Leading up to me buying my home, the narrative was about how expensive houses are - especially in my city (Seattle).

But now on the other side, I got so lucky to buy one when I did (2020) due to interest rates.

Savvy also comes into play. The most affordable decent Seattle houses then were like $750k for sub-2k sqft well outside the main parts of the city. But Tacoma had 3k sqft houses for under $600k. 45ish minute reverse commute to Seattle bustling-est neighborhoods for evening fun. When we discovered this we pulled the trigger and it was the best financial decision we ever made along with going to college.

I agree it's a shame that owning in the biggest city (especially the nice parts) is hugely expensive.

I think the data shows Millenials are now doing pretty well. Ofc it's now peak earning years for them.

Funny how that works when the Millenial narrative was very similar to Gen Z's.

Sorry to hear about the dental issues. Is the issue that it isn't covered by medical insurance at all, so out of pocket max isn't at play? Because we had a baby this year and hit our OOPM and it didn't cost nearly that much.

That sort of situation is a problem in America and I wish we'd fix it. But the governing party wants to make it worse and get cheers for that.

As someone in the Gen Z age bracket, I believe that they really do have a worse economy than their parents/grandparents due to no fault of their own, and that they're also much lazier than their parents/grandparents generations.

1. Social Security and housing has turned into a huge transfer of wealth from Gen Z to the Boomer generation. I don't believe I will ever receive Social Security benefits, and yet nearly 15% of my salary goes into Social Security. Also, people who own houses vote to keep their housing prices high (through zoning laws), which is... not how "investments" are supposed to work. It'd be like the US government hoarding all the gold when prices get too high. If a house is a place to live (in which case, zoning laws are perfectly fine), property taxes should be high enough that renting out a house is a much worse investment than say, government bonds. If a house is an investment, the protection racket needs to stop.

2. On the other hand, I've seen so many of my peers just... not study. Kids who easily got a 36 on the ACT, but would do the bare minimum in and outside of school. Now they're working pretty normal, white-collar jobs that pay about a median starting salary, but I know they could have easily made $150k+/year in tech if they'd just studied at any point between middle school and college. They probably won't struggle financially, but they won't ever really "make it" ($10m?) either. And, if this is the top of the class, you can imagine what it's like for those without the same natural ability.

So, on the one hand, I absolutely agree that Gen Z should have an easier time with housing, and shouldn't have to pay for their ancestors' unwise debts, but on the other hand, part of the reason they're struggling so much now is because they didn't spend the first twenty years of their life doing the only thing they were asked to do.

But precisely because "financially successful" isn't a precise term, the concept can be and is manipulated by smooth operators. It's always possible to construct a plausible argument that true success lies just beyond what you could reasonably expect to make through your own efforts (and therefore you might as well throw your money at me for a chance to achieve it). I don't think we can separate Gen Z's incredibly high standards for financial success from the amount that they're marinading in ads for gambling, crypto, and scam investments.

Was that survey over total earnings or savings? Like yeah..a few million tucked away will allow me to not work again. Or I can just work for a few decades like a normal person lol.