says, “Employers need to stop blaming Millennial turnover on issues of entitlement, listlessness or impatience and instead look at what these workers want and what they—as companies—have to offer them.”7 Business.com adds, “It’s crucial for companies to adjust to [the Millennial] generation to attract and retain talent…Managers need to consider what current and future workers expect from their employers today.”8
Additionally, services and apps like Whose Your Landlord allows younger renters (i.e., Millennials) to connect with landlords more transparently, seeing reviews from past tenants and getting a true idea of the lodgings available. This startup was developed as more and more young adult renters were falling victim to rental scams and feeling trapped by rent hikes while their chances at home ownership slipped further away.
Whether it’s finding a new place to live, a better place to work, or a different brand of chicken nuggets, Millennials vote with their dollars. And it has the Boomers scared as hell.
Making a fuss about how disrespectful and entitled Millennials are derails the conversation and puts us on the defensive. That might have worked when we were kids, but we keep getting older and moving on up the purchasing power ladder. Millennials in their early to mid-thirties are using every penny at their disposal to shape society and hold businesses accountable.
One might even argue that we’re changing the American Dream.
How to Make Sure You’re Killing It
Know that it’s okay to rent. People will tell you that renting is like throwing away money. These people are not in charge of your life. They are also wrong. Renting gives you options. Renting means you have someone who has to fix your broken pipe and the hole in your roof and the furnace. Owning a home may look like a cheaper monthly payment, but when the AC blows in the middle of the summer you are going to realize that you are solely responsible for fixing the broken things and that everything costs money. You can rent your whole life and still achieve happiness. (Plus, the recession and housing bubble burst of 2008 was not a fun time, let’s please not rush to buy homes we can’t afford.)
Travel, if you want. If you want to travel the world and do cool stuff in other countries or states, plan for it and save up to travel to your heart’s content. Plan to sublet furnished apartments to save costs, or travel in hostels or with AirBnB. Travel minimally and consider reducing your possessions to save on keeping things in storage while you are out of the country.
Buy smart. If and when you decide it’s time to buy a home, aim to put at least 20 percent down with a mortgage payment no more than 25 percent of your monthly take-home pay (this is the Dave Ramsey recommendation, and he knows what’s up). If you make $3,000 a month, your mortgage payment should be $750, give or take. This prevents you from having too much of your monthly income tied up in your housing costs. Also—you may be approved for a loan amount that is much higher than this. That is not the number that matters. The numbers that matter are 20 percent down, and 25 percent of your net monthly income.
Don’t fall for zero down. Millennials are at high risk of being targeted for “first-time buyer” schemes that promise an affordable payment and no money down. This is not a safe loan—don’t fall for it. While 20 percent is recommended to avoid special insurance called PMI (which adds to your monthly payment), 10 percent down is the minimum you should aim for. You should have zero interest in a zero-down offer.
Invest wisely. Being a Dave Ramsey follower, I recommend you follow his “baby steps” approach to personal finance, which starts with becoming debt-free and saving an emergency fund before starting retirement savings. Your mom may tell you to start saving now to get a head start, but she may actually be more broke than you, with all the cards on the table. If you act smart with your money and get your financial house in order before you start planning for retirement, you should still be well ahead of the game. Invest in quality mutual funds with a good track record, and make sure you understand the nuts and bolts of everything your financial advisor tells you. If they start telling you that you don’t need to understand something to put money in it, fire them and try again. You are in charge of your money.
Screw other people’s expectations. When your parents and relatives start turning up the “When are you going to settle down?” vibes, feel free to ignore them. You have to do what’s going to make your life fulfilled. If that means spending six months living in hostels because you just have to do it before you die, that’s cool. Finance your dreams with freelance work you can take with you wherever there’s Wi-Fi, or save up a travel fund and spend it frugally.
There’s no right time to have kids. It’s true that there’s never a right time to start a family, but there may be times that are better than others. Evaluate your own financial and family situation to decide for yourself if you’re ready to have a child. You might decide to have a baby outside the “norm” of love-marriage-babies by age thirty. You could have a baby before getting married, as a single parent, or even in your forties. You don’t have to have all the pieces perfectly in place to get started—you just have to be ready enough. There’s also no guarantee it will happen right away, and obviously there are age and health factors that impact fertility, so keep that in mind when you’re waiting for the perfect moment to arise.
Be independent. As soon as you can, extricate yourself from your parents’ purse strings. When they’re supporting you financially, they tend to have lots of opinions about how to run your life. When you can establish a boundary in this area, life changes drastically for the better. They’ll still have the same opinions, but you’ll feel less obliged to try their opinions on for size. You are the expert on your life.
Chapter 2
Millennials Are Killing Basic Respect
“Why Millennials Annoy Their Elders”
—Forbes, February 2014
“Millennials: A Progressive Generation with a General Lack of Respect”
—Odyssey, February 2017
The working title of this chapter is “Millennials are Killing Family Values,” but I’m not sure it will stay that way. I’ll cover a lot of “value”-related ideas in the chapters about relationships and parenting, but “family values” encompasses so much. What it boils down to is that this chapter is all about the way Millennials make their families (usually parents) shake their heads and mutter about what disrespectful kids they raised. Because, of course, the idea that Millennials are entitled and disrespectful jerks needs a foothold, and parents thinking it about their own children locks it in for the rest of society to whine about.
Here’s the thing about Millennials. If something or someone treats us badly or makes us feel like crap, we say a hearty “No thanks.” This means changing the landscape of the workplace when managers treat us like machines instead of people. This means making a ton of noise about sexual assault and sexism, even though it gets us labeled problematic and routinely told that we’re making something out of nothing. This means we’ll cut off family members who treat us poorly, and we are unapologetic about it.
From #MeToo, which I’ll discuss in more depth later, to the general willingness and empowerment of young people to call out racism, sexism, economic injustice, and other societal issues, we’re making a big fuss. And it’s changing society for the better, from large-scale protests to tiny battles across the Thanksgiving dinner table. We have no time or space for people who treat other people poorly.
In the last two years of my life, I have made the decision to cease contact with both of my biological parents. When I stopped talking to my mother, she threw all my stuff away and wrote me out of her will. When I stopped talking to my father, he accused me of being the problematic common denominator. And yet, I’m the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been, now that I no longer feel responsible for being their version of a good daughter.
Remember this: It’s not your job to be what someone else expects of you. You are not obligated to “respect” someone who does not treat you well.
A