Why Some Millennials Just Can’t Manage Their Money

In 2008, Jackie and I arrived at our investment banking jobs on Wall Street. Fresh out of college, we were now among the top earners in our peer group. Twenty-hours-plus daily, most days of the week, working hard on pitchbooks, models and deals. We saw eye-to-eye on most things: people, what we were going to eat that night off of seamlessweb.com, and, more or less, life.

We were both so-called Millennials, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. There were a couple of big differences. One was that she thought about savings and investing her earnings. I was more basic, just thinking about spending less than I made. The day Jackie had to run out to set up her Charles Schwab Corp. account, I barely understood what she was doing. She came back with flyers and talked about Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, bond funds.