4d ago

Gen Z are dipping into their retirements, skipping meals and selling their belongings just to get by, new reports find

fortune.com Gen Z are dipping into their retirements, skipping meals and selling their belongings just to get by, new reports find

Despite being known as irresponsible spenders, Gen Z are choosing between breakfast or their next doctor's appointment just to make rent

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Gen Z are dipping into their retirements, skipping meals and selling their belongings just to get by, new reports find

fortune.com /2025/08/29/gen-z-dipping-into-retirements-skipping-meals-and-selling-their-belongings-just-to-get-by-new-reports-reveals/

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Millennial here - gen Z has retirement savings???
- lol right? Must be nice to afford to put more than your employer’s match into your 401k
  
  What the hell is an employer match?
  Millennials, probably
  
  As far as I understand, I don't have a 401k. I have nothing. I have never considered retirement to be a reasonable outcome for anyone in my generation or younger, but even still, it's not like I would have been able to save more than a scant couple thousand after decades of work.
  
  for anyone in my generation or younger
  You think no adults entering the workforce in the last ~20 years if going to be able to retire? What little bubble are you living in?
  
  The bubble where the entire concept of retirement will be lost. Where society will crumble into wearing tribes fighting over arable land and fresh water. That one. That bubble. The bubble where this will begin in earnest in our lifetime. The bubble that says this fascist wave around the world is just the precursor and that as people get more desperate, things will only get worse.
  
  The little bubble where you don't get a small loan of $1 million on your 18th birthday
  
  Definitely didn't get one of those. Still on track to retire. Your experience isn't as universal as you seem to think it is
  
  Also you have to watch out for those expense ratios. I once worked at an employer where the only funds available in the 401k plan had expenses and fees around 2%. Managed mutual funds statistically perform no better than just cheap index funds. So paying those fees doesn't actually earn you a higher rate of return. But plans with usurious fees are cheaper for employers to provide.
  What was so egregious about it is that when I ran the numbers, I found that my employer's 401k plan was actually worse than investing in cheap index funds in a regular taxable brokerage account. The 401k could be contributed to with pre-tax money, but all the tax benefits were cancelled out by being trapped in high expense 401k plans.
  I contributed enough to get the match and invested any money above that elsewhere.
  
  Have you looked into the high yield accounts from Marcus (Goldman Sachs). if you have any money Sitting around in a checking account or even Another savings account but you don’t need immediately you should consider this. The APY is 3.65%, which is a lot better than anything a regular bank will do. And you can transfer money between them with their app. of course they also offer no penalty CDs and standard CDs
- Not if they're dipping into it at 30. That's going to kill any kind of compound interest.
  
  I'm about to be 29, and have literally zero savings to speak of. I've been paycheck-to-paycheck pretty much my entire working life.
  
  If it's any consolation it took me until I hit 33 for me to have any savings at all.
  Anything I put into the account I used for savings went out the same month so I didn't go into an overdraft.
  Funny enough the only thing that changed is I passed my qualifications and got my first "real" job... Though I may have also spent the past 8 or 9 years isolated in a way that regular people only got to see during the 'rona times
  
  The best investment at your age is in training/education to improve your take home pay or ability to relocate. Fuck retirement savings, you have to eat for 30+ years to get there first. Invest in yourself, not in the fucking casino controlled by billionaires that is the stock market.
  My wife made a career swap 5 years ago after getting a master's degree. We used our retirement savings to pay for the schooling because the ROI was under 1 year.
  
  Ah yes, telling the person that just admitted they're paycheck-to-paycheck to pay for education, perfect.
  
  Training isn't a bad option, though, especially since some jobs will pay you for it. Some trades do paid apprenticeships - the pay isn't great, but it's better than paying for training.
  Alternately, manufacturing jobs can be pretty good. I had a friend who got a job working in a factory right out of high school - he started at $20/hour, with a sizeable raise after the first year.
  
  The only way off the hamster wheel of paycheck to paycheck living is to find a way to make the paycheck larger. The entire system is designed prevent you from doing so of course. You can not save money out of poverty wages.
  It's counter-intuitive but financially going $10K into credit card debt just to survive, while paying $10K for targeted education/training from disbursed 401K funds is a better use of the money. You can increase your pay by $20-30k or more per year with marketable training/education. If you pay off the credit card it will just come back if you don't increase your wages. Bankruptcy also can't take away the education/skills you've gained.
  Swapping jobs frequently for a higher paycheck is required today. Every 1-2 years in your 20's as you fight the experience/poverty wages bullshit. Every 3-5 after that just to beat inflation. When you swap jobs the 401k becomes available for withdrawal. Instead of using it to pay down debts etc., pay for education/training to make the next job pay more. Usually signing up for the minimum amount of the 401K makes almost no difference to your take home pay but a nice little bit of cash at each job change.
  
  "the system is designed to prevent you from saving your way out of poverty" Followed immediately by "go 10,000 into credit card debt to pay for education"
  While "Bankruptcy can't take away your skills" it can 100% leave you on the street.
  
  Not really, but that's a myth that credit card companies want you to believe. Creditors really want to be repayed and make a profit. So they want you working, eating top ramen and paying them back. Homeless & jobless = no money for them.
  Property owners want somebody with a job, a history of paying rent, and enough income to cover it. I was always able to get a place to live even when my credit rating was sub-500's due to credit card charge-offs.
- Millennial here- I'm bout to not have retirement savings.
  
  It'll be the best avocado toast ever though, right?
- Until this year, the job market was surprisingly good for Gen Z.

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