Slightly Buzzed rant: Let's feed into the retirement crisis the country is currently experiencing with this trash. Most of this I feel like is propaganda for people with liberal arts degrees that are baristas at Starbucks. Average 401k balance is $25k... across the entire spectrum, I am sure most of those individuals do not have defined benefit pensions to fall back on either. You can dream that romantic, I don't need money to live my life, but in reality it's mostly a bunch of horseshit excuses for not reaching your potential.
Pretty sure I basically do whatever I want and don't have to penny pinch while saving a decent chunk for retirement... Not even on a Bulge Bracket investment banker salary (props on that) myself. I assume all the monkey's on here are in the same boat to some extent. Those still in college may not be, but I feel like they should see the logic against this article. Thoughts everyone?
"When you live your life by numbers, you strip yourself of poetry"
Umm what???????
See Full article here: http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/
That article gave me cancer.
Indeed it did. +1
wow...just wow
The article is definitely propaganda meant for the Starbucks baristas and Flycleaners delivery boys and girls of today, but saving in your 20's is definitely an idiotic thing to do. I know this is WSO and not being a sheep is frowned upon, but the measly $10k anyone who isn't an IB analyst might save in a whole year could be spent in a half hour at Vegas. If you're making $1m, savings and investments are definitely part of your game plan. $80k in NYC? Hope you feel good about your 3-mos. "rainy day" fund at the end of 2 years. You're an adult. Don't plan on sucking enough to get fired and make the best of the limited youth you've got when you're away from the desk. Don't let money and the job be your life.
I disagree, but no MS because we all know how much civilized discourse is valued on WSO :)
There's definitely a balance between saving in your 20s and enjoying your youth. If you have to miss out on every experience and penny pinch to save 10k a year in your 20s........maybe not the way to go. But if you can save ~5,000 (fill an IRA) each year in your 20s while working, you are definitely doing your future a favor. Especially if contributions are Roth, so that you can pull it out for whatever you want (house, MBA, trip to Vegas, etc)
A little bit of financial discipline when you're younger (like me) opens up doors that otherwise wouldn't be available, which can lead to retirement/getting off the hamster wheel of "work work work" earlier.
SB for being so civil lol.
And you're also right - that's just good financial management. It would be stupid to do otherwise. Full disclosure, I didn't read the article because Buzzfeed is shit. I assumed they meant that kind of penny pinching you mentioned due to what I expect their target audience to be.
And to that guy talking about being homeless - been there done that. My childhood wasn't strawberries and daffodils. Work hard, have some liquidity, sure. But as before, don't suck enough to be in that situation in the first place.
What he said. Bravo.
When shit hits the fan, fck it right? why wait 3 months when you can be homeless right away
Best part of that "article" is the one chick in the comments, Sarah Beth, ripping her to shreds.
Pretty much everyone is crushing her.
I need a Sarah Beth like that in my life.
OP your mistake was reading Elite Daily... you could gain more value from reading the back of a Chef Boyardee can.
Just click-bait, and laughable one-liners.
You just summed up 95% of online media these days.
"This 20-something was about to save for retirement and you'll never believe what happened next"
slowclap
the article is bad, no doubt... That said, the author's bio at the bottom gave me some laughs..
Live laugh love
roflcoptered. (assumed it was sarcastic)
As others have said you have to have balance... If you are just saving money for a 'rainy day' fund then sure, you don't need to be penny-pinching as stringently. The goal though for many is to save now so that you can invest it and accelerate your income. If you can save 10k a year and buy a residence sooner so you don't have to throw money away in rent for as long of a period and actually build some equity, why not? The logic some have ascribed to above is "well, if you don't start crushing it out of the gate then you may as well not try to better your situation". There are a lot of ways to make money besides working in finance or in a high paying corporate job.... If you have saved money and it is just sitting there, then I'd say you are doing something wrong. The whole point is to have the money working for you.
Ok. Let's take our banker goggles off for a second and think about this from the perspective of someone who isn't making street pay. That 35k Trunk Club gig isn't going stretch an entire year AND have some leftover for savings, and the same goes for most jobs under the 55-60 range that our non-banking peers are making. This article pisses me off because its a justification to spend wildly and without regard with some of the lamest excuses: networking at the bars, give me a break. People like this will piss their money away on "wanderlust" or whatever it is and feel cheated once they're thirty and feel like they are entitled to something.
I saved a lot during college because I worked a lot while going to school. I still went out. Those savings - which I don't like calling savings - allowed me to play around in the stock market at the bottom, and I made a nice sum as the market returned. All of that helped finance a semester abroad in Sweden (one of the most expensive countries in the world) and another year in the Netherlands. To each their own. But yeah, I am broke now lol.
Sounds amazing and I'm sure it was worth it. If you're not going to debt I feel like this somewhat of what the article is getting at (although I didn't read it in full). Opportunities to do that are much more challenging when you're older when your career is better established or when you have wife/kids so take the opportunity when you can.
YOLO man YOLO
Yodo man you only die once.
As someone who obsesses over his personal finances - this disgusts me. I've kept track of every financial line item in my life every two weeks in xls. This helps me and my wife budget and set goals. Couldn't be in better control of our finances. I hate this article.
The thing that sucks is that there is no good medium for young people to begin to learn to save/invest. Rich and older people have RIAs and FAs, and this is why I'm so glad for the rob-advisor market and apps like Acorns. There is simply no education on personal finance - should be mandatory in college for every student. Hopefully the robo-world will help get younger people started with basic savings plans and then more comprehensive advice when needed. Not sure how else to reach the service industry folks who lack the benefits of full retirement plans...scary stuff.
If the article was a call to arms for waspy attractive single girls in their early 20s, I couldn't agree more. Go to bars...buy nice clothes...and for gods sake stay fit. As Future Mrs. Doctor/Banker/Attorney/Techie you will be taken care of so live it up and more importantly lock it down.
For the 95% of other people in their 20s...yea not so much....
A nice perspective from a wise man.
I pity you guys who are the writer's age. You will be the ones paying for her retirement.
The only people who takes elite daily serious are waspy white girls in their 20s who enjoys having their daily dosage of confirmation bias on facebook
That pretty much sums up all online publications and the people who read them. Everyone loves conformation bias. Makes them feel like they aren't idiots.
Ok, this is one part that I actually agree with, but the rest of the article is shit. It's Elite Daily so I wasn't expecting much. It's like expecting insight from Buzzfeed, Jezebel, or worse, the New York Times. It's like how a broken clock is right at least twice a day, or like the fat chick who still sporadically gets a hot guy when he's completely drunk.
You should be financially aggressive in your 20s, but not financially reckless.
if you waste your life on elitedaily (or buzzfeed for that matter), you're doing something wrong
Mixed feelings about this article, but one thing is for sure--people like her do NOT deserve a social safety net paid for by the tax payers.
This article...... I can't even
in you're 20's you need to invest in yourself, exercise, read, eat properly, no alcohol, no smoke, no drugs, so when you become old, you will have less health issues, healthcare is sooo damn expensive, specially for old people
bro, you can't be serious.
Getting laid is all that matters. So, if you can do that without those, then worse advise has been given than this.
You forgot to add don't have sex also. Waaaay too dangerous these days.
>>
STDs are cheap compared to kids.
so impoverished 20 year olds in third world countries are doing it right?
It's just annoying that the authors of all these, "live while you're young, saving is for lames" mentality articles, equate buying an over-sized beanie/shin's albums/what-have-you, to quality of life. Satisfying impulsive behaviors is not the same thing as building a better future for yourself. As mentioned above, it's about balance and making your money work for you.
Treat yourself every now and then because life is short, but if you're just blowin' cash on dumb shit all the time as a way to "stick it to the man and his oppressive regime of finger wagging and penny pinched-ness" you're just the Elitedaily/Buzzfeed drone we thought you were anyway.
From the article:
"They want us to save because it provides us with a safety net, but that’s exactly why we shouldn’t. Their need for us to have a safety net is just a giant metaphor for the difference between our parent’s generation and ours."
What difference? Their generation has a bad enough situation with retiring considering how poorly they have saved. Are millennials somehow different and going to retire just fine while saving zilch? I have seen some dumb people in my life but this is one of the worst cases thus far.
If you're in IB, you will most likely be able to spend lots of money while still maxing out your 401k.
What a load of shit. Live for today and forget tomorrow will have you ending up on your children's couch. Fuck that and Fuck this article. This is the kind of thinking that ups the teen pregnancy stats.
Why is there an Elite Daily link in my WSO? Get this millenial liberal starving artist shit outta here.
Why is a freelance writer advocating for spending without reason? No hate on freelance writers. But seriously. Put that shit in a savings account because you're one paycheck away from homeless.
Sorry for bringing it out here, my friend tagged on me on a FB post with it and I didn't really look at anything but the title and some of the stupid one liners, and just had to rant. haha
No harm no foul. I'm working in an industry right now where I have to be culturally sensitive so WSO is my opportunity to cuss like a sailor and go on rude rants =P
Only in the relentless echo chamber of the Internet would this "article" be considered good advice. What a crock...
Can't tell if she's genuine or she's mastered the art of trolling.
I thought she was trolling too until I scrolled down to her picture.
would rather have 401k on my wrist
i prefer to hold a brick of $100 in my hand everywhere i go, but that also looks nice
This was the part that got me:
Given that her bio said she "graduated" from university and that she's a "Senior Writer," she has to be at least 24-25, if not older. Yet she spends her life, her professional life, writing 'articles' about "fart jokes ... nude pics, And condoms." Her only discernible goals are "go out to eat, buy clothes I don’t 'need' and spend money with friends on memorable nights out." She's living every 13 year old girl's dream come true (and probably every 8 year old boy's dream, too, with the frat jokes and all).
The sad truth is that she stopped being a "kid" a long time ago, and she clings to an imagined, hedonistic version of childhood the way washed up high school quarterbacks cling to their "glory days" when they dated the head cheerleader.
At what point do people like this decide to grow up (at least to the grand old age of 16), if ever? It's deplorable.
It's harder to save because all of the cash that should be going into people's retirement savings is pushing prices higher (i.e., rent). Having said so, no matter how much someone makes, people like to live to their means and then some. Case and point, currently I work with a guy who's maxed out on his credit cards, has a huge car loan and a ton of extra fixed expenses (expensive phone plans, rent etc.) and owes money to the IRS. To the point that his debt on his car and credit cards exceeds his gross income. If you saw his bank account, you'd think he was in high school. Keep in mind, we're getting outsized compensation. Articles like this are just hunting for clicks / views, because they know it's what their audience wants to hear.
Lauren Martin is an epic troll. Read some of her other articles if you dare. This one is just par for the course
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