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An interesting article in the New York Times – These Young Adults Make Good Money. But Life, They Say, Is Unaffordable. January 3, 2026 – explores the unaffordable of life as perceived by young adults. This paragraph caught my attention.
“Is it worth sacrificing a yearly vacation to save for a down payment, when housing prices keep rising? What about buying a home that is 90 minutes from work — or a two-bedroom for a family of four? Are children even possible?”
Yearly vacation, what’s that? Eating out? Dining out was so rare beyond an occasional White Castle hamburger, I can’t recall one. Two bedroom house? I wish.
What I allude to here is my life growing up and the early days of our marriage.
Growing up we didn’t have a house or even a two-bedroom apartment. Five of us lived in a one bedroom, one bath apartment. My parents turned the dining room into their bedroom. From age ten or so, I slept on the couch. We weren’t poor, my father worked 6-7 days a week.
When Connie and I were first married our apartment was an hour drive to work. Our first house – built in 1918 had three small bedrooms but one tiny bath for five of us.
When I read “Is it worth sacrificing a yearly vacation to save for a down payment, when housing prices keep rising?” I don’t know what to think.
Yeah, if you want a house, that sacrifice and others are worth it. And so is a second job and working overtime. At least that is the perspective of someone born in 1943. I asked Connie out on our first date in 1968 for a late meal – at the time we were both working overtime at our companies because we needed the money.
“Are children even possible?” I’m not sure if that refers to the need or desire for both spouses to work or setting lifestyle priorities before children. In either case, that statement is beyond this older generation persons ability to understand.
And there is the rub.
The differences in defining needs and wants and desires. Perhaps a very different perspective of what a person is willing to do or forgo to achieve their goals.
Maybe life as we want it to be or think it should be is unaffordable-at least if we are under 30, but if we look at our definition of necessities, maybe not.
I waited to age 70 to buy my dream car. The thought of making such a purchase ahead of scores of other really necessary things was, well, unthinkable. I’d probably be laughed at by a thirty something driving a leased MB.
Until we moved to our condo in 2018 we never had a walk in closet, or family room or a bathroom nearly as large as one of those closets. Connie might have had unkind words about the closet space, but we didn’t express in the pages of the NYTs.
These days middle-class families spend roughly $1,000–$3,000 per year on their children’s sports activities, but costs can be much higher for competitive or travel teams – $5,000 and more. My children spend upwards of $5,000 each year. Is that a necessity? Probably not, but explain that to your children when their friends are playing.
As in many cases, “unaffordable” is in the eye of the beholder as is “necessities” I guess.
I am genuinely getting a giggle from all these comments. I turn 53 next week and my 24 year-old just bought a home, and I have relatives who live in multigeneration housing, so I have a lot of experience with this.
My children’s view of what’s normal is the fault of my wife and I. We did the high-end sports, we did tons of travel, we ate out here and there. However, we taught our kids the value and reward of work at an early age, and that nothing comes without costs.
I made it my business to earn enough money to support a traditional stay-at-home mom setup because I thought it was worth it because it made such a difference in my life. Good parents expose their children to the values that made positive contribution to their own lives and hope it sticks. That’s all you can really do.
I gave a very large gift to my son for his down payment and he’s got a 325K mortgage he has to pay, and it’s great to see him step up to the plate and work to make those payments. Does he spend too much eating out? Yes. Does he do stupid things with money and time? Yes. But that’s life. He’s an adult, and I want to see him be successful.
I don’t make it my business to worry about anyone else’s kids. The article, Dick’s article, and the comments are pretty entertaining, but that’s where it ends. The message is to make enough money through work, savings, and investment over 30 years, and you too can sit back, relax, and giggle at how “the young people” do things.
It all boils down to matching resources with goals, expectations, demands and as defined necessities. I just think there is a greater mismatch in the 21st century than in the 20th. And, perhaps less willingness to accept that.
As someone who splits the difference age-wise between Richard and the subjects of the NYT article, I probably lean more towards Richard’s take on the subject of affordability, but having three children starting out in the workforce, I also can see how their perspective on saving and purchasing is shaped by the current economic and social climate. Despite making more on an absolute value when compared to me (and almost certainly Richard), I think not only have expenses increased commensurately, but the idea of access and opportunity seem more constrained than in the past. The “work hard and save for a downpayment on a home” seems a further, sometimes even improbable, reach than in the past, even compared to where I was a generation ago. This seems to me more than just a perception, so until I see data otherwise I’m willing to give the perception credence.
But we deal with the cards we’re given, when we’re dealt them, so not a ton of value I can see in looking fondly back as the past in this instance (otherwise I’d be crying over interest rates!). In my case I’m working towards helping my kids out when it comes to first mortgages, educational expenses, etc., relative big ticket items where a boost may be enough to get them on a path of forward momentum.