial will pass on this better more open minded advice too. Happy for better futures for next gens, not everyone needs college to do good, and for the few people who might I hope the price can be made less predatory and prohibative
At 19 i was a high school drop out and my girlfriend(now wife) was pregnant. The idea of changing jobs for $0.50 more an hour was a necessity to help us both make more money to pay for this baby. But we also realized it never hurt us. By our mid to late twenties we had used the job change technique to move our income higher than our parents who were largely in that “get a steady job” mentality. In fact my father said once he hoped i would find a company that liked me enough to keep me. Lol When he said that i was an IT contractor making at least three times what he ever made. I advise young people now to go where you are valued. If the competitor across the street sees your experience as more valuable than where you are now then go. obviously there are many additional factors but if all things are equal then pick your best offer and revaluate that every few years. We expect this from Pro athletes and movie actors so why not bank tellers and computer programmers.
I've always liked the advice that the day you start, write out a letter pretending you want to quit. Keep it somewhere safe and see if the reasons you expected to irritate you will sprout into a noxious workplace. That letter will prime you to have the confidence to quit the day you need to leave.
Agree totally. I have changed many jobs already and make multiples of what my friends make doing the same job for 15 years. They ask me why I can't find a steady job I say cuz I want to actually get ahead and when your at a place for to long they take you for granted.
I made a meeting with upper management to tell them I was pregnant. He said "woow, this is going to cost us so much money". They fired me 3 months later after they changed my goals and gave me a bad performance review. I was told that the work I did did not match upper management goals. My manager went out on vacation and I was terminated by random people I didn't know.
I'm a boomer and would never offer the advice you spoke of in this video. Anyone offering such advice in today's world has been living in an alternate reality. And, yes, there are a number of people doing so, including some elected officials. Wages have stagnated. Corporate greed has not. Some of the hardest working people are those working in low paying jobs and they are definitely not getting ahead economically. I believe what we're seeing is lingering Industrial Revolution thinking in a 21st Century world. It didn't work very well then. It definitely can't work now.
Came here to say just that!! I'm a Boomer too. In addition to what Susan says, I'll add that if your parents didn't invest in an RESP (which started in 1974 in Canada) and if you're now carrying postsecondary debt, you don't need to listen to them! Whereas my generation had OFY grants actively creating jobs for us, many Millennials worked two jobs in high school - and were keyholders for multimillion dollar corporations while being paid pittance. No one I grew up with worked harder than Millenials have had to do. Your advice is always great - for everyone. Because the world is not what it was. Thank you for your realism.
One of our governor hopefuls tried to say that waitresses we're getting $100,000 per year and that should be glad that they made so much. Wait staffers came out of the woodwork to claim those jobs (or at least to thats not what they were getting)! (He didn't win.)🤭
I remember being a receptionist for a big tech company (~8 years ago) having to tell high school job seekers that nobody takes in-person paper resumes any more. They'd insist on leaving it anyway and I had to throw them out. High school guidance counsellors really haven't changed their advice since the 70s and don't get the disadvantage of not being tech savvy in the technological age.
So not sure where you live but a large number of companies where I am (north central KS) do still take paper resumes. I agree that counselors need to update their advice though.
When I graduated college, I xeroxed and mailed out 100 resumes before I got my job, to do that now would be entering 100 websites and spend hundreds of hours cutting and pasting. It is not just the low pay causing the shortage of workers.
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewupThat’s because their parents tell them to or even make them. My bf, who’s 24, is STILL being told to go to the place of work and ask to apply when he and everyone else our age knows you’ll just be told to apply online. Some parents are way behind the time.
Same here but I graduated in the 90s; it's not the same economy today. Kids are graduating with well North of $100K in debt and the job market is not exactly stealer. The trades are outperforming the white collar segment in ROI these days. If I had to do it over I would still choose college if it were still the 80s-90s we were talking about, I would go into the trades if I had to make that same decision today.
The advice on not sticking with one job is absolutely correct. Just left my job of 5 years that averaged a 2% annual pay increase over that time (meaning with a standard level of inflation growth my income had actually decreased over that time) for a new job paying $25k more. I calculated how long it would have taken me continuing at my previous job at that same 2%/year and it would have taken me another 15 years to get that increase that it took me a few months of applying to jobs on LinkedIn to get. And the kicker is my new company seems amazing and I’m working 100% from home.
Over the past 10 years every 1-3 years I got a new job with a different company that payed 25-40% more than the previous job. Unfortunately I think that is the best way to work the career ladder these days.
Same here. Plus, you get to learn more skills and ways of being. I think now I can stay longer at the job just because of where I am going to fall income/responsibility wise, and the natural life progression of a 30+ years old. In conclusion for all people out there starting their careers (and maybe getting stuck with contract work?) Move around.
Working from home is key. So much more rest and productivity! Let people decide! It bothers me companies are changing the narrative again. I don’t think I can ever go back to commuting everyday. I hope I don’t have to!!!!
Requiring a masters degree to even get a minimum wage job, to me, seems like another way to force people to become the ultimate wage slaves. American workers are already at a great disadvantage by having their healthcare tied to their employment but if they have to go into a possibly lifelong debt for their degree they truly are wage slaves. The corporate world have you forced into serving them for practically nothing just for you to exist, let alone have a decent quality of life.
I heard that one of the schools hired a new teacher where my mother worked. She said the new teacher said it herself that she is making 17/hr. I was both surprised and now that what I've been hearing that teachers were being hired at minimum wage, and now I've actually experienced an anecdote closer to who I personally know.
Realizing that job hopping is the best financial choice has honestly become a relief to me. After spinning my wheels trying to figure out exactly what career I should pursue through my early and mid twenties, working in a field I fell into and hated, and becoming disillusioned with American work culture in general during the pandemic, I'm now comfortable with the idea of bouncing from one opportunity to another. I work to live, I don't live to work. Hopefully the jobs I find will be more enjoyable than my early positions--so far I like my current role much better than my last--but at the end of the day i'm trying to make the most money in the least annoying way possible. Living the same day at the same office for decades? Annoying.
I was talking to my mom awhile back and she told me she wishes she had bought a house when she was younger. We were never well to do and so this kind of surprised me that she thought she could have bought a house. I asked her about it and she said "Oh Maggie, things weren't as hard for our generation when we were growing up." I thought it was a very insightful thing for her to have observed when so many from her generation insist we just need to work harder or forego avocado toast or something.
My mom, age 63, says that she's glad that she doesn't have to enter the housing market in this day and age, and feels sorry for the younger generations who are trying to establish themselves. I'm nearly 25 and still live with her in the suburb of a big city. I would've moved out ages ago if I could but I'm a student and need to save those funds.
Dual income, no kids sounds nice. For those of us who are perpetually single, a single income, no kids still makes it extremely difficult to participate in our economy. The family-oriented economic structure that we live in seems to intentionally shun us.
@@SpaceEngineerErich Gee, I'm a single male and have a nice home. And I don't play the lottery. Here's another thing I don't do - pay car payments. Nor do I eat out because frankly I don't trust other peoples' kitchens. I don't drink so there's absolutely no reason to go to bars. In other words, I try and avoid money pits.
Making money is not the same as keeping it there is a reason why investments aren't well taught in schools, the examples you gave are well stationed, the market crisis gave me my first millions, people shy away from hard times, I embrace them.. well at least my advisor does lol.
Investors should be cautious this period about their exposure and be wary of new buys, especially during inflation. Such high yields in this recession is only possible under the supervision of a professional or trusted advisor.
Wow, this is excellent! As a beginner, keeping up with all this information can be challenging. How do you stay informed? Are you an experienced investor?
I stopped trying to predict market outcomes based on chart studying after 5 years of uncertainty. Not having a mentor caused me 5 years of pain. I learned to follow the market's direction and keep it simple with discipline.
Finding financial advisors like Sharon Ann Meny who can help you shape your portfolio would be a very creative option. There will be difficult times ahead, and prudent personal money management will be essential to navigating them.
"No federally mandated maternity leave" .... we need A LOT of our current congress to retire or die. We have hit the point where they no longer represent our country's best interest.
You mean how you expect them to pay you to stay home with your baby? Where do they get the money to do that? From those who don't? Look at the idiots who do not know what inflation is. $3.0x10^13 debt. They can PRINT THE "MONEY"...runs off to whine about the ill effects of inflating the money supply.
@@mmmmmmolly How does putting a middle man between you and your money, the fruit of your labor, benefit you? Maybe DO NOT pay your taxes and save that money to spend on those things you want. You are not hurting the poor. Taxation hurts the poor. My local school spends now $22,000/ student per year. I spend about $500-$1000 for Two children. I once thought as you do now but I awakened to the truth of the matter. How much more could I do if I didn't pay school taxes? everyone pays it homeowner or renter. Same with every other government "free" service.
@@mmmmmmolly No it is NOT. Consider a medical doctor with 180, 000 or more into debt plus malpractice insurance and then you fall into a higher bracket. Bull shit. Save the money you'd otherwise spend in taxes and save for your own maternity leave or are you so juvenile that you can't make adult decisions about your own life? Uncle Sam a fiction of law, rather, the self-serving crooks allegedly bonded to undertaking duties of action for this body-less, soulless, mindless creature of man's law, needs to do it for you? Sophomoric drivel.
@@mmmmmmolly FYI, in the US you pay your taxes all year, then you file - which is basically doing a 'true up' at the end of the year. If you paid the right amount all year, didn't change jobs, didn't have additional income, etc, you don't owe or get a refund. Mine usually works out right on target.
Funny I was berated and shamed in 1997 when I dropped out at 16 to start mowing grass. I wanted to make money since I had no passion for school. 25 years later I run my own biz with a dozen people. I have 0 official business training but my biz school buddies that all made fun of me are unemployed or working minimum wage jobs….. the world went and turned on its head after I quit school. Glad I didn’t buy into the hype, it sounded like bullshit to me even back then. I enjoy gardening and have built a good life for my wife and kids off that passion. Good luck young ones, there are those of us who want you to win. To succeed, despite having to work as part of the system they built to wring every last ounce of joy and autonomy from us. Teach all us old heads what real progress looks like.
after taking into consideration the student loan repayments and taxes, you are probably easily pocketing the same amount of money as a indebted pediatrician, dentists or professor.
Warren Buffett, for more than 20 years one of the wealthiest man in the world, still to this day lives in his "starter" home for the last 45 and more years. When they asked him why he lives in the first home he ever bought, the home where he raised his kids and it's worth around 350 000 $, and won't move in a MacMantion when he can afford it cause he's a billionaire, he says he doesn't have any reason to do so because he never bought into that "keeping up with the Jonses" crap anyway! Now that's a good man to emulate and learn from!
He's a bit of an extreme case and the Ikea founder even more so (2nd hand clothing while a millionaire) but it's not a bad idea as such. Very few people are actually poor. Many make themselves poor by having too many needs. Like elsewhere in the comments "It's so unfair, rent inside mayor cities is so high" and I'm sitting here in my village thinking 'This guy is spending hundreds a month more to have a home of less quality than I have'.
As a Generation Xer with early boomer parents, my life is vastly different from my mother's. Both of my parents came from poverty (father was a sharecropper growing up) but was able to go to college and trade school and work their up. My mother is a retired RN, but a 4-year degree wasn't required at the time. Unlike my parents, who brought their first and only house when they were 19 and 21, I would never see homeownership or retire at the respectable age of retirement. I can't imagine what people who are decades younger than I experience.
I’m a Gen X’er, and it sounds like you made poor choices. I grew up dirt poor, kicked out of the house at 16, quit high school at 16, only have a GED yet here I am making $178k a year and have the house, the cars, etc.
@@chrise1004 I know I did. I married my first husband at 20 (no kids, thank goodness) and divorced 4 years later. I was diagnosed with MS later, and was having a difficult time physically, which slowed me down career-wise and financially. I felt like my options were limited. You lose some and win some. Congratulations, by the way.
It's okay if you can't get a house now. Just make sure you keep learning financial literacy, and keep upgrading your financial behavior. Minimalistic life, keep scrutinized your income and expenses everyday, and learn how to invest in stocks.
GenX here…my mother told me that when they were building their second custom house they had to “really cut back” on their expenses. She told me it meant they couldn’t go out to dinner on Saturdays anymore…..🤦🏼♀️
All of this is so true even in my country Sweden, known for having some of the best welfare systems in the world. Education is free but it doesn't get you anywhere and entry level jobs have hundreds fighting for every position. My parents bought their first 3 bedroom house in their 20's despite coming from poverty and having no formal education. I have a master's degree and could only buy a 1 room apartment in my 30's because I got a loan from my mother, who had sold said house with a massive profit. I can't think of any friend younger than me who owns their home, they are stuck paying overpriced rents and can never save up.
well it makes sense that a country with free education will have basically everyone educated and competing for the same jobs. If everyone has the same thing, it's not valued and it is seen as a given. Diplomas were supposed to differantiate people, but everyone has one now so what's the point? It just makes it so we have to spend 4 years studying and people who absolutely can't afford to go to school to become second citizens. Hopefully people in hiring positions nowadays will not care for college diplomas anymore as we can learn almost anything online now
Same in germany. It is extremely frustrating when you realize that after 5 years of studying you can barely afford the rent of a 30 qm appartment since living costs have skyrocketed in the mayor cities. A lot of folks I know gave up on trying to achieve home ownership or saving up for their pension, they just live their life and work part time. In about 10-15 years, that will backfire extremely wenn all the well paid boomers go into retirement and nobody will pay the taxes required to keep the pyramid scheme running....
wait, but the internet had told me that the US is a third world country, and all the Nordic countries are utopian paradises where everyone is middle class and nobody is struggling?
College education and student debt. This is an area where Dave Ramsey is extremely out of touch. He still thinks that you should be able to push the broom at the hard work factory and pay your way through college without ever taking out a loan.
I did. It take self discipline. I'm 27, raised by a disabled single mom who encouraged me to have a betterlife rhen her and make good decisions with my money. I worked full time through college, went to a cheap local school, didn't go to concerts or restaurants with my friends, bought clothing and furniture for pennies at uard sales, bought older phones and made last years before upgrading, etc etc. Paid all my tuition in cash, bought my modest car with cash, used credit cards to get points and free money, paid them off every month. Graduated last year with 0 debt and got a job making 60k a year. I'm not saying its not hard but you can do it
Gen X here. The sad part is, her points have been the economic reality since the 90’s. I racked up a mortgage worth of loan debt for a degree, listening to my parents, when I should have paid more attention to that Winona Rider movie ‘Reality Bites’. My child is now college age & got the same crappy advice from school “guidance” counselors that I got from my parents. Luckily, I knew better & broke the cycle. My child decided to skip college, take a 6 month certification course for a couple thousand bucks, & now makes a livable salary, while her friends are still struggling through their junior year. Now that we made a positive example of a college alternative, I’ll pass the info along to every HS senior I come across, until they bury me with my worthless promissory notes. smh
Also, the wrongly named "US DOLLAR" is a promissory note..a Federal Reserve note...an IOU. A dollar is a unit of measurement defined by the coinage act of 1792 and the ratio set by two acts the first silver to gold 15:1 and then the second 16:1. The federal reserve is a private corporation that operates in a foreign jurisdiction. It's shareholders are kept secret and stock is not allowed to be traded publicly.
@ Just_Hearts_NyCtiy Actually, no. I’m not white. We’re in the Atlanta area. So, there may be more opportunities here for minorities all around than other places since it is really Chocolate City compared to other towns I’ve lived in.
Even as a single man with no kids, I found myself identifying with the "people are punished for both prioritizing work over family, AND prioritizing family over work" paradox. I obviously can't speak to how it affects a woman with a child or children, but I feel like I'm constantly getting mixed messages like this in every place I've ever worked and it drives me crazy. One day, you're missing out on a raise or promotion because you asked for too much time off, and the next day, the same exact people are acting like YOU'RE the one who's overworking yourself and needs to focus on your mental health. Fucking, which one is it already?!
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” You should study the office politics of your job and play along but, remember, you should never give the agency over your future to your company. The company do the best for the company not you. If your company doesn't value, go somewhere else, fear and insecurity is usually the biggest obstacle in your way.
I relate with both men and women im attracted to women even so probably for the best but i totally get it i swear work now adays all work is trash its not just the ones you done people could get fulfillment eating dog poop or eating tide pods doesnt make you special or mean your even remotely useful for society like all the debt makers and collectors
Seriously. It's either "You aren't working hard enough - when are you going to get married, buy a house, have kids!? or you're working to hard, you need to go easy on yourself, just do what makes you happy." Sometimes within the same day.... toxic parents are not good for mental health.
@@hansonel I recommend the book "The subtle art of not giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson. Just give an F about things that doesn't directly affect you. In the great scheme of things, who cares? Why should I spend money I don't have, to impress judgmental people I don't even like? I stopped giving an F about everything that doesn't directly affect me, because ultimately only me cares about me, only me can save me. But if they think that I can be shamed, stigmatized or forced into compliance because it suit them, without any push back or rebuttal, they are VERY wrong.
Hearing advice like this for years, knowing it’s not actually how life is for people in our generation, has traumatized me. It’s a generation of people pissing on us and telling us it’s rain… while being the trusted adults in our lives
A: Style & display of status is what is used to separate you from your money. B. Cash is what you should use for purchases. That is if it does become illegal to do that. C: Buy things that will last. If you can find them now. D: A college education is not a automatic guarantee for a good salary . This worked well for the depression generation. But it did not work during the depression. Because money was hard to come by for just the basics. Boomers thought that the easy money was not going to run out and became credit millionaires. Investment millionaires usually do not display wealth. Credit millionaires usually do.
Ok one thought on the college point: I'm an engineer, I got an engineering degree from a state school with strong industry connections. It was absolutely essential to getting my high-paying, stable job(also one that is fun for me). IF you go to college, which I agree is not necessarily a great move for most young people, find out what people with that degree, in that area, graduating from that specific school are making. How much money? How easy was it for them to find a job? etc. College can definitely be worth it in some careers, but don't go for "the experience" go because it still *can* be a path to a high-paying job in some career fields
adding to that- I tell people always, ALWAYS start at community college. Every dam major under the sun and then some requires the same gen ed requirments. EVERY major requires a few English, math, a couple history classes, and a couple science courses. Why pay $45K a year at a 4 year school to take those classes when you can do the same dam ones at no name community college/trade school for less than 10K a year?
And if you're a smart student, find the school that offers you the best deal. My niece ended up going to a private school because the state schools were only going to cover most of it, but the private school said "100% full ride" and was 20 miles from my sister's house. She's getting a world class education debt free this way. Even today, state universities sometimes offer decent scholarships for the best and brightest. My student loans from undergrad were almost entirely from room and board, since my tuition was paid for by the state (Georgia.) That's a fraction of what it would have cost to go to a private school in state, or to a state school elsewhere. My undergrad degree ultimately didn't end up being my career, mostly because my current career (business analyst) didn't exist back then. I had to go back for a master's degree. So going to a community college if you're not sure what you really want to be when you grow up is still a much cheaper option.
With that being said, engineering is still plagued by the "expect graduates to show up knowing everything already" mentality. On-the-job training is lacking, and a lot of people either burn out and change careers or are promoted to management before they actually achieve basic competence.
@@TheRealE.B. and your right. While education is key, we also need to on the job training programs. Like experienced programmers or experienced managers mentor younger ones. Every job be it fast food, programming, nursing....has certain nuances and expectations that can't be taught in the classroom and only taught as it happens in the real world-and experienced mentors/ on the job trainer can help guide a new person through that.
Boomer here……in my experience all of these points are very true. It was much easier in the 70s and 80s to pay for college, get a good job, and buy a home (at least for white males). I would be interested to know what this channel thinks the trends will be in the future. Population growth is flat and immigration is discouraged. We are already seeing that companies are having to compete for workers by offering training, perks and signing bonuses. As our population ages and shrinks it may be possible that house prices will fall and wages will rise. I am hopeful that the market will turn around and reward our younger population because there are fewer of you. That doesn’t help a lot of people that are struggling now, however.
@@gauloise6442 The US population would be declining without immigration. The housing game is going to get bad for these boomers when there is no one to buy these expensive homes. Family formation is crashing. Good luck.
Graduated college 20 years ago. Busted my butt at a company for a bit out of school, and got experience. Got a job somewhere else for a decent pay raise. Got more experience, changed companies and got a promoted title and pay raise. Had to delay having kids a bit, but did the dual income/no kid thing for a while, bought a house, then had a kid. A couple job changes later, I kinda peaked as far as my job title goes without higher education (PhD, certification, etc), but I’m comfortable at this level. Wife too. We worked with people who stayed in college to get their PhD instead of working those years, and they got out of school and were managing people who had 10 years experience in the field. So yeah, that PhD starts you off higher in the company, and you go up from there. It all depends on the major you choose to study though. If you get a degree in art, don’t expect museums to bow down to you and offer you high salary. Choose a degree you can do but also one that earns decent money - if having money is something that drives your life goals: kids, house i suburb, vacations at Disney, new car every 6 years, etc. If money isn’t required for your life goals, then follow the path of happiness - long term happiness. Could mean some long days and a lot of work for a while.
The future is empty houses nobody can afford until there is an inevitable crash in which the lower and middle classes will get screwed, followed by another bubble with the same results. Eventually there will be some major paradigm shift, probably due to technology and there's really no way to guess accurately what will happen after that. I can guarantee that for the foreseeable future though quality of life will continue to decline as far as is possible without inciting revolt. Billions are spent on big data which essentially translates to knowing exactly how badly people can get screwed while still accepting it. Jobs will be polarized between extremely high level jobs that require high levels of continuously gained knowledge (tech, medical, science), and extremely low level jobs that require tasks that are cost ineffective to automate (things that require human judgment or really dexterous manipulation like picking strawberries). Also jobs in 'arts' will grow as people will continue to crave affordable entertainment, though there is some theoretical maximum here. Endgame is most people make just enough money to consume the products on the market which they will require as life becomes increasingly more complex. The bright side is all things eventually fail, so if we live long enough there's a possibility for a positive change, though there is no guarantee of that.
It's more than jobs and house prices. The financial systems in the USA are fundamentally different, starting in the 1980s. It used to be people made a living wage, and CEOs and others in the "C Suites" made substantially more, but not ridiculously so (not 1000+ times more than the average worker). The object of companies now is to serve the shareholders and the upper execs, not the employees and the customers. The object is to make megabucks, not to pay a living wage, or give a rat's a** about their employees. Sadly, it's a losing game for young people today.
I'm at the leading edge of Gen X, and believe me, long before there were millennials to say, "Okay, Boomer," we knew the rules were changing on us, and some of us figured out right away that we would never be the ones in a position to make the rules. I hope the currently-young generation succeeds in using the leverage of their numbers to create a better post-Boomer world.
@@felixoupopote gen z was mostly raised by gen x. Gen x are ab*sive, dismissive a-holes. "Oh we were latch key kids, the last to drink from the hose and were spanked, we turned out fine, now leave me alone while I rip this fat cone,". Gen z are the self aware spawn of gen x, forced to be lived through vicariously by their parents and dismissed for any meaningful effort because they watched gen y get so many participation trophies. We're almost just as emotionally unavailable as gen x, if not even more stoic and overworking ourselves only to be told we whinge too much and "quite quit" for clocking in 5 minutes late, staying back half to a full hour overtime only to not get the 1.5-2x hourly rate for it.
They changed all right, I’m another early X, I have two boomer sisters so I was getting the boomer advice played out before my eyes so I just thought I sucked somehow because I couldn’t make it work. One point my sister did tell me, those minimum wage jobs were hard to get at times because there were so many fresh faced kids vying for them! Of course untreated ADHD didn’t help me much.
My boomer parents were able to buy a house in the 70s when they were only making $7 an hour (over double the minimum wage at the time). My mom cannot understand why I can’t afford a one bedroom apartment on my job that requires a degree and work experience pays $1 over the minimum wage for my area. And I don’t even get a match on my 401k contribution.
Have they told you to “just stop wasting money on the unnecessary things” speech yet? My parents tried telling me to stop paying for laundering on uniforms that it would take me HOURS to launder and press on my own. And that my Costco membership cost too much (when I share it with a sibling and save greatly on staples bought 6x per year).
Have you told them about inflation, how much they $7 is really worth nowadays compared to before. But I know in the end thats the story they’ll stick to and won’t change their speech
@@JamesDecker7 constantly. Even if it’s something essential like toothbrush heads, soap, or new shoes. My mom: “you know, you don’t have to spend $120 on new running shoes. You can get them for $10 at Walmart.” Yes, but I run run everyday and I want shoes that don’t kill my feet or joints and won’t be dead after three wears…. MOM. Who complains about her 10 year old shoes hurting her feet 😂
@@Hersheychocolate12 I did, I even showed her the inflation calculators. My parents could afford a house, two kids, pets, two cars, vacations, AND add to retirement (my mom’s company offered a pension along with a match for a 401k).
@@Hersheychocolate12 I had this conversation with a Boomer. Her husband got $10,000 annually right out of college and I told her that at the time I graduated college (right into the recession) that I worked a full-time almost-minimum wage job and got about $10,000 annually. I can't remember the year she told me, but when we adjusted for inflation, it was as if her husband made $80,000 after his bachelor's in today's market which I'm not close to getting even after my master's in Public Health and full-time employment. When I shared this information with her and my living situation at the time (had a roommate, paying off loans, living off ramen and cereal with no health or dental insurance due to being broke) she just kind of shrugged it off as if the difference wasn't that big. 😑
I graduated high school in 1975. Yeah, another boomer. There was gas rationing and inflation was running at over 13%. Rent for a 1BR apt was $160 and minimum wage was around $1.60. My family suffered shattering losses so I didn't go to college right after high school. It took me until I was 45 to save ANY money. Every time I got two cents saved some disaster came along, usually medical, and wiped out my wealth. A bad wisdom tooth made me go homeless even though I had a FT job and insurance. I never wanted to be a parent so I didn't let it happen. What seems to be the case is that even though the boomer fiction of 'bootstrapping' and not counting inheritance as a leg up the American system loves keeping an 'underclass' of permanently poor people who will literally work themselves to death just to survive. The American system is designed to serve businesses not people. Once we change that we may make progress. Your generation and those who come after have to pick up the banner for the people. Those boomers who've been environmental and economic activists all these decades are burned out, old and simply can't raise hell as we once did. Your generation and those who come after give me what tiny hope I have for mankind.
We live in a society where making money is seen as the aim of life. To the extent that large numbers of people seem to believe that if you are rich you are a morally good person, and that poverty is a moral failing. That has led to a decades long project to align society so as to create the business focussed economic, legal and political system you observe.
I think poverty is just a result of having to work for low wages. It is certainly not a moral failing. Something like 40% of all jobs now pay low wages, defined as being under $15 an hour. Pretty soon we will all be working for next to nothing.
Those environmentalist Boomers are also highly likely to be the homeowning residents that oppose any kind of denser, more affordable housing anywhere nearby.
“Toxic” is the wrong word here. I would go with “misinformed” or “irrelevant”. Both my parents are boomers and they gave me lots of financial advice, but neither went to college or had to deal with debt. And the career I selected doesn’t pay decent wages until you’re at the PhD level or higher (I’m a wildlife biologist). It took me living in my van for 6 years while doing research projects as a post-doc and research scientist before I could pay off debt for my masters and save enough for a down payment for a house. Finally at the age of 38, I bought a small house built in the 1950s. My parents were always confused on why it took me so long, but I had to tell them how things changed. They took advice from their parents and it worked out, so they thought the same advice would help me, but it didn’t. But they weren’t being malicious or toxic: they thought the advice they were giving would serve me as it did them, but now they understand why it didn’t.
1) Getting a 4 year degree will get you a good paying job 2) Get in on the ground-floor and work your way up. 3) Work a minimum wage job. Nobody is above flipping burgers. 4) You should buy a starter home. 5) If you want kids you should have them. 6) If you work hard you will be able to retire. There.
11:12 The argument against 4) is pretty threadbare. The poverty line isn't meaningful to all people, getting hired at minimum wage doesn't mean you'll be working minimum wage all year, it's mostly personal choice to limit your working hours to 40 a week, and always consider if the boss making the work place more pleasant could be steered pay raises. That's the personal front. On the policy front, minimum wages ought to be abolished and replaced with wage subsidies. Minimum wages incentivize lower employment and pickier bosses, even when they are shadow efficiency wages. Wage subsidies are a corrective to at least force the public interest in helping out the working poor grapple with the social cost to do so.
in my orientation at my current job, they told us the story of how the CEO 'started out sweeping the floors at a local store and now he's the CEO.' which turned out to not be entirely true (his family knew people higher up, so he only had to work at the store level as a starter job for a little while for optics before nepotism shot him right up the chain) and on the topic of pensions, my mom's former employer decided they were just going to not honor pensions for their workers who had been promised pensions, they were going to do something else instead (roll some money over to their 401ks I think? they still got SOMETHING added to their retirement package, but it isn't/wasn't a pension, and isn't anywhere near as good as a pension would have been). my mom actually got "lucky" in a sense because she got cancer a few years ago and a brain tumor that affected her ability to work (she is in remission, for anyone who read that and worried, she's doing great now - but she still can't do mental work like she used to), so she got to retire early which meant she got her pension...and she literally got it a few months before the company cut everyone else off. she had to take a lump sum tho, otherwise they would've done to her the same thing they did to everyone else.
I'll never understand how company benefits package including retirement like pensions. Did people back then really think they'd honor that after so many decades? Like what's stopping them from just firing you just before retirement? Similarly, some companies nowadays offer equity in the form of RSUs that vest after a certain period. Before that period ends, how do I trust the company from coming up with bullshit to fire you?
@@sor3999 well...companies DID used to honor pensions. so, yeah, of course people believed in them, because they used to actually be a thing. There are a lot of people today that are still alive and still receiving their pensions. but you're also right, never trust a company, especially in America where employment is "at will," because over time companies got greedier, and realized they could boost their short term profits if they screwed over their workers more and more, and they did start doing the things you mentioned more often, and just phased out their pensions and retirement options altogether. and our country is suffering for those choices, but they don't care cos they're rich, and the stonks line is going up. It will all crash eventually, but they won't be the ones to suffer for it so they don't care.
Same thing happened to my dad, an excellent health insurance deal was part of his pension but after he retired they decided to get rid of it and he has to use medicare. It's such a bait and switch.
@@sor3999 My dad worked at the same company for decades, they laid him off literally the day before he was supposed to get the "cadillac" pension. From how my dad was treated, I vowed never to be loyal to a company or to do anything but look after my own interests.
“Starter home” my partner of 20 years and I just want -a- home at this point. Having kids, much as we love them, was a massive financial mistake and now we have nothing for them to inherit because our lives were skin by the teeth after the recession and a never ending series of “you’re not poor enough for help but you certainly don’t make enough for a savings that can endure all of life’s unexpected nonsense and the medical costs of just trying to live” 🙃
I feel blessed to hit financial independence at 32 a couple years ago Most advice from the older generations is not valid or bad Here are some of the best advice I can give 1. Live below your means and invest the difference 2. Focus on increasing your income instead of penny pinching lattes 3. Don't use social media and try to keep up with others Good luck on your journey
I live in a developing country. I'm 35 years old, married and, thank God, have a own house and a job. I earn about 14k a year. I don't have a car, nor do I have all of the "basic" commodities I think the video is trying to say, but I have the basic things I need. I do have a degree, sadly it wasn't a good one. It was art related, and I regret wasting my time on it, now I didn't just cross my arms and said "well life sucks" I made it work, and got more education. Paying for my things little by little, after some 10 to 12 years, I now have a stable life, this is not to say that I live like a king, as I said before. In fact, my wife and I haven't had a vacation, nor even a honeymoon, because of money, but we do go out every now and then whenever we can spare a little from our budget. This year we are getting closer to our goal, are almost clear of debt and have an excellent credit score. I 100% agree with the advice the OP gives, especially the "live below your means and invest the difference" one. This video instead feels like "it's not my fault, it's the world's fault, and my parents just don't understand"
I'll also say before you invest you want a safety net for emergencies. I made the mistake of selling stocks because I needed to pay rent. I bought AMD at $2 and sold my shares at $16. Today AMD is worth $112 a share. -_-
I’m a 27 year old part time bank teller/full time “nontraditional” college student and I’m constantly having boomer bank customers chastise me for not having kids “by now,” as if I could afford to graduate college, get married, and buy a house at 22, or like I would want to, or like there isn’t a large possibility that I could be one I’d the large percentage of women who want kids but have infertility issues. It’s very likely that I won’t be able to have biological kids and will end up adopting, largely because I have ADHD and can’t be off my meds for a year or more for each kid while attempting to conceive and being pregnant and function sufficiently at work. They’re just so fully removed from the realities of the current day that they have no idea that things are way more difficult now.
That's pretty audacious for bank customers to come and chastise you for not having kids. How do they know you don't have any kids? Why do they think that's any of their business? People suck.
im 27 me lady loves kids obviously wants a big family and busy life. she's graduated makes practically nothing negative every month. I'm 10 15 years away from graduating and having any kind of money. i think she might be better off with out me and finding someone else. she is going to miss out on life because of me
@@lal5555f my partner’s parents were almost 40 and had been married for 12 years before they started having kids. It’s okay to do things at your own pace! :)
My (young millennial) takes on these: 1. If you see benefit in going to college, go, but don't just go because you were pressured to by your parents/teachers. Know that there are other options depending on what you want to do, like trade school, online certification programs, etc. And yeah, if you do decide you want to try getting a 4-year degree, starting at community college and transferring is a good option for at least saving some money. 2. Completely agree with her advice. If you're not satisfied where you are and there's no opportunities for growth at your current job, don't be afraid to leave and take a different job elsewhere. 3. These days since it is so hard to make a livable wage like she's getting at, I would suggest for most people to work multiple jobs and/or monetize a hobby in addition to your main job. There are many ways to do this. 4. With how pricey homes are, it's best not to rush into buying one. If living with your parents well into your adult years is an option, that's probably what you should do while you save up. 5. Obviously don't have kids if you don't want them, but yeah, also don't have them if you do want them but can't afford them. Opt for volunteering to help children in your community and/or getting a job which involves working with kids instead if you have those sorts of desires. Having kids of your own is a huge undertaking not to take lightly, so only have them if you're financially stable enough to ensure a reasonably good life for them. 6. Yeah saving for retirement nowadays will take more conscious effort than it did for past generations, but we should still make the effort. Personally, I will not retire unless/until I become too unhealthy to be able to work but since we can't predict what might happen in life, it's best to be prepared in case we have to retire sooner than expected. Just like having an emergency fund.
I have to tell my friends this all the time when they are down about their parents success vs theirs. We didn't have the same opportunity or market dynamics that our parents did. Our version of financial success will not look like theirs, will not be with the same strategies, and will not be on the same timeline.
Market dynamics on the job side is only one small part of it. The mayor problem is tax policies and the monetary expansions which massively favours those with assets
You are so on point. I’m 70 plus, attended college in the early 1970s. It cost under 3 grand a year including room and board, and as a single person I could easily afford to rent an apartment by myself earning minimum wage after I graduated. Even as a person with little money I had an old beater car of my own to drive. Some friends spent a month or two traveling around the USA, or even Europe after college graduation. It was so affordable back then. I’m sure my expectations were much lower than what young people aspire to today, of course. My world was much smaller. People often did work for one company their whole life and expected to climb the ladder for future rewards. Young people do have it so hard these days, but I’ve also watched the ones around me make new opportunities for themselves. They are incredible.
My dad also went to college in the 70s, and even as a foreign student his tuition at a state school was only $300 per semester. The cost for his peers who were in-state residents? Five dollars for the health fee.
Procrastinating and not starting one as soon as I was eligible was not the best move. It's really not that hard to open an account and manage yourself. And you can also have your brokerage manage it for you. If you're reading this, start now.
@@christineturner1751 My greatest concern is how to recover from all these economic and global troubles and stay afloat especially with the political power tussle going on in the US.
@@darlenemyers2882 As with any big financial decision, it’s important to keep your guard up for economic risks. However, smart planning, time management and seeking advice from a financial adviser can help keep you and your money safe.
@@linacui667 I agree with you. I ventured into stock with 109k and now I'm about 30k short of half a million dollars. Credits to Suzanne Stephens Ellis. She's verifiable
@@rebeccabaldlin8377 Interesting, I just looked up this person out of curiosity, and surprisingly she seems really proficient. I thought this was just some overrated BS, I appreciate this.
“Selling a home for seven figures that they bought for $0.25 when Nixon was President” was the point where the wine I was drinking shot out my nose, in case you were curious. This channel is fantastic. As a GenXer who’s still bitter about boomer parents misguided about the potential of the current society, thank you for your amazing work. 🙏
The other reality regarding not being able to work your way up, is that most things are outsourced....The mailroom is no longer in the same building where you can meet the executive.
my parents are boomers (born 1958) and they fortunately did not give me any of this advice but they gave me one very good piece of advice which was to not go straight into a masters degree after undergrad. it has saved me some of the pain my peers have experienced by getting the exact same job they could get with a bachelor’s once they had a master’s.
As someone who teaches at a 4 year university, most people should go to community college first, especially if you don't have a very very clear major and goal in mind. Check with whatever university you want to transfer into and make sure the credits will transfer and then take those gen eds and basic 100 courses at your local community college. Not only will it be overall cheaper, but it will clarify for you if college is appropriate for you.
This is when my smug Québec ass jumps in, like -- We baked that straight into our education system here, as soon as we commandeered it from the church in the 60s. Basically we end high school a year sooner, and then if you want to go to university, you go through two years of pre-university "CÉGEP" (basically community college), which has gen ed, some of what you would call 100-level courses), and then a BA or BSc at a university is 3 years instead of 4. There is no tuition for CÉGEP -- only a small administrative fee. And university here costs like 3-4 grand a year. But also -- it's not "the college experience". Most people aren't housed on campus, it's not like a boarding school for adults. Also, if you don't want to go to university, you can get a technical degree in CÉGEP -- that takes three years instead of two. It's a weird system for a lot of North-Americans, and people feel like it's really odd. But IT WORKS SO WELL ! I LOVE IT ! Be better if university was tuition-free, but still...
THIS. Do ANYTHING to make a more informed decision when you finally do take the plunge and enroll in an expensive degree that will saddle you with debt. Either start off in community college, or if you are in another country where university is subsidized, start out in a course that offers a more varied set of subjects so that you can try out your interests and see what really “sticks”. Or at very least, get a ton of advice from people within your interest industries to get their opinion on what working in that career is really like (and whether you will earn enough to pay off the student loans your degree will saddle you with). This, in my opinion is a crucial financial step. Degrees and careers are not all equal. Some degrees lead to a stable comfortable life where you can pay off your loans are live successfully, others….well…..do not. We need to be making this very clear to students finishing high school rather than just telling them to “follow your dreams”………yes, you can still follow your dreams, but each dream has its own path and it does not always need to involve an expensive degree.
Thank you very much for making this video. Every year around graduation time in the Spring, I get depressed because I didn't complete college like my grandma wants/wanted me to. You've made some really good points and I will look back to this video when I'm feeling discouraged and sad about the trajectory my life took post-high school. Even though I didn't finish college, I'm doing alright for myself, and I wish more people in the older generations (I'm a middle-of-the-road millennial) would understand that college is not the only path forward to putting a roof over one's head.
I felt the same way as you did when I left school in 2006… and some of my relatives still talk crap behind my back because they think I am “struggling.” I have a payed off home and am 100% debt free… I did the reverse gross income calculation of what salary would be required to pocket what I now pocket and I was SHOCKED to find that an indebted (school and mortgage) person would require to make at least $130,000/yr just to take home what I take home… but I didn’t have a fancy impressive job title so people actually believe I am poor or something (I am just frugal and invest most of my money.) The old advice of going into massive debt for an education is so backward, these people are literally financially sabotaging the the younger generations with this crap and then they wander why they are barely getting by, even the highest educated one or six figure earners… ITS THE DAMN DEBTS!
Thank you!! My husband and I would like to start a family but are pretty sure we only want one child because of work schedules and financial reasons. Every older person I've talked to has said "you should have two or more! they need a playmate. Your child will be lonely!" to which I say "are you going to pay for it?" and that usually stops them. Daycare is a second mortgage at this point and let alone normal costs to raising one child. I also don't want my career to be totally sidetracked. I feel seen so I thank you again.
I get really annoyed with people asking when you will have kids and once you have one when you will have more 😡😡😡😡. It's none of their business! They are not going to raise them and pay for their education so they have absolutely no say in the matter!!! We are older parents and we only have one child,by choice. My sister is on another continent and my husband has 2 siblings both on different continents. Loneliness has nothing to do with how many siblings you have or don't have. Don't let family and friends or anyone tell you what you should do, and yes you can be rude to them for meddling.
@@genxx2724 that's all fine and dandy, until you find yourself a single mother. Then you get dumped on if you dare go on welfare/food stamps, etc. (If that's even a possibility)
I'm a technology consultant in the financial advice industry so all of my clients are financial advice businesses. So many of the advisers started off with no degree as insurance salespeople and now have their own businesses. Nowadays it's mandatory for new financial advisers to have at least a bachelor's degree, it would be illegal for them to join a company straight from school and "work their way up" to being an adviser unless they wanted to work and study at the same time.
Add the student loan debts and after that and taxes, they are pocketing LESS MONEY than the generation that didn’t require a degree for the same job… debt slavery.
My Boomer mother stated my job for the state caring for an autistic adult isn’t a real job though I have health insurance and retirement! She thinks I need a real job even though I started at the state minimum! I am almost at twice the minimum for the federal wage requirement! She thinks that if I work outside the home my job is legitimate! She doesn’t understand the work from home reality in place from the pandemic! And I have been working from home for several decades!
The bad advice handed out by my father was, "Just save your money." The interest rate on regular savings was 5 1/4 when I was a kid. Now, it's less than 1%, which under the best conditions, is well under the inflation rate. We all know how volatile the stock market is, so it seems like a huge lose-lose.
It's crazy because I've actually made a 10% return on my money by investing in stocks and crypto compared to when I was saving everything in a regular banking savings account with a rate of 0.01% percent APY
Stocks are somewhat volatile, but if it's something you won't touch for twenty+ years anyways, that volatility stops being as important compared with returns
The stock market is a long term investment, you buy a stock and keep it for 5 - 15 years at least. Of course you're going to loose money if you panic sell at even the SLIGHTEST drop.
remember when fasting became popular? been doing it ever since and I can save more money because I don't eat lol but I have some savings now because I did this. felt like crap all those years but I did it. Probably permanently damaged my body for this but money....to live...is essential.
Im completely for having kids (I’d love another one) but in no way do the tax credits come close to making up for the cost of childcare and the general costs of having children lol.
I had friends with kids who have told me this 🙄 I ran the numbers for various daycare options along with the increase for health insurance and additional expenses… obviously paying for one child would have cost more than the tax credit. Their solution: don’t work and then you won’t have to pay for childcare.
Childcare is $20k per year for 1 kid where I live, no nights or weekend options. No tax credit is giving you 20k back. Even if you made 50k per year, childcare would take half of your take home amount. And if you made 50k per year, you're no longer eligible for state benefits like food stamps and health insurance, effectively killing your entire salary while spending very little time with your kid.
This channel is the good-hearted common-sense I have not been able to gather in the entire 12 years of my working life since college. I so appreciate it.
Younger boomer here, didn't have kids for exactly the issues you indicated. Also, my BA in psychology was basically useless when I graduated. Was lucky that I found a job that required such and left it 4 years later because I HATED it. Worked as a cashier and some other boring jobs for a few years until I lucked into something that I could stay with long term. I feel really bad for those who don't have the options that I had back in the day.
at least you accept the reality. meanwhile some of my previous bosses who got into their current high paying job with high bonuses and annual market competitive increases decades ago and have a huge mansion thats almost paid off. meanwhile we as peons get like 3% annual and at a low salary and are expected to stay long term.
Thank you so much for recognizing the reality of the situation that a lot of us in the younger generations are in. It can be incredibly frustrating as the child of a Baby Boomer couple to be told all this advice and "wisdom" that we've learned through experience is no longer true/applicable.
@@helenatube I took a test to get a job at a Federal Agency - I had taken accounting courses in the summer while I was getting my BA, and after a few years of positions that really weren't the best fit, I was able to transfer to one that worked out well and used all the skills I had gained, just not in a way I originally had anticipated. A combination of luck and being in the right place at the right time, plus not being a jerk, and a few co-workers who encouraged me and a few others and pointed us in the right direction.
@@uhohspaghettios2391 I'm happy I didn't have kids for just this reason. The world friggin' changed and what worked in the past is totally not applicable. Plus, we just couldn't afford them, back in the 90s when this could have happened.....Even with a decent job, I could see the writing on the wall, as things had started to get worse for the middle class.....
PREACH! Especially about women in the workplace/having children. I'm a stay at home mom, and have been for the majority of the past decade, and I constantly feel insignificant because I "don't work," but childcare costs are insane. I'd love to hear more about how stay at home parents can contribute financially, without getting a minimum wage job that my not even make it worth returning to work.
"Stay at home" spouses can contribute a lot of financial value without earning money. They have the time to think and try things to figure out how the family can be frugal. I am not frugal, because I work full time and I don't have the energy left to do even the well known money saving things. The "Stay at home" spouse is working as a cook, a cleaner, doing general errands, planning and researching, before even factoring in child care. You can have time or money, but you only get both if you're super rich or your family can live on one income.
Magic pot can cook a meal for a family of four and 20 minutes. Washer/dryer do all the clothes cleaning. And robot vacuums can clean your house floors. You will need a job once the kids are teenagers or you will be freeloading. Don't over clean the house. There's plenty of evidence showcasing the rise and allergies due to a house that's too clean. Humans are never meant to be in a sterile environment long term
@@everythingisfine9988 But do you need a full-time job? And what if you want to do volunteer work instead of paid? Be careful about your answer, because you might be insulting my mum. ;)
The most timeless advice I ever received was from my late grandfather that when it comes to your career path there will be many twists and turns as well as opportunities arising. I started to remember what he told me 13 years later amid the pandemic where I was let go of and then less than a year later finding a job that I generally like more as the job I had before wasn't good for my mental health where I even went above and beyond for them yet my loyalty wasn't good enough so I learned that loyalty to a company won't help you retain your job there for too long as they can easily let you go on a whim. This was probably among the many twists and turns that my late grandfather was talking about - mind you he was part of the great generation and not a boomer.
It was both validating and heart-breaking to hear how many people don't have kids or as many kids as they'd like because they can't afford it. I wish I could have one more but we can't fathom how on earth we could possibly afford to give them everything they need! It seems down right irresponsible to do that to them. I've mentioned this to my parents and in-laws when they badger me about when we will have another and it seems to fall on deaf ears.
I'm so thoroughly exhausted by how many things in the financial world are now risky when for boomers they were steady. I'd love to start investing my money, but it's so hard to believe that there's not a bubble about to pop around the corner. I'd love to but a home but if the housing market crashes I've paid $600k for a $300k house. I'd love to climb the corporate ladder at a job I like and I'm good at but if I don't look for new jobs my 2% raises will definitely be outpaced by inflation. I don't want to be an enterprising young go-getter, exploring every option to make my fortune. I just want to work 40 hours a week and be able to live comfortably with my family, then retire. That American Dream is dying.
I relate to this exhaustedness of being an enterprising go getter. Why must we all endlessly challenge ourselves for the next job, next raise, next promotion, just for our LinkedIn to look good for the even further out in the future hiring managers? I just want to have control over my life without thinking how it’ll be judged in the future. Every job I’ve had has been significantly more challenging than the last and I might be at my breaking point now but I feel like it’ll “look bad” that I’d quit a prestigious opportunity less than a year in, and not move on to an even more prestigious opportunity. I don’t think of someone as being bad if they quit a job and move on to something easier but I think recruiters do look negatively on that in aggregate when they’re trying to fill roles.
I'd just invest, the more time spent investing the more it grows. I am not worried about "the bubble" since I have 30 years yet until I retire. What goes down comes back up again.
If you have a healthy savings account that you don’t touch (except for when something like a housing market crash happens), when the market does inevitably crash yet again you’ll be prepared. Real estate is one of the smartest investments you can make because it can help create generational wealth. After my parents died, I got lucky. I got a house and I didn’t have to pay a dime for it. And since I live in CA, I don’t pay taxes on it either. I can choose to sell it, live in it, or update it and rent it out for passive income (and the best kicker is that the mortgage is fully paid off, so I would get 100% profit). Also, even if the market crashes again, it will boom again as well. Investments are about the long haul.
Although college is typically considered a way to "get a job", it is really a higher level of education. I'm so thankful I was able to go to college. i'm so happy my life experience was enhanced by classes in humanities and creative writing as well as play writing, biology and education. Did it make me rich? No. It was not until I read the book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" that I began to understand financial literacy. Once I had those basic ideas I was able to at least know the basic idea of income and expenses. I learned how to figure short term and long term interest, good debt and bad debt. I did have some student loans though not excessive that I was able to pay off in ten years. No generation has it perfect. The advice you mentioned certainly needs to be examined and evalutated. For some people college is not the right choice especially since much of it appears to be online anyway which I find to be grossly inferiour to in person classes.
Gen X here, I haven’t watched the video yet, but will. A couple of observations. X was def going to ruin the world with our wicked ways… I went the community college route and transferred to 4-year. I could not afford college any other way. Companies were merging, putting long term employees out of work, stripping pensions and benefits. Why would I ever be loyal to a company when they will put me out to pasture when it suits them? I have heard about loyalty my entire career and have never received any. Make the best decisions that you can based on your situation. And don’t ever let anyone tell you who you are!
Preach, TFD! My Gen X husband and I are still paying our grad student loans. We both were told as 22 year olds that our BA degrees meant nothing in the Washington DC market. We HAD to get masters degrees to even be considered for an interview and fell prey to the “you can totally borrow whatever you need” from 2 expensive universities. We are telling our Gen Z daughter to 1) consider going into a technical degree first because electricians and HVAC techs can start making high 5 figures and work/save before going to university 2) if she wants to go straight to college go to community college for 2 years and then transfer into a 4 year institution 3) start her own business- she may not need a college degree if she is already a boss 😍Thank you again for all you do, TFD!
Yep. My sister has a masters and she's flat broke. My cousin, meanwhile, she was smart: she spent a fraction of that money on trade-school and she now makes just shy of six figures doing HVAC. Trade school is the new path to a solid career.
Funny thing is, in the future she may as well be saying that your advice was BS. Since you don't have a crystal ball (and neither did your parents), who knows what the economy is going to be like? We can only try to guess from our own experiences to help the people we love, the rest is click-bait generation wars.
They definitely lied to yall. I am from Washington, DC and have lived here all 33 years of my life. It's pretty easy to make it here even without a degree.
My father came to America in the 80's as an immigrant and started as a janitor at the local mall. He then, after 3 decades and no college degree, worked his way up to engineering supervisor of the whole mall. But he wasn't immune to the changing economics environment of the states. One year before he would receive a pension he was fired and replaced by someone younger with a masters degree who was no doubt payed less than him. Watching all of that play out dispelled a lot of illusions of American work culture for me pretty early.
I'm still an advocate for going to college, but I'm all for taking the most affordable route to get that degree done. Take the concurrent credit courses in high school (or AP/IB courses), do community college, seek out the scholarships, go to the cheaper state school, etc.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. And if you avoid those with the glossy 4-color brochures showing the manicured quad, the fro-yo kiosks, and the climbing wall, you’ll probably luck into a good deal.
As a Boomer with two grown kids I say "You are right in everything you said." It goes to show that children have to be very careful in the choice of parents.
This is not a new trend. I graduated in engineering in 1991 and it was the same back then. I had an entry level engineering job only because I had worked a co-op job for more than one year during college. My college found me the low paid co-op job. When I later went to law school, I had to work a free legal internship after my first year of law school. I got a law job, because I had the internship experience and also sent out 500 resumes, which only led to 2 interviews back in 2000.
To be honest, this advice works well if you’re privileged. - my parents paid for college for me at a top school - my first job was a summer internship during college that paid me 4100/month + paid for my housing and plane ticket to and from the internship - before graduating, I had 8 job offers, one of which offered 150k signing bonus, 150k salary, and a 100k yearly bonus Most of my friends in college had the same experience.
Yup, I was really privileged and my parents paid for my Bachelor's and Master's. It was hard getting a job with my Bachelor's (Psychology) so I went for my Masters (Social Work) and worked lots of low paying direct care jobs. The only way I was able to afford an apartment was by living with my boyfriend (now husband) who had a much higher paying job, but also had a good chunk of school debt.
@@marabookstagram investment banking (Jp Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc), quantitative researcher/engineering at hedge funds (Jane street, citadel, Hrt), software engineering at Google/Meta/Apple, management consulting at McKinsey, Bain, BCG. These companies almost exclusively hire from Ivies, MIT, Stanford, and a few top public colleges though.
Without oversharing, my main piece of advice as a Millennial for other millennials and Gen-z is that the two largest x-factors in your financial future are a) potential earnings b) location. Don’t pursue a degree or go into a career where earning potential isn’t reasonable to live with today’s high cost of living, but esp specific to your area’s cost of living. I purposely moved from NJ/NY area after graduating my undergrad in 2009 to Houston, TX because I knew cost of living was substantially less and wages went much further here. If you live in the NE or NW, you need way more to make a decent living than states in the south, Midwest, etc. Be willing to relocate. It may not be easy at first, but you’ll meet new people and you can easily keep in contact with family and friends these days. It was worth it for me.
College was the first time school actually worked for me. I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot, felt successful for the first time in my life. I was also supremely lucky - my mother had saved money to cover my costs if I went to a state college. The thing about college is it teaches you how to really think thru problems like grade school simply can't. I can work thru problems and issues in ways high school graduates seldom can. I still started at an entry level job working the telephone bank for a year and a half after graduating (1991) and then was an office assistant for a couple years. So my degree did NOT get me a "good job". My degree PLUS EXPERIENCE allowed me to move up over a period of about 6 years, into the job I've been at since then.
I’ve never had a TH-cam video make me feel so hopeless before. I’m 21 and trying my best to climb out of poverty. Got a 401k, 3 roommates, headed back to online college that my job pays for, but it all feels futile and I’m still below the poverty line and not putting away enough for retirement. What am I going to do?
I felt this way at 21. At 31 you will be in a MUCH better place. It may feel like all of your efforts are pointless now but I guarantee your actions now will pay off later
Move to a low cost of living state/area. Never have a child, don’t waste money on worthless stuff. Live frugally. Dump all extra money into stocks/cryptocurrency/whatever. Keep enough liquid cash that will last a few years if you got fired or quit your job. Zero stress
Don't get discouraged. College that your job pays for is golden apples. The main decision you need to make is choosing a major. Health careers are still well paying jobs. Nursing AA from a community college is an excellent starter option. You are doing all the right things, but the path you are on requires a 10 year plan, with adequate recognition of milestones - the first $1000 in your 401(k), the awareness that every time you complete 18 credits you have finished a semester of full-time college work - recognize and celebrate these milestones and keep on trucking'. I wish you well.
Stay the course with you 401(k). I started early with retirement accounts. In my 20’s I couldn’t contribute much. But lo and behold, even small amounts grown into not-so-small amounts if you leave them in the market for 30 years. I’m approaching 50 and those investments are now big enough to change my retirement age by several years.
Dude my dad (Boomer) started as a cashier at Burger King in the 70s and ended up being the Regional VP overseeing 1000+ stores within 10 years!! SOS - BOOMERS REALLY THINK THIS IS STILL POSSIBLE NOW
This was in large part because it was a time before there were enough college grads to do all these jobs. As time goes on, knowledge becomes more specialised and more people are educated in more specific things. Michael Lewis talks about how when he got into trading on Wall Street, he was the first generation where everyone had college degrees in business or something else similar. Many of the more senior people went into trading or banking right out of school, but the more people go to college, the higher the bar gets set at the entry level.
@@krombopulos_michael I could author a book on the futility of this illogical reasoning and I'd start by attacking your vocabulary and economic vernacular along with syntax for construction of law (natural and that of men*) for authority. Colleges are higher indoctrination centers. Where is your place in this global ponzi scheme? *Never masculine, always neutered; "they/Them" is PLURAL
@@lisajanes1005 ha, I had a budget and stuck to it. I live frugally. I had to stop contributing because the cost of living grew faster than any raises. I have to make rent before saving.
@@blktauna That's your problem, NYC, it's only going to get worse. If you can go back with your parents, that's the only viable option for a lot of people right now.
I saw an ad lately, by a fast food company that claimed many of their franchises were owned by people who had started at the bottom---cooking, sweeping floors, etc. Can't remember which chain it was, but it gave me that creepy MLM vibe.
I think the discussion around minimum wage jobs misses the fact that 'elite' institutions and hiring gatekeepers will absolutely hold that job against you. There's a ton of research around "culture fit" as being code for "does this person fit within our self created image of being a sophisticated, luxury, desirable place to work/will they present themselves to clients as being of a similar social class and/or possessing similar political sensibilities." Having a working class background is seen as having sympathies/sensibilities towards class issues and wealth inequality and is a sure-fire way to get culled from the hiring pool on day one.
@@cassidypintozzi4475 For ex, if you are female and get an admin job to make ends while job hunting, NEVER put that on your CV. You will always be seen as admin. and not be taken seriously
I appreciate that you’ve touched on what I call “the academic arm’s race.” I’m in a profession that requires an entry level doctorate degree but I have coworkers who were grandfathered in with bachelors degrees. Did the pay reflect the increased education? Of course not.
I genuinely curious, what industry requires a doctorate for entry-level? It sounds so crazy, but I'm sure I'm just failing to think of something obvious.
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewup I’d guess being a professor. Lots of one off classes are taught by people with MAs but many university won’t take you on as a regular prof without a doctorate. Whereas up until the 1980s many college professors just had undergraduate degrees because it was considered sufficient. Obviously, if you passed the degree, you knew the stuff and thus you could teach the degree
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewup Pharmacist in PA requires Pharm D. New Physical Therapists are now DPT, all pushed by universities to make money. Why is your nurse practitioner now Dr. ...DNP...out of control.
Gen X here. My parents raised me to gauge your income, and it should be cut into quarters. 1st quarter pays your rent/mortgage, 2nd pays all bills (water, gas, electric, etc), 3rd is for yourself, 4th is savings. When I noticed a huge shift where my income no longer matched this, reducing to 1/3, back in 1997, my parents listened and we went over how much even their retirement was no longer stretched as well as it had been. Now? It doesn't work at 50/50. 100% goes to rent/mortgage. Wait, what? I've been barking about inflation for quite a while. Now, people are looking at it. Where back then, I was told to shut up, I didn't know what I was talking about.
I am a boomer (young) and I agree with pretty much everything you've said. You have to keep in mind they are just giving you advice that worked in their time. They are not intentionally giving you bad advice. When I was young I had a mature attitude and outlook. Now that I am older I find I have a much younger outlook than many people my age. I think because I had our son at 35 which was an old mom even then.
Thaťs the point younger people don't seem to get. The very advice given here will be seen as BS in the future, as the economy is sure to change at an even faster pace. No one really knows what's going to pay off in 30 years, we can only try to guess.
@@silvasilvasilva The issue people take isn't that the advice is outdated. Its the pompous condescending attitude many people have of "well it worked for me so why can't you do it, you lazy scrub". It's easy for people to feel like their way of doing things is the right way or even only way if they're blinded by the confirmation bias of their own success. That confirmation bias allows people to ignore the existence of unaccounted factors and changes to the conditions that led to their success. Hell, some of the current regurgitated memes of wisdom like "learn to code" and "learn a trade" are already being debunked. Because we've already witnessed the failure of the "get a tech degree and live comfy" formula from the 90s. There is no magical formula for success and we're annoyed at the people still pushing the idea that there is one.
@@darwinxavier3516 Which means people should be annoyed at whomever gave them that advice, not at a whole "generation" of people, as if labels were helpful in any way. Many of those so called "boomers" are the disaffected working class who saw their jobs shipped abroad and now live in trailer parks. If we're talking life experience, those people can tell you first hand what 40 years of job insecurity looks like. And I could bet they also got completely unhelpful advice back in the day for good measure.
@@silvasilvasilva And I totally agree about treating people as individuals. But certain life strategies are definitely tied to certain eras more than others. The "learn to code" dogshit will be tied more to late gen x through gen z. As those are the people who primarily push it. I don't recall if the youtuber was blaming the generation as a whole or just referring to them as the people most likely to give that advice.
@@darwinxavier3516 Thaťs my issue with this channel. The proper content is now behind a paywall and the more recent videos are basically click-baity rants. As people want someone to blame for their problems and ageism is still acceptable, we get tropes like "the evil boomers made me do it". If you take it acritically (and the comments suggest most viewers do), you wouldn't realize, for example, that millennials are the biggest group of home-buyers in the US. Reality has moved on (specially because older millennials are now pushing 40 - middle-age, here we go!), but acknowledging this fact and adjusting the content accordingly wouldn't get as many clicks.
I’m a millennial with a gen z kid and I do encourage him even from this young age that college isn’t necessary and looking into trade programs or community college are viable options
Having not only gone through my PhD (in 1996 when universities still taught) but having worked at a couple of universities, I would tell any parent to look into dual education (taking college courses while in high-school) and 2+2 programs (2 years community college, 2 years university). You just don't need to attend Harvard to get by the college algebra required course, etc. Do those courses at the community college level! (Just make sure said college is properly accredited!).
Trade school still costs loads of money and only trains you for a narrow line of work. If that kind of work changes, like how truckers' jobs are likely to disappear soon, you are out all that money with no one willing to hire you. My husband is still trying to pay off cooking school debt 15 years later, after making $11 an hour for 10 years. THE EXCEPTION: Become an electrician. They will ALWAYS be in demand.
The problem with that is one bad injury could end his career. That’s very unlikely to happen if he goes to college for business and works in an office. I have a bad shoulder that would’ve prevented me from doing pretty much any trade, but thankfully I went to college for business and worked in an office, so it never impacted my ability to do my job. I also got paid a lot more than trades.
Calculate what makes more money and what being the most satisfying feeling… always take into consideration the student debt loads when factoring potential income. Examples: Indebted “normie” pediatrician pockets THE SAME MONEY MONTHLY as a debt free truck driver and less money than a master plumber. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you get to keep… earning $200,000 sounds great UNTIL you factor in the massive $300-$400,000 student loan payments and the massive taxes… only the end up pocketing less money than a plumber and the pediatrician eventually catches up to the plumber BY TIME THEY ALMOST 50!
I have worked in a high school for several years. It has been my experience that a lot of college bound students don’t take advantage of all their options. Work-study, scholarships, living at home and commuting, not going to college of choice but the one that is affordable, going to a two year school and transferring, etc. They jump of the loan option because it is easy at the time.
Not everyone has all of those options. Not everyone comes from a good home that they can live in past 18. Not everyone lives in an area where there are good colleges nearby.
I made lots of mistakes, but one piece of advice I feel confident passing along is: prioritize a potential employer that offers tuition assistance in its benefits package. I went to a state university on that benefit and came out with a master's degree without incurring debt. That got me a jump in pay because my degree made their proposals look better. Also, their rule is that you have to work a number of years for them to make their investment in you worthwhile. One way to see that is job security because if they fired me or laid me off, I did NOT have to pay them back for the schooling.
I really feel like you're talking to the 2000's younger me who struggled with trying to explain to my parents that things aren't the same anymore. Even when I graduated from high school in 2000, they weren't the same. And yet, even now, I'm still getting that "Get an office job as a secretary and you'll succeed." I had an office job as a secretary, and it paid the same as minimum wage. I have an associates degree because I was undecided in college as to what I wanted to do with my life, constantly torn between "get a business degree" parental advice, and my heart, "get a drama degree, or a music degree in voice, or an astronomy degree, or a filmography degree. Either way, Live your dream." According to them, my dream(s) would end in complete failure, but a business degree? Something that for me would be (and has been in all work) fully soul-crushing, I was guaranteed a job. Yeah. Right. In 2017 when I went back to take a language course because I simply wanted to learn a new language, each unit cost $42 at that community college. Back in 2000, it was $11 a unit. I pain to know what it costs now to go back and get a bachelors degree in filmography.
Definitely follow your passion if it involves the arts! They are the only thing robots won’t be able to do better than us in the future. Dancers, painters, actors, writers, etc. will all be highly valued. It’s already heading that way, then when mass joblessness due to AI becomes more of a present reality, you’ll be one of the only ppl with a boomer-shamed art degree. Go for it!
if you ever want to try, start at community college and get as many courses as they count and can transfer.. then you'll have to be a scholarship and grant hunter in order to afford anything else...
@@darkdaystarot , you have NOT been paying attention (with all due respect). Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Midjourney are getting close to rendering (no pun intended) 2D artists obsolete in terms of technical skill. Creative ideas are still valuable, but the barrier to entry is a lot lower now which means even more competition.
The lack of optimism and "here's how to do it" is saddening. There are ways to buy homes, start families, and retire with dignity. Not everything is doom & gloom. You just have to do things differently.
I wish that even though the financial part of college is absolute bs (and definitely crushing me), people would stop saying that it is completely unnecessary or useless. Colleges / universities teach critical thinking skills that we don't learn in high school and that are necessary for success - and that we don't just magically possess by suddenly crossing into adulthood. There is definitely a better way than what we currently have, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's a useless endeavor unless you are interested in being a scholarly recluse.
True. I don’t use my degree but I recognize that the social and analytical skills I learned and even an introductory level knowledge on research gives me at least a small edge with prospective employers over those who didn’t go to college. Not to mention, cultural capital.
Personally, I don't think critical thinking and proper education should be put behind a paywall, especially one rivaling The Great Wall of China. We should be taught critical thinking and research skills in high school. We should actually be educated when we graduate high school but it's basically glorified baby sitting with extra steps at this point. They give so much busy work to students "to keep them off the streets" but it doesn't actually do any practical educating. I don't remember 99% of what I learned in high school and while college was interesting. I learned way more at my local community College than I did at my university. It's all just theater. This is all, education, economics, political tension, all a result of late stage capitalism.
@@hotarubinariko so true. Unfortunately with the way everything is set up, it’s very hard to cram everything we want students to learn within high school. When public schools are funded by property taxes, low income neighborhoods get the short end of the stick. Equitable education would require a whole financial and cultural overhaul.
If you ask the average person to remember anything they learned in high school, let alone middle school, they'll give you a blank stare. I sometimes think I'm the weird one because I can remember bits and pieces all the way back to kindergarten, and actual lessons starting around 5th grade. It would be absolutely fantastic if we could teach those skills to teenagers, but a good chunk of them can't even remember what classes they took, let alone any lessons from them.
Usually, I feel slighted because almost all youtube channels that focus on finance COMPLETELY bypass GenXers; however, in this case, I'm glad to be the "forgotten generation" because at least we're not being blamed for bad money advice. I have a clear understanding of the housing situation, and I let my daughter live with me rent-free while she pursues her college education. She has a bachelor's degree and will be entering grad school soon. She worked hard for this and did all the footwork to get grants, etc. I didn't go to college and at 56, I realize it doesn't make financial sense to do so now. Instead, I focus on preparing for retirement by living frugally and investing. As a widow, I am fortunate to have a home that I don't owe a lot of money on and can help my daughter. Sidenote...you absolutely nailed a spot-on description of my boomer dad; he's a classic facebook-radicalized-Floridian 🤣
Yeah! Gen Xer, too! But, I remember at the beginning of the 90's when we were all the TALK! Boomers wondering what we would become because we were called spoiled, bratty, lazy and combative. I laugh at all of that now because no one mentions us.
I think Gen X realized early on the situation was corrupt/hypocritical, checked out and found their own way alone. The Millennials really bought hard into what Boomers told them and only found out later the harshness of the reality.
Affording College -- some options: 1) community college (for part or all of education); 2) free money! (lots of unclaimed money in scholarships and grants every year); 3) work study (work at college); 4) labor union (college is paid by some unions, plus good wage, benefits, promotions); 5) live at home if possible.
I was told two things. Get a driver's license and look for a job that cannot be sent overseas. This resulted in me working in a trade that I love but not alot of people want to do. I don't think that was bad advice.
"getting radicalized by Facebook" made me HOWL out loud! But also, Chelsea this is one of your best TFD videos yet! There wasn't one piece of advice I wouldn't share with any Millennial/Gen Zer
My parents (end of baby boomer gen.) started off really poor. I mean, having 3 chairs, two of them they would sit on and they would use the third one as a table. They were at the beginning of their twenties, with my mom finished school and working as a kindergarten teacher, and my father having finished military (back then it was a must for two years in my country) and starting work and later getting a college degree in a field he never worked in. They had two kids, my mom was 24 and 26. From the age of 24 until about 38-39, she was a stay at home mom (because we were sick so often that she could no longer continue working bcs she was absent from work so often due to us), where we all lived from my father's salary. I swear I don'T know how they could still save money next to raising two kids and having a carloan and mortgage and extra things that came up... They took up a 20 year mortgage and built a family home in one of the poorest counties of my country. The price of the house will never go up high because the house is in a part of the country where there is no job opportunity and nothing. But the bricks still cost just as much for us as it did for people living in a bigger city. All my childhood I had to listen to "we don't have money for that". I wore handmedown clothes from my cousins, we never went on summer holidays until my parents actually bought a small vacation home near us and then we ended up going there all the time for 20 years but never anywhere else. We always had food and clothes, not saying my parents did not provide, but it wasn't a carefree life (for them, nor for me sometimes, but I was just jealous of other people's lives). They kept saying if I get a university degree and get a good job (instead of pursuing music which I was really good at), then I would not have these problems. I know they said this because that is what they thought would happen, and bcs I did not have enough life experience, I had to believe them, but I still feel angry to this day how much I have suffered through my educationa nd then did not reap the benefits of it. Graduated with a studen loan (bcs my parents could not support me while being at uni, even though the education itself was free but you still needed money for rent and stuff and I was doing double majors, so I could have only worked at night but then would fall asleep during lectures), started working in bigger cities where life was also more expensive. I never got married as early as my parents, but if I think back to where I was at 24 yo where my mother had her first kid, and if I would have stayed at home with my kids for as long as she had, I would only have 4 years of work experience currently, bcs I would have gone on maternity leave almost immediately after finishing university. I mean what type of jobs would I have with 4 years of experience? A customer service job that is basically the modern wage worker of today? For sure not the management type of jobs I currently have. Not trying to brag, I just mean I would not be able to earn as much as I do. And then also take care of others than myself. And pay loans or mortgages. How do people do it for real? Would I actually be in a better financial situation than my parents were with all that being said? I don't think so. Of course my life went in a different direction. Never got married, job hopped to get my salary up (which my father hated), paid back my student loan relatively fast so I only have a mortgage, took out a 20 year mortgage on an apartment that I am planning on paying back in full within ten years and not 20. Moved abroad. Never had kids. Do I like where my life is at? Not really for many reasons. For example, I never feel that I am in my place, where i want to be. I feel like I followed someone else's life instead of mine and there are things I can no longer go back to or do that would require me to be young again. So yeah, I feel very goalless currently. But financially I am in a much better place than my parents (my mom died at 52 yo, so she basically never got to retirement) and for sure will have more money saved up for retirement than they ever will. But what did I need for that? Grind, working jobs I hate, jumping from job to job, and not having kids. Yeah, I also wasn't that fond of the idea of having kids, but just bcs I saw how much of a shit parents you can be if you are always worried about money, but you also cannot just get up and go and do something different and spontaneous with goals and work if you are responsible for other people and have to suffer in silence even if it breaks you. Now who wants a life like that for themselves and their children too?
As a woman who has spent their entire career in STEM, I feel like the advice regarding college degrees doesn’t apply at all to that field of work. I worry that people following your advice will end up closing that door for themselves. I worry even more that your viewership is predominantly women and that there may even be several that end up deciding against a STEM career (that would have been fulfilling and meaningful for them), because they fear having college debt and think that they will be financially better off going into a non STEM career. We need more women in STEM not less. I would actually really appreciate it if you posted a STEM centric video to point out that STEM careers can’t be viewed in the same light. You simply can’t forgo a degree if you want to work in STEM and on average a person with a degree working in STEM will be financially better off. I understand that you can’t go into nuance in your videos because they would otherwise be 3 hours long…..but pleeeeaaaaase, do it for a woman working in STEM that is tired of being the only woman in the room, tell your audience that STEM is not a financial mistake. Begging here!
You should mention though that the value in that case is not the educational content itself for the most part, but connections and early start on job and networking opportunities. Vast majority of cases these days, the humongous student loans are essentially your participation fee for a chance to get to know the right people, including but not limited to STEM.
I'm a woman with a STEM degree. Everything Chelsea said is correct. STEM WAS a financial mistake for me. Not because of sexism, but because entry level jobs are nearly impossible to get and the ones that exist pay like shit. It's not any woman's burden to correct gender disparities in a field, it's a woman's job to explore what the best path for her in life is.
@@veronikavartanova4044 I studied engineering and I use what I learned in my degree every single day. I struggle to see how a degree in physics or chemistry or programming is “just for the connections”
A boomer relative of mine is quite condescending yet he got a degree in religion and got to work at a bank in technology right out of college. I got a degree in technology with a minor in accounting and it’s so competitive I can’t get into the industry. I won all sort of competitions and awards and did tech part time jobs in college and he worked as a lifeguard. Times have changed
A lot of Boomers and older don't realize that without connections it often takes several months to actually get hired at crappy jobs like McDonalds. Every Boomer relative just drove around, saw a "Now Hiring" sign, filled out an app, talked to the manager, and "can you start tomorrow?!"
a work colleague of my mom got a manager position and has a major in theology...while now-a-days if someone would like to enter the same position would need multiple years of experience
Over-saturated markets mean more competition. Economic law.
So where is he now, your 60 year old relative?
Send them this video.
My boomer dad is a hard worker but he left at 9am, came home for lunch, and was home again by 5pm most days. You used to be able to work the actual hours you were paid for and get enough to buy a house, raise kids, save for retirement, etc.
Absolutely, I totally agree. It's the same with my parents in law (almost 70 by now), she was a stay at home mom, he worked a 8-5 job (yes it's called 8-5 in Germany) , builded a few houses and never had or still have financial problems, go on vacation four times a year.. we on the other hand are considered lazy and "spoiled", that's why we can't afford a house because in their eyes. We spent everything on unnecessary stuff (by that they probably mean our rent, our car, Netflix, my gym membership, kids clothes and shoes, school stuff etc).
Yup. Same. Raised by boomer parents. No college education. They bought a house and 6 acres with cash on one 9-5 income. Paid cash for every car. Had 1 month paid vacation. Retirement. Savings. Pension. Really good medical insurance. 1 dog, 2 cats, 4 goats, 1 horse and 20 chickens. And raised 3 kids on one income. They act like my generation is just supposed to go get a job and all that will just magically happen, and it when it hasn't (because the money from that job just doesn't go as far as it used to, no matter how much I save), then it's my fault. The deck has been stacked against us.
All the excesses of modern life did not exist for boomers. My parents first home had 2 bedrooms, one bath no central heat and air. My parents never paid for cell service or cellphones, cable or internet, or subscriptions (except the newspaper). TV was a single console in the living room. Only had one car-no A/C, am/fm radio only. Every vegetable we ate came from the gardens in the back yard. All our clothes were sewn from patterns mom traded with other moms or from Salvation Army. Furniture was second hand and mother refinished a lot of tables and chairs by hand. Mine and Dads clothes were patched and used until thread bare. I had two pairs of shoes, sneakers and church shoes. Coupon cutting was a Sunday morning ritual. Meals were planned weeks out. Lunches were brown bagged, dad’s morning coffee was in a green thermos. They never bought a new home. Always bought older homes that needed work and we spent every free hour tearing out walls and and wiring and plumbing and when we left the homes were sold with a little profit. Mother went back to work as soon as I was old enough to put a key around my neck. Every penny that wasn’t spent was saved…for decades. You think inflation is tough now? Try living through the late 70’s and early 80’s. My boomer parents scraped and scrambled for everything they have and are enjoying the fruit of their sacrifices in their retirement years. They still live frugally and are averse to spending on anything that isn’t vital. It is ingrained in them. Now tell me please how any Millennial has ever worked like that? Or close to it. I’ll wait while the barista finishes your venti Latte and you can think of a witty reply to send from your iPhone. Yes, millennials take for granted the luxuries they have today and the sweat and sacrifice those “awful, selfish” boomers had to endure to make the comfortable world you live in now possible. You only see the end result of their labor, not the effort to get us here.
@@whetwilly1 Maybe this was your Boomer parents, but this was not mine. They are a lot more financially well off. The average Boomer did much better than your parents.
@@danceswithcoyotes8273 No doubt. That is life throughout modern history. My parents grew up in large families and were relatively poor. My Mother’s family had a solid home with an Air Force Dad and stay at home Mom. Unfortunately my Dad’s mother passed when he was young. Extended family helped where they could, but life was more hard scrabble for him. But all boomers benefited from the lack of extravagant extra’s that nibble away at millennial income. We have mastered the art of keeping up with the Jones’. Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok shame young people into believing they should have and deserve the best of everything-right now. CC’s have made instant gratification possible, loans for oversized, tech laden cars. Houses that are big and costly to maintain.
I agree most jobs today will not pay for a modern lifestyle, but I bet it would if millennials lived like their parents/grandparents. Even if just for a time to get established. Find work, put away money in savings, find a partner (if desired), drive a beater, buy that rough looking house near the tracks, or rent with a roomie.
A comfortable life was never guaranteed-never was. In fact I would suggest a little hardship is good for perspective…
"Having a family has gone from being a foundation of our economic model to a luxury item. Yay, we did it!" Loved that line.
She had me at pronoun latte and buying participation trophies, great business ideas!
Can someone please explain to me how men magically make more money in the workplace if they have a kid?
@@ryanthen1047Men become motivated when they have a family to work for, and support.
Men become demotivated from nagging, or no clear goal or agenda.
If a woman wants a more productive man, then she should compliment him in what he works to achieve.
If a woman wants a less productive man, then she should nag and belittle him.
I am 34 and my wife and I just found out that we will be having our first child this year, We make about 80k a year, and bought a house using a first time homebuyer down payment. I think we are generally doing ok, BUT with a future child in mind, It does not feel like its enough. and I am totally flabbergasted by it all. how the hell is it not enough. I work 60 hours a week and somehow its not enough. We make decent money, not fantastic, just decent. it should be enough, and I just feel like my whole life and future and my present happiness and hope for a family has been held hostage so that some geriatric could live the highlife while my wife and I just barely scrape by on an income that would be more than sufficient just 20 years ago.
@@ryanthen1047 fatherhood bonus. Having a family elevates a man's status in the eyes of management. They are more likely than their peers to get raises and promotions because people's default mindset is that the man is the sole provider. And the opposite is true for women, there's a motherhood penalty.
Regarding the whole "work your way up" myth: A former employer of mine recently laid off a bunch of people, including senior folks and people that had been there for many years...and then literally a month later listed many of their jobs on LinkedIn at lower ranks so they could pay them less. That sort of thing is happening all over tech these days it seems. So getting good enough at your job is almost a BAD thing now because if you're not in a mission critical role, then even if you're a rockstar they may not hesitate to kick you out the door and replace you with someone cheaper. How is anyone supposed to believe in the idea of long term job security when stuff like that is happening?
The key is "work" your way up. I hired hundreds of employees for many years and the vast majority did not understand that concept. Just vegetating in a position won't cut it.
There is no such thing as 'long term job security'. That concept - in practice - hasn't existed for at least 40 years.
There is no such thing as a 'mission critical role'. Everyone is replaceable.
Understand that you work for _yourself_ - not the company. You are only _lending_ the company your value and only for a time.
'working your way up' isn't about moving up in the company, it's about growing your skillset - which is transferrable to another company.
If you understand this, you'll have a much easier time in life and with a lot less stress.
You sound like an awful business owner then. You don't work harder and hope for more pay. The business owner pays you more and you work harder. It's a simple concept really. @@comicus6769
@@comicus6769I hope that sometime within the past 4 months you read the comment you decided to reply with that garbage on.
@@comicus6769 I remember watching a video about the flaws in the "work your way up" mentality. Mainly it was about you may not have the skills or talent to work your way up because the work is so specialized today. Say if you work in software and start at a Jr development role and are really good at it. You might work your way up to a Sr dev role and be really good at that. Then you might target a project management position, where you might not be as good. You're then stuck in that position, able to do the day to day work well enough to not get fired or demoted but not excelling enough for another promotion or raises in wage to be feasible. You're not vegetating in a position, it's just that your skills, talent, and training are worlds away from what you started out as. The employer doesn't want to pay more for you to do that Sr. Dev or Jr. Dev job, however as cost of living and inflation increases you cannot just waste away at the same job for 40 years and not get a raise.
My 71 year old dad actually apologized for pushing me to go to college. I think he even said, "Dude I don't know what to tell you, it's fucked up out there"
Yeh
Real ass mf right there😂
Never regret having an education.
Honesty is refreshing
In my 60’s now. College has gotten too expensive. It’s a joke.
I would go to the trades. Electric, plumbing mechanics or something of that nature.
It would not be an easy life but it’s a living.
Boomer here. To my parents' credit, they understood the toll on the body of a blue collar job. Most people's bodies wear down. I believe their motivation in encouraging college was to get an easier-on-the-body white collar managerial job. Actually, we need people in the trades! Plumbers, carpenters, etc. But many of these jobs are injury prone. We might treat these folks more like professional athletes: higher wages knowing career tenure in that profession is likely going to be short, and the best long term financial outcome may be for a trades person to work for themselves. But my point is that I have not really heard folks talking about health impacts of blue or green collar jobs. I know it's something my depression era parents thought about.
You do what you have to do. You are not ALL going to be white collar management. There are management jobs at factories. Tool and dye makers don't have a high injury rate. Most management positions anywhere require long hours. So what's your point? Did you know that the average law associate at a big law firm works 80 plus hours a week? did you know that successful entrepeneurs work almost 24/7? Everybody who got anywhere got there by huge sacrifices. It hasn't changed.
@@kareno7848 not sure if you were addressing your reply specifically to me, but yes to both of your questions. Earlier in my career I worked in a consulting environment. I understand long hours and long commutes. My depression baby parents were small business owners so I also get the always on culture of entrepreneurial mindset.
@@joanmancuso6978 @Karen O I think the key there is you can put those hours in to build your own dream, or you can put those hours in to build *someone else's* dream. I wish I understood more of what I understand now as a young man, then I would not have spent the bulk of my life working my fingers to the bone on someone else's projects for a less than adequate wage. A lot of that comes from fear - not knowing and believing that you can do it outside on your own, and in my case, having a family to feed. The safe is the enemy of the good, imho. Finally, just because a system is a certain way doesn't make it right for society, and doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change it to make it better - to Joan's point: our expectations as a society should drive changes to laws and how corporations are expected to act towards their workers. Not the other way around.
My mom is a boomer and I’m gen z I can confirm this is her very reasoning for wanting me to get a degree
Hey, what's green collar?
omg my mother's boyfriend is currently going through this, he's had the same job for 13 years raised one kid during that time but only makes 13.00 an hour while I work at another factory making 21.00 it's sad that he thinks he will be rewarded for his dedication when clearly they don't.
Yikes. Why not put in a line for him at your factory?
@@ramblingmillennial1560 Probably the boyfriend doesn't want to.
@@user-gs2jg7fr9e hi, you're talking about me...thank you lol
@@ramblingmillennial1560 good point
@@kathleengivant-taylor2277
Mom's BF may be unable
to switch corporations
(His age, his skills, the
current status of his
health insurance, job
security/seniority in the
company, corporate-supplied
matching funds for a pension)
I once had a co-worker who was a late Boomer and was having a rough day. She complained that she and her husband were still in their "starter home" and couldn't afford to get a "nicer" (maybe larger?) house. I as a millennial looked at her and honestly asked because I did not know, "what's a starter home?" 🙃
I feel like in Europe there is no starter home thing. Like if you upgrade to a bigger house, it is most likely because you are going to have kids. Not because you just want a bigger house^^
@@perthfanny3017 That's what it usually is in the US too. Starter home is for one baby, by the time the second is on the way it's either they share a room or you move...
@@jtidema which is another reason I didn't understand why my coworker wanted a nicer/bigger home. She has no kids just her husband and a cat. But I guess she wanted to "keep up with the Jones" because other people in her age group had bigger homes? Yeah im never going to have that problem. 😆
I hate the term starter home, it was invented by realtors to make money. My husband and I bought our house in 2012, and the first thing my boomer uncle said when he saw it “it’s a decent starter home.” I was so offended by that- it’s literally an insult.
@@thecozyintrovert I feel that way too. Not everyone wants a gigantic 3,000+ square foot home. It's perfectly okay and normal to have a "starter home" for any time in your life, not just as your first home. If it fits your needs and brings you joy, who cares?
This was sobering. I (an 18 year old) recently had an argument with my aunt (a 70 year old) about how difficult it is to live nowadays. She went on a spiel about how kids my age want everything handed to us. How we don't want to have to work to get the things we need, we just want to get them. She kept talking about unemployment money and how no one wants to work. All I said was that I didn't think it's fair that I'm expected to go to college when I could never pay that loan off. Even if I worked every single day a week for 9-10 hours every day for 10 YEARS. I would still be in debt. She got mad at *me* for that being my reality. Why are you angry at the victims of the system for being "lazy" instead of the system for being unfair ?
blaming the victims is cruel and somewhat evil
@@halnovemila9698 The funniest part is that I'm joining the military for free college and she's 100% behind that ! Having an education paid for and "handed" to me is okay so long as I'm working in the military while it happens lol
Pretty much every unsympathetic boomer ever. They say "When I was your age it was possible", and the hamster wheel stops spinning there.
Sympathetic boomers will look at how costs have scaled since the 70s, and income hasn't, and say "We're probably going to kill each other inside a week, but you should move in with us, stop wasting money on rent."
From a 65 YO boomer to 20 and 30 somethings: YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR YOUR PREDICAMENT! This “these Gen Xers, Gen whatever’s, are lazy bums.” This is entirely BS! I - we. - created this and did you a disservice. Mortgaging a 4-year college education - what??? - that is OBSCENE. I let that happen! (I was able to attend college tuition free - NO OBSCENE TUITION PRICING!) Being unable to launch with OBSCENE housing costs - how can any body expect or hold it to someone for not launching. YOUNG PEOPLE: you are NOT lazy, STUPID, UNMOTIVATED. I know many Gen whatever’s who are hard working, and who - if I owned by own company - I would hire in a microsecond. And BOOMERS: please, please stop “dissing” these young people! This 65 YO fellow boomer is sick and tired of it!
@misspoppyp When you join the military and serve. NO ONE is handing you anything. You WILL earn it. Just not the way you thought you would. Good for you! (Text is sometimes hard to interpret. I mean that sincerely, no snarkiness, I swear.) My dad was career military and one of my boys is in the Army while the other toils away in college. One is seeing the world while the other is seeing the inside walls of his classrooms. I have high hopes for both of them...and for you as well. Good luck!
What is frustrating about needing a bachelor's degree to get any decent paying job is that the skills I learned in college clearly aren't important, just the idea that I can learn them is. I graduated with one degree but got a job in a completely different industry, and I learned EVERYTHING on the job. Companies already know they have to teach their new employees how to do the job, so why they put so much importance on that 2-5 year degree boggles me.
You answered yourself before your question. College is mostly a (admittedly faulty) filter. It keeps out people who couldn’t pass college courses (unfortunately also keeping out people who can’t/don’t attend college but could have passed if they had).
It's also an indicator for drive and commitment (besides being a raw means test, of course). Like, do you have the maturity to push through the hard stuff? If you're privileged, could you do the bare minimum of just getting the degree?
Because there is frequently a difference in professionalism, communication skill, and learning speed / plasticity. Employers put the value on the degree because the additional education often makes a difference in onboarding and performance.
I'm gonna let you in on a few secrets about job hunting:
*1. Apply anyway.*
Most recruiters don't know shit about what qualifications are necessary and are inundated with apps. So they throw in a few roadblocks like a degree, years of experience, knowledge about certain tools/programs, etc. They're hoping you're going to give up applying, which reduces the number of -headaches- applicants they have to deal with. _Btw did you know women only apply to a job if they're 100% qualified, whereas men will apply if they're 60% qualified?_ Play the system to your advantage! Get your foot into an interview and then highlight your strengths to compensate for what you lack.
*2. Copy & paste.*
Well, not literally. But do use the same verbiage as the job posting, bc it's all a numbers game. Recruiters don't even look at resumes, some are so lazy that they copy-paste the job listings of competing companies verbatim - I kid you not! Anyhow, resumes get fed through an ATS system, and the resumes that match the correct algorithm of words are filtered to the next stage. Don't be the one who gets weeded out. _Did you know that the resumes that do get read are only skimmed for 30 seconds tops?_ Again, it's the interview that matters. Also, bold and bullet points are appreciated by resume reviewers.
*3. Network.*
The best gateway into a field isn't what you know, it's who you know! 😜 Look for conferences, hiring events, meetups, and online communities for your industry. Ask your friends or school colleagues. Also, use LinkedIn and Slack to connect. The more shoulders you rub, the more likely you'll get an inside ticket to job placement. _Did you know that 80% of available positions in the job market are internal hires or referrals from friends?_ That's why networking is so valuable, so put yourself out there.
_4. Be selective._
Don't "spam-apply" companies. They can tell when you do this, it's a waste of time: yours and theirs. Make a list of 50 dream jobs you want to work for in 1 hour. 2 hours at most! Do not take more time than this. Then spend the next 15 min whittling it down to 20. After a day, I want you to take 5 min to cut the fat some more and shrink it down to your top 10. Don't think too hard about it, bc you already had 24 hrs to simmer over your choices. Those 10 companies are now your targets. Study their history, their backgrounds, their white papers, social media posts, job listings, etc. Now get to work refining your resume to mold to their requirements. You should have anywhere from 6 to 10 resumes completed. Go to LinkedIn and stalk their HR dept. DM an introduction and kindly ask if they'd take a moment to peek at your CV. Don't be pushy or weird. If you're brave enough, ask if they have a moment to clarify questions about the job or company. Either way, you're putting yourself out there, but best of all it's right in front of your dream company.
_5. Follow up._
I cannot tell you how many people just allow themselves to be ghosted or dropped. It doesn't take much to inquire about the status of your app. And if you get a rejection, it also doesn't take much to politely thank them for considering you and to have them keep you in mind the next time a slot becomes available. _Did you know recruiters will often call/email back previous interviewees if the prospect they chose abandons the job?_ Make sure to find out if it was a family/health incident or a better job offer. If the prospect left bc they discovered your dream job is actually a toxic place, you might wanna sus that out just to be safe.
Bonus tip: This one peeves me off, but it's possible to get invited for an interview to fulfill a quota and never intended to be hired. That's bc if HR plans on hiring an existing employee, most companies require a certain amount of interviews to be from outside the company. Make sure to ask if they've already decided to hire someone internally. It you're unwilling to ask, look for signs of boredom or the recruiter being distracted with their computer/phone, or worst of all if they're interrupting you and rushing the Q&A. Those are red flags that you're just "filler" to meet stupid hiring requirements. I'd get up, thank them for taking YOUR personal time, and invest your wonderful self into someone who won't relegate you to a quota.
*_Hope these tips helped! Tbh I debated sharing my tips bc I'm currently job-seeking, however I know that I learned these secrets from people who didn't hold these close to their chest, so I'm paying it forward. And if we end up competing, then I'm glad it's with fellow TFD'ers_* 😉
College teaches you how to think critically. It’s not necessarily about what you learned from books (which is important) but more so on learning how to think things through. Companies can’t teach that
The pressure to have kids is so insane. No parent should ever wish financial struggle on their child and yet I am always being told by my dad that it will all turn out ok and "remember how happy we were when we had so little" (which we weren't happy, my parents are actually both pretty abusive). The cost of living is way too high to be able to have kids willy nilly and it makes me want to scream when people act like the kids will just thrive and everything will work out.
The manipulation my mother put me through is why I don't want to have kids. I'm worried that my apple would fall too close to her tree.
Also the fact that I had 2 years without a raise in the last 5 isn't making me super confident... But mostly the apple thing. Our parents don't seem to understand that we don't have anything. We might have something once THEY pass away, but until that happens, we're left eating rice and beans for a month every couple years while they complain that their freezer is too full and they need a bigger one.
I understand what you’re saying. From your parents perspective, they just want to see their genes live on which is just a carnal drive that can’t be erased. You’re both right but society has changed way too much. Now if there was abuse, I’m sorry you had to go through that and can’t imagine how that would impact things.
Sounds like they want grand children. And couldn't care less about you.
@@donstarlancerexactly, they just want their genes passed on. That's it.
@@MustbeTheBassest what I mean is that’s it’s nature. Now they shouldn’t pressure at all though
Am 58 retiring next year but the thought of retirement gives me weakness. My apologies to everyone who have retired and filing social security during this time after putting in all those years of work just to lose everything to a problem you never imagined to happen. It’s so difficult for people who are retired and have no savings or loved ones to fall back on.
True, It has never been easier to understand how to build your money after retirement than it is right now with the inflation, when you may study and experience a completely variegated market passively by employing a successful portfolio-advisor. The impacts of the U.S. dollar's gain or fall on investments, in my opinion, are complex.
Even if you’re not skilled, it is still possible to hire one. I was a project manager and my personal portfolio of approximately $850k of my retirement pension took a big hit in April due to the crash. I quickly got in touch with a financial-planner that devised a defensive strategy to protect my funds and make profit from my portfolio this red season. I’ve made over $250k since then.
This is exactly how i wish to get my finances coordinated ahead of retirement. Can I get access to your advisor?
There are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’Colleen Rose Mccaffery” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
Thanks a lot for this suggestion. I needed this myself, I looked her up, and I have sent her an email. I hope she gets back to me soon.
Re College: Don't discount Trade Schools. My husband went trade school and got a job with a *much* higher starting salary than my 4 year degree got me, and much less debt as well.
Same!
Depends on the field, but in tech at least certifications cost way less than college and are way more likely to land you a job and progress your career. The problem with trade school etc is you are pretty much stuck in the field you trained for unless you go through the whole process again. The benefit of college is that any degree you get will improve your chances at getting most any job, especially at large corporations where they filter out resumes without college degrees (you can honestly just lie most of the time though, they rarely check, that's what I do). There are some jobs though that definitely require the training you receive from a college degree (like being a doctor or scientist). I would say take your time and decide, but getting student loans after age 24 or so is really difficult, so try a lot of things in your teens and hope you make a good choice (whatever it is). I should have gone to art school when I was young but I didn't since it seemed like a less secure choice at the time, but in the long run had I gone I would be at least as successful and would have had better quality of life. It all depends on things you won't know till many years later though, so you kind of have to gamble and hopefully not regret your choices.
and you can still get training on the job in the trades
@@danielmantell8751 agreed. Went to a medical trade school and found out afterwards the market was flooded with people in the same profession. Made more working in a restaurant. I went to another trade for tech and the field was wide open with few candidates so I could earn a lot more money.
I won't discount trade schools. They are a great option. They still require additional time and investment than a simple high school diploma, so I still lump them into the "go to college to get a better job" category, albeit a more efficient version of it.
I sadly learned the hard way that working your way up no longer happens. I spent 13 years at the same company, directly out of university. Age 22-35, I never got promoted beyond the entry-level job where I started, even though colleagues would recommend me for the managerial position and I had to fill in as de facto manager for 3 months when the previous one quit. 3 Months during which, as I was told later by the regional manager, we did better than we had in years. I even trained some new people who had been hired from outside to be my new boss on how to be our boss. I knew how to do the job and corporate knew I could even teach someone how to do it, but I was flat-out told I would never even be considered for the position. I finally quit after they hired an 18-year old with no qualifications to be my new boss and she would call me 50+ times a day asking me how to do her job that I was much more qualified to do.
Totally depends on the company. Some are still good that way, but they are the harder ones to break into.
Those are such crazy decisions that your company made. May I ask what field you are in?
Did they say why they would never consider you? Doesn't really make any sense since you were qualified.
Sounds about right. It seems like you did your job too well, replacing skilled workers is a pain in the ass so they'll milk you as long as they can. Managers are a dime a dozen and any dumb fuck can do the job as long as the employees they manage are competent.
That's called NEPOTISM my dear! That 18 year old idiot (that they hired to be your BOSS (effin unbelievable) but couldn't even finnish college, obviously has a VERY well conected and influential parents! Hang in there girlfriend, the BEST think you did was leaving that asshole company!!!
Older millenial here - I definitely took almost all of this terrible advice at some point. Fully admit I am "thriving" (in the loosest sense of the word) despite myself, not because I listened to my parents who weren't even good with money. I'm still tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a bachelors and a masters that I never used. I stuck with one company, at first doing a job for which I did not actually need all that education, for way longer than most people with any sense would. A lot of that was because I graduated into the Great Recession, and unless your family had money to support you while you lived at home indefinitely holding out for that perfect job, you took what you could.
I did manage to work my way into a technical role that is in demand and I make ok money (enough to own a tiny condo and be able to pay off my student loans right now if I really wanted to). That is largely because I work for a company where internal mobility is in many ways prioritized, but, I still know I am underpaid for the type of work I do and the number of hours I put in. There would be no way I could afford kids (if I really wanted them) unless I found a partner who makes twice as much as I do and we could afford to live in a bigger house in this area. And the sad part is, I'm probably better off than most.
My story is probably one of the better outcomes for people following boomer advice but didn't have any money to begin with. (And yes, I am definitely examining making some job changes in the new year when I find another role that has a reasonable work from home policy).
I’m also an older millennial and worked at Walmart as a cashier for 7.5 years making $10.80/hr
My parents (Gen X, not Boomers) pushed me (Gen Z) towards community college, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs - and I'm so so grateful they did! Since I have no student debt, I was able to buy a house in my early 20s. So grateful for that advice!
I’m an “elder millennial” raising Gen z. He’s a junior this year and I’m trying to steer him toward trade schools and community colleges as well. He was already leaning that way after watching me pay off grad school loans that have decreased in balance approximately zero dollars in the 12 years or so I’ve been paying on them. I’ve also opened a Roth IRA for him and told him to start investing immediately.
Same. 22 year old journeyman electrician living in my own home
I feel sad that young and talented people lost opportunities to study creative and sometimes useless subjects like poetry or Greek mythology.
This idea that world will be better when run by shameless and calculating technocrats is the losing game. Without creativity, waste and so called "useless " knowledge like philosophy, psychology or sociology world development will stagnate.
Knowledge is like sun - you sort of don't notice it, but without it you just can't bloom.
I’m dropping out this year. I’m going to do short courses that give me a certificate each level I complete. I do have to pay each year but it’s so much cheaper than university and I’ll be debt free. I can at least tell my kids I went to university. I have the acceptance letter 🤷🏿♀️
I'm so happy it sounds like gen x to their credit are largely the ones breaking this pattern. I hope millenial will pass on this better more open minded advice too. Happy for better futures for next gens, not everyone needs college to do good, and for the few people who might I hope the price can be made less predatory and prohibative
At 19 i was a high school drop out and my girlfriend(now wife) was pregnant. The idea of changing jobs for $0.50 more an hour was a necessity to help us both make more money to pay for this baby. But we also realized it never hurt us. By our mid to late twenties we had used the job change technique to move our income higher than our parents who were largely in that “get a steady job” mentality. In fact my father said once he hoped i would find a company that liked me enough to keep me. Lol When he said that i was an IT contractor making at least three times what he ever made.
I advise young people now to go where you are valued. If the competitor across the street sees your experience as more valuable than where you are now then go.
obviously there are many additional factors but if all things are equal then pick your best offer and revaluate that every few years. We expect this from
Pro athletes and movie actors so why not bank tellers and computer programmers.
I've always liked the advice that the day you start, write out a letter pretending you want to quit. Keep it somewhere safe and see if the reasons you expected to irritate you will sprout into a noxious workplace. That letter will prime you to have the confidence to quit the day you need to leave.
Agree totally. I have changed many jobs already and make multiples of what my friends make doing the same job for 15 years. They ask me why I can't find a steady job I say cuz I want to actually get ahead and when your at a place for to long they take you for granted.
I made a meeting with upper management to tell them I was pregnant. He said "woow, this is going to cost us so much money". They fired me 3 months later after they changed my goals and gave me a bad performance review. I was told that the work I did did not match upper management goals. My manager went out on vacation and I was terminated by random people I didn't know.
I'm a boomer and would never offer the advice you spoke of in this video. Anyone offering such advice in today's world has been living in an alternate reality. And, yes, there are a number of people doing so, including some elected officials. Wages have stagnated. Corporate greed has not. Some of the hardest working people are those working in low paying jobs and they are definitely not getting ahead economically. I believe what we're seeing is lingering Industrial Revolution thinking in a 21st Century world. It didn't work very well then. It definitely can't work now.
Totally agree - thank you for the thoughtful comment, Susann!
Came here to say just that!! I'm a Boomer too. In addition to what Susan says, I'll add that if your parents didn't invest in an RESP (which started in 1974 in Canada) and if you're now carrying postsecondary debt, you don't need to listen to them!
Whereas my generation had OFY grants actively creating jobs for us, many Millennials worked two jobs in high school - and were keyholders for multimillion dollar corporations while being paid pittance.
No one I grew up with worked harder than Millenials have had to do.
Your advice is always great - for everyone. Because the world is not what it was. Thank you for your realism.
One of our governor hopefuls tried to say that waitresses we're getting $100,000 per year and that should be glad that they made so much. Wait staffers came out of the woodwork to claim those jobs (or at least to thats not what they were getting)! (He didn't win.)🤭
I’m a millenial and won’t take the advice in this video - because there is no advice in this video!!!
It is complaints, zero solutions.
Most boomers live in an alternative reality
I remember being a receptionist for a big tech company (~8 years ago) having to tell high school job seekers that nobody takes in-person paper resumes any more. They'd insist on leaving it anyway and I had to throw them out.
High school guidance counsellors really haven't changed their advice since the 70s and don't get the disadvantage of not being tech savvy in the technological age.
The kids still bring me paper resumes and ask about paper applications. It blows my mind.
So not sure where you live but a large number of companies where I am (north central KS) do still take paper resumes. I agree that counselors need to update their advice though.
I think it depends on the business! Tech companies, especially large/ international ones, tend to avoid paper anything.
When I graduated college, I xeroxed and mailed out 100 resumes before I got my job, to do that now would be entering 100 websites and spend hundreds of hours cutting and pasting. It is not just the low pay causing the shortage of workers.
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewupThat’s because their parents tell them to or even make them. My bf, who’s 24, is STILL being told to go to the place of work and ask to apply when he and everyone else our age knows you’ll just be told to apply online. Some parents are way behind the time.
To me my college education and degree was literally the ticket to everything i have right now. I am so grateful for it.
Same here but I graduated in the 90s; it's not the same economy today. Kids are graduating with well North of $100K in debt and the job market is not exactly stealer. The trades are outperforming the white collar segment in ROI these days. If I had to do it over I would still choose college if it were still the 80s-90s we were talking about, I would go into the trades if I had to make that same decision today.
Good for you yet that is no longer the case
The advice on not sticking with one job is absolutely correct. Just left my job of 5 years that averaged a 2% annual pay increase over that time (meaning with a standard level of inflation growth my income had actually decreased over that time) for a new job paying $25k more. I calculated how long it would have taken me continuing at my previous job at that same 2%/year and it would have taken me another 15 years to get that increase that it took me a few months of applying to jobs on LinkedIn to get.
And the kicker is my new company seems amazing and I’m working 100% from home.
"You are worth what you can negotiate"
🙌💜
Over the past 10 years every 1-3 years I got a new job with a different company that payed 25-40% more than the previous job. Unfortunately I think that is the best way to work the career ladder these days.
Same here. Plus, you get to learn more skills and ways of being. I think now I can stay longer at the job just because of where I am going to fall income/responsibility wise, and the natural life progression of a 30+ years old. In conclusion for all people out there starting their careers (and maybe getting stuck with contract work?) Move around.
Working from home is key. So much more rest and productivity! Let people decide! It bothers me companies are changing the narrative again. I don’t think I can ever go back to commuting everyday. I hope I don’t have to!!!!
Requiring a masters degree to even get a minimum wage job, to me, seems like another way to force people to become the ultimate wage slaves. American workers are already at a great disadvantage by having their healthcare tied to their employment but if they have to go into a possibly lifelong debt for their degree they truly are wage slaves. The corporate world have you forced into serving them for practically nothing just for you to exist, let alone have a decent quality of life.
I heard that one of the schools hired a new teacher where my mother worked. She said the new teacher said it herself that she is making 17/hr.
I was both surprised and now that what I've been hearing that teachers were being hired at minimum wage, and now I've actually experienced an anecdote closer to who I personally know.
The powers that be always wanted slaves. Now there will just be more white ones, too.
Realizing that job hopping is the best financial choice has honestly become a relief to me. After spinning my wheels trying to figure out exactly what career I should pursue through my early and mid twenties, working in a field I fell into and hated, and becoming disillusioned with American work culture in general during the pandemic, I'm now comfortable with the idea of bouncing from one opportunity to another. I work to live, I don't live to work. Hopefully the jobs I find will be more enjoyable than my early positions--so far I like my current role much better than my last--but at the end of the day i'm trying to make the most money in the least annoying way possible. Living the same day at the same office for decades? Annoying.
Employees owe their employers the same level of dedication that they receive - which usually means zero.
I was talking to my mom awhile back and she told me she wishes she had bought a house when she was younger. We were never well to do and so this kind of surprised me that she thought she could have bought a house. I asked her about it and she said "Oh Maggie, things weren't as hard for our generation when we were growing up." I thought it was a very insightful thing for her to have observed when so many from her generation insist we just need to work harder or forego avocado toast or something.
My mom, age 63, says that she's glad that she doesn't have to enter the housing market in this day and age, and feels sorry for the younger generations who are trying to establish themselves. I'm nearly 25 and still live with her in the suburb of a big city. I would've moved out ages ago if I could but I'm a student and need to save those funds.
My parents are 80. They get it. They bought a nice house on one salary. So did all their friends, siblings and spouses
Dual income, no kids sounds nice. For those of us who are perpetually single, a single income, no kids still makes it extremely difficult to participate in our economy. The family-oriented economic structure that we live in seems to intentionally shun us.
Family-oriented? Surely you jest.
@@zwatwashdc Yes, our economy is designed to benefit families. A single guy like me is a permanent renter unless I win the lottery or something.
th-cam.com/video/EoeDpV0bpIY/w-d-xo.html
@@SpaceEngineerErich Gee, I'm a single male and have a nice home. And I don't play the lottery. Here's another thing I don't do - pay car payments. Nor do I eat out because frankly I don't trust other peoples' kitchens. I don't drink so there's absolutely no reason to go to bars. In other words, I try and avoid money pits.
@@datroof2262 Bully for you.
Making money is not the same as keeping it there is a reason why investments aren't well taught in schools, the examples you gave are well stationed, the market crisis gave me my first millions, people shy away from hard times, I embrace them.. well at least my advisor does lol.
Investors should be cautious this period about their exposure and be wary of new buys, especially during inflation. Such high yields in this recession is only possible under the supervision of a professional or trusted advisor.
Wow, this is excellent! As a beginner, keeping up with all this information can be challenging. How do you stay informed? Are you an experienced investor?
I stopped trying to predict market outcomes based on chart studying after 5 years of uncertainty. Not having a mentor caused me 5 years of pain. I learned to follow the market's direction and keep it simple with discipline.
@@BernardFrederick-tk7un Please pardon me, who guides you on the process of it all?
Finding financial advisors like Sharon Ann Meny who can help you shape your portfolio would be a very creative option. There will be difficult times ahead, and prudent personal money management will be essential to navigating them.
"No federally mandated maternity leave" .... we need A LOT of our current congress to retire or die. We have hit the point where they no longer represent our country's best interest.
I agree
You mean how you expect them to pay you to stay home with your baby? Where do they get the money to do that? From those who don't?
Look at the idiots who do not know what inflation is. $3.0x10^13 debt. They can PRINT THE "MONEY"...runs off to whine about the ill effects of inflating the money supply.
@@mmmmmmolly How does putting a middle man between you and your money, the fruit of your labor, benefit you? Maybe DO NOT pay your taxes and save that money to spend on those things you want. You are not hurting the poor. Taxation hurts the poor. My local school spends now $22,000/ student per year. I spend about $500-$1000 for Two children.
I once thought as you do now but I awakened to the truth of the matter. How much more could I do if I didn't pay school taxes? everyone pays it homeowner or renter.
Same with every other government "free" service.
@@mmmmmmolly No it is NOT. Consider a medical doctor with 180, 000 or more into debt plus malpractice insurance and then you fall into a higher bracket. Bull shit. Save the money you'd otherwise spend in taxes and save for your own maternity leave or are you so juvenile that you can't make adult decisions about your own life? Uncle Sam a fiction of law, rather, the self-serving crooks allegedly bonded to undertaking duties of action for this body-less, soulless, mindless creature of man's law, needs to do it for you? Sophomoric drivel.
@@mmmmmmolly FYI, in the US you pay your taxes all year, then you file - which is basically doing a 'true up' at the end of the year. If you paid the right amount all year, didn't change jobs, didn't have additional income, etc, you don't owe or get a refund. Mine usually works out right on target.
Funny I was berated and shamed in 1997 when I dropped out at 16 to start mowing grass. I wanted to make money since I had no passion for school. 25 years later I run my own biz with a dozen people. I have 0 official business training but my biz school buddies that all made fun of me are unemployed or working minimum wage jobs….. the world went and turned on its head after I quit school.
Glad I didn’t buy into the hype, it sounded like bullshit to me even back then. I enjoy gardening and have built a good life for my wife and kids off that passion. Good luck young ones, there are those of us who want you to win. To succeed, despite having to work as part of the system they built to wring every last ounce of joy and autonomy from us. Teach all us old heads what real progress looks like.
What is your business?
after taking into consideration the student loan repayments and taxes, you are probably easily pocketing the same amount of money as a indebted pediatrician, dentists or professor.
Warren Buffett, for more than 20 years one of the wealthiest man in the world, still to this day lives in his "starter" home for the last 45 and more years. When they asked him why he lives in the first home he ever bought, the home where he raised his kids and it's worth around 350 000 $, and won't move in a MacMantion when he can afford it cause he's a billionaire, he says he doesn't have any reason to do so because he never bought into that "keeping up with the Jonses" crap anyway! Now that's a good man to emulate and learn from!
Even 50 cent regretted buying Mike Tysons mansion.
He's a bit of an extreme case and the Ikea founder even more so (2nd hand clothing while a millionaire) but it's not a bad idea as such. Very few people are actually poor. Many make themselves poor by having too many needs.
Like elsewhere in the comments "It's so unfair, rent inside mayor cities is so high" and I'm sitting here in my village thinking 'This guy is spending hundreds a month more to have a home of less quality than I have'.
@@Netboxviewer doesn't 50 cent have like fiddy kids? The mansion isn't the problem.
As a Generation Xer with early boomer parents, my life is vastly different from my mother's. Both of my parents came from poverty (father was a sharecropper growing up) but was able to go to college and trade school and work their up. My mother is a retired RN, but a 4-year degree wasn't required at the time. Unlike my parents, who brought their first and only house when they were 19 and 21, I would never see homeownership or retire at the respectable age of retirement. I can't imagine what people who are decades younger than I experience.
I’m a Gen X’er, and it sounds like you made poor choices. I grew up dirt poor, kicked out of the house at 16, quit high school at 16, only have a GED yet here I am making $178k a year and have the house, the cars, etc.
@@chrise1004 I know I did. I married my first husband at 20 (no kids, thank goodness) and divorced 4 years later. I was diagnosed with MS later, and was having a difficult time physically, which slowed me down career-wise and financially. I felt like my options were limited. You lose some and win some. Congratulations, by the way.
It's okay if you can't get a house now. Just make sure you keep learning financial literacy, and keep upgrading your financial behavior. Minimalistic life, keep scrutinized your income and expenses everyday, and learn how to invest in stocks.
@@arapaimagold8088 Absolutely!
GenX here…my mother told me that when they were building their second custom house they had to “really cut back” on their expenses. She told me it meant they couldn’t go out to dinner on Saturdays anymore…..🤦🏼♀️
All of this is so true even in my country Sweden, known for having some of the best welfare systems in the world. Education is free but it doesn't get you anywhere and entry level jobs have hundreds fighting for every position.
My parents bought their first 3 bedroom house in their 20's despite coming from poverty and having no formal education. I have a master's degree and could only buy a 1 room apartment in my 30's because I got a loan from my mother, who had sold said house with a massive profit. I can't think of any friend younger than me who owns their home, they are stuck paying overpriced rents and can never save up.
It's only a matter of time before this collapses as it's not sustainable, there's your buying opportunity.
well it makes sense that a country with free education will have basically everyone educated and competing for the same jobs. If everyone has the same thing, it's not valued and it is seen as a given. Diplomas were supposed to differantiate people, but everyone has one now so what's the point? It just makes it so we have to spend 4 years studying and people who absolutely can't afford to go to school to become second citizens. Hopefully people in hiring positions nowadays will not care for college diplomas anymore as we can learn almost anything online now
Same in germany. It is extremely frustrating when you realize that after 5 years of studying you can barely afford the rent of a 30 qm appartment since living costs have skyrocketed in the mayor cities. A lot of folks I know gave up on trying to achieve home ownership or saving up for their pension, they just live their life and work part time.
In about 10-15 years, that will backfire extremely wenn all the well paid boomers go into retirement and nobody will pay the taxes required to keep the pyramid scheme running....
@@master8127 Exactly right. Modern economies are generational pyramids.
wait, but the internet had told me that the US is a third world country, and all the Nordic countries are utopian paradises where everyone is middle class and nobody is struggling?
College education and student debt. This is an area where Dave Ramsey is extremely out of touch. He still thinks that you should be able to push the broom at the hard work factory and pay your way through college without ever taking out a loan.
I did. It take self discipline. I'm 27, raised by a disabled single mom who encouraged me to have a betterlife rhen her and make good decisions with my money. I worked full time through college, went to a cheap local school, didn't go to concerts or restaurants with my friends, bought clothing and furniture for pennies at uard sales, bought older phones and made last years before upgrading, etc etc. Paid all my tuition in cash, bought my modest car with cash, used credit cards to get points and free money, paid them off every month. Graduated last year with 0 debt and got a job making 60k a year. I'm not saying its not hard but you can do it
Gen X here. The sad part is, her points have been the economic reality since the 90’s. I racked up a mortgage worth of loan debt for a degree, listening to my parents, when I should have paid more attention to that Winona Rider movie ‘Reality Bites’. My child is now college age & got the same crappy advice from school “guidance” counselors that I got from my parents. Luckily, I knew better & broke the cycle. My child decided to skip college, take a 6 month certification course for a couple thousand bucks, & now makes a livable salary, while her friends are still struggling through their junior year. Now that we made a positive example of a college alternative, I’ll pass the info along to every HS senior I come across, until they bury me with my worthless promissory notes. smh
I love that movie!
Government paid college advisors through the government mandated taxpayer funded "FREE" public -indoctrination- education.
Also, the wrongly named "US DOLLAR" is a promissory note..a Federal Reserve note...an IOU. A dollar is a unit of measurement defined by the coinage act of 1792 and the ratio set by two acts the first silver to gold 15:1 and then the second 16:1.
The federal reserve is a private corporation that operates in a foreign jurisdiction. It's shareholders are kept secret and stock is not allowed to be traded publicly.
No offense but you must be white try getting any kind of job like that without a college degree as a minority and you are out of luck.
@ Just_Hearts_NyCtiy Actually, no. I’m not white. We’re in the Atlanta area. So, there may be more opportunities here for minorities all around than other places since it is really Chocolate City compared to other towns I’ve lived in.
Even as a single man with no kids, I found myself identifying with the "people are punished for both prioritizing work over family, AND prioritizing family over work" paradox. I obviously can't speak to how it affects a woman with a child or children, but I feel like I'm constantly getting mixed messages like this in every place I've ever worked and it drives me crazy. One day, you're missing out on a raise or promotion because you asked for too much time off, and the next day, the same exact people are acting like YOU'RE the one who's overworking yourself and needs to focus on your mental health. Fucking, which one is it already?!
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” You should study the office politics of your job and play along but, remember, you should never give the agency over your future to your company. The company do the best for the company not you. If your company doesn't value, go somewhere else, fear and insecurity is usually the biggest obstacle in your way.
I relate with both men and women im attracted to women even so probably for the best but i totally get it i swear work now adays all work is trash its not just the ones you done people could get fulfillment eating dog poop or eating tide pods doesnt make you special or mean your even remotely useful for society like all the debt makers and collectors
Sounds like gaslighting to me. Thats why it’s important to go have something you enjoy doing.
Seriously. It's either "You aren't working hard enough - when are you going to get married, buy a house, have kids!? or you're working to hard, you need to go easy on yourself, just do what makes you happy." Sometimes within the same day.... toxic parents are not good for mental health.
@@hansonel I recommend the book "The subtle art of not giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson. Just give an F about things that doesn't directly affect you.
In the great scheme of things, who cares? Why should I spend money I don't have, to impress judgmental people I don't even like? I stopped giving an F about everything that doesn't directly affect me, because ultimately only me cares about me, only me can save me.
But if they think that I can be shamed, stigmatized or forced into compliance because it suit them, without any push back or rebuttal, they are VERY wrong.
Hearing advice like this for years, knowing it’s not actually how life is for people in our generation, has traumatized me. It’s a generation of people pissing on us and telling us it’s rain… while being the trusted adults in our lives
A: Style & display of status is what is used to separate you from your money.
B. Cash is what you should use for purchases. That is if it does become illegal to do that.
C: Buy things that will last. If you can find them now.
D: A college education is not a automatic guarantee for a good salary .
This worked well for the depression generation. But it did not work during the depression. Because money was hard to come by for just the basics.
Boomers thought that the easy money was not going to run out and became credit millionaires.
Investment millionaires usually do not display wealth. Credit millionaires usually do.
😅
Taking advice from a woman who isn't married, nor have children, is not someone you should take financial advice from
@@fireboltaz Whatever, caveman. If she doesn't have kids she's more likely to understand the work world.
@@fireboltaz 👆Boomer spotted
Ok one thought on the college point: I'm an engineer, I got an engineering degree from a state school with strong industry connections. It was absolutely essential to getting my high-paying, stable job(also one that is fun for me). IF you go to college, which I agree is not necessarily a great move for most young people, find out what people with that degree, in that area, graduating from that specific school are making. How much money? How easy was it for them to find a job? etc. College can definitely be worth it in some careers, but don't go for "the experience" go because it still *can* be a path to a high-paying job in some career fields
adding to that- I tell people always, ALWAYS start at community college. Every dam major under the sun and then some requires the same gen ed requirments. EVERY major requires a few English, math, a couple history classes, and a couple science courses. Why pay $45K a year at a 4 year school to take those classes when you can do the same dam ones at no name community college/trade school for less than 10K a year?
And if you're a smart student, find the school that offers you the best deal. My niece ended up going to a private school because the state schools were only going to cover most of it, but the private school said "100% full ride" and was 20 miles from my sister's house. She's getting a world class education debt free this way.
Even today, state universities sometimes offer decent scholarships for the best and brightest. My student loans from undergrad were almost entirely from room and board, since my tuition was paid for by the state (Georgia.) That's a fraction of what it would have cost to go to a private school in state, or to a state school elsewhere.
My undergrad degree ultimately didn't end up being my career, mostly because my current career (business analyst) didn't exist back then. I had to go back for a master's degree. So going to a community college if you're not sure what you really want to be when you grow up is still a much cheaper option.
Exactly and starting at a community college should be the normal.
With that being said, engineering is still plagued by the "expect graduates to show up knowing everything already" mentality. On-the-job training is lacking, and a lot of people either burn out and change careers or are promoted to management before they actually achieve basic competence.
@@TheRealE.B. and your right. While education is key, we also need to on the job training programs. Like experienced programmers or experienced managers mentor younger ones. Every job be it fast food, programming, nursing....has certain nuances and expectations that can't be taught in the classroom and only taught as it happens in the real world-and experienced mentors/ on the job trainer can help guide a new person through that.
Boomer here……in my experience all of these points are very true. It was much easier in the 70s and 80s to pay for college, get a good job, and buy a home (at least for white males). I would be interested to know what this channel thinks the trends will be in the future. Population growth is flat and immigration is discouraged. We are already seeing that companies are having to compete for workers by offering training, perks and signing bonuses. As our population ages and shrinks it may be possible that house prices will fall and wages will rise. I am hopeful that the market will turn around and reward our younger population because there are fewer of you. That doesn’t help a lot of people that are struggling now, however.
USA and Europe are experiencing record levels of immigration since 2000.
@@gauloise6442 The US population would be declining without immigration. The housing game is going to get bad for these boomers when there is no one to buy these expensive homes. Family formation is crashing. Good luck.
Graduated college 20 years ago. Busted my butt at a company for a bit out of school, and got experience. Got a job somewhere else for a decent pay raise. Got more experience, changed companies and got a promoted title and pay raise. Had to delay having kids a bit, but did the dual income/no kid thing for a while, bought a house, then had a kid. A couple job changes later, I kinda peaked as far as my job title goes without higher education (PhD, certification, etc), but I’m comfortable at this level. Wife too. We worked with people who stayed in college to get their PhD instead of working those years, and they got out of school and were managing people who had 10 years experience in the field. So yeah, that PhD starts you off higher in the company, and you go up from there.
It all depends on the major you choose to study though. If you get a degree in art, don’t expect museums to bow down to you and offer you high salary. Choose a degree you can do but also one that earns decent money - if having money is something that drives your life goals: kids, house i suburb, vacations at Disney, new car every 6 years, etc. If money isn’t required for your life goals, then follow the path of happiness - long term happiness. Could mean some long days and a lot of work for a while.
The future is empty houses nobody can afford until there is an inevitable crash in which the lower and middle classes will get screwed, followed by another bubble with the same results. Eventually there will be some major paradigm shift, probably due to technology and there's really no way to guess accurately what will happen after that.
I can guarantee that for the foreseeable future though quality of life will continue to decline as far as is possible without inciting revolt. Billions are spent on big data which essentially translates to knowing exactly how badly people can get screwed while still accepting it. Jobs will be polarized between extremely high level jobs that require high levels of continuously gained knowledge (tech, medical, science), and extremely low level jobs that require tasks that are cost ineffective to automate (things that require human judgment or really dexterous manipulation like picking strawberries). Also jobs in 'arts' will grow as people will continue to crave affordable entertainment, though there is some theoretical maximum here. Endgame is most people make just enough money to consume the products on the market which they will require as life becomes increasingly more complex.
The bright side is all things eventually fail, so if we live long enough there's a possibility for a positive change, though there is no guarantee of that.
It's more than jobs and house prices. The financial systems in the USA are fundamentally different, starting in the 1980s. It used to be people made a living wage, and CEOs and others in the "C Suites" made substantially more, but not ridiculously so (not 1000+ times more than the average worker). The object of companies now is to serve the shareholders and the upper execs, not the employees and the customers. The object is to make megabucks, not to pay a living wage, or give a rat's a** about their employees. Sadly, it's a losing game for young people today.
I'm at the leading edge of Gen X, and believe me, long before there were millennials to say, "Okay, Boomer," we knew the rules were changing on us, and some of us figured out right away that we would never be the ones in a position to make the rules. I hope the currently-young generation succeeds in using the leverage of their numbers to create a better post-Boomer world.
They won't. I don't call them millenniaks--I call them Junior Boomers. But maybe gen z will get sick of living in an online outrage machine.
@@felixoupopote don't see the world getting any better but more extreme.
@@felixoupopote gen z was mostly raised by gen x.
Gen x are ab*sive, dismissive a-holes. "Oh we were latch key kids, the last to drink from the hose and were spanked, we turned out fine, now leave me alone while I rip this fat cone,".
Gen z are the self aware spawn of gen x, forced to be lived through vicariously by their parents and dismissed for any meaningful effort because they watched gen y get so many participation trophies. We're almost just as emotionally unavailable as gen x, if not even more stoic and overworking ourselves only to be told we whinge too much and "quite quit" for clocking in 5 minutes late, staying back half to a full hour overtime only to not get the 1.5-2x hourly rate for it.
That's actually a Generation Z expression, but otherwise I think you are absolutely right about the rules changing.
They changed all right, I’m another early X, I have two boomer sisters so I was getting the boomer advice played out before my eyes so I just thought I sucked somehow because I couldn’t make it work. One point my sister did tell me, those minimum wage jobs were hard to get at times because there were so many fresh faced kids vying for them! Of course untreated ADHD didn’t help me much.
My boomer parents were able to buy a house in the 70s when they were only making $7 an hour (over double the minimum wage at the time). My mom cannot understand why I can’t afford a one bedroom apartment on my job that requires a degree and work experience pays $1 over the minimum wage for my area. And I don’t even get a match on my 401k contribution.
Have they told you to “just stop wasting money on the unnecessary things” speech yet? My parents tried telling me to stop paying for laundering on uniforms that it would take me HOURS to launder and press on my own. And that my Costco membership cost too much (when I share it with a sibling and save greatly on staples bought 6x per year).
Have you told them about inflation, how much they $7 is really worth nowadays compared to before. But I know in the end thats the story they’ll stick to and won’t change their speech
@@JamesDecker7 constantly. Even if it’s something essential like toothbrush heads, soap, or new shoes. My mom: “you know, you don’t have to spend $120 on new running shoes. You can get them for $10 at Walmart.” Yes, but I run run everyday and I want shoes that don’t kill my feet or joints and won’t be dead after three wears…. MOM. Who complains about her 10 year old shoes hurting her feet 😂
@@Hersheychocolate12 I did, I even showed her the inflation calculators. My parents could afford a house, two kids, pets, two cars, vacations, AND add to retirement (my mom’s company offered a pension along with a match for a 401k).
@@Hersheychocolate12 I had this conversation with a Boomer. Her husband got $10,000 annually right out of college and I told her that at the time I graduated college (right into the recession) that I worked a full-time almost-minimum wage job and got about $10,000 annually. I can't remember the year she told me, but when we adjusted for inflation, it was as if her husband made $80,000 after his bachelor's in today's market which I'm not close to getting even after my master's in Public Health and full-time employment. When I shared this information with her and my living situation at the time (had a roommate, paying off loans, living off ramen and cereal with no health or dental insurance due to being broke) she just kind of shrugged it off as if the difference wasn't that big. 😑
I graduated high school in 1975. Yeah, another boomer. There was gas rationing and inflation was running at over 13%. Rent for a 1BR apt was $160 and minimum wage was around $1.60. My family suffered shattering losses so I didn't go to college right after high school. It took me until I was 45 to save ANY money. Every time I got two cents saved some disaster came along, usually medical, and wiped out my wealth. A bad wisdom tooth made me go homeless even though I had a FT job and insurance. I never wanted to be a parent so I didn't let it happen.
What seems to be the case is that even though the boomer fiction of 'bootstrapping' and not counting inheritance as a leg up the American system loves keeping an 'underclass' of permanently poor people who will literally work themselves to death just to survive. The American system is designed to serve businesses not people. Once we change that we may make progress. Your generation and those who come after have to pick up the banner for the people. Those boomers who've been environmental and economic activists all these decades are burned out, old and simply can't raise hell as we once did. Your generation and those who come after give me what tiny hope I have for mankind.
We live in a society where making money is seen as the aim of life. To the extent that large numbers of people seem to believe that if you are rich you are a morally good person, and that poverty is a moral failing.
That has led to a decades long project to align society so as to create the business focussed economic, legal and political system you observe.
I love this response! Thank you for sharing.
I think poverty is just a result of having to work for low wages. It is certainly not a moral failing. Something like 40% of all jobs now pay low wages, defined as being under $15 an hour. Pretty soon we will all be working for next to nothing.
Those environmentalist Boomers are also highly likely to be the homeowning residents that oppose any kind of denser, more affordable housing anywhere nearby.
Trans: "I've been blaming Generation X for everything that goes wrong since the day they were born, and I'm not gonna stop now!"
“Toxic” is the wrong word here. I would go with “misinformed” or “irrelevant”. Both my parents are boomers and they gave me lots of financial advice, but neither went to college or had to deal with debt. And the career I selected doesn’t pay decent wages until you’re at the PhD level or higher (I’m a wildlife biologist). It took me living in my van for 6 years while doing research projects as a post-doc and research scientist before I could pay off debt for my masters and save enough for a down payment for a house. Finally at the age of 38, I bought a small house built in the 1950s. My parents were always confused on why it took me so long, but I had to tell them how things changed. They took advice from their parents and it worked out, so they thought the same advice would help me, but it didn’t. But they weren’t being malicious or toxic: they thought the advice they were giving would serve me as it did them, but now they understand why it didn’t.
Advice can be well-intentioned and still toxic. It’s toxic *because* it’s misinformed.
1) Getting a 4 year degree will get you a good paying job
2) Get in on the ground-floor and work your way up.
3) Work a minimum wage job. Nobody is above flipping burgers.
4) You should buy a starter home.
5) If you want kids you should have them.
6) If you work hard you will be able to retire.
There.
Thank you
Thanks!
thank you!
Thank you.
11:12 The argument against 4) is pretty threadbare. The poverty line isn't meaningful to all people, getting hired at minimum wage doesn't mean you'll be working minimum wage all year, it's mostly personal choice to limit your working hours to 40 a week, and always consider if the boss making the work place more pleasant could be steered pay raises. That's the personal front.
On the policy front, minimum wages ought to be abolished and replaced with wage subsidies. Minimum wages incentivize lower employment and pickier bosses, even when they are shadow efficiency wages. Wage subsidies are a corrective to at least force the public interest in helping out the working poor grapple with the social cost to do so.
in my orientation at my current job, they told us the story of how the CEO 'started out sweeping the floors at a local store and now he's the CEO.' which turned out to not be entirely true (his family knew people higher up, so he only had to work at the store level as a starter job for a little while for optics before nepotism shot him right up the chain)
and on the topic of pensions, my mom's former employer decided they were just going to not honor pensions for their workers who had been promised pensions, they were going to do something else instead (roll some money over to their 401ks I think? they still got SOMETHING added to their retirement package, but it isn't/wasn't a pension, and isn't anywhere near as good as a pension would have been). my mom actually got "lucky" in a sense because she got cancer a few years ago and a brain tumor that affected her ability to work (she is in remission, for anyone who read that and worried, she's doing great now - but she still can't do mental work like she used to), so she got to retire early which meant she got her pension...and she literally got it a few months before the company cut everyone else off. she had to take a lump sum tho, otherwise they would've done to her the same thing they did to everyone else.
I'll never understand how company benefits package including retirement like pensions. Did people back then really think they'd honor that after so many decades? Like what's stopping them from just firing you just before retirement? Similarly, some companies nowadays offer equity in the form of RSUs that vest after a certain period. Before that period ends, how do I trust the company from coming up with bullshit to fire you?
@@sor3999 well...companies DID used to honor pensions. so, yeah, of course people believed in them, because they used to actually be a thing. There are a lot of people today that are still alive and still receiving their pensions.
but you're also right, never trust a company, especially in America where employment is "at will," because over time companies got greedier, and realized they could boost their short term profits if they screwed over their workers more and more, and they did start doing the things you mentioned more often, and just phased out their pensions and retirement options altogether. and our country is suffering for those choices, but they don't care cos they're rich, and the stonks line is going up. It will all crash eventually, but they won't be the ones to suffer for it so they don't care.
Same thing happened to my dad, an excellent health insurance deal was part of his pension but after he retired they decided to get rid of it and he has to use medicare. It's such a bait and switch.
@@sor3999 My dad worked at the same company for decades, they laid him off literally the day before he was supposed to get the "cadillac" pension. From how my dad was treated, I vowed never to be loyal to a company or to do anything but look after my own interests.
The idea that a company should give employees anything is laughable
“Starter home” my partner of 20 years and I just want -a- home at this point. Having kids, much as we love them, was a massive financial mistake and now we have nothing for them to inherit because our lives were skin by the teeth after the recession and a never ending series of “you’re not poor enough for help but you certainly don’t make enough for a savings that can endure all of life’s unexpected nonsense and the medical costs of just trying to live” 🙃
I feel blessed to hit financial independence at 32 a couple years ago
Most advice from the older generations is not valid or bad
Here are some of the best advice I can give
1. Live below your means and invest the difference
2. Focus on increasing your income instead of penny pinching lattes
3. Don't use social media and try to keep up with others
Good luck on your journey
How much of my pay check should I invest 50%?
@BentoBuff I've always liked the 50:30:20 rule and just try to retire by 65, while using trying to build up a real estate empire on the side.
I live in a developing country. I'm 35 years old, married and, thank God, have a own house and a job. I earn about 14k a year. I don't have a car, nor do I have all of the "basic" commodities I think the video is trying to say, but I have the basic things I need. I do have a degree, sadly it wasn't a good one. It was art related, and I regret wasting my time on it, now I didn't just cross my arms and said "well life sucks" I made it work, and got more education. Paying for my things little by little, after some 10 to 12 years, I now have a stable life, this is not to say that I live like a king, as I said before. In fact, my wife and I haven't had a vacation, nor even a honeymoon, because of money, but we do go out every now and then whenever we can spare a little from our budget. This year we are getting closer to our goal, are almost clear of debt and have an excellent credit score.
I 100% agree with the advice the OP gives, especially the "live below your means and invest the difference" one. This video instead feels like "it's not my fault, it's the world's fault, and my parents just don't understand"
I'll also say before you invest you want a safety net for emergencies.
I made the mistake of selling stocks because I needed to pay rent.
I bought AMD at $2 and sold my shares at $16.
Today AMD is worth $112 a share. -_-
@@i9incher Investments should always be for the long term not anywhere near bills.
I’m a 27 year old part time bank teller/full time “nontraditional” college student and I’m constantly having boomer bank customers chastise me for not having kids “by now,” as if I could afford to graduate college, get married, and buy a house at 22, or like I would want to, or like there isn’t a large possibility that I could be one I’d the large percentage of women who want kids but have infertility issues. It’s very likely that I won’t be able to have biological kids and will end up adopting, largely because I have ADHD and can’t be off my meds for a year or more for each kid while attempting to conceive and being pregnant and function sufficiently at work. They’re just so fully removed from the realities of the current day that they have no idea that things are way more difficult now.
Oh, wow. That’s nuts
That's pretty audacious for bank customers to come and chastise you for not having kids. How do they know you don't have any kids? Why do they think that's any of their business? People suck.
im 27 me lady loves kids obviously wants a big family and busy life. she's graduated makes practically nothing negative every month. I'm 10 15 years away from graduating and having any kind of money. i think she might be better off with out me and finding someone else. she is going to miss out on life because of me
@@lal5555f my partner’s parents were almost 40 and had been married for 12 years before they started having kids. It’s okay to do things at your own pace! :)
My (young millennial) takes on these:
1. If you see benefit in going to college, go, but don't just go because you were pressured to by your parents/teachers. Know that there are other options depending on what you want to do, like trade school, online certification programs, etc. And yeah, if you do decide you want to try getting a 4-year degree, starting at community college and transferring is a good option for at least saving some money.
2. Completely agree with her advice. If you're not satisfied where you are and there's no opportunities for growth at your current job, don't be afraid to leave and take a different job elsewhere.
3. These days since it is so hard to make a livable wage like she's getting at, I would suggest for most people to work multiple jobs and/or monetize a hobby in addition to your main job. There are many ways to do this.
4. With how pricey homes are, it's best not to rush into buying one. If living with your parents well into your adult years is an option, that's probably what you should do while you save up.
5. Obviously don't have kids if you don't want them, but yeah, also don't have them if you do want them but can't afford them. Opt for volunteering to help children in your community and/or getting a job which involves working with kids instead if you have those sorts of desires. Having kids of your own is a huge undertaking not to take lightly, so only have them if you're financially stable enough to ensure a reasonably good life for them.
6. Yeah saving for retirement nowadays will take more conscious effort than it did for past generations, but we should still make the effort. Personally, I will not retire unless/until I become too unhealthy to be able to work but since we can't predict what might happen in life, it's best to be prepared in case we have to retire sooner than expected. Just like having an emergency fund.
I have to tell my friends this all the time when they are down about their parents success vs theirs. We didn't have the same opportunity or market dynamics that our parents did. Our version of financial success will not look like theirs, will not be with the same strategies, and will not be on the same timeline.
Not as long as everything you believe is negative.
Market dynamics on the job side is only one small part of it. The mayor problem is tax policies and the monetary expansions which massively favours those with assets
You are so on point. I’m 70 plus, attended college in the early 1970s. It cost under 3 grand a year including room and board, and as a single person I could easily afford to rent an apartment by myself earning minimum wage after I graduated. Even as a person with little money I had an old beater car of my own to drive. Some friends spent a month or two traveling around the USA, or even Europe after college graduation. It was so affordable back then. I’m sure my expectations were much lower than what young people aspire to today, of course. My world was much smaller. People often did work for one company their whole life and expected to climb the ladder for future rewards. Young people do have it so hard these days, but I’ve also watched the ones around me make new opportunities for themselves. They are incredible.
My dad also went to college in the 70s, and even as a foreign student his tuition at a state school was only $300 per semester. The cost for his peers who were in-state residents? Five dollars for the health fee.
Thank you for these words from a broke milennial.
Procrastinating and not starting one as soon as I was eligible was not the best move. It's really not that hard to open an account and manage yourself. And you can also have your brokerage manage it for you. If you're reading this, start now.
I'm excited for the next bull market! But yes definitely going to be making money during the coming recession!
@@christineturner1751 My greatest concern is how to recover from all these economic and global troubles and stay afloat especially with the political power tussle going on in the US.
@@darlenemyers2882 As with any big financial decision, it’s important to keep your guard up for economic risks. However, smart planning, time management and seeking advice from a financial adviser can help keep you and your money safe.
@@linacui667 I agree with you. I ventured into stock with 109k and now I'm about 30k short of half a million dollars. Credits to Suzanne Stephens Ellis. She's verifiable
@@rebeccabaldlin8377 Interesting, I just looked up this person out of curiosity, and surprisingly she seems really proficient. I thought this was just some overrated BS, I appreciate this.
“Selling a home for seven figures that they bought for $0.25 when Nixon was President” was the point where the wine I was drinking shot out my nose, in case you were curious.
This channel is fantastic. As a GenXer who’s still bitter about boomer parents misguided about the potential of the current society, thank you for your amazing work. 🙏
I get the bitter part, it’s amazing how advice can potentially derail or guide you.
The other reality regarding not being able to work your way up, is that most things are outsourced....The mailroom is no longer in the same building where you can meet the executive.
my parents are boomers (born 1958) and they fortunately did not give me any of this advice but they gave me one very good piece of advice which was to not go straight into a masters degree after undergrad. it has saved me some of the pain my peers have experienced by getting the exact same job they could get with a bachelor’s once they had a master’s.
As someone who teaches at a 4 year university, most people should go to community college first, especially if you don't have a very very clear major and goal in mind. Check with whatever university you want to transfer into and make sure the credits will transfer and then take those gen eds and basic 100 courses at your local community college. Not only will it be overall cheaper, but it will clarify for you if college is appropriate for you.
This is when my smug Québec ass jumps in, like -- We baked that straight into our education system here, as soon as we commandeered it from the church in the 60s. Basically we end high school a year sooner, and then if you want to go to university, you go through two years of pre-university "CÉGEP" (basically community college), which has gen ed, some of what you would call 100-level courses), and then a BA or BSc at a university is 3 years instead of 4. There is no tuition for CÉGEP -- only a small administrative fee. And university here costs like 3-4 grand a year. But also -- it's not "the college experience". Most people aren't housed on campus, it's not like a boarding school for adults. Also, if you don't want to go to university, you can get a technical degree in CÉGEP -- that takes three years instead of two.
It's a weird system for a lot of North-Americans, and people feel like it's really odd. But IT WORKS SO WELL ! I LOVE IT ! Be better if university was tuition-free, but still...
THIS. Do ANYTHING to make a more informed decision when you finally do take the plunge and enroll in an expensive degree that will saddle you with debt. Either start off in community college, or if you are in another country where university is subsidized, start out in a course that offers a more varied set of subjects so that you can try out your interests and see what really “sticks”. Or at very least, get a ton of advice from people within your interest industries to get their opinion on what working in that career is really like (and whether you will earn enough to pay off the student loans your degree will saddle you with). This, in my opinion is a crucial financial step. Degrees and careers are not all equal. Some degrees lead to a stable comfortable life where you can pay off your loans are live successfully, others….well…..do not. We need to be making this very clear to students finishing high school rather than just telling them to “follow your dreams”………yes, you can still follow your dreams, but each dream has its own path and it does not always need to involve an expensive degree.
This was my route through college. I feel my years at a community college set me up for success at a 4 yr university.
Thank you very much for making this video. Every year around graduation time in the Spring, I get depressed because I didn't complete college like my grandma wants/wanted me to. You've made some really good points and I will look back to this video when I'm feeling discouraged and sad about the trajectory my life took post-high school. Even though I didn't finish college, I'm doing alright for myself, and I wish more people in the older generations (I'm a middle-of-the-road millennial) would understand that college is not the only path forward to putting a roof over one's head.
I felt the same way as you did when I left school in 2006… and some of my relatives still talk crap behind my back because they think I am “struggling.” I have a payed off home and am 100% debt free… I did the reverse gross income calculation of what salary would be required to pocket what I now pocket and I was SHOCKED to find that an indebted (school and mortgage) person would require to make at least $130,000/yr just to take home what I take home… but I didn’t have a fancy impressive job title so people actually believe I am poor or something (I am just frugal and invest most of my money.)
The old advice of going into massive debt for an education is so backward, these people are literally financially sabotaging the the younger generations with this crap and then they wander why they are barely getting by, even the highest educated one or six figure earners… ITS THE DAMN DEBTS!
Thank you!! My husband and I would like to start a family but are pretty sure we only want one child because of work schedules and financial reasons. Every older person I've talked to has said "you should have two or more! they need a playmate. Your child will be lonely!" to which I say "are you going to pay for it?" and that usually stops them. Daycare is a second mortgage at this point and let alone normal costs to raising one child. I also don't want my career to be totally sidetracked. I feel seen so I thank you again.
I get really annoyed with people asking when you will have kids and once you have one when you will have more 😡😡😡😡. It's none of their business! They are not going to raise them and pay for their education so they have absolutely no say in the matter!!! We are older parents and we only have one child,by choice. My sister is on another continent and my husband has 2 siblings both on different continents. Loneliness has nothing to do with how many siblings you have or don't have. Don't let family and friends or anyone tell you what you should do, and yes you can be rude to them for meddling.
Reprioritize...
@@genxx2724 the mother should stay at home is a complete sexist response. Society thanks you for not procreating 👍
@@genxx2724 that's all fine and dandy, until you find yourself a single mother. Then you get dumped on if you dare go on welfare/food stamps, etc. (If that's even a possibility)
Bless your heart... this bought tears... these are the same words my 30-year-old's been saying♥️
I'm a technology consultant in the financial advice industry so all of my clients are financial advice businesses. So many of the advisers started off with no degree as insurance salespeople and now have their own businesses. Nowadays it's mandatory for new financial advisers to have at least a bachelor's degree, it would be illegal for them to join a company straight from school and "work their way up" to being an adviser unless they wanted to work and study at the same time.
Add the student loan debts and after that and taxes, they are pocketing LESS MONEY than the generation that didn’t require a degree for the same job… debt slavery.
My Boomer mother stated my job for the state caring for an autistic adult isn’t a real job though I have health insurance and retirement!
She thinks I need a real job even though I started at the state minimum! I am almost at twice the minimum for the federal wage requirement! She thinks that if I work outside the home my job is legitimate! She doesn’t understand the work from home reality in place from the pandemic! And I have been working from home for several decades!
The bad advice handed out by my father was, "Just save your money." The interest rate on regular savings was 5 1/4 when I was a kid. Now, it's less than 1%, which under the best conditions, is well under the inflation rate. We all know how volatile the stock market is, so it seems like a huge lose-lose.
It's crazy because I've actually made a 10% return on my money by investing in stocks and crypto compared to when I was saving everything in a regular banking savings account with a rate of 0.01% percent APY
Mutual funds?
Stocks are somewhat volatile, but if it's something you won't touch for twenty+ years anyways, that volatility stops being as important compared with returns
The stock market is a long term investment, you buy a stock and keep it for 5 - 15 years at least. Of course you're going to loose money if you panic sell at even the SLIGHTEST drop.
remember when fasting became popular? been doing it ever since and I can save more money because I don't eat lol but I have some savings now because I did this. felt like crap all those years but I did it. Probably permanently damaged my body for this but money....to live...is essential.
No joke an aunt told me:
"Have kids. They grant tax credits."
Lol. Pass. I can pay my taxes at full price. I can't pay childcare, ever.
Im completely for having kids (I’d love another one) but in no way do the tax credits come close to making up for the cost of childcare and the general costs of having children lol.
I had friends with kids who have told me this 🙄 I ran the numbers for various daycare options along with the increase for health insurance and additional expenses… obviously paying for one child would have cost more than the tax credit. Their solution: don’t work and then you won’t have to pay for childcare.
Childcare is $20k per year for 1 kid where I live, no nights or weekend options. No tax credit is giving you 20k back. Even if you made 50k per year, childcare would take half of your take home amount. And if you made 50k per year, you're no longer eligible for state benefits like food stamps and health insurance, effectively killing your entire salary while spending very little time with your kid.
My older sister said the same. I can't pay for myself and a child.
We have only made it work with leaning on grandparents for childcare. Multigenerational support is so crucial these days.
This channel is the good-hearted common-sense I have not been able to gather in the entire 12 years of my working life since college. I so appreciate it.
Younger boomer here, didn't have kids for exactly the issues you indicated. Also, my BA in psychology was basically useless when I graduated. Was lucky that I found a job that required such and left it 4 years later because I HATED it. Worked as a cashier and some other boring jobs for a few years until I lucked into something that I could stay with long term. I feel really bad for those who don't have the options that I had back in the day.
at least you accept the reality. meanwhile some of my previous bosses who got into their current high paying job with high bonuses and annual market competitive increases decades ago and have a huge mansion thats almost paid off. meanwhile we as peons get like 3% annual and at a low salary and are expected to stay long term.
Thank you so much for recognizing the reality of the situation that a lot of us in the younger generations are in. It can be incredibly frustrating as the child of a Baby Boomer couple to be told all this advice and "wisdom" that we've learned through experience is no longer true/applicable.
Susan, if you're comfortable sharing, what line of work did you end up in?
@@helenatube I took a test to get a job at a Federal Agency - I had taken accounting courses in the summer while I was getting my BA, and after a few years of positions that really weren't the best fit, I was able to transfer to one that worked out well and used all the skills I had gained, just not in a way I originally had anticipated. A combination of luck and being in the right place at the right time, plus not being a jerk, and a few co-workers who encouraged me and a few others and pointed us in the right direction.
@@uhohspaghettios2391 I'm happy I didn't have kids for just this reason. The world friggin' changed and what worked in the past is totally not applicable. Plus, we just couldn't afford them, back in the 90s when this could have happened.....Even with a decent job, I could see the writing on the wall, as things had started to get worse for the middle class.....
PREACH! Especially about women in the workplace/having children. I'm a stay at home mom, and have been for the majority of the past decade, and I constantly feel insignificant because I "don't work," but childcare costs are insane. I'd love to hear more about how stay at home parents can contribute financially, without getting a minimum wage job that my not even make it worth returning to work.
There are tons of work from home job now
I've been a stay at home mom since 1990. I am very frugal. I am also a very late boomer and don't give my kids stupid advice lol.
"Stay at home" spouses can contribute a lot of financial value without earning money. They have the time to think and try things to figure out how the family can be frugal. I am not frugal, because I work full time and I don't have the energy left to do even the well known money saving things. The "Stay at home" spouse is working as a cook, a cleaner, doing general errands, planning and researching, before even factoring in child care. You can have time or money, but you only get both if you're super rich or your family can live on one income.
Magic pot can cook a meal for a family of four and 20 minutes. Washer/dryer do all the clothes cleaning. And robot vacuums can clean your house floors. You will need a job once the kids are teenagers or you will be freeloading.
Don't over clean the house. There's plenty of evidence showcasing the rise and allergies due to a house that's too clean. Humans are never meant to be in a sterile environment long term
@@everythingisfine9988 But do you need a full-time job? And what if you want to do volunteer work instead of paid? Be careful about your answer, because you might be insulting my mum. ;)
The most timeless advice I ever received was from my late grandfather that when it comes to your career path there will be many twists and turns as well as opportunities arising. I started to remember what he told me 13 years later amid the pandemic where I was let go of and then less than a year later finding a job that I generally like more as the job I had before wasn't good for my mental health where I even went above and beyond for them yet my loyalty wasn't good enough so I learned that loyalty to a company won't help you retain your job there for too long as they can easily let you go on a whim. This was probably among the many twists and turns that my late grandfather was talking about - mind you he was part of the great generation and not a boomer.
It was both validating and heart-breaking to hear how many people don't have kids or as many kids as they'd like because they can't afford it. I wish I could have one more but we can't fathom how on earth we could possibly afford to give them everything they need! It seems down right irresponsible to do that to them. I've mentioned this to my parents and in-laws when they badger me about when we will have another and it seems to fall on deaf ears.
"it is common place for minimum wage jobs to require master degrees" ... good lord, what kind of dystopian time line are we living in???
I think this is a little exaggerated
@@lilyyoung1002 minimum wage is good, like she says some employers expect free labour as "internships"
I think it should have been some entry level jobs require masters, not minimum wage 😂
@@amynextdoor I've seen some full stack web developer listings, thanks to josh fluke, that want to pay like 12$ an hour.
That makes sense now
The financialization of every single basic necessity will be the downfall of our country.
I'm so thoroughly exhausted by how many things in the financial world are now risky when for boomers they were steady.
I'd love to start investing my money, but it's so hard to believe that there's not a bubble about to pop around the corner. I'd love to but a home but if the housing market crashes I've paid $600k for a $300k house. I'd love to climb the corporate ladder at a job I like and I'm good at but if I don't look for new jobs my 2% raises will definitely be outpaced by inflation.
I don't want to be an enterprising young go-getter, exploring every option to make my fortune. I just want to work 40 hours a week and be able to live comfortably with my family, then retire. That American Dream is dying.
I relate to this exhaustedness of being an enterprising go getter. Why must we all endlessly challenge ourselves for the next job, next raise, next promotion, just for our LinkedIn to look good for the even further out in the future hiring managers? I just want to have control over my life without thinking how it’ll be judged in the future. Every job I’ve had has been significantly more challenging than the last and I might be at my breaking point now but I feel like it’ll “look bad” that I’d quit a prestigious opportunity less than a year in, and not move on to an even more prestigious opportunity. I don’t think of someone as being bad if they quit a job and move on to something easier but I think recruiters do look negatively on that in aggregate when they’re trying to fill roles.
Living in fear of some sort of bubble is ridiculous. Even if there was you stay the course.
I'd just invest, the more time spent investing the more it grows. I am not worried about "the bubble" since I have 30 years yet until I retire. What goes down comes back up again.
If you have a healthy savings account that you don’t touch (except for when something like a housing market crash happens), when the market does inevitably crash yet again you’ll be prepared. Real estate is one of the smartest investments you can make because it can help create generational wealth. After my parents died, I got lucky. I got a house and I didn’t have to pay a dime for it. And since I live in CA, I don’t pay taxes on it either. I can choose to sell it, live in it, or update it and rent it out for passive income (and the best kicker is that the mortgage is fully paid off, so I would get 100% profit).
Also, even if the market crashes again, it will boom again as well. Investments are about the long haul.
Although college is typically considered a way to "get a job", it is really a higher level of education. I'm so thankful I was able to go to college. i'm so happy my life experience was enhanced by classes in humanities and creative writing as well as play writing, biology and education. Did it make me rich? No. It was not until I read the book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" that I began to understand financial literacy. Once I had those basic ideas I was able to at least know the basic idea of income and expenses. I learned how to figure short term and long term interest, good debt and bad debt. I did have some student loans though not excessive that I was able to pay off in ten years. No generation has it perfect. The advice you mentioned certainly needs to be examined and evalutated. For some people college is not the right choice especially since much of it appears to be online anyway which I find to be grossly inferiour to in person classes.
Gen X here, I haven’t watched the video yet, but will. A couple of observations. X was def going to ruin the world with our wicked ways… I went the community college route and transferred to 4-year. I could not afford college any other way. Companies were merging, putting long term employees out of work, stripping pensions and benefits. Why would I ever be loyal to a company when they will put me out to pasture when it suits them? I have heard about loyalty my entire career and have never received any. Make the best decisions that you can based on your situation. And don’t ever let anyone tell you who you are!
Gen X didn't do this, Boomers did.
Preach, TFD! My Gen X husband and I are still paying our grad student loans. We both were told as 22 year olds that our BA degrees meant nothing in the Washington DC market. We HAD to get masters degrees to even be considered for an interview and fell prey to the “you can totally borrow whatever you need” from 2 expensive universities. We are telling our Gen Z daughter to 1) consider going into a technical degree first because electricians and HVAC techs can start making high 5 figures and work/save before going to university 2) if she wants to go straight to college go to community college for 2 years and then transfer into a 4 year institution 3) start her own business- she may not need a college degree if she is already a boss 😍Thank you again for all you do, TFD!
Yep. My sister has a masters and she's flat broke. My cousin, meanwhile, she was smart: she spent a fraction of that money on trade-school and she now makes just shy of six figures doing HVAC.
Trade school is the new path to a solid career.
Funny thing is, in the future she may as well be saying that your advice was BS. Since you don't have a crystal ball (and neither did your parents), who knows what the economy is going to be like? We can only try to guess from our own experiences to help the people we love, the rest is click-bait generation wars.
YOU both are parent goals! Amazing advice!
They definitely lied to yall. I am from Washington, DC and have lived here all 33 years of my life. It's pretty easy to make it here even without a degree.
May I ask how old you and your partner are now??
My father came to America in the 80's as an immigrant and started as a janitor at the local mall. He then, after 3 decades and no college degree, worked his way up to engineering supervisor of the whole mall. But he wasn't immune to the changing economics environment of the states. One year before he would receive a pension he was fired and replaced by someone younger with a masters degree who was no doubt payed less than him. Watching all of that play out dispelled a lot of illusions of American work culture for me pretty early.
I'm still an advocate for going to college, but I'm all for taking the most affordable route to get that degree done. Take the concurrent credit courses in high school (or AP/IB courses), do community college, seek out the scholarships, go to the cheaper state school, etc.
Agree. Ultimately, so long as they are providing a quality degree, and you are gaining the knowledge you need, get that degree via cheaper means.
💯
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. And if you avoid those with the glossy 4-color brochures showing the manicured quad, the fro-yo kiosks, and the climbing wall, you’ll probably luck into a good deal.
I went to university overseas and have no debt. It's an option most people forget to explore.
As a Boomer with two grown kids I say "You are right in everything you said." It goes to show that children have to be very careful in the choice of parents.
🤣
😂🏆
This is not a new trend. I graduated in engineering in 1991 and it was the same back then. I had an entry level engineering job only because I had worked a co-op job for more than one year during college. My college found me the low paid co-op job. When I later went to law school, I had to work a free legal internship after my first year of law school. I got a law job, because I had the internship experience and also sent out 500 resumes, which only led to 2 interviews back in 2000.
To be honest, this advice works well if you’re privileged.
- my parents paid for college for me at a top school
- my first job was a summer internship during college that paid me 4100/month + paid for my housing and plane ticket to and from the internship
- before graduating, I had 8 job offers, one of which offered 150k signing bonus, 150k salary, and a 100k yearly bonus
Most of my friends in college had the same experience.
Glad you're honest about it 🤣.
What kind of jobs offered such high salaries right out of college?
Yup, I was really privileged and my parents paid for my Bachelor's and Master's. It was hard getting a job with my Bachelor's (Psychology) so I went for my Masters (Social Work) and worked lots of low paying direct care jobs. The only way I was able to afford an apartment was by living with my boyfriend (now husband) who had a much higher paying job, but also had a good chunk of school debt.
@@marabookstagram investment banking (Jp Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc), quantitative researcher/engineering at hedge funds (Jane street, citadel, Hrt), software engineering at Google/Meta/Apple, management consulting at McKinsey, Bain, BCG.
These companies almost exclusively hire from Ivies, MIT, Stanford, and a few top public colleges though.
@@lindawang5649 Though not quite as high starting salaries, the aerospace/astronautical engineering industry is similar.
When I saw the title I thought “Chelsea is going to go OFF on this one.” I was not disappointed!
This was my favorite one of hers by far!
ok i was like go off niece
She rarely disappoints!
When you find out that one of your favorite TH-camrs is also watching the content of your other favorite TH-camr!
Fancy seeing you here!
Without oversharing, my main piece of advice as a Millennial for other millennials and Gen-z is that the two largest x-factors in your financial future are a) potential earnings b) location.
Don’t pursue a degree or go into a career where earning potential isn’t reasonable to live with today’s high cost of living, but esp specific to your area’s cost of living.
I purposely moved from NJ/NY area after graduating my undergrad in 2009 to Houston, TX because I knew cost of living was substantially less and wages went much further here.
If you live in the NE or NW, you need way more to make a decent living than states in the south, Midwest, etc.
Be willing to relocate. It may not be easy at first, but you’ll meet new people and you can easily keep in contact with family and friends these days. It was worth it for me.
College was the first time school actually worked for me. I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot, felt successful for the first time in my life. I was also supremely lucky - my mother had saved money to cover my costs if I went to a state college. The thing about college is it teaches you how to really think thru problems like grade school simply can't. I can work thru problems and issues in ways high school graduates seldom can. I still started at an entry level job working the telephone bank for a year and a half after graduating (1991) and then was an office assistant for a couple years. So my degree did NOT get me a "good job". My degree PLUS EXPERIENCE allowed me to move up over a period of about 6 years, into the job I've been at since then.
I’ve never had a TH-cam video make me feel so hopeless before. I’m 21 and trying my best to climb out of poverty. Got a 401k, 3 roommates, headed back to online college that my job pays for, but it all feels futile and I’m still below the poverty line and not putting away enough for retirement. What am I going to do?
I felt this way at 21. At 31 you will be in a MUCH better place. It may feel like all of your efforts are pointless now but I guarantee your actions now will pay off later
Move to a low cost of living state/area. Never have a child, don’t waste money on worthless stuff. Live frugally. Dump all extra money into stocks/cryptocurrency/whatever. Keep enough liquid cash that will last a few years if you got fired or quit your job. Zero stress
if you have started saving for retirement at 21, you are already ahead of the game. Hang in there!
Don't get discouraged. College that your job pays for is golden apples. The main decision you need to make is choosing a major. Health careers are still well paying jobs. Nursing AA from a community college is an excellent starter option. You are doing all the right things, but the path you are on requires a 10 year plan, with adequate recognition of milestones - the first $1000 in your 401(k), the awareness that every time you complete 18 credits you have finished a semester of full-time college work - recognize and celebrate these milestones and keep on trucking'. I wish you well.
Stay the course with you 401(k). I started early with retirement accounts. In my 20’s I couldn’t contribute much. But lo and behold, even small amounts grown into not-so-small amounts if you leave them in the market for 30 years. I’m approaching 50 and those investments are now big enough to change my retirement age by several years.
Dude my dad (Boomer) started as a cashier at Burger King in the 70s and ended up being the Regional VP overseeing 1000+ stores within 10 years!! SOS - BOOMERS REALLY THINK THIS IS STILL POSSIBLE NOW
Maybe for a white male
IT IS BUT Y'ALL ARE SPOILED BRATS. OVER INDULGED.
@@bourgeoisbarbie7734 Chill out already.
This was in large part because it was a time before there were enough college grads to do all these jobs. As time goes on, knowledge becomes more specialised and more people are educated in more specific things. Michael Lewis talks about how when he got into trading on Wall Street, he was the first generation where everyone had college degrees in business or something else similar. Many of the more senior people went into trading or banking right out of school, but the more people go to college, the higher the bar gets set at the entry level.
@@krombopulos_michael I could author a book on the futility of this illogical reasoning and I'd start by attacking your vocabulary and economic vernacular along with syntax for construction of law (natural and that of men*) for authority.
Colleges are higher indoctrination centers. Where is your place in this global ponzi scheme?
*Never masculine, always neutered; "they/Them" is PLURAL
For retirement, the hardest part is being able to contribute enough while still having enough money to survive.
Get a financial coach. They can help you create a budget.
@@lisajanes1005 ha, I had a budget and stuck to it. I live frugally. I had to stop contributing because the cost of living grew faster than any raises. I have to make rent before saving.
@@blktauna get a cheaper place or a roommate.
@@lisajanes1005 i already had a room mate. welcome to nyc friend.
@@blktauna That's your problem, NYC, it's only going to get worse. If you can go back with your parents, that's the only viable option for a lot of people right now.
I saw an ad lately, by a fast food company that claimed many of their franchises were owned by people who had started at the bottom---cooking, sweeping floors, etc. Can't remember which chain it was, but it gave me that creepy MLM vibe.
I think the discussion around minimum wage jobs misses the fact that 'elite' institutions and hiring gatekeepers will absolutely hold that job against you. There's a ton of research around "culture fit" as being code for "does this person fit within our self created image of being a sophisticated, luxury, desirable place to work/will they present themselves to clients as being of a similar social class and/or possessing similar political sensibilities." Having a working class background is seen as having sympathies/sensibilities towards class issues and wealth inequality and is a sure-fire way to get culled from the hiring pool on day one.
That's so interesting and depressing. Do you have any examples/articles on that subject?
@@cassidypintozzi4475 I highly recommend Lauren Rivera's book Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs
Yep. I couldn't find a professional job fast enough after college and had to take a string of hourly crap jobs to make rent. Now my resume is ruined.
@@cassidypintozzi4475 For ex, if you are female and get an admin job to make ends while job hunting, NEVER put that on your CV. You will always be seen as admin. and not be taken seriously
I appreciate that you’ve touched on what I call “the academic arm’s race.” I’m in a profession that requires an entry level doctorate degree but I have coworkers who were grandfathered in with bachelors degrees. Did the pay reflect the increased education? Of course not.
I genuinely curious, what industry requires a doctorate for entry-level? It sounds so crazy, but I'm sure I'm just failing to think of something obvious.
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewup I’d guess being a professor. Lots of one off classes are taught by people with MAs but many university won’t take you on as a regular prof without a doctorate. Whereas up until the 1980s many college professors just had undergraduate degrees because it was considered sufficient. Obviously, if you passed the degree, you knew the stuff and thus you could teach the degree
Ahhh yes that is a good example. Thank you!
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewup Pharmacist in PA requires Pharm D. New Physical Therapists are now DPT, all pushed by universities to make money. Why is your nurse practitioner now Dr. ...DNP...out of control.
@@kiliesmom-kidgrewup omg I vanished but yes I’m a physical therapist.
Gen X here. My parents raised me to gauge your income, and it should be cut into quarters. 1st quarter pays your rent/mortgage, 2nd pays all bills (water, gas, electric, etc), 3rd is for yourself, 4th is savings. When I noticed a huge shift where my income no longer matched this, reducing to 1/3, back in 1997, my parents listened and we went over how much even their retirement was no longer stretched as well as it had been. Now? It doesn't work at 50/50. 100% goes to rent/mortgage. Wait, what? I've been barking about inflation for quite a while. Now, people are looking at it. Where back then, I was told to shut up, I didn't know what I was talking about.
I am a boomer (young) and I agree with pretty much everything you've said. You have to keep in mind they are just giving you advice that worked in their time. They are not intentionally giving you bad advice. When I was young I had a mature attitude and outlook. Now that I am older I find I have a much younger outlook than many people my age. I think because I had our son at 35 which was an old mom even then.
Thaťs the point younger people don't seem to get. The very advice given here will be seen as BS in the future, as the economy is sure to change at an even faster pace. No one really knows what's going to pay off in 30 years, we can only try to guess.
@@silvasilvasilva The issue people take isn't that the advice is outdated. Its the pompous condescending attitude many people have of "well it worked for me so why can't you do it, you lazy scrub". It's easy for people to feel like their way of doing things is the right way or even only way if they're blinded by the confirmation bias of their own success. That confirmation bias allows people to ignore the existence of unaccounted factors and changes to the conditions that led to their success. Hell, some of the current regurgitated memes of wisdom like "learn to code" and "learn a trade" are already being debunked. Because we've already witnessed the failure of the "get a tech degree and live comfy" formula from the 90s. There is no magical formula for success and we're annoyed at the people still pushing the idea that there is one.
@@darwinxavier3516 Which means people should be annoyed at whomever gave them that advice, not at a whole "generation" of people, as if labels were helpful in any way. Many of those so called "boomers" are the disaffected working class who saw their jobs shipped abroad and now live in trailer parks. If we're talking life experience, those people can tell you first hand what 40 years of job insecurity looks like. And I could bet they also got completely unhelpful advice back in the day for good measure.
@@silvasilvasilva And I totally agree about treating people as individuals. But certain life strategies are definitely tied to certain eras more than others. The "learn to code" dogshit will be tied more to late gen x through gen z. As those are the people who primarily push it. I don't recall if the youtuber was blaming the generation as a whole or just referring to them as the people most likely to give that advice.
@@darwinxavier3516 Thaťs my issue with this channel. The proper content is now behind a paywall and the more recent videos are basically click-baity rants. As people want someone to blame for their problems and ageism is still acceptable, we get tropes like "the evil boomers made me do it". If you take it acritically (and the comments suggest most viewers do), you wouldn't realize, for example, that millennials are the biggest group of home-buyers in the US. Reality has moved on (specially because older millennials are now pushing 40 - middle-age, here we go!), but acknowledging this fact and adjusting the content accordingly wouldn't get as many clicks.
I’m a millennial with a gen z kid and I do encourage him even from this young age that college isn’t necessary and looking into trade programs or community college are viable options
Having not only gone through my PhD (in 1996 when universities still taught) but having worked at a couple of universities, I would tell any parent to look into dual education (taking college courses while in high-school) and 2+2 programs (2 years community college, 2 years university). You just don't need to attend Harvard to get by the college algebra required course, etc. Do those courses at the community college level! (Just make sure said college is properly accredited!).
Trade school still costs loads of money and only trains you for a narrow line of work. If that kind of work changes, like how truckers' jobs are likely to disappear soon, you are out all that money with no one willing to hire you. My husband is still trying to pay off cooking school debt 15 years later, after making $11 an hour for 10 years. THE EXCEPTION: Become an electrician. They will ALWAYS be in demand.
The problem with that is one bad injury could end his career. That’s very unlikely to happen if he goes to college for business and works in an office. I have a bad shoulder that would’ve prevented me from doing pretty much any trade, but thankfully I went to college for business and worked in an office, so it never impacted my ability to do my job. I also got paid a lot more than trades.
@@johnmartin4641 that could happen with any job. We sadly do not have a decent social safety net for anyone
Calculate what makes more money and what being the most satisfying feeling… always take into consideration the student debt loads when factoring potential income.
Examples:
Indebted “normie” pediatrician pockets THE SAME MONEY MONTHLY as a debt free truck driver and less money than a master plumber.
It’s not what you earn, it’s what you get to keep… earning $200,000 sounds great UNTIL you factor in the massive $300-$400,000 student loan payments and the massive taxes… only the end up pocketing less money than a plumber and the pediatrician eventually catches up to the plumber BY TIME THEY ALMOST 50!
I have worked in a high school for several years. It has been my experience that a lot of college bound students don’t take advantage of all their options. Work-study, scholarships, living at home and commuting, not going to college of choice but the one that is affordable, going to a two year school and transferring, etc. They jump of the loan option because it is easy at the time.
Not everyone has all of those options. Not everyone comes from a good home that they can live in past 18. Not everyone lives in an area where there are good colleges nearby.
@@chengliu872 What would you consider a bad college? Just curious?
I made lots of mistakes, but one piece of advice I feel confident passing along is: prioritize a potential employer that offers tuition assistance in its benefits package. I went to a state university on that benefit and came out with a master's degree without incurring debt. That got me a jump in pay because my degree made their proposals look better. Also, their rule is that you have to work a number of years for them to make their investment in you worthwhile. One way to see that is job security because if they fired me or laid me off, I did NOT have to pay them back for the schooling.
Yes, I got my master's through my company, and immediately got a raise and better internal offers.
Thank you!
I really feel like you're talking to the 2000's younger me who struggled with trying to explain to my parents that things aren't the same anymore. Even when I graduated from high school in 2000, they weren't the same. And yet, even now, I'm still getting that "Get an office job as a secretary and you'll succeed." I had an office job as a secretary, and it paid the same as minimum wage. I have an associates degree because I was undecided in college as to what I wanted to do with my life, constantly torn between "get a business degree" parental advice, and my heart, "get a drama degree, or a music degree in voice, or an astronomy degree, or a filmography degree. Either way, Live your dream." According to them, my dream(s) would end in complete failure, but a business degree? Something that for me would be (and has been in all work) fully soul-crushing, I was guaranteed a job. Yeah. Right.
In 2017 when I went back to take a language course because I simply wanted to learn a new language, each unit cost $42 at that community college. Back in 2000, it was $11 a unit. I pain to know what it costs now to go back and get a bachelors degree in filmography.
100k for bachelors
Definitely follow your passion if it involves the arts! They are the only thing robots won’t be able to do better than us in the future. Dancers, painters, actors, writers, etc. will all be highly valued. It’s already heading that way, then when mass joblessness due to AI becomes more of a present reality, you’ll be one of the only ppl with a boomer-shamed art degree. Go for it!
if you ever want to try, start at community college and get as many courses as they count and can transfer.. then you'll have to be a scholarship and grant hunter in order to afford anything else...
$0 if you work for a union company that offers free college. I haven't paid a penny.
@@darkdaystarot , you have NOT been paying attention (with all due respect). Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Midjourney are getting close to rendering (no pun intended) 2D artists obsolete in terms of technical skill. Creative ideas are still valuable, but the barrier to entry is a lot lower now which means even more competition.
The lack of optimism and "here's how to do it" is saddening. There are ways to buy homes, start families, and retire with dignity. Not everything is doom & gloom. You just have to do things differently.
I wish that even though the financial part of college is absolute bs (and definitely crushing me), people would stop saying that it is completely unnecessary or useless. Colleges / universities teach critical thinking skills that we don't learn in high school and that are necessary for success - and that we don't just magically possess by suddenly crossing into adulthood. There is definitely a better way than what we currently have, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's a useless endeavor unless you are interested in being a scholarly recluse.
Yes thank you. It's gonna kill us, but if we can get our kids degrees with little to no debt, we sure as hell are going to try.
True. I don’t use my degree but I recognize that the social and analytical skills I learned and even an introductory level knowledge on research gives me at least a small edge with prospective employers over those who didn’t go to college. Not to mention, cultural capital.
Personally, I don't think critical thinking and proper education should be put behind a paywall, especially one rivaling The Great Wall of China. We should be taught critical thinking and research skills in high school. We should actually be educated when we graduate high school but it's basically glorified baby sitting with extra steps at this point. They give so much busy work to students "to keep them off the streets" but it doesn't actually do any practical educating. I don't remember 99% of what I learned in high school and while college was interesting. I learned way more at my local community College than I did at my university. It's all just theater. This is all, education, economics, political tension, all a result of late stage capitalism.
@@hotarubinariko so true. Unfortunately with the way everything is set up, it’s very hard to cram everything we want students to learn within high school. When public schools are funded by property taxes, low income neighborhoods get the short end of the stick. Equitable education would require a whole financial and cultural overhaul.
If you ask the average person to remember anything they learned in high school, let alone middle school, they'll give you a blank stare. I sometimes think I'm the weird one because I can remember bits and pieces all the way back to kindergarten, and actual lessons starting around 5th grade.
It would be absolutely fantastic if we could teach those skills to teenagers, but a good chunk of them can't even remember what classes they took, let alone any lessons from them.
Usually, I feel slighted because almost all youtube channels that focus on finance COMPLETELY bypass GenXers; however, in this case, I'm glad to be the "forgotten generation" because at least we're not being blamed for bad money advice. I have a clear understanding of the housing situation, and I let my daughter live with me rent-free while she pursues her college education. She has a bachelor's degree and will be entering grad school soon. She worked hard for this and did all the footwork to get grants, etc. I didn't go to college and at 56, I realize it doesn't make financial sense to do so now. Instead, I focus on preparing for retirement by living frugally and investing. As a widow, I am fortunate to have a home that I don't owe a lot of money on and can help my daughter. Sidenote...you absolutely nailed a spot-on description of my boomer dad; he's a classic facebook-radicalized-Floridian 🤣
Gen Xer here. 100% agree.
I am the same as you ..and luckily I wasn’t raised to blame but just do what I had ..I didn’t have the luxury to blame ..I would have starved ..
Yeah! Gen Xer, too! But, I remember at the beginning of the 90's when we were all the TALK! Boomers wondering what we would become because we were called spoiled, bratty, lazy and combative. I laugh at all of that now because no one mentions us.
I think Gen X realized early on the situation was corrupt/hypocritical, checked out and found their own way alone. The Millennials really bought hard into what Boomers told them and only found out later the harshness of the reality.
@@katwanyawest7312 I don't remember being called spoiled or bratty, just lazy slackers who didn't buy into the Greed is Good Boomer philosophy.
Affording College -- some options:
1) community college (for part or all of education); 2) free money! (lots of unclaimed money in scholarships and grants every year); 3) work study (work at college); 4) labor union (college is paid by some unions, plus good wage, benefits, promotions); 5) live at home if possible.
Join the military and get education benefits.
Get a job with tuition benefits, go to night school.
Go to online school.
@@pongop I understand, just pointing out it is another option that many have used.
I was told two things. Get a driver's license and look for a job that cannot be sent overseas. This resulted in me working in a trade that I love but not alot of people want to do. I don't think that was bad advice.
"getting radicalized by Facebook" made me HOWL out loud! But also, Chelsea this is one of your best TFD videos yet! There wasn't one piece of advice I wouldn't share with any Millennial/Gen Zer
I was looking for the "radicalized by Facebook" comment and I was not disappointed. Howling right there with you!
My parents (end of baby boomer gen.) started off really poor. I mean, having 3 chairs, two of them they would sit on and they would use the third one as a table. They were at the beginning of their twenties, with my mom finished school and working as a kindergarten teacher, and my father having finished military (back then it was a must for two years in my country) and starting work and later getting a college degree in a field he never worked in. They had two kids, my mom was 24 and 26. From the age of 24 until about 38-39, she was a stay at home mom (because we were sick so often that she could no longer continue working bcs she was absent from work so often due to us), where we all lived from my father's salary. I swear I don'T know how they could still save money next to raising two kids and having a carloan and mortgage and extra things that came up...
They took up a 20 year mortgage and built a family home in one of the poorest counties of my country. The price of the house will never go up high because the house is in a part of the country where there is no job opportunity and nothing. But the bricks still cost just as much for us as it did for people living in a bigger city.
All my childhood I had to listen to "we don't have money for that". I wore handmedown clothes from my cousins, we never went on summer holidays until my parents actually bought a small vacation home near us and then we ended up going there all the time for 20 years but never anywhere else. We always had food and clothes, not saying my parents did not provide, but it wasn't a carefree life (for them, nor for me sometimes, but I was just jealous of other people's lives).
They kept saying if I get a university degree and get a good job (instead of pursuing music which I was really good at), then I would not have these problems. I know they said this because that is what they thought would happen, and bcs I did not have enough life experience, I had to believe them, but I still feel angry to this day how much I have suffered through my educationa nd then did not reap the benefits of it.
Graduated with a studen loan (bcs my parents could not support me while being at uni, even though the education itself was free but you still needed money for rent and stuff and I was doing double majors, so I could have only worked at night but then would fall asleep during lectures), started working in bigger cities where life was also more expensive. I never got married as early as my parents, but if I think back to where I was at 24 yo where my mother had her first kid, and if I would have stayed at home with my kids for as long as she had, I would only have 4 years of work experience currently, bcs I would have gone on maternity leave almost immediately after finishing university. I mean what type of jobs would I have with 4 years of experience? A customer service job that is basically the modern wage worker of today? For sure not the management type of jobs I currently have. Not trying to brag, I just mean I would not be able to earn as much as I do. And then also take care of others than myself. And pay loans or mortgages. How do people do it for real? Would I actually be in a better financial situation than my parents were with all that being said? I don't think so.
Of course my life went in a different direction. Never got married, job hopped to get my salary up (which my father hated), paid back my student loan relatively fast so I only have a mortgage, took out a 20 year mortgage on an apartment that I am planning on paying back in full within ten years and not 20. Moved abroad. Never had kids.
Do I like where my life is at? Not really for many reasons. For example, I never feel that I am in my place, where i want to be. I feel like I followed someone else's life instead of mine and there are things I can no longer go back to or do that would require me to be young again. So yeah, I feel very goalless currently. But financially I am in a much better place than my parents (my mom died at 52 yo, so she basically never got to retirement) and for sure will have more money saved up for retirement than they ever will. But what did I need for that? Grind, working jobs I hate, jumping from job to job, and not having kids. Yeah, I also wasn't that fond of the idea of having kids, but just bcs I saw how much of a shit parents you can be if you are always worried about money, but you also cannot just get up and go and do something different and spontaneous with goals and work if you are responsible for other people and have to suffer in silence even if it breaks you. Now who wants a life like that for themselves and their children too?
As a woman who has spent their entire career in STEM, I feel like the advice regarding college degrees doesn’t apply at all to that field of work. I worry that people following your advice will end up closing that door for themselves. I worry even more that your viewership is predominantly women and that there may even be several that end up deciding against a STEM career (that would have been fulfilling and meaningful for them), because they fear having college debt and think that they will be financially better off going into a non STEM career. We need more women in STEM not less. I would actually really appreciate it if you posted a STEM centric video to point out that STEM careers can’t be viewed in the same light. You simply can’t forgo a degree if you want to work in STEM and on average a person with a degree working in STEM will be financially better off. I understand that you can’t go into nuance in your videos because they would otherwise be 3 hours long…..but pleeeeaaaaase, do it for a woman working in STEM that is tired of being the only woman in the room, tell your audience that STEM is not a financial mistake. Begging here!
What Monika said!
You should mention though that the value in that case is not the educational content itself for the most part, but connections and early start on job and networking opportunities.
Vast majority of cases these days, the humongous student loans are essentially your participation fee for a chance to get to know the right people, including but not limited to STEM.
I'm a woman with a STEM degree. Everything Chelsea said is correct. STEM WAS a financial mistake for me. Not because of sexism, but because entry level jobs are nearly impossible to get and the ones that exist pay like shit. It's not any woman's burden to correct gender disparities in a field, it's a woman's job to explore what the best path for her in life is.
@@veronikavartanova4044 I studied engineering and I use what I learned in my degree every single day. I struggle to see how a degree in physics or chemistry or programming is “just for the connections”
@@j.c.jeggis1818 on average STEM careers are not financial mistakes. There will always be exceptions.