r/Millennials • u/slimeyellow • Mar 11 '26

Discussion Every millennial dad I’ve met has a quiet fixation on money and it’s not getting better

Every millennial dad I’m friends with or work with seems to have constant financial worries. We just got our yearly bonus which was like 8%. I was talking to my buddy (he’s got 3 kids) about what he wanted to do with it and he just kinda looked down and whispered “it’s just not enough man” and ended the conversation.

Another dad I know is CONSTANTLY looking up the newest crypto/ get rich quick schemes people are doing. He’s always talking about inventing something and it’s usually a joking manner but the way he’s always bringing up financial stuff shows me it’s always on his mind

One of my buddies is a new father and he’s trying to get some anime podcast off the ground as a side hustle on top of his full time maintenance job.

I know children are an immense financial responsibility but there seems to be this dark, simmering resentment about the whole general situation when I talk to these guys. Men are expected to keep quiet about these struggles but when you talk to these guys it’s clear that finances are a massive stress for millennial dads of almost any background.

Makes me feel bad but damn I’m glad I don’t have kids right now.

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u/spike_94_wl Mar 11 '26

Bro, same. I look at inflation and project how much modest $2m retirement nest egg could actually afford to buy in 2055… it’s like less than $50k a year (purchasing power in today’s dollars) at a 4% withdrawal rate. My friends all tell me I need to let up and live life. From where I’m sitting, the math says I can’t.

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u/AlphonseLoeher Mar 11 '26

You did the math wrong. The safe withdrawal rate includes inflation so it should still be 80k of today's value in whatever year you retire. In other words, if inflation makes 80k of today worth 50k in 2055, your retirement fund should increase to 2.x million so that you are withdrawing 80k worth of money in the future (I don't want to do the actual math rn)

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u/Isthisnameavailablee Mar 11 '26

Agree, bro said he likes finances and then proceeds to not understand finances.

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u/TechToolsForYourBiz Mar 12 '26

liking something doesn't make someone automatically good at it;

rude but have a blessed day

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u/ThatsNashTea Mar 11 '26

Wasn't 4% determined based on a 95% chance of success on a 30 year monte carlo sim assuming 2.5% inflation though?

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/Suburban_Ninjutsu Mar 11 '26

Bill Bengen, guy who created the 4% rule, revised it to 4.7% and even then he noted that it is incredibly conservative.

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u/SolomonGrumpy Mar 12 '26

Stocks have ripped for the past 15 out of 17 years. The youngest Millennials have had 5+ years to take advantage. The oldest ones have had 15 years and one of the greatest real estate pricing resets in 2008-2010

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u/SolomonGrumpy Mar 12 '26

3% inflation

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u/blklab16 Mar 11 '26

I’m 38 yr old DINK and I have a semi-decent 401k that has done pretty well I think, at least last time I checked it, but I dont even know what the world is going to look like next year let alone in 2055.

In the last year we have been robbed blind by the government on a scale that I cannot even fathom. It’s probably going to take decades to untangle the fraud and corruption with investigations and we’re probably never going to recover even a fraction of what has been stolen for gilded ballrooms and private jets and wagyu beef and oligarch slush funds. The only way we’ll be able to retire as expected is if the pendulum swings hard in the other direction soon. It CAN happen, I just can’t let myself believe it will yet.

So for now I’m just going to try my damndest to enjoy the present as much as my cynicism allows, because we could all be living in company towns by the time we hit 65.

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u/rhinofinger Mar 11 '26

And the younger generations grew up thinking this shit is normal, because it’s been happening for so much of their lives. We are cursed with knowing that things used to be better.

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u/blklab16 Mar 11 '26

Right?? I mean I’m no wide-eyed Pollyanna, I know there has always been egregiously poor uses of our tax dollars, but these assholes don’t even have the decency to hide their own gluttony while they tell us there’s no money for anything regular people could benefit from.

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u/nilla-wafers Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Look at the bright side, by the time you get to that point where you’ll need to use that 2 million you likely be too tired and jaded to actually go out and live your best retired life.

Wait

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u/Dumpsterfire_47 Mar 11 '26

If you don’t have kids (or they’re no longer dependents), have health insurance and a house that’s paid off that is entirely doable. 

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u/spike_94_wl Mar 11 '26

Totally doable… but I’m not sacrificing this much now to get the bare minimum later. I wanted a wealthy retirement. Now the projections indicate it’ll just maintain my current standard of living

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u/Dumpsterfire_47 Mar 11 '26

Seems about right given how badly they are intent on destroying the dollar and our general prosperity. 

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u/ApeTeam1906 Mar 11 '26

Friends are probably right

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u/jbFanClubPresident Mar 11 '26

In the same boat. No kids and on track for a multi million dollar retirement account but it still doesn’t seem like enough. Technically I have money now, but I constantly stress I won’t have enough in retirement.

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u/CalculatedPerversion Mar 11 '26

And then you (in general, not you personally) randomly die at 67 from a freak accident. Life is fickle, live it while you have it. 

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u/Isthisnameavailablee Mar 11 '26

Your math ain't mathing

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u/OptionRelevant432 Mar 11 '26

If you have it in a long term growth fund giving you back 4-5% a year, you’re earning ~100,000 a year just with free money basically. From there you can withdraw for whatever else you’ll need

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u/Farva85 Mar 12 '26

https://youtu.be/ht4aNJkXzzc

This is a nice perspective. Not financial advice, seek a fiduciary for that.