Which … would be exactly what you expect, even though it’s likely inflated a bit - if I buy a house for $400k this year and sell it in ten for $500k and buy another one for $600k did I spend $600k overall or $1m? You could even argue for $500k.

None of the above unless you bought them outright with cash. These are more likely to be levered transaction, which means it depends on your interest rate and term, among other things.

Don't forget that when you sold it for $500k and bought again, you likely paid $40-50k in transaction costs.

You spent $1m on houses. You did not consume $1m worth of houses, nor did you spent $1m of your own money on houses if you used a loan. These are all subtly different metrics.

I think you'd look at the average income, not median. I'm seeing $63k/yr which is $3.3M over 52 years. I'm seeing average retirement age as 64 and first job around 17 (47 years). Maybe I'd get closer if I added post retirement jobs (e: oh and social security payments, pension payouts) which seem common.

I don't think it's very common to work until you are 80 years old though. Also, is the 55K$ figure after taxes?

Sure, but after people stop working it's common for them to replace their working income with Social Security, other pensions, and withdrawals from retirement accounts in which their savings compounded over time.

And the median household income is actually $75k now. I'm just saying that $55k is very much in the ballpark for the median person. Does it really matter if that's before or after taxes?

> Sure, but after people stop working it's common for them to replace their working income with Social Security, other pensions, and withdrawals from retirement accounts in which their savings compounded over time.

Agreed, but there was no room for savings in your model as you used the whole income as spending (median income * 60 years). Taxes makes a big difference too since it doesn't count as spending. E.g. someone that earns 55K$, pays 25K$ in taxes and saves 10K$, only spends 20K$ per year, amounting to 1.2M$ (20K$ * 60 years).

$25k in taxes on a $55k income? Where are you from?

For a family in 2024, at the Federal level, the first $29,200 is untaxed because of the standard deduction. The remainder would be taxed at 10-12%. Child tax credits can easily wipe that out and make the liability negative (i.e. you get all your tax withholdings refunded plus another couple thousand dollars).

State income taxes will vary, but are typically lower than Federal income taxes. Many have no income tax.

Just picked an arbitrary number to illustrate. Regardless, we are far from the $3.3M figure. The point is simply that median income * 60 years is not a reasonable approximation for lifetime spending.

But they're also counting retirement as an expense category. Which would imply that money is being spent twice?

Good catch; I overlooked that line. I think we can take that as further proof that this article is not worth our attention.

"401k" is obviously not an "expense" independent of the things that 401k savings are actually spent on (I mean, unless one is counting the expense ratio on their mutual funds).

Yes, but $55k per year doesn’t get clicks or inspire a profound explanation.