Millennials are getting older. “I would like not to go bankrupt until I retire”

— There were shadows and lights. For my mother, studies were unattainable at all, I went on Erasmus to Spain. Working in corporate, traveling the world, going to pilates classes, visiting restaurants – all this is our reality, and for our parents – it was often a total abstraction – says Agata, a forty-year-old manager from Warsaw.

Polish millennials had more opportunities than their parents. They are also very well educated – only 35%. of them decided not to take up studies, according to Deloitte data.

But their lives were often not a bed of roses, but on the contrary: professional and financial challenges that older generations simply did not experience.. They learned about the brutality of the labor market, many experienced bitter work in “junkyards”. They had to compete fiercely with each other at every step, as befits the baby boom generation.

Loans hang over many. And questions about pensions. The issue of aging and making a living during this time comes up in virtually every conversation with older millennials. However, there are 2-3 other big problems, but more on them later.

Apartments won't save the millennial?

Millennials don't expect to be able to maintain a good standard of living thanks to pensions. This belief shines through in virtually every conversation we have. And they are right. Experts warn that in old age, the pension of the generation born in the 1980s will constitute less than one third of the salary – and women are in an even worse situation than men.

Look: How much do you have to earn for your pension to amount to PLN 5,000? Specific amounts

Most of our interlocutors believe that you have to earn money to be comfortable in your old age. But how?

For several years, the prevailing belief was that apartments, i.e. “concrete gold”, were the answer. — I had a bit of déjà vu a few years ago. Just as I heard in my youth that a diploma and a language are enough to make a career, a few years ago I heard that two apartments for rent will ensure a comfortable old age – Forty-year-old Janek tells us with a slight, bitter smile.

He had no money or creditworthiness, but many of his friends followed his advice and started investing in real estate. Many of them regret it – while a few years ago people willing to rent apartments stood in queues, now there is a shortage of them. And it may get even worse in the future.

For example, a millennial born in 1985 will be 65 years old in 2050. Today he can count on two apartments to provide him with reasonable rental income. But – as forecast by the Central Statistical Office – in 2050, in the worst-case scenario, there will be only about 30 million Poles. So will a newly retired retiree find any buyers for apartments at all?

These questions appear more and more often in the minds of forty-year-olds. Experts believe that there are still “safe” apartments that should always be in demand. This applies, for example, to good locations in Warsaw, Kraków, Tricity and Wrocław. However, such apartments cost a lot.

The law in Poland is also not favorable to owners. Often, instead of counting rental profits, property owners get involved in long-term disputes with dishonest tenants who do not want to pay or leave the apartment.

If not an apartment, then what?

Millennials have another generational experience in common – they feel that historical opportunities are constantly appearing under their noses. It was possible to benefit from Poland's accession to the EU, from the great real estate boom, from subsequent technological revolutions…

– Is it on bitcoin – smiles one of our interlocutors.

A decade ago, one bitcoin was worth less than PLN 2,000. zloty. Now, despite recent declines, it is over 240,000. zloty. Some millennials have friends who took the risk and it paid off. But bitcoin was not the only one – you could build a fortune on shares of Tesla, Nvidia – or even Polish construction companies.

Millennials feel that “historical” opportunities still appear today. It may be gold, maybe shares of other companies, maybe something completely different. – This is another puzzle. Should you look for opportunities or err on the side of caution? On the one hand, at the age of 40 you don't want to take risks. On the other hand, the vision of an interesting investment that will help us settle into old age is extremely tempting. And perhaps it's worth the risk, says our interlocutor, who has recently entered the fourth decade of her life.

And he quickly adds that there is also a third side. Financial problems come one after the other after the age of forty, and a simple salary is less and less enough to cope with them.

Galloping problems

Many millennials have been parents for a long time. From the financial side, raising a child is always a challenge, but it must be admitted that in the last decade you could count on many benefits. There were numerous social programs, including 800 plus.

However, millennials who have gone through the first stages of parenthood are starting to realize that it will be more and more difficult. Today, educating a child costs a lot – especially if the parent wants to send the child first to extracurricular activities and then to study in another city (not to mention studies in another country). In practice, more and more young parents are wondering whether to save for retirement or for their child's education.

According to the Center Adam Smith estimated the cost of raising one child from birth to adulthood is approximately PLN 358,400 (data from the report published in 2025). That's average approx. PLN 1,659 per month.

And more and more often there is another problem – old age. Not her own yet, but her parents'. The costs of space in nursing homes, for example, have skyrocketed in recent years. A few years ago, a parent's pension with a slight supplement was often enough. Nowadays, it is increasingly difficult to find a nursing home priced below PLN 5,000. monthly. And often the fees are much higher and even exceed PLN 10,000. zloty.

Of course, there are many more financial problems of millennials. Older generations entered the labor market around 2008, i.e. the great financial crisis. Even though its symptoms were quite mild in Poland, it resulted in a poor situation on the labor market and great uncertainty. And here many people in their forties may have a feeling of déjà vu. Because the ongoing AI revolution means that many professions are simply being replaced by algorithms.

— I'm a bit afraid that my skills will be the same as my colleagues' European studies diplomas. It seemed so forward-looking, and suddenly it turned out that no one needed these skills – smiles one of our interlocutors, an accountant from a large corporation from Warsaw. Our interlocutor wonders whether his job will be wiped out by the AI ​​revolution – and what he will do next.

The labor market – after the “fat” years – may soon again be an arena of brutal struggle for survival. Experts rather believe that we are not at risk of huge unemployment like two decades ago. But today, losing a job may be more painful than back then, because life on the Vistula River has simply become extremely expensive.

Rent and everyday shopping alone cost a lot, but the real problems start when you get sick. Millennials are slowly getting older and are becoming more and more frequent clients of doctor's offices. On the one hand, they see that they cannot always rely on the National Health Fund – but they are also watching with horror how more expensive visits to doctors are. The Central Statistical Office reports that last year the prices of services in the “health” category were 4.7 percent higher. more expensive than in 2024 But the prices of dental services have already increased by almost 9%.

Newly turned 40-year-olds look at these numbers and shake their heads. Some people talk about a “painful collision with reality.” One of our interlocutors added half-jokingly, half-seriously that he “would like not to go bankrupt until retirement.”

Meanwhile, the opportunities for easy money are shrinking. Older millennials remember that there used to be a simple solution to financial problems. It was enough to go out of the West for a while, work in a factory or farm asparagus – and that was usually enough to deal with sudden problems with bills. Today it doesn't work like that anymore – life in Poland has become too expensive, and millennials often do not have enough strength to work so intensively physically.

So they can only keep their fingers crossed for investments – or look for new “gold” – not necessarily the concrete one. Or maybe it's better to try to start your own business? Most of our interlocutors admit that they have thought about it – or even tried it. However, last year's research by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development shows that only 3 percent. Poles want to start a company within the next three years.

This was also the lowest rate among the 51 countries surveyed. PARP's analysis showed that rising costs and inflation discourage Poles from starting a business rather than motivating them to do so. Although, of course, the growing financial problems of forty-year-olds may quickly revise this approach.

Author: Mateusz Madejski, journalist of Business Insider Polska