Haley Sacks, the personal-finance creator better known to her more than 2 million followers as Mrs. Dow Jones, would love to own a house outside New York City one day, once she has a family. She already has the details imagined, down to the paint colors and the handles on every door. But she also expects that dream to come with a steep price tag, and it has shaped how she thinks about one of the most enduring markers of financial success in the United States.

Buying a home, she argues, should be a lifestyle decision rather than a yardstick for whether someone has made it financially.

"I'm a millionaire, and I proudly rent," Sacks told Fortune's Ellie Austin on Fortune Daily.

The millennial creator, who shares personal finance advice with an audience of more than 2 million, is challenging money rules that younger generations have long heard from their parents and grandparents. "We all still have this idea in our head that when we own a home, that's when we're going to be an adult," she said. "But we have to rethink that, because many of us are never going to own a home."

Her message lands at a moment when the broader economy has made those milestones harder to reach. Some young adults are adapting by buying fixer-uppers, scraping together multiple sources of income, and even putting off marriage and children to make the American Dream work for them—even when it looks different from what their parents imagined.

"They're not just postponing life markers," Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, previously told Fortune. "They're also taking a different path." Fortune has framed the pattern as a "Great Postponement."

A home as a lifestyle choice, not an asset

Despite her millionaire status, Sacks said she still wants to reach a certain benchmark in her investments before buying property, because she does not view owning a home as an asset.

"I would only buy as a lifestyle choice, never as an investment choice," she said.

The money she would put toward a down payment, she argued, is better used as a "nest egg" for investing in the stock market. Sacks, who is also the author of Future Rich Person, acknowledged that local conditions vary and that people need to run the numbers on housing costs where they live.

Her reluctance to call a house an asset also stems from what happens after the sale. Making a property personal—selecting the paint colors, choosing the handles on every door—means pouring in more money beyond the purchase price. "I know that it's going to be a money trap," she said.

Renting as a millionaire, Sacks noted, is still different from renting because buying is out of reach. She was candid that her own path to building a business included family support: after losing her job in 2018, she did freelance writing through connections she had made in media and paid rent with help from her parents. "I never want to, you know, not talk about that stuff, because it's so important," she said.

The widening gap between home prices and incomes

The gap between housing costs and incomes has been building for years. Between 2019 and 2024, the median U.S. home value rose 30% after inflation, while the median income for households headed by someone under 40 grew just 9% in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Pew Research Center, which found buying a home has gotten harder for young adults in most U.S. metro areas.

By September 2026, a household needed to earn roughly $121,500 a year to afford a typical home—assuming a 10% down payment and a 30-year fixed mortgage—compared with about $77,300 for a typical rental, according to Zillow. The more-than-$44,000 spread between the two thresholds is the math behind Sacks's argument, and Zillow's report also noted rental demand up 20% as high lending costs stifle the for-sale market.

Sacks worries about what happens when people feel the life they want is slipping out of reach. One venue where younger people are looking to build wealth is the prediction market sector—platforms where users stake money on real-world outcomes—which she criticized as marketing that makes participation sound like sophisticated investing.

"With the American Dream really changing, people are so desperate for a way to make money and to advance themselves," she said.

The easy access those markets offer on a phone, she argued, can make the possibility of a life-changing payout feel immediate and "addictive." "It makes you want to impulsively just put money into it because you want to change your situation so badly that you're going to go for it."

The dynamic has academic backing. As Fortune previously reported, a paper by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago suggested that when homeownership feels unattainable, some households may turn to risky investments such as cryptocurrencies as a last resort to build wealth.

That pressure to catch up is part of what Sacks wants younger Americans to reconsider, starting with the assumption that owning a home should define financial success. As for her own American Dream, the house outside the city remains a possibility—but only on her terms.

"If that's what's going to make me happy and I have my investments in a good place, then maybe I'll do it."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.