By combining the The BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) spending data and the lifespan data from the WHO (World Health Organization) or SSA (Social Security Administration); we can calculate how much the US average household will spend in their lifetime. The average 25 year old will spend $3,819,103 in his/her lifetime.  This assumes the average person lives until 85 years old and spending habits correspond to the 2019 BLS spending data and there is no inflation.  With the same assumptions, the average 45 year old will spend $2,498,923 and the average 65 year old will spend $1,030,723. Lifetime Spending with Inflation The Historic US Inflation Rate has been around 2.25% (https://www.multpl.com/inflation).  Age Average Lifetime Spending With 2.25% annual inflation 25 $3,819,103 $7,760,036 45 $2,498,923 $6,081,902 65 $1,030,723 $3,201,717 The numbers reflect the impact of 2.25% inflation.  Even though historically 2.25% annual inflation occurred, it doesn't mean ...

As of writing this post, there is no US Listed Bitcoin ETF.  So here's a List of a some stocks you can trade in regular brokerage accounts to get exposure to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies without having to open a specialized Cryptocurrency account.  Also, these are registered securities, making them eligible for SIPIC insurance against theft or brokerage defaults, unlike holding Cryptocurrencies in digital wallets.  1) GBTC   Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is the most popular traditional investment vehicle to get exposure to Bitcoin with around $30 Billion USD.  The drawbacks are that it can trade at a large premium or discount to NAV as there is no mechanism to easily redeem shares of the trust for Bitcoin and since the trust is a Pink Sheet (not traded on a primary exchange) there aren't any Option contracts available to trade. 2) RIOT, MARA, HUT These are Bitcoin mining companies so they will have natural exposure to Bitcoin.  There are many others, but these st...

  Without going into a super deep dive, here are 6 discussion points:    1) Store of Value This was one of the original arguments for Bitcoin, a trustless technology system that allows you to trust the system without having to trust other parties you are transacting with a predetermined finite supply.  Big early advocates are ‘Gold bugs’ and people worried about hyper-inflation as modern governments continually ‘print’ money.  Popular ones include: Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), ZCash (ZEC) 2) Smart Contracts Beyond a trustless currency, platforms emerged to have censorship resistant software leading to ‘smart contracts’.  Programmatically executed transactions without the need for intermediaries.  Popular ones include: Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT) 3) Stable Coins These are digital currencies that are tied to the value of a more or less stable asset like US dollars.  Their main use is to transfer...

Consumers on average around $63,000 but depending on the age it can range from just under $40,000 (25 and under) to close to $80,000 (45 to 54 year olds).   Detailed spending data for 2019:  The BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), conducts surveys and publishes the data on their website ( https://www.bls.gov/cex/ ).  Below is a graph I compiled to show the different groups. A consumer is considered a household (from their website: "A consumer unit consists of any of the following: All members of a particular household who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or other legal arrangements").  The graph was created using python's plotly package https://plotly.com/ Its quite interesting that it increases to about age 50 then slowly comes down.  My opinion is that this is due to people starting families and decreasing as children leave the nest.  With a growing concern for our aging population, I hope society and governments figure this out and offer ...

I've been self reflecting on life and also wonder how long I'm expected to live.  My first inclination was to estimate based on my past relatives and how long they lived, but doesn't give me a large objective data set to evaluate from.  So I found that the WHO (World Health Organization) publishes this data world wide, and the SSA (Social Security Administration) publishes a little bit more detail for Americans. These are often referred to as mortality or longevity tables and are usually prepared by actuaries. From WHO: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688 2019 Life Expectancy At Birth At Birth At 60 years At 60 years WHO region Male Female Male Female Global 70.8 75.9 19.5 22.7 Africa 62.4 66.6 16.7 19 Americas 74.5 79.8 21.2 24 South-East Asia 69.9 73.1 18.2 20 Europe 75.1 81.3 20.5 24.3 Eastern Mediterranean 68.3 71.3 17.8 19.3 Western Pacific 74.8 80.8 19.8 23.9 From SSA: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html 2017 Period Life Table Age Male Life expectan...

 Bitcoin has emerged as an alternative asset class; but does it really offer any diversification?  Although the future prices can move in any direction, below you will find data going back to 2014 to show you how it has historically behaved.     From the chart, you can see that it definitely hasn't been negatively correlated.  The most recent 12 months it had a 0.33 correlated move with the S&P 500.  It doesn't look like it has provided great diversification during the 2020 Covid-19 sell off either (reaching as higher than 0.70). So although past performance may not indicate future performance, it looks like Bitcoin is moderately positively correlated to S&P 500 (SPY), but has historically gotten very high when the stock market sharply falls.

The Average American Household spends $63,035 and the top 10% spend $145,966.  This data is for 2019 compiled by the BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). --------------------- Have you ever wondered if you are spending too much or too little?  This is a very subjective topic because the answers completely depend on circumstances (resources, constraints and preferences).  So to help me answer this question I would generally ask family and friends or research online.  My guess is that if you have done the same you will come back with generally similar conclusions on either judgements that you spend too much and should cut back or support justifying the value in more controversial items (like daily latte).  Although I found this short term cathartic, it never really created an objective framework for me to work with. So to answer this question, I decided to approach the question differently.  How much do other people spend?   After having the context of...