Thirty Years Goes By Fast

If you are like most from Generation X, it seems like just yesterday you were attending your favorite movie as a teenager. Top Gun, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and the Karate Kid 2 (not 1, but 2!) debuted in 1986. You may remember the cost of a movie ticket was about $3 to $4 and a gallon of gas cost around a buck thirty years ago.

You probably did not know the family car your dad let you borrow to pick up your date, Honda Accord, cost $12,000. And, you had no idea what the term “retirement” meant and paying for the rising cost of your college was not even on your radar.

It’s okay. You were normal. Most people find it difficult to visualize far into the future. Now, when you drop your awkward junior high kid and “date” off at the movie with a twenty in their hand you wonder if they will have enough. Rightly so, because the average cost of a movie ticket is between $8 and $9, more than double thirty years later. That gallon of gas and your Honda Accord, both double than what they cost in 1986 also.

These goods and services are relatively mundane increasing at the rate of inflation. But, they demonstrate the fact that in order to pay for the rising cost of future spending, it is important to save and invest in the stock market, no matter how intimidated you feel about it. Our firm specializes in helping people navigate the volatile market and plan for the uncertain future. Put us on your list of New Year resolutions to start working a plan. The future is not definite, but I guarantee the next thirty years will go just as fast as the last thirty years.