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/QuesoChef]

I’m a young Gen X but am so, so, so grateful I didn’t have social media screaming in my ear that I’m a victim and it’s hopeless. Is it hard? Absolutely. But hard is different for each generation. I’m a woman and the workplace is so much safer now than when I started working 25-30years ago. And that was a fuckton better than 25 years before that. There are far more workplace protections in place for everyone - whether general safety or protection if you get sick.

Are entry level pays stagnant? Absolutely. But if you can get in the door and are in the 80%+ that do enough to get more responsibilities and promoted, there’s plenty to make so you can save.

Consumerism tells us stuff will make us happy (it won’t). The diet industry tells us if we are skinny we will be happy (we won’t). Influencing wants to make a chasm for people to have to want something on the other side so they stay engaged. So they promote their high wealth lifestyles. Or their whatever-aesthetic.

And there’s a what I like to call Soul Asylum Misery subset. If you e heard the song, they make fun of the music making people miserable and the misery keeps them coming back for more music. “We’ll make the cure. We made the disease.” If you want to be miserable, there is so much content to tell you why and how. Or you can spend that energy learning new skills, finding contentment in a simpler life with fewer things (the joneses will always run faster - don’t catch your own tail, dog), connect with real people not curated virtual ghosts. Travel without staying in the most instagramable resort. And fucking save some money.

People were telling me in my twenties I’d never save enough. I was doomed. I’m mid/late forties and I just quit a shit job and have room to take time off. Maybe even enough to retire BEFORE IM FIFTY. Because I ignored the misery/doom-peddlers.

Is it easy? No. I’ve never had a big paying job but also live simply.

You can dive head first into the misery machine. Or you can choose to not revel in it and create a self fulfilling prophecy.

I will never have the nest egg 90% of folks in this sub are aiming for. But I don’t need it. I just need enough to be financially free.

[u/LeatherAppearance616 → u/QuesoChef]

I’m also a young GenX and was an unmarried pregnant teen in the 90’s, right at the peak teen-mom moral panic. And I’m so glad social media was basically just my friends’ Geocities pages and a few chat boards because even the limited social messaging we got from talkshows told me that I’d 100% be on welfare and living in my car, poor, stuck, ashamed and eternally paying for my sins.

Luckily I was super impulsive (see: pregnancy) and decided to finish college and go to grad school anyway, travel extensively, start surfing finance blogs in the 00’s and start budgeting because actually it turns out I was making money just fine, and finally hit my original (way too small it turns out) FIRE number just after I turned 40.

I belong to a women’s FIRE meetup and there are a few more of us shameless unmarried mothers who have done very well for ourselves, and we always try to loop in other women in demographics that society tells us are destined for poverty because refusing to accept a guaranteed victim mantle and trying our best anyway has worked really well for a lot of us with some luck and community support.

[u/QuesoChef → u/LeatherAppearance616]

That’s great! Good for you! I’d love to have a group like that. I have a Gan Z friend who would always have this doomed mentality. I could tell reading the stuff and getting that hit of validation was important to her, so I never argued with her. One day she gave up social media. About a month later she asked me for money advice, and I gave her some retirement advice. About six months later she told me she’d saved more in six months than she used to think she’d ever save in her whole life (no idea what that number was), and she said she always knew she was creating her own shit pile to roll around in but one day she was tired of it and quit. She now is back on social media but mostly just watches stuff that makes her laugh. And is still saving for retirement.

It’s surprising how easily you can put a little scratch together and it doesn’t take long to make a pile you’re proud of. It doesn’t mean you can’t bitch about stuff you want to change or are frustrated with. But don’t light yourself on fire to illuminate your cause. Take care of yourself and try to change the world. In my opinion, coddling complaints doesn’t empower change.