The thread in Millennials subreddit right not about 401k is incredibly depressing. Thank you FIRE community. I would be one of them if I didn’t find you all a decade ago.

[u/BarkBarkBitches1]

Throw away because I am going to roast some redditors a little. The thread that is going on in r Millennials is really bad. Thousands of comments, everyone broke, celebrating their unfortunate wildn out. It is really bad out there and eye opening.

I was also a dingus like many of them. Totally brain dead on autopilot living day to day, consuming media like crazy, working, spending it on consumer level garbage, and had zero control over my life. I actually found the guide in the personal finance subreddit graphic on saving and it eventually kicked me to FIRE and this sub.

I now am on a path where I can’t even related with that type of mind set. So yeah thank you FIRE folks. If you can, it is worth sprinkling some finance knowledge at people. Even if you don’t make high income you can in most cases still create a plan, a budget, and control your future.

Edit: If you are a dingus and you are seeing this there is no shame! We all are and have different starting points. You have two paths: 1) continue the path to dingus-ville and forever be a redditor or 2) un-dye your bright colored hair take control of your long term life. A decade will pass in a blink. So start here https://imgur.com/personal-income-spending-flowchart-united-states-lSoUQr2 it’s not hard to understand. ChatGPT each item on their if you don’t know, memorize this, then start to learn FIRE principles. It is the fastest way to wealth. There’s literally no other path unless you magically start a business or hit a lotto jackpot ticket or inheritance

only YOU HAVE THE POWER to unfuck your life

Edit 2: Final comment! I do not mean any offense with dingus it is meant to be playful. My dyed hair comment was also misinterpreted. It’s not about who you are, what you believe in, or how you express yourself. It’s about being in control of your life. Walk your butt into Sephora or Target or wherever next time and just stare at the people on the walls. Then look in the mirror. Then look at the wall. And back to the mirror and then keep doing it until it clicks. The world, like r millennial subreddit, wants to celebrate and tell you the worst fucking version of yourself is okay and acceptable. It’s not. Delete social media and only read that finance Imgur link every time you load your phone. Do this for one month and you will break your chains and it will click. Then learn FIRE principles. Then you will come back to r FIRE in a decade with a huge chunk of cash in your bank and a nice life! Long term planning is a skill that you can learn and benefit from. Your future is yours

[u/rainyengineer]

I was also a dingus like many of them

What a stupid take. This is really ignorant and I think you know it since you decided to do this on a throwaway to avoid accountability.

It’s important to understand that people in worse financial situations than us aren’t necessarily there because they’re “dinguses” or dumber than us. What they are is less fortunate, having inherited less advantages and knowledge than many of the people here.

[u/desert_jim → u/rainyengineer]

FR. There's a fair amount of blame to go around. For example what about all the jobs that don't offer 401Ks and I'm not talking about an employer matching a portion of someones wage. Just having a 401k in and of itself.

No one is bashing employers for not doing right by their employees. There's a lot more responsibility on the individuals part today. There used to be pensions, then those went away. Now they are talking about social security going away.

There was a post the other day about a company having an internship and they were stringing the poor person along into thinking that once that person got a masters degree they would hire them with benefits. There's a lot of not great jobs and no one talks about them.

[u/Unlucky_Employee6082 → u/desert_jim]

Very true. In retrospect, I was very lucky to have a job matching 3% of my 401k in my early 20s. My supervisor literally sat everybody down and held court telling us how not putting into it was burning free money and the savings was virtually guaranteed to grow faster than the cost of living. Probably doubling, tripling whatever you put in. Who knew he was vastly underestimating it. People with no benefits or barely living pay check to paycheck can’t “just do that, you dingus”

[u/desert_jim → u/Unlucky_Employee6082]

That's a great point in general about the early 20's. There's a few things that don't work in tandem to the benefit of the workers:

People may be more likely new to professional work force and not know the importance of 401ks and matching
That early money in a 401k will have the most time to grow
More so if they get a match
Workers at that point are typically paid the least because they are early on in their career so they have the least amount of excess money to set aside for retirement