Gen X dad nails it.
- Thread starter Clay Showalter
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Bigcountry40
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He’s right to a degree, obviously live within your means etc, etc, entry level jobs aren’t supposed to support a family. But boomers bought their houses and vehicles a lot cheaper than we can. The cost of housing, health care and vehicles has increased a lot more than salaries for the average joe, and I’m not talking fast food. Something’s got to give, 19 year old making $20 an hour at whirl pool paying over 1000 in rent and 400 a month a decent vehicle isn’t allowing him/her to save. This video shows the attitude of the typical republican,but doesn’t offer real solutions to a growing wealth gap.
No, this video shows the attitude of a person who understands that you start at the bottom with goals and determination, work hard and make sacrifices to get ahead in life. This takes most of us 10-20 years of diligent working and saving, not a few years. Millennials as a group have an unrealistic sense of entitlement and they are straight up fucking lazy. They want everything, and they want it NOW. They need to get jobs and stop spending $10 for a latte at Starbucks, drive crappy cars, and learn to save their money, even it's only $50 a month.
P8riot
Active Member
There it is. Paying $400 a month for a decent vehicle. I had pieces of shit I had to rig back together I paid cash for because when I wasnt in school, I worked and saved my $. Why does a teenager need a new vehicle at $400 a month? Millenials in general dont seem to grasp sacrifice. They live in an online world where they see other people with all this shit and they think they somehow deserve it too. They want everything and they want it now.
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"Boomers" also didn't go around spending $1,000 on a new phone, $140 a month on the cellular plan, $50+ a month on streaming service, or finance expensive cars for 72 months at 11% interest. The list could go on. To a degree, you have a point, but many today see luxury items as minimum lifestyle items. Nobody needs a PlayStation and 72-inch TV, but they buy them in droves. Our parents and grandparents understood the value of priorities. I would argue that today people have a very over-inflated opinion of what's required to achieve a minimal requirements lifestyle compared to the generation gone by. In my opinion, the worst thing that happened to the younger generation was the ability to finance everything right down to 4 easy payments for their Amazon order of $75.
Housing has undoubtedly gone up but not as much as one would think. Our grandparents bought a house for 20k in 1965, through inflation alone that house is worth 188k today. In the vast majority of the country a person can buy a really nice home for 188k. Can they afford that on a McDonald's paycheck, no, but they're not supposed to be able to either. The other problem is they don't want to live where they can buy that home for 188k. They want to live in big cities but they can't afford to. We're seeing a big shift in this country. Once upon a time people were largely born in rural areas and moved to cities to work in factories, houses were built that those workers could afford. Their children got jobs in the same factories and bought houses in that area. Today cities are mostly full of white-collar businesses. The affordable housing the factory workers used to buy is now in shitty crime-ridden neighborhoods. The White-collar employees build expensive suburbs. Their kids will never be able to get a Job where dad works that will allow them to afford a house in that suburb while they build a career. Yet they still insist on living there and working at shoe carnival because they love the city vibe and all their friends are there.
Bigcountry40
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You do realize that a good amount of us on here are older millennials, we are 40 years old, I think you referring more to gen z and the young millennials. And I think you have completely missed the point I was trying to make. Because of covid the car and housing market is now out of control, my wife and I bought our first house together 10 years ago for 65k, both making 30k a year, salaries haven't increased that much, but that same house probably is selling for 150k plus. Unless the housing market crashes again Gen Z and my kids generation may not even have the opportunity to own a house if they do not have the right support growing up. Things are getting tougher for younger generation and we like to just put them all in the same box and say "buckle up your boot straps and get to work" . All the millennials that are on this site that I know can work circles around boomers, post war and wwII generations physically and intellectually, there are more lazy people now with eroding ethics and morals , but there were these types with boomers, post war and wwii as well.
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All the times that I've been able to have a reasonable conversation with a younger person about the lifestyle items. Nice car, tv, PlayStation, iPhone, designer clothes, etc they always say. "So you just want me to be a poor person". Not at all. I'm saying that right now, you ARE a poor person, but you're spending like you aren't. None of those things make you less poor, you're still poor, but now you're a poor person that owes payments on a bunch of shit.
Bigcountry40
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I am talking about 20 somethings that need reliable transportation, wrenching on your 1991 ford Taurus, in your buddies garage or paying Tony under the table who works out of his garage is basically a thing of the past. A lot of rust buckets were takin off the market with the 2009 cash for clunkers under obama. The used car market is stupid right now, I typed in 2012 ford focus and they are around 10k for something with 100k miles.
P8riot
Active Member
If the vaccines continue to "work as planned" we will just be able to walk up to a house and declare it ours. Who is going to be around to stop us? 
Bigcountry40
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I'll continue my debate later, this millennial needs to go pick up metal for his porch that he built himself with no help from anyone and bought with his hard earned money.
I feel an important missing link that would help children of any generation would be financial literacy programs integrated into their school curriculum. This would go a long way to develop a young adult who can make reasonable financial decisions, understand types of debt, and document priorities and goals with a timeline associated.
as for the video, seemed corny and scripted and maybe the young man can help the older man with some health tips so he doesnt end up needing handouts from the govt later in life to stay alive, in return he can teach him all those clever lessons.
as for the video, seemed corny and scripted and maybe the young man can help the older man with some health tips so he doesnt end up needing handouts from the govt later in life to stay alive, in return he can teach him all those clever lessons.
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It's a very valid point. The worst of this are corporate entities buying up housing by the thousands of units. Used to be corporate entities were only interested in larger apartment buildings. Now they're buying up single family homes like crazy artificially inflating tent and home prices. Here is a good article that explains it better than I ever could.
How corporations are buying up houses — robbing families of the American Dream
One morning in 2012, Phoenix real-estate developer Geoff Jacobs was playing golf when he got a surprising phone call. One of his employees, trying to bid on a house they wanted at auction, told him…
nypost.com
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I completely agree. It's a shame that we aren't teaching kids financial literacy in school. I was amazed at how completely unprepared my nieces and nephew were after graduation. They had no idea how credit card interest worked. How to rent a home. How car buying worked. Good thing they spent so much time learning about the war of 1812 though.
@Cogz I'm pretty sure it was a scripted. I feel like I've seen multiple videos with these two.
To add to Jackalope- average house was maybe a 2 bed/1 bath with no AC back in the day. Didn't need all the extras. It isn't just the new car/game system/$1000 cell phone wants. Same with cars. A/C and radios or even hub caps were options you added. Expectations have risen exponentially.
Dad built my childhood home in 78. As an adult shopping for a home, I asked why he didn't build a basement? He said that would cost $15/mo extra for 30 years. I asked again "so why didn't you build it with a basement then?" His reply was shocking and this conversation was 20-25yrs ago "we only had $25/mo in the budget for unexpected or extra stuff."
I'll admit they may have been tighter on the budget than most, but I can't imagine $25/mo for unexpected stuff. $250 maybe? I don't really know. If I need more I just work more.
To add to Jackalope- average house was maybe a 2 bed/1 bath with no AC back in the day. Didn't need all the extras. It isn't just the new car/game system/$1000 cell phone wants. Same with cars. A/C and radios or even hub caps were options you added. Expectations have risen exponentially.
Dad built my childhood home in 78. As an adult shopping for a home, I asked why he didn't build a basement? He said that would cost $15/mo extra for 30 years. I asked again "so why didn't you build it with a basement then?" His reply was shocking and this conversation was 20-25yrs ago "we only had $25/mo in the budget for unexpected or extra stuff."
I'll admit they may have been tighter on the budget than most, but I can't imagine $25/mo for unexpected stuff. $250 maybe? I don't really know. If I need more I just work more.
Save ur money boy cash is king! Try your best never to borrow money. My grandfather dead and gone was and is still my hero. Strong as a fuckin bull. Let nobody outwork you, ever! I spent more time working in my youth with him in his garden and plastering in my teens than i spent with my dad growing up. Im a mason because of one sentence from gdad.....plastering is dead kid, if i could do it again id be a mason....old cavalier with 265k runs like a champ.
Depends what you mean on cash being king. As an investment or hedge against inflation it’s literally the worst thing you could have, even some traditionally depreciating assets have been better than cash with the most recent inflationary environment. Also, if you don’t finance certain things you probably won’t accomplish what you’d like to. There is good debt and bad debt. There are also different ways to collateralize the purchase of an asset rather than taking a loan on that asset. These concepts are important for people to understand if you want to maximize your effort and be a good steward of any level of savings you realize. Again, financial literacy is super important for all Americans.
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Having 1k in cash in the cupboard in the 50s or behind in payments. Majority of americans live paycheck to paycheck still. People shit themselves if they go a week without pay.
