They have a reputation as a spendthrift generation, but millennials are actually more wary about money than one might think — and many are already saving for retirement, putting them more in line with the Depression-era generation.
That's according to a study from TD Ameritrade, which found in its "Millennials and Money Survey" that 72 percent of millennials are already saving for retirement. And even if they don't feel financially secure now — as 85 percent of them say — they expect to get there in the future.
And 77 percent said they're more likely to stash an extra $1,000 in a savings account than invest it in the stock market, making them more like the Silent Generation than baby boomers or Gen Xers. In fact, 80 percent have a budget and 51 percent have an emergency fund.
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But that doesn't mean they expect to retire early — or, for some, retire at all. Twenty-three percent of millennials said they don't expect ever to retire, while 15 percent said they don't want to fully retire and more than half said they plan to retire later than they really want to, so that they can make their retirement savings last longer.
Not all millennials feel that way, of course; 17 percent said that spending now to enjoy themselves is worth more than saving to spend in the future, and 17 percent said they might as well spend more and enjoy it while they're young and can enjoy it, catching up on saving later in life. And 28 percent of millennials who characterize themselves as spenders rather than savers don't save anything for retirement in a typical month.
Millennials who save have some additional goals for their money, aside from accruing retirement funds. And at the top of the list? Fifty-one percent said an emergency fund; 45 percent, a vacation; and 26 percent, a down payment on a home.
You can tell they're children of an era of financial upheaval; 61 percent of millennials say that saving money makes them happy, and a whopping 81 percent of those say it makes them happy because it makes them feel secure.
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