There are few things that have defined millennials more than the perception that they are worse off financially, and that outside influences have made it harder for them to accrue wealth than any other generation.
This debate has raged on for more than a decade, with avocado toast as its emblem. To summarise: millennials feel that boomers deprived them of a financial future with a series of selfish political and legislative choices, while boomers believe that millennials are whiners who would be rich if only they curbed their excessive brunch habits.
Now it turns out that perhaps none of that was relevant. Millennials are on track to be one of the richest generations due to inherited wealth, according to a recent report. This has set people off again – were millennials moaning about nothing?
Not quite. While millennials are set to inherit collectively an extremely high amount, that wealth will not be distributed evenly. Recipients will be largely down to luck and the circumstances of your birth. And without being too morbid, given increasing life expectancies, it’s unlikely that wealth will be handed down for some time.
Beyond all of that though, the debate around who had it better or worse is a distraction. While it’s important to be aware that seismic intervention will be needed to distribute wealth more evenly as the wealth gap continues to widen, there is something to be said for redefining what wealth actually is. Millennials have been able to do that in a way that would have been an inconceivable luxury for their parents’ generation.
I don’t mean to dismiss millennials’ very valid concerns about how much harder it is to get on the property ladder, anger at those boomers who voted our future away with Brexit, and the higher student loan fees which many were saddled with. But we can be more considered about our lives in a way our parents weren’t. Thanks in part to a more advanced understanding around our mental health, many of us now understand that while money is essential, the key to fulfilment and happiness doesn’t necessarily pivot around it.
Having had several jobs in my twenties that almost burned me out, I was able to make more considered choices in my mid-thirties that seemed inconceivable to my parents. I was a senior editor at HuffPost, with stocks and shares and a sizeable salary, and it seemed mad to them that I would give it up in order to have a better work-life balance. They were raised to follow the template of working to the bone until you reach pension age, and then when you retire getting to finally enjoy your life. That doesn’t make them better and superior or me entitled or lazy, it merely means that how we define wealth can and should evolve with every generation.
My parents worked their way from having zero funds as immigrants to somewhere on the middle-class spectrum. As I got older, I began to see the difference between our lives. My Mum and Dad only really started to travel when they were in their late forties. They still host dinner parties but they don’t tend to eat out very often – that was an almost non-existent luxury when they were my age. And while they have got better at spending more money on clothes, my mother still struggles with buying things that seem frivolous.
Part of that is born out of the frugal mindset of being an immigrant, and wanting to be as financially secure as possible. But it’s also because the idea of wealth was different for them. The life I live in my early forties is completely different from the life they led when they were my age. I’ve been on holidays since my 20s, I go to gigs and comedy shows, I like to eat out, and I spend time with my friends in a way that my parents didn’t.
Of course, I can’t speak for everyone. But from what I see on my social media feed and hear from my friends across all ends of the social spectrum, almost all of them are living a better quality of life than their parents did. That doesn’t mean that we were lying about having it harder, more that the lens in which we have been viewing building wealth is a narrow one.
It is harder for us to get on the property ladder due to a greater accrual of debt and lower net worth, as well as the rise in house prices, but we can also can debate whether buying a house is really and truly the pinnacle of investment we’ve been raised to believe it is.
I don’t think my parents believed there was any other option, and during our childhood, I saw how certain choices made life incredibly hard for them. We can have a more nuanced discussion about whether owning property is a good choice. While it can be a reprieve from bad landlords, it is costly, it is subject to tax and inflation prices, and it means that there is less flexibility around what you can do with your life if you are tied to such a huge investment.
It also calls into question what we view as an investment. For instance, reaping the rewards of a house would require making choices when selling and buying in order to free up that equity. Does that mean moving into a smaller place? A less desirable neighbourhood? Few seem to consider this when we discuss how difficult an investment it actually is, versus other easier choices we could make such as investment funds which don’t require huge amounts of capital.
I do own my own flat, which was bought with a mixture of savings and a small amount of money from my late husband’s estate, but I have no interest in getting a bigger place. It is the size of a shoebox and the lack of storage is a problem, but doing so would mean that I wouldn’t be able to travel as much, or enjoy the time I have with my friends. It may sound like an irresponsible approach, and it certainly wouldn’t have been the one my parents would have made, but it’s about treading the line between paying into a future for my older self, but not cannibalising my youth in order to do so.
I’ve learnt the hard way that the future we imagine for ourselves is not always guaranteed. By also spending money on my present, it makes me feel like there is wealth and value in my life, even if it doesn’t always look great on a spreadsheet.