Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.
For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”
But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.
She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?
I will retire eventually. That may be due to my inability to be productive at an advanced age. I don’t see why we shouldn’t still get social security payments. I’m gonna just stop eventually once my kids are working. I have a small house and it will have been paid for by that time. Hopefully I can just rest at that point. Job done.
How are you going to make those tax payments, maintenance costs, transportation costs, etc. You think your social security will be enough to cover? Or is the plan “sell the house”?
I have a 401k. Live in Louisiana there is little property tax. I’ll just die eventually.
That’s the spirit!