Migrant millennials cannot afford to be shortsighted hashtag put the bottle of Hennessey down and get something cheaper.

About 2 years a bit ago, my partner at the time and I entered the housing market, I was leaning more towards the idea of buying and he wanted to build so we compromised and we built. The refusal to build on my part was due to laziness as building would require me to be emotionally invested, having been doing it for the last 2 years, I was right. I hold no regrets though, my house is everything I want and more.

Buying property has always been the ‘thing’ to do, even back in Zimbabwe homeowners were always in a better position especially as the economy grew worse. There was a lot to understand about the Australian housing market but my interest picked when my parents bought their second house in Australia, and if I am going to be honest, a bit of relief because this meant that they would be able to fund their own retirement, because the Australian super is notoriously not enough to cover a person through retirement . My dad who worked in England for just under a decade has a substantial amount saved up but my mom who flew with us from Zimbabwe has been building hers for the last 15 years and if you are paying attention that is not enough. This is the case with most migrant families, especially ‘diaspora kids’ like me who migrated with their parents.

A lot of us are confused, with good reason, migration is hard.

I got my Australian citizenship an odd, 8–9 years ago and I have just started to feel Australian in the last 2 years, proudly owning my identity as an African Australian, whatever that means.

With a title like put the Hennessey bottle down I can hear you dear reader, cursing at me through the ether but allow me to defend my position. Most millennials reading this are not first generation, we are migrants. Migration of non-European countries into Australia is a relatively new concept in the sense that people from “non-Europe” haven’t lived more than a lifetime here, black and brown faces are just now starting to trickle into aged-care. We don't even know what retirement means for migrants from non-European countries. Secondly, migrating to Australia because the weather is nice and migrating because the economy from your home country was pushing you into abject poverty are two very different things, what I am trying to say is past migration stories do not give us an accurate representation of what to expect in the future.

You may counter and say ,well, both my parents and I have a good job and to which I would reply, fair and I would ask you about your starting point. If people who lived here before us and have the benefit of generational wealth worry about the cost of retirement doesn’t that signal a huge red signal for those of us who are new to money/wealth?

We have so many things staked against us and burying our heads in the sand and pretending like its all okay is just not a good plan. I can confidently say that 98% of my black/blak/brown friends have confidently attested that they will not be putting their parents into an aged-care home and my question is always who is going to pay for that bad boy… Our cultural norms and values do not fit the Australian economy which is built around its own Eurocentric cultural norms and values, case in point, Euro-centricity such as we live under says you can put your family in a nursing home and you are probably going to end up in care too.

Underemployment is rampant in the refugee and migrant communities because racism and also there is harrowing list (harrowing is my word of choice because I am hoping to make you understand its extensiveness) of unfavorable outcomes staked against migrants and refugees. Under employment for a lot of migrants and refugees often leads to people working more manual intensive jobs that are heavy on the body, its important we factor that in the future. I am looking at you nurses and FIFO workers.

I know I have come for your necks, its all in good intention. I am by no means doing better than anyone, I am too fumbling in the dark with my finances and I still find financial literacy hard. I have been learning bit by bit from my Instagram, podcasts and books. I learn better when I am having fun and even then financial literacy in picture form has gone down like bitter medicine. I was reflecting one day on what it means to be a migrant and I realized that not including my siblings who I am sure will do exceedingly better than me, in my lineage (my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother etc.) I am the “richest” in every way imaginable.

This is not a matter of pride on my part but a humble realisation that I am standing on the shoulders of giants , great resourceful, resilient and indomitable giants. My life is the way it is because the people before me did what they had to do and endured what they had to endure as a thank you, I owe it to them to ensure that the next generation is taken care of. This is not just my story but a story true to the migration experience.

I hope you sense my sincerity as I touch on my final point, the impact of social media on how we choose to use our money. Our path as migrants whilst not special, is unique to us, what is a good life for a migrant in the 21st century? Is it popping bottles every week, is it looking good on the gram, trips to exotic beautiful places? It’s not a rhetoric question I would actually like to know? I am not advocating for struggle by any means, but I do believe that we as collective group don't have the urgency for better and my armchair economics show me that this is going to catch up with us later in life, I hope I am wrong but if history is anything to learn from migration has never been easy, and worse migrating to become a minority. I don't know, this is something to think about and an important conversation we as a people need to have before its too late. It’s for the reason I ask my parents if their life and funeral insurance is valid, I want to know that we have covered all basis. If some white people are falling through the cracks of a system built for them what are our chances?

I am keen to have conversations about this, am I being too pessimistic? I have been called pragmatic in the past and I would like to think this is what this is ? Let me know what you think!