Millennials and Money: Know How the Next Generation Looks at Wealth

This is an age of information and technology, as well as instant gratification and answers. This monumental shift in the fundamental way that we live our lives is manifest in how millennials view money and wealth as a whole. 

If you were to sit down and talk to an informed millennial about what they want from their finances, you might be surprised at some of the answers. They feel very different about accumulating and utilizing wealth than any generation before them. The differences between what the average millennial wants, and what previous generations wanted at their age, is a divide that may never have been so wide in our nation’s history.

Here’s how millennials are looking at wealth in a different light: 

Goals Are Wildly Different

Millennials often don’t have the same goals of big families and homeownership as their forebearers did. Many have become jaded by the system that they feel is broken. Often the average millennial wants to leverage the debt snowball strategy to gain a bit of financial independence, generally using that to pursue their hobbies or interests that vary greatly from what their parents pursued. 

Families Are Changing

Just as the goals of owning their own home often don’t apply, neither do the traditional notions of what comprises a family. Many millennials are happy being childless, as evidenced by the falling national birthrate in a time when childbearing millennials should be spreading far and wide.

This means that millennial families don’t need the big house and yard that they can’t afford anyway. They would be happier with a modest apartment or condo, some even joining the tiny house movement, as long as there is space for them and their pets.

Millennials Measure Success Differently

Previous generations have often measured their success by how much wealth they can accumulate, and how much they then can hold onto and pass down to their families. Millennials have a view of success that is simply much different and revolves more around personal satisfaction than fulfilling a societal role. 

Simply put, this means that a millennial may determine they have been successful if they have found personal fulfillment, rather than a large bank account. 

Success to some may mean being able to travel at will, without worrying about a babysitter. To others, it may look like a tiny home on a few acres that didn’t need a mortgage. 

Traditional Wealth Planning Does Not Apply

With millennials breaking from so many other social norms and societal traditions in the context of life goals and wealth accumulation, it makes sense that marketing traditional forms of wealth planning and management is not a winning strategy.

Millennials are often interested in high-risk, high-reward investment opportunities. Travel, cryptocurrency, small families, and investing in their own enjoyment in life are becoming the hallmarks of millennial success.