My First Time

So, for weeks, I've been thinking about starting my own blog.   I often get asked to look over, review & help others with their finances, so I've decided to start a blog and start talking about the LAST taboo....money! It's been said that we talk about our sex lives more than we talk about money (see “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez).  Well, the time has come for change! This blog is to help shine some light on the areas that seem to be the most dark and secretive.  It is written for Generation Yers (aka Millennial and Net generation) by a Generation Yer.  I get it because I am one! So let’s start with who we are. 

 

The Millennial generation is often criticized to have a strong, undeserved sense of entitlement.  Well, I'm here to sort through this maze of the "Net" generation and our finances.  Just as with other generations, we bring unprecedented experiences, opportunities and knowledge.  In fact, following are some commonly referred statistics and information (thank you Wikipedia!) about us, Generation Y. 

 

WE:

• Face higher costs for higher education than ever before.  
• Represent one of the largest segments of consumerism that the U.S. has ever seen (there are approx. 70 million of us in the United States alone)
• Earn a total annual income of about $211 billion, BUT spend approximately $172 billion per year
• Greatly influenced by direct corporate marketing, more so than any other generation in history
• Generally more ambitious, brand conscious and tend to move jobs more often than previous generations. 
• Experience more family breakdown and have seen and experienced high divorce rates as well as homes with 2 working parents 
• Exceptionally tech-savvy and especially tuned to their own value in the job market while having limited loyalty to any particular employer, and insist on working in a stimulating job environment

We are often called the "overachieving and overscheduled" generation, but who can blame us when we have the following at our fingertips: 

• 97% of us own a computer
• 97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use instant messaging and social networking sites
• 75% of college students have a Facebook profile and most of us check it daily.
• 60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod
• 49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 34% use websites as their primary source of news
• 28% author a blog and 44% read blogs (Hopefully relevant in this case!!)
• 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
• 14% use online purchasing to buy tobacco related products
• 8% have confessed to having an online gaming addiction at some point in their life

(For more information on this study, see Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today's Students, Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa).  

So you are asking yourself, who cares?  Well, let me ask you, what is the one common link in the above statistics?  You got it: MONEY.  Almost everything we do seems to have something to do with money.  And that is precisely why I started this blog to help you on the road to riches.  That is one dollar at a time!