Third of young people struggling to make ends meet

Many young people in the Netherlands are in a bad financial position. A third struggle to or can't make ends meet. A quarter often or regularly worry about money, and half do so sometimes, Motivaction found when surveying 1,400 working Netherlands residents between the ages of 18 and 35 for SNS Bank, the Volkskrant reports.

Three quarters of the respondents said that they have a financial buffer in the form of savings. But the rest will face acute problems if their fixed income is lost. 

The researchers found that young people find it difficult to ask for help with money. More than half said they deal with their financial problems on their own. Marieke Tiesinga of SNS Bank called this worrying, as getting help can prevent worse financial problems. 

Young people have great interest in earning money where they can. Two thirds of respondents said they plan to be financially independent within the next five to ten years. 

For this purpose, one in five young people are turning to making money by investing, and another 23 percent plan to start doing so soon. "Money means freedom for many young people and for no less than 82 percent of the young people, being able to earn more with investing is the reason to start," Tiesinga said to the newspaper."

12 percent of young people are investing without having a savings buffer, and that is worrying, Tiesinga said. "Our advice really is: build up that savings buffer first and then start investing. This makes you less vulnerable to any financial setbacks and you have the chance to build up money for later."