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V O L . X X I V N O. X M AY 1 4 , 2 0 1 8 18 F or millennial investors like Ben Lake, financial education starts at home. e 33-year-old from Minnesota started investing at age 15, when his grandmother began sharing stock tips and enlisted one of her advis- ers to help him set up a small invest- ment fund. Lake, now with the Greater Portland Council of Governments, also credits his parents with teaching him about the importance of balancing spending with what he earns. "All of that together made me much more aware of the value of saving," says Lake, who taps the advice of a large investing and brokerage firm and sub- scribes to Kiplinger's Personal Finance. As his generation moves into its prime earnings years, he's the kind of client that financial firms are courting. 90 million and counting In the United States alone, there are now 90 million millennials, collectively known as Generation Y, versus 77 million baby boomers and 61 million Gen Xers. While generational cutoffs aren't an exact science, the term millennial is gen- erally applied to those born after 1980 and who reached adulthood in the early 21st century. Today's millennials are in their 20s and 30s, and many are children of boomers, now retiring in large numbers. While most millennials are still in the phase of creating wealth, their aggregated global net worth is pro- jected to more than double between 2015 and 2020 up to an estimated $24 trillion, according to a Deloitte report. It highlights three contributing fac- tors: millennials entering their peak earning power, starting a business, and inheriting wealth from their parents. It also notes that more than two-thirds of wealth managers' clients today are over age 60, driving the future wave of inheritance. "ese are a few reasons why wealth managers should start focusing on millennials," it concludes. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY A head start Millennials believe in starting their wealth education earlier than other generations: 20 years old when millennials started learning 25 years old when Gen Xers started learning 32 years old when baby boomers started learning S O U R C E : RBC Wealth Management W E A LT H M A N A G E M E N T / R E T I R E M E N T F O C U S F O C U S Scott Mazuzan, pictured in the Old Port neighborhood in Portland, works with millennial clients in his role as a financial planner at F.L.Putnam Investment Management Co. How financial planners are catering to a new generation of investors Millennials & MONEY MONEY MONEY B y R e n e e C o R d e s

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