This past fall, many financial advisors and commentators worked themselves into a tizzy over an incendiary article titled, “If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You’re Doing Something Wrong.”
In it the author Lauren Martin rejected every good piece of financial advice offered by her parents – and mine, too.
Now, Martin may be the worst nightmare of fiscally responsible Baby Boomers and older – the perfect picture of an entitled and foolish young 20s urbanite.
But I think it’s more likely Elite Daily and Martin knew exactly what they were doing with this outrage-inducing click bait. I’m sure Martin had plenty of cash to buy new clothes and ride around in taxis after the web traffic numbers were in.
Still, the underlying core of Martin’s article does hit on a few important truths.
“We’re on different schedules, different paths and totally different savings plans,” writes Martin about people currently in their 20s.
She’s right.
The U.S. economy is very different compared to 30 and 40 years ago. The days of debt-free higher education or trade schools, a bevy of job opportunities, staying at one company for your whole career, pensions, employer-sponsored healthcare, and guaranteed social security are quickly disappearing.
For people in their 20s and 30s, like me, we’ve had to forge a slightly different financial path in order to maneuver this current economy.
Today’s young professionals are dealing with mountains of debt from education. We’re changing jobs more frequently in order to gain better salaries and compensation packages. We’re not having kids or getting married as early as our parents. And we’re renting for longer.
So, as Martin is really saying amongst all of her tortured logic, it makes sense that a younger person’s financial planning and priorities are different from previous generations.
But not only is the economy different. What its consumers want is different, too.
Leave A Comment