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Dan Slagle  00:00

Going back over the last almost 2020 years, debt is outpacing earnings, and that's really the whole story in in one number. Because it's it's no longer just the idea of college got more expensive, but it's also the factor of now, when you're graduating and having to make repayments, the debt is literally compounding faster than salaries, education is supposed to lead to, and there are like there are aftermath effects to that happening.

Natalie Slagle  00:34

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Sleigel, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner Dan Slagle, also a certified financial planner. Say hi, Dan.

Dan Slagle  00:49

Hello.

Natalie Slagle  00:50

In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So grab your drink, get comfortable, and join us for our money dates, Dan. We are here for another episode. Look at us-we're doing it.

Dan Slagle  01:09

Look at us go. Over a year of doing money dates, how do you feel like the first year has gone?

Natalie Slagle  01:15

Great. I'm just appreciative that somebody listens. We have more than just one somebody, but you know you kind of go into it and you're like, "Is anyone going to listen to us? And there's a few people listening, so thank you, listeners. And obviously, the best part of this has been hanging out with you in a way that I've never gotten to hang out with you before.

Dan Slagle  01:38

So sweet. I'm going to give the video listeners a big heart. Actually, this is the this is the millennial heart. Ooh, that kind of leads into what we're going to talk about today. But here, this is the Gen Z heart.

Natalie Slagle  01:50

I don't know how to do it. My fingers don't. My fingers don't. I no, they need to stop with it. It's not in your

Dan Slagle  01:59

millennial genetics to make this hard, but me, I'm pretty cool, so therefore I can do Gen Z things.

Natalie Slagle  02:06

Okay, yeah, you are cooler than me. Before we jump into the topic today, which has to do with generational differences, because I think people want some ammo when they're talking to younger generations or older generations, so we're going to give that to you today. But before we do, I'm super excited to start to share what we've been working on outside of the podcast, outside of our client meetings, and that has been some some exciting stuff. I'm I'm like before we get recorded, I was like you're

Dan Slagle  02:40

going you're going way too far already. I I know where this is going. You're going to reveal everything in the next like minute. So

Natalie Slagle  02:46

I'm so excited about it. And I stop. We are working on stuff. We are working on stuff, listeners. And there's going to be some big changes happening, more so with our business, not the podcast. Although you'll see some changes with the podcast as well, but we are super pumped to reveal it to you. But Dan was like, "Okay, you can only be high level in this conversation. And so I think each episode, until we're ready to share with the world what we've been working on, we're going to start to reveal a little bit more. So today's reveal is that we're working on something that's as much as I was allowed to share. We'll

Dan Slagle  03:20

keep it at that. I think from what we do day to day with our client base, a lot of times we're just like focused on what is happening day to day, like the client meetings. You know, preparing for these meetings, doing the meetings, doing the follow up from the meetings. You just, it's very easy from our perspective to get stuck in our business, and that's something we we heard pretty early on when we launched our business originally, and you need to spend dedicated time working on the business,

Natalie Slagle  03:49

not in the business.

Dan Slagle  03:51

Exactly. So that is what we have been doing over. Gosh, I feel like it's been a year and a half, two years up to this point with this big, big, big, big project we've been working on, so we are excited to reveal more along the way here, and then we will, of course, make a formal announcement over the next month.

Natalie Slagle  04:11

Yay!

Dan Slagle  04:12

Yay!

Natalie Slagle  04:13

Yay! Okay, today's discussion. We're going to talk about if we millennials are worse off than other generations, and I don't know about you, David. I've had conversations with Boomers about this, with Gen Z about this, with Gen X, and some people are just like, "Yeah, these are all the reasons. But do they actually have the stats? Maybe they're pulling it up in in real time in conversation. But today we have the stats. We

Dan Slagle  04:42

have the stats today, and we're going to definitely get into into some stats. I feel like every single generation has a bias towards their own generation. I don't know what the psychological term of it is, but where you like defend, you feel like you're defending yourself and what you are representing. Which is in this conversation, the context is the generation you you fall into, whether that's baby boomers, Gen Gen X, millennials, Gen Z. What is our daughter? And again, I feel like we've talked about this in the past. She's only two. Is is a Gen Alpha? Gen Alpha,

Natalie Slagle  05:18

I believe, and I know she's on the tail end. Either she just entered it, or she's like the last year of. I can't remember what it is, but she's Gen Alpha. I do have to say, boomers. I feel like that term, and I don't know. It's because you say boomers, but there's something that I feel like they kind of got shafted when it comes to the naming of the generation. Do you feel that, or is it just the delivery? On because maybe you could say boomers. I'm a boomer, but if you're like I'm a boomer, I I don't know. Like the name itself.

Dan Slagle  05:51

Someone can fact check me on this, but I feel like baby boomers comes from the generation of previously where when World War II was like ending, and then all of a sudden, everyone the troops came back, and and there was the baby boom

Natalie Slagle  06:06

celebrated a very certain way.

Dan Slagle  06:09

It's like the Super Bowl babies, right? You you got to celebrate a a certain way.

Natalie Slagle  06:13

Is the boom the amount of babies, or was the boom the action taken place by these soldiers?

Dan Slagle  06:21

Ooh, it could it could be both. Wow. Okay, they went boom boom,

Natalie Slagle  06:26

but I guess they could go boom boom in in war too in a bad. So many reference. I can see why it's the. I feel like you're talking to.

Dan Slagle  06:34

I feel like you're talking to our daughter right now. You can go boom boom.

Natalie Slagle  06:38

You can go boom boom. Did you hear that loud noise-that's called the boom boom, aka thunder. All right, let's get into it, Dan. So, boomers, right? 20% of the U.S. population, but hold 85 to $88 trillion in wealth. Okay, and so if we look at millennials, same number, about 20% of the U.S. population, but only hold 18 trillion. Again, compared to the boomers at 85 to 88 trillion. Woof!

Dan Slagle  07:11

Yeah, so very similar representation in terms of U.S. population, but the wealth discrepancies. That's that's what we're going to point out. All you millennials, take note of that stat first, but we also want to get into because that stat it may or may not be misleading. We do want to get into are millennials actually worse off financially from previous generations, or is this the complaint that every single generation has made over time.

Natalie Slagle  07:42

I'm sure there's. I'm sure it's a little bit of that, and it's complicated, right? So we're going to get in into it a little bit today. Okay, let's dive into these numbers a little bit more. So boomers control 51% of all household wealth, right? So of that 80 trillion, that represents all household wealth, and millennials control only 10 to 11% Boomers just have more money than millennials. Okay, but isn't there kind of an of of course of course here, right? Older people naturally have more wealth. They've been around longer. They've been saving longer. They've been investing. So to me, that should always be the case. That when Gen Z is complaining about millennials and how wealthy we are, they're well, we've been around longer, we've been saving longer, so we should have more money. So that isn't the focus. The focus should be on well, what what were the boomers like in their 30s and 40s compared to how we are, so that's where the real comparison should start.

Dan Slagle  08:47

Yeah, you want to make it an apples to apples comparison.

Natalie Slagle  08:50

Yeah, not apples to oranges because that first part was apples to oranges. Now we're gonna do apples to man. I'm such a mom, and those oranges. Okay, real comparison. So same age, right? Well, of course. Again, I feel like I always have not. I have to, but I will. Dan, you did a lot of research here, so this is a stat-heavy episode. So here's some more stats for you. Okay, so let's look at same age, different decades. So the St. Louis Fed did this, right? Pretty credible source, and compared different household wealth with each generation around the age of 34. Now, this is a stat to pay attention to people. So, what did they find? Millennials and Gen Z at 34 owned $1.35, $1.35 for every $1 boomers had at the age of 34, inflation adjusted. So millennials have more money. That's what that tells me. Dan, is that a good? Did I digest that correctly?

Dan Slagle  09:56

Yeah, sounds like it to me.

Natalie Slagle  09:58

And $1. 23 for every $1 Gen X had, you know, Gen X is up there. They're looking down at us. They're not that different. They're not that far away from us. But and we, as the millennials, have 23 cents more per Gen X. And again, that's from the St. Louis Fed,

Dan Slagle  10:17

right? And it is important to mention that this is inflation adjusted, right? Because when boomers were 34, I don't even know what year that would have been, but you need to account for adjustments to make it apples to apples, right? So when you look at the differences between where millennials are at compared to boomers and millennials and Gen X at age 34, it it makes sense to me that the numbers get smaller, the comparison gets smaller when you compare millennials to Gen X because that's the generation right above versus talking about two generations away.

Natalie Slagle  10:49

I see what you're saying. Sure, sure.

Dan Slagle  10:51

So what we're gathering, what I am gathering from the research done by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, is that on paper, younger people, millennials speaking, are doing better than boomers were at the same age.

Natalie Slagle  11:05

Yes, on paper, and we have to think about what's happening from a macro level, what's happening from a micro level, and there was a lot of post-pandemic run-up in home prices and stocks that absolutely help out the millennial gener. I mean, a lot of generations, but especially millennials. But there's averages in this data, and I think it hides like a wide variation underneath, which we'll talk about a little bit later, but you know, averages are just that averages. What's happening on the top end of that average and what's happening at the bottom is is important for the discussion of which generation is doing better or worse.

Dan Slagle  11:55

Yeah, and let's let's be real here: millennials or younger generations are going to benefit from the wealth that has been created by the boomers, right? So, and we've talked about this in the past, like the great wealth transfer. Trillions of dollars are going to pass from older Americans to younger Americans over the next decade or two, which will be historically on record the largest generational wealth transfer. So, it hasn't happened yet. It's a little unevenly distributed, but millennials also we should talk about like maybe without wealthy parents may never actually see that.

Natalie Slagle  12:30

Yeah, everybody talks about this wealth transfer, and we have clients that are like, "I'm supporting my parents, and that like that's not going to happen to me. And then we also have clients that their parents have said, "I'm likely to inherit millions of dollars. So again, there's just such a spectrum in these numbers. From a really large perspective, there's a lot of money to be transferred. So millennials, Gen X, just hold off, let you hold out until that those passings occur. Then you can have a fair playing field.

Dan Slagle  13:02

Yeah, let's start talking about one of the biggest areas that I see when it comes to generational wealth, wealth by generation, I should say.

Natalie Slagle  13:11

Okay,

Dan Slagle  13:12

and where I feel there is a major difference, and to me, that is always housing.

Natalie Slagle  13:18

Yes, and it's interesting because we have stats on this, but before we even get into the stats, I mean, we've had conversations with our parents, like they're, you know, they're like, "You're business owners, you're doing great, but you don't own a home. Why aren't you owning a home? Like to them, it's just ingrained, and so there's there's the financial aspects happening, but there's also the psychological, the white picket fence home ownership dream that some generations were built upon, and I think the millennial Gen Z and then alpha has a different perspective of home ownership, and the numbers kind of back it up. So let's talk about the home ownership rate. So in 2025, and again, these numbers kind of make sense with ages, but 80% of boomers own their home. Millennials, high 40 to low 50% Some half millennials own their home, and Gen Z. I mean, Gen Z is getting up there in age, 22 to 27. So to me, that's not surprising, right? Like, of course, older people, more people are owning homes.

Dan Slagle  14:25

Yeah, of course. If you actually make it an apples to apples comparison, similarly to what we did, what we just talked about from like a true wealth standpoint, and this is according to the census, millennials at age 25 through 34 owned home homes at a rate as high as 9% points lower than baby boomers or Gen X did at the same age. The portion of millennials that own homes is a lot lower than older generations.

Natalie Slagle  14:54

Yeah, and I don't know if we have a stat on this, but actually, I'm looking. Yeah, we do. We do. So the other thing that we decided to add in here, I don't know why, but some people might find this interesting, is that the share of Americans married and homeowners doing the checklist what what you're supposed to do to be a good American, be married and be a homeowner at the age of 30 fell from 52% in 1960 to, I'm going to pause. Everybody, if you're listening, say a percentage that you think it fell to, married and homeowners at the age of 50. 12% 12% from 52% to 12% to have both of those marked by the age of 30. That's a change. That's a really big change in just American makeup.

Dan Slagle  15:49

That's not even just a change or like a small shift. That's like a huge. Do I want to use the word collapse? I feel like that causes some panic. That's a huge, huge decline.

Natalie Slagle  16:02

Yeah, that's a big decline. I mean, we could just have a conversation about why that's happening in and of itself. My like feminine brain goes off in a lot of different aspects on how more women are working, more women are going to school? There's just like there's a lot of reasons why that is, and you know why is it bad? You at first were thinking about using the word collapse, but it's like, is this a bad thing? Is this so bad for us, or is it just a change?

Dan Slagle  16:34

Yeah, maybe it is a change. Maybe it's just different.

Natalie Slagle  16:37

It's just different. It's just different.

Dan Slagle  16:39

Yeah, yeah. The the why of it, looking into that specific number that that you shared, going down to to 12% Well, in in 1960, the median home price equaled about two, like a little over two times median household income.

Natalie Slagle  16:56

Okay,

Dan Slagle  16:57

right. So, but when you think about or focus on in today's world, it's five to seven times median household income nationally, and then if you start factoring in like major coastal metros, like the number even gets higher, right? Like up to 12 times median household income. And to your point, I feel like in 1960, I'm just going to use the 60s as as the prime example. I feel like that's when specifically my dad was like growing up. So in in 1960, like one income could definitely buy a starter home, but like today, you often need two sources of income. Not only two sources of income, you need plenty of years of saving to be able to afford it, and you also need some sort of luck when it comes to the interest rate environment that we have become accustomed to recently.

Natalie Slagle  17:51

Yeah, because buying a home for a millennial, the rates that they have seen have been all over the place. We've got as low as 2.75 and as high as almost 8% in kind of a short amount of time. So, the good rate timing plays a big factor because when it went from 2.75, a bunch of people buying homes then, and now they want to switch. They want to get a different home, and they can barely afford the price of their current home now because interest rates more than doubled. It's it's a wild wild journey, wild generation we live in. So it's not that millennials prefer renting and they don't like mowing their lawn. It's that the data doesn't support home ownership as easily. If I'll just use that word as it as it did back in the

Dan Slagle  18:42

'60s, yeah.

Natalie Slagle  18:43

Boomers,

Dan Slagle  18:44

boomers. Okay, so boomers. So we've shared like at the age of 34, the dollar comparison, and it was in favor of where millennials are compared to baby boomers and and Gen X. We we've shared some information on the housing gap, which you know plays a big part in in wealth in our country, there's another like huge factor that we need to consider, and that is student loan debt.

Natalie Slagle  19:13

Yes, that's a big change that really started to unravel, like starting with Gen X, and then kind of ballooned with the millennials, and what that means for where their resources are going.

Dan Slagle  19:29

Yeah, U.S. student loan debt, a couple trillion, I'd say, across millions of borrowers. The average borrower debt, what we see around 30 to 40, 45,000. Of course, the range will depend on like federal only type loans versus federal and private loans. And let's be real: when we look back at the data, boomers did not have to face this at the scale that millennials are facing this problem with, because tuition at four-year public schools, when we. Think about inflation adjusted have nearly tripled since 1990, and they're up over five times since 1970. So the the cost of tuition is just absurd.

Natalie Slagle  20:12

Yeah, and this is a big thing we tackle for our clients for their kids when we're projecting out education costs. We're using a pretty high inflation rate because this is historically what we've seen. I remember Dan. I I know I've said this to you before, but my dad talks about how he worked at Dairy Queen and paid his tuition with his Dairy Queen wages. What? I can't imagine. Dan and I both graduated in Minnesota from a private college, University of Saint Thomas, go Tommies! There's no way in heck we could have had any job like that. Everybody would be like gossiping about who's got what internship and was it fancy? And even if it was back then, if you had a $15 an hour internship, whoa, you are making insane money, but it's not. It's money that keeps up with rent and food and beer. It's not money that's paying tuition as well. It's just if your money that you're earning is just paying for your living expenses, then the thing happening in the background, the tripled cost of tuition, is just a very different experience.

Dan Slagle  21:23

Yeah, and what we've seen over the past decade-no, two decades. Wow. Sometimes I forget we are in 2026 when I recall back to like college and when we were in high school. But going back over the last almost 20 20 years, debt is outpacing earnings, and that's really the whole story in in one number, because it's it's no longer just the idea of college got more expensive, but it's also the factor of now, when you're graduating and having to make repayments, the debt is literally compounding faster than salaries education is supposed to lead to, and there are like there are aftermath effects to that happening.

Natalie Slagle  22:03

Absolutely, because student debt is cited. You know, going back to that whole marriage and home ownership, student debt is cited as the number one reason why millennials delay marriage. Student debt. What? Like that's the most unromantic thing ever heard? How come on, millennials? I don't want that to be the start of our our romantic relationships. Oh, we we can't get married. We can't get eloped because I have a student loan payment. How sad!

Dan Slagle  22:41

I don't know the the numbers on this, but I I wonder if that has to do with people not wanting to go out, pay for a nice meal, go out to the club, meet someone, or if it's really about people having transparent conversations, like if they're with like a partner that they're not officially married to yet, and thinking of like toying around with the idea of getting married to that person, they're talking about finances. Like, is it scaring some people away from marriage? I don't know.

Natalie Slagle  23:09

Yeah, like if you had $150,000 of student loan debt and we were dating, you

Dan Slagle  23:15

would not be married to me, and we would not be having this conversation. Is that what? That's where you were going with

Natalie Slagle  23:20

it. I mean, it depends on if you were like, "I'm going to be a financial planner, and I would be like, "Well, I am too, but I don't got 150 grand of debt. Like, what bad decisions did you make? So, yeah, there would be

Dan Slagle  23:32

that's not fair. That's not a fair thing to say.

Natalie Slagle  23:34

Why?

Dan Slagle  23:35

Well, because as you see through our practice, there are doctors, physicians with 150,000 of debt, and they're able to wipe that debt clean over a short period of time.

Natalie Slagle  23:46

Well, that's what I mean. I think it. What debt do you have, and what is the income going to translate at? If you have 300 grand in debt and you are in the medical field and you're about to make 500 to a million dollars a year, the numbers work out where that's okay, but it's. I remember I had a friend who went to school to be a teacher, and she went to our school. I had a really good thing going for me because my stepmother is a professor at the college that I went to, and God bless her. Thank you so much for encouraging me to look at the school because a I got a husband out of it and b I got a tuition discount because my stepmom was there. But anyway, so I didn't pay the sticker price of a private college, but my girlfriend did, and she went to college to become a teacher. So going back to the whole, the debt is compounding at a rate higher than wages-that is absolutely the case for someone who goes to a private college to then become a teacher. I'm not discrediting her her choices there. I think there's a lot more behind the scenes, but I am like, yeah, these stats are real and these are problems. That then equate to delaying marriage and delaying home ownership,

Dan Slagle  25:05

which are arguably two major factors of creating wealth.

Natalie Slagle  25:09

Absolutely, this is actually a good idea for another podcast, Dan. I hate that this is the case, but it is when you're married. That's a Significant wealth help, for lack of a better term, you know, like the system is designed to kind of help those who are married, and you know expenses are cheaper, things like that. So if the two things, like buying a home and having equity build up and getting married, and the perks financially of a marriage, and those are delayed. Well, that impacts a whole generation.

Dan Slagle  25:46

Yeah, one question I might pose is like: Is this a millennial-specific problem, or is it just like an everyone who has existed under age 45 type problem? And like, I feel like it can be less of millennials got screwed over, and more of like each generation since the 1960s again had it a little harder. Maybe millennials actually just got caught in a bad combination of events that has led to this feeling of wealth reduction compared to other generations.

Natalie Slagle  26:27

Yes, it's thank goodness then for what we were talking about earlier on how our dollars are worth more than other generations. Thank goodness because there are these events that we need more dollars in order to afford life.

Dan Slagle  26:46

Yeah, I need more dollars to afford more in life. I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, and this is easy for me to talk about because again, this is my generation and things that we have truly lived through ourselves, both of us on the podcast, because many millennials graduated into the financial crisis in 2008, which was arguably the worst job market, statistically one of the worst job markets in decades. And then, just as we all started building up savings in our 30s, we were hit with a global pandemic, and right after that, we saw some of the fastest inflation slash interest rate spikes in a 40 year time frame, and I'm talking about this is like 10 years into graduating college. All these things are happening,

Natalie Slagle  27:34

right?

Dan Slagle  27:34

How old was I during COVID? Actually, now that I think about it, yeah, I was probably around 3031, Okay, so this applies to me. So there's three major major economic shocks that I just listed off within one working age lifetime that has kind of happened in the first decade of being a professional. Whereas, sorry, boomers, when boomers were building up wealth, they're building up wealth in a multi-decade bull market and like stable growth. The more we talk about this, like the more things come to my mind.

Natalie Slagle  28:12

Dan's like, yeah, we have had it worse. If

Dan Slagle  28:15

you need to bring me into your your holiday party and defend the millennial generation, I might be a good candidate for it because the other thing that just came to my mind that has helped boomers, pensions, company pensions, like think about that. Boomers had a lot of pensions that kind of relied on the employer, and now our generation, the shift has focused to be 401ks, 403bs, or 57 accounts, right? Like, and the the idea is, well, I hope your 401k does okay over the next 30 plus years.

Natalie Slagle  28:52

Yeah, it's like this on you. Hopefully, you're making the right investment decisions, and it's up to you to decide how much to put in the 401k. Because oh, by the way, the pension plan-we forced everyone to put in this amount.

Dan Slagle  29:05

And the pension plan, when you retire and draw on your pension, you just it-you get a few options to create a monthly income stream. I mean, there is a lot of strategy involved. I don't want to discredit that. Of like, which option do you choose? Why do you choose it? But when we get into retirement for our generation, there may not be like some sort of income stream that you can generate off this account, right? Like you might have to draw on the money yourself.

Natalie Slagle  29:32

Yeah, I mean, you create your own income stream, but people like people forget the pension was one big 401k. It wasn't a 401k, but there was essentially a huge bucket of money that there were fiduciaries making investment decisions. But you never saw that bucket of money. So when the stock market tanked, you're like, I got my pension. I don't see any tanking happening here. Life is life is good. You know, I'm sure people were worried about other. Things, but there is this this mental aspect that now has to happen to the individual, and seeing those those dollars tank. Whereas when you have a pension, you know you're still getting your check. You know you don't see it out of sight, out of mind. How wonderful is that? Because when you see your portfolio tank, especially when you're drawing on it, it can make you do some really silly, silly things.

Dan Slagle  30:32

Especially in the world we we live in right now, right? With social media news headlines, like you you turn on the news, and if the market's down, having a rough day, it's talking about the market collapsing, and and it's in front of you constantly,

Natalie Slagle  30:46

right?

Dan Slagle  30:47

And that could drive decisions that necessarily aren't in your best interest. And and with those type of accounts, you are kind of the one in there making decisions because you're the one potentially going in there to liquidate your the investments that you have and in that account, like you have the control on your login to do that, versus what you were talking about with the pension. You are not going to withdraw from the pension.

Natalie Slagle  31:10

No, I do want to go back to kind of some of the points you were bringing up because I am thinking about boomers, and it's not like they had this easy trajectory up without they had their fair share of bear markets. I mean, over decades it was a bull market, just like for us over decades. Even thinking when we all graduated in the mid 2000s, well, if we look back 20 years, we've certainly had decades of a bull market. But they, you know, they had the.com bubble that must have been pretty scary. Y 2k boomers are like all the lights are going to go out and I'm not going to have a job after the year. You know, they had their things.

Dan Slagle  31:51

Yeah, yeah. I I just have a face on to to be hard on boomers, but I have a soft spot in my heart for for the baby boomer generation.

Natalie Slagle  31:59

Yeah, I know. Okay, so let's show like the positive side, right? So like, where are we millennials like actually doing well? We have had tremendous growth since 2019. So this is again going back to that post pandemic. You know, we got through the pandemic, and remember, was it 2020 or no? Yeah, 20.

Dan Slagle  32:22

No, dude, no, no. 2019 is pre pandemic. The 20 half pre pandemic,

Natalie Slagle  32:26

but yes, but my stat is 2019 to 2025. And remember, in 2020, we had like a 20 30% decline in one month. Whoa, that was scary. But 3.8 trillion starting wealth for the millennial generation in 2019, 3.8 trillion. 2025, that number went up to 18 trillion. That was our bucket. 2025, 18 trillion. So that's 374 percent increase in six years. You do that math on the fly.

Dan Slagle  32:59

That's that's that's the most impressive thing you shared in the podcast. I have

Natalie Slagle  33:02

a calculator for a brain. So the drivers of that, the pandemic era, the home equity gains. Remember, it was like I remember the reels and TikToks of like the realtors grabbing their client and like running through and being like ah, and so those home equity gains.

Dan Slagle  33:21

I have no idea what you're talking about. Running, grabbing their clients and running through what and yelling, "Why are you like? I don't

Natalie Slagle  33:27

know. There, it's just the video was like the realtor, and they're just running with their client because they're all trying to like put an offer on a home, and every offer is getting declined because someone's offering 300,000 over asking. It was epic times, anyways, and we had the stock market recovery. So, some economists will argue that adjusted for inflation, life stage to life stage, millennials, especially our client base, top earners, are outpacing where boomers and Gen X are were at the same age, and just through experience and living our life and living through the eyes and financial aspects of our clients, I think that is true. My professional opinion and experience would say that top earning millennials are doing probably better than the top earning boomers that were booming in their 30s and 40s.

Dan Slagle  34:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. To to flag like top earners, like top earners, and what you just shared are probably doing a lot of work in that entire claim.

Natalie Slagle  34:42

Yes, exactly. So remember, averages are just averages. There's a lot on the top, and there's a lot on the bottom, and then sprinkled throughout. So, who has done well in the millennial group? People in tech. People in finance, people who bought a home pre 2021, and people who were able to start investing early-those people, our clients, y'all are probably doing better than your parents' generation.

Dan Slagle  35:15

Yeah, and I would say just off the bat, like who might you just shared who's doing, who's likely doing well? And obviously, this is just like there's so many other industries out there where people are still doing well. Where I think our generation, probably those people, at least that that I know personally, in addition to some of the the articles out there that have done worse than previous generations, it's probably those in our generation that have like obtained a different degree than what they intended to to potentially study. Not 100% true, right? Because there there could be some career changers into a space and benefited from some of the the major wealth growth that we've talked about, but I think like a lot of times, if it was a different degree into likely a different industry and a lower paying job at that, and you've accumulated like a lot of debt, that would make sense to me. Potentially, like different cities. I think a lot of our generation, there's at least a lot of people I know have relocated specifically to coastal metros where cost of living is so much higher, and then just different timing overall. You know, when it comes to this this wealth, this wealth creation. So I think I think a fair conclusion. I'm going to give this out of this entire. I don't want to call it an argument, but this entire conversation about where wealth is millennials compared to other generations, I I don't know if millennials are worse off than every generation. Instead, the generation is more might be biased in saying this more Internally unequal than boomers were

Natalie Slagle  37:06

internally unequal might have to unpack that.

Dan Slagle  37:10

I think the the like typical millennial is probably behind on like the two classic wealth builders that we talked about, like home ownership. low cost education related back to the student loan conversation, but I do feel like some people are ahead.

Natalie Slagle  37:31

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is the issue with general statistics: is it's nobody is general, nobody is average. There's just your data point lies lies somewhere in that average. So let's close this out with kind of maybe three three kind of takeaways that that I had from this conversation. So one is total net worth at the same age. Millennials are actually doing about as well, or maybe better, than the boomers did on average, and a lot of that has to do with what's happened since 2020, with all the asset prices, stocks, homes, things like that moving up. Housing and education clearly impactful on our generation. I mean, it's going to be impactful on everyone. So, depending on what's happening with those two segments, will impact the drivers on what life decisions you make and the finances. But millennials are clearly and measurably behind boomers and Gen X at the same age when it comes to student loan debt and having being homeowners, okay. And then, lastly, the average millennial story-it really is hiding that gap between those who are doing well and those who are not, and so maybe our generation actually has a bigger divide than previous generations on who's doing well and who's not.

Dan Slagle  39:14

Yeah, I could see myself having this conversation with with my dad, and my perspective, as some of you listeners may pick up on, is millennials. We just got nothing off the bat from his side. I could I could see him saying like, millennials are fine. Like just stop stop complaining. I think just to from my perspective again, after talking through this, it we're just a we because we are in it. We are a generation that just probably inherited a little more unequal, more volatile starting conditions than maybe our our parents did, and some of the outcomes reflect that. I think it's still part. We're and again, the data we talked about is like to make it apples to apples of where where someone might be at in their mid 30s compared to. Our parents were at in their mid 30s, and I do feel like because our parents are now 70 plus, 6070, plus years old, there's still a 40 year gap in what is potentially what could potentially come.

Natalie Slagle  40:15

Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Slagle  40:17

So I don't think this conversation stops, but I do think it's important to at least recognize where we as a generation are at right now versus where previous generations have been.

Natalie Slagle  40:29

Yeah, fascinating. I learned a lot to have this conversation with you, Dan. There's a lot of sources that we utilized for this. The full list will be on our website. So, if you nerds out there want to look into it a little bit more, then

Dan Slagle  40:47

don't call our listeners nerds.

Natalie Slagle  40:49

Our listeners are nerds. They're smart. They like D and D and reading, and they're a great nerd-not the bad kind of nerd, but the great kind of nerd. Anyways, if you want to nerd out on some stats, that'll be available for you. And hey, if you haven't rated our podcast yet, could you do me a big favor and just whoop whoop head on over to the little rate button? I don't know if you're listening on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, but you know what to do. If you can leave a comment, that's great. We appreciate you all. Thanks for making our year of recording fun and exciting.

Dan Slagle  41:29

Thanks, Natalie.

Natalie Slagle  41:30

Bye bye.

Dan Slagle  41:32

Bye. Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below. Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website at www.fyoozfinancial.com.

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