Boston Gal's Open Wallet

As an gen-Xer I couldnt agree more. The bills keep piling. I think its sad that we are now forced to make financial decisions about emotional things like wanting to have children. Maybe this is a bad example but how sad that we are supposed to be happy about just getting through the month without something being repossessed.

 

Tough circumstances don't just happen to people. Consider the life choices she's made:

Single (1)
Mother (2)
In NYC (3)

Common sense tells us that any one of these choices adds risk and cost to a lifestyle. Making those choices and then complaining about the poor outcome is pretty disingenuous.

(And her policy ideas are vintage Jimmy Carter, "...we are in a position to demand more federal support for education, housing, child care, healthcare, and retirement."

Have Iraq or Katrina not caused even a small rethink of our government's ability to solve problems?)

 

Americans have been telling me this since I first came to America (in 1990). So it's not really news. Oviously, many Americans are doing much better than their parents and some aren't. I wonder to what degree this is some downward and some upward mobility in a society whose economic growth rate is not that high and where inequality has increased since 1990.

My experience has always been very different as I've always been better off or aout the same as my parents at each stage in life. Partly that is due to having relatively old parents who went through the Great Depression (when my Mom was born in Australia) or the Second World War (my father was born during WW1 in Germany). But also I had low expectations. When I was in high school in Britain in the early 80s unemployment was at a record high since the great depression and the end of the world seemed to be coming with all the tension between the USSR and USA involving placing piles of missiles in Britain. Things have turned out better than I expected. Noone told us to expect anything, but only that if we didn't work hard things would be very bad for us. I guess we were motivated by fear rather than greed.

 

I think this article is way off. Our generation has luxury fever - we want to have it all in our 30s. Our houses and vehicles are bigger and fancier. We eat out at least weekly - when I was a kid in the 80s eating out was a big big deal. If you were a kid and got to go to Disney once you knew that was your once in a lifetime. We've upped the ante.. if families lived like families did in the '70s that would be a modest existence relative to today. Imagine.. one small car in your family.. one television.. half the clothes you have now. Our bank accounts would be healthier, and our waistlines smaller.

 

I was thinking the same things as the poster at 8:13PM. I would add another item:

Author (4)

Unless you got a best seller, being an author *never* paid well. Put all four items together, and she wonders why its hard for her to make ends meet? I'm sorry, but that's borderline delusional.

 

I agree with the article. We are a dual-income couple (no kids) in New York city. We are both in our late thirties, have 5 graduate degrees between the 2 of us and we definitely postponed kids for financial reasons. We just did not feel we could afford it because we wanted to buy a home first. It took us 10 years to save money for a down payment (we do not have rich parents) and we certainly never splurge or take expensive vacations (expensive vacation for us is anything >$1,000 for a week). We do not even have cable TV because it's too expensive (and we work too much to have time to watch TV). Over the last 10 years the stock market never returned (on average) what it did in the previous decade. So, even though we saved aggressively (probably over 20% of gross income every year), savings returns were never enough to compensate for inflation and increase in real estate prices. In addition tax rates are frighteningly high in New York. It leaves very little to play with at the end of the day and our cash flows are tight every month.

 

mOOm, this article doesn't apply to you coz you're not a genX'er... you're a baby boomer. Most baby boomers fared better than their parents.

 

I'm a gen-Xer and totally disagree. My peers and friends buy so much crap it's amazing. Add to that lunches, cocktails, manicures, not cutting coupons.

It's a joke. Stop buying the stupid iPod, stupid-er digital camera, stop drinking top shelf booze, get out of your hipster neighborhood, start saving and don't buy something you can't afford.

I'm ashamed of people my age- we want it now and haven't worked for it. We saw the dot com days and reality tv and think, oh sure, that should happen to me.

Don't whine about your burdens until you start selling stuff on craigslist. Grow up, make sacrifices for crying out loud.

At least you, Mr. Average American make the small majority of us who do this look so overly responsible.

 

I never thought of myself as a baby boomer - was born 1st December 1964...

 

I agree with the posters saying we over spend on crap, but certain items are much more expensive now. Housing is still expensive in many places. I'm in a profession (consulting) that pays well, but I still couldn't afford a house in the area I live (DC). Certain things are worse, certain things are the same, though I'm not sure anything is better.

 

That's my birthday, too, mOOm! Born in 1981 though. Let's have our parties together this year to save money!

 

I'm going to start calling myself 2:49AM as that's when I had my first post on this blog last night (see rant about how stupid my generation is).

I think people have a perception issue. Housing hasn't gotten more expensive if you consider the price per capita and the average square footage of a house.

In the past generations, move people would live in a smaller house. It's generally accepted that since 1950 the size of new houses have doubled. More closet space and room space to fill with more crap!

Any what's better than filling the house with crap...than filling it with more expensive crap! What costs more to purchase and run- a hand cranked washer and dryer or 2 side by side electricity sucking units? A few lamps, a transistor radio and a library card or 4 flat screen TVs, Netflix and cable? Do we all need granite counter tops and gourmet stainless steel appliances?

I know I'm going for the extreme, but our the stupidity and hypocrisy of our generation combined with the birthright that we should acquire more crap while working less that our ancestors is starting to catch up to us.

Did your grandmother have a credit card? Did she? What about an ARM?

 

I think it all comes down to greed and keeping up with the joneses.

Many of my fellow Gen Xers after college wanted to live in "trendy" places, which are usually larger cities. This works for some young professionals who rise through the ranks and start to rake it in, but it doesn't for everyone. Instead of moving to an area which is more reasonable, they end up in this position.

That part is just real estate though, I have seen one person get married, then the next person has to out do that person and the engagement rings to the wedding reception get way out of hand.

Sacrifice doesn't seem to be something many of my contemporaries learned and 9:45 above hits the nail on the head, most want everything now.

I last bought a vehicle in 1999, one guy I work with bought a car in 2000, sold it and got another one in 2005, then just sold that one this year. 3 cars while I have had the same one, I don't need to have the latest and greatest.

I may have stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, but I saved for them, I also have a 4 megapixel camera from 2001 and a 10 year old tv.

With the increase in gas, I think Gen Xers are starting to wake up to not trying to keep up with their peers.

I'd love to see an article in the media on that.