The American Dream used to come with a timeline—graduate, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire. Now, that timeline is more like a suggestion that fewer people can actually follow. Economic uncertainty has turned life milestones into luxuries you postpone indefinitely while pretending it’s a choice.
1. Having Children
The cost of raising a child has become so astronomical that parenthood feels like a financial death sentence. Childcare alone can cost more than rent in many cities, and that’s before factoring in healthcare, education, and everything else. People who want kids are waiting for financial stability that never quite arrives.
The delay often becomes permanent. You wait until you’re financially ready, then you’re biologically not ready, or you’ve built a life that doesn’t accommodate children anymore. The window closes while you’re waiting.
2. Getting Married
The average cost of a wedding in the United States reached $35,000 in 2024, according to data from The Knot’s annual wedding survey. Beyond the wedding itself, research from the Pew Research Center shows that married households typically require higher incomes to maintain the same standard of living, with combined housing costs, insurance, and lifestyle expectations increasing financial pressure. Couples are delaying marriage not because they don’t want commitment, but because they can’t afford the life that’s supposed to come with it.
This creates a weird limbo where people are in long-term committed relationships but can’t formalize them because of money. You’re too financially insecure to marry, but too invested to leave. T
3. Buying a Home
Homeownership has shifted from an expected milestone to an impossible dream for huge portions of millennials and Gen Z. Saving for a down payment while paying rent that keeps increasing is like running on a treadmill that speeds up. The gap between what you can save and what homes cost keeps widening.
This usually means never buying at all. By the time you save enough for a down payment, home prices have increased beyond what you can afford again. The goal moves faster than you can chase it, and eventually, you stop trying.
4. Starting a Business
Entrepreneurship requires capital, and when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, risk becomes unaffordable. Data from the Kauffman Foundation’s 2024 State of Entrepreneurship report shows that new business formation rates among Americans under 35 have declined by 30% since 2019, with access to startup capital cited as the primary barrier. A Federal Reserve study found that 60% of aspiring entrepreneurs reported delaying business plans due to the inability to secure funding or personal financial instability. People have ideas, but can’t afford to pursue them.
The delay kills most business ideas eventually. The window of opportunity closes, someone else does it first, or life circumstances make risk even less feasible. Economic insecurity doesn’t just delay entrepreneurship—it prevents it.
5. Changing Careers
Switching careers often means taking a pay cut or investing in retraining you can’t afford. According to a 2024 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 67% of American workers reported feeling trapped in their current jobs due to financial obligations, unable to pursue career changes despite job dissatisfaction. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index found that economic uncertainty was the top reason professionals cited for not pursuing desired career transitions.
You accumulate responsibilities, benefits, and seniority that make switching even harder. What was temporary becomes your entire professional life because you couldn’t afford to pivot when you wanted to.
6. Going Back to School
Additional education could improve earning potential, but the cost and opportunity cost make it impossible for most people. Taking time off work means lost income, and student loans mean decades of debt. You’re trapped between needing more education to earn more and not being able to afford the education.
The ideal time to get additional education keeps receding as responsibilities pile up. Eventually, you’re too old, too busy, or too financially stretched to make it work.
7. Retiring
The traditional retirement age is becoming obsolete as people realize they can’t afford to stop working. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2024 Retirement Confidence Survey, only 23% of American workers feel very confident they’ll have enough money to retire comfortably, down from 37% in 2019. A T. Rowe Price study found that 42% of Americans expect to work past age 70 due to financial necessity, not choice. Retirement savings haven’t kept pace with longer lifespans and rising costs.
This creates a generation that works until they physically can’t anymore. Retirement stops being a reward for decades of work and becomes a luxury only the financially secure can afford. Most people will work longer than they planned and die with less security than they expected.
8. Getting Necessary Medical Care
People are delaying doctor visits, procedures, and treatments because of cost, even when they have insurance. High deductibles mean paying thousands out of pocket before coverage kicks in. You live with treatable conditions because treating them means financial ruin.
This makes problems worse and more expensive to fix later. You skip preventive care, conditions progress, and eventually you end up in emergency situations that cost far more. Delaying care for financial reasons creates the very financial disasters you were trying to avoid.
9. Having Dental Work Done
Dental insurance is often separate and inadequate, leaving people to choose between oral health and financial stability. Root canals, crowns, and other necessary procedures cost thousands. People live with dental problems that affect their health and job prospects because fixing them isn’t affordable.
It could have been a filling, but it becomes a root canal, then an extraction, then missing teeth that affect your employability. The economic impact of delaying dental care often exceeds the cost of the original treatment.
10. Moving to a Better Area
People stay in high-crime, poor-quality neighborhoods because moving requires first and last month’s rent, security deposits, and moving costs they don’t have. You know where you live isn’t ideal, but changing it requires capital you can’t accumulate while paying current rent.
The impact is generational. Kids grow up in areas with underfunded schools because their parents can’t afford to move to districts with better education. The cycle perpetuates because economic immobility creates geographic immobility.
11. Fixing Their Car
Cars need maintenance, but when repairs cost more than you have in savings, you delay until something breaks completely. You drive on bad tires, ignore warning lights, and skip oil changes because each repair is a financial crisis. The car slowly deteriorates while you hope it lasts.
This usually results in catastrophic failure that costs far more than preventive maintenance would have. Your transmission dies instead of getting serviced, turning a $500 problem into a $3,000 emergency.
12. Upgrading Job Skills
Certifications, courses, and training that could increase earning potential all cost money that people don’t have. You’re stuck in lower-paying work because you can’t afford the training for higher-paying work. The poverty trap has an education component where lack of money prevents the learning that would generate money.
Your skills become outdated, younger workers with newer training pass you, and your earning potential plateaus. What you could have learned at 25 becomes harder to learn at 45, and the gap widens.
13. Building an Emergency Fund
Everyone knows you should have six months of expenses saved, but when you’re barely covering current expenses, savings are impossible. You live one unexpected cost away from financial disaster because you can’t accumulate a buffer. The advice to save is useless when there’s nothing left to save.
This creates perpetual financial fragility. Every car repair, medical bill, or job loss becomes insurmountable because you have no cushion. You can’t build stability because you can’t afford stability, and the cycle never breaks.
14. Taking a Real Vacation
Vacations have become luxury items rather than normal parts of life. The cost of travel, lodging, and taking time off without pay makes actual breaks impossible. People go years without real time off because they literally can’t afford to stop working and spend money on travel.
The delay affects mental health and burnout in ways that reduce productivity and life satisfaction. You work constantly without respite because rest is expensive. The American Dream used to include leisure time, but now leisure is only for people who can afford it.
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Consult a financial professional before making investment or other financial decisions. The author and publisher make no warranties of any kind.
