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‘Will I ever retire?’: millennials wonder what’s on the other side of middle age (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.

For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”

But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.

She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Of course I’ll retire, when I can no longer get a job, and that time is coming up fast. I only hope it’s not until I get my teens through college and off to a running start. I don’t see how I can afford to keep my house or even continue to live in this town, though

I’m not sure I agree with the narrative about being worse off by generation, though, because it is so tied to what you do. I’m a little sad about my older son starting adult life “in hard mode”: i’m proud that he wants to teach, and we live in an area with generally better teacher pay, but he’ll never earn much. It has certainly made my life easier to be paid better as a software engineer, even if circumstances mean I’m not financially able to retire. He’ll almost certainly live with less, have fewer opportunities, purely by choice of career, and without regard to his generation. Tack on the excessive housing inflation and his desire to stay in a hcol state, and I can’t help but worry for him

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

My plan is to open a kiosk once I retire im a night owl anyways and it's not too physically demanding.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (9 children)

Thus millennial thinks we will all die in 10 years or so from climate related disasters and none of us will live to retirement age as things currently stand.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I will retire eventually. That may be due to my inability to be productive at an advanced age. I don't see why we shouldn't still get social security payments. I'm gonna just stop eventually once my kids are working. I have a small house and it will have been paid for by that time. Hopefully I can just rest at that point. Job done.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How are you going to make those tax payments, maintenance costs, transportation costs, etc. You think your social security will be enough to cover? Or is the plan "sell the house"?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I have a 401k. Live in Louisiana there is little property tax. I'll just die eventually.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

That's the spirit!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Retiring in a cheap country in South America seems like the best option. Makes the money stretch way farther.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I tried that, then it got gentrified and expensive.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

My plan is "hope the afterlife is real and then be a spooky ghost"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Retire? Nah when I'm done with life I'm just going to blow my brains out all over a politician or millionaire hedge fund manager.

They want to fuck over my future, I'll take their sanity and gift wrap enough PTSD that every sleep is a nightmare.

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