Well, at least millennials are saving.

According to the Spring Merrill Edge Report from Bank of America Merrill Edge, 63 percent of millennials are socking it away in the name of financial freedom: the amount of savings or income they need to live the lifestyle they want.

GenXers and boomers, on the other hand, are saving up to get out of the workplace—with 55 percent of them working toward that goal.

Younger people are apparently being driven by FOMO—or fear of missing out, with their top goals a dream job ((42 percent, compared with 23 percent of older workers) and traveling the world (37 percent, compared with 21 percent of older workers).

Millennials have also relegated marriage and parenting lower down on the priority list, with just 43 percent looking forward to wedding bells, compared with 51 percent.

Those aren’t the only things they’re focusing on. That FOMO mindset is also driving millennials to spend now on traveling (81 percent), dining out (65 percent) and exercising (55 percent). Interestingly, however, they’re still managing to save more than older generations, with 36 percent stashing more than 20 percent of their annual salary.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that everyone is doing a bang-up job of saving money; overall, 42 percent of respondents are saving less than 10 percent of their salary, and 7 percent don’t save at all.

And many lack confidence in being able to cope with “what-if” scenarios: 71 percent are not very confident they could hit financial goals in the event of a divorce (although just 5 percent are planning for the possibility), 64 percent don’t think raising a family goes hand in hand with financial success, and just 23 percent are saving for a family; and 48 percent are not very confident about achieving their goals if they outlived their significant other.

They’re apparently not all that sanguine about financial wisdom, either with 48 percent believing that financial education should be a requirement. Not a bad idea—particularly since 29 percent of respondents believe that, in the future, 401(k)s will not be the “gold standard” in retirement investing.

Instant Insights /

Millennials are saving for 'financial freedom,' not retirement

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