If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You’re Doing Something Wrong

[FI by 2024]

This is not a sarcastic or clever title - it's what the author believes. Check it out: If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You’re Doing Something Wrong

The good news is the vast majority of people are commenting about what a ridiculous article this is. Here is a taste.

When you’re saving for yourself, you’re refusing to bet on yourself.
People who are saving in their 20s are people who don’t set their sights high. They’ve already dropped out of the game and settled for the minor leagues.

 

[hnzw_rui]

This is not a sarcastic or clever title - it's what the author believes. Check it out: If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You're Doing Something Wrong

Yikes. Talk about shortsighted. I wonder what she recommends people do if they lose their job and don't have any savings. Mooch off friends and family?

 

[Rick_Head]

Yikes. Talk about shortsighted. I wonder what she recommends people do if they lose their job and don't have any savings. Mooch off friends and family?

Nah, bad things don't happen to smart people like me. After all, I rather get a $60K raise than save.

Your 20s are not the time to save; they’re the time to gamble. $200 a month isn’t going to make the dent that a $60,000 pay raise will after spending all those nights out networking.

I wonder if any one can get a $60K raise without mentioning term "extra curricular activities" to the boss?

 

[CaliforniaMan]

"Their need for us to have a safety net is just a giant metaphor for the difference between our parent’s generation and ours."

I don't think her views are really that much different from the majority, not just of her generation, but of mine too. Sometimes people just have to find out for themselves.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

From the bio of the article's author:

"Lauren Martin is a Senior Lifestyle Writer at Elite Daily. After graduating from PSU, she moved to NYC to write fart jokes at Smosh Magazine. Making her way to ED, she now writes riveting commentary on nude pics, condoms and first dates."

Yep, living life to the fullest in her twenties...

-BB

 

[RetiredGypsy]

YOLO, live laugh love, tee hee!

 

[jim584672]

You can't fix stupid.

 

[travelover]

I guess that if you have no savings, it makes sense to try to grub up a little income writing about how having savings is stupid.

 

[Totoro]

I thought she lived in Juba, South Sudan.

I lived in the most exciting city in the world (also the most expensive) and had yet to experience it

The 30 most expensive cities for expats - Business Insider

Your 20s are not the time to save; they’re the time to gamble. $200 a month isn’t going to make the dent that a $60,000 pay raise will after spending all those nights out networking

$1000 a month is going to give you a nice cushion allowing yourself to move to a better job or save up for an MBA. Haven't heard of a 60k pay raise because of networking. That's usually hard and long work in the office. You know, where the people able to give you those raises actually are.

Article seems to be written by someone looking to excuse away their own bad behavior or an attention seeker. Possible both.

 

[harley]

At least when I was reading the comments (I only read the first 30 or so) the GenY readers were pretty much in agreement that it was one of the stupidest articles they've ever read. I especially like the one that included this link US Welfare System - Help for US Citizens as something she might be needing later on.


Edit: I read another 20 or so comments. There wasn't a single one in agreement with her, but obviously getting 50 or more comments makes her article a success. I wonder what her bank account really looks like. I bet she's trolling.

 

[W2R]

Much of what I read on the internet is worth exactly what I pay for it ($0.00), and this article apparently falls in that category. Common sense is valuable, but rare in modern times.

Oh, that comment made me sound like I am 105 years old! Not quite yet.

 

[Midpack]

It would be smart to start saving for a home (cars, etc.) in your 20's, even if you don't ultimately buy a home. But it would not surprise me if most people, even most here, didn't start saving seriously specifically for retirement in their 20's. We bought our first house when I was 28 with only 5% down, and I didn't make my first serious stock investment until I was 33. Just one data point.

As noted, most of what you read online is worth what you pay for it. Some days I'd swear they just run out of things to write about, and will post any content with a provocative title just to get clicks. Here we are talking about just such a link...so it worked in some sense.

 

[hnzw_rui]

It would be smart to start saving for a home (cars, etc.) in your 20's, even if you don't ultimately buy a home. But it would not surprise me if most people, even most here, didn't start saving seriously specifically for retirement in their 20's. We bought our first house when I was 28 with only 5% down, and I didn't make my first serious stock investment until I was 33. Just one data point.

We have DB pension so I didn't seriously save for retirement when I was in my 20s. I did start contributing to the 457 plan the year I was hired (2007) but it was more like an afterthought. I was contributing primarily to reduce taxes rather than to save for retirement. Learned a lot about my risk tolerance during that period (can you say buy high, sell low?). Thankfully, I learned that lesson early on when I was just starting out and only had around $5-8K in the account.

That said, saving for an emergency fund is a must. One thing I do wish I had done differently was placed the emergency fund in Roth (even if it's just FDIC savings or CDs). That's a lot of years I wasn't maxing out or even contributing to Roth because I was prioritizing the emergency fund in after tax savings accounts.

 

[soupcxan]

Y'all think this author is stupid but she's not - she clearly wrote this as clickbait to generate ad revenue and it's working.

 

[Cobra9777]

Y'all think this author is stupid but she's not - she clearly wrote this as clickbait to generate ad revenue and it's working.

+1

Seems to me, that piece was carefully crafted to create controversy resulting in social media buzz, increased traffic for the site, and attention for the author. Just google the title and you'll find pages upon pages of other websites responding to the piece and linking to it, which is precisely what was intended. More hits to the site. More ad revenue. More people asking, "What is Elite Daily and who is this Lauren Martin?" She'll probably get a $60K raise. Good for her. She was probably dared to do the piece while out "networking" with her friends and fellow "journalists" over an expensive beer. They're probably getting a good laugh from the fact that Forbes actually published a rebuttal piece. Do people not know how the internet works? Did Forbes not read her bio? The only content I really trust is user-contributed. Obviously, you still have to sort out the good from the bad, but at least there's rarely an ulterior motive.

 

[jetpack]

I was able to quit full time (100k+) job at age 33. Never would have been able to do it with out a little savings in the bank. Some people just want to work forever I guess.

 

[FUEGO]

I was able to quit full time (100k+) job at age 33. Never would have been able to do it with out a little savings in the bank. Some people just want to work forever I guess.

+1

Without saving hard in my 20's, I wouldn't have been able to retire at 33.

DW is still working by choice, and being FI means she gets to name the terms where she works or she walks away. In the last two years she asked for and received 2 generous raises and bonuses, 5 weeks extra paid time off, 3 months paid sabbatical leave, and most recently (after actually resigning) a change to working from home 4 days per week for about 5-6 hours per day while getting paid for 40 hours.

Try doing that with no savings in the bank and you might just find yourself out of a job. Needing a job for survival = significantly lowered ability to negotiate the terms of your employment.

 

[clifp]

I think what annoyed me the most were her confident predictions of the future.

When you’re 40, you’re not going to look back on your 20s and be grateful for the few thousand you saved. You’re going to be full of regret.

You’ll regret the experiences you didn’t take, the people you didn’t meet and the fun you didn’t have because you were too worried about a future that came and went.

I'm pretty sure she ain't 40, the arrogance of youth.
#GetOffMyLawn

 

[Gumby]

The wisdom of either course (saving or not saving) will only become apparent in hindsight. A person who is actually in her twenties is not yet in a position to make that judgement.

As for me, it was only by virtue of having saved money in my twenties that I was able to quit work and go to law school full-time when I was thirty. For the majority of my twenties, law school was not really in my plans, but I was certain that having some coin set aside would maximize my life options whatever they turned out to be, so I saved.

 

[scrabbler1]

I was saving a lot in my 20s so I could pay off my student loans, buy my first car with cash and avoid a costly car loan, and buy my first apartment (in a co-op). I was still saving toward retirement, just not to the max, until I had achieved those other things. Then, when I turned 26 and had gotten those things done, I turned up the gas on saving toward retirement and later on toward an early retirement so I could get out of this awful rat race at age 45, seven years ago.


Even the reduced amount I was saving for retirement up to age 26 had the benefit of compound interest over the course of 26 years (so far). I am glad to see the commenters are ripping her to shreds, as she so richly deserves.

 

[Badger]

It wasn't possible for me to save for retirement other than the occasional $10 or $20 until I was about 35. I had a very low paying job, was paying off a small school loan, and put everything into mortgage payments and fixing up a small house. A time of serious fugal living. Then the divorce came. Once back on my feet with a (little) better paying job and a new wife who had similar financial philosophy we started serious saving. Enough so that we both retired a couple of years early and should easily be financially stable with money left over for a nice inheritance.

If I could I would have saved from the start as my Dad suggested. The frugal living experience would not have changed but I would have been able to retire much earlier if I wanted to.

Cheers!

 

[HillCountry]

Not giong to read the article to contribute the click.

I came to this country at 29 yo with nothing but broken English. Now I made it after 20 years.