Gen Y Canadians splurging on luxury items, despite high unemployment

Before any older Gen Xr's comment remember where Gen Y learned their habits, who let the become self-entitled and lazy. Not all of them of course but enough of them that this label falls on Gen Y pretty often.

Need brand name goods - Privileged, Need much more travel - Self-entitled, Eating out 100% more often!!!!! Mom and Dan never taught them to cook / lazy.

My mid 20s sister just moved out and there has been much bitching about how she can't Tan as much and they had to sell the pricey sports car.

I do feel bad for Gen Y though. One can't as easiloy get out of high school, work an "ok" job for a few years and then jump into the housing market like they could 15 years ago.

Don't they know how to build savings?

- Sent from my iPhone

Big part of it is that the idea of what constitutes neccesities and what constitutes luxuries has changed massively.

I remember when my family finally had enough money to afford cable television. It was an exciting day! Now, basic cable almost seems like a right. And most of us aren't satisfied with anything less than HD PVRs. And of course we're not fighting over who gets to pick the show, because there's a tv in every room...

HD? PVR? What are these terms of which you speak?

You also forgot smartphones (each with $100/month voice & data plans)...

Glad to see that I'm not of the norm... again/still.



Luxury fashion - no use for it. The most expensive clothes I have are camouflaged for hunting.

Travel - I don't travel a whole lot. This year, if all plans are a go, I will have flown somewhere four times... about three - four times more than my typical year. And all within North America.

Fine dining - screw that. I'd rather cook my own damn dinner. Better yet, I'd rather have my boyfriend cook me dinner. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather pay a bit more for really good food than less for crap on a plate when we do go out. However, as far as I'm concerned, the moose steaks that we've got in the freezer are just as good or better than the steaks that I can get at most restaurants.

I am thankful that my parents raised me to know that stuff doesn't define who I am. And to live within my means.

As far as I'm concerend these idiots who want to stereotype genraitons are as bad as the folks who insist that all blacks can play basketball. People tend to act certain ways at certain ages, whatever the generaition. The twenty-somethings now are no different than the twenty-somethings in the 60s, or the 70s.

But you just can't stop old fogey's from shakign their head anxiously and going "Young people today..."

You sound like a crusty old man that's easy to stereotype all by the actions of a few.

Crusty? Certainly, I wear the label with pride. Old, no. IF you read properly you'd see I addressed the fact that is was likely a stereotype "Not all of them of course but enough of them that this label falls on Gen Y pretty often. You seemed to not read properly. Maybe you just didn't spend the time, maybe too lazy. Gen Y by any chance are you?

As for it being an age and not generation thing it's not really true. Just look at housing as one but not the only example. Parts of town boomers moved into (at least where I am) when they first moved out where typically 1000 sq ft houses and one car was enough otherwise you took the bus. Witnessed by the fact most homes built for that generation were only one car. Around the 80s this started to shift. These days the same houses boomers (my parents) moved into, and in which many are are still living in, are listed as "starter homes," because the following generations (yes even the younger Gen Xrs) wanted more and real estate agents were more than willing to play it up.

I only spent what I needed in my 20s and still do in my 30s and based on other comments on this thread so far I'm guessing I'm not alone in that area. Even when my wife alone was making 6 figures we still only had one car, because a second would just be a want, not a need.

The "boomer' "Gen x" "gen Y" classifications are widely accepted by marketers, economists, behavioural scientists etc etc. Naturally the label does not apply to everyone born in those years and the cut off years are a bit more blurred than a definite year, however, for the most part the "stereotypes" are the norm for the majority in those groups with some exhibiting higher an lower levels of the norm, and even some exhibiting none. Hence in my first post I said "not all of them."

Hmmm. A similar line of thinking was in a recent Wall Street Journal article (in the last couple of weeks) that addressed a new form of age discrimination where employers were hiring older people over younger people - a reversal of past trends. The explanation was that the younger workers tended to come aboard the job wanting to know what the employer was going to do for them as opposed to the older workers who were happy to get a paycheck in return for a day's work.

The article went past that, of course, but the heart of it was that those younger folks have a sense of entitlement.

In combination with another topic going on right now you can see something interesting where these folks want their luxuries but then they want someone else to pay for their health care.

It'll be awesome to see these kids at retirement age when they don't have squat for savings and they're depending on bankrupt pension systems.

Word. I must not have gotten the memo that anyone over the age of sixty automatically qualifies for fucking sainthoom.

The money people spend on impulse-buy items helps keep the economy moving. Which I thought was important, but apparently it's less important than some self-righteous old fogies enjoying themselves by crapping all over anyone younger than they are.

Young folks weren't going to be able to save anything anyway. Anything they put into banks and funds are just going to get stolen from them anyhow, usually by the egomaniacal members of the same generation of baby boomers who are now harping at them for spending too much.