One random American life
Press “Get born” and receive a name, a family background, a birth year from 1950–2005, and a birthplace in one of the 50 US states. Your beginning is random; the choices that follow are yours.
Move through nine life stages with about 20 decisions: 15 story choices and five money allocations. Navigate school, work, family, and retirement, dividing spare cash between savings/CDs, the S&P 500, fractional home equity, Bitcoin from 2013 onward, or a little living.
History meets a simulated future
Historical years through 2025 draw on real annual S&P 500 total returns, home-price indices, interest-rate observations, and CPI inflation. Savings/CD returns use a three-month Treasury rate proxy. Early housing data, Bitcoin returns, and some other inputs are approximate; the 2025 CPI figure uses an incomplete-year fallback.
Years after 2025 are explicitly labeled “future (simulated).” The game uses authored scenarios and historical return patterns for those years. Balances are shown in constant 2025 dollars, so inflation affects purchasing power.
A receipt for the life you lived
Your life receipt gathers chapter-by-chapter income and expenses, final net worth, a net-worth-by-age chart, and a short life summary. Save or share the receipt as a PNG, or copy your result.
The receipt displays a TOP or BOTTOM percentage rank among 240 simulated lives born in the same year. This is a game comparison, not a percentile of real Americans.
Grounded, with room for chance
The economy is broadly calibrated to age-group wealth medians from the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Its rounded family-wealth medians are approximate game targets, not an exact fit of household finances or exact estimates in 2025 dollars.
- A random birth year, state, name, and family background
- Story choices and money allocations across nine life stages
- Historical data, clearly marked approximations, and simulated future years
- A shareable life receipt with a simulated-cohort rank
- Saved progress and a sound toggle
For fun, not financial advice. Historical observations, simplified game rules, and simulated outcomes do not predict your own life or investment results.