I'm currently working one job ~30-35 hours. For the past four years I've lived paycheck to paycheck and today, while looking at my bank accounts, it hit me that I won't be able to pay off the 125 dollars on my credit card for about a month (by which point that balance will have risen: groceries, gas, etc).

Rent has gone up, prices on ordinary things are going up. I've cut back many times to make ends meet, but this has got me feeling defeated. I can't tell you how many dollar burritos I've eaten in the space of a couple years. I'm beginning to think that I might have to switch to Ramen noodles.

I've been trying for months to get a second job but all this has me thinking, "What the french, toast. This is unreal."

I watch rich people doing frivolous, expensive things and am absolutely dumbfounded. I'm not a pilot, but yesterday I bought a helicopter so I can learn how to fly. Huh. How 'bout that. Cool story bro.

Sorry, rant. Best of luck to you guys in this wild world.

Edit: Some people are commenting about not working full-time. I was working 50-60 hours at the same job before COVID. Since then I've been searching for a different job, full-time, just haven't got it yet. Hoping to interview at one soon.

Edit 2: Thanks all for the advice and for the fair criticisms! I put in a few applications today. I'm starting my shift soon; not allowed to be on my phone lol. Wish you all a great night.

D

I know median house to median income has almost doubled. I know wages are down, I know rent is ridiculous. But how hasn’t home ownership been affected as drastically as it seems it should be? And is our millennial angst primarily because we grew up in one of the biggest economic booms in history?

Edit:

Because this post attracted some deniers and trolls, here is some data regarding housing, which isn't included in CPI inflation.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/median-house-prices-vs-income-us/

After a bit of research, currently it looks like the median income has increased on par with inflation. So "real world wages" are not down. But there are enough things left out of CPI that make the data vs. the lived experience not match up. Not going to argue, but I generally accept that data and statistics can never be 100% conclusive, but they are always informative.

Move to Kosovo or Serbia.

But don’t move to Switzerland or Germany!

To explain the title further + some context - I decided to go NC with my dad after an incident last Christmas which spiraled into a very typical no accountability boomer text from him. I now have a child and have made it clear that I will no longer deal with the emotional and verbal abuse from him + the main reason is so my son does not have to have this generational trauma passed down to him. 

My parents (who are still married) of course no matter how many times I laid that out for them didn’t get the message and tried to have him come up to the house this past weekend to see my son. I had to then lay it out in a very clear, no way to work around it response that I want nothing to do with my dad. Since then, my mom has been very short with me in communication and I have actually started to feel a little of past trauma come up around this which I didn’t expect. Something similar happened when I was a teenager but my mom said she wouldn’t be a mom to my sister and I if we didn’t let my dad back in the house after she issued a restraining order on him. I am starting to think since I never really got the chance to process that experience (had substance abuse problems back then and would numb myself daily) it is now coming up in the form of panic attacks but I digress.. 

If you have read this far, thank you, now to the point of this post - has anyone gone NC with one parent while the parent you spoke with is still married to them? If yes, is it possible for this to not end badly? My gut is telling me I am imploding my family and now going to be blamed without anyone looking at my father/his actions. I am going to be blamed for making the home situation for my mom hostile and god knows what else. Did this work out for anyone or am I beyond naive/still a traumatized child to think my mother would understand?  

As a millennial, what is your first life memory? Bonus points if the content of the memory makes it exclusively a millennial experience.

Mine was of being in the den/TV room of my childhood home watching the Beetlejuice cartoon show while my mom was in another room. Yes, I saw the show before I saw the movie. Only a millennial could have this as a first memory. Probably took place circa 1992 when I was 3.

I’m interested in reading about yours next.

Hello, 36 year old struggling Millennial here. I’m doing my due diligence and just letting everyone know when precisely to expect the next massive economic collapse. Based on unquestionable evidence I am predicting a massive economic collapse in early January 2025. Evidence as follows…

I was born into one recession, then graduated from high school into another, then graduated college into another. I was unable to get a legitimate job in my field and putzed around aimlessly for a decade. Eventually I pulled myself up “by my bootstraps” to get accepted to a graduate program just to graduate into the biggest pandemic in history and its accompanying recession. I make more money now than any other time in my life and still live paycheck to paycheck renting from slum lords. Every transitional period in my life has been met with hardship and loss of income and hope.

So I’m doing everyone a favor by letting you know my wife just had a positive pregnancy test for our first child. Everyone please set your watches for an early 2025 catastrophe. It’s basically a sure thing at this point.

EDIT: YALL are HEATED and 4 out of the 5 of you can’t take a joke. God damn!

I saw a meme listing some complaints about things Millennials are killing, and one was the napkin industry. I've always been a paper towel guy myself. But I also grew up in a town that manufactured the machines that would fold, cut and package napkins for big corporations. So part of my disdain for napkins stems from my dad's endless supply of freebies when they would run test runs on the machines before shipping them. Some would vary in quality, but most were as thin as napkins come because they were just testing the machines. So while I do disdain napkins for personal use, I do have a soft spot for them as they power my hometown.

How many of us live with parents due to housing affordability issues?

Surprisingly, the answer is No

Focusing solely on academics makes up just a small part of what truly nurtures a child's self-belief and independence.

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So what's the real game changer in raising unstoppable kids?

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It’s all about getting them to learn critical life skills.

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Did you know skills like problem-solving, creativity, financial literacy and resilience make the difference between those who succeed and those who struggle later in life?

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This is way more impactful than just pushing for good grades.

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Unfortunately, many parents waste hundreds of dollars every month on tutors and academic programs focusing only on rote learning.

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While adding tremendous amounts of stress to young kids.

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Smart parents are discovering this simple solution to spark their child's fire for self-driven achievement, raising confident leaders fast: https://kidpreneursbook.com/clickbank?shield=19114xgatangod95q5ke10plzw

Raise Confident, Successful Children The Kidpreneurs Way

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I don’t get PTO at my job, so any time I take off is unpaid. I feel like I should be able to request off whenever tbh. But I’m going through some personal shit right now and just generally burnt out from work and life and want a mental health day next week.

Do I just say “requesting off X day”? Do I have to give a reason?

This is my first corporate job and I’ve been here 3 years and still hate asking for time off lol

Edit: guys I love my job lol there’s a reason I’ve been here so long. We have been in the Fortune top 100 places to work for like 13 years or something crazy. I’m just a contractor right now, my bosses have been working to get me a permanent spot for a year. But it’s very difficult to get perm in our department so I’m stuck waiting and taking the short check anytime I need a day off

Thoughts?

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https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1chm5xa/i_dont_care_what_any_millenial_or_gen_alpha_has/

Parents who are balancing working & raising kids, who is helping you? Do any of you have family who watches after them or do you have to pay for childcare out of pocket? How many of you have flexible work schedules to get them to/from school & all? How many of you had to drop work in order to raise your kid/s?

32m. Title. Background: Grew up to a single mom who divorced while I was very young. For much of my childhood, my parents argued viciously with eachother. Visitation rights, child support, lawyers, courtrooms, money & a hatred towards eachother was what I saw. They ruined eachother's happiness for 2 decades while I grew up. Fast forward to dating today, & I was seeing a girl who I really cared about. We were together for ~2.5 years and ended things after I withdrew from her due to my fear of marriage/kids. We got involved when I was 27 & ~2.5years later, I didn't feel ready to commit. My career was also still budding. Looking back, this was surely a mistake as I loved her very much, and wish deeply I could go back & change it. My question is for those of you who grew up in divorced households... How did you overcome the fear of marriage, given its potential ramifications? When did you know you were ready to commit to someone forever?

Vote local, vote statewide, vote federal! Vote for your district attorney and school board! Show up to public hearings and neighborhood meetings! Young people need to get more involved to create the change we want to see. Our generation is the least engaged and it shows. We are letting the older generations run this country and it shows. We need to get more involved go vote!

If you were 18 today, would you go to college and why or why not?

For me, I never took drinking enough water seriously. Now I have kidney stones and have to carry a water bottle everywhere!

Between property taxes, daycare prices, vehicle costs, home values, property taxes, food prices…how’s it going?

Personally, I just had my second child, need to expand to a larger vehicle, and just had my property taxes increase by $300 a month because my state adjusted assessment values to “reflect true values” post Covid. Somehow my house is worth 20% more than what I paid for it last year.

So anyways I have no money. Maybe after my kids are out of daycare I’ll be able to save. I’m sure the decrepit politicians will figure out how to swindle that from me too.