Why Millennials & Gen Z Feel Broke: Cost of Living, Side Hustles & Reality

Everyone is working…

…but somehow, everyone still feels broke.

In this episode of Between Sets, we break down why so many young people feel like they’re constantly behind financially — even when they’re doing everything “right.”

We talk about:

• The rising cost of living and why money doesn’t go as far anymore
• Why having multiple income streams is becoming the norm
• The pressure of side hustles and entrepreneurship
• How social media creates a distorted view of wealth and success
• Why working harder doesn’t always translate to getting ahead
• The reality of building a career in fitness, content, and creative industries

This is a real conversation about money, lifestyle, and expectations — recorded between sets — from people actually living it.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right but still not getting ahead… this one will hit.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We back. We back in black. My name's Shaq. Are we? I'm yeah, I guess I'm kind of wearing like black shades, I guess. Um okay. So today's topic, we're gonna talk about why young people I think it's just not even young, but just generally nowadays, feel broke even when they work hard. Facts. Facts. Okay, I'm gonna start as said. Yeah, I'll I'll start uh I'll start chipping away for sure. Um I totally feel this. I think a part of it is you know, there's a lot of factors. Cost of living, um just that one. That's it. Yeah, like a lot of factors, it's the cost of living. Yeah, honestly, shit is just so expensive, man. Um I think there's also like societal expectations that cause you to like spend more money as well. Well, it keeping up to date with the latest phones, latest, I don't know, vehicles. Maybe that's not a big for some people. Fashion, clothes. There's just so many things. But the the main thing it comes down to is how much money you're pulling in, how much money you're making. And obviously, as that increases, you it starts off at the at its lowest point when you're young, right? Yeah. And you have to pick the career you want to be in. Depends if you decide to go the old nine to five, depends if you decide to go the entrepreneurial route. And based on that path you pick, you then kind of get set on the you kind of get given a direction that you're gonna go. Yeah, and you start earning a living. But the thing is, is as your living, or sorry, as your income changes and increases, so does your lifestyle habits, right? It's crazy. Uh it happens like without you even knowing, realizing. Like, I I we talked about this you and me randomly, just like in conversation, when you told me to get that uh app monarch, shout out monarch, sponsor us. Uh it's like the you know budgeting and thing app. Yep. And then I was able to look at the like the last couple years, and it's just like income goes up. So does the spending. It's like neck and neck. Yeah. And you don't really feel like you're doing anything in addition. This is I think it's like when you have a little bit more money, you feel a little less, I don't know, weird about spending money. You know what I mean? Like you'll buy little things frivolously without being like, oh, 50 bucks? Yeah. You're just like, yeah, whatever. Uber eats. I made 10k this month. Exactly. Like you're just like brushing it off, and then you like when you take a step back and you look and you're like, and then that's why probably people even have decent incomes, yeah, are like, why the fuck? I'm making $200,000 a year. Yeah, but I feel like I'm living maybe not paycheck to paycheck, but I feel like I should have more money. This is a way better angle, yeah. Saved, invested, all that stuff. And like we said earlier, it doesn't help that the cost of living has absolutely f skyrocketed. I think that's the main thing, especially over here. I I think it's in overall, in general, wherever you are, but depending on the country that you're in, you know, taxes vary from country to country, so that's a big big factor. But like just basic necessities, groceries, gas, like that varies everywhere. So depending what country you're in, dude. Especially over here, we feel it big time. Like, gas is crazy, it's crazy, especially now with current events. Don't want to get flat. Like, go to the grocery store and you're like, Oh, I'll just get myself some strawberries and they're like $18.99 and it's like six strawberries. I'll go like don't just like screw it. I shop at Farm Boy now because you might as well get good. You might as well, yeah. Yeah, I'm just gonna go 20s. But um, what I was gonna say was all right, just on top of that, the grocery stuff, dude. You get like six items under bucks right there. It's crazy. You buy a head of lettuce, some fruits, uh meat, you get some protein, some ground beef, a little maybe like a thing of milk, some eggs, $80. Yeah, I get so frustrated when like you know, something happens, and I'll I'll be like, oh shit, I just need to grab something quick from the growth, and I'll run down five minutes away, and it's like three items, and it's $58.95. Yeah. And I'm like, what? I got toilet paper and baking soda and a bag of chips. Yeah. And it's $70. Like, wait, what? What the fuck? And it's crazy because I'm gonna use an example of when I was in in Poland, which is one of the countries I think economically is doing really well right now because they're they're also not part of the the they don't have the Euros these days. I am I am biased to be fair. But like, dude, I remember going there and one of my first days at the Airbnb, went to the grocery store, bought enough Airbnb for my entire family, plus one. It was six of us. Wait, sorry, say that sentence again. You bought enough Airbnb for no uh we were at an Airbnb. Sorry, I fucked that up. We went to the grocery store, we bought groceries for the Airbnb. There you go. To like fill the fridge. I thought you meant like you paid for the Airbnb. Everybody got Airbnb. In Poland, it's free. That's so funny. I don't know. Anyway, shut up. Uh so I went to the grocery store, dude. It was 130 zlota, which is like their currency. Divide that by 130 sluts? Yes. I think it's like almost like 30 zlotas, like one dollar Canadian. That's amazing. So it would cost me 40 bucks Canadian to feed six people for five days. Like the the ratio is not correct, bro. I was like, and it's and the food is good because it's like the grocery stores, it's not like farm grocery store. It's not a chain, farm to table. It's like, yeah, it's like people are like, I would go hold on beets in the backyard. One second. They're like, go get the fucking beets from the backyard and give them to you right there. And it's like, dude, the food was amazing. I remember going for breakfast, huge breakfast, salad, eggs, sausage, bread, coffee, whatever. Six dollars Canadian. And I'm like, this is nuts. And then you come back here, but I think that's you know, wonder less in a way, and like that FOMO of like being another country and coming back home. Kind of home, I go to the gross, I go to Timmy's and get a wrap that's like barely put together, yeah, synthetic, probably like disgusting. Yeah, $12.99. Like, what? Crazy. And I'm not not saying I'm not blaming Canada specifically. I am well, I mean, there's some a lot of shit wrong, you know. Yes, a lot of shit wrong in our yeah, cost of living, groceries. It's it's it's absurd, man. I'm like, go ahead if you want to say something in here. I'm kind of rambling. Well, I really enjoyed you rambling. Like that, that was fantastic. No, actually made a lot of sense. But going back to our first part, like we already kind of touched on, we've been talking about the cost of living, but I want to talk about a little bit more of like the specifics about it, right? Why we are the way we are, like, at least from our affinity. We're not like financial experts or anything, and we're not really like uh economic. A question for you, and I want to see, I was thinking about this for this topic, but when you were younger, let's say, I don't know, in your teens, in your brain, when you're thinking about the future, how much money do you think you'd have to make to be like, I'm gonna be set, like amazing? For me, it was a hundred grand. Yeah, I'm like, if I make a hundred thousand dollars a year, yeah, I'm pilly rich. Like, I'm gonna buy a mansion, I'm gonna like have three cars, gaming, beautiful gaming stuff, very important, you know, stuff like that. Now it's like I make that and a little let's say, and then some, and I'm just like, ooh, do I want to buy this four dollar, like, you know, whatever item? Because it might break. Or do I want to feed my family? Like, it's crazy, dude. Like, I blows my mind that my parents raising a whole family on one income. Yeah, no, maybe 60 grand a year. Impossible these days, maybe 60 grand a year house, two cars. So I think that's it's good that you said that number. I'm pretty sure a hundred is the new 60, which is insane, yeah. Um, but you also have to take into account we talk, we've been pretty much talking about the cost of living, and like depending on where you are, it gets worse than other places. 100%, which is kind of, I guess at this point in our lives, it it's a really important decision to like make to decide where you want to establish roots. Like, do you want to continue living here? Do you want to move elsewhere? Yeah, so I want to get like a cut on all these expenses. Yeah, it's a huge decision because over here it doesn't really seem that sustainable. You need to be making a shit ton of money, like a disproportionate amount of money to survive here. I just don't want to work, yeah. And and I already do that anyway. Like, I just don't want to work. The answer isn't just work harder. Yeah, like when you talk to a boomer, they're like, ah, you're generation, you don't know how to work, you guys don't know how to work. You worked a nine to five for 45 years, then you got home and you just you shut off, drank beer, did it all over again. At 5 a.m., I'll work eight or ten hours, then I do something else and do F-45, and I'll do this, and I'll try to make money here. And it's like I'm working on the weekends, working on the weekends, it's like non-stop. And don't get me wrong, not to say that I don't enjoy it. I absolutely love it. If I didn't like what I did, I would probably be dead. Like we'd jump off a bridge right now. You know what I mean? Working that much, but there's that's a reality for a lot of people where they work 40 hours a week, then they work at the weekends 100%, and then they have to make extra income, maybe they do Uber or whatever, bro. And it's like go ahead. All sorry, it's all this time, and they're still only making 60, 70k, and it's still not enough. Yeah. And then then that leads into health and fitness because they're not eating, they're not sleeping, they have no time for extra. You have no time for yourself because you're you're trying to survive to provide you for your family. It's a is this an is this a topic or is this just us venting?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

No, I'm not I'm not getting I'm getting worked up, dude. Because it's like I see it all around me. It's like sad.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

The daily thing. And it's like I yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Groceries, rent, gas, uh basic lifestyle necessities, all these things. I think it's like what I wanted to say was your income has scaled, but the expenses have scaled well past your income and with it. So like it's disproportionate in that way. So that's why you always feel behind, and why there's no you the younger generations feel like they don't have any cash and why our debt keeps rising is because we can't keep up with the amount of expenses that are coming, at least that's in my opinion. I 100% agree. Um, and then we uh we always joke about this. Probably the last thing about this segment at the beginning is when you go out, like you're you're gonna go meet friends or you're gonna go out to the bar or whatever, you're gonna have a good time. You uh the second you sleep at the door, negative $200 immediately. Breathing air costs money. Yeah, dude, it's crazy. Good you shouldn't have you shouldn't feel strained to go out and have a good time with your friends once a month. And you know what the worst do, right? And that causes you to stay indoors. It's just like you get depressed. Even indoors, bro, you call Uber Eat and you just run a hundred dollars. I'm so I'm so overbreated, terrible. I canceled my Uber one finally. One thing I just wanted to add to that that uh crossed my mind, like talking about constantly spending, is uh, you know that you you've had this, I'm sure. We always complain about it ourselves. But it's like, you know, when you have those good months, everything lines up, expenses are good. You look at the bank account, you're like, oh my god, like I have more money than I want. I paid 10 G's of my dad. He's good. Or like you're you know, you have a certain amount of money and you're happy and you're like, I'm kind of comfortable, I'm okay. Next morning, the $10,000 worth of issues like hits you out of nowhere. Yeah. Like in this case for me, it's like wedding planning, as you've obviously know you've been to. You also moved. That was your own. I also moved, yeah. So it's like last month, I moved first and last deposit for a bunch of wedding stuff, and it's like overnight just liquidated half my freaking savings. You know what I mean? It's it's insane. And then that goes into the loop of now I have to, after this break that I'm on right now, taking March break off. Um, I'm gonna have to fucking work my ass off like crazy to bring myself to level only to go through the process equilibrium all over again. Yeah, it's not the first time it's happened. As soon as I make that money back, it's gonna be right in time for my next wedding payment, my second set of deposits for all this stuff. PTSD for me. Dude, it's crazy. It's crazy. Weddings are like the worst thing that you can do from a financial way to ruin yourself. That this is the way to still want to do it though. Just want to make that very clear. This is the way to justify it though. You're never gonna have all those people in the same room again. Well, hopefully not. I meant it in a good way. I know, I know, I know what you mean. Yeah, well, yeah, so like we get the basic gist of like how life, the lifestyle. Yeah, we're talking about cost of living, yep. If you want to get a little more into like oh shit, bro. I just saved your fucking life. What the heck? I completely replay that in slow-mo. I grabbed both little plates and like slid them back. Sorry, I completely missed. I don't know how. Is this your first time? Yeah, I have, yeah, it is. Dude, I don't know. If I wasn't Spider-Man, who knows what would have happened? You know what's funny? I was thinking about putting clips on it too. And I'm like, now we don't even. I think you need clips on there. I don't, but you do. Housing affordability. Oh, that's cool. Yes. No, it's time to. This is our uh this is our government pitch right here. We're gonna run for office. I'd be sick. Everyone has to work on minimum three days a week, or you pay a tax. Lazy bitch tax. Yeah, lazy bitch tax. So uh so house housing feels out of reach. So we kind of touched on this with the boomers, and I was saying, like, bro, this you know, people are you parents bought a house bought a fucking big ass house for like 200k? Yeah, like it's insane. My parents bought a house. My parents bought their house for like 200k. It's worth what 1.2, 1.3 mil. It's crazy. It's insane, has no business being worth that much. No, and did you ever see that uh there's a guy on YouTube, he does these skits like reels or shorts, where it's like house in Toronto or literal castle in Ireland, yeah, and it's like house in Toronto and like Scarborough 3.6 mil, the walls are burnt, like breaking in. He's like, and then he's like, or you can buy this island off the coast of Honolulu for three million dollars with your own power and water supply and staff. And I'm just like, that's insane. You can buy a literal castle in Sweden from more than a house down the street. Yeah, a 30-bedroom property. I feel like we resonate with this so much just because of where we are in our lives, yeah. Because that's kind of where we are, right? Like you just said I just moved and I'm renting, and you talked about settling down with the roots and stuff. That's why we haven't ideally you would have wanted to purchase that, right? But I don't want to be impossible. It's impossible, instability. I don't know if I want to live here with the way things are going, you know. And like I'd say, you know, compared to most, compared to most people, not everyone works as hard or has this kind of like conscient conscious, conscientious behavior of like I need to keep entrepreneurial, I need to keep leveling up, I need to keep doing better, I need to like try my best to provide for my family and make as much as I can. But even still at certain points you feel like inadequate, right? All of it, which is crazy, and it's like you work hard in order to, you know, provide for your family, get to that next step, hopefully buy a place that you can establish roots, yeah. You know, probably like make a family of your own and whatnot and build that like stability. But I don't really think that's a really feasible feasible thing these days because everything is so unaffordable or inaffordable, you know, especially when it comes to housing here. Like I I own a condo, yeah, with my wife, but it's a fucking shoebox, bro. Like the amount that you put to towards that condo back in the day in our parents' time would have purchased like a fucking huge mansion, dude. Well, you know what, that condo will be worth 10 mil in a couple years. This shit is turning into like Hong Kong. It's like when I see them, all the construction that happens here, and we have like 80, they're building like nine high-rises here in this area. Yeah, who's gonna live there? No, they're like a million dollars each. That's the thing, it's gonna be just a renter's market. No one is gonna have the capability to purchase. That's why we're like, we need to buy something before a big it gets too late, so we can build equity and whatnot, right? Damn, that's some World Economic Forum stuff, man. You're gonna not own anything and be happy about it, as they say. There's probably honestly, there's people who pay with that into the conspiracy, yeah. The lazy people. Oh, buddy, we gotta do a conspiracy episode. We could talk like 16 hours. This is probably where we're gonna blow up. Yeah, I'm gonna be an Alex Jones guy. Be like, they're eating fanny bees.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah, they're eating babies and there are reptiles gay.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, the water's making the frogs gay. Hey man, conspiracy are on a generational run right now. I lost my train of thought. I had something really, really important to say. Let's do one more set. I feel like we've done like five last time. Yeah, but yeah, so like all that shit, you work so hard, you're so tired, you might be you're not even sleeping at as well as you should, and you're staying in shape, like you're doing all the things that you still end up feeling like anxious, frustrated, kind of inadequate because you're not getting to like that next step. Yeah, and it's like a constant start. It's a circle, bro. It's a circle, it's a circle, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Totally, man. I'm gonna keep touching on the housing stuff here. I think we're done. Yeah, next up. Is it a work ethic problem or a system problem? Yeah, come on now. I think I mean some people maybe lack the work ethic, sure, but I think predominantly it's an issue, a government issue. Yeah, like you know, if you if you level up, there's it's a little bit of both, but you know which one's the majority, right? We'll let the audience figure that out. We know that it's it's the government, but but uh like they're about to pass a bill where we can get go to jail for saying that, so careful. I didn't say anything, I don't speak English. I don't know this. Um that's my last set. Okay, I'm gonna change it up. You did you do four already? Yeah, I think we both did four. I'm good. Uh I gotta do one more round of the shoulders. But uh what I was gonna say was like if you I'll do another shoulder. Make more money, legally I'll do it. You should be allowed to kind of like yeah, more freedoms and also like kind of spoil yourself just a little bit quickly, right? But now more than ever, you have to be of the mentality that if you make more money, you need to spend as little as you can in order to get ahead. And I'm unfortunately like not willingly, but like it's happened, I'm sure it's happened to you as well, where like that wasn't really possible based on like your life decision, yeah, yeah, yeah. Travel on my end, stuff like that. I just bought a new gaming PC. So can't eat anything for the next like two months. So, like, like financially literate, people would be like, Yeah, to some extent, you're right, like things are more expensive, but it's like maybe budget better, about much better. Why don't you get better from that respect? So there is a flip side to the coin for sure, but yeah, like leveling up should give you a little bit extra freedom in some sense, right? Having a budget is important. I have a general kind of sense of what I spend, like I'm pretty good with that, but the whole point of making more money is yeah, so you can enjoy a little bit of freedom, so you don't have to meticulously live by a budget, use it as a guideline. Well, it's the the people that are the wealthiest stick by that like to a religious, yeah. Well, that's why mariners get an accountant. So we're gonna talk now about the rise of side hustles. Oh harm, everybody and their mom. That's my shit. Yeah, with uh see the side hustle master. Everyone has something else on the side. Should we go to machines? Yeah, let's do are we gonna stick with the shoulders vibe today? Shoulders and tries and do an incline incline chest press. Smith? Machine. Oh, the machine. Okay, yeah, we'll see that. Yeah, we'll see though. So anyway, yeah, someone's using it for pulling. Whatever. Uh right there, the incline one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't we do incline flies, maybe? I can do some flies. Yeah. Incline flies and then skull crushers on the bench next to it. Watch, I'm gonna put this here, someone's gonna start doing abs. It's almost guaranteed. Nice. So we're talking about side hustles. You can lead the way here. This is your jam. I've been doing this since I graduated university. They call me Vic side hustle. I'm an escu. Well, the whole reason of the side hustle thing is it's a culture for you to get ahead, right? Because your your main source of income is not providing you with enough. So you're like, okay, I'm gonna do some shit on my off hours. I'm gonna sell shit on marketplace, I'm gonna do stuff on the weekend, maybe get a second job part time, or use a skill of yours that is highly sought after that you can monetize. So social media, some shit like that. If you're a dietitian and you work in finance, you could spend your off hours building a PDF or whatever to sell online for teaching people how to eat healthier or whatnot. This is just some spit. Yeah, you're just like but it's like you're using your skills that you have outside of your work life that you're passionate about that you can also monetize as well. That's kind of how I look at it. Like for me, hello, thought at the aging, huh? We're podcasting. The move was great. Thank you. We have to restart now. Thank you. An hour goes 40 minutes, 40 minutes, and we have to restart now. Guess why young people feel broke. Why we can't afford anything nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Or if he's like, you guys need to work harder.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

You freaking boo. You buy worse. You boo. Guess what you're gonna be listening to the episode. Yeah. Nice to see you, my dear. Um, but yeah, I think also there's two routes to the side hustle thing. Three, I think. Well, two kind of. I think the first one is people who do it out of necessity because they can't afford anything, so they need that extra income. And there's people who do it maybe some necessity, but also because they have the entrepreneurial mindset. Which it ends up, I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to the necessity because you're making more money, so you have more financial freedom. Right? But I think a lot of people, I think it used to be like that, where it's like back in the day, people who were doing a lot of side hustles was more like someone who's very entrepreneurial. Well, I'll see what I can do. You should get a check in the mail. One penny. It's best I can do best I can do. Yeah, we're getting a lot of uh people dropping in on today. Uh yeah, we're gonna have to just change it to couch sessions. Yeah. We don't even work out really. No, we're getting I'm getting a pump. I'm gonna do triceps or uh skull crusher here. Um, what I was saying is I think before it used to be people that had side hustles is rarer. It was like people who are, like you said, very entrepreneurial. Maybe they wanted to save money for something special. Yeah. Now it's I think more necessity than it is thing. Like you need it. And I think also, I think we're gonna touch on this later, is social media has a big role because the hustle culture is so big. Like, it's like, what going from my five to nine to my or my nine to five to my five to nine, or that one guy who's like, oh, you only have 24 hours is like I wake up at midnight, then to 6 a.m., I've already done 24 hours a day. Then 6 a.m. My dude split into three days. Like I've actually had three days by the time you've had one day and I might go to the house. Like, bro, but what do you mean? I divide my 24 hours into three. So I've had obviously a ridiculous example, but like definitely So instead of seven days a week, I'm 21. 21, yeah. Like, I think that stuff's ridiculous. But yeah, I think uh there's definitely been a huge increase in P almost everybody I know to some extent does something else other than their main job to some capacity. Like whether it's social media, like you said, some of it is like beyond your will or willingness to do so. Yeah, it's actually kind of uh a a gift when it ends up lining up as something you enjoy. You already like doing, yeah. Because sometimes it could be something that you really hate, but you do it anyways. Well, like let's you work the night shift as like a security garbage. Or you do Uber Eats or Uber because it's easy and like you can make a couple extra bucks. Uber eats. Do you like doing it? Probably not. Like same with Uber, like rideshare, all that stuff. Yeah. But they do it to support their families, right? To that end, it is nice in a way that there is a lot of options out there for someone who's, for lack of a better word, unskilled in something specific. Yeah, you you have something to fall back on. Yeah, you have something to do, right? Like, hey, can you drive? Perfect. You can make some extra money doing Uber. It just sucks that nowadays it's it's the norm, it's not like an exception. Everybody, oh yeah, in a way, has to be making extra money or they're gonna fall behind, right? It's a crazy, crazy time. Are you doing it like this? Where you step up a little bit? Yeah, I'm going like behind a little bit, yeah. Nice stretch. I might go a little heavier on that one. I do higher reps as well. And going back quickly to that social media shit you just said. Yeah, I mean, we can move into that now. Um, like it's almost kind of expected of you, or there's like a whole niche on IG and TikTok and all the medias. Yeah. Where like hustling is applauded. Like yeah, it's like, oh wow. Who are you if you're not hustling, right? Yeah, like why aren't you doing everything with your life? Yeah. Uh if you're just doing your nine to five and then doing nothing else, you're kind of like like a loser kind of thing. You just like, well, but what about my free time? You know, I was gonna say, then it comes down to a work life as well. It's non-existent, yeah. There's that brings me to the idea. There is this uh pretty interesting post online about um an American company with an American boss that was overseeing people in Holland in Amsterdam specifically. And the boss was like, Yo, I keep seeing you logging out right at 5 p.m. Yeah, I need you to like you know, show a little bit more company culture. Yeah, it's like essentially telling him that he needs to work longer for the team because he has to show his investment into the team and work off hours. Yeah, and the guy's like, Well, it wasn't Sweden. Yeah, I'm telling the story. Yeah, I'm just used to Holland and sex. Oh, it wasn't Amsterdam. Was it? That was Sweden, okay. My bad. Um, with all due respect, at 5 p.m. onwards, that's my personal time, and I have things to do, and I have a life. And then the boss clapped back and was like, Okay, I'm gonna bring this up to HR and you're gonna be like penalized essentially. Yeah, and then he and then the dude from Amsterdam brought it up to the the Holland or Dutch or Swedish or HR person, and the HR person was like, Don't worry, you won't hear from this boss ever again, and then the whole thing stopped. Well, if I remember correctly, it's he ended up going to like the labor board in the country, and it's illegal. Yeah, like it's actually illegal. Yeah, you start work at nine or ten and you finish at five, and that's it. Yeah, but nowadays you're expected to like because of our phones be available literally all day, any day. Exactly. Bro, I get texts all the time from Lord. I know I'm trying to. It's really heavy. I get messages all the time at all hours of the day. I mean, I'm self-employed, so I guess that's different, but still. No, it's the same shit, bro. I'm gonna have to wait for you to finish. Like, I'm off to finish. I'm off this week, and I had to tell everybody not to message me, and people still message me. Like literally day one. They're like, hey, I have a question. I'm like, can you write me alone? Can you refer to my notes that I'm just like really, really trying to chill unless it's an absolute emergency? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, anyway. What next? So that was uh we're touching on the side hustles. Yeah, man. I have like four side hustles on the go right now. Why everything feels worse than it did before in terms of like money and stuff, and it's the social media effect, so that's what we're gonna kind of touch on now. It's like what you're seeing with the hustle culture, but like seeing everyone's highlight reel on like luxury lifestyle. You know, you'll open your every your friends in Miami again for the fucking eighth time this year, and you're like, how? How is he doing that? He's not that guy must be high side hustling hard. Oh, he definitely goes 45 and 50, and it still doesn't matter. Yeah, 45 or 50 on the flies. Yeah, I'm done. Um he's going, he's going that often because life is so much better there. I think damn, that's crazy. I think uh social media obviously plays a massive role, aside from the side hustle culture aspect, just like you said, making everyone feel left behind or like you're behind in life. And what's that saying? Comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah, and that is literally so true, man. I had sometimes I have to remind myself that when I like see some shit online. I'm gonna be like, yo, people are thinking this about me too. That's a good way to think about it, right? Because sometimes I'll look at something and be like, man, I'm really not doing enough. Or I'm like, why does my physique not look like this, even though I've been training for 20 years? And we're like in a high percentage of like people that work out. I know, it's it's delusion, yeah, but it's comparison, right? Or even like lifestyle, you see like people living in big houses, nice cars, and you're like, I know what that person does. How are they affording that? You know what I mean? Like just dumb shit like that. There's always something that someone doesn't have that they wish they had. Yeah, for example, you remember when we were at Electric Island and that dude came up to us in the crowd and he asked us if we're if we both have a partner that we trust, and that I was like, Yeah, it's my wife, she's right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, See, I have everything except that. And he was like I was hammered, and he was like so emotional. He was devastated. I mean he's like, I'm for in my he's like, I make so much money. I don't need to work anymore, like I'm good for money. I remember but like I don't know if and when I'm gonna find that piece, and that is the most important piece. I got that shit. So you got that guy's uh number too. You did. He's like, we're gonna start a business together. I'm like, I bet. And then you're gonna message him. He's like, I'm gonna invest in you guys. Why don't we try? I forgot his name. I had to go really far back in the in the text. You're like, hey, yo, remember what those are the best. Hey, when you meet a random stranger at like a festival or a party, you're like, we gotta start a business together. You get their number, and then you wake up the next morning and you're like, What the fuck was I doing? I'm never talking to this person again. But maybe one day, you never know. It may lead it's networking. We do it for networking. Totally, yeah. Yeah, man. Definitely social media has a a massive, massive effect. It's kind of crazy too. Like, we're well, you know, developed adults, physically, mentally, maybe not, but like physically. And it's like, but like, bro, so funny. We're complaining about this now, right? What's it gonna be like for people who are 14, 15, 16 right now, growing up with social media and projecting 10 years of the future when it costs literally grew up with phones in their hands at the age of two. You know what's wild? They said something like this generation, Alpha or Gen Z and Gen Alpha, are the first generation in I don't know how long that's poorer than their parents because it's always you always do better than the previous generation. It's the first time where it's less. The average age of like someone moving out is like in their 30s now, uh-huh, which is insane. We know people that are still at home. Yeah, it's insanity that, and it's that's something that's kind of you know, and it's not that they want to move out societal scale, like things are not proportionate, right? Yeah, so it's not your fault, Matt. It's not your fault, Matt. Oh my god, it's always my fault. Always, everything you do is your faults. Yeah, bro. Don't be a bitch. You know, I think I made this joke last podcast episode, but it's like that Scooby-Doo thing. When you find out the person is behind all your problems and you unmask the person, it's you. Yeah, yeah. I think about that a lot. Crazy though. I find I've been trying my hardest when I'm and when I catch myself doom scrolling to not like you know compare myself, because then it's I start to spiral. Yeah, and then I'll be like, you know what, maybe I should take on another client, and then I'll do another client on my fantastic, I'll just work 50 hours again. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I'm at capacity, and there's only so much time in the day. 100% neglecting on yours yourself, right? Uh and finally, we got one more segment and then an ending piece here. So, is it a mindset problem or reality? Everything we talked about. Are people actually broke or does it feel like it? I didn't go both ways, but I think Yeah, I think it's a mixture of both. Like you might uh you might have some money, but you still feel broke. You know what I mean? I actually was uh watching this YouTube video. This guy does this thing where he goes around as a finance guy and he asks people, you know, are you okay sharing what's in your bank account? And then we're gonna show it to the next person and they're gonna give you advice. Bro, they did it with like 10 people, and I was absolutely blown away with how many people had less than a thousand dollars to their name. Yeah, and and it wasn't like youth, it was like a guy with his kids. Yeah, and they opened his bank account, someone had like negative four thousand dollars. I'm like, what? And and I'm creaking out about maybe only having, I don't know, 10 grand a backup. You know what I mean? Like, I start freaking out when I don't have what I think is in my brain. So like the barrier. Yeah, when I drop below that barrier, I start to panic. Yeah, because I'm like, how am I gonna pay rents? How am I gonna pay this? You know what I mean? But then I see shit like that, I'm like, what? There was a really good guy too. He does like videos where he's like average income, blah blah. And then you see something like that, and you're like, it's it is a perception thing, I think, because you think you're broke. Some people, I know a lot of people might be, but then you see something and you're like 90% of people don't have $2,000 for an emergency, and then you're like, oh, maybe I'm doing in months a month, maybe or pay checking space. I'm like, maybe I'm not doing as bad as I think I am, but my perception is that I am horrible, which then leads to side hustles and like doing everything. I think hey, it's it's a fucking weird thing to beeterings. Yeah, like it's a very weird thing to balance, it's all in your head. As soon as you start feeling safe and comfortable, a big expense comes up, then you start to spiral. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, sure, you have money, but then is it enough to get through the next couple months? Yeah, something happens, you know. And you know what's crazy about this whole thing is that you're you've it's cyclical, like you've experienced this multiple times. Yeah, so the thing about money is like you know it's always gonna come back. It's gonna come back. Yeah. In theory, in principle, unless if you just shut everything down and you cut off all your income streams, you know that in the future, some way, somehow, someday, like money will come back to you. You're based on your view, based on your expertise, based on your side hustle, based on who you connect with, based on new experiences. So that maybe like even is a kind of a factor, a deciding factor on like fuck it, I'm gonna take this trip or I'm gonna do this thing. Yeah, I definitely find myself doing that as I'm young now. If maybe like you see those videos online where they interview like 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds that are kind of on their way out, and they're like, What do you regret most? And they're like not having taken that trip, not having done that thing with my friends when I when I was able to. So I think more and more people our age are sacrificing their financial stability right now in order to have those experiences because they know once they have a kid or whatever, they're just fucking locked in, you know, and they're forcefully locked in for the next 18 years, right? Completely side tangent, but the reason birth rates are so low, especially in the West can't afford no one, everybody that that I know that doesn't have a kid yet in our age group, which a lot of my friends have kids now, their main main reason isn't because they don't want to raise a kid, it's like we could where how? Yeah, that's uh another $200,000 a year. Yeah, literally. And my mom's like, Machu, when I was when I was your age, I had three boys and only one job for dead. And I'm like, Yeah, that was in 1928. Yeah, you want me to explain you inflation? Yeah, you want me to explain you lifestyle expenses? You just need to work harder. No, to an extent, yes, yeah, but also like come on, go go buy the same amount of groceries you did back then at the same price. Come back, come back to me. Well, nowadays it's like that funny you say that, because when my parents go grocery shopping, they'll say shit like that, but like, $500 is so expensive. Oh, well, cost go 20 years ago $200. Yeah, like 20 years ago, yeah. So, okay, mom, so you now do you understand? Now imagine you don't have 50 years of financial backing, yeah, and you're my age building wealth, you now have to spend all this money literally just to survive. I don't know, dude. This was a venting episode. It's crazy. Oh, I think for both of us because you know, we're we both like we fall into that kind of hustler mindset. Oh my god, I think we need to change our podcast name. What, hustler mindset? No, ha venting with Vic and Matt. Venting with Zic and Matt. VWVN. Yo, we'll make merch. Where's my I'm gonna see if that's available. If it is, we're changing the podcast. We're not working out anymore, and we're just gonna complain. Alright, last little segment here. Rapid fire hot take. Should we do let's change it up? I'm done with this tricep rope. And then maybe incline chests. What was uh what was the uh rapid fire questions? Oh, I'm just talking to myself. No, I I know I'm asking you what they were. We're explaining to the audience why the the pause. Okay, so it's rapid fire. I'll just cut it, it's fine. Oh, will you? Okay. Well, I I felt like I I was quite nice there. Rapid most people, okay. I'm gonna shoot them and then we'll just kind of talk about it. You shoot them, I'll answer. I usually shoot them. You know what? Let's do it like this. Let's do this and close gear push-ups. I'm too lazy to set this up. Okay, yeah, let's get out of here. Uh, most people don't have a money problem, they have a spending problem. Ah that's a tough one. I could see both sides to that. Yeah. But but it goes back to the like your spending increases based on the income you get and you don't even know about it, so you have to be conscious about it, you know? I think I'm still I think people also are spending nowadays more as a coping mechanism. Ooh. Just with like everything dopamine release, and yeah, dopamine, everything's instant. Like Amazon bro, I can I've ordered stuff on Amazon, it comes the same day. Dude, that's a date. Spend six bucks more, you'll get it the same day. What's it's insane? I did that yesterday. I ran out of protein, but 5 p.m. I had more protein. Drones are next. Yeah. Anyway, so I think I agree, it's both. I think people do have it the they they have they don't have money to spend, but also I think people spend more than they should because it's a culture of convenience. I think it's so easy. There's a little bit of irresponsibility going on. I think it goes both ways, definitely. Um, side hustles are becoming mandatory. I think that's we kind of touched. If you want to get ahead, I think so. Yeah, I don't think it at least here in Canada, with our cost of living. I don't think it's a good idea. Unless you're in that upper echelon of uh people that are making like 200 million plus 200 plus a year, yeah, and you can just get by, but you need to be in a high-end job, high-end tech, sales, business, finance, that type of thing to even get to that part. I I have friends that are there. And to be honest, too, man, it's still not barely. I think they say the median income household income is like 274,000 in Canada to be considered like comfortable. Yeah. 274,000. Yeah. Yeah. Quarter mil. That's insane. That's insane. I would five years ago, tiny, not even a couple years ago. I consider someone making 250. I'm like, this person's loaded. Like, that's a rich person to me. Bro, I'm cutting this out, but me and B are like 240. You know how much debt I'm in. Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah, you can clear it out. I think me and C are maybe at like 200 total and still not enough. Not enough. It's crazy. Alright, next one is. So you know, Clyde on his own? I think is that insane number. That's insane. We'll have to cut this whole part.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Okay, next topic, so you know when to cut it. Uh so next topic is uh sorry, next hot take is working harder doesn't guarantee getting ahead anymore. 100%. No. That's what we just talked about the whole episode. Yeah. You want to put more on? 25. Okay. Um, yeah, no, it's it's disproportionate. Like you, you, your output could be through the roof. Yeah, you could be working maximum efficiency and everything, and you could still not be making an you you could be making close to enough, but it's still not enough to support your your needs, especially even just basic lifestyle. If you have a family, it's even harder, right? Because you have more mouths to feed. Taking care of my dog is hard. Vet bills, or Jesus Christ. It's crazy. That was but that is a hundred percent a personal decision, right? Yeah, well, you have to when you get a pay, you have to accept that that's part of the yeah, the lifestyle. So social media makes everyone feel broke. I think so, to some extent. Yeah, because we'd like we said, the highlight reel. Yeah, you're seeing everyone. Everyone's living A better life. It's dude on IG, unless if you're being real about your life and you're like posting the bad shit too, you're only gonna be sharing like the highlights of your life, right? Yeah, no one's posting back. Looking from an outsider's perspective, you're gonna be like, what the hell? Why don't I have that? And it's just yeah, and like how is this person doing all this? I never see them work. Yeah. And I think that's why a lot of people have developed some form of I don't know what the correct terminology is, but like some form of issue where they're always comparing to other people, yeah, and it causes them anxiety, depression, frustration. Yeah. Because they're and they're suddenly like, why why can't I do that? Why am I not like that? And then you just get locked in like a prison of like you're looping and yeah, your thoughts, then you stop and you feel better, and then you open Instagram again or TikTok. Yeah, it's crazy. Alright, buddy, we got what's the takeaway? So the outro is you know, what would you say would help young people feel less broke? Better financial education, realistic expectations, living below your means. I think that's I think that's the main thing, yeah. You and it's unfortunate, but you you gotta do that in order to get ahead. You have to purposely think about being frugal. Yeah. Which I don't think was like that big of a thing back in the past, because there was stability as your income grew, you had a sense of stability and you didn't need to think like that. Yeah, there's always like let's say both our families were immigrants, right? So there was always that like mindset and mentality to you know not spend, but I think now more than ever, you have to make that a priority in order to get ahead. But it becomes so hard because everything you see, yeah, and you feel left behind, and it's like, how can I be frugal, but I need to buy this? And there's things that you need to need to buy. Yeah, a lot of it is just wants, yeah. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's uh it's a tough one out there, guys. Be smart with your money, download Monarch. Not not sponsored, by the way. It is a good app. Yeah, like essentially the more you make the more cognizant of like spending you have to be. Yeah, there's tools to help you, you know, plan budget, and you know, yeah, maybe you have to get a side hustle. I think I think the real answer is you just need to move to yeah. That's that's the real answer. Doesn't that require money though? Linda here we are again. Back to the loop, back to square one. Yo, the matrix was a documentary, literally. All right, guys, see you in the next one.