The Cheapest Generation

I'm kind of in a lucky demographic when it comes to sunglasses. I live in the midwest, drive a beat-up old truck, grew up in the countryside, watch NASCAR and baseball, and fish as a hobby. This affords me the luxury of being able to get away with wearing $20 sunglasses I bought at WalMart without anyone thinking twice about it. It just fits in with the rest of my exterior-facing personality. This is good, because with my relaxation hobbies, I tend to lose or break my cheap sunglasses a few times per year in situations where even Ray Bans would be lost or broken. With $20 shades, I don't need to worry.

We all choose what demographic we're going to fit in with, and with that comes tradeoffs. I have many expensive computers and the latest smartphone. This forces me to be frugal with the cost of my vehicle and the price tag on my jeans, allowing me to be "that redneck who turns into a nerd during the week" as well as "that nerd who turns into a redneck on the weekends".

I think more than the frugal generation, we're the generation who feels free to choose who we want to be and balance the tradeoffs we have to make. No longer does end goal have to be a house in the suburbs, two kids, and this year's nicest sedan, nor are our cliques set in stone. I can be both a nerd and a redneck, I can listen to both techno and country, and that's not weird. I don't have to own the nicest of everything in order to be a part of society.

Cars were never a good investment, and driving a new one off the lot will cost you 20% (minimum). I'm quite a bit older than most HNers but have driven reasonably good used cars for years. And now my two college-aged kids have chosen cars they thought were cool ... a 1971 VW Super-Beetle and a 1991 Toyota MR2. These cars are both far more cost-effective than a new car ... the key is to pick one that was well maintained! I honestly don't know how the car companies can justify a price that is 1/4 the cost of a house (in many areas).

Houses on the other hand have always been held up as an investment, but I think the millenial's have been affected by witnessing the housing melt-down. Now is actually a good time to get into a mortgage (in many areas), but many people will wait because they don't want to see their investment decline. You read stories about the people who are underwater on their mortgage, but you never hear about people like me who bought a house they could afford, made payments and improvements and even with the collapse of the housing bubble, my investment is worth twice what I've put into it.

But younger people view houses and cars as tools and I can honestly applaud that view ... neither will bring you happiness by themselves.

When I was 22, I only wanted to buy new cars and my very first car was brand new. Slowly, I realized that used cars are a better option and never bought a new one again. Now at 31, I don't even have a car because I just don't feel the need. Life,age and experience changes perspectives so much. Having said this, I love BMWs but not buying one anytime soon.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that 78 hours of minimum wage work could pay the rent in 1980, compared to 109 hours in 2010 [1], along with the other associated cost-of-living increases over the last three decades that have come without comparable increases in wages.

I doubt that most people who felt financially secure and could afford a new car wouldn't want to own a new car. Nobody really enjoys driving a beater, or being forced to walk or ride a bike everywhere (aside from doing it for the enjoyment of it), or trying to negotiate for rides with friends. Public transportation in most of the U.S. is awful, so I don't see many people choosing that over having your own shiny new car.

So the article briefly touches on the economic pressures facing young people in mentioning the recession and student debt, but it spends most of its paragraphs trying to paint some kind of cultural picture of "Millenials" as being a neo-beatnik generation that worships sharing.

No, it's the economy, stupid. And not just recently, either; for the last 50 years at least, there has been a gradual trend towards ownership of things like homes and cars costing more and more in terms of the working hours needed to afford them.

If you are among the 3.8 million people making minimum wage (or less!) now [2], a car is the last damn thing you want to own. You won't be able to afford a good one, so you'll constantly be spending money on maintaining it, not to mention that it will strand you one day and your minimum wage job will be more likely to fire you for not showing up than the average cubicle job. Cars are expensive to license, expensive to insure, and in California, old cars are expensive to smog. Even better, if you fail to pay for any of this, you're likely to receive a citation or ticket, which can quickly add up to more time off work and more money out of pocket.

If you're young, you're far more likely to either be burdened by student debts or be making minimum wage [3]. That means that the odds are that you're either not living on your own, in which case a shared vehicle (either a housemate's or a Zipcar or something else) makes more sense than owning your own, or you're living on your own and you can't afford a shiny new Ford Fiesta without a third full-time job.

Additionally, the entertainment industry tends to make more money during economic downturns, and poor people are more likely to spend a greater portion of their money on entertainment. If you can afford little, you might as well have as much fun as you can, especially if your prospects for making more money in the near future aren't that good. If you can hitch a ride to Burning Man, that sounds better than spending the money of the ticket price and time off work and food and everything else on mechanical work for your aging car.

Bah. This article was crap. It didn't have the quality I've come to expect from The Atlantic.

[1]: http://finances.msn.com/saving-money-advice/6952105

[2]: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm

[3]: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm again.

Ha, I guess this depends where in America.