If you don’t already hate millennials, Money magazine reports that there is one more reason to: They have enviable amounts of cash to splash around. According to a study by Wealth & Affluent Monitor, millennials now account for 13 percent of the “wealth and affluent market.” That is defined as households with at least $100,000 in investible assets. Rubbing salt into open wounds, members of Gen X, who had many more years in which to squirrel away savings, account for only 17 percent of that high-end segment.
A recent story on Mashable confirms that the generation’s financial stowage has to do with a combination of parsimony, discipline and procrastination. Millennials put off finding their own places to live, avoid credit cards, cheap out on splurges and start saving early for retirement.
Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, told MarketWatch that there is good reason for this. “Millennials have a greater inclination toward saving, for both emergencies and retirement, than we’ve seen from previous generations,” he said. “Much of this is attributable to the financial crisis and Great Recession coming during the financially formative years for many millennials.”
This is not to say, however, that they necessarily spend their money wisely. The material desires of millennials are totally frivolous. Money magazine rounds up all the dopey stuff that seems dank to the new generation. Among the goods: gas-station food, hot sauce, snakes, tattoos and piercings. Considering that by 2020, yearly millennial spending is expected to reach $1.14 trillion, cash-strapped Gen-Xers might want to find new occupations in the realms of tattoo removal and reptile rendering.
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