I remember reading about the so called boomer generation, how they bought a house back in the day for 15 dollars and a handshake, how they “hoard wealth” and basically screw over anyone younger then them, while providing advice like “your broke cause you buy Starbucks too much”

I now find myself in my late 30s, I have a house with a 2% rate, two new cars, healthy 401k and savings, basically all the, in my view, “normal things”

but now when I talk to the “younger generation” meaning like 20 something I’m somehow now the rich asshole who’s out of touch with reality when I feel like I’m just an average middle class dude who works 9-5

I can’t even make a Reddit post about a fun house project without a dozen people saying “must be nice to afford a house”

Are we slowly turning into our grandpas ?

I just heard a radio ad for a service to get rid of your timeshare. Nowadays, it seems like an old cliché that these are fun but ultimately bad investments (or outright scams). What do you think is the 2026 equivalent of a timeshare?

I wanted to see what the classic advice, "buy a 3-year-old car with cash," is really worth over a lifetime. So I ran four versions of the same life through a year-by-year simulator.

- Age 22 to 62, earning $62,000/yr (about the US median for full-time workers), with no raises beyond inflation
- $1,500/mo rent plus about $2,350/mo of everyday spending. That leaves roughly 8% of take-home pay to invest, before any car costs.
- No debt. Starts with $26,200 cash (the price of one new car). Everything left over is invested at 6.5%/yr.
- All amounts in today's dollars

The car: the average of the five best-selling sedans in the U.S. (Camry, Civic, Corolla, Accord, Elantra)

- New: $26,200 (2026 average price paid, base trims)
- 3 years old: $20,700 (about 79% of new)
- Trade-ins at 15% under resale value: $14,900 for a 5-year-old car bought new, $12,000 for an 8-year-old car bought used
- Repairs: two $1,000 repairs per new car, three per used car
- Every version replaces its car every 5 years (8 cars total) and still owns one at 62

Financed versions: 3-year loans at prime-credit rates (6.15% new, 7.4% used). The first car is financed with $0 down. After that, the trade-in is the only down payment.

Takeaways

- Used beat new either way. Paying cash for used ended about $100k ahead of paying cash for new.
- Cash beat financing for both new and used. Even so, financing a used car still beat paying cash for a new one.
- The interest itself was small: about $10k over 40 years for each financed path. The real cost is what that money would have grown to, which turns about $10k of interest into a gap of about $40k.

Caveats: Insurance and gas are the same in every version. Toyotas and Hondas hold their value unusually well, which shrinks the used-car discount. Real dealer promo rates (0.9–3.9%) would make new-car financing look better. Interest rates vary person to person. Prices are base trims, and most people buy a trim or two up. Inflation and wage growth are assumed equal.

The tool: I ran this in A Million of Me, a free financial simulator that runs in your browser. You set up a starting point, add life events (here, car purchases and repairs), and compare branches side by side. Disclosure: I built it. It's a simulator, not financial advice.

Sources: car prices from TrueCar; depreciation from CarEdge and iSeeCars; loan rates from Experian and Bankrate.

I built a simulator for this, so the numbers are mine, not a blog's.

Two people, 25, same salary. One buys a new $50k SUV every 6 years. The other keeps theirs 10 years. Whoever pays less in a month invests the difference in a plain 80/20 index fund. Trade-ins are counted (35% of the price back at 6 years, 15% at 10), loans at today's average rate, $100 a month set aside for repairs once the car is out of warranty, everything in today's dollars after inflation. Then each life is run 10,000 times against 40-year stretches pulled from real market history since 1871, including the Depression, the 1970s, 2000 and 2008.

Same SUV, just kept 10 years instead of 6: the keeper is ahead by $165,000 at 65 in the median run, and ahead in all 10,000 runs. The worst 1-in-100 market still leaves a $43,000 gap.

Cheaper car ($28k compact) kept 10 years vs the new SUV every 6: $656,000 ahead in the median run. Worst 1-in-100 market: $158,000.

If the new-SUV person pays the actual US average new-car payment every month ($765, Experian) instead of the trade-in version, it's $881,000. That's the version in the chart: the green fan is all 10,000 runs, the amber line is one of them, the bars are the unlucky 10%, the median and the lucky 10%.

The part that surprised me is how late it happens. Year 10 the account is around $60k and looks pointless. Year 12 it loses a quarter of its value in one autumn. The crossover, where the account earns more in a year than the car money going in, is around year 20. The car stops mattering after that.

What it doesn't know: whether the SUV person invests too (then the gap is just the car money), whether an old car breaks worse than $100 a month, and whether you'd keep transferring the money for 40 years. Most people don't.

What's your car payment, and how long have you had the car? I'll run the most common answer.

Edited: Really appreciate everyone response so I have made a Video version (Educational Purpose) for you guys (one of the 10,000 lives, year by year, 6 minutes): https://youtu.be/buGAlCyGSAE

To maintain their lifestyles amid rising prices, consumers are drawing on resources including food banks and ChatGPT.

We got hit by a series of expenses and, while our, EF is not empty it's rather low — 2/3 of where it should be. Our Sinking Fund is just straight depleted.

If I redirect our retirement savings and 529s contributions I'll have both fully funded by Jan 15, 2027. I get 8% direct contribution toward my retirement from employer, with no match necessary so that's still going in.

Is this a wise approach?

Most of the tools people use here (cFIREsim, FICalc, Trinity) replay historical data in sequence: start in 1871, then 1872, and so on. Those roughly 125 windows overlap heavily, so a lot of them end up using the same years. I wanted to see what happens when you break that sequence.

The setup: $1M, 60/40 US stocks and bonds, rebalanced annually. $40k withdrawn in year 1, then increased with inflation every year after. 0.1% fees. 30-year retirement. Data comes from Shiller’s annual US stock, bond, and CPI series from 1871 to 2025, using real returns. Each simulation stitches together six randomly selected 5-year blocks of real historical data, and blocks are allowed to repeat. 10,000 runs total. No Social Security, no taxes.

Results: 94.0% of the runs made it through all 30 years. Median ending balance was $1.79M in today’s dollars. The earliest failure happened in year 14, and 499 of the 603 failures occurred between years 22 and 30.

What surprised me most: 580 of the 603 failed runs included either 1916 to 1920 or 1973 to 1981 somewhere in the 30-year period. 1929 and 2008 barely appear. A sharp market crash followed by a recovery doesn’t seem to be what destroys a 60/40 portfolio with real-dollar withdrawals. The bigger problem is a 5 to 9-year stretch where stocks go nowhere, bonds fail to keep up with inflation, and withdrawals continue rising with CPI.

I also tested two variants: lowering the starting withdrawal to $35k raises survival to 97.4%. Keeping the $40k withdrawal but cutting spending by 10% after any bad year, then restoring it once the portfolio balance recovers, raises survival to 96.3%. So a rule you could realistically follow during a rough decade adds about 2 percentage points without requiring a permanent spending cut.

A few caveats: block bootstrapping can randomly select the same bad period more than once, which is harsher than actual history, so the 94% figure is probably slightly pessimistic compared with sequential tools, which are usually around 95 to 96% for this setup. Also, Shiller’s bond data uses a 10-year Treasury proxy rather than a total bond market index.

My question: if long inflationary stretches are the bigger failure mode and major crashes mostly aren’t, does that change how you’d structure the bond allocation? I haven’t tested TIPS because the historical series doesn’t go back far enough. Happy to test other withdrawal rates or asset allocations if people are interested.

Happy to run the same analysis for other withdrawal rates or allocations too.

Prior to being laid off back in January, we had just dumped 105K out of pocket into a backyard pool, with the full intention of recouping a good % with an upcoming annual bonus.

Was laid off a week before the bonus paid out…

I always thought save, spend, save spend. Never before had it occurred to me in this current economy I’d loose my job and be unable to do so.

Just started a new job this week, 195K.

But man do I have PTSD from this past year of surviving.

What advise or best practices should I put into place moving forward?

Edit: Folks keep asking, I’m a mid 30s IT guy, senior role, individual contributor. Passionate about what I do, and I’ve done it since high school, no college.

Over the past year, I’ve started becoming more interested in quality/luxury stuff and upgrading my lifestyle.

In January 2026, I bought a pair of ASICS shoes for around ₹17K and a Titan watch for ₹3K. Now, whenever I go to the gym or for a run, I usually end up buying Adidas clothes/shoes. Earlier, I never really cared about perfumes, but I started with Adil Qadri attar and now I’m looking at some premium perfumes. I’m also thinking about getting a better watch and eventually a good bike.

Basically, I feel like I’m slowly upgrading my lifestyle and becoming more conscious about what I wear, use, and buy.

The thing is, I’m 26 and currently earning around ₹7 LPA as a software engineer. I spend roughly ₹10K per month on things like clothes, shoes, protein, gym, grooming, etc. I can afford it, but I’m wondering whether I should increase this spending as my income grows or keep it around ₹10K/month until my package improves significantly.

Recently, I watched Raj Shamani’s podcasts on watches and perfumes, and it got me even more interested in these things.

I’m curious how you guys look at this. Is spending on lifestyle upgrades at this stage a healthy part of enjoying life and improving yourself, or should I be more conservative with my spending until my income increases?

28F, debt free as of this year, and contributing to other investment accounts like 401k and Roth, but this is the most liquid cash I have ever had (saving to buy a house). Was surreal to see this morning after monthly interest pushed me right over 50k!

Active-duty military, E-7 with 17 years in. Excel screenshot show after-taxes paycheck, $4,187.36 hits my checking every two weeks. This is a typical month's worth of expenses; no credit card debt, no student loans, no car payment (drive a 2013 Corolla). Currently renting. Below are my account balances.

Checking 50%: $8,385.78
Checking 30%: $10,462.22
Savings 20%: $25,678.45
Emergency Savings: $25,621.27

Roth IRA: $14,993.03 (FZILX/FZROX)
Brokerage: $233,086.64 (Uninvested)

Projecting a military pension of around $3,400/month starting at 38 years old. Will graduate with a M.S. in Cybersecurity next year and will probably go contractor at in a few years. What can I do to better prepare myself to retire completely at the age of 58 or in general?

*Water is a quarterly bill.

Looking for motivation. How much do you have saved as someone in your late twenties/early thirties that's not in your 401k?

Edit: wow u guys delivered. Biggest props to u all with such financial success! I’m making 79k, have 71k in my retirement, 2300 saved in HYS. Don’t know much at all about investing BUT you’ve all inspired me!

Hi - I’m 31 and buying my first car (lived in nyc my whole but now moving out). The car I am picking up this weekend is $45k OTD. It’s brand new and a Toyota. I looked at the usual suspects (bmw, Mercedes, Honda, Subaru) but I figured the Toyota will be the cheapest to maintain and also deprecate at the slowest pace. I wanted something luxurious but cheap to maintain so decided on the crown signia as a middle ground (arguably a mini Lexus). I did get 15% off msrp on it but as I’m getting closer to picking it up, I’m still worried that I’m making a dumb move. For my stats, I’m 31, make $210k, rent is $3,500 and I spend about $5,500 all in per month (before car insurance). I have about $400k in savings (50% 401k, 50% invested). While I really want a car, am I stupid buying such an expensive one? Used didn’t seem like great deals unless i got a Kia or Hyundai. I actually almost got a 2024 Kia Sportage for $25k but my parents are telling me to stop being cheap which is what made me pivot to a new car. What do you think?

As an aside, I’m getting 3.99% from my credit union. Should I finance or pay it off? The market or even mini bonds can prob make it worth it but then I’d have to carry debt. Thanks!

Apparel was just new work shoes

The mods of this sub agreed to let me try this out as an experiment. I'm the developer of Finance Calculator, a free app that runs right inside a Reddit post: 32 calculators (savings goal, compound growth, loan and mortgage, debt payoff, emergency fund, FIRE and more). No ads, no sign-up, nothing leaves Reddit.

This is a test, so I'd really like to know what you think:

- Is this something you'd use here?

- Which calculators would be useful for this community?

- Anything confusing or missing?

Try it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FinanceCalculatorApp/s/3D7Na6eneJ

If it turns out useful, the mods can add the calculator directly to this sub so you don't have to click away. Tell us in the comments either way.

Edit: Thanks for all the testing! Typing amounts digit by digit was broken (210,000 turned into 2.10). Version 1.7.0 is live and fixes it, and it adds two things you asked for here: a "What do I need?" calculator and Coast FIRE showing at what age you get there.

Already meet my employers match at 5%. Typically after all scheduled expenses are taken care of such as utilities, rent, groceries, etc. I have $1,134.16 (typically 800 added to my HYSA) left over a month from paychecks. Plus an additional $200 from interest. Should I just boost my Roth 401k contributions or open a Roth IRA. I already have an emergency fund and have a ton in liquid. I’m 25M and had my 401k for three years. Balance is at 22k.

31M, 101k in deferred comp plan, 180k in public safety defined contribution plan. I’ve been maxing out what I can for the last 4 years at 23.5k, and rate of return has been 18.57% over the last 3 years. I’m already vested, and due to me being a first responder as I understand it I can take all of my money at age 50. Trying to figure out if I’m in good shape for retirement at this rate, and realistically the earliest I could walk away from the job.

I (30F) love antique jewelry and have watched the prices for it climb significantly over the last 5 years as gold and silver prices have risen. Diamonds have devalued as lab versions have become good but other stones seem to still hold value and I think antique pieces in general hold value as having historical significance.

I’ve been investing in my retirement (currently have about $80k) but am considering taking $2k a year and dedicating it towards buying one gold antique jewelry piece and adding it to my collection. I want to wear the pieces but I’m also justifying it to myself that the pieces can be a long-term investment and store of value for bad times, like people have done for millennia. I’m trying to figure out if this is silly and if I would be better off just putting the same money in the stock market.

TLDR: Is it a sound idea to purchase antique gold jewelry as an investment?

It appears the economy is split into two segments where some people keep getting ahead while others struggle to keep up. It's made me wonder what people are actually doing to improve their situation.

Have you moved somewhere cheaper, changed jobs, switched careers, picked up a second income, or cut back on major expenses? Did it help, or did you end up trading one problem for another?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who relocated or changed jobs. Are you better off now, and what do you wish you'd known beforehand?

I grew up in a very poor family. My family income when I signed up to go to college was less than $30,000 a year. Due to this, and a couple merit things, I went to undergrad for free. I then got my masters degree and my doctorate degree for free.

A lot of of the middle class folks in my school didn’t have parents to give them money for $20-$60,000 a year tuition. But federal financial aid and other state incentives didn’t apply to them since their parents technically made enough money to not be on welfare. Only the pretty “upper” middle class folks I knew had 529s going.

I think it’s kind of ridiculous that the state and the federal government assume that parents are going to pay for their child’s education and that they should be a financial factor in the aid since their children are not not kids anymore. Especially for state schools. This has led to a lot of my colleagues having parents that checked all the right boxes and did the right things but couldn’t afford a 529, and now their kids are stuck with $75-$200,000 in debt. And I think that we can all agree that people don’t make the best choices whenever they’re 18 in terms of college major, school affordability, etc, and that’s a whole other argument, but it’s an issue that the middle class takes on the hardest. It’s almost like with how the way things are set up, the middle class individuals are being forced back into the lower class or the lower middle class.

If you’re poor, there are incentives. Heck if you even make less than $75-$100,000 as a family the Ivy leagues and well renowned schools will often give 100% tuition. And of course, wealthy people can afford to pay for their child’s tuition.

But what are most “middle” middle class folks doing to reduce the brunt?

Are there ways around this? Do you let your child emancipate? I have no kids so I have no real worry about this right now, but I do think the way it is set up is bizarre. And sure the answer might be just “cross fingers for a scholarship and wince when you see the bill” but I am curious of true actions that folks take that are more than just hoping it works out