Forget huge mortgages and car loans.
Millennials are all about mobile banking and low-fee investing. While such
prudent behaviour may be smart, it spells trouble for financial institutions
GEN WISE? by Deanne Gage photo by Ruth Kaplan
but it’s a dream come true for the 25-year-old, who works at a nonprofit employment centre helping people find jobs. Just a few short months ago, Poletto was still living with her parents in Orangeville, Ont., where she’d been since graduating with a degree in human rights from Ottawa’s Carleton University in 2013. And before she landed her current gig in June 2015, she spent years working as a barista and in other minimum-wage jobs, unable to find a position lucrative enough to move out of her childhood home and start making a dent in her $30,000 student loan. Now that she’s settled into city life — paying
J
ULIA POLETTO is on a jam-packed streetcar, heading home to her apartment in Toronto’s trendy Cabbagetown neighbour- hood. It’s not exactly a comfortable ride,
$800 a month in rent to share a modest two-bed- room apartment with her cousin — Poletto’s next goal is to eliminate her debt. And, aſter that, travel. “I’ve already started planning a South America trip with a couple of friends for next year,” she says. As for buying RRSPs or a house, that’s not really on her radar. “I don’t have any plans to settle down,” she says. “I’d like to enjoy the freedom of being debt-free before I invest in a home.” Poletto’s financial priorities are hardly unique to
her generation. Facing a precarious job market and burdened with unprecedented levels of student debt, millennials (those generally between the ages of 18 and 34) are forgoing — or at least delaying — big milestone purchases such as cars and homes, a US survey by Goldman Sachs found last year. Lifestyle
38 | CPA MAGAZINE | MARCH 2016
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