I was on LinkedIn today and one of the headlines in the curated “LinkedIn News” section of the news feed read “Millennials Face Wealth Conundrum.” It piqued my interest, so I clicked...and the content was pretty predictable.

Scott Olster: “As the oldest members of the millennial generation — born in 1981 — turn 40, many are struggling to build wealth at the rates of their generational predecessors. While baby boomers in the U.S. enjoyed an average of $113,000 in wealth (in today's dollars) in their early 40s, millennials only had $91,000, according to Bloomberg. What's behind this wealth gap? Part of it is unfortunate timing, with millennials facing both the Great Recession and the pandemic's economic shocks at key moments in their economic lives. Mounting student debt and skyrocketing housing costs have only made matters more challenging.”

I’m not going to argue what boomers (or any generation did or didn’t have, in terms of circumstances – though the successful boomers I know worked their tails off...and many still are...so I’ll be the first to push back on that). But my question is, why are we wasting time comparing how difficult our situation is today to how “easy” theirs was?

Who cares?

There’s absolutely ZERO value in doing that.

Do you want to know the real reason most millennials don’t have any wealth and probably never will?

It’s because our generation would rather look rich than actually be rich.

3 Things That KILL Your Ability to be Rich

1. Settling for an average income

Always look for ways to increase your value in the job marketplace:

• You’re either adding value to your employer/clients, or you’re not. People will pay you anything if you can add more value than you command in payment (E19)
• Nothing wrong with earning a middle class salary, but are you using some of that money to create additional streams of income?

2. Investing in depreciating assets

Cars, Boats, Phones, etc. The value of these items – with very rare exceptions – goes down every single day. And if you hold off on buying these things before you actually accumulate wealth, you’ll be able to get your hands on as many of them as you want down the road. Embrace the concept of delayed gratification.

3. Divorce

According to a study recently reported on Bloomberg.com: Divorce leads to very grim outcomes for the majority of couples – and it gets worse as you age.

If you get divorced after age 50, expect your wealth to drop by about 50%

Researchers found that when women divorce after age 50, standard of living plunges 45%. Older men see their standard of living drop 21% after a divorce.

And the later you get divorced in life, the more difficult it is to bounce back.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/millennials-face-wealth-conundrum-5074252/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/divorce-destroys-finances-of-americans-over-50-studies-show