when you read these articles it’s always buried in the nth paragraph that “scrimping for years helped us, but my husband’s grandmother dying and leaving us $500k helped a lot too”
Thanks to parental assistance, my husband was still in college
a generous grandmother helping us with our first down payment
My husband finished his degree and then I finished mine.
aka you were never actually broke
Avocado toast bullshit, broke people don’t make enough to keep up with basic necessities, nothing about that grind helps you later.
For some people, broke means not being able to take a vacation to Aruba
For others, it means skipping out on dinner for two weeks
A flight to Aruba costs $150. Actually if you can’t afford to fly to Aruba you honestly are broke.
One-way, from Miami, or round-trip with connections? In my experience air travel that’s not short-range and direct has a base price of about $300 round-trip.
Anyway, the point is not being able to get there empty-handed, it’s being able to take a week off work and travel and have lodging and entertainment and things. This all costs way more than what the median American has in savings.
