Is there a way to calculate how much money a person uses in his/her lifetime?
I’m just curious if there’s a way to determine how much money a person uses, not spends him/herself, but actually uses from the cost of diapers and baby formula to education and food to insurance and entertainment. I understand that no two people would have the same “life cost” but is there a way to figure out a ballpark figure?
For greater ease, let’s say the person in question is a middle-class person from a nuclear family and who went to a tier 2 college and spent four years there.
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There are numerous calculators for the cost of raising a child from birth through college, like this one. Most come in around $225,000 for kids born in 2009. I haven’t seen anything through average lifespan.
Edit: this is more of a tool
What about unpaid, accumulated debt or government aid, are these taken into consideration? Then there’s the money local government and agencies spend on each citizen that wouldn’t necessarily be out-of-pocket expense or covered by individual tax contribution (e.g. public transit costs more per person than the rider pays with his/her fare). So, are you wanting to know the net or gross “ballpark figure” of the cost of a human from cradle to grave?
The way to ballpark it would be to take the cost of raising a child through college, say age 23, and from that point on, apply the federal minimum income level as a per year amount, adjusted for inflation over the estimated lifespan. This would give you a ballpark minimum level to maintain at poverty level. You could then classify certain types of expenditures that are larger, such as car ownership would add roughly $7000 a year to expenditures, to cover gas, maintenance, car payments, insurance. (Owning a car is not necessary; you could live in a different place that is accessible to public transportation.)
Could you check all your W-2’s since your first job?
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