G-2007. The next generation — those who are in their 20s in 2007 — is the luckiest generation free India has ever seen. This generation can not only turn whatever it likes into an opportunity — music, acting, talking, managing, teaching, accounting, flying, anythinging— but can take risks like never before. This 9.4 per cent generation can read and analyse but can’t empathise with shortages. A generation born into the digital age of information that respects knowledge workers like never before, a generation that takes the current and growing urban prosperity for granted. So enviable.

The financial habits of the four generation reflect their working outlooks. And it is these habits that the Enviable Generation needs to become conscious of. It needs to reject the past habits as those of a bygone era. It is for this generation I tried to get a hold on definition of financial aspirations but couldn’t. So, for lack of a better definition, here go my two bits on the classification of financial aspirations.

Financial aspirations of G-1947: financial security. A family is financially secure when it is able to generate savings that are greater than its expenses, invest those savings in low risk instruments and when age comes in the way of doing productive work, can live off those savings. These savings and the returns from them are enough to get by— housing, food, clothing, healthcare, travel and maybe a little more. Typically, the house our grandfathers built and the pensions they lived on.

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