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itake · 2025-11-05 · Original thread
> it’s time for parents to “enjoy their best lives”.

Personally, spending money doesn't bring joy to my life above a certain threshold. Research agrees with this sentiment [0]. I don't believe that a $400 camping trip near my house is 10x worse than $4000 trip to Europe. Likewise, you moving to FL (reducing lifestyle costs by 20%) doesn't make your life 20% worse than wherever you were living before.

My issue with broad national or global surveys is they are largely meaningless on the individual level. You could be double the national income/wealth, but you still can't retire in Manhattan (if that is where you want to live due to being near your kids). Also, why stop at national? Why not compare yourself to global income/wealth?

But circling back to the original point: If the next generation wants to live in a good area [2] in a tier1 city, the either need to the top 10% of their field or their parents need to lift them up. If someone wants to skip college to pursue plumbing, great! but they will never be able to compete with DINK tech/finance/medical households or trust fund kids bidding on properties in Buckhead.

Land isn't growing, but population is. Even if only 1% of the parents each year subsidize their kid's housing, as t approaches infinity, cities will be filled with DINK and trust fund families.

[0] - https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does-more-money-correlate-g...

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Die-Zero-Getting-Your-Money/dp/035856...