by: Portia Crowe

Alexa von Tobel is the leadership-award-winning, New York Times bestseller-writing, presidentially-recognized young entrepreneur who founded LearnVest. Her company is an online financial planning service geared primarily at millennials, who von Tobel says face more financial obstacles than any other generation.

She sat down with OneWire‘s Skiddy von Stade to explain why financial planning is so challenging for millennials.

“If you think about my grandfather… he paid for everything in cash. You can’t really make that many financial mistakes if everything is paid for in cash,” she said. 

But today, young people have access to credit, which can complicate things. On average, millennials rack up $30,000 in student debt and $4,000-5,000 in credit card debt before even entering the workforce, von Tobel said.

Then, their mortgages are more leveraged than ever before. And when it comes to retirement planning, defined contribution plans put the responsibility on the young person, rather than their employer.

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