Millennial debt. That’s why.
We aren’t lazy. We aren’t spoiled. We are broke and living in a cycle of poverty. All of the debt that we have accumulated, just from ages 18-22, is ‘necessary’. We are going to college and taking out loans, not to better ourselves, but to be able to have a future. We are trying to move out only to have to move back in when the bullshit that is minimum wage is so low that the government tries to put us on welfare to support the other half of what we should earn from a decent job. Our debt shapes our financial (in)stability. I have debt, which admittedly isn’t as ‘bad’ as others, but still isn’t great. I moved back home so that I would be able to pay my student loans instead of paying for my apartment. It was one or the other. I can’t afford to live on my own and be totally independent and grow up, as much as I want to.
We live with a mindset and reality that everything we do will lead us to debt: Having a car, owning a home, going to school. These are things all deemed totally necessary for life and progression, but we have no way of financially achieving them without a loan from some bank or company that we just have to trust. I have no idea where exactly my loans from school came from except ‘the government’ and I have no desire to know. Does that make me ignorant? I don’t think so. They make it really impossible to find out. There are so many loops and hoops and boundaries and 1-800 phone lines. Why bother!? When it comes down to it, I owe someone money and they will come for it when they want it. And I will pay it with the desperately penny pinched and federally taxed to hell paycheck that I went through 4 years of college and several job interviews that where I ‘still wasn’t good enough’ to earn.
Last but not least, and my biggest pet peeve of all, is the older generations calling millennials spoiled and saying we are lazy for how much we complain about school. I’m not completely bashing on everyone who is older but I am saying, based on generalizations of a majority, this is how they think of us. Those ‘back in my day’ stories always talk about how they made it through life with hard work and perseverance. I work damn hard. I really do. And ‘back in your day’ when $20 bought what $45 does today, I can see all of your hard work ‘paying off’ so they could afford whatever they wanted. Times are so incredibly different now, and I wish they would understand.
So why would I continuously save money when the more I have, the more they will take? I’d rather just spend what little I can save on the few things I can afford for myself..like food or another shirt for work, instead of a necessary car or home or apartment.
Any millennial readers? What do you think?
If you have any other ideas on why Millennials don’t save money, let me know in the comments below. If not, what did you think of this piece?
College and Life After 