This transcript has been automatically generated.

Josh Sheluk: Some of the Gen Z folks think that the environment is gonna be totally ruined by the time they reach the age of maturity and no point in even living. There’s no point in having kids. What are we even doing here?

Kathryn Toope: Welcome to Barenaked Money. The podcast where we strip down the complex world of finance to its bare essentials. With your hosts, Josh Sheluk and Colin White, portfolio managers with Verecan Capital Management Inc.

Colin White: Welcome everybody to the next edition of Barenaked Money. Josh and Colin coming at you with a I don’t know. Is this a live reaction kind of? Well, no. It’s not live because we read it, but this is a reaction to a a retirement survey that has gone out.

I recently did an interview with the Financial Post where a reporter walked me through their questions, but I was having so much fun with it. I’ve showed it to Josh, and Josh said we could have fun with this. So we’ve decided to have fun with this survey. So so Josh, as usual, you have your list. You you have your points to make.

You are in charge. Josh, where where are you gonna take us,

Josh Sheluk: Well, why don’t you start by highlighting the key findings of this retirement report and what you found most interesting by it?

Colin White: Well, they they they’re they’re pitting the the generations against each other because that’s a popular thing to do. And pointing out that Gen z is planning to retire at 59 while millennials are planning to retire at 61. Gen xers are gonna retire at 61, and boomers retired or plan to retire at 63. So the younger you are, apparently, the earlier you think you can stop working. And they there’s also a lack of confidence that is reported and a lack of actual progress towards any set goals, which tracks as somebody who’s raised teenagers and young adults.

So there wasn’t a whole lot in there that was surprising, but the I think the article was trying to make the case that young people aren’t saving enough. They should save more brought to you by CIBC.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. And I think one of the things that keeps coming up with these types of conversations is that there also is a feeling from the younger cohorts that they’re far behind or that life is pointless in a lot of senses. Like it extends beyond finances, I think, especially for some of the Gen Z folks where they think that the environment is gonna be totally ruined by the time they reach the age of maturity and there’s no point in even living. There’s no point in having kids. What are we even doing here?

Colin White: Well, you know, again, I I I have endless stories about, you know, back in my very early days of school, it was still we were hiding under our desks because of a nuclear attack. You know? So, you know, there there’s always some doomsday prophecy about to play out on the younger generation, and after a while, realize it hasn’t, and they get on with their lives. The the obstacles to overcome for somebody when they’re younger are immense. You know, gotta get your heart broken the first time.

You know, you gotta get your first job. You have to lose your first job. There’s lots of, you know, rites of passage, and each of these rites of passage, I wouldn’t say hardens you as a human being, but makes you more complete and makes you a little less drama prone in many cases. And I always go back to the example of coaching, you know, very, very young kids playing sport. You know?

So you get a five or six year old kid playing basketball for the first time and they run into somebody hard and they get the wind knocked out of them. Well, they think they’re gonna die. They can’t breathe. And you go you’re looking them in the eye and they’re looking you in the eye and then their mind, they are about to die because they cannot get air in their lungs and it is all over and that this is it. This is how life ends.

And you’re holding them by the hand going, it’s gonna be okay. Give it ten seconds. You’re you’ll you’ll be able to breathe again. And, no, they’re not gonna believe you. Like, they’re not gonna listen to you because they’re gonna die.

Like, they know it they know it’s sure shooting. They’re gonna die. And then they don’t. It’s like, oh, oh, this is what life is. I get it.

I cannot be able to breathe for a short period of time, and I will get it back, and life will go on. Now you fast forward that to, you know, growing up and getting your first job and having expectations about retirement and, you know, people lying to you and people having trying to be live your life like you’re a 60 year old person and all the other mistakes you have to make in order to figure yourself out. Yeah. I can see it being discouraging. I can see it being overwhelming.

I can see it that, oh my god. I don’t know the way forward from here. Is that real? I would have to think not. As you’re gonna wake up tomorrow, the sun’s still gonna come There’s still going to be hot coffee for you to drink with oat milk or whatever other lactating legume that you wanna put in your your your coffee.

You know, life is gonna go on, and you’re gonna find a way forward. Now you’re probably optimistic, which is good. We need you to be optimistic in some regards like you’re gonna get retired early, but, you know, choices will come later in life.

Josh Sheluk: I guess that was a funny part. Right? It’s you’re gonna retire early, but you also think that there’s no point in savings.

Colin White: There’s something

Josh Sheluk: like a little bit of an existential crisis. So how do those things square? I’m not really sure, but random question for you. This is a digression, but when’s the last time you had the wind knocked out of you?

Colin White: Me? Oh, thank God. It has been a while. I because I have I’ve studiously withdrawn from activities that involve collisions of a magnitude that would cause that kind of because for a sixty year old to get the wind knocked out of them, that might be permanent. I’m I’m pretty sure.

Josh Sheluk: You’re not 60 yet, I don’t think so.

Colin White: No. No. I’m just saying.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. But it is kind of the it it seems to be so I’m I’m kinda firmly in the millennial demographic just for the audience’s edification here. But it seems to me that I’ve heard a lot of these same concerns, complaints, acts of or expressions of despair from my cohort. And I think rightfully so. So we will defend the Gen Z for a minute here but a lot of millennials launched their careers right into the great financial crisis.

And then the decade that followed was one of fairly low wage growth because inflation was so low. And then when they’re kind of hitting their formative years of work, COVID hits and then inflation. So there are, I think the beliefs that sort of the deck stack against me, to speak, it always comes from a real place. And I think that’s where Gen Z is at the moment. It’s, well, I kind of launched my life, my career or my university time during COVID, which might even be worse than the great financial crisis.

I’m not sure, but it might be worse for a lot of reasons. Maybe not quite as financially impactful, but definitely more socially impactful. And then shortly after that, you run into inflation that we haven’t seen in thirty five years for a stretch of time. So that’s kind of what they’re dealing with and probably why there’s some degree of despair amongst that cohort.

Colin White: Well, listen. There’s always a always room for despair. I mean, when I came out of school, unemployment was in double digits. Like, if you if you if you found a job, like, it was like, oh my goodness. That’s amazing.

I have a job. And that persisted for a long period of time. You could take a look at the low interest rates and the people are trying to live off of fixed income, who are trying to invest in GIC rates. Alright? And they don’t wanna take any risk, then, you know, that’s not working for them.

Most recently, everybody then invested in a portfolio of real estate to pay their retirement expenses. They’re all hooped. So, you know, there are a lot of individual groups that have been impacted by the events that have gone on. I don’t think that any one generation can claim the hardest go of it. I think that there’s, you know, the increase in housing prices did bail out a lot of boomers and has bailed out a lot of boomers.

That absolutely has worked in their favor. But, you know, the the ability and and plethora of jobs available right now, like, is is a is a true true bonanza. You know, you can have many many different careers right now. There’s lots of different ways you can go. You have opportunity, and if you’re studious about that, you know, you can turn that into something.

But I think we can we can talk about, you know, the reasons people are upset or the people reasons that people are optimistic or pessimistic. But I think this survey is mainly about math, and math is good to math. Like, if you’re not gonna save today, you wanna retire early, the math is in. Like, the math has done the calculation and, you know, some some you’re you’re gonna be disappointed or something’s gonna change.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. Well, coming back to the millennials example because we now have a bit more proof, I guess, of how things are progressing for that cohort. And according to Statistical Canada more recently, the millennial cohort is actually maybe on average, a little bit above the gen Xers at the same age. So it seems like maybe things started a little bit slow but then have accelerated. And I guess it’s just kind of evidence that it might be a lack of experience that the younger cohort has.

They just don’t know enough that, yeah, things will kind of level out and improve. And I would guess that the Gen Z cohort is gonna be the most financially successful cohort that we’ve ever had, just like every iteration or generation prior to them. That tends to be the case. And millennials are now seeing that. They’re now seeing sort of a leapfrogging up above where the generation prior was at the same age.

And it just took time. It just took time. They maybe came out of school a little bit later because they have more education, but now things are on a bit more of an accelerated track. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen for the Gen Z folks as well.

Colin White: I think the danger here is that people kind of throw up their hands and go, this is too tough. I can’t afford a house or I can’t do this or I can’t do that. And they decide to go to France for for three weeks. Right? And it’s like, oh, come on.

Like, just stop it, please. Right? And I think that we can pontificate profusely about the various generations and the challenges that they’ve had. But math, this is we’re we’re talking about a mathematical equation. We’re talking about expectations.

We’re talking about, you know, you have a goal that you want to accomplish. Well, are you gonna math it or you’re not? Like, I deserve this. Sure. But math is just gonna do math.

Like, whether you think you deserve it or not, there there will be math. And I think that, you know, creating a situation where people have you know, they they they’ve created a monologue in their heads like none of this matters, so I might as well just spend my money and go to Europe. You know? It’s oh, come on. I’m getting tired of it, but I’m still gonna retire at 59.

No. You’re not. Shut up. Like, stop it. You’re you’re killing me.

Josh Sheluk: You gotta start saving at some point if you’re gonna get there. Right? The math works exponentially. So the longer you delay, the much more difficult it’s going to become.

Colin White: I think the other mistake that we make is we keep talking about this retirement as like the penultimate of financial goals. Cough. Don’t stop it. It isn’t the best goal. Live living your best life is the best goal.

Right? And all along the way, you’re gonna be faced with with challenges and opportunities. Like, you know, asking somebody when they get their first job, when do you wanna Sure. Write that down. Like, that’s not gonna mean anything because, well, you know, good chances you’re gonna find a partner.

Now if you’re really lucky, you’re gonna have kids. If you’re really, really lucky, those kids are gonna have kids. Each of those life events at least will cause you to reconsider your value and your timeline. Right? Because I’ve talked to more clients than enough that have decided to work an extra couple years because they wanna educate their kids or educate their grandkids or buy a cottage for the family or something.

You know, these these goals are stuff that morph based on life experience over time as to and the most miserable people I’ve ever met, and Josh, you can either back me up or, you know, you can disagree with me. The people who came out of high school looking for a pension and then managed to retire at 53 or 54 years old on a full pension and had been miserable up to that point and they decided, Now I get to have fun and they forgot how to have fun. They don’t know how to have fun. Those are some of the most miserable people I’ve seen and those are the people that have prioritized retirement above all else as a financial goal.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. It’s interesting. I don’t know that I have enough perspective to because I don’t have any of those people around me right now that I kind of grew up with seeing them retire early, so to speak. But yeah, it is a bit perplexing when life expectancies are longer than ever but every generation to retire earlier and earlier. I don’t know that that circle really squares.

Colin White: Well, I blame it on Freedom fifty five. That was a great marketing campaign, you know, and it just convinced everybody. Then it becomes a badge of honor, once you retire, like, it becomes a competition, and some people compete with that because they think the secret to being happy is not be working. Just throw it out there. I want you to find something you like doing.

Like, like, let’s let’s not be tortured for the first two thirds of our life and then flip the switch and be happy for the last one third.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. Well, the FIRE movement is the like everything about that to like the a millionth degree. Right?

Colin White: You remind me, what’s the, remind our audience. What is the FIRE movement, Josh?

Josh Sheluk: Financial independent retire early. And so you have people that are basically just living subsistence lifestyle for the first ten, fifteen, twenty years of their working career, retiring super early, like in their thirties, for example, living off their investment portfolio and calling it independence, I suppose. So that’s one way to look at it. I can’t imagine what I would really be doing at the moment if I were retired. I can’t imagine I’d be having a lot of fun.

That’s for sure. But I guess for some people that’s what they’re looking for.

Colin White: The the of coasting basically is what financially coasting, let’s put it that way, you know, for an extended period of time is fraud. Like, there’s a lot of things that can intercede there whether we see another 2008, whether we see another pandemic, inflation spikes, you know, you make a bad investment decision because you decided Bitcoin was the thing. There’s a lot of ways to interrupt a financial glide path. And while you’re working, can overcome a lot. And that’s that’s a very comfortable thing.

That’s a good that’s good risk management. But I again, going back to the idea, like, don’t work at the job you hate. Like, don’t don’t hate every day of your life and hope that someday in the future you’re gonna be happy. Like, that’s I’m sorry. I wanna take off my math hat for a second.

Don’t do that. Like, that’s that’s just wrong. Like, find something that you like with people you like doing it with. And if you’re not in that room well, which goes back to my my bigger burst, so I wanna stand on is is is financial independence. Like, you know, you need to have your bugger off account.

That’s what tell my kids. Have enough money in your bank account that if work pisses you off tomorrow, you can walk out and go find something else and you can pay your bills for three or four months. When you’re sitting on, you know, that kind of financial flexibility, you can make choices, you know. And if you’ve got choices and if you’re smart about using your choices, you can turn that into something.

Josh Sheluk: So I have a bit of a game to play. And

Colin White: You’re gonna win, aren’t you?

Josh Sheluk: No, this is not a competitive game. It’s really, I’m just sending things your way and you’re answering questions. Anyway, let me explain to you. So these young folks call them whatever generation you want. It could be millennials, could be Gen Z, whatever.

There are some element, at least some of them think like, there’s just no point. Existing is pointless beyond this and I’m not going to save, to make it to where I need to get to. This whole thing is all pointless. And I just kind of wanted to play this blame game with you. So I’m gonna give you a pie.

You have a pie. You can divide the pie up however you want. I have five categories that you can assign a percentage of blame to for why people feel this way. And whether you believe it or not, this is why people feel this way. So I’m just asking you to speculate why people feel the way that they do.

Colin White: Do I get to know all five and then apportionate or is it just like I get No. No.

Josh Sheluk: You have to. Oh, okay. You can one at a time. Oh, wow. You can change it after though.

Yeah. It’s it’s an impossible game. Okay. I forgot to say that. Okay.

How much how much of this pie do you think should get allocated to the idea that housing feels unattainable from this cohort?

Colin White: Into their how okay. How much should it be influencing their feeling of hopelessness?

Josh Sheluk: Well, how how much do you think it actually is influencing these individuals? Then we can talk about it after whether we think these are legitimate or not, like whether they should actually care about these things.

Colin White: We really should have my son on this call. I would say that probably in their minds is probably okay. So if it’s a pie with five pieces average be 20%. So I’m gonna call this 30%.

Josh Sheluk: Okay. So you think housing a housing issue that we’ll call a housing issue, you think that’s a bit more than the average slice of pie gets

Colin White: Currently allocated to that. We’re in the process of that blowing up because we’re going into the other side of a housing bubble, which is Yeah. You know, a housing glut. And I’m not sure where we are on the on the spectrum there, but we’re moving from one to the other so shortly that will reverse. Currently currently, I will square that at 30%.

Josh Sheluk: Okay. So how much would you ascribe? How big is the piece to the fact that young folks just don’t have enough experience? They just haven’t lived long enough to see anything about COVID and and high inflation?

Colin White: Okay. How much? In their minds, that’s zero. They’re smart. They know it all.

Josh Sheluk: I like the way it’s

Colin White: That’s not a problem at all. That’s not a problem at all. Yeah.

Josh Sheluk: How much do you think is due to the fact that Canadian productivity and they might not describe it as Canadian productivity. Productivity growth has been low, weak in Canada for about fifteen years now. How how much do you think gets described to like, there’s a general economic malaise or a lack of real progress?

Colin White: Again, I’m I’m answering this as somebody else. So I would say they’re probably aware of it. And because it seems plausible and sophisticated, that is probably contributing 15% of of their attitude towards it.

Josh Sheluk: Mhmm. Okay. Now let’s go to the math side of things. So how much is just because people have a hard time thinking exponentially? And I’ll give you the context of this.

I did a financial plan for a client a couple of weeks ago and she asked me, how do I get to 1,600,000.0 by retirement? I only have 400,000 today. And I was like, okay, first of all, that’s probably not the right number to think about. But this was in her mind but I said, okay, well, you’re in your early 40s. So if your portfolio doubled and then doubled again, you’re at 1,600,000 in twenty ish years, which is like a 7% rate of return or something like that that you need to get there, is really quite attainable.

It’s actually not that far fetched. So how much do you think is like this cohort just can’t visualize how the portfolio grows from a 100,000 today to $2,000,000 that they need fifty years from now.

Colin White: In their minds, probably only 5% because they’re smart. They went to school. They looked at some TikToks. So they understand that stuff pretty well. I think, yeah, it’s them.

That’s not a big deal.

Josh Sheluk: Okay. And then I’m glad you brought up TikTok. So how much do you think gets ascribed to the idea that it’s media and social media that are driving this narrative and things get blown up because of that.

Colin White: I’ll give that 40%.

Josh Sheluk: Okay. Because I think you actually hit close to a 100%, which I wasn’t sure that you’re going to.

Colin White: You have such little faith in me.

Josh Sheluk: No. Because I didn’t give you the five in advance. I thought go too aggressive early on and then not have enough of a pie to allocate to the remaining things.

Colin White: No, I think I only get to 90. We’ll do the playback.

Josh Sheluk: Close enough. Close enough. Yeah. So, okay. So you kind of have given me good perspective on this because I wasn’t gonna ask this, but now switch it.

And of these five things, how much do you think should actually matter? And in what proportion to these individual?

Colin White: Well, it’s almost inverse. Like, I mean, TikTok shouldn’t matter at all because that’s just rage bait. That’s just trying to attract your attention and nothing attracts your attention better than a train wreck. It’s like, you know, you’re amazing, but the world’s against you. It’s not your fault.

You haven’t accomplished anything. You know, you should still sit in your parents’ basement and not pay rent because the world’s too mean. Like, that’s gonna get an audience. Right? And I think that maybe social media is doing a better and more conclusive job in in communicating that.

But the whole, you know, the world’s we shouldn’t have any kids because the world’s not gonna be here for my kids to grow up mentality. Yeah. I can remember that back in the nineties. Like, that’s you know, I think back to nuclear war. Right?

That was the other time that the planet was gonna end. So it’s those kind of sentiments, I don’t think are all that new, but I think maybe the people immersing themselves in it is is is perhaps a little newer. Lack of understanding of math is probably 30 to 40% of of the actual problem because, again, it’s funny. I had a a conversation, if you will, with somebody close to me who began the conversation talking about the the homeless epidemic. I was like, okay.

Well, epidemic? I mean, what what are the numbers that demonstrate this to be an epidemic? Because homelessness is a problem. There’s no question. But it’s not a problem that there’s a solution to.

Like, it’s not like everybody is gonna be living a life that everybody else is approving of. We’re not gonna get to that room, but, you know, and it’s being dealt with varying degrees of success at varying moments in time. Yes. Because housing is unaffordable. I said, well, I got great news for you.

Like, there’s condos in Toronto now selling under $400,000. Condos have become very affordable by Toronto standards. It’s like, yeah. But those are tiny. Those are only what do you want?

Like, does it have to be a five bedroom detached house with a detached garage before you consider it housing? It’s this is just reality. Right? You know, if you want to have affordable housing, you’re right. It might be a little bit smaller, or it might be a little less convenient.

That’s how it works. It’s it’s easier to complain about it than it is to take the steps necessary to actually accomplish something. It’s easier to be a victim than it is to look at the playing field and deciding what I do need to do to be successful. But the reality is is that affordable housing is a made up term. You know, if you got too much housing, the prices go down.

Yeah. Don’t have enough enough housing prices go up. It’s there’s nuance around that, but it’s relatively, that’s a very true truism.

Josh Sheluk: So it’s probably more of a math thing and an experience thing that people are feeling this way. And those are probably the more meaningful things despite what they’re seeing, what they’re feeling. Hopefully things level out as if we assume that the world plays out like it normally does where things get better, things get at least stabilized.

Colin White: Well, yeah, I think there’s so much plays into this. I mean, we started this commenting on a survey of people’s expectations for retirement, but there’s so much playing into this. And for the younger generation specifically, that’s apparently coming up and saying that they’re less optimistic about things. Having been involved in minor sports over the years and watched the kinds of kids over the years that I’ve I’ve kinda since there’s a kid actually, I I coached this kid in in in basketball. Wonderful, wonderful child.

Like, wonderful young human being. Exceeded everything in school. Went to university on scholarship and worked in science and got her first job in a lab. Three hours into her first day on the job, she left because her boss didn’t come over to introduce themselves, and she never went back. I don’t think we did a great job there.

I think that maybe we didn’t put somebody into the world that was ready to, you know, be in the world. So those are learning experiences, and you hope that good people learn from them and and and bounce from them. But, you know, part of you know, there’s a whole expression about tough tough men make easy times. Easy times make weak men. Weak men make bad times bad times make strong men.

Like, there’s a whole thing that kind of plays out. And, yes, that was very paternalistic, but that was the expression that was told to me. But we’re I think we’re going through a period of time where maybe things got a little bit easier and safer for people, and they’re struggling in the world that is gonna go through financial corrections, and it’s gonna go through inflation spikes and interest rate spikes and all those kinds of things. Those are gonna keep happening. It’s it’s what you do about them.

And the key is not not to ever abandon the idea you can do something about that. Like, there’s something to be done. This is the world. This I can’t get my dream home. Fine.

Get another home. Like, work up to you you shouldn’t get your dream home when you’re in your twenties. That that’s not where you start. You need to have something to to to to climb up to. So just recognize it’s a journey.

Life is not designed to be fair. It’s also not about you. And, you know, it’s up to you how far you wanna get. To bring it back full circle because, again, I don’t wanna lose track of this survey that has been done, trying to convince everybody that they’re not good people because they’re not saving for retirement, because retirement is the most important thing, I really think is poison. I really think it’s a terrible way to frame this conversation.

I don’t think that it does anybody any good. There’s no educational value that I’m making people feel bad in hopes that they save more money because it’s part of your business plan. I I don’t I don’t appreciate it. I don’t think it helps anything.

Josh Sheluk: Some people should save more money, though.

Colin White: Or change their objectives. You get two choices.

Josh Sheluk: Yeah. So how how do you think what’s a more appropriate way to motivate those people to save more money?

Colin White: Well, I’m not Oprah Winfrey, so this isn’t a changing day. I’m a math guy. You know, all I can do is say, what do you wanna do? What do you got? What are you prepared to get there and tell you if it’s not gonna work?

Now if that motivates you, fantastic. If it doesn’t, that’s between you and your god.

Josh Sheluk: Well, and you’re a coach. You gotta come up with something better than that.

Colin White: Everyone every once in a while, you just let let it go, baby. Just let her go. It’s gonna it’s gonna end where it’s gonna end. The the conflict internally between short term gratification and and then long term goals, that that’s a very human thing. And that’s gonna tend change depend on close friend of mine just passed away.

Oh my god. My priorities completely shifted. I’m gonna go in a new direction because I wanna live for today now. And that’s not something for a financial adviser to overcome. Like, I’m sorry.

Like, we we can’t walk into people’s lives and say, no. I you your your previous priorities were were correct. You need to keep saving money. Otherwise, you won’t have any money when you’re 90. Who am I to say that to someone?

You know, if they’ve decided that they have changed their priorities. I’m a practical person. I think our goal our job should be to help people understand what’s attainable, how to attain them, and then keep them accountable whether or not they’re on the path so they don’t wake up one day surprised. And for those that have goals that they’re trying to accomplish, then I think that that’s that’s not that’s where we can jump in. I always try to to show people the value financial independence.

I hate people being unhappy where they are and being backed into a corner. If you listen to your mortgage broker and your real estate agent bought the biggest possible mansion you could ever buy and you’re now underwater because you couldn’t resell it for the value of the mortgage and you have a car payment and you rolled negative equity three times into your car payment and you’re trapped in a car payment and you hate your job and are off on stress leave, well, you’re now in a pickle. Like, you have run out of options and that’s not a happy place to be. And if I can tell that story to somebody and get them to rein back their lifestyle expectations to live with a modest amount of slack in the system, yeah, that that I can try to do. Most people know somebody like that in their life.

If you look around, there’s somebody in your life who is is right at the ragged edge spending more than what they have and locking themselves into existence that they’re gonna hate at some point. And just don’t be that person.

Josh Sheluk: Really interesting to think about how expectation of have shaped behavior. And you’re talking about the short term gratification and all that. And I have to think that social media specifically has played a pretty big role in helping people make poor short term gratifying decisions at the expense of their long term. Because I think some of it today is you look at social media and like, wow, that person’s having such a great vacation over there in Tokyo. Why can’t I do that?

Or that person just bought a new car. That person just bought a new house or whatever. And how real is that? I think it’s really hard to know. And it’s taking the keeping up with the Joneses to not just your neighbor, but millions of people globally, which is basically an impossible burden to to kinda shoulder.

Colin White: Yeah. But I I I go back to it and and anecdotally, I can’t disagree with you. And there’s probably even some science that backs it up, but I was around when the first year Jordans came up. You know? So you went from spending, like, 20 or $30 on a pair of basketball shoes to needing to spend a $120 just to be the guy.

And, you know, everybody needed to have a pair. If you didn’t, you were nothing. And then beyond Air Jordans, like, shoes became fashion. And, you know, everybody on was watching again, it wasn’t social media, so you didn’t get the plethora of it. But every Saturday, when you sat down to watch the game that everybody sat down and watched altogether at the same time, you’re all hit with the same image at the same time.

And you had, I would argue anecdotally, close to the same kind of pressure, you know, to to to be in that group and spend money you didn’t have and and and try to live the life of, you know, the superstars. I mean, we’ve we’ve kinda lost the whole idea about a movie superstar, like the royalty of being a movie superstar and and the life that they lead. Like, that’s kind of fallen off a little bit.

Josh Sheluk: Everyone wants to be an influencer now. That that’s why. They just wanna be an influencer.

Colin White: Well, exactly. You know? So so if I think there’s a case to be made that this isn’t as new as some people are saying it is, but it is absolutely that aspirational thing and somebody else making it seem completely unrealistic. And and thinking that, you know, you’re sitting on your couch eating Cheetos. I wouldn’t be that.

No. You don’t.

Josh Sheluk: Well, there’s an article in in Bloomberg over the weekend that Gen Z is is now shutting smartphones. They’re going back to dumb phones as they call them. So I don’t know. May maybe there’s a degree of self awareness that we’re not giving this next generation credit for.

Colin White: Listen. I I it wouldn’t terribly surprise me, you know, because these things do go on waves and every once in while, we pull ourselves back from the abyss. We still have not nuked ourself out of existence. That’s the one I keep going back to because that was the largest existential crisis, I think, that we faced since the sixties. So we haven’t done that yet.

So we pulled our back ourselves back from that particular brink. Yeah. I I I’d I’d be excited to see what’s next. I always think the next generation comes up with some pretty cool You know, if you if you just sit back and give it a chance and let them be stupid for a little bit, they might turn it into something really cool. But if you guys could do me a favor and stop, like, living in the eighties, that was mine.

Like, you guys can’t watch all my TV shows and listen to all my music. Like, give me my eighties back. Like, you know, go find something else that’s cool.

Josh Sheluk: Well, you know how I feel about the eighties. So It’s so funny because this study was like almost overly optimistic in some respects and overly pessimistic in some respects. Do you think broadly these generations are too optimistic or too pessimistic? Like, what what matters more? The despair that they feel today or the fact that they think that they can feel that despair and still retire at 59?

Colin White: Well, I think it’s two separate issues. I think optimism is crucial. Like, I’ve never met a successful pessimist. Right? So optimism is crucial.

Despair is optional. You know, you you you can, you know, be be so optimistic that you become full of despair. Like like, I I really want all these things, but I can never have them, and, you know, that brings you to a complete halt. But I think we really need to double back on who put this survey out and why. Like, they’re trying to make people feel bad.

Like, they’re they’re trying to make people feel bad as a way to motivate people to save more money. That’s it’s a one page study. They didn’t give like, this is not a peer reviewed research paper that gets into all the nuances where it tries to be tries to test a hypothesis. This is a marketing piece that’s put out to try to shame people into saving more money and elevate the the goal of saving for retirement to be one of your penultimate or preeminent, I forget the word they used, financial goals. So that’s what this piece is about.

But I think that younger generations are going to be feel more more more overwhelmed. They should because they’re coming into an age at a time where the the the wisdom that was passed down to them maybe doesn’t fit. My experience going to university has nothing to do with the experience of going to university during COVID. So the generation going through that, there was no guidance. Like, they were in the middle of it figuring it out.

Everybody was figuring it out. So that, like, oh my I’m I’m in I’m in the kinda moment is gonna cause some some anxiety, and it should because out of that anxiety and getting through something like that, that becomes part of your resume. I accomplished that. I went through that. I did that.

I came out the other side of that. And then you can build on that as a generation. But each generation goes to its own unique formative things and forms them a little bit more each step of the way. So is there any generation we particularly need to save, Josh?

Josh Sheluk: Gen alpha. Right? I

Colin White: was waiting for them to come up.

Josh Sheluk: I don’t think we need to save any generation, quite frankly. I think the generations will be just fine. I guess this falls more to me being an optimist rather than a pessimist or someone that despairs about things. But I just think that there’s this existential crisis that we need to go through. And as I have kind of alluded to throughout, I think as generations mature and go through some life experiences, they’ll figure it out.

I don’t think they need to start saving at age 20. And if they don’t save at age 20, hope is lost for them. I do think we should probably do things to help people identify what their objectives and their goals are and set realistic paths to get to those goals. But to say that somebody needs saving, just don’t think any individual or any group is is going to fall into that category for me at any point.

Colin White: Yeah. I think that it’s when you’re in your twenties, try to get financially flexible. Try to be so that if jobs need to change or you get an opportunity to go do something, you get the financial flexibility to do it. Now does that mean saving? No.

Does it mean having some money in your checking account? Yeah. Probably means having a bit of money. Also means not buying the most expensive car you can afford or the most expensive house you can afford, you know, not not strapping yourself to a rocket, which is going to reduce your chances. So I think financial independence is way more important.

Then work yourself into a career and a job that you like. Work yourself into a situation that on balance, you get all you get everything working and keep going until you find that. But asking somebody who’s just got their first job when they wanna retire, I won’t call that the stupidest question ever, but it is gonna make the top five because that person, a, shouldn’t know, shouldn’t care, and certainly got no frame of reference to answer that question with any meaningful. And to write down the number, produce an average, and write it in a report. Okay.

Good. Congratulations. That information isn’t worth anything.

Josh Sheluk: Now it’s gonna be off by an order of magnitude at that point.

Colin White: Yeah. And and I’ve watched and again, having gone through this just so I watched so many people retire. That conversation of people retire, they go back to work, they retire a second time, they go back to work. You know, they’re absolutely gonna retire at 55, and they’re still working at 65. You know, I’ve I’ve got a few clients who actually one really comes to mind in particular, and he listens to this.

He’ll know who it is. Like, when I met him in his fifties, he was just about full pension, and he was out. He was gonna retire, I laughed at him. I said, you’re never gonna stop working. I don’t know if he’s he’s late sixties by this point, still working, like, forty, sixty hour weeks on projects that he’s and he’s having more fun than all outdoors.

Like, he’s elevated his career to a point where he only gets to do the super fun stuff, and he’s like a kid in the candy store. And every once in while, I kinda stare at him and say, you remember that meeting? Goes, yeah. I know. This isn’t necessarily an I told you so.

This is a open yourself up to the experience. Like, don’t put yourself on a set of right away tracks where you make a decision and you execute it regardless of circumstance. Be aware of the environment around you. Let life happen. You’ll probably have more fun that way.

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