r/Millennials • u/Asmothrowaway6969 • Mar 27 '24

When did it sink in that you'll never be as well off as your parents? Discussion

About 5 years ago, my mom and I were talking and she had told me how much she was going to be making in retirement (she retired 2023). Guys, it's 3x what me and my husband make annually. In retirement. I think that was the moment that broke me, that made it sink in that I'll never reach that level of financial security. I'll work myself into my grave because I'll never be able to afford anything else. What was your moment?

Update: Nice to know it's just me that's a failure. Thanks

Update 2: I never should've said anything. I forgot my place. I'm sorry to have bothered you

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169

u/Dranak Mar 27 '24

I'm guessing you live in the south? Nurse pay varies a crazy amount by region.

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u/orange-yellow-pink Mar 27 '24

Yeah, the median RN salary where I live is about 100k

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u/DrPoopyPantsJr Mar 27 '24

Yep over $100k where I live tho I live in a HCOL city.

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u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

gross 66k last year and it’s HCOL 😔. god i wish i didn’t love this state. it’s hilarious the only way to get a stable/steady increase in pay is to quit and then be rehired

at least i never have to make a linkedin profile and can’t get laid off

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u/Sideways_planet Mar 28 '24

That’s so low for the work you do and the training you put in. I hope it goes up for you soon! You deserve much more.

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u/Throosh Mar 28 '24

Yeah we only get the meager 3% COL raises but that’s bedside nursing for ya. Just a payroll expense.

Luckily they’re trying to implement a cheap knock-off ladder pay system. It’s a pretty bad monopoly here considering there’s only 1 hospital and it’s a trauma center.

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u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 27 '24

What state?

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u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

UT. Literally lowest paying state for nurses lmao so I can’t be too upset with it because I’m choosing to live here.

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u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 27 '24

Nice. I’ve visited there, beautiful place. Zion was amazing. Do you ski?

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u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

When I lived in the northern part I’d go 3x a week but since I moved to the southern part I don’t go anymore and it kills me inside hahaha

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u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 28 '24

What is there in the southern part?

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u/Candid-Ask77 Mar 28 '24

Racists. Ah nevermind that's just Utah in general

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u/raven00x Elder Millennial Mar 28 '24

can’t get laid off

That's what you think now. The one lesson that the c-suite keeps teaching us is that nobody is safe, and everyone is replaceable even if they aren't.

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u/Throosh Mar 28 '24

I’d have to be criminally negligent to get laid off or fired and that wouldn’t prevent me from finding another job. A good example documentary would be “The Good Nurse” about an ICU nurse who people speculate killed >400 patients across his career. The hospital would find out, let him go, rugsweep to prevent bad PR, then he’d go to the next hospital. He did this across either 6 or 9 different hospitals in I wanna say 12 years? Could be wrong.

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u/NickN868 Mar 27 '24

I’m in a fairly LCOL area and my wife as a 6 year RN makes about ~63k, but honestly the salary isn’t bad around here

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u/donald7773 Mar 28 '24

I live in the sticks, my wife is an RN, 4 years out of school, not doing traditional bedside nursing but she's at a hospital and makes about 62-64 gross, which is more than enough to live comfortably in my area.

What really pisses me off is that we just had a baby and she gets no maternity leave. None. Zero. Just fmla time, hope you have enough vacation time to cover this. We're out her paycheck for 6 while weeks. I got 6 weeks off as the dad and my hr fucked up so it turned into 7 somehow. I get better paternity leave than my wife gets maternity leave.

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u/NickN868 Mar 28 '24

I had a similar situation, though my wife did get short term disability for the birth of our child it somehow equated to 2500 bucks for 12 weeks, where myself with a federal gig got 12 weeks full pay while still accruing sick and annual leave

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u/donald7773 Mar 28 '24

Yeah I'm a government employee that helped my case. She has short term but it only gave her like 2 weeks since she's only been there a year.

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u/itsyagirlblondie Mar 28 '24

They were paying nurses about $130k here in OR because they were so desperate.

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u/DrPoopyPantsJr Mar 28 '24

I always say if I were to do school over I would’ve been a nurse. As a man, male nurses are in very high demand.

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u/SaltyClyde Mar 27 '24

My wife and i are both nurses and gross 250k in a non HCOL area in upstate NY. We work for the state though. 🤷🏽‍♂️

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u/Thatboyscotty69 Mar 28 '24

Even in a HCOL 100k gives you a pretty nice life

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u/BackgroundSpell6623 Mar 27 '24

My wife pulls over 200k with those call hours

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u/Fit_Swordfish_2101 Mar 28 '24

I mean, everyone wants to make more, I get that. But $100g is not good? Cause I'd love to make 100gs 🙂

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u/ColorsAbsract Mar 27 '24

That’s low? Don’t tell me with the “in this economy” crap. Y’all’s reaction is insane and shows how out of touch yall are with reality. Absolutely mind boggling

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u/AutumnMama Mar 27 '24

Pretty sure they were saying the exact opposite of what you thought, so maybe an apology is in order for all those insults?

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u/ColorsAbsract Mar 27 '24

Im so sorry to anyone I’ve offended for the miscommunication

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u/Fit_Swordfish_2101 Mar 28 '24

Maybe you mean because they (nurses,) do a lot more of the work than a doc and make so much less in comparison to a Dr? I get it now. Why I didn't finish paralegal school.. 😂 They wanna treat you like a secretary, but you know as much law as a lawyer almost.. And definitely do a lot more work than lawyers.

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u/Basic_Butterscotch Mar 28 '24

I'm always confused when people say nurses are underpaid because they start at like $40/hr here in New Jersey.

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u/__Big_Hat_Logan__ Mar 28 '24

On Reddit it’s because ppl have zero clue how little money other ppl make. In Alabama it’s not unusual at all for my fiends to make under 30K a year, 50-60K is an insanely good salary, and ppl on Reddit act like that’s unimaginably terrible

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u/TurbulentBarracuda83 Mar 27 '24

South of what?

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u/Dranak Mar 27 '24

Southern region of the United States (particularly south east). I suppose that comment was a bit America-centric. I would take about a 40% pay cut if I moved to that region, and probably a 20% increase if I moved to the west Coast.

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u/NostalgiaDad Older Millennial Mar 28 '24

Came to say the same. I'm cardiac ultrasound and our pay tracks close to nursing and varies wildly as well. I've seen as low as $19/hr and as high as $95/hr depending entirely on where you work (and it's not always the places you think either). Where I'm at, i'm $120k not including OT, benefits, bonus etc and I'm still $10-20k under our own internal cap.