re: Lou Holtz. Is he right or is he wrong?

quote:

---

A huge chunk of young people in this country can’t even afford on a house to live in but it’s somehow their fault.

---

No they just can’t afford the house that they want. They all want a nice suburban home like their parents have. But they don’t realize most of their parents started out renting apartments or small homes and saved money before buying that larger house, just like they do.

When I moved out of my parents house I got an assistant manager job at a catfish farm, instead of renting a home I lived in an old crop duster hangar that had a bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Farm owned it so it was free, not ideal but I saved money. Year later got a better job, lived in an old trailer on the farm for 2 years then rented a small 2 bedroom house when I got a raise. Then I got a big raise and more bonus incentives, got engaged and we bought a nice 3,000 sq ft house and it’s completely paid for. No mortgage.

Point being, it can be done. I didn’t make 6 figures until the point I got engaged so not like I was raking it in. If you want nice things you have to live below your means and work hard to get to the income level required to maintain nice things once you do have them.

Too many young adults jump into the real world expecting to get their parents life immediately. It took me a decade of frugality out of college, and making smart choices like not getting married or having kids until I was financially ready. My parents are still better off than me right now, but I’m far far ahead of where they were at 32 years old.

Problem isn’t today that it can’t be done, it’s that young generation has a “I want it now” attitude and doesn’t make the hard choices and responsible actions combined with patience to get there. So they run up debt early on to have nice things, and they’ll never get ahead of it. I don’t solely blame the Boomers for the 31T in debt, our debt didn’t blossom until GWB was in office and has gotten only worse since. Yea a lot of those politicians are/were boomers but they only do what voters allow, and they were heavily voted for by Xers, Millenials, and Boomers alike. That problem falls on all of us