Episodes / Episode 09
The Home Alone Family Was Top 1%. I Did the Broke Math.
Economists at the Chicago Fed say the Home Alone family needed a top one percent income just to buy their house. So Ray keeps two ledgers. The family's: ten pizzas, fifteen tickets to Paris, and a $967 room-service bill in the sequel. The kid's: $19.83 of groceries with a coupon, and a twenty-cent tip Ray pays back, with inflation. Then there's a third ledger: the real house, which sold in January 2025 for $5.5 million and was billed almost $52,000 in property tax, more than Ray makes in a year. The kid wins. The receipt comes out one kid short.
367 rent-yearsChapters
- Ten pizzas (CPI 2025)
- about $302
- Flights to Paris for 15 (estimates)
- $56K to $106K
- Room service, one night (CPI 2025)
- about $2,200
- Groceries for one kid, alone (in the movie)
- $19.83, with a coupon
- Property tax on the house, one year (reported)
- almost $52,000
Total: One kid short. The family spent a fortune and left a kid behind; the kid spent twenty bucks and saved the house.
Sources
Numbers in the episode are estimates built from these. If you spot a mistake, tell Ray: hello@brokeray.com.
- Room-service bill in Home Alone 2 ($967.43): FOX TV Stations (Dec 2023), Hello! (Dec 2022)
- Income needed to buy the house (at least $305,000 in 1990, top 1% in the Chicago area; about $730,000 at the house's 2022 value): Chicago Fed economists for The New York Times (Dec 2023), also NBC Chicago and NZ Herald
- Ten pizzas ($122.50 in the movie): BroBible (Dec 2025), Sideshow (Dec 2018)
- Paris flights for fifteen (estimates of $55,650 and $105,821): CNBC (Dec 2024), GOBankingRates via AOL (Nov 2025)
- Groceries ($19.83 after a $1 coupon in the movie; $56.84 with tax at the same store in 2023): PolitiFact (Dec 2023), NBC Chicago (Dec 2023)
- The pizza ($11.80, paid with $12): Vice (Dec 2017)
- The hotel's "Home Alone" package (from $2,160 plus tax, 2025 offer): the hotel's offer page, NBC New York
- The real house (sold for $5.5 million, January 2025): Cook County Assessor sales data, CNBC (Jan 2025)
- Property tax ($51,770 billed in 2025): Illinois Policy (Dec 2025)
- County market value ($2.18 million for 2024, $3.11 million for 2025): Cook County Assessor
- What the parents did: Chris Columbus via Fox News (Dec 2024); Macaulay Culkin's guess, Toronto Sun via LADbible (Dec 2025)
- Inflation: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U annual averages (1990, 1992, 2025)
- Rent-year: $15,000 (Ray's rent); Ray's wage: $24 an hour; the conversions are our own math
Movie prices come from the films. Today's money uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U annual averages (1990, 1992, 2025). Paris flight costs are published estimates; the two estimates use different seats and years. The property tax figure is the bill issued in 2025 (tax year 2024); newer bills may be higher. The house shown is a generic paper house, not the real one; the owners are private people and are not named. A rent-year is $15,000, Ray's rent; Ray makes $24 an hour (about $49,920 a year). Characters and film are property of their owners.
Not financial advice. Narration: synthetic voice (ElevenLabs). Script and animation made by hand.