Millennial Woes
In an earlier post, I talked about how surprised I was when Iooked into my credit card debt and realized I wasn't as bad off as I thought. Later on, while searching for a way to increase my income for my Japan trip I spent a month writing a book that I was planning to release on Amazon for 99 cents.
I ended up never releasing it but for the first chapter of my book, I went over a bunch of sobering statistics to show just how hard it has become lately for the average American, especially millennials who were just entering the market.
Being a Millennial is hard
First off, for those who don't know, a millennial is someone who has become an adult or entered the workforce after the turn of the century.
People, but especially millennials are struggling like never before in America and there are many reasons for this which I am going to cover:
Nerdwallet Statistics for average American Household in 2016
- Credit Card Debt: $16,883
- Mortgage Debt: $182,421
- Auto Loan Debt: $29,539
- Student Loan Debt: $50,626
- Any type of Debt: $137,063
Look at that mountain of debt the average household now has, it's terrifying. Do you know what the average credit card debt for a family was in 2001? $4,126, compared to 2016 that is over a 400% increase in 15 years. Oh, want to know what the average credit card debt for a family was in 1989? $2,697, only a 53% increase in 12 years.
Just the credit card debt alone is scary but what about the other statistics:
Since 2003 this has happened
- Median Household Income has grown 26% - Is that really good news?
- Medical Costs have grown 51% - Nope, it wasn't good news.
- Rental Costs have grown by 31%
- Food Prices have grown by 37%
- College Price has grown by 35%
The one glaring exception to this bad news, housing prices haven't changed much from 2003 but it only took the greatest market crash since the Great Depression to do it.
76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, more than ever before and it's looking bleak for the future. This rising tide of bad news doesn't cover the rise of cell phone bills, high-speed internet bills, video streaming bills and the various other new ways to spend money.
With all these ways to spend their hard earned cash, it's no wonder 80% of millennials are not investing and 40% are saying they don't have enough money with 36% saying they don't know how.
Create a Foundation for the Future
Why am I suddenly mentioning investing? It's simple, Archimedes once said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." Investing is your fulcrum, the lever is your money that you have invested and using it you can lever yourself out of the rut you are in.
To do this you are going to have to change the way you think about money. When interviewed, the wealthy people in the world were found to have a different viewpoint compared to the poor.
The wealthy think in terms of net worth, in other words, building wealth through a long term perspective. It might seem simple but it's not. Someone who isn't trying to build his net worth for the future will still be worrying about the bills 20 years later why the person who focuses on his net worth will not have to worry anymore because his bills will be inconsequential compared to the value of what he owns.
The traditional way of building wealth is owning land, owning a business, owning a house or investing in the stock market. These vehicles of net worth traditionally grow in value over time. The easiest method and the one to start out with is investing,
CryptoCurrency Investing
The best vehicle for a millennial to get ahead on is crypto currency. Right now the market is not doing very well but that is actually a good thing for a person just starting out in the market. Currently, the crypto market is still in its infancy and hasn't matured yet so the more the market goes down or sideways the more the market's foundation is going strengthen.
The reason why the market is going down right now is because China is trying to regulate cryptocurrency market and once the rules are put in place the money the Chinese have withdrawn will flow back into the market.
When that happens cryptocurrency is going to soar again.
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