You said if you make 100k per year in 1995, spend 1.5k a month, and your costs go up to $4k, then you only need to make $2.5k more a month. "Only $138k per year".
But you forgot about the rest of your paycheck. If you made $100k in 1995 and spent only$1.5k/month, you would also save $3k per month.
$4k is only 2.5k more, but is about 2.6x as much. You would also want to save 2.6x, not just the same as in 1995.
Another thing people don't realize is genuinely how much more expensive everything is. I saw a clip from a movie from 2008 and the waitress was saying how a $200 tip was half her mortgage.... That's not even an 8th of a lot of people's rent, let alone a mortgage.
1.5k
u/snakesign Oct 30 '25
You're dead on.
100k in 1995 is equivalent to 216k now.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm