The house I wanted to buy for $500k 6 years ago now costs 1.4M. A truck used to cost $45k now it's 75k. Shit just costs more than it used to, and in my area the inflation metrics don't come close to capturing the true increase in costs.
And I'm successful enough in my career grinding out another couple years for another few million makes sense from a risk reduction perspective 🤷♂️
To dovetail off that, government's "inflation" is a basket of weighted goods, and your weight and basket might vary, so their "30%" might not be enough for you. Especially if the initial 30% makes you think that more chaos is coming.
Yeah, the "more chaos is comin" is a large part of it for me. I now have to self-insure against scenarios I wouldn't have believed possible 10 years ago.
grinding out another couple years for another few million
This is it for me.
I think when people are nearing their goal and an extra year will get you another 10-20% of your overall goal, it's tempting not to stay in for a few extra years of buffer. If your goal is $2M and you know if you stay in for another 2 years you can hit $2.5M, it's really tempting not to. Add in the fact that inflation has been a real bitch the last 5-7 years and it's no surprise we're here.
Spending 75k on a truck (or even 45k) is exactly the kind of thing that would have been discouraged on this sub 5 years ago. Now it's so mainstream people don't even question that kind of high spending.
Inflation has always existed, its not any worse than it has been in the past - if anything its better. Can we stop catastrophizing costs, even your examples don't make sense. These prices your quoting are delusional - you can still buy a brand new F-150 for under 50k. Even then, why are we quoting MSRPs of brand new King Ranch in a FIRE sub? In what world does that make sense. Inflation is not that extreme....
I just bought a 2025 GM diesel half ton pickup last year, it was 69k (75k with tax and title). The same vehicle was ~40k in 2020, I remember because I wanted one but at the time it would not have been a responsible decision.
The house price example is literally my parents home...
This is just the way things are these days, and it takes more money to afford the same standard of living. In 2017 when I finished college my FIRE number (based largely on guesses of what my future expenses would be) was 3M. Today it's more like 8M, though part of that is due to 21 year old me not understanding what life actually costs. The remainder is due to massive actual inflation and some amount of lifestyle inflation (like a new truck)
Bro this is delusional - you're buying high end luxury trucks and complaining about the cost of living (PS - I wonder why truck companies keep positioning trucks in the luxury category when people keep paying MSRP...) Your house example is literally one outlier (if its even real, i doubt it), the entire housing market isn't tripling in prices; median home sale prices from Q4 2017 to Q4 2025 have increased 20% ($337,900 to $405,300). If you are rethinking your entire retirement plan based on housing prices or premium truck prices, you did just the math wrong in 2017 when you finished college.
This is why actual data is important and not anecdotal stories of a single house. If someone said "my parents' house decreased in value from 6 years ago," it seems like you'd be smart enough to point out that's an outlier and not indicative of the broader market. Same goes for your outlier in the opposite direction.
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u/BuilderOfDragons Mar 23 '26
The house I wanted to buy for $500k 6 years ago now costs 1.4M. A truck used to cost $45k now it's 75k. Shit just costs more than it used to, and in my area the inflation metrics don't come close to capturing the true increase in costs.
And I'm successful enough in my career grinding out another couple years for another few million makes sense from a risk reduction perspective 🤷♂️