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You're listening to Life Kit from npr.
Hey everybody, it's Marielle.
Have you started getting wedding invites for this year yet?
What about invites to big milestone birthday parties or anniversaries?
Book launch parties and baby showers, Gender reveals and graduations, christenings, bat mitzvahs if we're lucky.
We get lots of opportunities every year to celebrate with our people and I really mean that.
It is a blessing to spend this kind of time together and toast to life.
But damn, does this stuff get expensive.
The digital finance company Achieve did a survey in 2024 about the cost of being there for community celebrations.
Three in four respondents said celebrating other people's big life moments was interfering with their financial well being.
The extent to which that happened was really surprising me that it was that high.
Austin Kilgore is an analyst at Achieve's center for Consumer Insights.
79% said that it takes them more than a month to prepare financially to attend a major life milestone.
Included in that 79% was 18% who said it would take them over six months.
So it really speaks to the kind of paycheck to paycheck nature of many American households.
Our reporter Andy Tagle has been looking into this and on this episode of Life Kit, we talk about the cost of being there.