5 ms·

> if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry

> if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry — seem to want to just pave over. House prices are bananas. Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. Student loans are a constant tax on my finances (that I'm almost free of… …soon…). Wage growth has been stagnant (my career has seen ~4.7% YoY gains, mostly me switching employers and trying to renegotiate higher; but I hear my father's career saw much faster progress, particularly in the earlier years…). Costs have not. (E.g., healthcare, and that's an incredible — and bad — incentive to marry.) I imagine we'll hit a "it's now or never" point, and just sort of morally abdicate the idea of being responsible adults and "#yolo we're parents now" it. I don't really see the world changing for the better, anytime soon.

slyall 5y ago
I could change a few words in your main paragraph and match them to any time in the last 40 years. You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.
leonroy 5y ago
I feel this living in London and seeing my parents having achieved a measure of success at a younger age far greater than my own. But not every country has seen this level of affluence for the generation before ours and indeed not every race. Minorities in the US in particular might argue otherwise about whether the previous few decades were better than the current ones. Whenever I feel tempted to look at the past with rose tinted glasses I only have to look at infant mortality rates which were horrifically high in even affluent countries like the US: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/F2/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/... We are indeed in troubling times, but the Cold War wasn't so long ago and I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world.
- heurisko 5y ago
  > I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world. Given the Russia, Ukraine, Chernobyl situation, I think my generation also has claim to worry about nuclear mishaps caused by geopolitical wars.
- FWKevents 5y ago
  Yes, I'm named "Faith" because the Cuban Missile Crisis put such existential dread in everyone. Bomb shelters were built in all sorts of public buildings, and people dug underground bunkers in their backyards. They imagined they'd survive the nuclear winter like an underground rat, eating canned food and hoping their water didn't run out before it was safe to go outside again. It wasn't until the SALT treaty signed by Pres. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 - 10 years after the Cuban Missle Crisis - that tensions eased. It's hard for younger people to realize how dire this felt. The modern corollary is the threat of annihilation due to climate change. Some people wonder today why they are bringing children into a world that may be doomed, but that feeling is not new. It's just that older generations were more stoic. Most didn't talk about their feelings with each other, they just got on with life despite their dread. I'm so glad that stoicism is mostly a thing of the past.
scionthefly 5y ago
Here's what I would tell my 35 year old self. If you try to get financially better off, in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all, and you won't have kids. At that point you probably can't. If you have kids at 35, you may very well go bankrupt. It will be off your credit in seven years, and you'll have a seven year old. The second option will be happier (if you want kids).
- unmole 5y ago
  > in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all That seems rather pessimistic. You don't expect any career progression or wealth accumulation in seven years?
  - Kye 5y ago
    Watching friends struggle and work hard while making little progress for years as job after job rejects them for being overqualified or for not already having 30 years of experience tells me this is a reasonable expectation. If there was a ladder up, it's been conclusively kicked down. Some of them get lucky with a tech job and, if all goes well from here, might retire before 80.
    - unmole 5y ago
      This doesn't match my experience at all. My perspective might obviously be skewed by living in an emerging market economy but I don't know anyone who hasn't seen an improvement in their financial circumstances over seven years, Covid notwithstanding. I really don't think there are a lot of people on HN who are stuck in dead end jobs with no growth. And as harsh as it may sound, if someone can't retire before 80 despite working a tech job, I'm inclined to think they're just bad with money.
      - Kye 5y ago
        Who said anything about people on HN? The friends I'm talking about mostly work retail paying off degrees that were supposed to get them good jobs. The US is not an emerging market economy where there's a lot of potential growth. You either get a job in tech, probably moving away from everything and everyone you've ever known (hard), or you try to create some niche at the intersection of your skills and interests (still hard, but less dictated by random luck). There really isn't an option C unless you had a privileged upbringing.
unmole 5y ago
> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. I'm sorry, what asset classes did you invest in? Because Trump and the Covid stimulus were both very beneficial for my investments. Sure, the market has taken a beating of late but it most definitely has not erased years of gains.
- deathanatos 5y ago
  Mixed; I have an account with Schwab that — beyond some basic information about my goals, age, investment risk tolerance and the like — mostly manages itself. I'm not even remotely a beginner, let alone an expert, in investments to trust myself to manage it. I figure I'd be even worse off if I tried that. (I do have some stock that is just mine, and it's done some good, and some bad. It's a nice amount, but the problem is not "housing is more expensive" it's housing is another order of magnitude so even "nice" is but a dent.) That said, it mostly tracks the stock market, just sort of "dampened", since it has a mix of other stuff. The downswings from both Trump general craziness and COVID recovered, eventually (I was certain the downswings for things other than COVID would … COVID, I was less certain about, as this is probably the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life), of course, but it sort of feels to me like a detour where after several months you're like "yay, back to where were were". I'm a SWE, so I'm above the stimulus cutoff. (But that's the thing… well off enough that most things are fine, but … the housing market, practically speaking, wants millionaires, not "people doing decently".) But AFAICT, the cost of a home is keeping pace with gains in the stock market, particularly so if you're not in a sort of undiversified-yolo-all-in on the stock market position, which I've been told is poor form. But that makes investing for a home sort of a losing prospect: it's more just a savings account at that point, with the investment gains limiting the ground being lost. Conversely, AIUI, this is why there is so much speculation in the housing market; if the stock market were outperforming it, people would be speculating on that, instead. What boggles my mind how anyone not in tech is making do. What I see both from people I know, and in the news, suggests they're really, really struggling.
  - FWKevents 5y ago
    Yes, I live in Pennsylvania. My husband and I are some of the very lucky ones, but there are many areas of the state that are just cataclysmically destroyed by economic hardship. Some people have no remote hope - ever - of doing a tech job, and need to do manual labor. These people vote, they are proud people, and they are ready to believe ANYONE, no matter how crazy, who will tell them that their precarious and depressing life situation is not their fault. This is how we got into our current political situation.
eadmund 5y ago
> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. I really, really, really hate to defend Mr. Trump, but on his first day of office the Vanguard total stock market index closed at $116.91; on his last day of office it closed at $198.86, a 70.01% increase (14.19% annualised). There are numerous reasons to criticise the former president, but the performance of the stock market during his tenure does not appear to be one of them.
- v-erne 5y ago
  If You only care for short term, then sure, You can try to use this argument, but in long term the division that his irresponsible political strategy fueled can only end bad for whole economy (who said there cannot be another civil war? last time I checked most people believed that war in Europe is impossible).
  - Handytinge 5y ago
    Those theoretical futures are possible (although less likely each day he's been out of office), however they're not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is that Trump did not erase years of investment gains, but actually did the opposite.
sethammons 5y ago
I thought I was reading the introduction to the movie Idiocracy for a moment ;)

slyall 5y ago

I could change a few words in your main paragraph and match them to any time in the last 40 years. You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.

leonroy 5y ago

I feel this living in London and seeing my parents having achieved a measure of success at a younger age far greater than my own. But not every country has seen this level of affluence for the generation before ours and indeed not every race. Minorities in the US in particular might argue otherwise about whether the previous few decades were better than the current ones. Whenever I feel tempted to look at the past with rose tinted glasses I only have to look at infant mortality rates which were horrifically high in even affluent countries like the US: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/F2/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/... We are indeed in troubling times, but the Cold War wasn't so long ago and I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world.

heurisko 5y ago
> I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world. Given the Russia, Ukraine, Chernobyl situation, I think my generation also has claim to worry about nuclear mishaps caused by geopolitical wars.
FWKevents 5y ago
Yes, I'm named "Faith" because the Cuban Missile Crisis put such existential dread in everyone. Bomb shelters were built in all sorts of public buildings, and people dug underground bunkers in their backyards. They imagined they'd survive the nuclear winter like an underground rat, eating canned food and hoping their water didn't run out before it was safe to go outside again. It wasn't until the SALT treaty signed by Pres. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 - 10 years after the Cuban Missle Crisis - that tensions eased. It's hard for younger people to realize how dire this felt. The modern corollary is the threat of annihilation due to climate change. Some people wonder today why they are bringing children into a world that may be doomed, but that feeling is not new. It's just that older generations were more stoic. Most didn't talk about their feelings with each other, they just got on with life despite their dread. I'm so glad that stoicism is mostly a thing of the past.

scionthefly 5y ago

Here's what I would tell my 35 year old self. If you try to get financially better off, in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all, and you won't have kids. At that point you probably can't. If you have kids at 35, you may very well go bankrupt. It will be off your credit in seven years, and you'll have a seven year old. The second option will be happier (if you want kids).

unmole 5y ago
> in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all That seems rather pessimistic. You don't expect any career progression or wealth accumulation in seven years?
- Kye 5y ago
  Watching friends struggle and work hard while making little progress for years as job after job rejects them for being overqualified or for not already having 30 years of experience tells me this is a reasonable expectation. If there was a ladder up, it's been conclusively kicked down. Some of them get lucky with a tech job and, if all goes well from here, might retire before 80.
  - unmole 5y ago
    This doesn't match my experience at all. My perspective might obviously be skewed by living in an emerging market economy but I don't know anyone who hasn't seen an improvement in their financial circumstances over seven years, Covid notwithstanding. I really don't think there are a lot of people on HN who are stuck in dead end jobs with no growth. And as harsh as it may sound, if someone can't retire before 80 despite working a tech job, I'm inclined to think they're just bad with money.
    - Kye 5y ago
      Who said anything about people on HN? The friends I'm talking about mostly work retail paying off degrees that were supposed to get them good jobs. The US is not an emerging market economy where there's a lot of potential growth. You either get a job in tech, probably moving away from everything and everyone you've ever known (hard), or you try to create some niche at the intersection of your skills and interests (still hard, but less dictated by random luck). There really isn't an option C unless you had a privileged upbringing.

unmole 5y ago

> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. I'm sorry, what asset classes did you invest in? Because Trump and the Covid stimulus were both very beneficial for my investments. Sure, the market has taken a beating of late but it most definitely has not erased years of gains.

deathanatos 5y ago
Mixed; I have an account with Schwab that — beyond some basic information about my goals, age, investment risk tolerance and the like — mostly manages itself. I'm not even remotely a beginner, let alone an expert, in investments to trust myself to manage it. I figure I'd be even worse off if I tried that. (I do have some stock that is just mine, and it's done some good, and some bad. It's a nice amount, but the problem is not "housing is more expensive" it's housing is another order of magnitude so even "nice" is but a dent.) That said, it mostly tracks the stock market, just sort of "dampened", since it has a mix of other stuff. The downswings from both Trump general craziness and COVID recovered, eventually (I was certain the downswings for things other than COVID would … COVID, I was less certain about, as this is probably the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life), of course, but it sort of feels to me like a detour where after several months you're like "yay, back to where were were". I'm a SWE, so I'm above the stimulus cutoff. (But that's the thing… well off enough that most things are fine, but … the housing market, practically speaking, wants millionaires, not "people doing decently".) But AFAICT, the cost of a home is keeping pace with gains in the stock market, particularly so if you're not in a sort of undiversified-yolo-all-in on the stock market position, which I've been told is poor form. But that makes investing for a home sort of a losing prospect: it's more just a savings account at that point, with the investment gains limiting the ground being lost. Conversely, AIUI, this is why there is so much speculation in the housing market; if the stock market were outperforming it, people would be speculating on that, instead. What boggles my mind how anyone not in tech is making do. What I see both from people I know, and in the news, suggests they're really, really struggling.
- FWKevents 5y ago
  Yes, I live in Pennsylvania. My husband and I are some of the very lucky ones, but there are many areas of the state that are just cataclysmically destroyed by economic hardship. Some people have no remote hope - ever - of doing a tech job, and need to do manual labor. These people vote, they are proud people, and they are ready to believe ANYONE, no matter how crazy, who will tell them that their precarious and depressing life situation is not their fault. This is how we got into our current political situation.

eadmund 5y ago

> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. I really, really, really hate to defend Mr. Trump, but on his first day of office the Vanguard total stock market index closed at $116.91; on his last day of office it closed at $198.86, a 70.01% increase (14.19% annualised). There are numerous reasons to criticise the former president, but the performance of the stock market during his tenure does not appear to be one of them.

v-erne 5y ago
If You only care for short term, then sure, You can try to use this argument, but in long term the division that his irresponsible political strategy fueled can only end bad for whole economy (who said there cannot be another civil war? last time I checked most people believed that war in Europe is impossible).
- Handytinge 5y ago
  Those theoretical futures are possible (although less likely each day he's been out of office), however they're not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is that Trump did not erase years of investment gains, but actually did the opposite.

sethammons 5y ago

I thought I was reading the introduction to the movie Idiocracy for a moment ;)