Investopedia do an interesting study each year...
The price of the American Dream
According to the brains behind the study - that includes the following
Retirement Savings - $1.6m
Healthcare costs - $414,000
Home ownership (NOT including maintenance) - $957,000
Raising 2 kids (including college tuition) - $876,000
Owning a new car - $900,000
1 vacation a year - $180,000
Pet ownership - $39,000
Wedding - $38,000
For a grand total of $5,043,000 over a lifetime
Now you can go back and forth about which of these things are necessary... or can be done cheaper
Case in point - my own wedding ran me a grand total of £542 ($730 at the current exchange rate)
But my big takeaway from the study was twofold...
First - the average American earnings over a lifetime for someone with a Bachelor's degree are just $2,800,000
So you've immediately got a $2.2m shortfall...
Which means at an absolute minimum... you'll need a dual working parent household to make it work
Which then usually comes with extra childcare costs...
Plus the hidden costs like lack of quality time spent as a family unit...
But that's a seperate email all by itself... so I'll go to the next... and probably more worrying point.
The cost of all of these categories is rising above the rate of inflation.
Most categories in the American Dream list were up 5% year over year... with some costing almost 10% more than a year ago.
And that's without factoring in areas that the survey ignored, like home maintenance, which are increasing at an above market rate.
Or the cost of taking care of aging parents... which many also need to factor in.
So even if you disagree with some of the categories included... you can't argue that the trend itself isn't troubling.
And it's data like this that makes it even more imperative that you set up your portfolio in the best possible way to help you win long term.
Invest early... invest often... and use your money to create even more money.
And I’ll be walking through my ideal long term setup on Thursday’s live webinar
Oliver