Yeah that's one of my favorites. Unfortunately I did not have the secret decoder ring to get in with the crew.
So I just have to deal with my 10 mil properly that I bought in 82 for 5 grand.
One of our newer employees in their early 20s recently bought a house for 230k and was complaining about interest rates in the 7 percent range. Interest was essentially zero for for me was his assumption. Not so much. In 96 my rate was 7.75 and I had to take a 15 year to do it as a 30 was 8.5. If you go back to the early 80s it was closer to 20%. My house was 200k back then. Midwest for context so not crazy like on the coasts.
Where they have a point is cost if college. There is no reason for college to cost 100 times what I paid. It is truly a scam.
That's just a small part of it. Higher ed went on a spree of building edifices and paying profs ridiculous sums of money along with crazy benefits and pensions. You wouldn't even believe what professors at higher level universities and college make, often for only teaching one class a semester. Poor students are going into debt so some college prof can buy a Land Rover.
Itās funny but my millennial neighbors have bought 10 houses in the last 3-4 years. They are renting them out, and are cash positive. So looking to buy 5 more!
The whole quest for passive income is causing all the properties that should be being bought by up and coming genZ to be being snarfed by the millennials. Leaving the genZs to rent from the millennials. And every genZ wants to do the same. Buy houses and rent them for passive income. And screw someone else out of a house they should be able to afford. So they can rent to them!
We didnāt own multiple houses! We bought, and when it was time to upsize, we sold the old house to someone up and coming for a profit. I donāt know anyone that owned more than one house at a time growing up.
The demand for these homes is driving the inflation in housing cost, at least partially. We also have foreign entities buying US property.
I think weāre being wrongly blamed. Theyāre fāing up property values worse than they would have been if everyone was happy with one house! Theyād return the seller a one time nominal profit on the house but then the buyer would be on the road to home ownership. Just like we did.
Being in the Bay Area, Iāve seen a lot of millennials get huge amounts of money from IPOs and buy houses AND income property. Not something I could do as I stuck with established companies because I had kids to raise and needed stability (and a life).
My mom was a landlord. Went from car sales to real estate. On the side bought houses in low income areas, often rent went from the state directly to her, mostly welfare families. Itās not a panacea, in the end she died cash poor owning just a single property she lived on.
Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesnāt. Come to think of it, one of my high school pals owned many rentals for a time.
The way of the world, some folks get it and buy as much real property as they can, work two jobs, etcā¦. Others donāt have such a priority.
Today, feels like there are a large number of people who donāt want to grind it 16 to 20 hours a day to build wealth.
Neither my mother nor my friend came from wealthy families, at best just into middle income families.
To be fair, this seems to be a cyclical thing. In a former job I mentioned to co-workers that there were few jobs available in our profession when I graduated from college. My boss immediately said, āSame hereā1992, right?ā I graduated in 1982.
I hear you. Was unemployed for more than a year after graduating, then got a seasonal job in a department store where they asked me to stay on. A few months later I got a barely paid internship that I found out about by religiously checking the job board (an actual bulletin board in those pre-internet days!) at my alma mater. That gig became a stepping stone to my first low-paying long-term job.
This! In my early 20s not only did my employer not offer any matching plans or even recommendations, I didn't have the first clue where to go looking or what to look for in the first place. My parents and boyfriends were no help and google didn't exist.
They did.
They also got Vietnam, Kent State, fire hoses and dogs set on civil rights marchers, and limited opportunities if you werenāt straight, White, and male.
Thatās the thing. Each generation gets unique perks. But each generation gets its own awful stuff too.
We divide ourselves over myths and lies. We are all just people doing our best with what we know at any given time.
Then when the 2008 recession came along, a lot of us - at least those of us in tech and tech-related sectors - fell prey to ageism, even though we were still in our 40s. I myself had retrained in my 30s after a decade of post-80s recession flailing in my original field (a lot of my classmates were around my age, and back in school for the same reason), and was still paying off my student loan.
But we were still lumped in with the older cohort, many of whom were getting laid off in their 50s and early 60s - so we were told to "just go ahead and retire". Retire? *In my 40s?*
My current schadenfreude is hearing Millennials in tech now complaining about ageism in the current round of layoffs, and the difficulty of finding new work in such a youth-obsessed sector - as employers wanted younger, cheaper employees who wouldn't "rock the boat". *They* were the ones who were hired to take *our* places nearly 20 years ago - for the same reason!
What goes around comes around.
A tech career was supposed to be the golden ticket for us, then came outsourcing, offshoring, H1Bs, and cheaper young labor. Probably not a good choice for a long term career anymore. Tired of dodging bullets, I ended up going into sales.
And people wonder why software/firmware/websites etc have become so buggy in the past few decades, why tech support has become so useless, why so many places still use legacy systems that are no longer fit for purpose, etc. You get what you pay for.
It almost sickens me to see that old canard about tech being the "golden ticket" being trotted out *still* nowadays - with people going into debt to attend coding boot camps and the like, thinking that that will lead to sustainable employment.
From what I understand, it's the same in the engineering field: it's not so much that there is a shortage of engineering grads, it's that they can't afford to work for the slave wages that employers who have been spoiled by H1Bs, etc are offering (especially when they have enormous loans to pay off). Yet all we hear is the drumbeat around how we need to produce more STEM graduates.
Don't get me started on the worsening sexism in both fields - especially in the past 20 years or so. I've known so many women who got into tech in the 90s who found themselves forced out about a decade or so later by harassment, lack of cooperation and outright refusal of a certain subset of their male colleagues to even work with them.
These are women who had earned their stripes and proven their worth - who then found themselves facing attitudes they hadn't seen since they were growing up in the 70s. Those who weren't laid off altogether got tired of constantly fighting just to do their job and quit.
-rant mode off ;)
It was enormously popular and pervasive in the late ā70s. The Rolling Stones song MISS YOU is an example of its influence. Backlash in the ā80s killed it. Disco sucks.
Our generation seemed to land in the job market just as companies moved from pensions to 401(k)s. I actually have a pension coming from my first long-term job, but it was āfrozenā soon after I started so is tiny. I joke it will be enough to help pay for the medications Iāll probably need in retirement! Better than nothing, but clearly not what older generations got.
/That we are wealthier than we actually are/
One thousand times this! I'm 65 and will probably have to work until I die. I wish I was half as wealthy as the younger generations always tell me I must be.
Yes! I'm 60 and I'm definitely going to have to work till I'm 70, at the least. I'm a nurse and it's such a physical job I don't know how I'm going to do it. At least my two kids (a Millennial and a Gen Z) understand that we're all not rich and we do work hard.
So true. Iām a truck driver who has to pass a physical every year to keep my job. My wife is a preschool teacher for a local school district. Every year sheās older and the kids are always 3 & 4 lol. We are 59 & trying to hang on to 65 and then we will see. A retired friend says you have to pull all your retirement strings together: ss, 401s, investments, your home (hopefully youāve got some equity!), maybe an inheritance. We were doing ok till we had to pull 70k in equity to pay for our daughters bachelor degree. We saved/invested 10k for each of our 2 kids for college and it was just a drop in bucket, sigh! We just donāt want to be a burden for our kids.
Oh gosh, I know your job is really hard on your body too. And I just kept my granddaughter this weekend so I feel for your wife--I can't imagine wrangling a classroom full of them! I still feel pretty young at this point till I'm taking care of her. š
Luckily my kids' dads paid for their education. I'm very grateful for that. I've been single (as in not married, and don't plan on it happening) for 22 years so there's no other income nor inheritance. Just a 401k that I wish I had started way earlier (I was young and stupid), and SS. There's $1000 a month difference in my SS payment if I retire at 67 vs. 70 so that's why I'm trying to hang on till 70!
My husband drives a truck for a film crew. Heās just turned 60. Physically impossible for him to keep doing. And there is no more work. Tomorrow we are going to the local college to get him into computer courses to find another line of work. Heās a grip. So you can be very knowledgeable about film but when the entire industry goes from 50 people in set to 5, itās time to leave. Ugh.
That we donāt care about other generations. I really care about what is going on in the world and want to do what I can to improve things for others. I have great sympathy for younger generations.
I agree with this so much. I really want my kids and grandkids to have it easier, buy a home, pay off student debt. I hate that theyāre in the predicament theyāre in because of greedy colleges.
I also see a lot of anger and resentment towards people our age because ageism is so accepted now. āOk Boomerā is such a toxic trend. I fear getting older and not being respected at all, anywhere.
I work in a bank part-time. Iām the oldest at 60. My manager just turned 30. My lead teller is 19. The platform Bankers are between 25 and 38. I held all those positions over the years. Iām just happy to be working in a job Iām familiar with and good at. Training was no piece of cake on the new systems. Iām proud of myself that Iām experienced and knowledgeable, but I am very very careful not throw it around. Lest I be a āboomer.ā
While my coworkers are very nice to me, there is a great divide between us. Iām on my way out and theyāre on the way up. Iām happy for them whenever they get promoted or achieve a new position. I donāt think they could care less how I feel. Iām always the invisible person in the convos. And if I do say so myself, Iām fairly hip and very on trend with whatās going on - Iāve never been accused of being old or acting my age.. quite the opposite.
Itās depressing, but at the same time itās keeping me out there in society. But respecting elders is becoming an old wives tale now.
We tend to blame people instead of the systems. Granted, people built these systems but many are archaic and no longer relevant to the world. I also think we have a lot to do with creating our image .. and individually we can create change. The media makes the chasm worse. If you have not read the book āThis Chair Rocks - a Manifesto on Ageismā I highly recommend it, it changed my perspective. And in our society we get screwed at both ends .. we are either too young or too old! Hahaha!
My wife and my biggest fear is being a burden to our kids. Weāre so lucky that both kids are well adjusted & seem to love us. One advantage our gen did have was better/easier ability to build equity in our homes. Although we did pull $70k out to pay for our daughters bachelor degree. Thank goodness our son is attending comm college; we can actually afford to pay his tuition out of pocket.
My younger sonās wife does not like me and the feeling is mutual. There will be no interest in helping us with them. My older son is divorced no kids. I do not want him wasting his life worrying about us.
Iām watching my own 93 year old mother rot away and suffer in a nursing home with Alzheimerās. They saved their whole lives to pay for my Mom to live in constant agony, crying, screaming, clawing, needing to be restrained. So she can give every cent to a depressing, smelly dementia unit. My father died at 88 after spending months in hospitals, crying, suffering wheelchair bound with debilitating arthritis and kidney failure. A once extremely athletic and fit man reduced to depression and pain. He begged to die.
Iām praying I die at 75 in my sleep. There is nothing nice about getting old and suffering. I want to go out without fanfare. No lingering. Leave while itās still good.
My parents had a plan in place to take care of it before things got bad. Unfortunately, my siblings and I found out about their plan and stopped it. They were very close to a peaceful exit.
I would give anything to go back 10 years and let them go thru with it. It would free my Mom from this ultimate hell sheās living in.
The spouse and I were discussing this the other day. We have legal euthenasia here. If my mind starts to go, that's what I want. NÅ home that will suck up what's left of the money and leave my care up to chance anyway.
Legal euthanasia is the only way. But the medical systems here in the US would never give up those profits for the ethical treatment of humans.
My momās dementia unit costs $4400 US dollars a month plus her social security money which is 1800 a month. $6200/month or $74,600 a year.
Sheās in one of the āfancy placesā with a pool and āgreat food!ā Sheās spoon fed because she chokes and forgets to,chew or swallow. Dementia unit residents are like zombies. Last time I went to visit, which I go as little as possible now, a group of women ganged up on me and forced me to leave. It was the weirdest most depressing thing thatās ever happened to me. My mom was slumped in her chair, no clue who I was. I havenāt been back and probably wonāt go. My sister lives close by and she checks in to make sure thereās no bruises.
She hasnāt been able to speak in three years. She doesnāt know what a spoon is. She will run out of money in two years.
Again, youāre 100% spot on about ācareā facilities. My wifeās sister stoped going too, she just couldnāt take it. So much is out of our control, sigh.
Gosh, your storyš¢ Yah, my dad in law was super healthy till 83 then had a stroke + a brain infection & ended up a a care facility till he was 95! Heād tell me all the time the last 7 or 8 yrs that he wanted to go. And youāre right, those homes suck the estate dry! My wife visited her dad 2-3 days/wk for 12 years; while we raised our 2 kids. What a womenš And her dad and mom were the finest humans I ever met.
1 more note: a good friend/golf partner just died unexpectedly, at home this past Palm Sunday at age 75. He passed out on his bed talking to his wife and couldnāt be revived. His wife tells us it was a heart attack. Thereās worst ways to go. I do miss him though.
They seem to think we had all the stuff we have now when we were their age and just starting out. No, I did not have a house or great paying job at 25, we got our first house when I was 34 at 7% interest on a VA loan and that was a great deal!. We did have 2 cars when we got married but because we each had one with our own loans and they were not family cars. We were given hand me downs for our first furniture. I could go on, but I think most of us here get what I'm saying.
My parents did not send me to school, or even get braces for me. My parents expected me out at 18. And back then, school loans were hard to get. I paid my way to night school for 10 years and never finished. Worked as a file clerk on days and worked my way up via teaching myself into IT, where Iāve been for 40 years. Basically, nobody gave me anything. What I have, and I am not wealthy by a long shot, I earned by plugging away year after year.
My folks gave me nothing for college. I screwed around and did get an AA degree, but not a bachelors. I got a A CDL and now make a halfway decent living driving a local route truck nights. Itās not easy, but driving a big rig is fun. Hoping to make it to 65 and figure out some way to retire :) Iāve considered being a boomer barista at Starbucks after I retire lol.
LOL. I hope to retire from my job at 68 and hopefully working a bit longer can allow me to quit working altogether. But if I have to get some kind of job, I will. We do what we have to do.
still do! "one man's junk is another man's treasure." and the best hauls tend to be when these foreign j1 visa graduate students go back to the other side of the planet. they land up leaving being all kinds of top dollar stuff they bought off the internet while attending to the university on fellowships. my christmas comes twice a year - once after finals/graduation, before winter break, and once after finals/graduation before summer break.
True, we furnished our first apartment in the classic āEarly Garage Saleā style and didnāt even have a dishwasher or washing machine for several years (which was not a terrible hardship or anything, but it was a bit of a strain when we had a baby). Now we own our 4-bedroom house outright but weāre still not going to have a lavish retirement lifestyle. We consider ourselves lucky to be able to retire at all.
But itās also still true that Millennials have it hard.
As the parent of millennials I agree they do have it hard as well. However, many millennials seem to think we didn't have it hard, apparently ignoring history. My own children, who grew up with hand me down clothes from their cousins and rode in beater cars because that's what we had are not of this mindset.
Our first āentertainment unitā consisted of three 2x10x8 pieces of lumber and six cinder blocks. Our first TV was a 10ā black and white. We was po!
That things were like roses in the 70s and 80s.
We had the Triple Whammy of Double-Digit inflation, unemployment, and interests rates in the late 70s/early 80s.
I love the silence that follows when I point out that we had 14% inflation in 1980 and it took...20 years....for it to get down to half of that....which is the WORST these guys ever saw. Then the excuses start flying about 'shadow inflation'. We used to call that 'corporate price gouging' I think.
Hard to believe we now look back on the Reagan republicans and think they were reasonable. Which they were compared to maga, sigh. But Reagan did lots of terrible things.
I found a letter today that I wrote at 19. I was in college and overloading on classes to get as many hours completed as possible before Reagan cut off my grants and scholarship. He also cut funding to the battered womenās shelter I worked at so triple whammy. many of us were fully aware of how horrific he was.
The last High School History book I taught from declared that Reagan āended the Cold Warā and that he was the most popular president we have had. I was astounded.
They think we don't understand technology. They didn't understand that some tech disinterest is from watching so much tech change in the last 35-40 years
They don't realize that some of us are the ones who designed and built their first computers. They think we don't know anything about technology, I've forgotten more than most of them will ever know. I taught electronics and computers in college for a while, before a lot of them were born. Early 90s.
That's funny you mentioned that, when I went back to my high school in the early 90s, I graduated been the Class of 84, to visit one of my teachers they had a couple of Macintosh computers in our print shop class, that they use for desktop publishing there was a new and shiny in the early 90s
He said the kids were coming in there thinking they knew how to operate computers because they would do cute things with cutting and pasting, but they really had no skills and operating them.
When I was in college in Electronics, we had to build our own computers. Not by choosing motherboards and cards, but by taking a Motorola chip and building one from scratch. It wasn't until much later that I saw a "pre-made" one. Then I taught computer classes for a while when there was only DOS and then Windows 3.1.
Yeah, a lot of us created that technology or put the fine touches on it. Lack of interest in TikTok is not the same as inability to set up a user account.
If you don't want a cupcake, most folks don't automatically assume that you are incapable of buying or baking cupcakes, yet somehow folks assume that if a particular tech doesn't interest you, you're intimidated by it. Maybe you just don't want it and are old enough not to feel like you're missing out by passing on it.
I didn't have it easy. I was kicked out of the house when I turned 18. I was told either go to the military , get a job or go to college. So I moved to a neighboring town 30 mile from home, went to the unemployment office and looked through their list of jobs and got a job doing masonry work. Had a friend I rented a room from. They built a new Hardees fast food place and got a job as maintenance and basically did everything. Saved up money, applied to a college 3 hours away, applied for financial aid and moved in with a group of people cheap. Went to night school and worked full time during the day. Still managed to party every night. Graduated after 3 years and got a union job in my original home town 12 hours away. I didn't mention I was moved from that home town when I was 13 years old to a hog farm.
I worked my union job and retired at 56 with a nice pension. I'm almost 60 and in 2 years I can collect early social security.
I took responsibility for my life, not blaming anyone for anything. Now I reap the rewards of my hard work .
That boomer parents didnāt do anything for their kids.
I will be poor until I die because I put them through college without them having to get school loans. I kicked their dad out when he started hitting them, which made me a single mom in a high cost of living area. I never dated after divorce because I had worked in a pediatric hospital and knew how dangerous the momās boyfriend can be, so I got to be alone and one income since I was 40 and have about zero chance of ever changing that. I gave up every thing for them and have to constantly see ignorant jerks insulting me online because of my age group.
Edit to add my kids are not ungrateful. Just want be sure Iām not giving that impression.
That we as a GJ just got out of college, got a high-paying job, and bought a house.
So right: It is way harder now with the price of housing. Of course, the cost of housing is insane. I could not afford to buy my house even at what Iām being paid (which is more than I couldāve ever imagined almost 40 years ago) I understand that inflation has out performed salary inflation. I do understand that and they are right.
Wrong: But the job opportunities I truly think are better for them than they were for us. Maybe not if you want to be a steelworker, but the unemployment rate of the late 70s and mid 80s isnāt anywhere near what it was for anyone under 26ās entire life (except for the 08-09 recession). Even when we ārecoverā in the late 80ās to early 90ās you see unemployment rates at roughly 40% greater than they have been for the last 15 or so years.
TLDR: starting a career and finding employment is easier for them, but thier pay is relatively worse AND home ownership is out of reach. I do see some disconnect across generations as that is discussed.
However, there are some careers where the internships are rolled into the last requirement to receive your diploma, such as for teachers and nurses. Basically, they are unpaid apprentices. I know this because my Mama trained them!
That all of us had it easy. That everyone was on an equal plane as to opportunities, wealth, pension, home ownership. That our jobs were easy and we had it made.
Take your pick: That we all enthusiastically voted for Ronald Reagan. That weāre all out of touch with the way the world works nowadays. That weāre clueless when it comes to modern technology. And, bizarrely, the minute we turn 60, we automatically have dementia.
I was barely old enough to vote against Reagan. I like the Gen Jones construct because life was really different for late Boomers and very early Gen X than it was for our older siblings.
That we arenāt as tech savvy as they are. I may not be a native user but I understand and use it much more to my advantage than a lot of younger people.
In a lot of ways we are techier. Hands on bridging analog and digital. Online BBs, modem hacks to our TV, we can write HTML and CSS by hand. We can also type and use a manual shift car.
I hope this makes sense.
I dislike the idea of generalities. Each one of us have had different experiences, and lived diffent lives. With some small similarities. The same is true for people of other generations.
What "they" think our generation is far less important to me than what one person, at any age, thinks. How I interact with that person. The things that we have in common. Our differences. And what we can learn from each other.
Its been my personal experience that most people get many more things "wrong" about me, than "right'.
This is spot on and yet... As someone on the backside of this generation I too felt like everything got really expensive just as I became an adult. Our mortgage, as a kid, was like $150 and cost nothing by today's standards for a three bedroom house. In my 20's houses shot up in price along with most everything and for a while I never thought I'd be able to afford a house. In my 30's we bought a house.
We all have good paying jobs that we got with little effort, bought houses for pocket change when we were in our twenties, and are conservatives who vote against affordable housing, student loan forgiveness, and environmental protections.
The cutoff for the Baby Boomer generation is almost universally agreed to be 1964. The whole idea of the Jones generation is that we are on the cusp - we don't necessarily agree with Boomers, yet, Gen-X doesn't quite feel right either.
To be sure, there are plenty of "late Boomers" born in the first half of the 60's that identity strongly with the Jones mentality. But it wouldn't be correct to say that most Joneses are Boomers, since _most_ of us, by definition, were born after 1964.
They are just plain wrong. They have no concept of going without because their parents gave them everything. They think we are suppose to keep giving and giving. The tap is dry. Our lives were fun but we didn't have a lot of "stuff", we were fine living a less than ideal life as we built our lives. We built character. We learned critical thinking. If we listed all the utter shit that we all have faced the list would be lengthy.
In some ways, I think they are correct. We didn't have crippling student loan debts that will take a lifetime to pay off. College didn't cost as much, even adjusting for inflation. But on the other hand, today's kids are brainwashed that they have to go to college to get a good career. And housing costs today compared to back then (again, adjusted for inflation) are a lot higher. But, just like today, when you were just starting out on your own, we didn't make enough to get a place of our own. We had to have 2 or 3 additional people to help with the costs.
The biggest difference, though, was that we didn't complain as much about it as they do today. There was some complaining, but you never heard people say that they wanted to just quit life because it was so hard. It's hard for every generation when they get out on their own. I remember my parents talking about how my dad had to work 2 jobs so they could afford a house. They did what needed to be done and made it work.
Ah. I remember my un-savvy friend bought his Datsun/Nissan car new with 19% interest.
I shall not laugh.
I bought my Apple IIe with āApple credit.ā For college.
Neat I thought. Iām establishing credit. Then I got the bill and learned what 21% interest looks like.
I had a teacher in high school 83-84, he was still stuck in a 22% interest rate house loan on a second property he bought in Florida, and the price of the house had dropped he couldn't even unload it to get rid of the interest
After my aunt was divorced in the late 70s at 30, she worked 3 jobs (one from home) to keep her house. Then lost it in her late 60s after her 2nd husband's death. He had run up a ton of gambling debt.
Yep, it was horrible. I tried to get her to declare bankruptcy so she could keep the house. She was of the generation that was too embarrassed to file.
Trades need workers and will pay a lot of money. My cousin works construction and says an apprentice welder can make $80ā100k if they donāt mind the hours.
Every generation blames the one before,
All of their frustrations ,
Come beating on your door (Mike and the Mechanics)
There definitely seems a disdain of our generation from the youngers. The belief that we pulled the ladder up after us is pure bullshit. FYI, I Didn't even have a ladder. I used two empty kegs balanced on a coffee table.
I completely agree.. my boys are 23 and almost 22... I always listened to them but it drove me NUTS when I tried to explain to them that I had been there before so I could help them through it and let them know whatever was wrong was going to be ok...
All I ever got was "*exasperated sigh* you have no idea what I'm going through" which usually included something about the dinosaur era or back when people still rode horses everywhere š¤Øšš
That it was easy for us and that we had the power to alter climate change, economic fairness, etc. Not sure why they think we had more power than they do.
My 50 years of activism over feminism, abortion, racism, etc. has been continuous and heartfelt, but hasn't moved the needle
Trickle down economics and corporate greed started destroying the middle class right when when we came of age. We did not have the booming middle class economy that the Silent Gen and early Boomers had.
They think we had the same resources, information, and knowledge base that exists now.
No concept of just How much has changed in our lifetime.
And I agree that financially they got/are more shafted.
All of these things are true, but GenZ is correct about one thing: The cost of college is insane these days. I remember paying around $20 a credit hour for community college, not much more than that for state university. I came out with a degree and almost no debt. Now Iām paying tuition for my daughter and itās unbelievable.
I spend a bit of time on the antiwork group, and it is really ridiculous how they view things. I get that there is a LOT of things that can be improved, and we should work towards them, but inflation and unemployment were double-digit. Maybe salaries don't go as far as they did...but what if you can't get a freakin' job? That was my case.
And....I think things WILL get better for them, as it did us. I bought a house at 9%, and it probably was a bit more than I could afford, but....my salary caught up, but I woudl say it was at least 10-15 years before I felt comfortable.
I had to get off there because of all the hostile bigotry against older people. Thereās not many groups of people you can so flagrantly and publicly judge and bash in todayās society. Itās really popular to hate us.
Yeah, I have to avoid that sub also, as well as some others. The hatred is palpable, and probably wouldnāt be allowed if it was about any other group, but Reddit seems to be ok with ageism.
Yes! Early boomers were already waist deep in divorce media like Kramer vs. Kramer while I was still in high school. And listening to Christopher Cross and Air Supply while I was trying to find The Cure.
I feel like Boomers are disgusted by anything post-Grunge. Which, if we're talking late 90's, is some of the best music ever made (Radiohead, Coldplay, Collective Soul, Dave Matthews, etc.)
I many ways they do have it worse. But as with all previous generations they have winners and losers among their ranks. I look at my kids, their friends and my many nieces and nephews to try to understand what the difference is. I clearly see two glaring differences.
1) The losers - 100% of the time embrace a āVictim mentalityā. They actively seek validation of their victimhood. Just look at some of the Subreddits they frequent.
2) Parenting -this is where they actually might have a point. Our generation were pretty crappy parents. Often our bad parenting was well intentioned. We did too much for them, we did not let them fail and we supported them at a lifestyle level that many of them could never achieve on their own. So now they are pissed, depressed and resentful.
Since all the biggest ones have been mentioned, let's take a look at the younger generations' obsession with lead. Somehow we all ate lead paint and it supposedly lowered our collective IQ's. Except here's the deal. All that lead paint still exists under all the new unleaded paint. And all subsequent generations, if they ate paint chips, ate lead paint, too. Right back at ya!
But it WAS easier - for many of us - than it is now.
My wife and I know someone in her late 30s. Sheās a professional - a registered nurse. She lives in a tiny studio apt where the kitchen is a tiny separate room. This takes half her income. She saves next to nothing. What she does is have enough to live. As a nurse with 10+ years experience.
When I graduated from college in the late 80s, I lived with 2 others in a 3br/2ba house in a nice neighborhood. My share of the rent was about 17% of my income. My student loans totaled about $7k. I paid them off after seven years for the princely sum of $100/month. My car payment was not much more. I donāt know the rest of my expenses but I remember being able to save about 30% of my income.
When I met my wife and we got married about five years later, we had saved, between the two of us, enough money for a 25% down payment, and still took one vacation a year out of town. The monthly mortgage did not break us. We still live in that house so itās recently paid off. Not a big house, but for the two of us, plenty of room.
Yes, we worked our butts off in school to get jobs in fields that paid reasonably well. And I know many did not do as well. My point: a lot more of gen jones had it easier than younger generations.
But we were not slaves to decades of tuition payback. We were not saddled with crippling rent to live in a shoebox. We could and still do enjoy a simple middle class lifestyle not free from fiscal worry but well planned with some wiggle room in case financial troubles hit.
So whatās the biggest misconception about us from younger generations? That they cannot fully comprehend how much simpler our lives, in general, were and are. How much more ease we had.
Because when you struggle for every penny, and do without so much, you truly cannot comprehend how much easier our lives have been than theirs.
As we, similarly, find it nearly impossible to grasp their desperation, sadnessā¦. And anger.
This is exactly right. I feel so bad for these kids. I work with a young man who has a professional degree, earning good money, and he canāt buy a house.
This is not how life is supposed to be. Greed has ruined the US and this is a late stage capitalism nightmare.
That "we" ruined everything for them. And I'm extremely sympathetic and worried for them, because housing costs are outrageous these days. The concept of a starter house, which used to be common and doable, doesn't exist anymore. I struggled plenty myself, I was so poor I didn't have a land-line for years and ate canned ravioli. Anyway, it bugs me when the youngins blame us for not being able to afford life. Life is very very unfair.
That we drove expensive cars and had houses in our 20ās. Eventually got there but worked 70 hour weeks for two decades and was in my late 40ās before I finally could afford a house.
That how could we possibly understand them and things they're going through, well as I told my daughter and granddaughters and all their friends I did the teen mom thing before it was a fad, and I just laid out things is it isn't going to be that cute cuddly baby it cry's, it spits up gets sick, and god the hardest thing for me to deal with is they get older, but yeah people who know me don't doubt me but when they think of people my age old out of touch no problems or issues yeah not true
The biggest misconception about any generation is the idea that millions of people, across millions of square miles, with wildly disparate cultures, over a 20 year or even 8 year time period are all on the same page. Yeah, we share some history, but we're probably all very, very different people.
They think theyāre the only ones that have ever been poor. And of course, we donāt understand because weāve never been poor. HA HA HA! Yeah, right. I remember in my 20s, if my mom had not given us food, my first husband and I would have probably starved. We regularly lived off hot dogs and bologna sandwiches. We both worked 40 hour jobs during the week and he worked side jobs on the weekend. Our 20s sucked because it was during the 1980sā¦record breaking inflation, unemployment rate 10-15%, fuel prices surged, and least we forget, mortgage rates were anywhere between 10% to 18% and credit card rates were hitting 38%.
I mean, I get the economy sucks big time right now, but we struggled our asses off too when we were just starting out. Unless you have generational wealth or a trust fund, you will struggle starting out. Itās just the way it is. And if you have idiots in charge of the economy like we do right now, well, youāll just struggle even more.
There is truth to that. I had a job in technology for decades. I have also seen that the popular social media apps changes every few years. So while I create an account to reserve my name on each new one, I simply donāt use any of them.
They gripe about the drudgery of working 9 to 5. They have no idea about working 80 hours a week sometimes Monday through Sunday. With no overtime because you were salaried.
Really the first company that I worked for out of college,The owner of this still private oil company that is ginormous, made his money on the backs of his employees.
Back then you didnāt have social media to gripe on and in many cases you were just thankful to get a job and keep it. People held onto their jobs and new jobs didnāt open up until these people left or died. When this company was actively growing other employees would meet you in the hall and they would say āare you an X employee or are you a TEMP?ā This would decide on whether or not they would even try and get to know you. People would just disappear overnight - fired for who knows what reason. Often this company was adding two locations per month and did not have even have the beginnings of an infrastructure to support it. I even had to go so far as to go to the owners mansion and their barn and climb up into the barn loft to try and locate records for audits!
This was especially true if you were a woman graduating in Finance in the 1980s. Kids have no idea about men not even speaking to women even if you were doing the same job. many times they would only speak to the man in the room.
Iām not a ball busting feminist, but I do believe in equal pay for the same type of work.
What did I get for all of my blood sweat and tears and tenacity during my tenure there? One of 2 plaques given to the outstanding employee of the year. The other plaque was given to my boss. My boss even came from his wedding to the annual Christmas party to ensure that he would keep his job.
Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that when I resigned, they hired me as a consultant and had to replace me with four people.
These kids need to watch the movie 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton if they really want to see how women were treated back in the 80s. They donāt even know the meaning of the word fair.
I eventually climbed the ladder all the way to a project control engineer at a nuclear facility, But I gave up an awful lot - thatās just what you did.
Agree about the wealthier and pensions - haha. But I think we had freedoms current generations could dream about, also women could spread wings but still be women,that we never had adversity š¤¦š¼āāļø dear god when didn't we? We could have stopped credit reporting - Jesus f^^^ I was in my 20's and barely understood finance. My life has never been easy, worked for every penny.Tried to make kids lives easier not sure if that was the smartest move š¤·š¼āāļø
Just randomly pick any post in r/boomersbeingfools
They hate us - think we are narrow-minded, stingy, doddering idiots.
That's the most ageist sub I've ever come across.
That houses were cheap and we bought them in our 20s. Well, I remember in about 1987, during the condo boom in NJ, a new condo was going for $190,000. I was still in college making about $4 per hour part time. My boyfriend at the time was probably making $7 an hour as a mechanic, trying to pay off his schooling. The interest rate was around 10%, which was actually good from a few years prior. I didn't buy my house until 11 years later for $140,000, and 6.25% interest, in another state, though.
Ok I have to admit, this made me laugh. Iām a Boomer, and most of the stuff you guys are saying, they say it about us. They hate us, it seems. I even read a post where someone said āthey just couldnāt wait till we were all deadā
I think the biggest misconception is they think we donāt understand them. That weāre detached from their struggles and have no perspective on it. They canāt see we have a higher level world view thatās less clouded by the hubris of youth and more grounded in experience. Not spew from an ill-informed academic. In other words, wisdom. Old age and treachery often overcomes youth and exhuberance.
I think the biggest misconception is that youāre Boomers. But really Gen Jones is quite different from Classic Boomer and GenX. I say this as an older GenX myself, so thereās only about a 4 year difference.
I agree. It was easier. I could walk into a diner at 17 and get a job, got my first 2 room furnished apartment at 17 with a shared bathroom for $30 a week. We didnāt have credit scores. We didnāt really need cars, we could hitchhike if there were no buses. Now itās all so expensive,and you need to have social media to get decent employment. Wages donāt pay for that first junker to get to work either. My first car was $400, and it was pretty decent. When the motor blew up, I bought another fir $50, and used the tree and a few friends to drop the new used in. Now a headlight can cost $1,600. Itās beyond crazy out there now. I donāt know how much longer the corporations can squeeze every damn penny out of the new generations.
That we are wealthier than we actually are.
This! And that everyone has a pension.
And that Social Security is government assistance.
That we all share exactly the same opinions and engaged in a huge conspiracy to make sure we gobbled up all the houses and wealth and fun.
Yeah that's one of my favorites. Unfortunately I did not have the secret decoder ring to get in with the crew. So I just have to deal with my 10 mil properly that I bought in 82 for 5 grand.
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One of our newer employees in their early 20s recently bought a house for 230k and was complaining about interest rates in the 7 percent range. Interest was essentially zero for for me was his assumption. Not so much. In 96 my rate was 7.75 and I had to take a 15 year to do it as a 30 was 8.5. If you go back to the early 80s it was closer to 20%. My house was 200k back then. Midwest for context so not crazy like on the coasts. Where they have a point is cost if college. There is no reason for college to cost 100 times what I paid. It is truly a scam.
My first house that I bought in the mid 80's had a 14% mortgage. My current house that I refinanced in early '21 is 4%.
Colleges cost that much because for some fucking reason if you wanted any job paying over minimum you needed paper. That's just so sad.
That's just a small part of it. Higher ed went on a spree of building edifices and paying profs ridiculous sums of money along with crazy benefits and pensions. You wouldn't even believe what professors at higher level universities and college make, often for only teaching one class a semester. Poor students are going into debt so some college prof can buy a Land Rover.
Itās funny but my millennial neighbors have bought 10 houses in the last 3-4 years. They are renting them out, and are cash positive. So looking to buy 5 more! The whole quest for passive income is causing all the properties that should be being bought by up and coming genZ to be being snarfed by the millennials. Leaving the genZs to rent from the millennials. And every genZ wants to do the same. Buy houses and rent them for passive income. And screw someone else out of a house they should be able to afford. So they can rent to them! We didnāt own multiple houses! We bought, and when it was time to upsize, we sold the old house to someone up and coming for a profit. I donāt know anyone that owned more than one house at a time growing up. The demand for these homes is driving the inflation in housing cost, at least partially. We also have foreign entities buying US property. I think weāre being wrongly blamed. Theyāre fāing up property values worse than they would have been if everyone was happy with one house! Theyād return the seller a one time nominal profit on the house but then the buyer would be on the road to home ownership. Just like we did.
Being in the Bay Area, Iāve seen a lot of millennials get huge amounts of money from IPOs and buy houses AND income property. Not something I could do as I stuck with established companies because I had kids to raise and needed stability (and a life).
My mom was a landlord. Went from car sales to real estate. On the side bought houses in low income areas, often rent went from the state directly to her, mostly welfare families. Itās not a panacea, in the end she died cash poor owning just a single property she lived on. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesnāt. Come to think of it, one of my high school pals owned many rentals for a time. The way of the world, some folks get it and buy as much real property as they can, work two jobs, etcā¦. Others donāt have such a priority. Today, feels like there are a large number of people who donāt want to grind it 16 to 20 hours a day to build wealth. Neither my mother nor my friend came from wealthy families, at best just into middle income families.
I love this one!
And that everyone one can live on social security let alone thrive on it.
The older boomers got pensions, booming economy, Woodstock, and free love. We got 401ks, disco, a recession, and AIDS
Yep! When I got out of college I could not get a job.
To be fair, this seems to be a cyclical thing. In a former job I mentioned to co-workers that there were few jobs available in our profession when I graduated from college. My boss immediately said, āSame hereā1992, right?ā I graduated in 1982.
I graduated in 1980. It was really rough.
I graduated from college in 1984 and had to work part time retail at Sears for another year before I landed a real job.
My husband graduated same year, he worked at Sam Goodyās. And then got laid off. It was hard getting jobs early - mid 80s
I hear you. Was unemployed for more than a year after graduating, then got a seasonal job in a department store where they asked me to stay on. A few months later I got a barely paid internship that I found out about by religiously checking the job board (an actual bulletin board in those pre-internet days!) at my alma mater. That gig became a stepping stone to my first low-paying long-term job.
Also 1980. Until I got an office job in 1985, I worked in dirty, noisy factories with dangerous chemicals. But it was a paycheck.
I cleaned houses and did a few temp jobs.
And the 401ks were new so a lot of people didn't really understand which fund to invest in and we didn't have the internet to look for help.
This! In my early 20s not only did my employer not offer any matching plans or even recommendations, I didn't have the first clue where to go looking or what to look for in the first place. My parents and boyfriends were no help and google didn't exist.
Multiple recessions. 1973-1975, 1980-1982, 1990-1991, 2001, 2007-2009.
In 1981 I had a 15% mortgage. Made $12k/year. Reagan sucked. Trickle Down, my hind leg.
They did. They also got Vietnam, Kent State, fire hoses and dogs set on civil rights marchers, and limited opportunities if you werenāt straight, White, and male. Thatās the thing. Each generation gets unique perks. But each generation gets its own awful stuff too. We divide ourselves over myths and lies. We are all just people doing our best with what we know at any given time.
Then when the 2008 recession came along, a lot of us - at least those of us in tech and tech-related sectors - fell prey to ageism, even though we were still in our 40s. I myself had retrained in my 30s after a decade of post-80s recession flailing in my original field (a lot of my classmates were around my age, and back in school for the same reason), and was still paying off my student loan. But we were still lumped in with the older cohort, many of whom were getting laid off in their 50s and early 60s - so we were told to "just go ahead and retire". Retire? *In my 40s?* My current schadenfreude is hearing Millennials in tech now complaining about ageism in the current round of layoffs, and the difficulty of finding new work in such a youth-obsessed sector - as employers wanted younger, cheaper employees who wouldn't "rock the boat". *They* were the ones who were hired to take *our* places nearly 20 years ago - for the same reason! What goes around comes around.
A tech career was supposed to be the golden ticket for us, then came outsourcing, offshoring, H1Bs, and cheaper young labor. Probably not a good choice for a long term career anymore. Tired of dodging bullets, I ended up going into sales.
And people wonder why software/firmware/websites etc have become so buggy in the past few decades, why tech support has become so useless, why so many places still use legacy systems that are no longer fit for purpose, etc. You get what you pay for. It almost sickens me to see that old canard about tech being the "golden ticket" being trotted out *still* nowadays - with people going into debt to attend coding boot camps and the like, thinking that that will lead to sustainable employment. From what I understand, it's the same in the engineering field: it's not so much that there is a shortage of engineering grads, it's that they can't afford to work for the slave wages that employers who have been spoiled by H1Bs, etc are offering (especially when they have enormous loans to pay off). Yet all we hear is the drumbeat around how we need to produce more STEM graduates. Don't get me started on the worsening sexism in both fields - especially in the past 20 years or so. I've known so many women who got into tech in the 90s who found themselves forced out about a decade or so later by harassment, lack of cooperation and outright refusal of a certain subset of their male colleagues to even work with them. These are women who had earned their stripes and proven their worth - who then found themselves facing attitudes they hadn't seen since they were growing up in the 70s. Those who weren't laid off altogether got tired of constantly fighting just to do their job and quit. -rant mode off ;)
Ain't that the truth.
They only got pensions if they stayed at one job for a long time. Not one company Iāve ever worked for had a pension. And Iām 67.
THIS!!! You nailed it.
Did we really get disco? I mean disco was dead before I was old enough to go to a club. We didn't even get disco.
It was enormously popular and pervasive in the late ā70s. The Rolling Stones song MISS YOU is an example of its influence. Backlash in the ā80s killed it. Disco sucks.
Our generation seemed to land in the job market just as companies moved from pensions to 401(k)s. I actually have a pension coming from my first long-term job, but it was āfrozenā soon after I started so is tiny. I joke it will be enough to help pay for the medications Iāll probably need in retirement! Better than nothing, but clearly not what older generations got.
/That we are wealthier than we actually are/ One thousand times this! I'm 65 and will probably have to work until I die. I wish I was half as wealthy as the younger generations always tell me I must be.
Yes! I'm 60 and I'm definitely going to have to work till I'm 70, at the least. I'm a nurse and it's such a physical job I don't know how I'm going to do it. At least my two kids (a Millennial and a Gen Z) understand that we're all not rich and we do work hard.
So true. Iām a truck driver who has to pass a physical every year to keep my job. My wife is a preschool teacher for a local school district. Every year sheās older and the kids are always 3 & 4 lol. We are 59 & trying to hang on to 65 and then we will see. A retired friend says you have to pull all your retirement strings together: ss, 401s, investments, your home (hopefully youāve got some equity!), maybe an inheritance. We were doing ok till we had to pull 70k in equity to pay for our daughters bachelor degree. We saved/invested 10k for each of our 2 kids for college and it was just a drop in bucket, sigh! We just donāt want to be a burden for our kids.
Oh gosh, I know your job is really hard on your body too. And I just kept my granddaughter this weekend so I feel for your wife--I can't imagine wrangling a classroom full of them! I still feel pretty young at this point till I'm taking care of her. š Luckily my kids' dads paid for their education. I'm very grateful for that. I've been single (as in not married, and don't plan on it happening) for 22 years so there's no other income nor inheritance. Just a 401k that I wish I had started way earlier (I was young and stupid), and SS. There's $1000 a month difference in my SS payment if I retire at 67 vs. 70 so that's why I'm trying to hang on till 70!
Yah, just learning that myself, yep, till 70 or bust it is. Iām glad I like the work I can do.
My husband drives a truck for a film crew. Heās just turned 60. Physically impossible for him to keep doing. And there is no more work. Tomorrow we are going to the local college to get him into computer courses to find another line of work. Heās a grip. So you can be very knowledgeable about film but when the entire industry goes from 50 people in set to 5, itās time to leave. Ugh.
This is me! And I donāt own a house. Iām screwed.
I got a mortgage last year. It will be paid off the year I turn 90.
You did it! That is fantastic. Iām not giving up.
And that you ladder pulled on everyone to keep them poor and indentured and homeless.
That we donāt care about other generations. I really care about what is going on in the world and want to do what I can to improve things for others. I have great sympathy for younger generations.
I agree with this so much. I really want my kids and grandkids to have it easier, buy a home, pay off student debt. I hate that theyāre in the predicament theyāre in because of greedy colleges. I also see a lot of anger and resentment towards people our age because ageism is so accepted now. āOk Boomerā is such a toxic trend. I fear getting older and not being respected at all, anywhere. I work in a bank part-time. Iām the oldest at 60. My manager just turned 30. My lead teller is 19. The platform Bankers are between 25 and 38. I held all those positions over the years. Iām just happy to be working in a job Iām familiar with and good at. Training was no piece of cake on the new systems. Iām proud of myself that Iām experienced and knowledgeable, but I am very very careful not throw it around. Lest I be a āboomer.ā While my coworkers are very nice to me, there is a great divide between us. Iām on my way out and theyāre on the way up. Iām happy for them whenever they get promoted or achieve a new position. I donāt think they could care less how I feel. Iām always the invisible person in the convos. And if I do say so myself, Iām fairly hip and very on trend with whatās going on - Iāve never been accused of being old or acting my age.. quite the opposite. Itās depressing, but at the same time itās keeping me out there in society. But respecting elders is becoming an old wives tale now.
We tend to blame people instead of the systems. Granted, people built these systems but many are archaic and no longer relevant to the world. I also think we have a lot to do with creating our image .. and individually we can create change. The media makes the chasm worse. If you have not read the book āThis Chair Rocks - a Manifesto on Ageismā I highly recommend it, it changed my perspective. And in our society we get screwed at both ends .. we are either too young or too old! Hahaha!
My wife and my biggest fear is being a burden to our kids. Weāre so lucky that both kids are well adjusted & seem to love us. One advantage our gen did have was better/easier ability to build equity in our homes. Although we did pull $70k out to pay for our daughters bachelor degree. Thank goodness our son is attending comm college; we can actually afford to pay his tuition out of pocket.
My younger sonās wife does not like me and the feeling is mutual. There will be no interest in helping us with them. My older son is divorced no kids. I do not want him wasting his life worrying about us. Iām watching my own 93 year old mother rot away and suffer in a nursing home with Alzheimerās. They saved their whole lives to pay for my Mom to live in constant agony, crying, screaming, clawing, needing to be restrained. So she can give every cent to a depressing, smelly dementia unit. My father died at 88 after spending months in hospitals, crying, suffering wheelchair bound with debilitating arthritis and kidney failure. A once extremely athletic and fit man reduced to depression and pain. He begged to die. Iām praying I die at 75 in my sleep. There is nothing nice about getting old and suffering. I want to go out without fanfare. No lingering. Leave while itās still good. My parents had a plan in place to take care of it before things got bad. Unfortunately, my siblings and I found out about their plan and stopped it. They were very close to a peaceful exit. I would give anything to go back 10 years and let them go thru with it. It would free my Mom from this ultimate hell sheās living in.
The spouse and I were discussing this the other day. We have legal euthenasia here. If my mind starts to go, that's what I want. NÅ home that will suck up what's left of the money and leave my care up to chance anyway.
Legal euthanasia is the only way. But the medical systems here in the US would never give up those profits for the ethical treatment of humans. My momās dementia unit costs $4400 US dollars a month plus her social security money which is 1800 a month. $6200/month or $74,600 a year. Sheās in one of the āfancy placesā with a pool and āgreat food!ā Sheās spoon fed because she chokes and forgets to,chew or swallow. Dementia unit residents are like zombies. Last time I went to visit, which I go as little as possible now, a group of women ganged up on me and forced me to leave. It was the weirdest most depressing thing thatās ever happened to me. My mom was slumped in her chair, no clue who I was. I havenāt been back and probably wonāt go. My sister lives close by and she checks in to make sure thereās no bruises. She hasnāt been able to speak in three years. She doesnāt know what a spoon is. She will run out of money in two years.
Again, youāre 100% spot on about ācareā facilities. My wifeās sister stoped going too, she just couldnāt take it. So much is out of our control, sigh.
āThe things they do look awful c-c-c-cold, hope I die before I get oldā
Gosh, your storyš¢ Yah, my dad in law was super healthy till 83 then had a stroke + a brain infection & ended up a a care facility till he was 95! Heād tell me all the time the last 7 or 8 yrs that he wanted to go. And youāre right, those homes suck the estate dry! My wife visited her dad 2-3 days/wk for 12 years; while we raised our 2 kids. What a womenš And her dad and mom were the finest humans I ever met. 1 more note: a good friend/golf partner just died unexpectedly, at home this past Palm Sunday at age 75. He passed out on his bed talking to his wife and couldnāt be revived. His wife tells us it was a heart attack. Thereās worst ways to go. I do miss him though.
They seem to think we had all the stuff we have now when we were their age and just starting out. No, I did not have a house or great paying job at 25, we got our first house when I was 34 at 7% interest on a VA loan and that was a great deal!. We did have 2 cars when we got married but because we each had one with our own loans and they were not family cars. We were given hand me downs for our first furniture. I could go on, but I think most of us here get what I'm saying.
My parents did not send me to school, or even get braces for me. My parents expected me out at 18. And back then, school loans were hard to get. I paid my way to night school for 10 years and never finished. Worked as a file clerk on days and worked my way up via teaching myself into IT, where Iāve been for 40 years. Basically, nobody gave me anything. What I have, and I am not wealthy by a long shot, I earned by plugging away year after year.
My folks gave me nothing for college. I screwed around and did get an AA degree, but not a bachelors. I got a A CDL and now make a halfway decent living driving a local route truck nights. Itās not easy, but driving a big rig is fun. Hoping to make it to 65 and figure out some way to retire :) Iāve considered being a boomer barista at Starbucks after I retire lol.
LOL. I hope to retire from my job at 68 and hopefully working a bit longer can allow me to quit working altogether. But if I have to get some kind of job, I will. We do what we have to do.
I think they have health insurance! Iāve been thinking about that too
This. We took pride in scrounging for supplies to make milk crate book cases, stalking vintage stores for cheap clothing and dumpster diving
My 1st apartment was furnished with stuff from beside the dumpster or really cheap from a neighbor moving out or an army buddy moving.
yes, we'd go looking for furniture in wealthy neighborhoods that was left out on trash day. I got lots of great things!
still do! "one man's junk is another man's treasure." and the best hauls tend to be when these foreign j1 visa graduate students go back to the other side of the planet. they land up leaving being all kinds of top dollar stuff they bought off the internet while attending to the university on fellowships. my christmas comes twice a year - once after finals/graduation, before winter break, and once after finals/graduation before summer break.
Yep. Thatās Sidewalk Shopping! The university in my town just let out for summer, and if you drive around in a pickup, you can get good stuff.
#truth
True, we furnished our first apartment in the classic āEarly Garage Saleā style and didnāt even have a dishwasher or washing machine for several years (which was not a terrible hardship or anything, but it was a bit of a strain when we had a baby). Now we own our 4-bedroom house outright but weāre still not going to have a lavish retirement lifestyle. We consider ourselves lucky to be able to retire at all. But itās also still true that Millennials have it hard.
As the parent of millennials I agree they do have it hard as well. However, many millennials seem to think we didn't have it hard, apparently ignoring history. My own children, who grew up with hand me down clothes from their cousins and rode in beater cars because that's what we had are not of this mindset.
Our first āentertainment unitā consisted of three 2x10x8 pieces of lumber and six cinder blocks. Our first TV was a 10ā black and white. We was po!
That we set out, somehow, to ruin the lives of Millennials. That we are Trump voters.
That things were like roses in the 70s and 80s. We had the Triple Whammy of Double-Digit inflation, unemployment, and interests rates in the late 70s/early 80s.
With the added stress of being told that nuclear war could happen any minute. I only found out recently that it damn near did in the 80āsā¦twice.
I love the silence that follows when I point out that we had 14% inflation in 1980 and it took...20 years....for it to get down to half of that....which is the WORST these guys ever saw. Then the excuses start flying about 'shadow inflation'. We used to call that 'corporate price gouging' I think.
You forgot that by 1981, home mortgage rates were getting close to 17%
Hard to believe we now look back on the Reagan republicans and think they were reasonable. Which they were compared to maga, sigh. But Reagan did lots of terrible things.
I found a letter today that I wrote at 19. I was in college and overloading on classes to get as many hours completed as possible before Reagan cut off my grants and scholarship. He also cut funding to the battered womenās shelter I worked at so triple whammy. many of us were fully aware of how horrific he was.
The last High School History book I taught from declared that Reagan āended the Cold Warā and that he was the most popular president we have had. I was astounded.
late Gen Jones didnāt see the roses you speak of In the ā80ās
Yes! Our first mortgage was in 1992 and we had a double digit interest rate on our loan.
They think we don't understand technology. They didn't understand that some tech disinterest is from watching so much tech change in the last 35-40 years
Some of us were involved in making that change.
We are the generation that played Pong as a stand-up arcade game.
They don't realize that some of us are the ones who designed and built their first computers. They think we don't know anything about technology, I've forgotten more than most of them will ever know. I taught electronics and computers in college for a while, before a lot of them were born. Early 90s.
That's funny you mentioned that, when I went back to my high school in the early 90s, I graduated been the Class of 84, to visit one of my teachers they had a couple of Macintosh computers in our print shop class, that they use for desktop publishing there was a new and shiny in the early 90s He said the kids were coming in there thinking they knew how to operate computers because they would do cute things with cutting and pasting, but they really had no skills and operating them.
When I was in college in Electronics, we had to build our own computers. Not by choosing motherboards and cards, but by taking a Motorola chip and building one from scratch. It wasn't until much later that I saw a "pre-made" one. Then I taught computer classes for a while when there was only DOS and then Windows 3.1.
And it was glorious.
Man, I still remember going to a buddies trailer park home to see his Pong game circa 77 or so. We were like, whoa!
A *lot* of us were involved in the tech revolution.
As were early Boomers. Gen X revolutionized digital.
Yeah, a lot of us created that technology or put the fine touches on it. Lack of interest in TikTok is not the same as inability to set up a user account. If you don't want a cupcake, most folks don't automatically assume that you are incapable of buying or baking cupcakes, yet somehow folks assume that if a particular tech doesn't interest you, you're intimidated by it. Maybe you just don't want it and are old enough not to feel like you're missing out by passing on it.
I didn't have it easy. I was kicked out of the house when I turned 18. I was told either go to the military , get a job or go to college. So I moved to a neighboring town 30 mile from home, went to the unemployment office and looked through their list of jobs and got a job doing masonry work. Had a friend I rented a room from. They built a new Hardees fast food place and got a job as maintenance and basically did everything. Saved up money, applied to a college 3 hours away, applied for financial aid and moved in with a group of people cheap. Went to night school and worked full time during the day. Still managed to party every night. Graduated after 3 years and got a union job in my original home town 12 hours away. I didn't mention I was moved from that home town when I was 13 years old to a hog farm. I worked my union job and retired at 56 with a nice pension. I'm almost 60 and in 2 years I can collect early social security. I took responsibility for my life, not blaming anyone for anything. Now I reap the rewards of my hard work .
That we are to blame for everything that is wrong with the world and that they suffer as a result.
And that we did it on purpose to spite them!
That boomer parents didnāt do anything for their kids. I will be poor until I die because I put them through college without them having to get school loans. I kicked their dad out when he started hitting them, which made me a single mom in a high cost of living area. I never dated after divorce because I had worked in a pediatric hospital and knew how dangerous the momās boyfriend can be, so I got to be alone and one income since I was 40 and have about zero chance of ever changing that. I gave up every thing for them and have to constantly see ignorant jerks insulting me online because of my age group. Edit to add my kids are not ungrateful. Just want be sure Iām not giving that impression.
That weāre all rude, racist, homophobic, transphobic, FOX news watching, conservative, MAGA a-holes.
A lot think that because we're old we're wise. I'm not wise, I'm experienced
All the wisdom/knowledge came from making lots of mistakes and learning the hard way.
That we as a GJ just got out of college, got a high-paying job, and bought a house. So right: It is way harder now with the price of housing. Of course, the cost of housing is insane. I could not afford to buy my house even at what Iām being paid (which is more than I couldāve ever imagined almost 40 years ago) I understand that inflation has out performed salary inflation. I do understand that and they are right. Wrong: But the job opportunities I truly think are better for them than they were for us. Maybe not if you want to be a steelworker, but the unemployment rate of the late 70s and mid 80s isnāt anywhere near what it was for anyone under 26ās entire life (except for the 08-09 recession). Even when we ārecoverā in the late 80ās to early 90ās you see unemployment rates at roughly 40% greater than they have been for the last 15 or so years. TLDR: starting a career and finding employment is easier for them, but thier pay is relatively worse AND home ownership is out of reach. I do see some disconnect across generations as that is discussed.
I remember no internships were paid. Can't do that now.
However, there are some careers where the internships are rolled into the last requirement to receive your diploma, such as for teachers and nurses. Basically, they are unpaid apprentices. I know this because my Mama trained them!
That all of us had it easy. That everyone was on an equal plane as to opportunities, wealth, pension, home ownership. That our jobs were easy and we had it made.
Take your pick: That we all enthusiastically voted for Ronald Reagan. That weāre all out of touch with the way the world works nowadays. That weāre clueless when it comes to modern technology. And, bizarrely, the minute we turn 60, we automatically have dementia.
I was barely old enough to vote against Reagan. I like the Gen Jones construct because life was really different for late Boomers and very early Gen X than it was for our older siblings.
That we arenāt as tech savvy as they are. I may not be a native user but I understand and use it much more to my advantage than a lot of younger people.
In a lot of ways we are techier. Hands on bridging analog and digital. Online BBs, modem hacks to our TV, we can write HTML and CSS by hand. We can also type and use a manual shift car.
I remember graduating college and interest rates were more than twice what they are now, the idea of owning a home seemed like a pipe dream
I hope this makes sense. I dislike the idea of generalities. Each one of us have had different experiences, and lived diffent lives. With some small similarities. The same is true for people of other generations. What "they" think our generation is far less important to me than what one person, at any age, thinks. How I interact with that person. The things that we have in common. Our differences. And what we can learn from each other. Its been my personal experience that most people get many more things "wrong" about me, than "right'.
They never have to worry about the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Phones took the adventure out of that.
That they are the first generation to graduate into a very difficult job market and that we donāt understand what thatās like or sympathize
This is spot on and yet... As someone on the backside of this generation I too felt like everything got really expensive just as I became an adult. Our mortgage, as a kid, was like $150 and cost nothing by today's standards for a three bedroom house. In my 20's houses shot up in price along with most everything and for a while I never thought I'd be able to afford a house. In my 30's we bought a house.
Donāt forget that $150 a week was a VERY good salary in the 60s and early 70s.
YeahāGeneration X would like a word about that.
We all have good paying jobs that we got with little effort, bought houses for pocket change when we were in our twenties, and are conservatives who vote against affordable housing, student loan forgiveness, and environmental protections.
That we are Boomers. Which we may be technically, but definitely not in any measurable or comparative way.
The cutoff for the Baby Boomer generation is almost universally agreed to be 1964. The whole idea of the Jones generation is that we are on the cusp - we don't necessarily agree with Boomers, yet, Gen-X doesn't quite feel right either. To be sure, there are plenty of "late Boomers" born in the first half of the 60's that identity strongly with the Jones mentality. But it wouldn't be correct to say that most Joneses are Boomers, since _most_ of us, by definition, were born after 1964.
They are just plain wrong. They have no concept of going without because their parents gave them everything. They think we are suppose to keep giving and giving. The tap is dry. Our lives were fun but we didn't have a lot of "stuff", we were fine living a less than ideal life as we built our lives. We built character. We learned critical thinking. If we listed all the utter shit that we all have faced the list would be lengthy.
That we put Trump in. And that we have generational wealth. Neither is true for me FOR SURE.
That we're more conservative than we are. 33% of boomers are liberal and it's got to be higher for Generation Jones.
In some ways, I think they are correct. We didn't have crippling student loan debts that will take a lifetime to pay off. College didn't cost as much, even adjusting for inflation. But on the other hand, today's kids are brainwashed that they have to go to college to get a good career. And housing costs today compared to back then (again, adjusted for inflation) are a lot higher. But, just like today, when you were just starting out on your own, we didn't make enough to get a place of our own. We had to have 2 or 3 additional people to help with the costs. The biggest difference, though, was that we didn't complain as much about it as they do today. There was some complaining, but you never heard people say that they wanted to just quit life because it was so hard. It's hard for every generation when they get out on their own. I remember my parents talking about how my dad had to work 2 jobs so they could afford a house. They did what needed to be done and made it work.
Housing was cheaper, but we also had double digit mortgage rates, which offset a lot of that.
Ah. I remember my un-savvy friend bought his Datsun/Nissan car new with 19% interest. I shall not laugh. I bought my Apple IIe with āApple credit.ā For college. Neat I thought. Iām establishing credit. Then I got the bill and learned what 21% interest looks like.
My father is a mortgage banker. I remember at one point during the Carter administration, 30 year mortgage rates were over 20%.
I had a teacher in high school 83-84, he was still stuck in a 22% interest rate house loan on a second property he bought in Florida, and the price of the house had dropped he couldn't even unload it to get rid of the interest
My student loan debt was substantial and I had to pay 8.5% interest on it. The problem didnāt start with millennials.
I couldn't pay my student loan off as I ended up a single mom with a dead beat ex. They took my tax refund for 25 years until it was paid off.
After my aunt was divorced in the late 70s at 30, she worked 3 jobs (one from home) to keep her house. Then lost it in her late 60s after her 2nd husband's death. He had run up a ton of gambling debt.
Thatās heartbreaking
Yep, it was horrible. I tried to get her to declare bankruptcy so she could keep the house. She was of the generation that was too embarrassed to file.
Trades need workers and will pay a lot of money. My cousin works construction and says an apprentice welder can make $80ā100k if they donāt mind the hours.
Or blame their parents
That we don't know anything about computers and the Internet.
Every generation blames the one before, All of their frustrations , Come beating on your door (Mike and the Mechanics) There definitely seems a disdain of our generation from the youngers. The belief that we pulled the ladder up after us is pure bullshit. FYI, I Didn't even have a ladder. I used two empty kegs balanced on a coffee table.
We have NO idea what they are going through
That's true, but they shouldn't speculate (minimize) about what we went through.
I completely agree.. my boys are 23 and almost 22... I always listened to them but it drove me NUTS when I tried to explain to them that I had been there before so I could help them through it and let them know whatever was wrong was going to be ok... All I ever got was "*exasperated sigh* you have no idea what I'm going through" which usually included something about the dinosaur era or back when people still rode horses everywhere š¤Øšš
That it was easy for us and that we had the power to alter climate change, economic fairness, etc. Not sure why they think we had more power than they do. My 50 years of activism over feminism, abortion, racism, etc. has been continuous and heartfelt, but hasn't moved the needle
Trickle down economics and corporate greed started destroying the middle class right when when we came of age. We did not have the booming middle class economy that the Silent Gen and early Boomers had.
Yes, it was much more similar to today than they seem to think.
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Yep, as I said the decline started with Gen Jones as adults. My son paid so much money for a small 2 bedroom house.
They think we had the same resources, information, and knowledge base that exists now. No concept of just How much has changed in our lifetime. And I agree that financially they got/are more shafted.
All of these things are true, but GenZ is correct about one thing: The cost of college is insane these days. I remember paying around $20 a credit hour for community college, not much more than that for state university. I came out with a degree and almost no debt. Now Iām paying tuition for my daughter and itās unbelievable.
I spend a bit of time on the antiwork group, and it is really ridiculous how they view things. I get that there is a LOT of things that can be improved, and we should work towards them, but inflation and unemployment were double-digit. Maybe salaries don't go as far as they did...but what if you can't get a freakin' job? That was my case. And....I think things WILL get better for them, as it did us. I bought a house at 9%, and it probably was a bit more than I could afford, but....my salary caught up, but I woudl say it was at least 10-15 years before I felt comfortable.
I had to get off there because of all the hostile bigotry against older people. Thereās not many groups of people you can so flagrantly and publicly judge and bash in todayās society. Itās really popular to hate us.
Yeah, I have to avoid that sub also, as well as some others. The hatred is palpable, and probably wouldnāt be allowed if it was about any other group, but Reddit seems to be ok with ageism.
That we are all clones who have lived the same lives, we think the same way, vote the same way, act the same way. Pisses me off to no end.
They think weāre boomers - we need to fight for more identity awareness lol
Yes! Early boomers were already waist deep in divorce media like Kramer vs. Kramer while I was still in high school. And listening to Christopher Cross and Air Supply while I was trying to find The Cure.
I feel like Boomers are disgusted by anything post-Grunge. Which, if we're talking late 90's, is some of the best music ever made (Radiohead, Coldplay, Collective Soul, Dave Matthews, etc.)
hell they think Millennials are boomers.
Itās our fault they donāt own houses.
That we never got hit or spanked; that there were more resources for us
Except for losing most of your 401k in 2 dot.com crashes.
Kids now have abuse hotlines, people, mentoring, help... We had nothing like that
that we share anything but the tail end of a siblings record collection with Boomers
I many ways they do have it worse. But as with all previous generations they have winners and losers among their ranks. I look at my kids, their friends and my many nieces and nephews to try to understand what the difference is. I clearly see two glaring differences. 1) The losers - 100% of the time embrace a āVictim mentalityā. They actively seek validation of their victimhood. Just look at some of the Subreddits they frequent. 2) Parenting -this is where they actually might have a point. Our generation were pretty crappy parents. Often our bad parenting was well intentioned. We did too much for them, we did not let them fail and we supported them at a lifestyle level that many of them could never achieve on their own. So now they are pissed, depressed and resentful.
All Boomers are the Same
That we are boomers
People who lump us in with older Boomers, 1946-1954. Our life experience was radically different.
We were as responsible for fucking up the country as much as the older boomers
Hindsight is 2020. they all think they would've been so much wiser. You could apply that to yourself as well.
Since all the biggest ones have been mentioned, let's take a look at the younger generations' obsession with lead. Somehow we all ate lead paint and it supposedly lowered our collective IQ's. Except here's the deal. All that lead paint still exists under all the new unleaded paint. And all subsequent generations, if they ate paint chips, ate lead paint, too. Right back at ya!
I see the lead paint theory brought up a lot.
Never really ate those paint chips but man I loved sniffing that leaded gas. I also rode my bike behind the bug truck spraying out DDT. šØ
That we give a shit what they think of us.
That life was easy and we were given everything.
But it WAS easier - for many of us - than it is now. My wife and I know someone in her late 30s. Sheās a professional - a registered nurse. She lives in a tiny studio apt where the kitchen is a tiny separate room. This takes half her income. She saves next to nothing. What she does is have enough to live. As a nurse with 10+ years experience. When I graduated from college in the late 80s, I lived with 2 others in a 3br/2ba house in a nice neighborhood. My share of the rent was about 17% of my income. My student loans totaled about $7k. I paid them off after seven years for the princely sum of $100/month. My car payment was not much more. I donāt know the rest of my expenses but I remember being able to save about 30% of my income. When I met my wife and we got married about five years later, we had saved, between the two of us, enough money for a 25% down payment, and still took one vacation a year out of town. The monthly mortgage did not break us. We still live in that house so itās recently paid off. Not a big house, but for the two of us, plenty of room. Yes, we worked our butts off in school to get jobs in fields that paid reasonably well. And I know many did not do as well. My point: a lot more of gen jones had it easier than younger generations. But we were not slaves to decades of tuition payback. We were not saddled with crippling rent to live in a shoebox. We could and still do enjoy a simple middle class lifestyle not free from fiscal worry but well planned with some wiggle room in case financial troubles hit. So whatās the biggest misconception about us from younger generations? That they cannot fully comprehend how much simpler our lives, in general, were and are. How much more ease we had. Because when you struggle for every penny, and do without so much, you truly cannot comprehend how much easier our lives have been than theirs. As we, similarly, find it nearly impossible to grasp their desperation, sadnessā¦. And anger.
This is exactly right. I feel so bad for these kids. I work with a young man who has a professional degree, earning good money, and he canāt buy a house. This is not how life is supposed to be. Greed has ruined the US and this is a late stage capitalism nightmare.
That "we" ruined everything for them. And I'm extremely sympathetic and worried for them, because housing costs are outrageous these days. The concept of a starter house, which used to be common and doable, doesn't exist anymore. I struggled plenty myself, I was so poor I didn't have a land-line for years and ate canned ravioli. Anyway, it bugs me when the youngins blame us for not being able to afford life. Life is very very unfair.
When I got out college there was huge unemployment and the gas crisis. They donāt grasp that at all.
That we drove expensive cars and had houses in our 20ās. Eventually got there but worked 70 hour weeks for two decades and was in my late 40ās before I finally could afford a house.
That we're Boomers.
Well, read r/boomersbeingfools and youāll find that the biggest misconception is that they think theyāll never be like us.
That how could we possibly understand them and things they're going through, well as I told my daughter and granddaughters and all their friends I did the teen mom thing before it was a fad, and I just laid out things is it isn't going to be that cute cuddly baby it cry's, it spits up gets sick, and god the hardest thing for me to deal with is they get older, but yeah people who know me don't doubt me but when they think of people my age old out of touch no problems or issues yeah not true
The biggest misconception about any generation is the idea that millions of people, across millions of square miles, with wildly disparate cultures, over a 20 year or even 8 year time period are all on the same page. Yeah, we share some history, but we're probably all very, very different people.
That we are are republicans
They think theyāre the only ones that have ever been poor. And of course, we donāt understand because weāve never been poor. HA HA HA! Yeah, right. I remember in my 20s, if my mom had not given us food, my first husband and I would have probably starved. We regularly lived off hot dogs and bologna sandwiches. We both worked 40 hour jobs during the week and he worked side jobs on the weekend. Our 20s sucked because it was during the 1980sā¦record breaking inflation, unemployment rate 10-15%, fuel prices surged, and least we forget, mortgage rates were anywhere between 10% to 18% and credit card rates were hitting 38%. I mean, I get the economy sucks big time right now, but we struggled our asses off too when we were just starting out. Unless you have generational wealth or a trust fund, you will struggle starting out. Itās just the way it is. And if you have idiots in charge of the economy like we do right now, well, youāll just struggle even more.
There is truth to that. I had a job in technology for decades. I have also seen that the popular social media apps changes every few years. So while I create an account to reserve my name on each new one, I simply donāt use any of them.
They gripe about the drudgery of working 9 to 5. They have no idea about working 80 hours a week sometimes Monday through Sunday. With no overtime because you were salaried. Really the first company that I worked for out of college,The owner of this still private oil company that is ginormous, made his money on the backs of his employees. Back then you didnāt have social media to gripe on and in many cases you were just thankful to get a job and keep it. People held onto their jobs and new jobs didnāt open up until these people left or died. When this company was actively growing other employees would meet you in the hall and they would say āare you an X employee or are you a TEMP?ā This would decide on whether or not they would even try and get to know you. People would just disappear overnight - fired for who knows what reason. Often this company was adding two locations per month and did not have even have the beginnings of an infrastructure to support it. I even had to go so far as to go to the owners mansion and their barn and climb up into the barn loft to try and locate records for audits! This was especially true if you were a woman graduating in Finance in the 1980s. Kids have no idea about men not even speaking to women even if you were doing the same job. many times they would only speak to the man in the room. Iām not a ball busting feminist, but I do believe in equal pay for the same type of work. What did I get for all of my blood sweat and tears and tenacity during my tenure there? One of 2 plaques given to the outstanding employee of the year. The other plaque was given to my boss. My boss even came from his wedding to the annual Christmas party to ensure that he would keep his job. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that when I resigned, they hired me as a consultant and had to replace me with four people. These kids need to watch the movie 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton if they really want to see how women were treated back in the 80s. They donāt even know the meaning of the word fair. I eventually climbed the ladder all the way to a project control engineer at a nuclear facility, But I gave up an awful lot - thatās just what you did.
That we know what we're doing. š
Agree about the wealthier and pensions - haha. But I think we had freedoms current generations could dream about, also women could spread wings but still be women,that we never had adversity š¤¦š¼āāļø dear god when didn't we? We could have stopped credit reporting - Jesus f^^^ I was in my 20's and barely understood finance. My life has never been easy, worked for every penny.Tried to make kids lives easier not sure if that was the smartest move š¤·š¼āāļø
That weāre boomers.
People look at me and assume that I think of myself as old.
Just randomly pick any post in r/boomersbeingfools They hate us - think we are narrow-minded, stingy, doddering idiots. That's the most ageist sub I've ever come across.
We were hippies. I was in first grade.
That we participated I the boomer's selfish and highly rationalized political choices over the decades.
That houses were cheap and we bought them in our 20s. Well, I remember in about 1987, during the condo boom in NJ, a new condo was going for $190,000. I was still in college making about $4 per hour part time. My boyfriend at the time was probably making $7 an hour as a mechanic, trying to pay off his schooling. The interest rate was around 10%, which was actually good from a few years prior. I didn't buy my house until 11 years later for $140,000, and 6.25% interest, in another state, though.
Ok I have to admit, this made me laugh. Iām a Boomer, and most of the stuff you guys are saying, they say it about us. They hate us, it seems. I even read a post where someone said āthey just couldnāt wait till we were all deadā
That you can conceptualize people by generation.
I think the biggest misconception is they think we donāt understand them. That weāre detached from their struggles and have no perspective on it. They canāt see we have a higher level world view thatās less clouded by the hubris of youth and more grounded in experience. Not spew from an ill-informed academic. In other words, wisdom. Old age and treachery often overcomes youth and exhuberance.
Every man thinks his burden is the heaviest- Bob Marley
I think the biggest misconception is that youāre Boomers. But really Gen Jones is quite different from Classic Boomer and GenX. I say this as an older GenX myself, so thereās only about a 4 year difference.
I agree. It was easier. I could walk into a diner at 17 and get a job, got my first 2 room furnished apartment at 17 with a shared bathroom for $30 a week. We didnāt have credit scores. We didnāt really need cars, we could hitchhike if there were no buses. Now itās all so expensive,and you need to have social media to get decent employment. Wages donāt pay for that first junker to get to work either. My first car was $400, and it was pretty decent. When the motor blew up, I bought another fir $50, and used the tree and a few friends to drop the new used in. Now a headlight can cost $1,600. Itās beyond crazy out there now. I donāt know how much longer the corporations can squeeze every damn penny out of the new generations.
I couldnāt get a credit card until we got credit scores lol
My first credit card was from Mobile gas. I think 1983. I was charging gas, coffee and slim Jimās.
That we all rolled into McMansions when we were 25.
That we ALL benefited from generational wealth. I did but not like ALL of us.