May 4 2007 8:12AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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This month's cover story in the magazine is about Generation X. That's my generation, so writing and researching it was particularly interesting for me. While it's tough to generalize about any one age group, I have to tell you the things people had to say were right on target. During every interview, I was thinking, "Yep, that's me ... or at least some of my friends."

We remodeled our house last summer, and I'm going to post my thoughts on that soon, but first I wanted to talk a little about my generation. We're a group of spenders. For better or worse, Xers are not afraid to go into debt, especially when it comes to owning a home.

The biggest difference I see is the way we buy homes. For my parents' generation, it was a pretty typical pattern: marry the guy or girl you met in high school/college, have kids, buy a house. For us, not so much. I personally followed a fairly traditional path (house before kids, but otherwise the same), but most of my friends were quite different. Most of them bought houses when they were single, then got married, and either had kids later or still haven't had them. It's created an entirely different dynamic of younger people that own homes and have lots of disposable income with no children to spend it on. So while we may not have the numbers of the boomers, we're spending a lot more when we do remodel.

You can find out more about Gen X in this month's article, available now online or in your mailbox soon.