If Budgetbabe can save $100,000, what's your excuse ?

Budgetbabe recently wrote a concise blog article on how easy it is to save $100,000 before age 30.

I thought I wanted to join in the fun, so I asked my FB what's their excuse for not being able to save $100,000 before age 30.

The results were quite predictable, some friend carefully crafted a life situation which was intelligently distinguished from my life situation or some other financial blogger which was well-argued even from a legal perspective.

It's all fine and good, I don't really judge my friends these days. At age 40, a balanced scorecard matters more than accumulated wealth. Hokkiens say Huar Hee Jiu Hor !

In fact, I think I want to provide on this blog a a better excuse than the one's crafted by many friends and well-meaning critics ever since I wrote about taking on the $100,000 challenge about 10 years ago in my first book. If you are my age and did not meet the target, you may have failed, but you may have succeeded in some other area of your life.

Maybe one day, a friend will ask " Chris, I am happy, drink lot's if birdsnest. I look like I am 30 but I am actually 45, what's your excuse ? " to which I can only answer "Exhaustion ? "

So, suppose you are a Gen-Xer like me, some si-geena Millenial comes up to you and says " Hahaha ! I can save $100,000 before I am thirty. what's your excuse uncle?"

For goodness sake, don't say shit like marriage and kids to a Millenial.

Because I have gone through the process myself, I know the critics will use marriage as an excuse until I had gotten married myself, and then use kids as an excuse after I get married but before I had Clio. After I had my kid, critics naturally complained that they have have two kids. Now, I just can't beat them all if they keeping having more kids than me.

( I need to pull up my pants and go to school - not keep making babies at home. )

So don't slam BudgetBabe for being single and childless.

In my opinion, I think the best reason is this....

The hard, bitter truth is $100,000 is chump change for this generation of workers !

It is worth only $63,000 in 1999 dollars when I just started work or $73,000 when was 30 years old if we just assume an inflation rate of 3%.

So good news for Gen-Xers, if you had $73,000 at age 30, you would have met Budgetbabe's challenge and you can now buy yourself a Pet Shop Boys CD as a reward if you are feeling nostalgic.

Anyway, kudos to BudgetBabe for starting this discussion. She's simply awesome for having that willpower to resist all the online marketing companies throw at us these days.

I think it's great that younger financial bloggers are stepping forward to vindicate my $100,000 challenge and meeting their financial targets at a much earlier age.

But that leaves one problem for the folks my generation...

... If you do not have $73,000 when you are 30...

...what's your excuse ?