Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.
For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”
But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.
She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?
X’er here. I have what most would consider a good job, with good pay, and a good boss. I consider it a good job with good pay and a good boss. My spouse is unable to work, and we have two children. I’m currently seeking some skill or product I can develop without taking time away from my existing responsibilities such that I have a chance of not having to work until I die at my desk one day.
With no shade against millenials, this is the only time I’m grumpy about being forgotten in the generational sniping that goes on. All these articles (like OP) about this very valid angst from older millenials and I identify with it pretty much every time. I know I’m not the only X’er who does.
It’s the trouble with attributing it to any specific generation. It’s like people forgot that Gen Xers grew up reading the same dystopian sci-fi that we did that predicted this corporate shithole world. Neuromancer was written in 1984, when I was three years old. People forget that the cynicism of Gen X explicitly came from being such a small generation compared to the Boomers that it was just always a given that they wouldn’t ever have much political influence. Hell, it even affects a lot of Boomers, because this has been going on for a long time.
Gen X gets forgotten, but they were honestly the first to really bear the brunt of this disease that’s eating at all of us, and thus it’s sad that they get forgotten. Cheers mate, and I hope you find that skill and succeed in your goals.
Thanks buddy. 🥹
I leave this parting gift…
First, the 1% gets all the money and then the piss trickles down.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to piss. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence
And then the money is used for regulatory capture and influencing the government in the 1%'s behalf.
Aka capitalism progressing through it’s innate path towards end stage.
I fall just at that borderline of the two and have the same sort of spot. Took too long to get to a decent career-class job, managed to buy a basic house but only just and not much of one, savings of an amount to be confident of retirement are a fantasy from a bygone time. Spent many years with the mantra of show up, do your job, don’t cause trouble, the promotions and raises will follow and in 50 years you get a nice gold watch and a permanent vacation. BS…
You know it. At least we’re not alone. :)
I have noticed that the titles of many articles, yes even at The Guardian that generally has good content once you get past that, are written to generate maximum clicks.
You were not ignored by accident. It was a calculated decision to maximize profits, in a manner that controls the conversation and leaves you out in the cold.
Fuck corporate greed:-(.
But for you, my fellow human being who isn’t a hollowed-out shell i.e. CEO, I wish the absolute best outcome possible. (And me too.)
Maybe house prices will go down someday? I really am genuinely surprised at all that Biden('s administration) has managed to accomplish, but it was set back years before it even started by the pandemic, greedflation, and other economic and other forms of unrest. If we can get past this next election without a literal and actual bloody civil war… well then most of us will still die of climate change (gee, I am just full of positivity today aren’t I? sadly, that is the most positive take possible on that one:-|), but we might be able to make some headway? e.g. start incentivizing building houses further away from city centers, which WFH should help make possible - and even if you want to live in a city, the decrease in demand should help lower prices?
Anyway, all we can do is what we can do (aka not everything is within our control), so don’t stress too awfully much about it. We’ll die - we can’t change that - but hopefully we’ll have some good days between now and then:-).
Thanks!
I remember your username primarily because you are always so courteous even when we disagree. (not that we do here)
Lol this guy thinks there is a chance he will die at his desk. I wish I could feel that optimism.
Chances are better that at best you will die in gig or part time job like Walmart. The most likely is in you kids house, really yours but you will give it to them, and without medical support beyond basic hospice.
Many of your peers and friends will die in homeless camps or from police violence.
You were jacking off when you wrote this, weren’t you.
X too, steady job, ok pay, lucky enough to have bought a house before COVID, but not enough to save thousands of $ for retreat.
Every generation grows up, settles down, and starts quarrels with its parents.
In 10-15 years, Zoomers will remember you.