Ramit Sethi
If you’re young and feel like owning a home or having a comfortable retirement is slipping further out of reach, you’re not imagining it. Many young Canadians say financial security feels harder to achieve than it did for their parents, even with higher education and full-time work.
That frustration is exactly what personal finance expert Ramit Sethi has been calling out. On his podcast, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Sethi argues that younger generations are navigating an economy that looks very different from the one boomers built their wealth on — especially when it comes to housing and pensions.
“Why is it that previous generations were able to buy homes on a single income, but today even saving for a down payment feels impossible?” Sethi has asked (1). In this view, the system changed, but much of the advice hasn’t.
That’s why he’s been critical of traditional, one-size-fits-all money advice from figures like Dave Ramsey and Kevin O’Leary, calling parts of it outdated and poorly suited to today’s cost-of-living realities.
According to Sethi, this isn’t about overspending on small luxuries — it’s about structural shifts that make wealth-building harder than it used to be. And that means younger Canadians may need to focus on different financial priorities than the ones they’re often told to follow.
Ramit Sethi doesn’t argue that advice from figures like Dave Ramsey or Kevin O’Leary is useless — he argues that much of it was built for a very different economy that existed decades ago.
“Dave Ramsey is still recommending 15-year mortgages and these mythical 12% mutual funds that he refuses to name,” Sethi said, arguing that this kind of advice doesn’t reflect today’s housing prices, interest rates or job insecurity.
He’s equally dismissive of O’Leary’s frequent lectures about cutting out small indulgences like coffee. “Did Kevin O’Leary become worth hundreds of millions of dollars by not buying coffee?” Sethi asked. “No.”
At the core of Sethi’s critique is a structural shift that Canadians know well: To;phe disappearance of employer-funded retirement security.
In the past, many workers could rely on defined-benefit (DB) pensions. Today, most private-sector workers must fund retirement largely on their own through Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) and workplace savings plans — often with uneven employer matching.
Read more: Keeping over this amount of cash in your bank account is a serious mistake — how much do you have stashed in there?
Research shows that the percentage of public-sector employees who have DB pension plans has dropped by about 4% over the past 20 years. As of 2023, private-sector DB pension plans have dropped to 8.2% (2) from 21.9% (3) in the late 90s, as many employers move toward defined-contribution (DC) pensions (2). This means workers carry the full investment risk themselves. Further, roughly 60% of Canadians don’t even have a workplace pension plan at all (4).
Housing is the other major fault line. Older generations bought homes when prices were far lower relative to income and when government policy strongly encouraged ownership through easier credit and expanding supply. Younger Canadians face the opposite reality: higher prices, higher rates and chronic housing shortages in many urban centres mean ownership is further out of reach (5).
Canadian baby boomers continue to hold a disproportionate share of housing wealth, while younger buyers are increasingly locked out or dependent on family help. Surveys from Canadian Mortgage Trends and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) show that first-time home buyers are older than they used to be and more likely to rely on gifts or inheritances to enter the market (6).
Sethi’s point isn’t that older generations acted unfairly — it’s that the rules changed. Advice built for an era of stable pensions, affordable homes and steady wage growth doesn’t translate cleanly into a world where young Canadians must self-fund retirement and compete in tight housing markets.
That’s why, he argues, repeating old scripts about frugality misses the challenges of today. The problem isn’t that younger people are reckless spenders. It’s that they’re trying to build wealth in a system that demands different strategies than the ones that worked in a different era.
If the system is tougher for younger Canadians than it was for previous generations, is there anything you can actually do about it?
Sethi says yes — but it starts with shifting your focus away from micromanaging every dollar and toward the moves that have the biggest impact. “I don’t spend my days with my nose buried in my phone tracking my bank account in two-cent increments,” he said. And he doesn’t think most people should.
Instead, he points to three areas where effort tends to pay off more.
It still matters to cut back where you can — cancelling unused subscriptions or trimming obvious waste can help. But if your budget is already tight, there’s a limit to how much cutting out can do.
Sethi argues that increasing income is often the more powerful level. That might mean negotiating your salary, switching employers, upgrading your skills or building a side hustle that brings in a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars a month. In a high-cost environment, earning more can create breathing room that budgeting alone can’t.
When it comes to building wealth, Sethi emphasizes consistency over guilt. Rather than fretting over every small purchase, he encourages automating savings and investments so progress happens in the background.
By setting up automatic contributions to accounts like Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) and Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), you remove emotion and decision fatigue from the process. The only time you need to revisit those settings is when your income changes and you’re able to save more. Over time, regular investing benefits from compounding — where returns start earning returns of their own.
Sethi is also critical of fear-driven money rules that leave people feeling stuck in shame or at a standstill. Blanket advice like “never use credit” or “never spend on anything fun” may sound responsible, but it’s often unrealistic.
Instead, he recommends that learning how to manage risk — and make thoughtful choices — matters more. That means understanding trade-offs, using financial tools responsibly and aligning spending and saving with what actually matters to you, rather than following rigid rules that no longer fit today’s reality.
In short, Sethi’s approach doesn’t deny that systemic challenges exist. It suggests that the way forward is to focus energy where it has the greatest payoff: earning power, automation and intentional decision-making — not constant self-denial.
There’s no shortage of financial advice — but not all of it fits today’s economic reality. Before following any rule or framework, ask whether it’s realistic with your income, housing costs and career stage, or whether it simply relies on fear and shame to force you into compliance.
Focus on strategies that help you earn more, automate saving and make intentional choices with your money. And if you’re unclear how to apply those ideas to your own situation, working with a qualified financial advisor can help turn broad advice into a plan that actually works for you.
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Youtube (1); The Globe and Mail (2); Federal Retirees (3); C.D. Howe (4); Statistics Canada (5); Canadian Mortgage Trends (6)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.