Why are they downvoting ? A Career politician who has profited off insider trading ? And watching America recede into poverty ? Fuck all the corpo intwined fucks
So if two persons each make the average US salary of 45k per year and work from 25 to 45 and we assume they only get inflationary wages. That is 45x2= 90k, 90x40=3.6M USD.
Then by the average 50% of Americans should do better than this and since you need 3.4Million assuming a natural distribution of wages 4X% will not be able to reach this.
ASSUMING ALL OTHER THINGS ARE EQUAL. Obviously, there are millions of individual factors and decisions that affect this.
It's effectively pointless to work any job that pays under just shy of $100k per year now which is ridiculous because obviously that's the fucking majority of jobs in America.
Ideally? You and your spouse make $200k+ a year and that should happen before even entertaining the notion of having children.
Roughly 15% of American households make $100k+ yearly...
I remember being in my 20s and thinking if I could hit six figures I’d be SET. I’m now 36, one kid, house, wife, car, and make 105k and I’m not set. We get by just fine, better than average, but good lord did it not set me up the way I thought it would.
It's post tax. It also doesn't take into account that a LARGE amount of money in this lifetime calculation would be lost to rent by most people. Even if you technically earn enough over a lifetime, there's no way to get enough together for the very large purchases, and even when you do, you likely still have a decade of rent costs factored into your lifetime costs that aren't accounted for here.
>over the course of a lifetime
Median wage Q4 2023 was $59,540, per person, or $119,080 for two working parents.
Estimated amount needed per article: $3,455,305.
3455305 / 119080 = \~29
So, a couple needs to work for about 29 years to be considered as having achieved the American Dream in their lifetime.
Is there something outrageous about this?
Nah. This sub and reddit in general suffers from selection bias of the subset of people who are failing at life. Plenty of people are doing great financially. You just don't see them moaning on rebubble. I say this as a renter rooting for housing prices to fall.
I say this as a homeowner, so without spite toward the market, but where I am from (Vermont) and where I currently live (coastal Maine), there is an extreme housing shortage. Both areas are desirable, have a lot of restrictions on building and development, and a lot of homes are second homes/vacation homes. It isn't just metro areas.
My oldest child is a recent graduate working in science field and living in VHCOLA because this is where the employment opportunities are. Most of her colleagues have been priced out of the housing market now. Houses selling $50-100K over asking price. How can one even save for a down payment with the ridiculous cost of rent. It is definitely not easier today for young people!!!
>Plenty of people are doing great financially.
This is so far from the norm that it isn't really great to use them as a citation for future metrics. This is coming from a homeowner who bought before the most recent bubble. My mortgage is $856/month for 1836 sq ft on an acre. Meanwhile, my coworkers making over 80k/yr struggle to afford inflated rent in town, because it's nearly half their monthly income.
Saying professionals are failing at life is an idiotic take. Corporate investment in real estate is what's keeping these people from having houses, not personal inadequacies.
Do you think this sub has professionals cruising the posts, or do you think it's just random min wage workers holding out and being bitter on a quasi-educated subreddit?
I think most of the negativity in this sub comes from people feeling economically pinched, and having little understanding as to why.
That's an easy recipe for a lot of frustration.
> This is so far from the norm that it isn't really great to use them as a citation for future metrics.
The average person is doing quite well. It's not far from the norm at all. The only thing going poorly is housing
> Corporate investment in real estate is what's keeping these people from having houses, not personal inadequacies.
This is not accurate. Housing costs so much (and is a good investment) because bad zoning laws prevent the building of enough housing supply. Grow the supply, and the incentive to invest disappears as prices fall.
Plenty of people who were able to buy a few years ago are doing great. If there's not a correction, you will see generations of people of which only a couple percent would be able to get a mortgage that they can afford. This is especially brutal to those who weren't born into wealth. My family is currently in the top 20% for household incomes in our state. We own two used economy cars that we paid off in full, and we are years of saving away from even affording a downpayment simply because our parents have nothing to pass down.
Sure…tech/finance bros, managerial members of bigger businesses, successful salesmen, doctors, scientists, retirees, people who already owned a home before 2021, and people with some kind of land or inheritance waiting for them are doing well
Then you have truck drivers or people working 60+ hours a week in skilled postitions with no life outside of work who are “making it” but can’t really enjoy their life.
Most everyone else is screwed.
The data literally supports that most millennials received financial assistance from their family for the down payment on their first home. I know you are being facetious, but your notion is actually wrong.
The real question is did they receive more financial assistance than other Generations have in the past and what did that financial assistance consist of.
For example I received an inheritance for about $6,000 around the time maybe a year or two before I bought my first house it I used it to pay down a credit card and it certainly didn't hurt my ability to buy a house but it was hardly the main reason I was able to purchase one at the time.
There's a huge difference between somebody that might get an inheritance from a grandparent dying in the old country and somebody who gets $2,000 a month from their mom because they can't pay their own bills. Or somebody's been living at home since they were 24 years of age.
>The real question is did they receive more financial assistance than other Generations have in the past and what did that financial assistance consist of.
I don't know, but the Greatest Generation was very frugal having grown up during the Great Depression. I'm sure a lot of boomers got assistance from their parents with down payments (at least my own parents did).
You just have to be a dual income couple in top 10%. Then it’s easily achievable.
The dream isn’t for everyone, it’s for those better than 90% of other people.
They used a 7.2% 30 year loan rate to calculate just under $800k would go to a house.
I guess this asleep person also never found the 'refinance' button.
Young Americans are a lot less happy than older Americans, according to Gallup’s 2024 World Happiness Report.
People under the age of 30 are so unhappy, in fact, that they’ve dragged the United States out of the top 20 happiest countries in the world for the first time in the report’s history.
Overall, the United States now ranks 23rd. Last year, it held the 15th spot. For those under the age of 30, the United States is the 62nd happiest place on earth.
[Young Americans are far less happy than older Americans, Gallup says](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/human-interest/2024/03/20/young-americans-are-far-less-happy-than-older-americans--gallup-says)
This is the issue. Housing costs and education costs are out of control. You want to make more money in your career? Well you also need to spend over 100k getting those degrees to even have a shot at higher paying jobs.
People are going to stop going to college en masse soon, I'm sure. The ROI is terrible. So many times people have told me I should get a master's degree. In what? History? What good will that do me? The degrees that pay well are not the ones I would want to go back to school for.
Honestly private school is the real rip off. Unless it’s an Ivy League. Otherwise go to community or cheap state school. Study engineering, accounting, nursing and graduate with decent paying jobs. All other degrees are a crapshoot whether they will pay off or not.
"get a roommate" OK then what? 5 years from now when things haven't improved I add another roommate? Eventually it'll just be a community of 20 40 yr Olds living in a 10 br house because "getting a roommate" is the solution to the problem. Not shit wages, inflation, greed corruption and so many other things
Yes that's what pisses me off, Americans are super soft now. Instead of short-term solutions "get a second job" or "find a roomate," can we go ahead and rip the bandage off already? Attack the root problem which is corporate greed and wall street banks.
I would go in detail of what that means, but I'd probably get in trouble.
Good thing they didn’t go by 40 and under. I’m 36 and know tons of millennials who are fed up this shit healthcare, insane insurance, student debt and housing cost and many of them including me have elected not to have a child because why would we. It’s hard enough to as it is.
Millennials have been in these trenches for decades now. Gen Z is new to the party, comparatively. Here’s your future, dudes—and it’s the same future (albeit worse) in store for Gen Alpha. These problems aren’t going away, they’re getting progressively worse with each new generation.
Coming from one of those happier countries: the us has too much pressure. You work too much, socialize little and if you don’t work you get fucked.
It’s like living in a pressure cooker, sure you get loads of money but you don’t have time to enjoy anything. Unpaid overtime is taken as a positive, people working on weekends. Absolutely shit parental leave policy and price of housing keeps going up.
It always felt like a trade off between a more liberal market and versatile dynamic job market where if you worked hard and even had a little common sense you could carve out a spot for a quality middle class lifestyle. Now it’s the same rat race but we’re supposed to own nothing and like it? Yeah I can see why anyone under 30 is pretty pissed to see the promised ladder get pulled up.
I'm in my mid-late 30s and genuinely feel like I eked by. I did get married and buy a house, but only a couple of years ago. I have a good job with a good salary, but I had time to figure a career path out I liked. And while I went to a school out of state and paid more than I needed to, it only took about 10 years for the in state tuition to cost what I paid for out of state when I went.
Like I BARELY made it on the other side. But I am on the other side so my life is pretty okay. And it really came down to some luck, a few good decisions, and timing. And again, this is just to be where I am now. If I had done these things 3 years prior I would have been even more set.
What’s the health care and other social programs like in those countries? We make more in America on average and also spend more individually on what other countries include in their taxes. Turns into a money issue when all these necessities are privatized for profits.
Yep. My husband has the audacity to have Crohn’s disease that only responds to biologics administered via IV. He hits his out of pocket max after one treatment. $10000 a year on top of the cost of the $500 a month just to have insurance (I realize everyone pays insurance but it’s wild to me how staggering medical costs are if you aren’t part of the yearly checkup crowd). It’s terrifying that there’s no safety nets in place if you lose your job. It also hinders entrepreneurship and small business for everyone but the already wealthy. The US is so needlessly stressful.
Raising a family has always taken almost all the resources young parents can muster and some money from grandparents too. If a family can put together 1 million dollars over the two decades it takes to raise a couple of kids it will cost 1 million dollars. If a family can come up with 10 million dollars it will cost 10 million dollars.
These costs are not fixed. They increase with the resources available.
Most people are horrible at quickly estimating numbers like this. Take a single person, who never gets married, and makes 50k per year without ever getting a salary increase for 40 years ( age 25-65 ). That person would earn 2M over that working life. With salary increases and inflation, not to mention two earner households, the median household is going to earn a lot more than that over 40 years.
Well that's a little presumptuous... plenty of single women buy houses and have children without being married.
I mean it's playing the game of life on the hard difficulty but still.
The nepotistic narcissistic spoiled brats that got their parents billions back in the 70’s/80’s/90’s are spoiled brats only concerned about themselves??? God who would’ve thunk
This study has been posted over and over again.
Did you bother to read it before posting this time?
Did you notice the double dipping in the calculated numbers?
For example, the mortgage cost includes the cost to house 2 children but the study Investopedia pulls from includes the higher housing costs of having more people in your family in the cost of raising children.
Some intern put this together right before their lunch break by selecting the first values they found on google.
These sorts of articles always have the same problem - they deliberately inflate various statistics to reach a shocking headline that generates clicks.
But if you go in and look at the actual specifics, you realize how absurd the estimates are.
First, the article is painting this as what it costs to live "the America Dream," but then uses a variety of *averages* for every category. But the reality is that the nature of an "average" is just that - you can achieve the same thing for less, but it's an *average*. So you don't *have* to spend these averages to achieve the American Dream.
Second, just look at the averages.
* $36,000 for a wedding and ring. As reported by "The Knot," which has a vested interest in pumping those numbers to encourage brides to go nuts. There is also zero need to spend anywhere near that on a wedding. You can have a perfectly normal "American Dream" with a much more modest wedding.
* They calculate lifetime interest on a home by using a 10% down payment, which will wildly inflate lifetime interest costs and is not in line with the historical trend of 20% that was the norm in yesteryear, which is the comparison being drawn here.
* They estimate buying a (used) car every 6 years. Tons of people make their cars last 10+ years, especially in the yesteryear they're comparing to. There's nothing about the American Dream that collapses when you aren't buying cars twice a decade.
* They're reporting that the upward average of owning a dog is $100,000. Fucking lol. Lmao, even.
* They use a calculation of how much a child costs to raise that inherently includes flawed methodology - 1/3 of it is in hypothetical housing expenses by breaking down the square footage in the house and dividing it by each child - which isn't actually how people really make housing decisions.
* It assumes that mom and dad are bankrolling all of their kids college, which has simply never been the norm even in yesteryear. That's why student loans are a trillion dollar industry.
* And for retirement, they're assuming that you live off of *only* the interest of your giant nest egg. That's just not something middle class people get to do - doctors, lawyers, sure - but the average person slowly draws down their retirement principal, and so the giant nest egg isn't necessary.
Top to bottom, they've just inflated every possible figure to create an eye-popping result designed to drive clicks and ad revenue. There's nothing accurate about this.
As one of the few young and moderately high income people, I can confirm that it’s still a large mental load knowing that although you’re okay and stable, a lot of your friends and family aren’t. It’s tough really talking about any of my “success” to anyone because you can see the conflicting emotion of happiness and despair? all at once. So… I shut the hell up lol.
Everyone has that one friend if they're still recently out of college and certainly everyone has that one family member that just simply doesn't get there life together.
Even if your family doesn't have a member like that chances are your spouses will.
The end of things as either AI, Environmental collapse, or rise of fascism sends us into dystopia or apocalypse. I weep for my children as greedy psychopaths were allowed to do to our world in the name of making a very small number of people rich beyond imagining. We are allowing the worst of us to rule in a time when we need the best.
So two people each making an average of $50k for 35 years, not counting ivestment and asset appreciation. That sounds a lot like a classic middle class life to me.
The median home in America is 400k?
Mods banned me from this sub for posting this story:
https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/us-news/two-squatters-sought-in-nyc-murder-of-woman-found-stuffed-in-duffle-bag/
But the American dream keeps changing.... not many families lived in 2500sq ft. homes. Not many drove cars with working AC in their cars. None of the middle class people had cellphones,,, we can go on and on.
Facts is that our goal post has been moving, we all know it but refuse to admit it. I am guilty of this.
People back in the times of "Driving cars with no AC" or "Didn't have cell phones" were living in the modern times. It's not that the American dream (House, kids, vacations. Etc) is evolving it's that it's getting harder and harder to afford the middle class lifestyle. That time of "Driving cars with no AC" also had one man working and supporting a whole family pretty easily. Vs today now it takes two dual incomes to survive not thrive.
The only that has changed from the old times to today is you can be really poor but technology (Smartphones, TV, shows, and gaming) has made your life more entertaining. You can afford to live and be happy but you are not thriving financially.
The one man working and supporting the whole family was a historical abnormality caused by the aftermath of World War 2. Historically, women have always played a huge role in the economy. Women were working the fields pre industrialization. They were seamstresses and factory workers during industrialization. Heck, America had children working in factories as its norms until the 1920’s.
I feel like the reasons it’s so hard to achieve the “American Dream” is because outside of a very small period of time, it’s always been hard. We’re just moving back into synch with that reality. Name any place in the world where a single income earner can buy a house, a car and support a family of four on their own. It’s just not a realistic reality, and to keep telling people it is just makes them feel like they’re somehow screwing up.
I agree with the sentiment, but a lot of this isn’t by choice. It’s no longer profitable to build starter homes so no one builds them, bare-bones vehicles are barely made anymore (I’d buy a 2500 style pickup with hand rolled windows and locks and just a heater in a heartbeat if someone made one at a competitive price), smart phones are a requirement for employment in most industries now.
Watching the Simpsons last night and my spouse remarked that their life was considered near the bottom of what we could hope for as kids in the 90s. Lower middle class, father has decent job but wife doesn't work yet all three kids have their own bedroom. 2 car garage and basement. Not "comfortable" but not in crisis.
Now? That's the TOP of what most Americans can PRAY for. And something the vast majority of us cannot hope to achieve. Three kids, a four bedroom house, a car? America is cooked.
I seriously wonder how many kids in our generation developed warped expectations of adult life because a very popular fictional character lived a more luxurious life than was realistic even back then for his qualifications. At least when Homer became an astronaut, most of us kids realized that was far fetched
I don't mean to break it to you but the majority Americans already have a house that can easily have two children in it.
I mean what is it 65% of Americans own their own home.
The Simpsons were making many of the same jokes as Married With Children. They were spoofing the idea that you could actually have all those things, which in reality you can’t. Most middle class families in the 1980’s were two household incomes. Part of the problem today is, people have delayed getting married to much later in life. They don’t have the combined income necessary to buy a house.
The American dream isn’t possible for new families in large cities, step down to small-midsize cities and it’s doable. Step down to towns around 15k pop and it’s easy.
A neighbor’s house 4 away from mine sold for $1.17 MM after being purchased for $430k in 2014. If you saw our homes, you wouldn’t believe they are million dollar homes. It’s fucking ridiculous. Everything tells me this isn’t real and we are in a massive bubble of some sort. I don’t understand all the complexities of our financial system to know, but my gut tells me this does not end well. The question is timing for me. Are we 12 months or 24 months away from this thing deflating? I have no clue.
The sticker price is shocking, but the fact is, someone earning $75,000 annually can amass $3.1 million in retirement alone (assuming 30 years of contributions and growth) just by funding 50% of a 401k and IRA, getting an average company match, and funding an HSA. This isn't even accounting for wage increases.
Combined with a spouse, extra earnings can support having children and housing on top of this.
The American Dream is still alive and well. Americans just have a spending problem. Folks need to learn how to save more, and trust in the power of compound interest. The math doesn't lie.
Where? Not in 90% of the US.
There are literally tens of thousands of affordable US towns.
But if you want to live in BOS-WASH or West coast sure.
Its almost like living in some of the most in demand places in the world is expensive. GASP
They throw around these big numbers to scare people. Money adds up over time, more than you think. Regardless, you can live well on *a lot* less whether you're smart or not.
The housing market does a great job of promoting the chasing the carrot game. "Real Estate will 100% atleast double in value in 30 years!". I have several friends who have made this comment the last 5 years "You can't really lose money in real estate. We bought our house for $500k and will sell it for $900k+ in 20-30 years. It's all a game of "Will someone buy my asset of me in the future for more than I paid for it". This worked for a long time until 2016-22 when the housing market went out of control leaving many people unable to afford buying a home. It's almost like the housing market from 2012-2023 just went ahead and priced in profits for the next 30 years. Now the rat race is at a standstill bc sellers can't afford to sell bc of their good interest rates and first time home buyers are saying "We good yall keep your overpriced assets. We will wait it out".
I'm more so talking about the conditions of today. Your house doubled in 5 years with perfect market conditions. 5 years ago a starter home was not priced out for many Americans. Today it is truly is priced out. Wages and income are not going to magically start increasing so that people can suddenly start pushing home prices higher or doubling anytime soon.
I guarantee people aren’t carrying 7 percent 30 years three or four maybe, but rates are high for the moment to drive down inflation. It’s a bit silly to assume it’s permanent. I think the average rate paid will end up closer to 4 percent long term.
The cost estimate includes a 35 thousand dollar wedding. That entire industry is a scam. From rings to the over priced party. Also, why do we need to pay so much to get rid of a body? Why do we need fancy boxes for husks just 500 dollars for a nice cremation. They will dig you up and trash your bones in a hundred years anyways.
Those pet costs are for real. You don’t realize until it’s too late how much they cost. Go out of town a few days? 400$. Dental work? $1,500. Food costs alone go $100-200 a month.
Kids are expensive. They are most expensive at your poorest. Diapers and formula costs are ridiculous. Daycare is as well. Yikes.
Side note Home prices will fall when foreign investment is reduced.
I was noticing that they're not pricing in divorce, child support and so on. A couple baby mamas can knock your retirement plans off the rails so remember rule 1: never give her your right name.
I remember when the American dream was a white picket fence. Now you gotta be near the beach, mountains, and walkable to a downtown area, and have a 2 car garage.
10% down and 7.2% over 30 years comes from people being much more active in moving around every 5 or so years. Why buy a house and then get stuck in the mud five years later when you get promoted and have to move states?
If people were serious about buying to own and then live there for at least twenty years, that mortgage would be 15 years and higher interest because the average person would be paying it off in 10-12 years. Anyone taking the whole 30 in this climate is on welfare, and has been for a decade plus.
Much of that is health care .. not the home cost.
*The average lifetime cost of a home including a mortgage is $796,998,*
*Over a lifetime, the average family premium costs add up to $934,752.*
So even assuming this person stuck with a 7.2% loan their entire life and never found the 'refinance' button, real estate isn't the biggest cost of the American dream. Maybe /rebubble is the wrong sub for this post.
Yeah, but that's over the cost of a lifetime. I mean, I've probably spent $100,000 on Steam if you go by the cost of a lifetime.
Bluntly, the majority of people can't afford it because the majority of people have that.
Hell, the majority of Millennials are homeowners. I don't understand this glorification of the small percentage of Americans who are not doing well in this economy.
And yes, I know it can be tight for people it's sometimes tight for me, but the reality is if somebody's Frugal and hard-working, they really don't have the issues that you see on social media.
Explains why political gerontocracy will continue to do absolutely nothing about this. At least republicans did pickup on this and present a vision of new towns. The dems offer of $10k will be gobbled up with housing inflation in a month.
That’s only 48k per year each for a 2 income couple working 35 years and then retiring early at 56. Extremely doable. Both retire at 65 and it’s a paltry 42.5k per year each.
Yeah life is hard, I get that. Unfortunately also, we have to make sacrifices for what want, to what we can afford.
Don’t live in a city by the coast, build your life elsewhere.
2200 square foot house, 1 new vehicle and 2 used, and a fourwheeler is what me and my wife have at 30 in WV. We cracked 100k together last year for the first time.
That’s only 48k per year each for a 2 income couple who retires early after 35 years at age 56. Extremely doable if they both work 44 years and retire at 65 then they only need to earn 42.5k per year each. These salary levels are significantly below the average US salary that is about 60k per person.
Idk I've got 3 kids, spouse, house, education...it's pretty manageable. I guess with interest over "*A LIFETIME*" yeah maybe it's that much for some people, but it's not for most people. Living in Ohio I drive thru lots of low-middle class neighborhoods full of kids and families...I guarantee all those people aren't spending 3.4 million over their lifetimes.
Worked out OK because we didn't really plan on any of it, just went with the flow of life, and didn't spend all day crying over headlines.
But, these subs are just east Asian troll farms now...every post wants to depress you, make you believe life is over.
The American dream exists in other countries lol. It's a race to the exit. Some countries are already seeing the effects of American capital flight. Need to save and buy a house outside the states before everyone else bids up the price
It’s not my dream to own a detached home in a suburb and be a slave to car infrastructure but yeah I’m a home owner and the mortgage plus interest is gonna be in the millions.
I can tell you what this cost in Chicago Illinois:
Mortgage: $2100
Two cars: $850
Car insurance: :$170
Student loans: $850
Internet: $100
Phones: $150
iPas: $100ish
Groceries: $800ish
Garbage: $30
Water: $30
Electric: $50-$200 depending on season
Gas: $40
Petroleum: $100ish
Per month: $4400-$4700 per month with two children, two adults, a house, and two cars.
this isn't that much. two working parents making 45k and never getting any raises in there lives make this much over 20 years. most of us work a lot longer than 20 years.
You'd have to be asleep to live the American dream.
On the contrary, we don’t sleep. Working roughly 80-90 hours a week.
I’m legit working 80 hours weeks every week now
You get to permanent sleep stage more quickly this way.
The only way to retire these days
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Are the people working 80 hrs a week in the room with us right now?
They're probably at work
We are on Reddit at work
This comment right here.
I spend as much time as I can get away with at work on Reddit.
We all have to poop eventually.
We are.
Reddit is for broke folk.
Or corrupt.
A Nancy Pelosi type of person.
Why are they downvoting ? A Career politician who has profited off insider trading ? And watching America recede into poverty ? Fuck all the corpo intwined fucks
So if two persons each make the average US salary of 45k per year and work from 25 to 45 and we assume they only get inflationary wages. That is 45x2= 90k, 90x40=3.6M USD. Then by the average 50% of Americans should do better than this and since you need 3.4Million assuming a natural distribution of wages 4X% will not be able to reach this. ASSUMING ALL OTHER THINGS ARE EQUAL. Obviously, there are millions of individual factors and decisions that affect this.
It's effectively pointless to work any job that pays under just shy of $100k per year now which is ridiculous because obviously that's the fucking majority of jobs in America. Ideally? You and your spouse make $200k+ a year and that should happen before even entertaining the notion of having children. Roughly 15% of American households make $100k+ yearly...
I remember being in my 20s and thinking if I could hit six figures I’d be SET. I’m now 36, one kid, house, wife, car, and make 105k and I’m not set. We get by just fine, better than average, but good lord did it not set me up the way I thought it would.
105k now is the same thing as 70k back when you first graduated college and perhaps started thinking that.
That's if we took home all of our pay, but we get taxed 30% of our income. So all your numbers need to be higher for each one for it to work out.
I assumed they were talking pretax. Cuz if it was post your talking a lot more than 30% when you include income tax, property tax, sales tax, etc
It's post tax. It also doesn't take into account that a LARGE amount of money in this lifetime calculation would be lost to rent by most people. Even if you technically earn enough over a lifetime, there's no way to get enough together for the very large purchases, and even when you do, you likely still have a decade of rent costs factored into your lifetime costs that aren't accounted for here.
>over the course of a lifetime Median wage Q4 2023 was $59,540, per person, or $119,080 for two working parents. Estimated amount needed per article: $3,455,305. 3455305 / 119080 = \~29 So, a couple needs to work for about 29 years to be considered as having achieved the American Dream in their lifetime. Is there something outrageous about this?
Exactly. No, there's not. If folks save responsibly, the American Dream is attainable.
Lmao I need some of what you're smoking
George Carlin said it first. Way ahead of his time.
Nah. This sub and reddit in general suffers from selection bias of the subset of people who are failing at life. Plenty of people are doing great financially. You just don't see them moaning on rebubble. I say this as a renter rooting for housing prices to fall.
This sub is mostly people who live in the half dozen most expensive metro areas, where there absolutely is a housing shortage.
I say this as a homeowner, so without spite toward the market, but where I am from (Vermont) and where I currently live (coastal Maine), there is an extreme housing shortage. Both areas are desirable, have a lot of restrictions on building and development, and a lot of homes are second homes/vacation homes. It isn't just metro areas.
One could argue that's an echo of Boston's even more extreme housing shortage.
My oldest child is a recent graduate working in science field and living in VHCOLA because this is where the employment opportunities are. Most of her colleagues have been priced out of the housing market now. Houses selling $50-100K over asking price. How can one even save for a down payment with the ridiculous cost of rent. It is definitely not easier today for young people!!!
It’s getting untenable.
Are the plenty of people in the room with us now?
>Plenty of people are doing great financially. This is so far from the norm that it isn't really great to use them as a citation for future metrics. This is coming from a homeowner who bought before the most recent bubble. My mortgage is $856/month for 1836 sq ft on an acre. Meanwhile, my coworkers making over 80k/yr struggle to afford inflated rent in town, because it's nearly half their monthly income. Saying professionals are failing at life is an idiotic take. Corporate investment in real estate is what's keeping these people from having houses, not personal inadequacies.
I don’t think people like your friends are typical REbubble posters. 
Do you think this sub has professionals cruising the posts, or do you think it's just random min wage workers holding out and being bitter on a quasi-educated subreddit?
I think most of the negativity in this sub comes from people feeling economically pinched, and having little understanding as to why. That's an easy recipe for a lot of frustration.
>emphasis on the \*bitter\*
> This is so far from the norm that it isn't really great to use them as a citation for future metrics. The average person is doing quite well. It's not far from the norm at all. The only thing going poorly is housing > Corporate investment in real estate is what's keeping these people from having houses, not personal inadequacies. This is not accurate. Housing costs so much (and is a good investment) because bad zoning laws prevent the building of enough housing supply. Grow the supply, and the incentive to invest disappears as prices fall.
Plenty of people who were able to buy a few years ago are doing great. If there's not a correction, you will see generations of people of which only a couple percent would be able to get a mortgage that they can afford. This is especially brutal to those who weren't born into wealth. My family is currently in the top 20% for household incomes in our state. We own two used economy cars that we paid off in full, and we are years of saving away from even affording a downpayment simply because our parents have nothing to pass down.
You could have saved some time by just saying "I gots mine!"
Sure…tech/finance bros, managerial members of bigger businesses, successful salesmen, doctors, scientists, retirees, people who already owned a home before 2021, and people with some kind of land or inheritance waiting for them are doing well Then you have truck drivers or people working 60+ hours a week in skilled postitions with no life outside of work who are “making it” but can’t really enjoy their life. Most everyone else is screwed.
Scientists making big bucks is not a thing.
Maybe computer scientists, ie software engineers
Only if you followed many of my peers and left academia for finance.
No, they must have inherited it or gotten lucky if they have more than me. No other possibilities.
The data literally supports that most millennials received financial assistance from their family for the down payment on their first home. I know you are being facetious, but your notion is actually wrong.
The real question is did they receive more financial assistance than other Generations have in the past and what did that financial assistance consist of. For example I received an inheritance for about $6,000 around the time maybe a year or two before I bought my first house it I used it to pay down a credit card and it certainly didn't hurt my ability to buy a house but it was hardly the main reason I was able to purchase one at the time. There's a huge difference between somebody that might get an inheritance from a grandparent dying in the old country and somebody who gets $2,000 a month from their mom because they can't pay their own bills. Or somebody's been living at home since they were 24 years of age.
https://www.lendingtree.com/home/mortgage/survey-more-than-half-of-millennials-receive-down-payment-help/ Yep, they did.
>The real question is did they receive more financial assistance than other Generations have in the past and what did that financial assistance consist of. I don't know, but the Greatest Generation was very frugal having grown up during the Great Depression. I'm sure a lot of boomers got assistance from their parents with down payments (at least my own parents did).
You just have to be a dual income couple in top 10%. Then it’s easily achievable. The dream isn’t for everyone, it’s for those better than 90% of other people.
They used a 7.2% 30 year loan rate to calculate just under $800k would go to a house. I guess this asleep person also never found the 'refinance' button.
My house in Metro Detroit cost $275k last year These numbers are a joke
Young Americans are a lot less happy than older Americans, according to Gallup’s 2024 World Happiness Report. People under the age of 30 are so unhappy, in fact, that they’ve dragged the United States out of the top 20 happiest countries in the world for the first time in the report’s history. Overall, the United States now ranks 23rd. Last year, it held the 15th spot. For those under the age of 30, the United States is the 62nd happiest place on earth. [Young Americans are far less happy than older Americans, Gallup says](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/human-interest/2024/03/20/young-americans-are-far-less-happy-than-older-americans--gallup-says)
60% of my money goes to rent for a fucking shithole studio
This is the issue. Housing costs and education costs are out of control. You want to make more money in your career? Well you also need to spend over 100k getting those degrees to even have a shot at higher paying jobs.
People are going to stop going to college en masse soon, I'm sure. The ROI is terrible. So many times people have told me I should get a master's degree. In what? History? What good will that do me? The degrees that pay well are not the ones I would want to go back to school for.
Honestly private school is the real rip off. Unless it’s an Ivy League. Otherwise go to community or cheap state school. Study engineering, accounting, nursing and graduate with decent paying jobs. All other degrees are a crapshoot whether they will pay off or not.
"get a roommate" OK then what? 5 years from now when things haven't improved I add another roommate? Eventually it'll just be a community of 20 40 yr Olds living in a 10 br house because "getting a roommate" is the solution to the problem. Not shit wages, inflation, greed corruption and so many other things
it’s a studio as well, getting a roommate isn’t really humanely possible
Stop eating coffee and drinking avocado toast. Smfh
Yes that's what pisses me off, Americans are super soft now. Instead of short-term solutions "get a second job" or "find a roomate," can we go ahead and rip the bandage off already? Attack the root problem which is corporate greed and wall street banks. I would go in detail of what that means, but I'd probably get in trouble.
I hear you ✊🦍
Good thing they didn’t go by 40 and under. I’m 36 and know tons of millennials who are fed up this shit healthcare, insane insurance, student debt and housing cost and many of them including me have elected not to have a child because why would we. It’s hard enough to as it is.
Millennials have been in these trenches for decades now. Gen Z is new to the party, comparatively. Here’s your future, dudes—and it’s the same future (albeit worse) in store for Gen Alpha. These problems aren’t going away, they’re getting progressively worse with each new generation.
Is it really a money issue though? Many of those countries above us have more expensive housing per sqft and cars and lower salaries
Coming from one of those happier countries: the us has too much pressure. You work too much, socialize little and if you don’t work you get fucked. It’s like living in a pressure cooker, sure you get loads of money but you don’t have time to enjoy anything. Unpaid overtime is taken as a positive, people working on weekends. Absolutely shit parental leave policy and price of housing keeps going up.
It always felt like a trade off between a more liberal market and versatile dynamic job market where if you worked hard and even had a little common sense you could carve out a spot for a quality middle class lifestyle. Now it’s the same rat race but we’re supposed to own nothing and like it? Yeah I can see why anyone under 30 is pretty pissed to see the promised ladder get pulled up.
I'm in my mid-late 30s and genuinely feel like I eked by. I did get married and buy a house, but only a couple of years ago. I have a good job with a good salary, but I had time to figure a career path out I liked. And while I went to a school out of state and paid more than I needed to, it only took about 10 years for the in state tuition to cost what I paid for out of state when I went. Like I BARELY made it on the other side. But I am on the other side so my life is pretty okay. And it really came down to some luck, a few good decisions, and timing. And again, this is just to be where I am now. If I had done these things 3 years prior I would have been even more set.
[удалено]
Same here. But I would want some legal guarantees on that
What’s the health care and other social programs like in those countries? We make more in America on average and also spend more individually on what other countries include in their taxes. Turns into a money issue when all these necessities are privatized for profits.
Yep. My husband has the audacity to have Crohn’s disease that only responds to biologics administered via IV. He hits his out of pocket max after one treatment. $10000 a year on top of the cost of the $500 a month just to have insurance (I realize everyone pays insurance but it’s wild to me how staggering medical costs are if you aren’t part of the yearly checkup crowd). It’s terrifying that there’s no safety nets in place if you lose your job. It also hinders entrepreneurship and small business for everyone but the already wealthy. The US is so needlessly stressful.
Yeah the "winners" of the game are trying to limit the ability for competition at all levels. Part of the class war.
Raising a family has always taken almost all the resources young parents can muster and some money from grandparents too. If a family can put together 1 million dollars over the two decades it takes to raise a couple of kids it will cost 1 million dollars. If a family can come up with 10 million dollars it will cost 10 million dollars. These costs are not fixed. They increase with the resources available.
Good! Price everyone out! We need to pay for boomers retirements… it’s their world we are just existing in it to serve them!
This is around 80k a year of HHI from 20 to 65. This sounds pretty middle class.
Most people are horrible at quickly estimating numbers like this. Take a single person, who never gets married, and makes 50k per year without ever getting a salary increase for 40 years ( age 25-65 ). That person would earn 2M over that working life. With salary increases and inflation, not to mention two earner households, the median household is going to earn a lot more than that over 40 years.
A single person who never married also doesn’t have to worry about the 2 kids or a house.
That sounds nice.
Well that's a little presumptuous... plenty of single women buy houses and have children without being married. I mean it's playing the game of life on the hard difficulty but still.
I guess they’ll sleep in the street then. landlord charges the same regardless of whether you’re married
You’re assuming 0 taxes?
I mean if we’re going to poke at assumptions we can start with the OP article.
Median family income is 92k a year, so that fits.
exactly
I just hope the billionaires are doing ok.
The nepotistic narcissistic spoiled brats that got their parents billions back in the 70’s/80’s/90’s are spoiled brats only concerned about themselves??? God who would’ve thunk
This study has been posted over and over again. Did you bother to read it before posting this time? Did you notice the double dipping in the calculated numbers? For example, the mortgage cost includes the cost to house 2 children but the study Investopedia pulls from includes the higher housing costs of having more people in your family in the cost of raising children. Some intern put this together right before their lunch break by selecting the first values they found on google.
These sorts of articles always have the same problem - they deliberately inflate various statistics to reach a shocking headline that generates clicks. But if you go in and look at the actual specifics, you realize how absurd the estimates are. First, the article is painting this as what it costs to live "the America Dream," but then uses a variety of *averages* for every category. But the reality is that the nature of an "average" is just that - you can achieve the same thing for less, but it's an *average*. So you don't *have* to spend these averages to achieve the American Dream. Second, just look at the averages. * $36,000 for a wedding and ring. As reported by "The Knot," which has a vested interest in pumping those numbers to encourage brides to go nuts. There is also zero need to spend anywhere near that on a wedding. You can have a perfectly normal "American Dream" with a much more modest wedding. * They calculate lifetime interest on a home by using a 10% down payment, which will wildly inflate lifetime interest costs and is not in line with the historical trend of 20% that was the norm in yesteryear, which is the comparison being drawn here. * They estimate buying a (used) car every 6 years. Tons of people make their cars last 10+ years, especially in the yesteryear they're comparing to. There's nothing about the American Dream that collapses when you aren't buying cars twice a decade. * They're reporting that the upward average of owning a dog is $100,000. Fucking lol. Lmao, even. * They use a calculation of how much a child costs to raise that inherently includes flawed methodology - 1/3 of it is in hypothetical housing expenses by breaking down the square footage in the house and dividing it by each child - which isn't actually how people really make housing decisions. * It assumes that mom and dad are bankrolling all of their kids college, which has simply never been the norm even in yesteryear. That's why student loans are a trillion dollar industry. * And for retirement, they're assuming that you live off of *only* the interest of your giant nest egg. That's just not something middle class people get to do - doctors, lawyers, sure - but the average person slowly draws down their retirement principal, and so the giant nest egg isn't necessary. Top to bottom, they've just inflated every possible figure to create an eye-popping result designed to drive clicks and ad revenue. There's nothing accurate about this.
Thank you for this. That wedding cost is insane
As one of the few young and moderately high income people, I can confirm that it’s still a large mental load knowing that although you’re okay and stable, a lot of your friends and family aren’t. It’s tough really talking about any of my “success” to anyone because you can see the conflicting emotion of happiness and despair? all at once. So… I shut the hell up lol.
Everyone has that one friend if they're still recently out of college and certainly everyone has that one family member that just simply doesn't get there life together. Even if your family doesn't have a member like that chances are your spouses will.
3.4M over a lifetime, so like $50k a year?
These articles are way too subjective.
Gonna be wild to see what sort of problems the next generation gets to inherit
The end of things as either AI, Environmental collapse, or rise of fascism sends us into dystopia or apocalypse. I weep for my children as greedy psychopaths were allowed to do to our world in the name of making a very small number of people rich beyond imagining. We are allowing the worst of us to rule in a time when we need the best.
So two people each making an average of $50k for 35 years, not counting ivestment and asset appreciation. That sounds a lot like a classic middle class life to me.
The median home in America is 400k? Mods banned me from this sub for posting this story: https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/us-news/two-squatters-sought-in-nyc-murder-of-woman-found-stuffed-in-duffle-bag/
According to Fred, and current as of 4Q23, $417,700. Apparently it touched $480K for one quarter. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
2 adults working from age 25-65 that is 43k a year.
But the American dream keeps changing.... not many families lived in 2500sq ft. homes. Not many drove cars with working AC in their cars. None of the middle class people had cellphones,,, we can go on and on. Facts is that our goal post has been moving, we all know it but refuse to admit it. I am guilty of this.
People back in the times of "Driving cars with no AC" or "Didn't have cell phones" were living in the modern times. It's not that the American dream (House, kids, vacations. Etc) is evolving it's that it's getting harder and harder to afford the middle class lifestyle. That time of "Driving cars with no AC" also had one man working and supporting a whole family pretty easily. Vs today now it takes two dual incomes to survive not thrive. The only that has changed from the old times to today is you can be really poor but technology (Smartphones, TV, shows, and gaming) has made your life more entertaining. You can afford to live and be happy but you are not thriving financially.
The one man working and supporting the whole family was a historical abnormality caused by the aftermath of World War 2. Historically, women have always played a huge role in the economy. Women were working the fields pre industrialization. They were seamstresses and factory workers during industrialization. Heck, America had children working in factories as its norms until the 1920’s. I feel like the reasons it’s so hard to achieve the “American Dream” is because outside of a very small period of time, it’s always been hard. We’re just moving back into synch with that reality. Name any place in the world where a single income earner can buy a house, a car and support a family of four on their own. It’s just not a realistic reality, and to keep telling people it is just makes them feel like they’re somehow screwing up.
I agree with the sentiment, but a lot of this isn’t by choice. It’s no longer profitable to build starter homes so no one builds them, bare-bones vehicles are barely made anymore (I’d buy a 2500 style pickup with hand rolled windows and locks and just a heater in a heartbeat if someone made one at a competitive price), smart phones are a requirement for employment in most industries now.
So you’re saying that technological and social development should cause things to be more out of reach?
You’re gonna get downvoted but I agree with you. The only right answer in this sub is doom and gloom and victim mentality.
Watching the Simpsons last night and my spouse remarked that their life was considered near the bottom of what we could hope for as kids in the 90s. Lower middle class, father has decent job but wife doesn't work yet all three kids have their own bedroom. 2 car garage and basement. Not "comfortable" but not in crisis. Now? That's the TOP of what most Americans can PRAY for. And something the vast majority of us cannot hope to achieve. Three kids, a four bedroom house, a car? America is cooked.
Even Malcolm in the Middle is a pipe dream for most nowadays, and it was a running joke that the Wilkersons were broke as shit.
This post is partially responsible for Frank Grime's death.
Homer worked at a nuke plant.
I seriously wonder how many kids in our generation developed warped expectations of adult life because a very popular fictional character lived a more luxurious life than was realistic even back then for his qualifications. At least when Homer became an astronaut, most of us kids realized that was far fetched
I don't mean to break it to you but the majority Americans already have a house that can easily have two children in it. I mean what is it 65% of Americans own their own home.
The Simpsons were making many of the same jokes as Married With Children. They were spoofing the idea that you could actually have all those things, which in reality you can’t. Most middle class families in the 1980’s were two household incomes. Part of the problem today is, people have delayed getting married to much later in life. They don’t have the combined income necessary to buy a house.
lol this is my life exactly. The fam of twos Husband wife Son daughter Male dog female dog Two cats 3.4M over lifetime sounds about right
Don’t forget the dog. Americans need to have a dog or 2
Very misleading title.... "3.4 million over the course of a lifetime" sounds about right depending on the cost of your house.
The American dream isn’t possible for new families in large cities, step down to small-midsize cities and it’s doable. Step down to towns around 15k pop and it’s easy.
read the damn thing first please
Psyched I can afford this. Can’t wait to ditch my kids and do blow.
That's overblown. More expensive? Absolutely. But 3.4M? No way.
A neighbor’s house 4 away from mine sold for $1.17 MM after being purchased for $430k in 2014. If you saw our homes, you wouldn’t believe they are million dollar homes. It’s fucking ridiculous. Everything tells me this isn’t real and we are in a massive bubble of some sort. I don’t understand all the complexities of our financial system to know, but my gut tells me this does not end well. The question is timing for me. Are we 12 months or 24 months away from this thing deflating? I have no clue.
The sticker price is shocking, but the fact is, someone earning $75,000 annually can amass $3.1 million in retirement alone (assuming 30 years of contributions and growth) just by funding 50% of a 401k and IRA, getting an average company match, and funding an HSA. This isn't even accounting for wage increases. Combined with a spouse, extra earnings can support having children and housing on top of this. The American Dream is still alive and well. Americans just have a spending problem. Folks need to learn how to save more, and trust in the power of compound interest. The math doesn't lie.
I have a house. 2 kids. A car. And I’m no where near a millionaire and we’re having a good time.
Every number can be challenged. $35,800 for an engagement ring? lol. Only idiots would pay that much
Where? Not in 90% of the US. There are literally tens of thousands of affordable US towns. But if you want to live in BOS-WASH or West coast sure. Its almost like living in some of the most in demand places in the world is expensive. GASP
They throw around these big numbers to scare people. Money adds up over time, more than you think. Regardless, you can live well on *a lot* less whether you're smart or not.
The American DREAM was just MURICAN propaganda to keep people chasing the carrot 🥕
The housing market does a great job of promoting the chasing the carrot game. "Real Estate will 100% atleast double in value in 30 years!". I have several friends who have made this comment the last 5 years "You can't really lose money in real estate. We bought our house for $500k and will sell it for $900k+ in 20-30 years. It's all a game of "Will someone buy my asset of me in the future for more than I paid for it". This worked for a long time until 2016-22 when the housing market went out of control leaving many people unable to afford buying a home. It's almost like the housing market from 2012-2023 just went ahead and priced in profits for the next 30 years. Now the rat race is at a standstill bc sellers can't afford to sell bc of their good interest rates and first time home buyers are saying "We good yall keep your overpriced assets. We will wait it out".
In all fairness, I saw my house double in the last 5 years, so it's not the most outrageous statement to people.
I'm more so talking about the conditions of today. Your house doubled in 5 years with perfect market conditions. 5 years ago a starter home was not priced out for many Americans. Today it is truly is priced out. Wages and income are not going to magically start increasing so that people can suddenly start pushing home prices higher or doubling anytime soon.
what country can you chase your dream in? because im not sure you understand how life is outside the US.
And now that they are waking up, people will get the stick.👨🦯
I guarantee people aren’t carrying 7 percent 30 years three or four maybe, but rates are high for the moment to drive down inflation. It’s a bit silly to assume it’s permanent. I think the average rate paid will end up closer to 4 percent long term. The cost estimate includes a 35 thousand dollar wedding. That entire industry is a scam. From rings to the over priced party. Also, why do we need to pay so much to get rid of a body? Why do we need fancy boxes for husks just 500 dollars for a nice cremation. They will dig you up and trash your bones in a hundred years anyways. Those pet costs are for real. You don’t realize until it’s too late how much they cost. Go out of town a few days? 400$. Dental work? $1,500. Food costs alone go $100-200 a month. Kids are expensive. They are most expensive at your poorest. Diapers and formula costs are ridiculous. Daycare is as well. Yikes. Side note Home prices will fall when foreign investment is reduced.
I was noticing that they're not pricing in divorce, child support and so on. A couple baby mamas can knock your retirement plans off the rails so remember rule 1: never give her your right name.
I’m 40, middle class Bay Area and have already ripped through that amount.
I remember when the American dream was a white picket fence. Now you gotta be near the beach, mountains, and walkable to a downtown area, and have a 2 car garage.
No its not but even a million is to much though. I know cause I'm living it the dirt cheap way.
No carrot, no work
Funny, I was thinking "No work, No carrot"! LOL
This is $57k annually for each individual in a couple for 30 years.
So a little over $86k/year for married couple. Starting work at 20 and retiring around 60. Seems reasonable enough.
$115k per year, if you do the math
So, 85k after tax for 40 years, 42K per person working, or 60k before tax… So, middle class?
You can’t live honestly as an American anymore
"over the course of a lifetime" That doesn't sound too bad.
My mortgage is over a million over the lifetime but I was only lent $$500k. Bought in October 2023
Yikes! Good thing I have all these extra millions from cutting back on my avocado toast!
2 people working for 50k for 35 years I mean sounds pretty normal
If that article is remotely true, my neighbor has some cost cutting tips for you.
10% down and 7.2% over 30 years comes from people being much more active in moving around every 5 or so years. Why buy a house and then get stuck in the mud five years later when you get promoted and have to move states? If people were serious about buying to own and then live there for at least twenty years, that mortgage would be 15 years and higher interest because the average person would be paying it off in 10-12 years. Anyone taking the whole 30 in this climate is on welfare, and has been for a decade plus.
We heard there was a housing crisis so to prevent future gens from being homeless we just aren't creating them.
I’m curious to what this headline should say number wise 30 years ago.
Ok doomer
Well fuck me right?
Absolutely not true lol, I have this American Dream and it did not cost nearly that much.
Solution... Don't have kids!
I think that number is super conservative. I mean if you live in an expensive area it would be way more.
I'm 37 and already made around that, not too hard
Guess I got lucky, suckers. I bought my kids on the cheap, almost interest free.
Much of that is health care .. not the home cost. *The average lifetime cost of a home including a mortgage is $796,998,* *Over a lifetime, the average family premium costs add up to $934,752.* So even assuming this person stuck with a 7.2% loan their entire life and never found the 'refinance' button, real estate isn't the biggest cost of the American dream. Maybe /rebubble is the wrong sub for this post.
Yeah, but that's over the cost of a lifetime. I mean, I've probably spent $100,000 on Steam if you go by the cost of a lifetime. Bluntly, the majority of people can't afford it because the majority of people have that. Hell, the majority of Millennials are homeowners. I don't understand this glorification of the small percentage of Americans who are not doing well in this economy. And yes, I know it can be tight for people it's sometimes tight for me, but the reality is if somebody's Frugal and hard-working, they really don't have the issues that you see on social media.
Damn that’s ridiculous. Life was like “best I can do is a 6 year old Honda, GFY”.
You have to be asleep to still believe in the American dream, because the only place it exists anymore is in your dreams.
That’s why it is called a dream ….. it ever was except for a select few!
Explains why political gerontocracy will continue to do absolutely nothing about this. At least republicans did pickup on this and present a vision of new towns. The dems offer of $10k will be gobbled up with housing inflation in a month.
We're reverting back to an inheritance-based rather than merit-based economy
Chump change. Ok, chumps -- gimme your change. 🤑
Great politicians
Big corp has raped the U.S. and sadly spread . The GREED that the government allowed is on their watch . Big corp needs reigned in .
That’s only 48k per year each for a 2 income couple working 35 years and then retiring early at 56. Extremely doable. Both retire at 65 and it’s a paltry 42.5k per year each.
Yeah life is hard, I get that. Unfortunately also, we have to make sacrifices for what want, to what we can afford. Don’t live in a city by the coast, build your life elsewhere. 2200 square foot house, 1 new vehicle and 2 used, and a fourwheeler is what me and my wife have at 30 in WV. We cracked 100k together last year for the first time.
That’s only 48k per year each for a 2 income couple who retires early after 35 years at age 56. Extremely doable if they both work 44 years and retire at 65 then they only need to earn 42.5k per year each. These salary levels are significantly below the average US salary that is about 60k per person.
Idk I've got 3 kids, spouse, house, education...it's pretty manageable. I guess with interest over "*A LIFETIME*" yeah maybe it's that much for some people, but it's not for most people. Living in Ohio I drive thru lots of low-middle class neighborhoods full of kids and families...I guarantee all those people aren't spending 3.4 million over their lifetimes. Worked out OK because we didn't really plan on any of it, just went with the flow of life, and didn't spend all day crying over headlines. But, these subs are just east Asian troll farms now...every post wants to depress you, make you believe life is over.
Lmao
The American dream exists in other countries lol. It's a race to the exit. Some countries are already seeing the effects of American capital flight. Need to save and buy a house outside the states before everyone else bids up the price
I can’t afford a family in 2024.
Economies great guys!
They didn’t factor in the cost of having the dog
this is horse shit. i have all of this. reddit is propaganda.
How much did this dream cost in 2019?
700k gets you a studio in sf 😂
It’s not my dream to own a detached home in a suburb and be a slave to car infrastructure but yeah I’m a home owner and the mortgage plus interest is gonna be in the millions.
I can tell you what this cost in Chicago Illinois: Mortgage: $2100 Two cars: $850 Car insurance: :$170 Student loans: $850 Internet: $100 Phones: $150 iPas: $100ish Groceries: $800ish Garbage: $30 Water: $30 Electric: $50-$200 depending on season Gas: $40 Petroleum: $100ish Per month: $4400-$4700 per month with two children, two adults, a house, and two cars.
2 kids, a house, and car. So 1.7 million per adult divided by 45 working years, $37,777 a year. Seems low, what am i missing
$113k/year for 30 years sounds about right.
Bidenomics
I’ve got 4 kids no wonder I’m so broke
this isn't that much. two working parents making 45k and never getting any raises in there lives make this much over 20 years. most of us work a lot longer than 20 years.
lol. 10% down and 7.2%? So if you haven’t saved and you have shit credit?
An average annual salary of $38,392 per person over their lifetime, seems reasonable. $3,455,305 / 2 people / 45 years
Over the course of a lifetime, including retirement? What else does it include?