Rachael Gambino and Garrett Mazzeo planned their financial life by the book: They went to college, paid down debt, saved aggressively, got married, bought a house, started a family. The dream.
But sitting at the kitchen table of their suburban Pennsylvania home — an asset they feel both lucky to own and also somewhat trapped by — they say they wouldn’t do it all over again quite the same way.
For their nine-month-old son, Miles, Rachael and Garrett agree: They’re not going to push him to pursue the same path.
“I think a lot of Millennials were forced into saying, ‘you need a four-year degree in order to be successful,’” says Rachael, who is 33. “At 18, you’re signing up to be $100,000 in debt before you even really know how to make the best decisions for yourself. I think we need to change that narrative.”
But the couple still feels like they’re on a knife’s edge. Their day-to-day lives are dictated by a spreadsheet where Garrett, 35, meticulously manages every dollar coming in and out.
“This is the American Dream,” Rachael says. “But at what cost? What are we paying for the American Dream now?”
Twenty-five years ago others would laugh and call us names for calling US citizens “wage slaves.”
Who is laughing now? Only the wealthy.
God damn it sucks so hard to be right, and even harder to be right in the midst of a wave of stupidity that is ignoring you just trying to get people to pay attention before things got markedly worse.
It’s like being a Cassandra (of the Greek myth) and knowing what is coming but being powerless to stop it.