Millennials' most common careergoals include earning enough to have a balanced life, wanting toreach senior/executive level management and running their ownbusiness. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Yeah, we all know millennials have a reputation for attitude, andyou might think that a salary goal of $80,000–$30,000 higher than itwas just in 2016—is just one more example of their entitlementattitude.

But a new study from TD Ameritrade has some surprising things to say abouttheir generation and their financial attitudes. Not only does that loftysalary ambition amount to $55.2 trillion per year, but most of the“greed for gold” comes from the guys: men want double the incomewomen want in order to feel happy ($118,000 vs. $58,500).

Related: Millennials: Boomer, GenX managers hold usback

But while millennials are often reviled for not working (enough)or for job-hopping, 54 percent of them have followed atraditional career path or progression in a single field. (Ofcourse, a third of them—33 percent—have been “guilty” of followinga career path that has involved working in several differentfields, or that has included career exits that lasted morethan six months, so they're not all determinedly keeping theirnoses to the same grindstone.)

In addition, 46 percent of them work a side hustle, with money the chief lure: 43percent are in it for the cash, while 31 percent do it to work inan area that interests them and 22 percent keep a side job topractice for future potential jobs.

They're focused, too, with their most common career goalsearning enough to have a balanced life (16 percent, although,unsurprisingly, more than twice as many women than men have thisgoal), wanting to reach senior/executive level management (also 16percent, with the guys outnumbering the gals by nearly double) orrunning their own business (13 percent).

Women's ambitions are different, with them being more likelythan men to want a career that allows them to earn enough to affordto work part time or have a balanced life (22 percent, comparedwith 9 percent). Men are more focused on that corner office levelin the long term (20 percent, compared with 12 percent).

And when do they think they might make the most money duringtheir careers? Well, 39 percent think their peak years will betheir forties, while 27 percent think it'll be their thirties. Evenso, 47 percent of millennials expect to achieve the American Dreamby the time they hit 40 (but again, that depends on whom you ask:among men, it was actually 58 percent, while among women, it wasjust 39 percent).

Overall, 51 percent of millennials say they're family-focusedrather than career-focused, but that doesn't necessarily translateinto a family's positive effects on a career—despite the fact that,predictably enough, the guys are more likely, at 73 percent, tobelieve that having kids has had a positive effect on their careeradvancement. Sadly, only 33 percent of women think so. In fact, 22percent of women say having kids actually harmed their rise to thetop, while just 5 percent of men say so.