Turning 40 and burdened by debt

As millennials begin to turn 40 in 2021, CNBC Make It is launching Middle-Aged Millennials, a series exploring how the oldest members of this generation have grown into adulthood amidst the backdrop of the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, student loans, stagnant wages and rising costs of living.

Travis Jang-Busby is a married lawyer with two kids and a three-bedroom house near San Diego.

This isn’t the setup to a 1960s sitcom. It’s 2021, and Jang-Busby, 34, is a pretty typical millennial: a home-owning family man who’s paying down six-figure student-loan debt and is looking to invest more in his retirement account. And he can’t remember the last time he bought a…