What qualifies a Millennial and a Post-Millennial? A Millennial or Gen Y is born somewhat circa the 1980s and mid/late 1990s, whilst the Post-Millennials or Gen Z is born around after 1995 or so. They both have access to advance technology, internet and social media is ingrained in their daily lives. However, the dates are still debatable with many sites citing different date ranges. Anyway...My work surrounds me with a bunch of young vibrant boys and girls...notice I say, boys and girls, because the age gap is frankly aggravating. At least for someone who could probably qualify to be their Mum if I thought of having children earlier. At least they keep me young! On the plus side, most people will probably think that I am only slightly older than them just because of their age.
So every Monday we meet together as a team for our weekly sales meeting. During this time I catch up with them in terms of their numbers, activities and performance over the last one week. One of the main highlights of the meeting is the sharing of business news that is related to our industry & business environment in general. We also have a segment where we look for our clients in the news and a final segment where they are free to share anything that resonates with them. It could be a motivational article, a story, a personal achievement...you get the idea right? Ironically the person sharing yesterday touched on a subject that is close to my heart - PERSONAL FINANCE!
She asked a series of 17 questions to determine whether you were a "GOOD SAVER"
I will list three that garnered some reaction from my team. Some answers were borderline ludicrous whilst others were downright hilarious!
Q1: Do you know the difference between your wants and needs?
Answer 1: I need a handbag because my current one is too heavy but I want a Burberry (don't you already have a handbag?)
Answer 2: I need to eat but I want KFC
Answer 3: I need Starbucks coffee...
Q2: Do you prioritise savings?
Answer 1: Yes! I save all my salary and then a month or two later will withdraw and use it if necessary
Answer 2: Yes I have an automatic insurance savings plan (insurance = savings? Hmm...I wonder...)
Answer 3: I have many bank accounts so will use the others first and if I don't have money then I will withdraw my salary. (???? ok I was totally thrown by this answer too...)
Q3: Do you look for the best deals?
Answer 1: No
Answer 2: Only if the shops are nearby each other
Answer 3: What deals?
Don't get me wrong, they are not "one fry short of a Happy Meal" sort of people, in fact, I work with young people who are smart, bright, full of motivation and life! They just don't think that financial literacy is important or necessary. They happily go from paycheck to paycheck without a care in the world. They walk into the office nearly every day with a cup of Starbucks in their hand like a trophy of recognition. They have parents who provide them with a beautiful roof over their heads and food on the table every day.
I just could not cover everything last night but I did advocate understanding, more importantly, the changing of their perception and attitude towards financial matters. This is crucial for them in time to come. I shared with them my personal belief that recognising what is most important to you is key. It is not just about money, it is the idea that you are actually exchanging TIME which is a finite resource for some temporal and unimportant can be mind-blowing. It brought to my mind again the youtube video that made that paradigm shift for me. Go watch it! Type in the search bar "wisdom from the world's poorest president" His name is Jose Mujica. It is a short 1 minute 26 seconds video.
Excuse the grammar and spelling errors if any (my Grammarly doesn't seem to want to start up today). I had about 4 hours sleep last night because of Day 1, plus I forced myself to write during lunch hour with this for brain food!
So what's your take on personal finance? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!
So what is QUESNEY21? @joannewong and I are challenging each other to create great content for the next 21 days. Starting 26th of March and ending on the 15th of April. We needed the discipline and motivation that comes from being accountable to each other. Tell us if this is interesting to you, do you think you could benefit from your own QUESNEY 21?
Check out the other postings for this challenge:
QUESNEY21 (Day 1): Strangers On A Train
Quesney 21: Compilation of February 18 Meet-up Part 5
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