Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - The American Dream is expensive
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Old 09-21-2025, 08:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arctic Fox View Post
Retirement: $1.6 million
Owning a home: $957,594
Owning a new car: $900,346
Raising two children and paying for college: $876,092
Health care: $414,208
Annual vacations: $180,621
Pets: $39,381
Wedding: $38,200

I can see some room for savings:

Owning a home - sure, if you want to live in The Hamptons, but I suspect most areas have a selection for well under $957,954 so let's halve that figure.

Not sure what new car they are getting for $900,346 - possibly a McLaren? - but, with modern cars having a much longer trouble-free life than the clunkers from the 1960's, buying a new car every ten years should suffice, so let's divide that figure by three.

Kids - who needs them?

Wedding - swallow your ego and just get married. It's meant to be a solemn occasion, so you don't have to try to impress everyone by spending a lot of money on frippery.
Our lifetime of expenditure is a little different

All of our homes throughout the years is definitely over a million
All of our cars from age 16 to present around $600,000. Looking at a new EV $87,000 will add $
We loved kids so 3, plus college until medical school more than a million
Health care out of pocket deductible and monthly copay $2,000-4,000 year to age 18-64yo.
Vaca less $$ we worked too much
Pets less $$, we didn’t prolong their deaths
Wedding today is far more $$$ than 30 years ago. Our 400 guests today would be over $25,000

Retirement don’t have a clue, dirt nap is still in the future one hopes. Our parent memory care is $7,000 a month. So there is that.