My biggest financial nightmare…
If you’re in your 20s, a shortage of ready cash could be your biggest financial nightmare, while 30 and 40 somethings will be more worried about their mortgages and baby boomers about their retirement funds, according to a recent financial study.
man having nightmare in bed
If you’re in your 20s, a shortage of ready cash could be your biggest financial nightmare, while 30 and 40 somethings will be more worried about their mortgages and baby boomers about their retirement funds, according to a recent financial study.
The report by superannuation fund Sunsuper has found the generations are divided as much by their financial concerns as by their use of social media and musical taste.
The study, which is the second of Sunsuper’s six Wealth Index Reports for 2012, included 1,300 Australians from the Baby Boomer, Generation X and Generation Y groupings, investigating their attitudes to their finances.
Sunsuper general manager customer experience, Teifi Whatley, said in a statement that some of the results were surprising.
“The two biggest financial nightmares for Gen Ys were not having enough money to support their family (40%) and interestingly, not having enough money to buy the things they want (15%),” she said.
“Gen Xs, however, were most likely to feel their biggest financial nightmare was not being able to pay the mortgage (16%), whereas baby boomers thought not having enough money to retire on (34%) and losing their life savings (21%) was more likely to cause them bad dreams.”
Where money should be kept was also a point of division, according to the study, with Generation X preferring to invest in property (24%), while Baby Boomers went with term deposits (26%) or shares (15%), and Generation Y was more likely to keep cash in savings accounts (68%).
Ms Whatley said the greatest divide came when the generations were asked about their financial position compared to last year.
“Of all the generations, Gen Ys were more likely to think they were better off (34%) while most Gen Xs thought there was no change (41%) in their financial position,” she said.
“Interestingly, the majority of baby boomers actually feel worse off now than this time last year (43%).”
“These results indicate that this generation possibly still has a lack of confidence in financial markets and the global economy post-GFC, with 19% of baby boomers still concerned about a recession in Australia or overseas.”
