Uh, what?

lbonga1

I can't make it clicky because posting is being weird, but I came across this article: http://elitedaily.com/life/savings-20s-something-wrong/1214445/ , titled, "If You Have Savings in Your 20's, You're Doing Something Wrong". I'm really glad the comments tore the author apart, otherwise I would've completely lost hope for my generation.

AprilZ81

That was some really bad advice that the author took to a whole different level.

smerka

I'd like a follow up with her in 15 years when she has a mountain of credit card debt, no savings, and her biological clock is ringing midnight. What's funny is most Baby Boomers were parents with mortgages in their 20's. Generation X started pushing that back to their 30's.

Xstatic3333

Ugh, I saw that on Facebook a few weeks ago. What an entitled brat. The good news is I don't think I've read anyone that agrees with her.

vlagrl29

reading that was just wrong!  She has no idea sadly.

hoffse

Oh my god. Talk about rationalizing some extremely poor decision-making. Two words: compounding interest.

abrewer5

I will admit I get what she's saying about going out, having fun, and not always worrying about money while you're young. The problem I see with the article is she thinks it has to one extreme or the other. In her eyes you either have no life at all because you're so focused on not spending money OR you have zero savings because you just want to go out and have fun. The article fails to point out you can have a healthy balance of enjoying life, going out, taking vacations, saving for retirement, owning a home, and saving in general. Her advice is seriously misguided, and I'm glad to hear most people do not agree.

Xstatic3333

abrewer5 said:

I will admit I get what she's saying about going out, having fun, and not always worrying about money while you're young. The problem I see with the article is she thinks it has to one extreme or the other. In her eyes you either have no life at all because you're so focused on not spending money OR you have zero savings because you just want to go out and have fun. The article fails to point out you can have a healthy balance of enjoying life, going out, taking vacations, saving for retirement, owning a home, and saving in general. Her advice is seriously misguided, and I'm glad to hear most people do not agree.

Good rational perspective!

This discussion totally reminds me of a good friend of mine, "Jeff." Jeff has a good but not crazy high paying state job, and he took a lot of crap from many in our group is his early 20s for also delivering pizza on the side. He didn't feel deprived; he'd still go out and do stuff, and liked delivering pizza. Unfortunately, however, because he was frugal many pegged him as cheap. He only quit the job last year after getting engaged.

Fast forward to this year, we're all 30, and Jeff just put 50% down on a house, paid for a beautiful wedding, and went on a dream honeymoon of Baltic capitals. He's having all of the fun now, but if you ask him he never felt deprived in his 20s, either.

jtmh2012

Xstatic3333 said:

Good rational perspective! This discussion totally reminds me of a good friend of mine, "Jeff." Jeff has a good but not crazy high paying state job, and he took a lot of crap from many in our group is his early 20s for also delivering pizza on the side. He didn't feel deprived; he'd still go out and do stuff, and liked delivering pizza. Unfortunately, however, because he was frugal many pegged him as cheap. He only quit the job last year after getting engaged. Fast forward to this year, we're all 30, and Jeff just put 50% down on a house, paid for a beautiful wedding, and went on a dream honeymoon of Baltic capitals. He's having all of the fun now, but if you ask him he never felt deprived in his 20s, either.

I'm the Jeff in my circle.  I've always been conservative with my money.  I go out and have fun, but savings comes first.  Had another friend of mine who pretty much spent everything he made until he got married.  I've had 2 houses that I've owned in decent neighborhoods while they've been renting places in questionable neighborhoods and pinching pennies just to get by.  I don't even want to know what will happen when they get to retirement.  I know at one point he cashed out his IRAs when the market dipped.  I stayed in and rode it out.

I've never delivered pizza though.....;)

julieanne912

Ugh no no no.  

TBH, that was pretty much me for most of my 20s.  I had a very good income due to the real estate boom from about 2005-2008.  I didn't think that well would dry up so I just spent instead of saving, and had a lot of fun.  What I did save I ended up using to live on in 2009 when the market crashed and my income went from 6 figures to under 30k. At the age of 29, I had to move back in with my parents and took a job making $14/hour and no benefits since that's all that was available near them for someone with my skill set.  I managed to pay my bills and nothing else.

But, because of that happening I've made so many changes in my life. Thankfully, I met my H and moved to a much better state for jobs so my outlook there has improved.  Job market improved, although I still don't nearly have the income I used to, but I can at least manage now without having to rely on credit cards to make ends meet.  I started a new job/career this year so the potential for more income is good, just learning the ropes right now.  But, I've learned way better saving/spending habits so even if I do go back to making what I used to, I sure as hell won't act the same way.

brij2006

I'm doing things all wrong then.  We received an inhertiance and used it to pay off everything (and never ever go back into debt), and save money each month.  

*Gasp* We're 27 and 29. 

csuave

When I was in my 20's my closest friends were as frugal as I was.  We were always having fun together and usually doing free stuff like park movies and board game nights.  And we took advantage of a lot of Ladies Night specials.  We had a great time and now we all own houses and are on good financial paths.

dragonstarjk

Hahahahaha, I would love to see what kind of job she thinks she can get that gives her a 60K raise because she spent her nights out 'networking'.  Hahahahahahaha.

bmo88

As a 27 year old who has focused on saving, while "living," I find her article to be incredibly ill informed. Should you save/hoard all of your money and never spend it? No. But should you spend every last penny? Absolutely not. 

I have a friend who is almost 30 and refuses to spend money on the smallest of things and enjoy life. She is obsessed with saving for retirement and just saving in general. It's great, she has no debt other than a mortgage and she has lots saved. However, her husband gets frustrated and she isn't enjoying life (she admits that). But it's her choice.

My DH and I are taking a more balanced approach. We save 15% for retirement, 15% in general savings, have 4 months e-savings (building toward 6), are actively paying down debt, but still eat out occasionally, take vacations and do things we love. 

We want to "invest" in life experiences just as much as we "invest" our money into retirement. Generally, any extreme isn't healthy. It's about figuring out what you value and what you can afford. 

dragonstarjk: My guess is she went from umemployed ($0k salary) to going to daddy's work parties and then got a $60k job. So bam, huge raise!

BlueBirdMB

The article honestly made me laugh.  Reminded me of my friends though.  My husband and I always talk about how broke they perpetually are because they spend every penny they make on stupid shit and then have no money to actually do something fun now and again.  They all think we're rich because we can afford to go on vacations and such... they fail to understand that we budget for that.

Listen, I think that life is about balance.  I think there are people who choose to not enjoy life to save all their money.  My mom has close friends like that.  They retired early and planned to travel and enjoy life after.  Just a couple years later, they ended up battling illnesses and never got a chance to enjoy the life they had saved for.  I don't want to end up like that, but it's also important to save and live within our means.

Xstatic3333

BlueBirdMB said:

Listen, I think that life is about balance.  I think there are people who choose to not enjoy life to save all their money.  My mom has close friends like that.  They retired early and planned to travel and enjoy life after.  Just a couple years later, they ended up battling illnesses and never got a chance to enjoy the life they had saved for.  I don't want to end up like that, but it's also important to save and live within our means.

This is so true and the main reason I don't embrace financial strategies that put everything on hold for a year or several. This just happened to my wonderful uncle. He retired early and saved well and was hoping to do some pretty adventurous international travel. Six months in, however, a botched eye surgery left him with a detached cornea (or retina? Fuzzy on the details) and now all of that is out. He can still do mellow domestic travel by car, so of course it could be worse, but safaris are out, he had to sell his beloved boat, he can't drive, and he's seriously visually impaired. It's a huge reason why I budget to travel some now, even as we work towards goals.

dragonstarjk

I totally agree with PP.  It's all about balance.  I am saving aggressively for an early retirement; H hasn't been quite as good at saving for retirement so we are trying to catch him up a little bit.  However, we would not be willing to do this at the expense of giving up all travel.

H is 14 years older than me.  We try to plan for this in a very practical way, and the reality is that by the time I retire, he will be in his 70s-and that's if I retire early.  He's relatively healthy now, but who knows what could happen by then.  We need to make sure we are enjoying things together in case we don't get that opportunity.

lbonga1

I agree with the travel. I'm pretty young and have two young kids (planning for a third), so it makes it a little bit harder. I still want to show my kids part of the world though, and I'm excited to plan our first big family vacation. I want to be able to take vacations with just FI too...our honeymoon will be next!

simplyelise

I think what gets me is the overall judgmental tone. It's the idea that if someone isn't doing their life the way you are, they must be dissatisfied and not really living. People have different desires and plenty of people are happy to live a simple, modest life. Looking at them and saying they can't be happy because they didn't visit x or eat at y restaurant is just so wrong.

Travel has always been such an extreme luxury in the community where I grew up, that I don't see it as a requirement for a good life. For me personally, I love travel, but a life where I couldn't travel is not sad or deprived for me. I try to go somewhere every year (this is the first in several years that I haven't), but frequently it's a trip to visit a friend - Cleveland and Atlanta recently.

The article is just a perfect demonstration of an immature person who only knows how to validate her own decisions if she puts down the decisions of others. And only seeing the world in extremes is what is going to actually deprive you of contentment in life.

juliebeannn

This is just so ridiculous.  I was just waiting for her to say, "just kidding!" 

Here's a nice blog I found in rebuttal to this nonsense.