Opinion: Can I have a participation certificate with that?

It's not just millennials that love a good selfie. Photo/Getty Images

I am sick of all the insults being thrown around about millennials.

Apparently we're all avocado-eating, phone-addicted narcissists who can't get by in life without participation certificates for turning up at work each day.

What a load of bollocks.

Those of us born in the 80s and 90s unlucky enough to be tarred by the "millennial" brush get sick of the stereotypes chucked at us every day.

I don't remember being awarded a participation certificate for anything. If I did get one, I probably threw it straight in the bin.

Who cares about getting an award for not winning? No child I've ever met. Whose idea was it to give them out? Not ours.

Just the other day I had a conversation with a man insisting that people my age can't afford a house because we're too fussy. Us 20 and 30-somethings are too precious to buy second-hand furniture and buy a doer-upper for our first home.

As if. The only piece of furniture I own that is not second hand is my bed.

I would gladly buy a doer-upper - if I could find one I could afford.

QV's latest figures had the average house price in Tauranga at $678,643.

The cheapest house I could find listed on Trade Me on Wednesday was a two-bedroom bungalow with an asking price of $359,000, which requires a deposit of $71,800.

By saving $200 a week, it would take me close to seven years to save that deposit, and that's providing house prices stay the same for the next seven years - laughable when house prices rose 17.5 per cent in the last year.

At this point, I'm about ready to give up even trying for a house. Maybe I'll go play on my smartphone and eat some avocado on toast instead.