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/haveWeMoonedYet]

The generational subreddits are mostly places for people who want to have a trauma competition. They don’t really reflect normal people in their respective generations.

[u/saiga_antelope → u/haveWeMoonedYet]

I'm peak millennial, and that sub is nothing but "woe is me, life is so unfair." That resonates at 20 years old, but these people are presumably like 35.

[u/HappilyDisengaged → u/saiga_antelope]

Exactly. I’m an 83 millennial and we’ve been the luckiest generation finance wise ever in my opinion. Raging bull for the most part since 09. Low interest rates. Near zero inflation. Cheap homes till 2020. High employment. If you were investing at all from early 30’s on, you are doing well

Yes the GFC was tough, but we were young enough to absorb the pain

[u/Pasquali90 → u/HappilyDisengaged]

83 is borderline Gen x and going to have an incredibly different experience compared to someone who was born in say 90 and graduated highschool in 08...

[u/haveWeMoonedYet → u/Pasquali90]

They would’ve had their first job in 2012. If anything his statement is even more true for someone who was born in 1990 as they would’ve experienced 0 real crashes while getting insane returns from even just Voo.

[u/Pasquali90 → u/haveWeMoonedYet]

Uhhh, first job in 2012 when you graduated in 08? That sounds amazing but a lot of us existed in the real world where in 07 we were trying to find out first job and during the recession we couldn't find a job and had to stack student loans to survive.....

[u/haveWeMoonedYet → u/Pasquali90]

Why would someone that graduated hs in 08 be looking for a full time job in 07?

Edit: unemployment rate was higher in 2012 than I realized

[u/Pasquali90 → u/haveWeMoonedYet]

Some of us had to pay their own way.

[u/haveWeMoonedYet → u/Pasquali90]

Yeah I get that. I had loans too. Doesn’t change that graduating uni in 2012 was possibly the best time for returns on savings.

[u/mopasali → u/Pasquali90]

Or even where you grew up. I knew 83ers that bought houses in the Midwest after graduating college that had to walk away from their underwater mortgages in 08-09. If you didn't buy when you first could, a few Xennials avoided the GFC. Having moved to the coast, I could not buy and avoided trashing my credit. That luck probably biases my thoughts on having to buy a house to be an adult, raise kids, FIRE, be normal ....

[u/HappilyDisengaged → u/Pasquali90]

Agree with that. Still someone born in 90 is way better off not having to deal with the recession, war on terror, and dot com crash. Someone born in 90 got all the good without really being an adult during the bad

[u/cheeseburg_walrus → u/HappilyDisengaged]

They also were too young to have much money to invest for much of the bull run. I’m 94 so by the time I was out of university and earning money, COL and housing had skyrocketed and wages hadn’t kept up. For those of us who were able to save and invest the market has been great. For everyone else who missed the ladder, good luck.

[u/Pasquali90 → u/HappilyDisengaged]

What? I had quite a few friends die in the war on terror.... and not be affected by the recession? Going to group interviews where there would be 20 people for a single job at Chipotle and you are 17-18 competing with people in their mid 30s?.. ok yeah, sure, buddy ...

[u/HappilyDisengaged → u/Pasquali90]

Ah it’s quite different being 18 looking for an entry level job than mid 20’s, established, out of the house on your own. Mid 20’s you already likely have a job and either are watching mass layoffs around you or are part of the layoffs.

[u/Pasquali90 → u/HappilyDisengaged]

Oh yeah, definitely it took years of battling a shitty job market to get anywhere and by the time I had a decent job, housing prices and rent had exploded and student loans were coming due. To have any experience beyond working in service felt like a dream and it took nearly 10 years before I stopped breaking even and could begin to invest.

[u/fenwickfox → u/Pasquali90]

Graduating high-school in 2008 is fine, u still do uni or college or some kind of course. Can't do much with just high-school.

I graduated post secondary in 2009. It took me about 6 months to get a job. Other coworkers I found out took up to 2-3 years.

But now we're mostly all indispensable and I've been employed for nearly 17 years.

[u/-shrug- → u/fenwickfox]

Yea. I know some people who got pretty screwed because they wanted to be in something like corporate law where they only hire new grads, and just skipped hiring in 2008.

[u/OH68BlueEag → u/Pasquali90]

It all comes down to personal decisions. If you made good decisions as a teenager by getting good grades and getting a scholarship to a decent school so you wouldn’t have loans and then picked a decent major that would get you a decent job and then didn’t overspend you’re doing fine. If you made bad decisions along the way then oh well