Financial advice from parents that millennials and gen Z need to give up

financialpost.com:

A new financial landscape meansyounger Canadians need to rewrite some of the old rules around money.

“Back in the day, the goal was the house with the white picket fence … and that was the sort of definition of success,” said Brenda Hiscock, certified financial planner at Objective Financial Partners Inc. “We’re in a different world now.”

From factors ranging from the skyrocketing price of real estate to relatively more expensive costs of education and raising a family, and with a radically different employment landscape, many millennials and generation Z Canadians find themselves unable or unwilling to follow their parents’ financial advice.

Hiscock has helped clients figure out their own financial goals — and not just aim for the same milestones their parents did.

For example, she has worked with clients who were considering homeownership because of their parents, but not necessarily because of what is best for them.

Ainsley Mackie, portfolio manager at Verecan Capital Management, said that people shouldn’t hold themselves to the same standards as their parents, pointing to the skyrocketing cost of housing making it much more difficult to achieve or maintain homeownership today.

In many cases, renting can be the more financially viable option. That move can free up funds for long-term investing, which can leverage young people’s long timeline to compound returns. It also might be more prudent for someone who moves around a lot or wants the freedom to travel.

Young adults are reaching key life milestones, such as having a full-time job, being financially independent, living on their own, getting married and having children, later in life than their predecessors, research, including a Pew Research Center study released