No, It’s Not Just You. Life Is Way More Expensive Than It Used to Be

Back in high school, I had one goal my senior year: make the varsity basketball team. I was always pretty athletic, but I was also short. Then came a seven-inch growth spurt and a whole lot of time in the weight room during my junior year. By senior year, I was ready.

Fast-forward: I made the team.

In the first game, I had a rude awakening. Driving to the basket, I went up for a layup only to get elbowed in the chest by a guy who was at least six inches taller and 40 pounds heavier than me.

Same game. Same 10-foot hoop. But the competition had leveled up. And I had to adjust.

That’s what life feels like today.

It’s the same game, same goals, same playbook, but everything is harder. It’s more expensive to live, and it doesn’t matter if you were ready or not. The game changed and we all have to play it.

So what has exactly changed that makes life more expensive? A few things.

Wages: The Silent Lag

Let’s start with wages.

In a lot of my past writing, I’ve brought this up: back in 1990, a $30K salary could support a family of four. Own a house, two cars, stay-at-home spouse, two vacations a year plus some money left over.

That feels like science fiction today.

Why? Because wages haven’t kept up with inflation.

Let’s define two terms that'll be showing up a lot:

• Nominal Wages: the actual number on your paycheck.
• Real Rages: that number adjusted for inflation. What your money can actually buy.

If your salary went from $50K to $55K, that’s a 10% nominal raise. But if inflation was 3%, your real raise was only 7%.

Here’s where we are:

• A ~$29K salary in 1990 had the same buying power as ~$71K in 2024.
• From 2010–2024, nominal wages grew by ~$31K, but in real terms, that only gave you $9,500 more buying power.

In other words, if your salary didn’t increase by at least 65% over that 14 years, you fell behind.

Housing: The Dream Repriced

Housing affordability wasn’t great heading into 2020, but it wasn’t catastrophic. Then the pandemic hit.

• People fled cities for the suburbs.
• The Fed dropped interest rates to stimulate the economy.
• The money printer started printing money.

The result? A 55% increase in home prices - 15 years of growth crammed into five.

Back in 1990, the median home price was 2.7x the median income. In 2024, it’s 5.1x. That means you need to make double (adjusted for inflation) what someone in 1990 did to afford the same house.

The math doesn’t work anymore for most people. Homeownership, the supposed cornerstone of the American Dream, is more of a nightmare for all but the top 10–20%.

And housing prices? They’re sticky. They don’t drop easily or quickly, even if demand falls. So, while you might see small declines, the idea of a huge, across-the-board price correction is unlikely. 2008 type events don't happen often.

College: $900K in Value... At What Cost?

The promise: Go to college, get a degree, land a good job.

And statistically, it does still pay off:

• A college-educated man earns $900K more over his lifetime than a high school grad.
• For women, the gap is $630K.

But the cost has exploded.

I went to Indiana University and graduated in 2009. However, for the sake of this argument, let's use the same two years to compare costs, 1990 and 2024. Out-of-state tuition in 1990 was $9,800 per year, or about $39K for four years. Today? Over $42K per year. That’s $169K for the same degree.

In 1990, that degree cost 0.6x the median household income. Today, it costs 2.1x. You now need to earn 3.5x more to comfortably afford the same education.

Everyone’s talking about housing prices, and rightfully so, but the rise in college costs might be even more outrageous.

Kids: The Cost of Raising the Next Generation

It’s no secret: fewer people are having kids. Birth rates are falling, and the reasons are complex.

• Young men are falling behind.
• Barely anyone meets in person anymore.
• Dating apps are a mess.
• Fewer people are getting married.
• Kids are wildly expensive.

As a parent of two, I can tell you firsthand, daycare alone costs us almost as much as our mortgage. And that doesn’t even include food, clothes, and activities.

Adjusted for inflation, it’s now 220% more expensive to raise a child than it was in 1990. In some households, one parent’s entire income goes to daycare, $30K to $40K a year in daycare/nanny costs alone is not uncommon.

The "traditional" family where one parent stays home? Nearly extinct. For most families, two incomes are a necessity, not a choice.

Bottom Line

Yes, life today is more expensive. Wages haven’t kept up. Homes and college are priced like luxury goods. Kids are a full-time financial commitment.

For the first time in the country's history, a 30-year old today is not doing as well as their parents were at the same age. But no, this doesn’t mean life is impossible.

It just means the game has changed. The rules? Still the same. But the competition is tougher, and the path to success is steeper.

If you feel like you're working harder just to stay in the same place, you're not imagining things.

Whether you signed up for it or not, you're playing varsity now.

Note: This is purely educational and is not investing or tax advice.