For baby boomers and (to a lesser extent) Generation Xers, home ownership was just sort of… Expected. The assumption was that maybe you’d rent for a while until you found your feet both in terms of your career and figuring out how to be a grown up, but then when you’d gotten it all figured out you’d buy your own place, possibly with a loved one and settle down. For the millennial generation, and the genXennials born in the interstice, matters are far more complicated. An increasingly high cost of living, a culture of corporate wage repression and sky high property prices perpetuated have made the prospect of owning your own home an unattainable dream for (seemingly) an entire generation. Salt is rubbed into the wound by the stereotype that millennials are too frivolous with their money and (as one Australian real estate mogul put it) spend too much on quotidian luxuries like avocado toast.

While we all know that this is an oversimplification, there are some reasons why saving up for a property of your very own may elude you. Here we’ll look at some of those reasons and some practical ways in which you can overcome them.

Your Expectations Are Unrealistic

Do you spend hours searching through the properties on realtors’ websites pining over properties that are outside of your reach. That’s okay. Aspirations are great! But if you’re in your early twenties and making a living in the gig economy, reaching for a luxury property like the kind on http://www.meriton.com.au/ might be like trying to do a backflip before you can walk. There’s no shame on setting your sights on something more modest in the name of getting a foot on the ladder. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have the home of your dreams, but even the most privileged generations had to wait for it.

Your Debts Are Stifling Your Ability to Save

We all know that buying your very own home is much more attainable when you have a sizeable downpayment to contribute to it. But saving for one is often easier said than done, especially if you’re dogged by debt. Not only can it inhibit your ability to save, it can have a profoundly negative effect on your credit rating, too. Thus, it’s essential to find a solution to your debt, whether it’s taking advantage of introductory low interest rates to shuffle credit card debt around without getting bogged down in interest or consolidating your debts into a single monthly payment.

Your Savings Account Sucks

Saving is hard. It requires discipline and determination as well as a resolution to go without the finer things in life every once in a while. But all the discipline in the world won’t help you if your savings account has a pitifully anaemic rate of interest. Most high street banks have pretty poor savings accounts with anaemic rates of interest. You’re unlikely to grow your savings with an average interest rate of around 0.06%. Have a look at this list of the best online savings accounts. Because online providers have fewer overhead costs they’re able to pass the savings directly to you.

Hopefully by fixing a few bad habits and tipping the economic scales back in your favour, you too can afford a home of your own… And maybe even a slice of avocado on toast to enjoy when you move in.