The cost of being there: budget for your friend's celebrations

Life Kit

NPR

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Education, Business

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You want to support your loved one on their special day — but that can come with a steep financial cost. How do you choose between the three destination weddings? How do you say no to a friend's big event without damaging your relationship? In this episode, Life Kit reporter Andee Tagle breaks down the cost of being there: how much big celebrations like a bachelorette trip or baby shower might cost you and what to do if you're worried about your budget.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025?
0:04.9	We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year.
0:09.4	Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.
0:13.9	You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
0:22.2	Hey, everybody, it's Mariel.
0:24.9	Have you started getting wedding invites for this year yet?
0:28.0	What about invites to big milestone birthday parties or anniversaries?
0:31.9	Book launch parties and baby showers, gender reveals and graduations,
0:36.8	christenings, bat mitzvahs.
0:39.2	If we're lucky, we get lots of opportunities every year to celebrate with our people.
0:44.7	And I really mean that.
0:45.8	It is a blessing to spend this kind of time together and toast to life.
0:49.6	But damn, does this stuff get expensive?
0:52.2	The Digital Finance Company Achieve did a survey in 2024 about the cost of being there for community celebrations.
0:59.1	Three and four respondents said celebrating other people's big life moments was interfering with their financial well-being.
1:06.0	The extent to which that happened was really surprising me that it was that high.
1:10.1	Austin Kilgore is an analyst at
1:11.9	Achieved Center for Consumer Insights. Seventy-nine percent said that it takes them more than a month
1:17.3	to prepare financially to attend a major life milestone. Included in that 79% was 18% who said it
1:23.7	would take them over six months. So it really speaks to the kind of paycheck-to-paycheck nature of many American households.
1:31.1	Our reporter, Andy Tagle, has been looking into this.
1:33.9	And on this episode of Life Kit, we talk about the cost of being there.
	...

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