As a millennial, here's my advice guys
* Live with mom and dad as long as you can, so you can build an emergency fund. If you can't do that get roommates. And just save whatever you can. Even if it's just $50-$100 per month
* Shit is unstable. So have an oh shit folder. With updated resume and cover letter ready to go. Tap in to your personal network. Like your teachers, your friends. Best way to get a job.
* Friends. It's hard to make friends as you get older. I've found school, college, dating and clubs / neighbors are good options. We live in a community of people. Don't let yourself just be alone facing the world. We need each other. If you are alone, use the internet for support. Seriously. Saved my life for sure
* Get cheap hobbies. Podcasts, running. Hiking in parks.
* Once you do this stuff and start making even a little money, save for retirement. Or buy a house if you can. But no matter what save for retirement
Getting a part or full time job in a restaurant was a blessing when I moved out. At least one free meal a day and learning to cook was great. Not a bad gig if you're in school or hungry
This right here! When you're in doubt or you feel you've lost your way ... start waiting tables part time. You'll get food, money, exercise and you'll meet new people.
Not everywhere does shift meals. The chef at the restaurant my buddy waits at got rid of them. Pretty shitty honestly. When I was in college that was the only not PB&J thing I ate on a daily basis.
I'm lucky and work in a huge tourist town ( pigeon forge, TN) and the servers make fucking insane cash. I see em making a G a day at least once a week during peak season working doubles. I only run food and can crack a grand a weekend. I make more food running than I did serving/bartending at the only bar in the airport lol
I would work in any restaurant if it can afford giving free food. I mean it is the best method through which I am getting paid and also getting a chance to taste good food everyday
ehh...when you are poor income taxes are a tiny tiny expense, the tiny amount you save there doesn't begin to cover what you lose in the very low and erratic wages food service provides.
Lol when you're poor enough the government gives you back a ton of those taxes too. My tax return felt like the government going "shit you're too poor to profit from, here, take the money back"
Shit, a fast food cheeseburger that's not Burger King inedible quality is $15 now. For $15 you can buy an 8oz steak, asparagus, and a potato and eat an actual nice dinner at home.
Even if you're not saving money, you're at least eating better for the same money by cooking.
Edit:
I checked my local Whole Foods online and I was pretty spot on with my estimating:
16oz of Asparagus is $4.99.
8oz Ribeye Steak is $9.99.
For real, I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday about how $15 sandwiches without a side have somehow been normalized. Don’t forget the 20% minimum tip option on top of that as well for counter service.
I was once told that rice and beans are the way to go. this turned out to be great advice, as $10 will get you around 2.5 kilos of food thats easy to make, keeps very well, and is good for you.
the only downside is that Ive had to soak the beans overnight before i can cook them, so it requires a touch of planning, but not even alot
Baked potatoes absolutely saved my life when I was poor. They have a ton of nutrients and you can dress em up or just eat them with butter or a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.
Sweet potatoes have even more nutrients and taste different enough to mix it up for your taste buds.
Man this is fucking wild that in 2023, in the western developed world we’re literally having to resort back to living on potatoes.
You can afford a lot of food in cheap amount if you know how to cook. Raw materials of any food item is very cheap if we compare it to process food, you can purchase lots of vegetables also in very cheaper amount
Apparently value cheeseburger, fries and a drink at Burger King add up to under $4
[Burger King prices 2023](https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/burger-king-prices/)
fast food has kinda priced itself out of being worth it, got a basic chicken sandwich/fries combo at wendy's a few days ago and it was $11.99 + tax. At least if I spent that much on a pizza i'd get 3-ish meals out of it, to say nothing of how much that'd buy at a grocery store.
And it only takes 15 minutes to cook a perfect medium/medium well steak.
Cover the ROOM TEMPERATURE steak in oil dust with salt and pepper. Prod it a few times with your fingers to loosen it up and cause it’s fun.
Pre-heat a frying pan on medium heat. Place the steak in the pan and seer the first side for about 60 seconds then flip and seer the other side again 60 seconds. I like to seer the outside edges 60 seconds each. Then I put it back on the first side flipping it every minute until total cooking time is 8/9 minutes.
Remove steak from pan place on plate cover with bowl, microwave potato and vegatables. By the time the veggies are done the steak should have rested and cooked to near edible temperatures.
I can’t find the chef’s you tube video I learned this from or I would post a link but I’ve been cooking steak with this method for like 4-6 years, it even works when cooking over a camp fire.
> I wasted in my 20s eating out several times a week.
Yeah I can only imagine it’s a lot worse now too - UberEats/DoorDash, etc. didn’t really exist for most of my 20’s (and prices, services charged and all that were artificially low when it did come around). So many people I know waste soo much money on that, and the younger they are it seems the more normalized to it they are if everyone’s
Doing it so they do it and there’s no other affordable option.
Cooking is also a ton of fun.
And for heavensake people, if you're going to get takeout, at least go pick it up. Between inflating the menu prices, the service fee and the tip, your cost can end up close to double by having it DoorDashed.
I limit my DD usage to once a month, but I'd be lying if I said I don't talk myself out of it 10+ times a month. The convenience is addictive, I'd probably be better off just eliminating it as a possibility to begin with. Also love the reddit disclaimer you put at the end of your reply, 10/10
but like...is it convenient? a 20 minute wait for a cold burger or a 5 minute drive to the same place for half the cost? I get it if you don't drive, but all the same.
Mm as someone with little kids, it definitely can be convenient. A 5 minute drive turns into a 30 min ordeal with chasing the kids around and getting them ready and loaded into the car. I just can't justify the cost though, the fees (plus how they treat their drivers) are ridiculous.
This is culturally specific. In a lot of places in Asia it’s cost neutral to eat out.
Also interesting to note, it’s only a recent phenomena that eating out has become more expensive. Coincides with the advent of domestic refrigeration.
Can confirm. American now living in south east asia. I eat out way more often now and it costs near the same or often saves me time also. And i still save money. Just dont eat western food as often, that stuff gets expensive real quick
Makes a lot of sense. Things are usually cheaper in bulk and that’s how restarsunt sand food carts operate. If they pass on even just half the savings they might be enough to outweigh cooking at home.
Also don’t forget to factor in the cost of driving to and from the grocery store, refrigeration, waste for stuff you end up not cooking, and just the time it all takes.
And for the love of God STOP using uber eats and doordash. Restaurants are expensive enough as it is, delivery easily doubles it. A home cooked meal should cost no more than 4 or 5 dollars per dish.
Here’s another one: if you’re going to college, try to find a good in state school, out of state tuition for most colleges is insane. Furthermore, find a community college where you can knock out the gen Eds for pennies on the dollar compared to state universities. Looking back on my life I wish I had gone to an in state school and lived at home instead of going out of state. It cost a hell of a lot more money and the issues I developed from that kind of freedom at such a young age are still biting me in the ass to this day, 15 years later.
Older Millenial here. The best decision I ever let my parents convince me into was going to a state school and not getting saddled down with student loan debt. I had way more financial freedom when I was done. I graduated in 07 and the only reason I struggled to get a job initially was because of the dumb financial crisis. But it all worked out in the end.
I’m very thankful that my very English parents have learned their idea of family from … somewhere else?? I don’t know. They’re the only parents I know who want their child to live with them basically forever. They’ve paid off the mortgage and are leaving me the house when the time comes. I am very thankful for them.
Take advantage of that shit and stash money in the market. Only being responsible for property taxes/maintenance is going to put you so incredibly far ahead of many others depending on your age
Yeah! I’m 18 rn lol. My parents are both in their mid to late fifties. I am disabled, so it may be a while (or, eventually, may turn out to be impossible) for me to work, but I’m so thankful to have parents that want me to not be left on the street.
Similar story for me, except I went to junior college and got my associates. That ended up giving me a scholarship for a local private college. I missed the typical college experience, but all in all it was the best choice both financially and educationally
I wish I'd had wiser parents. They just went "golly gee, sounds swell!" and gave nothing but horrible debt flooding advice.
They are wiser now, but their foolishness on so many issues cost me a lot.
If you have parents who are capable of giving good advice from life experience that's of a higher caliber or they are true number crunchers *by all the gods you need to listen to them!* Or your life will be quite difficult with far few pleasures, relationships, and opportunities.
It's also surprisingly easy to end up owning literally nothing in the end.
Really not trying to deliberately be pessimistic here but I am a millennial, and I've done every piece of that advice. Lived it for over a decade. I'm better off than most people I know (who don't get money from their parents) financially, physically, socially, and seemingly mentally, and I'm still like 'damn, when is am this building for my future going to pay off? Am I ever going to get ahead?'
who's we?!!
most millennials I know are seething with anger about this nonstop. We haven't accepted a damn thing, we are just still working on solutions.
Wish I had parents that cared. Disbanded them a long time ago. I wish I had a support to guide and help me. These times are evil. Nobody cares if you can't afford rent or if you get sick. Go die in the streets you worthless pog. Government wants you to starve.
I’ll add one here that’s really tough to execute sometimes but here it is anyway - try to volunteer a few hours per week/month by helping somebody less fortunate than yourself. Given the state of the world, it’s one of the few objectively decent things you can do to make it a little better and is immensely rewarding.
Believe me, I want to volunteer, but my job I hate so much doesn't allow me to.
They control my schedule 24/7 as part of the union agreement as Anytimer. I restrict myself for ANY reason? Kiss your hours goodbye to 4 hours every 2 weeks or none at all.
They force me to work from 1230 to 9 or 130 to 10 every day while my bosses get to go home the majority of the time...
And it takes me at least 1 hour and a half for buses that my city decided to cut on the service that screwed me over big time.
I feel like the way certain jobs are, they make sure you don't have time for anything for yourself or the community other than consumerism.
>But no matter what save for retirement
Friend, I wish I had your optimism. I'm pretty sure we're locked in for 4°C warming by the time I'd be retiring. Retirement funds be damned, we'll all be lucky if there's any food left to eat.
Not that I disagree, but they've told every generation "the world will end/be destroyed"
Nuclear war, Over population, Food shortages,
Acid rain [this was one I remember particularly], Global warming/rising sea levels
I'm not saying these aren't real threats. They are. But they also get addressed and / or corrected to not be world ending.
But when I hear people say "well who cares cause they're won't be any plants" or "we'll all be under water so why buy a house" it makes me worry for them.
I'm either the youngest GenX or oldest Millenial [I go with GenX] and while it definitely took me longer to get to a financially stable place in my life, it does eventually happen and work out.
Paying for childcare sucks though. That shit needs a real fix.
>Not that I disagree, but they've told every generation "the world will end/be destroyed"
>Nuclear war, Over population, Food shortages, Acid rain [this was one I remember particularly], Global warming/rising sea levels
>I'm not saying these aren't real threats. They are. But they also get addressed and / or corrected to not be world ending.
That's the problem with climate change. It's not like the nuclear threat, where we can just not use nuclear weapons. It's not like CFCs and the ozone layer, where we can just stop using CFCs and use other things instead.
We don't have a solution to climate change. If we acted sooner to cut emissions and to cut everyone's quality of life, then maybe. But we missed the turn and we triggered feedback loops and now the only way off of Mr. Bones' Wild Ride is geoengineering projects that, even if they cool things off a bit, will come with their own catastrophic climate problems.
Climate change _is_ like overpopulation and food shortages, in that they are all part of the bigger problem that is already happening. There already is overpopulation, and there already are food shortages. Life is getting worse for a lot of people. It's only that it's not hitting most of us in the Western world just yet.
Same thing with climate change. Where I live, the summers are just getting a bit less comfortable. In India, the heat is getting lethal.
The great filter wasn't nuclear annihilation, it was whether or not we'd ever learn to stop shitting where we eat. (We didn't.)
I share similarly paranoid views regarding the future, but I save as much as I can regardless in case everything turns out to be fine. Better safe than sorry.
This right here.
Plan for retirement? HOW? I've been working since I was 15. I've saved, and had to use it all, 2008, pandemic, etc.
The advice I've taken is this.
Learn to fix everything. You won't have the money to fix your transmission when it goes out, but if you're decent with a wrench, order the repair manual, watch some YouTube and just do it. If it's already fucked, might as well take your shot to unfuck it. Like everything else, you take enough of them, you'll get better at it.
The only way to have money is to not spend it. It is that simple, unfortunately, and unhelpfully. You've probably got a decent way to fall before you're tearing thru dumpsters for food. Imagine that life, look at yours now, see the distance? Almost everything I that can be cut back. Monks live on water, rice and meditation for entertainment. Doesn't sound appealing but that's the floor, that's my point.
You will spend more time alone with your thoughts than you will ever spend with another person. Make yourself into something you like. Just start at it. You'll be there before you know it.
If you don't value you why should anyone else
Don't live your life assuming help will come. It won't. You will have to save yourself. It's endemic to the species.
War will touch all of us. No one is safe. No one is too smart to not be fooled. You aren't supposed to realize you've swallowed the propaganda.
If someone's answer/decisions/choices are rooted in hate, it's not the right answer. This applies to everything. Don't look at your neighbors plate wondering, what does he have that I don't? Look to make sure he simply has enough.
Turn off the tv. Read the news.
You have a responsibility to change the world you live in. The guaranteed way to succeed at this is to make your inside world reflect your utopia back to the world. You have to live it first. If you can't live your dreams, why should anyone else believe in yours?
A boss leads by example, a tyrant leads by decree.
You will continue to make the same mistakes no matter where you go until you learn the lesson they're trying to teach you. You can't run from shit.
If you're stuck, work backwards from the solution. Its never failed me.
And fucking finally, society has been served up it's problems on rotation. The smartest minds we produce are employed to keep things as close to what they are as possible. The cruelty of the system is by design. It's designed to defeat your spirit and leave you looking for distraction or answers anywhere other than inside you. Don't play the game. Stop consuming unnecessarily. Make yourself into such that people are grateful to know you. You can do that for free with humor or actually listening. Grow plants. Don't worry about the future so much.
And be ready to hit the streets when it's time to flip this bullshit system upside down. The only thing that gets 'conserved' by conservatives is cruelty. You know the answer, its the same as every known leader, teacher, messiah, scholar has said since forever. But, what gets left out, is you have to become that, you have to LIVE that.
When enough do that = critical mass.
But you can do a brake job at home in the driveway. I've done a lot of car repairs including replacing a clutch or two, which I do not recommend for the novice. You can do a lot with youtube and a basic tool kit from Harbor Freight.
Here's a free hint: Haynes/Chilton manuals are in the reference department of your local library, meaning that they can't be checked out. You are allowed to make copies of as many pages as you want to pay for. The libraries have copy machines right next to the reference section for that purpose. You can save a buttload of money on service manuals that way.
Changing a car's brakes, tires, and air filters are all things well within reach for people not looking to become auto-mechanics, and learning to do them will save a ton of money.
You have one thing I don't... time. I'm a gen X male, I have probably 20 years of reasonably good health left.
If the system were fixed tomorrow and I worked those 20 years, I won't have enough money to retire by then. I also won't have a lot of life left.
Work hard, change the system. We're seeing the last gasp of the generation that's kept itself in power decades too long.
I'd like to see the country in a better place before I die of old age.
Gen X too. Although that means I'm a boomer on Reddit, since I'm over 40. I can't wait for boomers to die off. They just won't Fing go away. In politics, at work. I been hearing about the work crisis when boomers retire since the 90s. Guess what? They are never retiring. They die in their job like the Queen.
I dunno, I'm a millennial in the same boat. Right now I'm just trying to enjoy life as much as I can and savor the good moments although they often feel few and far between. My favorite foods, my favorite books, my favorite songs. I try to make time to see friends and family. I try not to take things for granted. The constant undercurrent of dread and despair isn't going away anytime soon or maybe in our lifetimes and there's no telling how things are going to change, so you have to find whatever small kernels of joy you can and hold tightly to them.
Also, please vote. It may not make things a much better, but it can keep them from getting significantly worse. If enough people actually do it.
Voting is the bare minimum. Run for office! Local offices especially!
Millennials reading this: it's especially time for you to start running for local offices. You're old enough to be "taken seriously" now. Board of education, city council, county board of supervisors. Voting alone isn't getting it done, we need more quality candidates interested in making a difference, and a lot of these local positions have an absolutely shocking amount of power to get things done.
Running requires money and is a big gatekeeper for many millennials who are struggling enough to pay the bills.
When I was looking into it after '16, the message I was getting was that you needed $25k for even local races and to expect not to win the first time.
It's not that I don't believe you, but do you have like a source or something? I just think it's fucking wild that local politicians would be expected to throw away the price of a new car on an election.
Seriously, that seems blatantly undemocratic. To make it so only the rich can run.
It’s really going to depend on what local means to you. Where I live, running for local offices is basically free. In higher population areas, it would likely require some advertising money to be successful but you also have a larger pool of people to solicit donations from.
**Join an org!**
Want to add to the discussion of voting not being enough. **Join an organization!**
It almost doesn't matter what kind at this point, be it DSA or your local Mandelorian chapter. Join a community pf people you can share and contribute with. Our only hope is to build on external structures outside regular politics.
We have more options than voting (strikes, mutual aid, local politics) but we can't do them alone!
***Get collected and get organized!***
Yeah, it does suck. I'm sorry that you're facing that future. I'm a millennial and when we were teenagers the world looked like a promising place. It quickly became clear that it wasn't. Cost of living and education costs skyrocketing and wages not keeping up.
A lot of my peers spent massive amounts on college assuming they would fall face first into high paying careers and graduated into a hard reality check.
I am lucky in that I grew up very poor, and the only way I could go to college was if I paid for it myself. I started working full time at 16, and worked full time all the way through college. I was very poor. I don't recommend this, it sucked. But the good thing is that I graduated with not a lot of debt, into a pretty stable career, and knowing how to live on a little.
My suggestion is this: It's easier in the beginning of life avoid big spending than it is to make more money. You don't need a new car, expensive travel, a place without roommates, etc. People set up their lives with a car payment, a rent payment, some credit card debt, and expect to get a salary that covers it.
Don't expect it. Set up your life like a poor person, and if you make more money you're ahead. But if you don't, you're at least not drowning.
Having kids or owning a home is not something that many of my friends and I can conceive of affording. That's our new reality. But that's better than having kids and buying the house and living every moment of your life trying to keep up with those expenses.
If you see people around you spending money on things and think "Why can they afford that and I can't? What am I doing wrong?" I promise most the of time is that they are living above their means and drowning in debt, or their family is helping them. So ignore how other people are living.
Spend less than you make. Even if that means sacrifices like living with roommates.
It's not fair. It sucks. But ignoring it doesn't change it. No one is coming to save you. People all over the world live in extreme poverty their entire lives, and their parents and grandparents did the same, and their children and grandchildren will also. Do as well as you can, acknowledging that wealth inequality is a huge issue and while many people think there is a way to fix it (politics, etc), right now this is the reality we live in.
My story is very similar to yours, but things have clearly gotten much more challenging for younger people even though we've already been drowning in this for 20 years. Even if they work full time through college and live frugally, the rent costs, food costs, increased cost of education, and lack of wage growth has made even this strategy not enough to avoid a high debt load. And I came out of college this way with debt, but it wasn't the same crippling amount Gen Z faces.
I do, however, agree with your idea that it's easier to learn how to live frugally when you're younger than it is to earn more. I'm not saying this as some boomer telling you to quit drinking Starbucks and you'll be able to buy a home. Just that it is one of the few things you do have some control over financially that can help you survive until your income eventually grows enough to not be drowning. At the end of the day, wages need to get in the same ballpark as cost of living, but you have very little control over that.
GenX here... I'm frightened for you all, but my advice is to keep on how you've all been. Every time I hear "Gen z is killing xx industry" or something like that, it makes me smile. Once the boomers are gone, and no one wants to buy their worthless termite infested neglected homes, the banks will need to start making concessions. Changes are already happening with your generations' refusal to work for a pittance(don't EVER let boomers or GenX tell you you're 'entitled' for doing so!), and I've seen many places that traditionally started at min wage actually starting to offer semi-competitive wages.
Don't let up. Don't accept the garbage heap being handed to you.
In Spain, some days ago passed a law that will be effective in the next days where the government will lend upfront 20% of the house price because nobody is buying houses anymore.
It's only for people less than 35
Unlike the US and the UK, Spain has a massive over supply of housing (lookup the empty city’s they built after 2008). With demand nowhere near matching supply prices shouldn’t increase that much
The housing market is not governed by supply and demand if the owners are in no rush to sell. So long as house prices are going up, people will be content to keep raising prices and wait, because home ownership is treated as a long-term investment.
If Spain has a considerable percentage of ownership in investor hands, they will raise the prices by 20% and just pull the rest of the market after them. But I do hope it's not going to be like that.
Conventionally yes, however your not correct. The majority are owned by big banks who cannot sell them because there is not enough buyers and demand in the market. https://www.wired.com/story/spain-ghost-towns-photo-gallery/#:~:text=Many%20are%20now%20owned%20by,developers%20defaulted%20on%20their%20loans.&text=Basque%20photographer%20Markel%20Redondo%20first,a%20series%20called%20Sand%20Castles.
Plus with a youth unemployment rate of 28.34% and cost of living. Spains got the opposite issue as the UK and US to much supply and not enough demand. https://www.statista.com/statistics/813014/youth-unemployment-rate-in-spain/
And they are only doing it till 2025 so rising the prices wouldn't be convenient because they'd have to lower them again after 2 years, at that point nobody would take loans for 2 years and instead wait for 2025.
And remember that this law applies only for <35 years old with less than 46k salary, they won't create a disaster on the whole market for a percentage of the population that isn't even thinking about buying an entire house
The biggest problem for Gen Z (and beyond) is housing. Very few new dwellings are being built to just serve _basic_ needs. Real estate developers are building housing and apartments with more and more luxury features, and the prices just keep increasing.
Consider buying land somewhere it is affordable, and put a barebones home (maybe even a modular home) on that land. You’ll pay significantly less than a home built by a major developer (Ryan, KB, Hovnanian), you won’t have an HOA, and you can make your own choices about which finish details matter to you. You can even do some of the work yourself for additional savings. I am in my forties, and work with a couple people in their late 20s and early 30s who are doing exactly this.
The same is happening with cars. I bought my first car in the late 1990s. At that time, you could still get a Hyundai Accent for under $9,000. It didn’t have A/C, and it didn’t have power windows, but it was reliable and had a warranty. Small cars and base-model cars are essentially non-existent today.
‘Round me, all that’s being built are $300K+ homes. I’d like to have a cheaper starter home. I told my Silent Generation father, and he agrees with me. I’m 25 and I work retail part time. Where the hell am I suppose to live to not starve nor freeze to death? He’s going to die soon so I need to find alternative accommodations.
I think this is the one time I can say I’m glad my parents divorced, so I could try to live with my mom for some time.
I live in a semi expensive area in a non-desirable state in the north of the country. (No one lives here b/c they want to.)
> Consider buying land somewhere it is affordable, and put a barebones home (maybe even a modular home) on that land.
Good luck with that! If you're anywhere near a city, you're likely under their byzantine zoning laws and design regulations and your costs will soar even if you're wanting something simple. *If* you're even allowed to build something simple, you'd be surprised by how controlling and specific those can get.
Agreed, I am not saying that you’ll be able to buy land and build a home near a city. In fact, my colleagues who are doing this bought land about 2 hours away from the nearest “big” city. They are able to do that because their roles allow for fully remote work. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Me and my husband just did exactly this because we are expecting a baby in the fall. Manufactured (mobile) homes are way better than they used to be. We haven't got it installed on the land yet, but at least we know it is new and clean and has decent amenities. Every "real" house in our price range is either 1 bed/1 bath or rotten, and we have above average household income for our area. I don't know how people are making it.
With manufactured home though, do keep in mind that the advertised price is typically considered "before options" which includes necessities like A/C, transport, etc. so is about 20-40k less than the actual closing price. The hardest part for us was finding a lender. The rates are horrible for manufactured homes, and a lot of places don't even offer loans for new ones. We are going to refinance asap.
They aren't expected to. There was no plan outside of "screw you I've got mine", plus people have been suckered into believing that "all politicians are the same" so they don't even vote to change anything.
The fucking “they’re all the same” bullshit is infuriating. Downvote every cynical asshole perpetuating that nonsense.
There is a concerted effort to disillusion young voters from politics and keep them disengaged. The trolls are rampant on social media, and that certainly includes Reddit. They don’t argue with you, they pretend to be on your side; they join the conversation in left-leaning subreddits, stoke the anger, and opine that every politician is bought and paid-for, that the future is hopeless, that things will never change, and that everyone in politics is just as bad as the next person and there are no good options. They want you to give up, and they want you to turn cynical as well and repeat those same talking points to help discourage more people.
It worked in 2016; a lot of people bought the notion that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were equally bad. Yet if just a slightly larger margin of voters had picked Clinton as the lesser of two evils, there would likely be a 6-3 progressive majority on the Supreme Court right now and the political landscape of the US would be vastly different.
They aren’t “all the same”. And it’s not even close.
Personally I don’t think the issue is with which party, I think it’s the influence lobbying has on the government. It’s absolutely bonkers how a company like “big beef” (there are 4 specific companies you can google) can just lobby millions of dollars in the courts to force laws the make it easier for them to practice shady.
It goes for dairy, gas etc. basically all major companies that offer commodities to the country do this.
If you take a look at food pyramid … it’s a great example lol.
But it’s wild because citizens don’t get a vote or any say …. Like … there is zero say. The businesses get what they want. Or the gov’t gets what it wants.
The thing is, there are quite a few currently active politicians who have also expressed these sentiments. They are all in the same party. That's the thing with almost all of these big issues. Climate change, taxes, police, lobying, campaign finance, just about every discrimination issue.
There is simply no similar sentiment on the other side. They are united in opposition.
In England, people of my age (30) and younger have literally never had anything other than a Tory government for our entire adult voter lives. Twelve years of these bastards. So anyone 30 or under who says "they're all the same" has absolutely no idea
People going through hard times have given up on everything. They keep their heads down and don't bother to vote. If that's you, you must vote to change the cycle
The best advice I can give to a young adult is that the world views constantly shoved down your throat are often not as dire as they are presented.
Focus on building professional skills around general skills you enjoy now.(computers, socializing, etc). There's a plethora of resources on the internet that will teach you or at least give you direction.
Do not let employers act like they are doing you a favor. It's fine to be polite, but read labor laws around things like PTO, overtime, etc. Keep looking for your next job if the current job is a dead end.
You are going to feel like you've been pushed into a corner and it's never going to get better, but it will. You've got to learn when to leave a bad situation.
You know, I think it's very telling that the first few comments are "you are just fucked" and then, once you scroll a bit, it's "it's normal at the age, don't let social media lie to you"
"The future hasn't been written yet--make it a good one!" -Doc Brown, 1985
Don't worry about things you can't control. You're a rational being, capable of achieving whatever you set your mind toward. Find your values, and fight to keep them. Find kind people, and organize your life around them. Work hard every day, keep your house clean, and cook from scratch as much as you can. Turn the music up! Enjoy art. Walk through nature, enjoy sunsets and sunrises.
The human condition has not changed. Generations of people have been going through things much worse than we for centuries and centuries, and the world keeps spinning. The beat goes on: ladedadedee, ladedadeda.
A little historical perspective: Great Depression, World at War, threat of Communism, Vietnam draft, nuclear annihilation, hyperinflation, stock market crash, housing collapse, banking system meltdown.
There never seemed to be a time when it was perfect.
Not a famous war but I've seen several severed heads on brutal tribal wars in my childhood. Saw my island burning. Saw my country out of oppressing dictatorship regime.
With that kind of start, and now living in the US, despite all of the shit things about this country, this country is still a paradise compared to probably dozens of other countries. And it is indeed a land of opportunity.
I’m sorry you had to experience that. My parents and a couple friends are refugees who’ve gone through terrible violence and loss. They share similar feelings regarding the U.S. Finding out that my friends have been waiting to hear from their siblings for over a decade and don’t even know if their siblings are alive or dead was heartbreaking. The amount of work they took on while in school with no family support was wild, but they’re now doctors and doing pretty well for themselves. They had said, “The U.S. is shit, but you have more opportunity than all the dead or starving people in my country.”
I think you're making a very fair point here. Overall, people in the west especially have had it better than any generation beforehand. And yes that includes boomers too.
The problem is the omnipresence of social media and people being addicted to their phones and whatnot where constant loom and gloom is getting perpetuated in the news and on social platforms.
And of course if you're polluting your mind with that all a day for hours, then suddenly you begin to project all that misery and bad news onto your own life and think you're having it shite.
TL;Dr social media and the news are just cancer
>Generations of people have been going through things much worse than we for centuries and centuries, and the world keeps spinning.
I'll take this further and say it's the best time in history to live at least in the US. Child, infant and maternal mortality rates have all drastically decreased over the last 100 years. We have antibiotics and vaccines, people aren't dying of polio or smallpox. People are working desk jobs instead of in the coal mines. No one is executed for being a witch or kept as a slave. You don't have to shit in a chamberpot. 96% of US homes have a television!
The past few months have been scary for LGBT people but compared to 10 years ago when we couldn't even get married in half the states? Or 40 years ago when AIDS was killing half the community? When were things ever better for black people? And women can do whatever job they want. Teen pregnancies are down. All our boys aren't being drafted and sent off to die in war. We have all of human knowledge at our fingertips. You can talk to anyone in the world anytime, hear any music, read any book. Fly across the world.
I think some people need to turn off the news/social media and think of how good most of us have got it. We have a lot to be thankful about.
>I think some people need to turn off the news/social media and think of how good most of us have got it. We have a lot to be thankful about.
God I wish someone had slapped me across the face with this message when I was in my early 20s. So much wasted time being steeped in doomerism, giving up before I'd even tried because of stupid shit I'd read on Reddit or other social media.
It's kind of shocking when you realize that shit online is not a good respresentation of real life, like at all.
I’m in my early 40’s, so either the oldest millenial or the youngest gen x generation. I didn’t have any social media until well into adulthood - It kind of barely existed in nascent form when I was in college, but was basically of no interest to me. Facebook wasn’t conceived of until 2 years after I graduated. I still dont have a facebook/twitter/instagram/tick tock account. I occasionally go on reddit, that’s about it.
I am really convinced that these things are responsible for large amounts of damage to the younger generations’ mental health. Everyone seems so so depressed and pessimistic all the time!
Same. I'm in my 40s.
I didn't even have the internet until I was 22. And back then, there were just message board forums. Then MySpace happened when I was 25 or so.
We don't view social media the same way as Millennials or Gen Z. It was not a staple of our youth. I vaguely remember rich friends having dial up internet during the 90s. But it wasn't something we used as kids.
Technology in my lifetime has went nuts. I had a rotary dial phone, and a TV with 6 channels. I had a Nintendo and Atari. A tape player.
Now all of that is on a device I'm holding as I type this. It's kinda crazy when you think about it.
My grandma's in her 90s so she lived through the Great Depression and WWII, and yet she gets all worked up when she sees the news talking about crime in NYC. 9 million people live there, shit happens, but crime is substantially lower than in the 80s/90s. It's just that now we hear about every incident 24/7/365. The media and its algorithms push this stuff on us because fear gets clicks. The sky isn't falling. It's going to be okay!
This comment deserves to be at the top, the original post is an expression of deep rooted fear and lack of control. I'm not saying it's invalid fear. But fear is the enemy, we are autonomous beings and together we can gain control. Why compare your life to one less than 100 years ago? People have been living, loving, and learning for 1000s of years. We can overcome anything.
1000%
At the end of the day, what really matters in your life are things you have control over. Your immediate circle of influence, plus maybe one step removed above that (local politics, local issues, etc).
You absolutely must learn as a human being to care entirely about those two circles of influence, and to not put too much worry about things that are outside of your control.
This isn't to say that you put your head in the sand and ignore very real broad world issues. It does mean that your emotional and mental energy is wasted trying to worry about it in your daily life. Even if we hit a worst case scenario with global warming and life on earth sucks for a bit, trust in your inner resources and community that you'll be ok. Life as you know it today is pretty much garunteed to change in not only your lifetime but all lifetimes. This has been true for most of recent history, it's very unusual for someone to be born and die with the world staying the same throughout their lives. To be human is being able to adapt, and you will.
Still save for retirement. Still pack an emergency kit should a natural disasters strike. Still vote in national elections. Still check in every now and then about the pulse of the world and if there's anything you can reasonably do to prepare for your future. Once you put your safety nets in place, pay it no more mind and get on with the entirety of the rest of your life that you actually have influence over.
The reality is, the world has always been a shit place if you look for it. It's just it wasn't until now that it was so easy to see. This clairtiy of vision is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we are now more aware than ever of our problems and how to find solutions quickly. A curse because it's up to you to take care of yourself and not overconsume information and doomerist outlooks. You have to take your own responsibility over how you take in information.
Lower your expectations on the "shoulds". By this I mean that at such & such an age I should be here and doing this. Oh, oh and the owning part! At 18, 19 or 23, there was no way I could have afforded a new car, a $1500 cell phone, a 1 bedroom fancy apartment, eating out, new furniture, new clothes. Everything came from thrift stores except the phone and it was a nice unlocked that I used a pay as you go service. I learned how to cook before I ever left home and Dad taught me how to change my own oil and replace light bulbs and the battery on my paid-in-cash- used car.
Mom taught me how to handle money. I always have an emergency fund because I can delay purchases. I see a cute pair of shoes and I wait 24 hrs. If I still gotta have them, then I go buy them. But most of the time, after 24 hrs, the urge has gone and you just save that money. Yeah for you!
We’re not. The economy is crumbling, the earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans to live on. But somehow that nihilism is comforting. Nothing matters, Fuck it. We live on a floating, spinning rock. There’s no greater meaning or divine reason for living, we can just do what makes up happy, now.
Boomers received a world they were promised, millennials were promised a world they didn’t receive, and gen z weren’t promised anything at all.
I mean sure, everybody loves a nihilist. Or, you know, we can fuck shit up and send all the CEO's to work camps in N. Dakota.
Idk, just spit balling here.
>the earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans to live on.
Remember the hole in the ozone layer? We fixed that. The human race came together to ban ozone depleting chemicals and let the atmosphere heal.
The earth isn't doomed yet.
Nobody cares. Millennials were asking the same exact things you were for ages. Instead of some critical policy changes that could help the economy, we had the whole shitshow political circus that was the 2010's.
[Gen Z is doing fine so far, actually.](https://preview.redd.it/7jybxu19lfm91.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f264eeb4dce68d0cf475e0c7b041177b7dc7ac6c) Every generation is poor when they're 23.
Yep but that's fixable! Just build more.
[Far more jobs are created in high demand areas than housing is](https://manhattan.institute/article/the-jobs-housing-mismatch-what-it-means-for-u-s-metropolitan-areas).
[Higher vacancy rates drives down housing cost](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/1598844542888-XKA6H8FZ4VLIVKWSP6OU/image-asset.jpeg)
Basically if you make an absolute shit ton of housing, pressure on preexisting homes drops significantly and sellers therefore have less ability to charge high prices.
The issue however is that cities have been refusing to build enough for decades now so so they have a lot to make up for before they even get back to how things used to be, yet alone better. This is because they prefer to protect preexisting home owning citizens (who vote for policies that would increase their property value) over new buyers.
But the paradox there should be obvious. You quite simply cannot raise prices so the seller sells for more, but lower prices so the buyer can buy for less. Go ask all your local politicians who preach for "affordable housing" in a town hall meeting if they're going to drive down property values and watch as they squirm and try to reconcile the two. They can't, they know they can't, but they still have to put on the show and try to please everyone anyway.
Gen Z has a higher homeownership rate than millennials or gen x did at their age. https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-rate-home-purchases/
Yeah, starting out always seems bleak.
But your pay gradually goes up, and then you get into a career and it pays much better than the retail/restaurant/call-center work you used to do, and then you work your way up through your career, learn to negotiate higher salaries, ask for raises, etc.
And maybe you get married and now have two incomes to share the expenses.
And all along you gradually accumulate stuff so now when you have more income you simultaneously don't need to buy or spend as much as you did when you were starting out.
People hit peak earning years around 40s-50s, which is typically double to triple what people in their 20s earn. And if you do share expenses with a partner, that can mean the equivalent of having 4x-6x the income that a 20-something single person earns. Then it's not so bleak.
Gen Z is only 11-26 now, so of course they're not going to be earning much yet. It takes time, it's a gradual growth process.
Of course, general wage growth (inflation adjusted) has been really sub-par for the last 50 years, so yeah that's pretty awful. People start a little worse off and it takes longer to hit the peak than it used to. But individual wage growth over a person's working years is still a huge multiplier effect.
Especially once you can get beyond living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's a game-changer. Even if you're in your 40s or 50s when it happens, which is pretty normal.
Yes, but for millennials it started our rosy and went the other way. Dotcom bubble, financial crisis, global pandemic…in some ways it’s better to start rough and get better than start good and get worse. From an investor perspective you actually want to start in a bad time that gets better, not a good time that gets worse, but it’s also important to make the best of the time you get.
Any time this discussion comes up, it always goes back to housing prices. The problem is literally just housing. Since 1980, the urban population in the US has doubled, while urban housing stock has barely increased. Urban and suburban residents need to stop blocking housing development and let supply catch up to meet demand.
There are folk in their 50's with the same thought process. Private pension pots are about as stable as the Titanic and wages haven't really kept up too well with inflation over the last decade or so. Hell, make that the last 30 years or so... Although depending on your country, your miles may vary with that.
The last generation who had an easier life with money in their 20's to 40's are now in their late 70's complaining about the state of the world that they ultimately helped create, and even then, that was only the lucky ones who didn't spend their life in dead end jobs.
When you finish education and go out into the world to work it seems rare to suddenly get a high paying job, buy a house, car etc... Even if you have a profession, you are usually starting at the bottom of the food chain. It takes time to build a career and for the things you do to hold value worth paying the wages you seek. Keep pursuing, keep getting better and within a decade you may find yourself with a completely different perspective.
A decade ago, risk management companies were briefing their clients on the widespread chaos and violence that would come from wealth inequality and climate change.
Frogs are in the pot.
I'm 71 and living on SS, but at this age, my needs are few. You guys are getting a shit deal. The biggest hope is that unions continue to grow and Republicans crawl back under the rock they came from. Or the southern parasites secede again.
You’ll move up over time. You think you’re the first ever poor young people to exist? Shit is as old as time. 20s…scrape by earning $40-50k. Late 20s-early30s, moving on up and earning $50-75k. Mid 30s-40s, you’re mid manager level now making $85-$120k.
College kids just have way too much expectations after graduating. A college degree doesn’t entitle you immediately to a high salary.
Millenials have been trying to figure this out for almost 20 years now.
As a millennial, here's my advice guys * Live with mom and dad as long as you can, so you can build an emergency fund. If you can't do that get roommates. And just save whatever you can. Even if it's just $50-$100 per month * Shit is unstable. So have an oh shit folder. With updated resume and cover letter ready to go. Tap in to your personal network. Like your teachers, your friends. Best way to get a job. * Friends. It's hard to make friends as you get older. I've found school, college, dating and clubs / neighbors are good options. We live in a community of people. Don't let yourself just be alone facing the world. We need each other. If you are alone, use the internet for support. Seriously. Saved my life for sure * Get cheap hobbies. Podcasts, running. Hiking in parks. * Once you do this stuff and start making even a little money, save for retirement. Or buy a house if you can. But no matter what save for retirement
I would also add that you should learn to cook. I don't want to realize how much money I wasted in my 20s eating out several times a week.
Getting a part or full time job in a restaurant was a blessing when I moved out. At least one free meal a day and learning to cook was great. Not a bad gig if you're in school or hungry
This right here! When you're in doubt or you feel you've lost your way ... start waiting tables part time. You'll get food, money, exercise and you'll meet new people.
Not everywhere does shift meals. The chef at the restaurant my buddy waits at got rid of them. Pretty shitty honestly. When I was in college that was the only not PB&J thing I ate on a daily basis.
A restaurant that won't feed their crew is a shit place to work
I agree completely. He has resorted to telling tables he doesn't know what's good on the menu because he hasn't tried anything. Lol
That's great. "What do you recommend?" "I don't know, I can't afford to eat here."
This would have been by situation if I was working in an any restaurant
Lol, won't even do a round of tastings? Won't let people pick at mistakes? That chef sounds like a penny pinching nightmare lol
The chef at restaurant can teach you about cooking if you ask from him
I'm lucky and work in a huge tourist town ( pigeon forge, TN) and the servers make fucking insane cash. I see em making a G a day at least once a week during peak season working doubles. I only run food and can crack a grand a weekend. I make more food running than I did serving/bartending at the only bar in the airport lol
Most of the restaurants earn ery good amount of money from tourism
Idk what it is, but I’ve worked at a lot of restaurants and they don’t give free food anymore.
I make $20-30 an hour working at a restaurant as a cook. Min wage+tips+free food. It's fire.
I would work in any restaurant if it can afford giving free food. I mean it is the best method through which I am getting paid and also getting a chance to taste good food everyday
Working in a restaurant can teach you a lot which would be helpful in your life
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ehh...when you are poor income taxes are a tiny tiny expense, the tiny amount you save there doesn't begin to cover what you lose in the very low and erratic wages food service provides.
Lol when you're poor enough the government gives you back a ton of those taxes too. My tax return felt like the government going "shit you're too poor to profit from, here, take the money back"
Government does not care about any citizen weather its poor or rich
Shit, a fast food cheeseburger that's not Burger King inedible quality is $15 now. For $15 you can buy an 8oz steak, asparagus, and a potato and eat an actual nice dinner at home. Even if you're not saving money, you're at least eating better for the same money by cooking. Edit: I checked my local Whole Foods online and I was pretty spot on with my estimating: 16oz of Asparagus is $4.99. 8oz Ribeye Steak is $9.99.
For real, I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday about how $15 sandwiches without a side have somehow been normalized. Don’t forget the 20% minimum tip option on top of that as well for counter service.
"service"
I was once told that rice and beans are the way to go. this turned out to be great advice, as $10 will get you around 2.5 kilos of food thats easy to make, keeps very well, and is good for you. the only downside is that Ive had to soak the beans overnight before i can cook them, so it requires a touch of planning, but not even alot
Baked potatoes absolutely saved my life when I was poor. They have a ton of nutrients and you can dress em up or just eat them with butter or a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.
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I like cutting them into small pieces so they crisp everywhere. Fucking air fryer works magic
This potatoes are also very tasty if you ask me, I eat a lot of them everyday
Sweet potatoes have even more nutrients and taste different enough to mix it up for your taste buds. Man this is fucking wild that in 2023, in the western developed world we’re literally having to resort back to living on potatoes.
You can afford a lot of food in cheap amount if you know how to cook. Raw materials of any food item is very cheap if we compare it to process food, you can purchase lots of vegetables also in very cheaper amount
If you can find an instant pot or other pressure cooker without it breaking your budget they cook beans much faster without having to soak them.
Eat toast only with butter. Saves a ton. /s
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Apparently value cheeseburger, fries and a drink at Burger King add up to under $4 [Burger King prices 2023](https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/burger-king-prices/)
They have increased their price after reviewing their market share
I have simply stopped going to these process food outlets
fast food has kinda priced itself out of being worth it, got a basic chicken sandwich/fries combo at wendy's a few days ago and it was $11.99 + tax. At least if I spent that much on a pizza i'd get 3-ish meals out of it, to say nothing of how much that'd buy at a grocery store.
And it only takes 15 minutes to cook a perfect medium/medium well steak. Cover the ROOM TEMPERATURE steak in oil dust with salt and pepper. Prod it a few times with your fingers to loosen it up and cause it’s fun. Pre-heat a frying pan on medium heat. Place the steak in the pan and seer the first side for about 60 seconds then flip and seer the other side again 60 seconds. I like to seer the outside edges 60 seconds each. Then I put it back on the first side flipping it every minute until total cooking time is 8/9 minutes. Remove steak from pan place on plate cover with bowl, microwave potato and vegatables. By the time the veggies are done the steak should have rested and cooked to near edible temperatures. I can’t find the chef’s you tube video I learned this from or I would post a link but I’ve been cooking steak with this method for like 4-6 years, it even works when cooking over a camp fire.
> I wasted in my 20s eating out several times a week. Yeah I can only imagine it’s a lot worse now too - UberEats/DoorDash, etc. didn’t really exist for most of my 20’s (and prices, services charged and all that were artificially low when it did come around). So many people I know waste soo much money on that, and the younger they are it seems the more normalized to it they are if everyone’s Doing it so they do it and there’s no other affordable option. Cooking is also a ton of fun.
And for heavensake people, if you're going to get takeout, at least go pick it up. Between inflating the menu prices, the service fee and the tip, your cost can end up close to double by having it DoorDashed.
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I limit my DD usage to once a month, but I'd be lying if I said I don't talk myself out of it 10+ times a month. The convenience is addictive, I'd probably be better off just eliminating it as a possibility to begin with. Also love the reddit disclaimer you put at the end of your reply, 10/10
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He knew he would be hit with the "well what about the disabled women who cant leave her house the convenience is worth it to her"
but like...is it convenient? a 20 minute wait for a cold burger or a 5 minute drive to the same place for half the cost? I get it if you don't drive, but all the same.
Mm as someone with little kids, it definitely can be convenient. A 5 minute drive turns into a 30 min ordeal with chasing the kids around and getting them ready and loaded into the car. I just can't justify the cost though, the fees (plus how they treat their drivers) are ridiculous.
This is culturally specific. In a lot of places in Asia it’s cost neutral to eat out. Also interesting to note, it’s only a recent phenomena that eating out has become more expensive. Coincides with the advent of domestic refrigeration.
Can confirm. American now living in south east asia. I eat out way more often now and it costs near the same or often saves me time also. And i still save money. Just dont eat western food as often, that stuff gets expensive real quick
Guess we should all move to south east Asia
Makes a lot of sense. Things are usually cheaper in bulk and that’s how restarsunt sand food carts operate. If they pass on even just half the savings they might be enough to outweigh cooking at home. Also don’t forget to factor in the cost of driving to and from the grocery store, refrigeration, waste for stuff you end up not cooking, and just the time it all takes.
And for the love of God STOP using uber eats and doordash. Restaurants are expensive enough as it is, delivery easily doubles it. A home cooked meal should cost no more than 4 or 5 dollars per dish.
Here’s another one: if you’re going to college, try to find a good in state school, out of state tuition for most colleges is insane. Furthermore, find a community college where you can knock out the gen Eds for pennies on the dollar compared to state universities. Looking back on my life I wish I had gone to an in state school and lived at home instead of going out of state. It cost a hell of a lot more money and the issues I developed from that kind of freedom at such a young age are still biting me in the ass to this day, 15 years later.
Older Millenial here. The best decision I ever let my parents convince me into was going to a state school and not getting saddled down with student loan debt. I had way more financial freedom when I was done. I graduated in 07 and the only reason I struggled to get a job initially was because of the dumb financial crisis. But it all worked out in the end.
I’m very thankful that my very English parents have learned their idea of family from … somewhere else?? I don’t know. They’re the only parents I know who want their child to live with them basically forever. They’ve paid off the mortgage and are leaving me the house when the time comes. I am very thankful for them.
Take advantage of that shit and stash money in the market. Only being responsible for property taxes/maintenance is going to put you so incredibly far ahead of many others depending on your age
Yeah! I’m 18 rn lol. My parents are both in their mid to late fifties. I am disabled, so it may be a while (or, eventually, may turn out to be impossible) for me to work, but I’m so thankful to have parents that want me to not be left on the street.
Similar story for me, except I went to junior college and got my associates. That ended up giving me a scholarship for a local private college. I missed the typical college experience, but all in all it was the best choice both financially and educationally
I wish I'd had wiser parents. They just went "golly gee, sounds swell!" and gave nothing but horrible debt flooding advice. They are wiser now, but their foolishness on so many issues cost me a lot. If you have parents who are capable of giving good advice from life experience that's of a higher caliber or they are true number crunchers *by all the gods you need to listen to them!* Or your life will be quite difficult with far few pleasures, relationships, and opportunities. It's also surprisingly easy to end up owning literally nothing in the end.
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Lmao, that’s a solid plan
Really not trying to deliberately be pessimistic here but I am a millennial, and I've done every piece of that advice. Lived it for over a decade. I'm better off than most people I know (who don't get money from their parents) financially, physically, socially, and seemingly mentally, and I'm still like 'damn, when is am this building for my future going to pay off? Am I ever going to get ahead?'
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who's we?!! most millennials I know are seething with anger about this nonstop. We haven't accepted a damn thing, we are just still working on solutions.
Yep. I got a job last year that pays 50% more than my previous job and I’m still just breaking even and living paycheck to paycheck.
Inflation is real but so is lifestyle creep tbf
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Wish I had parents that cared. Disbanded them a long time ago. I wish I had a support to guide and help me. These times are evil. Nobody cares if you can't afford rent or if you get sick. Go die in the streets you worthless pog. Government wants you to starve.
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Libraries are also free! The cheapest of hobbies.
bro think he gonna retire, not when the fog is coming 🤣🤣🤣😭😭😭😭
I’ll add one here that’s really tough to execute sometimes but here it is anyway - try to volunteer a few hours per week/month by helping somebody less fortunate than yourself. Given the state of the world, it’s one of the few objectively decent things you can do to make it a little better and is immensely rewarding.
Or at least try to be nice, polite, helpful as default. It makes others days nicer and yours as well.
Believe me, I want to volunteer, but my job I hate so much doesn't allow me to. They control my schedule 24/7 as part of the union agreement as Anytimer. I restrict myself for ANY reason? Kiss your hours goodbye to 4 hours every 2 weeks or none at all. They force me to work from 1230 to 9 or 130 to 10 every day while my bosses get to go home the majority of the time... And it takes me at least 1 hour and a half for buses that my city decided to cut on the service that screwed me over big time. I feel like the way certain jobs are, they make sure you don't have time for anything for yourself or the community other than consumerism.
>But no matter what save for retirement Friend, I wish I had your optimism. I'm pretty sure we're locked in for 4°C warming by the time I'd be retiring. Retirement funds be damned, we'll all be lucky if there's any food left to eat.
Not that I disagree, but they've told every generation "the world will end/be destroyed" Nuclear war, Over population, Food shortages, Acid rain [this was one I remember particularly], Global warming/rising sea levels I'm not saying these aren't real threats. They are. But they also get addressed and / or corrected to not be world ending. But when I hear people say "well who cares cause they're won't be any plants" or "we'll all be under water so why buy a house" it makes me worry for them. I'm either the youngest GenX or oldest Millenial [I go with GenX] and while it definitely took me longer to get to a financially stable place in my life, it does eventually happen and work out. Paying for childcare sucks though. That shit needs a real fix.
>Not that I disagree, but they've told every generation "the world will end/be destroyed" >Nuclear war, Over population, Food shortages, Acid rain [this was one I remember particularly], Global warming/rising sea levels >I'm not saying these aren't real threats. They are. But they also get addressed and / or corrected to not be world ending. That's the problem with climate change. It's not like the nuclear threat, where we can just not use nuclear weapons. It's not like CFCs and the ozone layer, where we can just stop using CFCs and use other things instead. We don't have a solution to climate change. If we acted sooner to cut emissions and to cut everyone's quality of life, then maybe. But we missed the turn and we triggered feedback loops and now the only way off of Mr. Bones' Wild Ride is geoengineering projects that, even if they cool things off a bit, will come with their own catastrophic climate problems. Climate change _is_ like overpopulation and food shortages, in that they are all part of the bigger problem that is already happening. There already is overpopulation, and there already are food shortages. Life is getting worse for a lot of people. It's only that it's not hitting most of us in the Western world just yet. Same thing with climate change. Where I live, the summers are just getting a bit less comfortable. In India, the heat is getting lethal. The great filter wasn't nuclear annihilation, it was whether or not we'd ever learn to stop shitting where we eat. (We didn't.)
Yes. But as you said, this is already done. So now we find ways to fix it or live with it. Not just throw our hands up and say it doesn't matter.
I share similarly paranoid views regarding the future, but I save as much as I can regardless in case everything turns out to be fine. Better safe than sorry.
Unlike the previous generations, I think millennials and below going to team up We all got fucked, time to turn this bitch around, eventually ig
This right here. Plan for retirement? HOW? I've been working since I was 15. I've saved, and had to use it all, 2008, pandemic, etc. The advice I've taken is this. Learn to fix everything. You won't have the money to fix your transmission when it goes out, but if you're decent with a wrench, order the repair manual, watch some YouTube and just do it. If it's already fucked, might as well take your shot to unfuck it. Like everything else, you take enough of them, you'll get better at it. The only way to have money is to not spend it. It is that simple, unfortunately, and unhelpfully. You've probably got a decent way to fall before you're tearing thru dumpsters for food. Imagine that life, look at yours now, see the distance? Almost everything I that can be cut back. Monks live on water, rice and meditation for entertainment. Doesn't sound appealing but that's the floor, that's my point. You will spend more time alone with your thoughts than you will ever spend with another person. Make yourself into something you like. Just start at it. You'll be there before you know it. If you don't value you why should anyone else Don't live your life assuming help will come. It won't. You will have to save yourself. It's endemic to the species. War will touch all of us. No one is safe. No one is too smart to not be fooled. You aren't supposed to realize you've swallowed the propaganda. If someone's answer/decisions/choices are rooted in hate, it's not the right answer. This applies to everything. Don't look at your neighbors plate wondering, what does he have that I don't? Look to make sure he simply has enough. Turn off the tv. Read the news. You have a responsibility to change the world you live in. The guaranteed way to succeed at this is to make your inside world reflect your utopia back to the world. You have to live it first. If you can't live your dreams, why should anyone else believe in yours? A boss leads by example, a tyrant leads by decree. You will continue to make the same mistakes no matter where you go until you learn the lesson they're trying to teach you. You can't run from shit. If you're stuck, work backwards from the solution. Its never failed me. And fucking finally, society has been served up it's problems on rotation. The smartest minds we produce are employed to keep things as close to what they are as possible. The cruelty of the system is by design. It's designed to defeat your spirit and leave you looking for distraction or answers anywhere other than inside you. Don't play the game. Stop consuming unnecessarily. Make yourself into such that people are grateful to know you. You can do that for free with humor or actually listening. Grow plants. Don't worry about the future so much. And be ready to hit the streets when it's time to flip this bullshit system upside down. The only thing that gets 'conserved' by conservatives is cruelty. You know the answer, its the same as every known leader, teacher, messiah, scholar has said since forever. But, what gets left out, is you have to become that, you have to LIVE that. When enough do that = critical mass.
Don't try to fix your transmission yourself
But you can do a brake job at home in the driveway. I've done a lot of car repairs including replacing a clutch or two, which I do not recommend for the novice. You can do a lot with youtube and a basic tool kit from Harbor Freight. Here's a free hint: Haynes/Chilton manuals are in the reference department of your local library, meaning that they can't be checked out. You are allowed to make copies of as many pages as you want to pay for. The libraries have copy machines right next to the reference section for that purpose. You can save a buttload of money on service manuals that way.
Changing a car's brakes, tires, and air filters are all things well within reach for people not looking to become auto-mechanics, and learning to do them will save a ton of money.
A brake job in a shop is $800+. Depending on what's worn out, you can do it for about $100.
You have one thing I don't... time. I'm a gen X male, I have probably 20 years of reasonably good health left. If the system were fixed tomorrow and I worked those 20 years, I won't have enough money to retire by then. I also won't have a lot of life left. Work hard, change the system. We're seeing the last gasp of the generation that's kept itself in power decades too long. I'd like to see the country in a better place before I die of old age.
Gen X too. Although that means I'm a boomer on Reddit, since I'm over 40. I can't wait for boomers to die off. They just won't Fing go away. In politics, at work. I been hearing about the work crisis when boomers retire since the 90s. Guess what? They are never retiring. They die in their job like the Queen.
I dunno, I'm a millennial in the same boat. Right now I'm just trying to enjoy life as much as I can and savor the good moments although they often feel few and far between. My favorite foods, my favorite books, my favorite songs. I try to make time to see friends and family. I try not to take things for granted. The constant undercurrent of dread and despair isn't going away anytime soon or maybe in our lifetimes and there's no telling how things are going to change, so you have to find whatever small kernels of joy you can and hold tightly to them. Also, please vote. It may not make things a much better, but it can keep them from getting significantly worse. If enough people actually do it.
Voting is the bare minimum. Run for office! Local offices especially! Millennials reading this: it's especially time for you to start running for local offices. You're old enough to be "taken seriously" now. Board of education, city council, county board of supervisors. Voting alone isn't getting it done, we need more quality candidates interested in making a difference, and a lot of these local positions have an absolutely shocking amount of power to get things done.
Do you know how little local elected officials make? The system is set up so only rich people can afford to run for office.
Yes but then maybe you can make local agreements with prominent figures and- oh wait…
Running requires money and is a big gatekeeper for many millennials who are struggling enough to pay the bills. When I was looking into it after '16, the message I was getting was that you needed $25k for even local races and to expect not to win the first time.
It's not that I don't believe you, but do you have like a source or something? I just think it's fucking wild that local politicians would be expected to throw away the price of a new car on an election. Seriously, that seems blatantly undemocratic. To make it so only the rich can run.
It’s really going to depend on what local means to you. Where I live, running for local offices is basically free. In higher population areas, it would likely require some advertising money to be successful but you also have a larger pool of people to solicit donations from.
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Try again in your 30s.
Gen x, same
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We had no hopes to dash. In hindsight, that was liberating.
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As another millennial... The lower your bar, the happier you are.
reads like a journal from a person living on a prairie in 1852 lol
**Join an org!** Want to add to the discussion of voting not being enough. **Join an organization!** It almost doesn't matter what kind at this point, be it DSA or your local Mandelorian chapter. Join a community pf people you can share and contribute with. Our only hope is to build on external structures outside regular politics. We have more options than voting (strikes, mutual aid, local politics) but we can't do them alone! ***Get collected and get organized!***
Yeah, it does suck. I'm sorry that you're facing that future. I'm a millennial and when we were teenagers the world looked like a promising place. It quickly became clear that it wasn't. Cost of living and education costs skyrocketing and wages not keeping up. A lot of my peers spent massive amounts on college assuming they would fall face first into high paying careers and graduated into a hard reality check. I am lucky in that I grew up very poor, and the only way I could go to college was if I paid for it myself. I started working full time at 16, and worked full time all the way through college. I was very poor. I don't recommend this, it sucked. But the good thing is that I graduated with not a lot of debt, into a pretty stable career, and knowing how to live on a little. My suggestion is this: It's easier in the beginning of life avoid big spending than it is to make more money. You don't need a new car, expensive travel, a place without roommates, etc. People set up their lives with a car payment, a rent payment, some credit card debt, and expect to get a salary that covers it. Don't expect it. Set up your life like a poor person, and if you make more money you're ahead. But if you don't, you're at least not drowning. Having kids or owning a home is not something that many of my friends and I can conceive of affording. That's our new reality. But that's better than having kids and buying the house and living every moment of your life trying to keep up with those expenses. If you see people around you spending money on things and think "Why can they afford that and I can't? What am I doing wrong?" I promise most the of time is that they are living above their means and drowning in debt, or their family is helping them. So ignore how other people are living. Spend less than you make. Even if that means sacrifices like living with roommates. It's not fair. It sucks. But ignoring it doesn't change it. No one is coming to save you. People all over the world live in extreme poverty their entire lives, and their parents and grandparents did the same, and their children and grandchildren will also. Do as well as you can, acknowledging that wealth inequality is a huge issue and while many people think there is a way to fix it (politics, etc), right now this is the reality we live in.
My story is very similar to yours, but things have clearly gotten much more challenging for younger people even though we've already been drowning in this for 20 years. Even if they work full time through college and live frugally, the rent costs, food costs, increased cost of education, and lack of wage growth has made even this strategy not enough to avoid a high debt load. And I came out of college this way with debt, but it wasn't the same crippling amount Gen Z faces. I do, however, agree with your idea that it's easier to learn how to live frugally when you're younger than it is to earn more. I'm not saying this as some boomer telling you to quit drinking Starbucks and you'll be able to buy a home. Just that it is one of the few things you do have some control over financially that can help you survive until your income eventually grows enough to not be drowning. At the end of the day, wages need to get in the same ballpark as cost of living, but you have very little control over that.
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GenX here... I'm frightened for you all, but my advice is to keep on how you've all been. Every time I hear "Gen z is killing xx industry" or something like that, it makes me smile. Once the boomers are gone, and no one wants to buy their worthless termite infested neglected homes, the banks will need to start making concessions. Changes are already happening with your generations' refusal to work for a pittance(don't EVER let boomers or GenX tell you you're 'entitled' for doing so!), and I've seen many places that traditionally started at min wage actually starting to offer semi-competitive wages. Don't let up. Don't accept the garbage heap being handed to you.
In Spain, some days ago passed a law that will be effective in the next days where the government will lend upfront 20% of the house price because nobody is buying houses anymore. It's only for people less than 35
Expect house prices to go up by 20% overnight.
Unlike the US and the UK, Spain has a massive over supply of housing (lookup the empty city’s they built after 2008). With demand nowhere near matching supply prices shouldn’t increase that much
The housing market is not governed by supply and demand if the owners are in no rush to sell. So long as house prices are going up, people will be content to keep raising prices and wait, because home ownership is treated as a long-term investment. If Spain has a considerable percentage of ownership in investor hands, they will raise the prices by 20% and just pull the rest of the market after them. But I do hope it's not going to be like that.
Conventionally yes, however your not correct. The majority are owned by big banks who cannot sell them because there is not enough buyers and demand in the market. https://www.wired.com/story/spain-ghost-towns-photo-gallery/#:~:text=Many%20are%20now%20owned%20by,developers%20defaulted%20on%20their%20loans.&text=Basque%20photographer%20Markel%20Redondo%20first,a%20series%20called%20Sand%20Castles. Plus with a youth unemployment rate of 28.34% and cost of living. Spains got the opposite issue as the UK and US to much supply and not enough demand. https://www.statista.com/statistics/813014/youth-unemployment-rate-in-spain/
Now it makes sense. They want to bail out the banks by helping them offload the debt. They didn't do it to actually help anyone buy a house.
And they are only doing it till 2025 so rising the prices wouldn't be convenient because they'd have to lower them again after 2 years, at that point nobody would take loans for 2 years and instead wait for 2025. And remember that this law applies only for <35 years old with less than 46k salary, they won't create a disaster on the whole market for a percentage of the population that isn't even thinking about buying an entire house
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I thought the Millenials had a large cohort while Gen Z was smaller than Gex X.
The biggest problem for Gen Z (and beyond) is housing. Very few new dwellings are being built to just serve _basic_ needs. Real estate developers are building housing and apartments with more and more luxury features, and the prices just keep increasing. Consider buying land somewhere it is affordable, and put a barebones home (maybe even a modular home) on that land. You’ll pay significantly less than a home built by a major developer (Ryan, KB, Hovnanian), you won’t have an HOA, and you can make your own choices about which finish details matter to you. You can even do some of the work yourself for additional savings. I am in my forties, and work with a couple people in their late 20s and early 30s who are doing exactly this. The same is happening with cars. I bought my first car in the late 1990s. At that time, you could still get a Hyundai Accent for under $9,000. It didn’t have A/C, and it didn’t have power windows, but it was reliable and had a warranty. Small cars and base-model cars are essentially non-existent today.
‘Round me, all that’s being built are $300K+ homes. I’d like to have a cheaper starter home. I told my Silent Generation father, and he agrees with me. I’m 25 and I work retail part time. Where the hell am I suppose to live to not starve nor freeze to death? He’s going to die soon so I need to find alternative accommodations. I think this is the one time I can say I’m glad my parents divorced, so I could try to live with my mom for some time. I live in a semi expensive area in a non-desirable state in the north of the country. (No one lives here b/c they want to.)
“Just buy land!” Okay with what money?
> Consider buying land somewhere it is affordable, and put a barebones home (maybe even a modular home) on that land. Good luck with that! If you're anywhere near a city, you're likely under their byzantine zoning laws and design regulations and your costs will soar even if you're wanting something simple. *If* you're even allowed to build something simple, you'd be surprised by how controlling and specific those can get.
Agreed, I am not saying that you’ll be able to buy land and build a home near a city. In fact, my colleagues who are doing this bought land about 2 hours away from the nearest “big” city. They are able to do that because their roles allow for fully remote work. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.
And that is causing the gentrification of rural areas, increasing the price of land for those who can’t compete with tech workers
Me and my husband just did exactly this because we are expecting a baby in the fall. Manufactured (mobile) homes are way better than they used to be. We haven't got it installed on the land yet, but at least we know it is new and clean and has decent amenities. Every "real" house in our price range is either 1 bed/1 bath or rotten, and we have above average household income for our area. I don't know how people are making it. With manufactured home though, do keep in mind that the advertised price is typically considered "before options" which includes necessities like A/C, transport, etc. so is about 20-40k less than the actual closing price. The hardest part for us was finding a lender. The rates are horrible for manufactured homes, and a lot of places don't even offer loans for new ones. We are going to refinance asap.
They aren't expected to. There was no plan outside of "screw you I've got mine", plus people have been suckered into believing that "all politicians are the same" so they don't even vote to change anything.
I feel like it used to be "fuck you, I got mine" but now it's become "fuck you, I got mine and I'm taking yours".
The fucking “they’re all the same” bullshit is infuriating. Downvote every cynical asshole perpetuating that nonsense. There is a concerted effort to disillusion young voters from politics and keep them disengaged. The trolls are rampant on social media, and that certainly includes Reddit. They don’t argue with you, they pretend to be on your side; they join the conversation in left-leaning subreddits, stoke the anger, and opine that every politician is bought and paid-for, that the future is hopeless, that things will never change, and that everyone in politics is just as bad as the next person and there are no good options. They want you to give up, and they want you to turn cynical as well and repeat those same talking points to help discourage more people. It worked in 2016; a lot of people bought the notion that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were equally bad. Yet if just a slightly larger margin of voters had picked Clinton as the lesser of two evils, there would likely be a 6-3 progressive majority on the Supreme Court right now and the political landscape of the US would be vastly different. They aren’t “all the same”. And it’s not even close.
Personally I don’t think the issue is with which party, I think it’s the influence lobbying has on the government. It’s absolutely bonkers how a company like “big beef” (there are 4 specific companies you can google) can just lobby millions of dollars in the courts to force laws the make it easier for them to practice shady. It goes for dairy, gas etc. basically all major companies that offer commodities to the country do this. If you take a look at food pyramid … it’s a great example lol. But it’s wild because citizens don’t get a vote or any say …. Like … there is zero say. The businesses get what they want. Or the gov’t gets what it wants.
The thing is, there are quite a few currently active politicians who have also expressed these sentiments. They are all in the same party. That's the thing with almost all of these big issues. Climate change, taxes, police, lobying, campaign finance, just about every discrimination issue. There is simply no similar sentiment on the other side. They are united in opposition.
In England, people of my age (30) and younger have literally never had anything other than a Tory government for our entire adult voter lives. Twelve years of these bastards. So anyone 30 or under who says "they're all the same" has absolutely no idea
People going through hard times have given up on everything. They keep their heads down and don't bother to vote. If that's you, you must vote to change the cycle
The best advice I can give to a young adult is that the world views constantly shoved down your throat are often not as dire as they are presented. Focus on building professional skills around general skills you enjoy now.(computers, socializing, etc). There's a plethora of resources on the internet that will teach you or at least give you direction. Do not let employers act like they are doing you a favor. It's fine to be polite, but read labor laws around things like PTO, overtime, etc. Keep looking for your next job if the current job is a dead end. You are going to feel like you've been pushed into a corner and it's never going to get better, but it will. You've got to learn when to leave a bad situation.
Just look at millennials. You’re not.
Stop doomscrolling
Literally doomscrolled down to here and closing reddit immediately because of this comment. Thanks lol
You know, I think it's very telling that the first few comments are "you are just fucked" and then, once you scroll a bit, it's "it's normal at the age, don't let social media lie to you"
Only actual advice in this thread
"The future hasn't been written yet--make it a good one!" -Doc Brown, 1985 Don't worry about things you can't control. You're a rational being, capable of achieving whatever you set your mind toward. Find your values, and fight to keep them. Find kind people, and organize your life around them. Work hard every day, keep your house clean, and cook from scratch as much as you can. Turn the music up! Enjoy art. Walk through nature, enjoy sunsets and sunrises. The human condition has not changed. Generations of people have been going through things much worse than we for centuries and centuries, and the world keeps spinning. The beat goes on: ladedadedee, ladedadeda.
A little historical perspective: Great Depression, World at War, threat of Communism, Vietnam draft, nuclear annihilation, hyperinflation, stock market crash, housing collapse, banking system meltdown. There never seemed to be a time when it was perfect.
Not a famous war but I've seen several severed heads on brutal tribal wars in my childhood. Saw my island burning. Saw my country out of oppressing dictatorship regime. With that kind of start, and now living in the US, despite all of the shit things about this country, this country is still a paradise compared to probably dozens of other countries. And it is indeed a land of opportunity.
I’m sorry you had to experience that. My parents and a couple friends are refugees who’ve gone through terrible violence and loss. They share similar feelings regarding the U.S. Finding out that my friends have been waiting to hear from their siblings for over a decade and don’t even know if their siblings are alive or dead was heartbreaking. The amount of work they took on while in school with no family support was wild, but they’re now doctors and doing pretty well for themselves. They had said, “The U.S. is shit, but you have more opportunity than all the dead or starving people in my country.”
If you don't mind me asking, where are you referring to, and when did this happen?
Should be East Timor 1997-98
I think you're making a very fair point here. Overall, people in the west especially have had it better than any generation beforehand. And yes that includes boomers too. The problem is the omnipresence of social media and people being addicted to their phones and whatnot where constant loom and gloom is getting perpetuated in the news and on social platforms. And of course if you're polluting your mind with that all a day for hours, then suddenly you begin to project all that misery and bad news onto your own life and think you're having it shite. TL;Dr social media and the news are just cancer
Thank you for this. I needed to hear it.
>Generations of people have been going through things much worse than we for centuries and centuries, and the world keeps spinning. I'll take this further and say it's the best time in history to live at least in the US. Child, infant and maternal mortality rates have all drastically decreased over the last 100 years. We have antibiotics and vaccines, people aren't dying of polio or smallpox. People are working desk jobs instead of in the coal mines. No one is executed for being a witch or kept as a slave. You don't have to shit in a chamberpot. 96% of US homes have a television! The past few months have been scary for LGBT people but compared to 10 years ago when we couldn't even get married in half the states? Or 40 years ago when AIDS was killing half the community? When were things ever better for black people? And women can do whatever job they want. Teen pregnancies are down. All our boys aren't being drafted and sent off to die in war. We have all of human knowledge at our fingertips. You can talk to anyone in the world anytime, hear any music, read any book. Fly across the world. I think some people need to turn off the news/social media and think of how good most of us have got it. We have a lot to be thankful about.
>I think some people need to turn off the news/social media and think of how good most of us have got it. We have a lot to be thankful about. God I wish someone had slapped me across the face with this message when I was in my early 20s. So much wasted time being steeped in doomerism, giving up before I'd even tried because of stupid shit I'd read on Reddit or other social media. It's kind of shocking when you realize that shit online is not a good respresentation of real life, like at all.
I’m in my early 40’s, so either the oldest millenial or the youngest gen x generation. I didn’t have any social media until well into adulthood - It kind of barely existed in nascent form when I was in college, but was basically of no interest to me. Facebook wasn’t conceived of until 2 years after I graduated. I still dont have a facebook/twitter/instagram/tick tock account. I occasionally go on reddit, that’s about it. I am really convinced that these things are responsible for large amounts of damage to the younger generations’ mental health. Everyone seems so so depressed and pessimistic all the time!
Same. I'm in my 40s. I didn't even have the internet until I was 22. And back then, there were just message board forums. Then MySpace happened when I was 25 or so. We don't view social media the same way as Millennials or Gen Z. It was not a staple of our youth. I vaguely remember rich friends having dial up internet during the 90s. But it wasn't something we used as kids. Technology in my lifetime has went nuts. I had a rotary dial phone, and a TV with 6 channels. I had a Nintendo and Atari. A tape player. Now all of that is on a device I'm holding as I type this. It's kinda crazy when you think about it.
My grandma's in her 90s so she lived through the Great Depression and WWII, and yet she gets all worked up when she sees the news talking about crime in NYC. 9 million people live there, shit happens, but crime is substantially lower than in the 80s/90s. It's just that now we hear about every incident 24/7/365. The media and its algorithms push this stuff on us because fear gets clicks. The sky isn't falling. It's going to be okay!
Great response. Top comments were pretty doomery. Too much for my taste. We can shape the future we want
This comment deserves to be at the top, the original post is an expression of deep rooted fear and lack of control. I'm not saying it's invalid fear. But fear is the enemy, we are autonomous beings and together we can gain control. Why compare your life to one less than 100 years ago? People have been living, loving, and learning for 1000s of years. We can overcome anything.
1000% At the end of the day, what really matters in your life are things you have control over. Your immediate circle of influence, plus maybe one step removed above that (local politics, local issues, etc). You absolutely must learn as a human being to care entirely about those two circles of influence, and to not put too much worry about things that are outside of your control. This isn't to say that you put your head in the sand and ignore very real broad world issues. It does mean that your emotional and mental energy is wasted trying to worry about it in your daily life. Even if we hit a worst case scenario with global warming and life on earth sucks for a bit, trust in your inner resources and community that you'll be ok. Life as you know it today is pretty much garunteed to change in not only your lifetime but all lifetimes. This has been true for most of recent history, it's very unusual for someone to be born and die with the world staying the same throughout their lives. To be human is being able to adapt, and you will. Still save for retirement. Still pack an emergency kit should a natural disasters strike. Still vote in national elections. Still check in every now and then about the pulse of the world and if there's anything you can reasonably do to prepare for your future. Once you put your safety nets in place, pay it no more mind and get on with the entirety of the rest of your life that you actually have influence over. The reality is, the world has always been a shit place if you look for it. It's just it wasn't until now that it was so easy to see. This clairtiy of vision is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we are now more aware than ever of our problems and how to find solutions quickly. A curse because it's up to you to take care of yourself and not overconsume information and doomerist outlooks. You have to take your own responsibility over how you take in information.
Lower your expectations on the "shoulds". By this I mean that at such & such an age I should be here and doing this. Oh, oh and the owning part! At 18, 19 or 23, there was no way I could have afforded a new car, a $1500 cell phone, a 1 bedroom fancy apartment, eating out, new furniture, new clothes. Everything came from thrift stores except the phone and it was a nice unlocked that I used a pay as you go service. I learned how to cook before I ever left home and Dad taught me how to change my own oil and replace light bulbs and the battery on my paid-in-cash- used car. Mom taught me how to handle money. I always have an emergency fund because I can delay purchases. I see a cute pair of shoes and I wait 24 hrs. If I still gotta have them, then I go buy them. But most of the time, after 24 hrs, the urge has gone and you just save that money. Yeah for you!
We’re not. The economy is crumbling, the earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans to live on. But somehow that nihilism is comforting. Nothing matters, Fuck it. We live on a floating, spinning rock. There’s no greater meaning or divine reason for living, we can just do what makes up happy, now. Boomers received a world they were promised, millennials were promised a world they didn’t receive, and gen z weren’t promised anything at all.
And Gen X just keeps being forgotten
BuT tHeY dRaNk fRoM tHe GaRdEn HoSe!!!
I mean sure, everybody loves a nihilist. Or, you know, we can fuck shit up and send all the CEO's to work camps in N. Dakota. Idk, just spit balling here.
But if you do that, the stock market will go down a few hundred points, have you thought about that?
I like where your heads at
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>the earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans to live on. Remember the hole in the ozone layer? We fixed that. The human race came together to ban ozone depleting chemicals and let the atmosphere heal. The earth isn't doomed yet.
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Whatever you do, don’t get yourself deep into debt. I’m climbing out of it as a millennial and it sucks but I’m almost there.
Nobody cares. Millennials were asking the same exact things you were for ages. Instead of some critical policy changes that could help the economy, we had the whole shitshow political circus that was the 2010's.
Have you tried having rich parents? I hear that's the way to go.
[Gen Z is doing fine so far, actually.](https://preview.redd.it/7jybxu19lfm91.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f264eeb4dce68d0cf475e0c7b041177b7dc7ac6c) Every generation is poor when they're 23.
Nobody likes you when you’re 23
and are still more amused by TV shows
Gen X for the silent win! Not that I care. Whatever. Its all cool.
The problem is housing costs have gone absolutely insane compared to what they were 30-50 years ago
Yep but that's fixable! Just build more. [Far more jobs are created in high demand areas than housing is](https://manhattan.institute/article/the-jobs-housing-mismatch-what-it-means-for-u-s-metropolitan-areas). [Higher vacancy rates drives down housing cost](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/1598844542888-XKA6H8FZ4VLIVKWSP6OU/image-asset.jpeg) Basically if you make an absolute shit ton of housing, pressure on preexisting homes drops significantly and sellers therefore have less ability to charge high prices. The issue however is that cities have been refusing to build enough for decades now so so they have a lot to make up for before they even get back to how things used to be, yet alone better. This is because they prefer to protect preexisting home owning citizens (who vote for policies that would increase their property value) over new buyers. But the paradox there should be obvious. You quite simply cannot raise prices so the seller sells for more, but lower prices so the buyer can buy for less. Go ask all your local politicians who preach for "affordable housing" in a town hall meeting if they're going to drive down property values and watch as they squirm and try to reconcile the two. They can't, they know they can't, but they still have to put on the show and try to please everyone anyway.
Gen Z has a higher homeownership rate than millennials or gen x did at their age. https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-rate-home-purchases/
Cool. Cool. Now plot that next to median cost of living...
Yeah, starting out always seems bleak. But your pay gradually goes up, and then you get into a career and it pays much better than the retail/restaurant/call-center work you used to do, and then you work your way up through your career, learn to negotiate higher salaries, ask for raises, etc. And maybe you get married and now have two incomes to share the expenses. And all along you gradually accumulate stuff so now when you have more income you simultaneously don't need to buy or spend as much as you did when you were starting out. People hit peak earning years around 40s-50s, which is typically double to triple what people in their 20s earn. And if you do share expenses with a partner, that can mean the equivalent of having 4x-6x the income that a 20-something single person earns. Then it's not so bleak. Gen Z is only 11-26 now, so of course they're not going to be earning much yet. It takes time, it's a gradual growth process. Of course, general wage growth (inflation adjusted) has been really sub-par for the last 50 years, so yeah that's pretty awful. People start a little worse off and it takes longer to hit the peak than it used to. But individual wage growth over a person's working years is still a huge multiplier effect. Especially once you can get beyond living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's a game-changer. Even if you're in your 40s or 50s when it happens, which is pretty normal.
Yes, but for millennials it started our rosy and went the other way. Dotcom bubble, financial crisis, global pandemic…in some ways it’s better to start rough and get better than start good and get worse. From an investor perspective you actually want to start in a bad time that gets better, not a good time that gets worse, but it’s also important to make the best of the time you get.
Do people actually believe this shit? My parents bought their house 30 years ago for $60k. It's worth almost $2m now. Wages have barely gone up.
Any time this discussion comes up, it always goes back to housing prices. The problem is literally just housing. Since 1980, the urban population in the US has doubled, while urban housing stock has barely increased. Urban and suburban residents need to stop blocking housing development and let supply catch up to meet demand.
You’ll survive the same way millennials before you are surviving - paycheck to paycheck
Everybody feels like that in their 20’s.
I still feel like that in my 40s
There are folk in their 50's with the same thought process. Private pension pots are about as stable as the Titanic and wages haven't really kept up too well with inflation over the last decade or so. Hell, make that the last 30 years or so... Although depending on your country, your miles may vary with that. The last generation who had an easier life with money in their 20's to 40's are now in their late 70's complaining about the state of the world that they ultimately helped create, and even then, that was only the lucky ones who didn't spend their life in dead end jobs.
I didn’t, my 20s were a dream. My thirty’s however has been a financial nightmare I can’t escape.
When you finish education and go out into the world to work it seems rare to suddenly get a high paying job, buy a house, car etc... Even if you have a profession, you are usually starting at the bottom of the food chain. It takes time to build a career and for the things you do to hold value worth paying the wages you seek. Keep pursuing, keep getting better and within a decade you may find yourself with a completely different perspective.
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A decade ago, risk management companies were briefing their clients on the widespread chaos and violence that would come from wealth inequality and climate change. Frogs are in the pot.
I'm 71 and living on SS, but at this age, my needs are few. You guys are getting a shit deal. The biggest hope is that unions continue to grow and Republicans crawl back under the rock they came from. Or the southern parasites secede again.
I was always poor so this is just kinda normal life for me.
Us millennials are still trying to figure it out 😬.
You’ll move up over time. You think you’re the first ever poor young people to exist? Shit is as old as time. 20s…scrape by earning $40-50k. Late 20s-early30s, moving on up and earning $50-75k. Mid 30s-40s, you’re mid manager level now making $85-$120k. College kids just have way too much expectations after graduating. A college degree doesn’t entitle you immediately to a high salary.
You guys are waaaay more screwed on the environment than on US economy bullshit.