Believe or not, the millennial generation (ages 23 to 37) are doing much better than they were projected. They have been stereotyped as the generation that would be less conservative with their money and also not capable of holding a savings.

The Truth of Real Day Millennials 

All of this misconception has been backed up with a recent survey from Bank of America, which shows that 47% of millennials have $15,000 or more in savings in 2018 than the pervious survey in 2015 when only 33% had $15,000 or more in their savings. That’s about nearly half of the millennials surveyed showing an improvement in the matters of 3 years.

Generation Y or the millennial generation has been through a bad economic defeat through the intense events that occurred during their time. They are the largest generation in American history that bloomed during the Great Recession and financial crisis. The millennial also suffered through a collapse in the housing market in 2008.

With these events happening they managed to survive it but still ended with some financial baggage. Although they’re able to save more money, they still fear about their finances. From the survey, 35% stress about not saving enough money making it their top financial stressor. Other financial stressors are their career paths (24%), not being able to afford a home (20%) and student loans (17%).

The millennials are the most educated of our time, but they also paid the cost. The cost of student loans is one thing they suffer from in hopes of finding a job that’s related to their degree but in most cased their stranded with taking a job that’s unrelated to their degree. “One in four millennials consider themselves part of the gig economy (taking on short-term contracts or freelance work) and expect to have eight or more jobs in their lifetime”, according to Bank of America’s survey. Since the gig economy is short term it makes it harder for them to save for the future.

For those that can save, the top priorities in savings are for emergencies funds (64%), retirement (49%) and to buy a house (33%). Despite the economic downfall that has happened during their generation, they still managed to be doing better than they were expected to.

Source: “2018 Better Money Habits Millennial Report,” Bank of America (Winter 2018)