According to official classifications I am part of the generation X, you know, the one no one talks about, stuck between the omnipresence of boomers and some millennials. The other night I was watching a TV report on the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement, which according to this show is characteristic of Generation Y. Hearing this, I thought I was a UFO lost among the X, or that this generation stuff was a hoax.
Certainly, each age group experiences common events at some point and this certainly contributes to building a kind of similar thinking. The Xers, we have always been defined rather in opposition to our "predecessors", with our counter-culture (punk, alternative rock, grunge) and our cynicism. It is true that in some respects, faced with the dominant thinking of the boomers, it was the only way to make a place for ourselves. It is also true that we were the first to be confronted with a world of work in full questioning, characterized both by unemployment and the advent of the Internet.
I still see myself in my first jobs. With friends my age, most of us were disillusioned with the values conveyed at that time: competition, individualism, careerism, cronyism, favoritism... It didn't suit us. We didn't want it, but we had no choice but to take what was available.
When I see how millennials are portrayed today, I don't feel much different from them: not very loyal to their employers, questioning authority, refusing to put the world of work first, prioritizing quality of life, freedom, autonomy. I share exactly the same values.
I think that this taste for a different way of life, detached from the professional world, has existed for much longer than we want to say. Companies just didn't want to see it before and today, they no longer have a choice, faced with the almost simultaneous departures of members of their largest cohort.
Putting generational labels on people is as stupid as trying to highlight common traits within races or genders.
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Thank you Jerome for this article and the link to this show, which I unfortunately don't find famous. The portrait made of frugalists is very summary and caricatured. The emphasis is placed on their side obsessed with spending (for example the guy who recommends eating cabbages).
The core message of the quest for financial independence (getting out of the rat race, regaining control of one's time, being able to focus on essential personal projects, etc.) is barely touched upon. In my opinion, this kind of reporting just makes the FIRE movement look like stinginess.
I also love the "economist" at the end of the show who vomits on the unpredictable side of the stock market. This theoretician only talks about the evolution of stock prices. Has he never heard from the top of his ivory tower about diversification? passive income? those companies that have increased their dividend for more than 50 years?
It is true that our retirement system is much more predictable: with it, at least we are sure of heading into a wall and receiving increasingly lower pensions, all with increasingly later retirement.
I prefer the uncertainty of the stock market to the certainty of this planned shipwreck!
Ah ah férot, lol, I thought exactly the same! We do indeed have more control over our investments than those made by our pitiful pension funds, with an annual return of 1%! He also says that we must take risks to ensure 4% of return. Well, of course… We didn’t think of placing our assets in a Raiffeisen savings account. The other risk that we don’t talk about is that of employees who lose their jobs after 50, while we will be retired…
That being said, I don't consider myself a frugalist, at least not one of those who eat cabbages. I am an epicurean, I like to eat, drink, travel, in short all the pleasures of life. That's also why I don't like work, it's time wasted on these good times. So, I will never bother counting money, using discount coupons and other extreme practices that some of the followers of the FIRE movement adopt. I just save a little, just enough to invest and I mainly focus on the profitability of my investments. That's what's important, not the number of shirts in the closet!!! 🙂
Hi,
I agree that this generationism is nothing more than a way for some people to sell cheap analysis, to explain things they may not have experienced, or simply to pretend to have something to say.
Millennials are 20, and who hasn't been 20? Back then, I had no interest in careerism, no loyalty to my employers, the only thing that was more important than me was life and being able to enjoy it, salary being a means and not an end.
The small difference with you is surely that I am not Swiss, but born on the other side of the border in France, the education that one receives (not too much by one's parents but surely the environment) is surely still something to do with it, don't you think?
We evolve in life, and it's funny, I was talking to my father the other day about these subjects, and when he was young... he had more or less the same point of view as me in my twenties. Like what, generation Y... my c... 😉
On the other hand, the environment changes, the available technology too, not to mention society, so yes, people evolve, but I think – at least I hope – that in the vast majority we all work to live, and not the other way around… Some are just a little more successful than others in this endeavor 🙂
Working to live or living to work… It’s all the same thing. These two verbs have nothing to do with each other.
What do you mean by the situation being different in France?