Not surprised. My wife and I make more money than we ever have and I feel like everything is out of reach. Inflation is through the roof. And wages haven’t come close to keeping up. We’re fortunate both of us make mid $20 an hour.
For someone starting out I have no idea how they could manage. If I was starting out today straight from highschool I’d most likely be homeless
I’m exactly on the same page. Huge leaps in wage, but my life is moving backwards.
My wife and I are fortunate and make substantial salaries. We still can’t afford a home. We make enough to have hope of one day owning one, which is more than I can say for many people.
It’s completely crazy
Are they actually surprised?
Even the previous generation were delaying and skipping milestones.
Pikachu face: late stage capitalism.I’m firmly in the millennial camp in my mid thirties and I have two pairs of couple friends who’ve had kids. It could absolutely be my friends circle, but most of us are in the trades or have advanced degrees (most of the people who went the college route also have more than a bachelor’s, because that alone wasn’t enough to get a job) and we just can’t make it work. Many of them want kids, but they want to be able to provide for them first, so they’re just waiting
I was in the waiting camp so long I expired. Technically I could still have a kid(?) - but don’t want to be 60+ at a graduation party.
Just make sure you won’t regret of the decision / indecision and you will be okay.That’s the thing: if you really want kids, you’ll regret not having them. If you really want kids and have them without being able to afford feeding and clothing them, you’ll regret that even more.
I see so many people with kids - if they can make it work…
The point is for children you will sacrifice your current lifestyle. No leisure time, double shifts, insane expenses.We all want the ideal: you work 8 hours go home and be with the family, while the other parental unit took care of everything - then you go to a move; every weekend you watch a ball game - go out to dinner every once a while, get new clothes once a while, take vacations every year.
But it won’t happen.There is a reason why most romantic fiction shows one party as independently wealthy. No one wants to see the overtime shifts and gig economy - and being one paycheck away from being homeless, doesn’t create romantic feelings.
We’re already working double shifts without leisure time, so there’s no slack to cut. That’s the problem. People who really want kids know that kids require sacrifice, that’s the one thing everyone talks about with kids. If you don’t have any more holes in the belt, trying to tighten it won’t help.
Do those people with kids make it work, or are they doing their children a disservice by being emotionally and literally unavailable to them because they’re trying to make sure they don’t starve? I hope most of them make it work, but I know it’s not all of them. Unfortunately, crossing your fingers and hoping you’ll make it work doesn’t seem like a responsible choice to many of us when failure would so greatly impact an innocent person.
Yes, Gen Z “is doing that”… It’s them actively doing that… That’s how we are writing the headline, inferring choice or preference… Not, “Gen Z can’t have milestones” not “The Epstein class ate all of Gen Z’s deserved, basic, human milestones” no… Gen Z is delaying.
Yeah, that headline’s context is just “Experts say Gen Z can’t afford life milestones”, but with ridiculous grammar gymnastics.
The essential struggle is a class struggle, not a generational one. The billionaires love it when we blame boomers, Zoomers, Xers, etc., instead of blaming billionaires.
Or maybe just questioning if there’s any point in achieving them at all.
I feel this so often these days. Too many older people I’ve known over the years have gotten fucked over even after putting in all the work to make it… why even try when you’ll fail anyway.
Tell me about it. It’s like I learned so many skills and I can’t keep up with the curve. Programming, web design, animation, 3D design, audio, video, photography, pretty much every physical art like painting, electrical engineering, the list goes on. I think I’m stuck repairing things and being a career college student for the rest of my life since by the time I finish a degree, some wanker ruins the job market. Someone always needs to have something fixed but I’m tired, my hands and back are toast and I haven’t even gotten to 40.
It was funny when one of my professors told me if you’re going to want to be a news journalist photographer, I shadowed him a bit in college, you better learn how to use a video camera and edit as well. He had a pretty good point, that’s basically a prediction of what more or less streamers and content creators are, well except the content is usually not very good.
I’m questioning my life choices so hard rn. I miraculously got to buy a house, but now the foundation and bottom floor is fucked from a tornado that spawned essentially on top of me and it’ll cost half the cost of the whole house to fix. If my home insurance won’t cover it, I won’t be able to fix it
fingers crossed, I hope that the insurance will cover it
Wow that’s quite a shitty situation. I hope it works out for you. Houses shouldn’t be that expensive sigh
Thank you! I’m devastated over it but I have quite a few people who are helping me prove to the insurance company that the damage came from the tornado. It messed up a lot of my property, but I’m only truly worried about the foundation. I worked so hard to get this place and I don’t want to have to leave. I have options if I have to leave, but I don’t want to. I love my tiny, shitty lil house lol
Hah I’m the same way. I have been thinking about just getting an RV lately though. I always like traveling.
It was hard enough as a millennial getting to the point I’m at and it’s still not easy. I feel very bad for Gen Z. They’re getting fucked over
My cousin and his wife want kids but they’re both almost thirty and there’s no way they can afford children any time soon. I feel so bad for them because with how life is going for them, it’s not looking like they’ll be able to be parents. I’m not parent.aterial and the thought of being a parent disgusts me, but it is heartbreaking to the people I care about not being able to achieve their dream of starting a family
Best thing you can do is to participate in as little of the mainstream economy as possible.
We are witnessing something very fascinating happening. Big companies fat on their earlier success are shedding workforce. At the same time AI has made people productive enough to need less staff than before. This is culminating into high unemployment.
Necessity is the mother of invention. There will be new, smaller businesses. Spend your money there if you have it. Just accept that some thing won’t be as good as what a big company produces.
What the fuck is mainstream economy?
The normie economy. The economy everyone got into because everyone else got into it.
I (superior) prefer this other, more niche economy. Well, for now until more Normie’s get involved.
- Economic hipster
Heh. I guess I mean the big consolidated institutions. Obviously it’s all interconnected, but you have a choice where your money goes (sometimes), so when you do choose to spend it in your community.
“When I was young we just had the kids even though we didn’t have the space or money. We just figured it out and made it work”
“Yes we were able to buy our own house at the age of 12. No, my kids don’t talk to me anymore, why do you ask?”
No fucking shit. I both do and do not get why it takes “experts” to say this shit. Everything is fucked, what do you expect? Yeah, yeah, having an expert say something notifies people not connected to the affected people, but come fucking on.
This shit makes me so angry because it feels like there are a bunch of people with their heads up their ass that just came out for their once a decade deep breath only to realize something fucking changed while they were napping in their colon. Can’t fucking deal with this shit.
Ten years ago, the average home, at the average mortgage rate, and with a 20-percent down payment would’ve cost $1,952.04 per month. Today, that monthly cost is $3,470.95, according to mortgage data site Mortgage Calculator.
The real barrier people rarely talk about is down payment.
Apartment rent and small house mortgage aren’t that different, and mortgage stays mostly the same. The only part that changes is property value keeps going up so taxes and insurance keep going up.
If it wasn’t for that, first and last payment would be exactly the same. It’s even a frequent complaint of boomers with paid off mortgages, because you never stop paying those things.
Even people with paid off mortgages would benefit from lower housing costs.
They gonna have to rethink what a life milestone even is, just like many of the millenials at know really accepting.
TIL that Gen Z live only in USA or experts are not experts.
