Every few months, I come across this retirement planning ad from 1996 posted in the personal finance corners of the internet, shared with a mix of awe and horror.

 

It features a smiling young professional with a breathless warning: "In thirty years, a burger & fries could cost $16, a vacation $12,500, and a basic car $65,000."

 

 

The sarcastic solution they weren't so right about: "No problem. You'll eat in. You won't drive. And you won't go anywhere."

 

 

This ad ran during peak "end of history" optimism. Cheap Chinese imports had been flooding the market for a decade. You could fill a cart at Trader Joe’s for $60. Everything seemed to be getting more affordable. Inflation was in the rear-view mirror, solved and forgotten.

 

So, the ad made sense for the era: TIAA-CREF was selling retirement accounts to people who thought compound interest was their biggest concern, not the erosion of purchasing power.

 

The ad was meant as a wake-up call: save and invest, or watch your standard of living evaporate and be forced to give up basic, middle-class pleasures.

 

 

If we ran this ad today, looking ahead to 2055, the numbers would read:

To us, it doesn't seem so outlandish. A little conservative, actually. After all, we've just lived through a period where used cars appreciated 40% in two years. Not to mention houses.

 

That 1996 ad wasn't really about saving for retirement. It was a warning: accumulate assets or risk being priced out of a middle-class life.

 

The difference is that in 1996, readers probably thought it was fear-mongering. In 2025, we know it's happening.

 

In 2025, more than any other year I can remember, we really confronted the four horsemen of wealth destruction: taxation, devastation (fires etc.), legislation (rent control), and inflation.

 

But TIAA-CREF couldn’t sell you the one thing that would have really, really helped - the average home price in 1996 in Los Angeles was $164,000.

 

The best solution I see, then and now, is buying any house you can and looking back from 2055, and being very glad you did.