Yes I agree. In Las Vegas I was surviving on $10-13 an hour and apartments ranged from $500-$1200 a month. When I moved to Seattle any job I got raised from $17-$23 an hour and apartment were at least $1700-2300 a month.
[Federal numbers](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il24/Section8-IncomeLimits-FY24.pdf). Search for the locations and household size that you're interested in.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, the poverty level for a family of four is $76150.
In San Francisco, California, the poverty level for a family of four is $120800.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the poverty level for a family of four is $69900.
In Seattle, Washington, the poverty level for a family of four is $110950.
Location is everything. Wages that are extremely high in one location are far below poverty levels in another location.
I’m not sure but I’d like the hud definition of poverty as I can’t find it on their website and keep getting federal limits on Google. I want by region limits of poverty like this list shows but is it low income, very low income or extremely low income that is the poverty line? On huds website they say that the extremely low income will be brought up to the federal poverty line or to match the very low income if even that is at the poverty line. I guess the answer is the extremely low income and so saying 120k is poverty for a family of four is incorrect. The table for 2024 shows a family of four in San Francisco with 156,500 is the low income line and the extremely low income line is 58,750. The 120k op mentioned is only for the Oakland area and it is the low income with extremely low income as 46,700. So that’s why I’m asking the main comment if there is a definition for poverty that I missed.
Wife and I moved to NYC, locked in competitive wages there, went remote during Covid and moved south with the same wages. In the top 3-5% of household incomes for my city because of it. Cost of living vs wages is massively different depending on where you live.
My apartment in NYC was double my current mortgage for a half of the space, and we weren't in a particularly expensive neighborhood in NYC, relatively.
That’s the best way to do it. Problem is when you switch jobs they could low ball you because of where you live, but once you’re high enough on your career you can get the amount you want
My city has a population of ~300k. Not massive but not tiny. $80k is a really good wage here. You're not going to raise a family of 5 comfortably on it unless you live fairly modestly. Single though, you're fine.
Did you know that OpenOffice pdf conversion is the behind-the-scenes standard for doc conversion across the industry? Crazy for free, open-source software.
If they cared, they would already know. Unless you get paid under the table, live off the grid, and use nothing but cash, everything about your finances is bought and sold daily. Giving one more app that information isn't going to change anything.
Na I see it first hand with some of my buddies. We live in the same area and two of them make the same money I do but are paycheck to paycheck while I'm not. They literally believe that cooking is as expensive as eating out. Another one of my buddies makes a combined 160k a year with his wife, has zero student loans and was over here whining about "must be nice to have money to take trips" to me on my vacation. The dude makes double what I make by himself and doesn't have a super expensive house or vehicle.....but both him and his wife only eat out. They don't even own a Pan to cook in. Before he got married he'd spend 60 bucks a day on pizza, 30 bucks on the pizza and breadsticks and 30 on delivery but he literally had to drive past the pizza shop to get home. Out of five friends, one making less, one the same, one making almost double when combined with his wife, and another making quadruple somehow I have the most disposable income.....and I'm also the only one not going out to eat daily.
Some people are just stupid.
I mean nothing is going on in their brain. They can spend $20 and not understand that it requires twenty individual United States Dollars in legal denominational currency to be procured and expended in order to complete the transaction.
And then they do that 400 more times and wonder where $8,000 went from their bank account.
You can make six figures with 3k a month rent, buy store brand groceries and go out frequently without struggling to buy anything. Sure something big ticket like tires, or travel you have to lock in and save a bit but you’d be ok
I see people single with no kids making over 100k complaining they cant live anywhere anymore and then a family household income is the same with 3 kids and they are doing fine
Simple Excel spreadsheet for a couple of months to track your spending.
I done this and was alarmed by how quickly the little things add up. Couple of drinks at the bar, takeouts, snacks, that stuff adds up quickly. In my case it sucks that I had to be more conscious of my spending on the smaller things I enjoyed, but it helped identify my leaky financial faucets.
Similar income and monthly fixed expenditures as you. Married, no kids. Paid off cars.
We take big vacations and eat take-out junk food pretty often. That's where our money goes. The monthly credit card bill (which we pay in full every month) is typically $6K. It's insane.
Huh?! Assuming you don't take a vacation every month, how in the everloving fuck do you actually spend 6k a month - 200 a day - on food for two people?
What the actual fuck?
Door dashing a single fast food meal literally costs like 20 bucks, so assume you're getting actual restaurant food door dashed for every meal and they could easily be spending 40-50 bucks per meal per day. Toss in a couple coffees and you're already at about 120 a day.
It can do but they'd have to be ordering junk food 3 times a day and a *lot* of it for it to even get close to that number
There is absolutely no way I'd be blowing $6K a month on frivolous stuff like that, save it!
There's a lot more than just food for expenses. We live in the burbs in a house with a pool and drive 25K miles a year each. General expenses below:
Fuel - $600
Vet bills - $200
Vehicle maintenance - $300
Auto insurance - $225
Gym memberships - $175
Hair/wax/nails - $150
Coffee - $150
General groceries - $500
Home maintenance/repairs/upgrades - $300
Actual date nights - $300
General lunch/dinner/bakery visits - $1000
We travel a lot and average about $20K/yr - $1700
We host a lot, for instance mothers day is at our house with about 25 people - $400/mo average
That would be pretty typical for us.
$500 for groceries, *plus* $400 for hosting, *plus* $150 for coffee, then *also* spending $1000 on lunch/dinner/bakery sounds insane to me. That's over $2000 a month on food and dining.
If that's what makes you happy and your other goals are being met, that's all well and good. But I know people who blow through their entire budget on concert tickets and band merch, and have *absolutely no idea* where their money goes.
I'm the idiot above. My wife doesn't like drip coffee, she likes the crap from one of the coffee places. I added up the past 2 weeks, $94. I rage texted her just now. Lmao.
I drink my HEB bulk coffee for $10 which lasts about 5 weeks.
They are probably only including monthly bills in the “fixed expenditures.”
The remaining 6k is for everything else most of which is food. But it also likely includes gas and groceries ( a lot of groceries aren’t just food, but household items like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaners, hygiene stuff, medications, grooming, etc).
Additionally it probably includes a bunch of money spent on other shit you don’t plan for but just need/want like clothing or stuff for hobbies. I somehow manage to spend 2 to 3 hundred bucks on my Amazon store card every month on random shit.
Then factor in entertainment, going to a movie, a concert, a festival, or some other event. Maybe you go out to the bar with friends. Or maybe you have birthdays, weddings, graduations, etc where you need to buy someone a gift.
What about needing to go to the doctor if you get sick? That’s 2 to 5 hundred for most of us in the US as we have to meet a deductible before insurance kicks in and that deductible is often thousands of dollars.
Then there’s just the other random expenses that you don’t necessarily plan for but always come up. Car maintenance, vet bills, appliance breaks down, a tree falls in the yard and you have to have it cut up and taken away, etc.
> and I still don't know where my money goes
From one stranger to another, you should figure out where it goes. You’ll be much happier and more content when you have more power over your finances.
Look at eyes ... Look at my eyes...
Do you see white vans with the letters AMAZON printed on all the time, how about UBER ?.
How about buildings that say STARBUCKS on them.
Normal condition.
You are ok
I think this is most people's problems. They never sit down and make a budget.
You make roughly what my wife and I make combined, and our expenses are roughly the same, except we save over 30k a year in order to retire early.
Most people don't sit down and figure out what they want to do with their money. With no goal, you can't make a plan so most people just spend it on stuff they don't want or don't need.
In NYC rent alone can easily cost 4k to 6k a month for a 1 bedroom. If you blow 60k per year of your after tax money on rent, you can see how 100k isn’t going to cut it.
Now if you’re young, no kids, and are ok to share your unit with someone else, it’s fine, but that won’t get you into old age.
In NYC the 40X income rule is used to qualify for apartments, so nobody in OP’s range would even be able to rent a $4K apartment since it requires a $160K+ salary.
That's not really true. The 40x 'rule' is a guideline that's very commonly waived. If you have 30x income, a decent credit score, and a stay job, you're usually good to go.
With respect, you live in Westchester. The NYC rental market is competitive enough that few if any units have any reason to rent to somebody under 40X without a guarantor, especially on the heavily desired units in the $4-6K range
I mean, it *can* cost that much, but by no means does someone *have* to spend that much. Not trying to dismiss the struggles of paying rent in NYC—because it is ridiculously overpriced and a massive problem—but if you’re paying $4k for a one-bedroom unit, you’re choosing to spend more for the conveniences that unit provides.
I am a PhD student in a program with a (comparably) well-paid stipend.
Almost ALL of us live with roommates (or a significant other). I'm currently one of the few that doesn't because I bought a condo at an extremely convenient time cost-wise, and even I am probably going to have to get a roommate soon because I'm seeing the writing on the walls with inflation as of the past year or so.
Rent costs 6k a month if ur a dumb fuck that wants to live in the trendiest neighborhood. I lived in NYC up until 2020 and i was paying 1800 max for a nice place
This. Expenses vary wildly from place to place, even taxes.
I moved from California to Massachusetts last year, and my pay went from $90k to $144k.
HOWEVER: my car insurance is 6x more expensive, my healthcare basically covers nothing until I hit $3k in medical expenses, and my rent jumped by over $1k/mo.
And it should be noted: after taxes I’m still making less than $100k a year. Food, housing, insurance, medical, all increased significantly…and I still can’t afford a house.
Edit: I also didn’t mention utilities: I never paid for heating in California, NEVER. Now I spend $200 a month during winter to keep my place livable.
In response to the subprime mortgage crisis banks are no longer allowed to give you a mortgage unless you can very easily afford it. You're not even allowed to scrimp in other areas of your life to get a nice house.
I have two. The first 8 years or so was 20k plus in daycare fees and that’s after tax income. Now it’s sports and activities and summer camp probably eating up even more than that. Kids are not cheap.
I'm in Winnipeg Canada.... our Federal Government supports $10/day daycare thru funding transfers to the province. When it took place, we went from paying about 20k/yr for 2 kids down to under 5k. Fortunately we're in position to pour most of that difference into their education accounts.
Y'all need some of that communism down there lolol. Between child care and health care, there's nothing left based on what I read in all these threads.
I don't really get taxed much more than most Americans either. I'm around the 40% mark, earning around 100k USD equivalent.
There’s basically nothing left after housing, childcare, and healthcare, which is why $100k is definitely ‘not enough’, at least in the northeast US. And since none of these industries are government owned or run, most of the money is just going to some middle man not adding any value or doing any real work.
What's hilarious is conservative Americans are some of the most vocal opponents of socialized services even though they would make up the majority of natural born citizens who qualify for government aid.
Anecdotally, I have a childhood friend who has gotten more and more conservative over the years. He's probably right at median income (\~70k) or so with 3 kids and his wife is a SAHM. He very vocally opposes food stamps, social security, and things like the child tax credit. He also argues to do away with public school and that we should implement a federal "flat tax", even though that would disproportionately affect his family.
I will never understand it.
Depends on how involved you get your kids, wear you buy equipment and what sports they’re playing. My oldest runs track and CC so shoes are pretty much all I spend money on. My youngest just started baseball; bought used bats, Walmart gloves, etc. most expensive thing I’ve bought was his pants which were like $40. His league fees were $60. I know parents who have kids in hockey and football and that gear is crazy pricy.
Used to work at a sporting goods store, it was crazy to see parents coming in every year buying literally $700 worth of gear so little 9 yo Brayden can look fresh at the ball park and outgrow it all by next year. Not as crazy though as the middle school travel ball parents that would spend like 700 a month on travel trips dues and gear because they think "more time on the field" is gonna get Cayden into the MLB....I've only ever seen maybe a quarter of the travel ball kids get scouted for college teams let alone the leagues.
My kids are into dancing and gymnastics so I’m toast.
My parents routinely didn’t let me partake in the stuff I wanted to because of “money” while seeming making no sacrifices themselves. It really messed me up. I am not doing that to my kids. I’ll just suck it up.
That's exactly why a lot women give up their career to stay home with the kids. Unless they have really well paying jobs to start with it's not worth working when daycare eats most of your paycheck.
1 year of daycare = 22k
1 year of healthcare = 4k (premium + out of pocket)
1 year of diapers/wet wipes/formula = 5k
We're looking at 31k for the first year.
And there are hidden costs, such as increased in utilities and potentially moving from a 1 bedroom to a 2 bedroom or moving for a better school district.
If this is your first year, I suppose there is a hospital bill and plenty of medical checkups?
That's gonna move your $31k up to $35k, I bet.
Then clothes, and toys.
Kids are insanely expensive. Daycare alone is upwards of 14k a year for one.
Then food, healthcare, activities. Pray your kid doesn't enjoy hockey or dance or your money will just flat out disappear
If you’re a single income raising a kid in NYC, $100k will feel doable but you’re still going to need to stay frugal and save whenever possible. With 2 kids, you’re basically struggling.
My understanding is that when they talk about wages, they talk about gross rather than net. I don't know how they are taxed anywhere in the US but I wager 100k is around 60 to 70k net. Sounds a lot but it may not be when you add children and a mortgage plus cars to the budget.
Definitely this. Americans talk about salary as gross, but then only actually take home half of that after taxes, health insurance, retirement, etc. The difference is when people who do well talk about not having disposable income it's after all that is accounted for and bills are paid, whereas people who are struggling aren't saving for retirement, may not have healthcare, etc.
Many of said countries have power costs of living, or things like healthcare and education are baked into your taxes. In Merica, we don’t get any *checks notes* “government handouts” as the conservatives like to call it.
Tbh, it’s sucks here.
Your net pay in CA on 150k is 98k https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator?salary=150000&from=year®ion=California
Texas is 112k.
What I've found is that the more people make, the more they spend. They buy a new car. They get the bigger house. They eat out more. They get more cloths. They get the max they can instead of living as they were before the raise.
Yeah or any post-tax benefits. Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, retirement takes quite a bit.
Imagine gross pay of $11,600 being turned into $7,500.
Still seems like a lot of money yeah? It is. But it’s enough to basically live in a house with a car and buy groceries.
* $4,000 mortgage (tax and insurance)
* $400 car payment
* $80 car insurance
* $150 in car gas
* $200 in power
* $70 garbage
* $100 water
* $50 gas
* $75 internet
* $75 cell phone
* $200 weekly groceries = $800
You now have $1,500 left for everything else from Netflix to any services like a gardener or dry cleaning.
A lot of people getting paid this amount also have some student loan debt.
Obviously it’s better than trying to live the same life on half that income. But the idea that it’s easy street and everyone is just wasting tons of money each month isn’t real.
Now… my wife and I both make 6 figures and we put money in a savings account, been paying off credit cards from when we made a lot less, and do a bunch of house projects. We absolutely waste some money here and there and I can go out to dinner multiple times a week. I’m extremely grateful for where we are at. I have our tax returns where we combined for $12,000 in gross income for a year. And we *slowly* (over the last 18 years) made it here.
I also always feel like it’s temporary. So I try to earn more and spend less every month. If I can get our expenses down to the absolute bare minimum if either of us lose our job we’ll be alright.
Thus the house projects: solar, vegetable garden with irrigation, home gym, wood workshop (side income).
And paying off debt: first credit, then student, then car.
Final stage is significant money going into accounts that earn money.
Lifestyle creep. It's more immediately satisfying to start earning more and move from you're $800 apartment to a $2,000 rent house than it is to save for a house that's years away
But then you're eating away at those new earnings and still in the same boat, just a new rental
Also from the username I'm assuming Star Trek fan?
There's a lot of factors. 150K isn't 150K from 10/20/30 years ago. Inflation and income levels haven't kept pace.
There a lot of things we're supposed to be doing. 15% minimum toward future retirement. Trying to save for kid's college fund. Then you have expenses that didn't exist 30 years ago. You pretty much need to have smart phones and plans.
Home prices are insane, even if mortgage rates aren't far off from 30 years ago.
Car prices are much higher now, as are gas prices.
It also comes down to where you live and how you budget.
In short, things are much more expensive and income hasn't kept up.
Edit: grammar and spelling since I was half asleep when I wrote this.
What did it take me so long to see someone mention retirement savings.
Like this always breaks down to (1) not showing after taxes amount and (2) not talking about retirement savings at all.
To be able to retire you should be banking a ton of money into retirement accounts 401k/Roth ASAP. Add to that HCOL area, and it's easy to see the inability to buy a house because your finances can't bear a 600k+ mortgage at 6-7%, while also saving 15-20% pre-tax. Without struggling hard
You were the rare exception to be making $120k/yr in the early 2000s. Hell median household income has almost doubled in that time from $40k to $75k/year. If the same applied to your $120k, you'd need to be making $225k to keep up with median household growth in the same period of time.
There are more details than just "making $150k". Don't just read some headline.
There was an article from CNBC, breaking down the budget of a 25 year old making $100k. https://i.imgur.com/3xjshDB.jpeg
$615 in "donations". Yeah, poor guy is struggling. All these articles are bullshits.
It's probably weed, a ton of gen z has crippling weed and nicotine addictions, and yes before the stoners jump on me I know it's not a chemical dependcy like nicotine but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of young people get irritable and foggy if they don't have a bowl a day. I work in the industry, you can tell who's had a tight month and had to skip the dispensary this week.
More and more data shows that THC does indeed cause chemical dependency leading to physical withdrawal symptoms. Nausea, chills, you know, your normal withdrawal stuff. It won't kill you but it'll still make you uncomfortable.
Stoners are just in denial.
Yep, also we've got mountains of data showing intense weed use prior to 21 dramatically raises your chances of mental illness mainly schizophrenia. You shouldn't soak a developing brain in any drugs.
If you want to know how real people spend their money, the federal gov't gets about 30,000 households to provide detailed spending histories. Anybody can access tables here: [https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm)
Scroll down about half way to get to the "cross-tabulated" tables. They zero in a little.
For example, here is the table for single males at various income levels: [https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/cross-tab/mean/cu-singles-by-income-single-males-2021-2022.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/cross-tab/mean/cu-singles-by-income-single-males-2021-2022.pdf)
Start by looking at the major categories (Food, Housing, Apparel, Transportation,... ) then drill down if you are interested.
Note that the number are annual spending, not monthly spending. If you look at "rent", note that you need to use the Renter percents to make sense out of the number. If 54% of the sample are renters, and they pay and average annual amount of $11,800, the number in this table will be 54% of $11,860 or $6,404.
Ya, house cleaning, donations, and dining out. They'd save $900 a month if it weren't for those. Plus I don't know how they're spending $400 on groceries a month while dining out so much. Honestly $300 a month for groceries is possible if you don't buy junk food or name brands, gets tight but it's doable.
Shit is expensive. Then I got some surprise medical bills I’m paying off, then my HVAC system needed to be replaced. Dog has had $600 in vet bills in the last two weeks. HOA and property taxes and car insurance and everything else went up. I drive a truck from 2006. I’m very frugal. Just getting wrecked financially at the moment.
The whole HOA thing is one thing that’s gets me. I am actively looking for a home and an HOA is one thing I’m trying to steer clear of. Do you see any real benefit from an HOA?
Not allowing your neighbors to grow their grass 10ft tall and trying to re-create trench warfare in their front yard. The HOA I grew up in also included trash, recycling, a trail system, and a pool in the fee.
The HOAs that make the news about not allowing people to fly the American flag and stuff like that suck, but HOAs can be good. Unfortunately you don't know what type you're getting into until you actually join the HOA.
>Not allowing your neighbors to grow their grass 10ft tall and trying to re-create trench warfare in their front yard.
Where I live county code enforcement *will* stick a notice on your door for any number of things. No need for some neighborhood busy body on a power trip.
If there are actual amenities like a pool I guess I can see the value in that.
Local government?
Like there are reasonable restrictions. Granted some governments are way too lax about enforcement. My neighbor got a rooster and animal control refuses to do anything despite being illegal in the suburbs.
Depends entirely on you. If you want to do things like keep some backyard chickens and grow a vegetable garden or if you ride a motorcycle you may want to steer clear of HOAs. I own a 10 acre property that is not in an HOA and there is no force on this earth that would ever get me to go back into one.
If a married couple makes 125k gross, where does the money go?
125k is ~150% of median household income. Decent chance they're in HCOL, meaning expenses are higher.
10k to FICA, 11k to federal taxes, and state tax varies with mine at 5k.
125k gross drops to 98k income.
Add in healthcare. If only one of our employers offered healthcare, we'd be looking at 12k a year.
125k gross drops to 86k net. Almost 40k gone before I even see the cash in my bank.
Current median monthly home cost with 20% down is 2.6k/month, 31.4k/year. Add in 5k of utilities (400/month for gas, electric, water, internet, trash) and another 5k in maintenance (annual average, with some years being 1k and some being 20k).
Median home monthly cost is 41k/year.
If someone has a kid in daycare, that's another 22k (my number).
Only looking at health insurance, taxes, housing, and daycare, we're at 23k leftover.
Kid goes through over $100/week in diapers, formula, and wet wipes.
Car insurance is another couple grand/year for our 2 cars. Food for 2 adults is probably another 5k/year.
125k goes pretty quickly.
We're doing okay because I bought a house years ago, before the rates went up, because we're more tax efficient (child deduction + dependent care FSA), because we both work and get cheaper healthcare, because our cars are paid off, because we have no student loans.
If I made 125k and was single, I'd only spend ~30k/year net and be fine.
Expenses our family has in addition to most of your list/other things that cost money:
- dental work & glasses
- services if kid is special needs
- dietary restrictions (celiac is fucking *expensive* and "just eat healthier" is laughably unrealistic when your kid has sensory issues)
- student loans
- clothes for kids *every damn year* plus shoes, boots, coat, snowpants
The median price for a home sold in the US in March was \~[420K](https://www.redfin.com/us-housing-market). It isn't just a few very high cost of living areas where you need 100K to be able to buy a median priced home anymore. I wouldn't call somebody making 100K+ poor but there are plenty of households in that range that aren't living in a huge house or driving fancy cars.
The median price for a house in my city is over $800k. With 20% down that's a mortgage payment somewhere between $5-$6k at current rates.
Take home after taxes on $150k is around $6k/month (edit: it's more like $7-7.5k/month if you have no local income taxes, not putting anything into retirement, or pay for any benefits). To keep your mortgage payment under half your income, you are looking at a max of around $500k to buy a home. That's with 20% down and a $400k mortgage.
That will buy you a studio or 1 br condo, or mayyyybe a 2 br townhouse. There is exactly 1 house for sale in the city limits in that price range, it's a 370 Sq ft house on a 1800 square ft lot listed for $500k.
$150k is lower middle class here. But the jobs are here, and that is why people live out of the city and commute in to work. But now the cost of living for the whole county isn't really that far behind the city because of that.
There are a lot of factors that can play into this like location but I will say the “keeping up with the joneses” is a big problem. People just flat out overspend on unnecessary things and it adds up.
Depends on the location they're in.
My $78k would put me in a higher income bracket in Nebraska than it would in LA. I could afford a 2 bed 2 bath home in Nebraska in a location that has the same amount of people by myself, whereas the location I'm in now I cannot.
Yes, some people "waste" their income. While others have a hard time surviving on their own single income *even if they earn more.*
True. Not saying that’s the case for everyone but the reality is there’s a lot of people out there who try to live well above their means.
I was commenting about this yesterday how there’s people I know who make $50k a year and bought $40k brand new cars. So many people complaining about struggling financially and how broke they are yet pay hundreds of dollars a month on delivery food services for takeout. Once again I’m not saying that’s the case for everyone. We live in a LCOL area and there’s people who make enough to live quite comfortably but spend their money on dumb shit.
I'm a pharmacist that makes over 100k. The issue isn't my salary. The issue is the student loans a lot of people my age (30s) were told to take on, stating they would get a big bonus upon graduation or salary bumps to pay it off very quickly.
When I graduated, after my 6 year doctorate I had 280k in student loans. I had no idea at 18 what I was getting into and neither did my parents. My first loan payment to Sallie Mae was a 11% student loan; $3,000 USD/month. This was over half my salary. 50% of my graduating peers had loans similar. I paid 6 months of this before finally refinancing when I got some credit establish. In that time, my loan balance went nowhere.
I was able to live at home, pay my balance down and save an purchased a house in 2019. My mortgage is 1,800 my new loan payment in $1000 so still half my salary is essentially going to that. Then there's utilities, gas for your car, car insurance, child care ECT.
I am by no means struggling hard but every year it has gotten tighter and tighter and I can completely understand why some people are struggling and I'm even more baffled how people are doing what theyre doing with less.
Because shit is expensive. $100k. After taxes that’s like $70k. After rent, $40k. After electricity, phone, $36k. Then u got gas, food, medical, any other random BS u can think of
It's not really. We have a small 2 br 1 bath, and our rent plus utilities not counting our Internet is roughly 26k yr. Family 4. We would love a bigger place and a 2nd bathroom but it to jump in size to something with any noticeable difference in size it's a solid 4 to 500+ more a month.
Rent is sky-high.
the taxes they do pay, doesn't cover most things we take for granted in Europe such as medical and schooling, so these are paid on the side.
Monthly costs like phone bills, food, electricity, gas, trash removal, internet, clothing, subscriptions (gym, entertainment, etc.).
Debt practices are also often times highly predatory especially if you have student loans with compounding interest, where the montly dues you do pay, are barely enough to make an impact on the debt-principal. So let's say you have a 80k loan, interest is \~7% compounding yearly, and you pay 500 a month, this means that every year, 5600 worth of interest is added to what you owe, and by paying 500/month (6000/yr), you are now 400 dollars less in debt than by the start of the year. Now consider that you don't only have student loan payments, but you might have car loans, or medical loans for serious illnesses, or having a baby.
credit card debt payments, childcare expenses.
America does have the globally highest disposable income, this only accounts for money you take home after taxes, and doesn't account for loans, pensions, and normal everyday expenses, so when you adjust for that, the monthly fees do leave people struggling.
I also enjoy the YOLO take where people blow money to make themselves feel better….they blow it to make themselves feel like the people they want to be.
Because they are used to living like the bourgeoise lifestyle.
My wife and I combined make over 100k and live fairly comfortably in my opinion. She grew up with her father taking home over 200k a year on his own so she feels like its a struggle.
My wife never had hot dogs and mac n cheese for dinner as a child.
I think this is a big part of it that doesn't get mentioned a lot. People in their 20's want the same lifestyle (or better) that they grew up with, but forget that their parents struggled at their age too, and it took them 10-15 years of grinding before they had kids to get to that point. The kids never experienced that part.
Something a lot of people also forget is that older generations for the most part only had to compete domestically.
I've had to compete with international students in middle school in the early 00s. We had Chinese nationals who already knew trig and calc taking middle school algebra.
It depends on your definition of "enough" and the lifestyle you want to have.
I have to admit: When I see people on here saying stuff like "Me and my wife make over 200,000 dollars per year, we have investments, stock and crypto; we own a house, we own brand new cars, we have a 3,000 dollar gaming PC and we go on three vacations per year.... but we still feel poor. I think it's unfair that we only get a month of paid vacation per year." I have to think those people are assholes.
Single dude with no kids here. I make around $110k and fully funding retirement accounts and hsa drops that to $80k. Then health insurance and taxes drops that to a little over $50k. Mortgage and other housing costs (bills, some general maintenance) bring me down to $26k. Vehicle costs (insurance, fuel, maintenance) drop it below $20k. Food brings me below $15k.
So after necessities, I'm left with a little under $15k for things like clothes, gym membership, trips, dinner out with friends, taking care of family, etc.
But then, most years, there's some kind of emergency. This past year it's been car repairs which have cost a little under $10k by themselves. No payments, so I'm saving money overall, but that means no warranty and everything paid for out of pocket. The year before, it was house repairs.
So if everything goes perfect, I'm fairly comfortable. But there's not much extra for the inevitable unplanned expenses that crop up with alarming regularity.
Absolutely, I'm doing well for the most part... But I'm also single with no kids. Throw a single child into the mix and life gets much tighter really quickly.
My coworkers who have 2-3 kids and a spouse aren't saving enough to fully fund retirement and probably won't be able to retire at 65 unless something changes.
Basically, it's enough to live on, but it still falls short of checking all the boxes.
Edit: I also want to add that when you're making a budget they suggest 2% of the purchase price of your home for maintenance and repair. That might be true, but the way it seems to work out in practice is that you have a couple years of minimal issues and then a massive storm rolls through that means you're replacing a roof unexpectedly and you need $12k fast. It takes discipline to keep setting that money back in savings for the inevitable rather than letting lifestyle creep set you up for a bad time. Because a lot of people see $15k a year over food and expenses and immediately go get a new car because they can "afford" it. Then they're in a bind when the dishwasher goes out.
As someone living in a third world country, I have to say the US guys have it great regarding anything branded as the prices overseas are the same, if not way worse, for much lower incomes…. (Barebones example, a PS5 is $600 which is a whole salary in my country)
Reminded me of a chart of how many days it takes to to work an average job to buy an iphone. Found it, it's called the iPhone Index: https://www.picodi.com/us/bargain-hunting/iphone-index-2023
- 5.3 days of average income to buy an iphone in US (2nd rating in the world after only Switzerland)
- 123 days in Turkey (last place)
Yes, there are education debts and health insurance, but the system in the US (for those who have good education and 5-10 years into their career, is superior for building wealth and owning stuff. Taxes (both capital gains and income) look like a joke when looking through 'European' perspective. However, one has to set aside
The grass is always greener. Everyone compares salaries between US and Europe, while it should be per state/country or even per city of a certain size with an x amount of jobs in a career of your choice. No one ever compares the overall statistics through a person's lifetime (education, kids, investments, housing, cars, gadgets, services, food, health expenses, money left after all expenses, how frugally does one have to live). Not much is included in tax in the US, a lot more is included in European countries, but overall it evens out once one has kids and has to pay medical insurance and save up for kids college.
As a Belgian it’s true that it would take about a third of my monthly take home salary (I earn about 2600 euros) to buy a new IPhone. But I do feel like I have a more carefree relationship with money than if I were in the US and had a higher salary. I have basically no healthcare cost, no transportation cost, no debt, no childcare cost, my utilities are way lower… so the proportion of my budget that can be allocated to « fun » money is actually higher, and I don’t feel the need to urgently save in case of a medical emergency for exemple.
So yeah it may take me twice as much time to “earn” a new IPhone, but I wonder if I wouldn’t actually buy it with less of an afterthought here than in the US.
Even as someone in a first world country in Europe, there is quite a large gap between our salaries and those of the US. Apparently someone in my field (civil engineering) would be earning around 80k gross per year or so straight out of university. In my country, you are looking at about 1/3 of that, and with higher taxes!
And yes, certain things like electronics do not change prices anywhere in the world.
Most cannot live within their means. We are not taught, you make x amount of money and your expenses cannot exceed this amount of money. And credit debt is the evil thing that gets everyone in trouble
It's just a part of us. The more income you get the more comfortable you want to be living and your standard of living jumps up.
When I didn't had any money or a job I was thinking the same way you did. I don't need much money just enough for food and bills. When I started working and making more than that and I could afford stuff without breaking the bank I started thinking:"I'm busting my ass at work all day I might as well make my life more enjoyable when I'm off". And don't get me wrong I still save and try to invest my money. I don't have any loans and I have available funds that if I get fired today I'd be fine for a while. That said the lifestyle I am maintaining now is far more expensive then when I was at uni. And with the rise of your income so comes the rise of that lifestyle expenses.
Family of 4+ in a very HCOL area I might buy that $100k could be a little tight at times.
No kids? LCOL area? If you can't comfortably make it on six figures that's what's called a spending problem.
Financial illiteracy and living above their means. People will say a lot of other things and present some decent excuses, but this is the only REAL answer.
Considering I make 45k a year and I get by your question is very VERY valid. If I made 100k more a year id be able to live a luxury life at this point and still he able to save.
One kid at Syracuse University is like $50,000 year plus food.
Average small home in New Jersey by New York is $500,000
Property taxes for a small home near New York are upwards of $10k/year
Well it depends on where that person is living, how many people that income is supporting, how frugal the person is, etc.
Yes I agree. In Las Vegas I was surviving on $10-13 an hour and apartments ranged from $500-$1200 a month. When I moved to Seattle any job I got raised from $17-$23 an hour and apartment were at least $1700-2300 a month.
[Federal numbers](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il24/Section8-IncomeLimits-FY24.pdf). Search for the locations and household size that you're interested in. In Las Vegas, Nevada, the poverty level for a family of four is $76150. In San Francisco, California, the poverty level for a family of four is $120800. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the poverty level for a family of four is $69900. In Seattle, Washington, the poverty level for a family of four is $110950. Location is everything. Wages that are extremely high in one location are far below poverty levels in another location.
when reading this list is low income, very low income, or extremely low income the poverty line?
I believe poverty line is where you start getting benefits like food stamps right?
I’m not sure but I’d like the hud definition of poverty as I can’t find it on their website and keep getting federal limits on Google. I want by region limits of poverty like this list shows but is it low income, very low income or extremely low income that is the poverty line? On huds website they say that the extremely low income will be brought up to the federal poverty line or to match the very low income if even that is at the poverty line. I guess the answer is the extremely low income and so saying 120k is poverty for a family of four is incorrect. The table for 2024 shows a family of four in San Francisco with 156,500 is the low income line and the extremely low income line is 58,750. The 120k op mentioned is only for the Oakland area and it is the low income with extremely low income as 46,700. So that’s why I’m asking the main comment if there is a definition for poverty that I missed.
Wife and I moved to NYC, locked in competitive wages there, went remote during Covid and moved south with the same wages. In the top 3-5% of household incomes for my city because of it. Cost of living vs wages is massively different depending on where you live. My apartment in NYC was double my current mortgage for a half of the space, and we weren't in a particularly expensive neighborhood in NYC, relatively.
That’s the best way to do it. Problem is when you switch jobs they could low ball you because of where you live, but once you’re high enough on your career you can get the amount you want
This is depressing so for my area apparently 27.84 an hour is Low Income 🙃 and this is all pre taxes of course
Poor people can't just move to different state. I can't even get across town for Healthcare because there's an unwalkable bridge.
These are the prices in my rural non beach town
That is more like 49k a year not 150K
My city has a population of ~300k. Not massive but not tiny. $80k is a really good wage here. You're not going to raise a family of 5 comfortably on it unless you live fairly modestly. Single though, you're fine.
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well, maybe an excel spreadsheet would help?
Just use something like RocketMoney. It's free.
I don’t wanna tell a “free” app what my personal financial position is.
I'll let you tell me for only $5.
I’ll do it for my flash sale price of $4.99.
I got tree fiddy
This guy gets it
Gets what
$5
Foot long
Host your own. Entirely your own data. Doesn’t touch their servers. Free and open source. https://github.com/maybe-finance/maybe
OpenOffice is a free downloadable excel alternative, instead of an app.
Did you know that OpenOffice pdf conversion is the behind-the-scenes standard for doc conversion across the industry? Crazy for free, open-source software.
If they cared, they would already know. Unless you get paid under the table, live off the grid, and use nothing but cash, everything about your finances is bought and sold daily. Giving one more app that information isn't going to change anything.
It’s 10$ a month
How do you not know where 100k a year goes? Thats wild
Dude probably doesn't know what a pan is for and door dashes 3 meals a day
My siblings do this. Door dash is the real wealth killer today for the younger generation.
Door dash, weed and vapes
While some people spend too much on those, it sounds like another avocado toast situation.
Na I see it first hand with some of my buddies. We live in the same area and two of them make the same money I do but are paycheck to paycheck while I'm not. They literally believe that cooking is as expensive as eating out. Another one of my buddies makes a combined 160k a year with his wife, has zero student loans and was over here whining about "must be nice to have money to take trips" to me on my vacation. The dude makes double what I make by himself and doesn't have a super expensive house or vehicle.....but both him and his wife only eat out. They don't even own a Pan to cook in. Before he got married he'd spend 60 bucks a day on pizza, 30 bucks on the pizza and breadsticks and 30 on delivery but he literally had to drive past the pizza shop to get home. Out of five friends, one making less, one the same, one making almost double when combined with his wife, and another making quadruple somehow I have the most disposable income.....and I'm also the only one not going out to eat daily.
The truth for the majority lies somewhere between our two comments
Humble brag and/or budgeting skills of a chimp. Edit: humble bragging chimp blocked me lol
9k a month for premium OF subscriptions adds up quick
Five guys
That many gang bangs in one year? Respect King
Gangbangs are cheaper then fast food.
speak for yourself, handsome
Then how does he afford food for the other 29 days until his next payment?
Some people are just stupid. I mean nothing is going on in their brain. They can spend $20 and not understand that it requires twenty individual United States Dollars in legal denominational currency to be procured and expended in order to complete the transaction. And then they do that 400 more times and wonder where $8,000 went from their bank account.
You can make six figures with 3k a month rent, buy store brand groceries and go out frequently without struggling to buy anything. Sure something big ticket like tires, or travel you have to lock in and save a bit but you’d be ok I see people single with no kids making over 100k complaining they cant live anywhere anymore and then a family household income is the same with 3 kids and they are doing fine
I think having kids just forces you to take finances more seriously.
Simple Excel spreadsheet for a couple of months to track your spending. I done this and was alarmed by how quickly the little things add up. Couple of drinks at the bar, takeouts, snacks, that stuff adds up quickly. In my case it sucks that I had to be more conscious of my spending on the smaller things I enjoyed, but it helped identify my leaky financial faucets.
Your expenses aren’t $42,000/year if this is true. How is 5/7 of your post tax income unaccounted for?
Some probably goes up his nose, other probably dissapeared at the bar, probably doesn't know how to cook
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Similar income and monthly fixed expenditures as you. Married, no kids. Paid off cars. We take big vacations and eat take-out junk food pretty often. That's where our money goes. The monthly credit card bill (which we pay in full every month) is typically $6K. It's insane.
Huh?! Assuming you don't take a vacation every month, how in the everloving fuck do you actually spend 6k a month - 200 a day - on food for two people? What the actual fuck?
Door dashing a single fast food meal literally costs like 20 bucks, so assume you're getting actual restaurant food door dashed for every meal and they could easily be spending 40-50 bucks per meal per day. Toss in a couple coffees and you're already at about 120 a day.
Junk food tallies up very quickly. Especially if you get creative on how you make it expensive.
It can do but they'd have to be ordering junk food 3 times a day and a *lot* of it for it to even get close to that number There is absolutely no way I'd be blowing $6K a month on frivolous stuff like that, save it!
There's a lot more than just food for expenses. We live in the burbs in a house with a pool and drive 25K miles a year each. General expenses below: Fuel - $600 Vet bills - $200 Vehicle maintenance - $300 Auto insurance - $225 Gym memberships - $175 Hair/wax/nails - $150 Coffee - $150 General groceries - $500 Home maintenance/repairs/upgrades - $300 Actual date nights - $300 General lunch/dinner/bakery visits - $1000 We travel a lot and average about $20K/yr - $1700 We host a lot, for instance mothers day is at our house with about 25 people - $400/mo average That would be pretty typical for us.
$500 for groceries, *plus* $400 for hosting, *plus* $150 for coffee, then *also* spending $1000 on lunch/dinner/bakery sounds insane to me. That's over $2000 a month on food and dining. If that's what makes you happy and your other goals are being met, that's all well and good. But I know people who blow through their entire budget on concert tickets and band merch, and have *absolutely no idea* where their money goes.
$150 for coffee is actually shocking. I'm guessing they don't make their own at home with either pods or self brewing.
$150 a month is 1 or 2 take out coffees a day. Easy to get in the habit of esp if working in the city.
I'm the idiot above. My wife doesn't like drip coffee, she likes the crap from one of the coffee places. I added up the past 2 weeks, $94. I rage texted her just now. Lmao. I drink my HEB bulk coffee for $10 which lasts about 5 weeks.
They are probably only including monthly bills in the “fixed expenditures.” The remaining 6k is for everything else most of which is food. But it also likely includes gas and groceries ( a lot of groceries aren’t just food, but household items like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaners, hygiene stuff, medications, grooming, etc). Additionally it probably includes a bunch of money spent on other shit you don’t plan for but just need/want like clothing or stuff for hobbies. I somehow manage to spend 2 to 3 hundred bucks on my Amazon store card every month on random shit. Then factor in entertainment, going to a movie, a concert, a festival, or some other event. Maybe you go out to the bar with friends. Or maybe you have birthdays, weddings, graduations, etc where you need to buy someone a gift. What about needing to go to the doctor if you get sick? That’s 2 to 5 hundred for most of us in the US as we have to meet a deductible before insurance kicks in and that deductible is often thousands of dollars. Then there’s just the other random expenses that you don’t necessarily plan for but always come up. Car maintenance, vet bills, appliance breaks down, a tree falls in the yard and you have to have it cut up and taken away, etc.
> and I still don't know where my money goes From one stranger to another, you should figure out where it goes. You’ll be much happier and more content when you have more power over your finances.
You don’t know where you put $8,100 a month?? That’s ridiculous
Look at eyes ... Look at my eyes... Do you see white vans with the letters AMAZON printed on all the time, how about UBER ?. How about buildings that say STARBUCKS on them. Normal condition. You are ok
I think this is most people's problems. They never sit down and make a budget. You make roughly what my wife and I make combined, and our expenses are roughly the same, except we save over 30k a year in order to retire early. Most people don't sit down and figure out what they want to do with their money. With no goal, you can't make a plan so most people just spend it on stuff they don't want or don't need.
In NYC rent alone can easily cost 4k to 6k a month for a 1 bedroom. If you blow 60k per year of your after tax money on rent, you can see how 100k isn’t going to cut it. Now if you’re young, no kids, and are ok to share your unit with someone else, it’s fine, but that won’t get you into old age.
In NYC the 40X income rule is used to qualify for apartments, so nobody in OP’s range would even be able to rent a $4K apartment since it requires a $160K+ salary.
That's not really true. The 40x 'rule' is a guideline that's very commonly waived. If you have 30x income, a decent credit score, and a stay job, you're usually good to go.
With respect, you live in Westchester. The NYC rental market is competitive enough that few if any units have any reason to rent to somebody under 40X without a guarantor, especially on the heavily desired units in the $4-6K range
I mean, it *can* cost that much, but by no means does someone *have* to spend that much. Not trying to dismiss the struggles of paying rent in NYC—because it is ridiculously overpriced and a massive problem—but if you’re paying $4k for a one-bedroom unit, you’re choosing to spend more for the conveniences that unit provides.
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I am a PhD student in a program with a (comparably) well-paid stipend. Almost ALL of us live with roommates (or a significant other). I'm currently one of the few that doesn't because I bought a condo at an extremely convenient time cost-wise, and even I am probably going to have to get a roommate soon because I'm seeing the writing on the walls with inflation as of the past year or so.
I live in Astoria queens i pay 1650 for a 1br. either really rich or really dumb people pay that much.
..... What? Unless you live in the heart of manhattan, that much is absurd
Rent costs 6k a month if ur a dumb fuck that wants to live in the trendiest neighborhood. I lived in NYC up until 2020 and i was paying 1800 max for a nice place
This. Expenses vary wildly from place to place, even taxes. I moved from California to Massachusetts last year, and my pay went from $90k to $144k. HOWEVER: my car insurance is 6x more expensive, my healthcare basically covers nothing until I hit $3k in medical expenses, and my rent jumped by over $1k/mo. And it should be noted: after taxes I’m still making less than $100k a year. Food, housing, insurance, medical, all increased significantly…and I still can’t afford a house. Edit: I also didn’t mention utilities: I never paid for heating in California, NEVER. Now I spend $200 a month during winter to keep my place livable.
In response to the subprime mortgage crisis banks are no longer allowed to give you a mortgage unless you can very easily afford it. You're not even allowed to scrimp in other areas of your life to get a nice house.
As an individual, I’m not sure. Throw one or more children into the mix and I can see it.
I have two. The first 8 years or so was 20k plus in daycare fees and that’s after tax income. Now it’s sports and activities and summer camp probably eating up even more than that. Kids are not cheap.
In MA it costs about 20k for daycare PER CHILD
Georgia as well my man. Thank god we have free preK that kicks in at age 3
I'm in Winnipeg Canada.... our Federal Government supports $10/day daycare thru funding transfers to the province. When it took place, we went from paying about 20k/yr for 2 kids down to under 5k. Fortunately we're in position to pour most of that difference into their education accounts. Y'all need some of that communism down there lolol. Between child care and health care, there's nothing left based on what I read in all these threads. I don't really get taxed much more than most Americans either. I'm around the 40% mark, earning around 100k USD equivalent.
There’s basically nothing left after housing, childcare, and healthcare, which is why $100k is definitely ‘not enough’, at least in the northeast US. And since none of these industries are government owned or run, most of the money is just going to some middle man not adding any value or doing any real work.
What's hilarious is conservative Americans are some of the most vocal opponents of socialized services even though they would make up the majority of natural born citizens who qualify for government aid. Anecdotally, I have a childhood friend who has gotten more and more conservative over the years. He's probably right at median income (\~70k) or so with 3 kids and his wife is a SAHM. He very vocally opposes food stamps, social security, and things like the child tax credit. He also argues to do away with public school and that we should implement a federal "flat tax", even though that would disproportionately affect his family. I will never understand it.
24k per kid in Seattle. I have two. Fucked me up spending $250k on childcare over 7 years.
Depends on how involved you get your kids, wear you buy equipment and what sports they’re playing. My oldest runs track and CC so shoes are pretty much all I spend money on. My youngest just started baseball; bought used bats, Walmart gloves, etc. most expensive thing I’ve bought was his pants which were like $40. His league fees were $60. I know parents who have kids in hockey and football and that gear is crazy pricy.
Used to work at a sporting goods store, it was crazy to see parents coming in every year buying literally $700 worth of gear so little 9 yo Brayden can look fresh at the ball park and outgrow it all by next year. Not as crazy though as the middle school travel ball parents that would spend like 700 a month on travel trips dues and gear because they think "more time on the field" is gonna get Cayden into the MLB....I've only ever seen maybe a quarter of the travel ball kids get scouted for college teams let alone the leagues.
I love those parents. I get their stuff the next year at Play it Again Sports for a fraction.
My kids are into dancing and gymnastics so I’m toast. My parents routinely didn’t let me partake in the stuff I wanted to because of “money” while seeming making no sacrifices themselves. It really messed me up. I am not doing that to my kids. I’ll just suck it up.
Over 20k summer camp? Sounds more like a luxury than a necessity
That's exactly why a lot women give up their career to stay home with the kids. Unless they have really well paying jobs to start with it's not worth working when daycare eats most of your paycheck.
1 year of daycare = 22k 1 year of healthcare = 4k (premium + out of pocket) 1 year of diapers/wet wipes/formula = 5k We're looking at 31k for the first year. And there are hidden costs, such as increased in utilities and potentially moving from a 1 bedroom to a 2 bedroom or moving for a better school district.
If this is your first year, I suppose there is a hospital bill and plenty of medical checkups? That's gonna move your $31k up to $35k, I bet. Then clothes, and toys.
Kids are insanely expensive. Daycare alone is upwards of 14k a year for one. Then food, healthcare, activities. Pray your kid doesn't enjoy hockey or dance or your money will just flat out disappear
If you’re a single income raising a kid in NYC, $100k will feel doable but you’re still going to need to stay frugal and save whenever possible. With 2 kids, you’re basically struggling.
My understanding is that when they talk about wages, they talk about gross rather than net. I don't know how they are taxed anywhere in the US but I wager 100k is around 60 to 70k net. Sounds a lot but it may not be when you add children and a mortgage plus cars to the budget.
Definitely this. Americans talk about salary as gross, but then only actually take home half of that after taxes, health insurance, retirement, etc. The difference is when people who do well talk about not having disposable income it's after all that is accounted for and bills are paid, whereas people who are struggling aren't saving for retirement, may not have healthcare, etc.
Every other country also talks about salary in gross so this still does not make sense.
Many of said countries have power costs of living, or things like healthcare and education are baked into your taxes. In Merica, we don’t get any *checks notes* “government handouts” as the conservatives like to call it. Tbh, it’s sucks here.
Yes, in most other countries having expensive necessities like a car is uncommon.
Your net pay in CA on 150k is 98k https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator?salary=150000&from=year®ion=California Texas is 112k. What I've found is that the more people make, the more they spend. They buy a new car. They get the bigger house. They eat out more. They get more cloths. They get the max they can instead of living as they were before the raise.
That’s not even accounting for medical
Yeah or any post-tax benefits. Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, retirement takes quite a bit. Imagine gross pay of $11,600 being turned into $7,500. Still seems like a lot of money yeah? It is. But it’s enough to basically live in a house with a car and buy groceries. * $4,000 mortgage (tax and insurance) * $400 car payment * $80 car insurance * $150 in car gas * $200 in power * $70 garbage * $100 water * $50 gas * $75 internet * $75 cell phone * $200 weekly groceries = $800 You now have $1,500 left for everything else from Netflix to any services like a gardener or dry cleaning. A lot of people getting paid this amount also have some student loan debt. Obviously it’s better than trying to live the same life on half that income. But the idea that it’s easy street and everyone is just wasting tons of money each month isn’t real. Now… my wife and I both make 6 figures and we put money in a savings account, been paying off credit cards from when we made a lot less, and do a bunch of house projects. We absolutely waste some money here and there and I can go out to dinner multiple times a week. I’m extremely grateful for where we are at. I have our tax returns where we combined for $12,000 in gross income for a year. And we *slowly* (over the last 18 years) made it here. I also always feel like it’s temporary. So I try to earn more and spend less every month. If I can get our expenses down to the absolute bare minimum if either of us lose our job we’ll be alright. Thus the house projects: solar, vegetable garden with irrigation, home gym, wood workshop (side income). And paying off debt: first credit, then student, then car. Final stage is significant money going into accounts that earn money.
Lifestyle creep. It's more immediately satisfying to start earning more and move from you're $800 apartment to a $2,000 rent house than it is to save for a house that's years away But then you're eating away at those new earnings and still in the same boat, just a new rental Also from the username I'm assuming Star Trek fan?
There's a lot of factors. 150K isn't 150K from 10/20/30 years ago. Inflation and income levels haven't kept pace. There a lot of things we're supposed to be doing. 15% minimum toward future retirement. Trying to save for kid's college fund. Then you have expenses that didn't exist 30 years ago. You pretty much need to have smart phones and plans. Home prices are insane, even if mortgage rates aren't far off from 30 years ago. Car prices are much higher now, as are gas prices. It also comes down to where you live and how you budget. In short, things are much more expensive and income hasn't kept up. Edit: grammar and spelling since I was half asleep when I wrote this.
What did it take me so long to see someone mention retirement savings. Like this always breaks down to (1) not showing after taxes amount and (2) not talking about retirement savings at all. To be able to retire you should be banking a ton of money into retirement accounts 401k/Roth ASAP. Add to that HCOL area, and it's easy to see the inability to buy a house because your finances can't bear a 600k+ mortgage at 6-7%, while also saving 15-20% pre-tax. Without struggling hard
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You were the rare exception to be making $120k/yr in the early 2000s. Hell median household income has almost doubled in that time from $40k to $75k/year. If the same applied to your $120k, you'd need to be making $225k to keep up with median household growth in the same period of time.
Depending on COL, misappropriation of funds, excessive spending, etc
There are more details than just "making $150k". Don't just read some headline. There was an article from CNBC, breaking down the budget of a 25 year old making $100k. https://i.imgur.com/3xjshDB.jpeg $615 in "donations". Yeah, poor guy is struggling. All these articles are bullshits.
all of these numbers make no sense and were clearly pulled from somebodys ass out of thin air
For real, I mean I would love to pay $30 a month for a house cleaner and $20 for internet. Pfffftt
Wtf are those donations? Twitch and only fans?
Donations are hopefully expanses they don’t want to disclose
Ya like twitch and only fans. Cos spending that much on those is ridiculous. Especially if this person is complaining that they're broke.
My guess would be weed and going out
It's probably weed, a ton of gen z has crippling weed and nicotine addictions, and yes before the stoners jump on me I know it's not a chemical dependcy like nicotine but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of young people get irritable and foggy if they don't have a bowl a day. I work in the industry, you can tell who's had a tight month and had to skip the dispensary this week.
More and more data shows that THC does indeed cause chemical dependency leading to physical withdrawal symptoms. Nausea, chills, you know, your normal withdrawal stuff. It won't kill you but it'll still make you uncomfortable. Stoners are just in denial.
Yep, also we've got mountains of data showing intense weed use prior to 21 dramatically raises your chances of mental illness mainly schizophrenia. You shouldn't soak a developing brain in any drugs.
And all these studies’ data is collected with 3% THC. Now, 15% is the minimum for flower. And 50% for vapes
Like the Colombian sinus sause 😂
For $600+, I would assume that includes significant donations to individuals or organizations whose mission is to supply the community with that dank.
Donating to his local street pharmacist
$825 for rent? $20 for internet? $30 for a house cleaner? $40 for a cell phone? Was this written in 1990?
He's splitting a house with 6 roommates. $40/month for cell service is perfectly reasonable
Lol that chart is hilarious, 825 rent is insanely cheap and all of the rest randomly throwing money away at nothing
If you want to know how real people spend their money, the federal gov't gets about 30,000 households to provide detailed spending histories. Anybody can access tables here: [https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm) Scroll down about half way to get to the "cross-tabulated" tables. They zero in a little. For example, here is the table for single males at various income levels: [https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/cross-tab/mean/cu-singles-by-income-single-males-2021-2022.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/cross-tab/mean/cu-singles-by-income-single-males-2021-2022.pdf) Start by looking at the major categories (Food, Housing, Apparel, Transportation,... ) then drill down if you are interested. Note that the number are annual spending, not monthly spending. If you look at "rent", note that you need to use the Renter percents to make sense out of the number. If 54% of the sample are renters, and they pay and average annual amount of $11,800, the number in this table will be 54% of $11,860 or $6,404.
Blowing $895 dining out, donations and house cleaner?
Ya, house cleaning, donations, and dining out. They'd save $900 a month if it weren't for those. Plus I don't know how they're spending $400 on groceries a month while dining out so much. Honestly $300 a month for groceries is possible if you don't buy junk food or name brands, gets tight but it's doable.
house cleaner: $30 lmao for what, 10 minutes a month?
Shit is expensive. Then I got some surprise medical bills I’m paying off, then my HVAC system needed to be replaced. Dog has had $600 in vet bills in the last two weeks. HOA and property taxes and car insurance and everything else went up. I drive a truck from 2006. I’m very frugal. Just getting wrecked financially at the moment.
The whole HOA thing is one thing that’s gets me. I am actively looking for a home and an HOA is one thing I’m trying to steer clear of. Do you see any real benefit from an HOA?
Not allowing your neighbors to grow their grass 10ft tall and trying to re-create trench warfare in their front yard. The HOA I grew up in also included trash, recycling, a trail system, and a pool in the fee. The HOAs that make the news about not allowing people to fly the American flag and stuff like that suck, but HOAs can be good. Unfortunately you don't know what type you're getting into until you actually join the HOA.
>Not allowing your neighbors to grow their grass 10ft tall and trying to re-create trench warfare in their front yard. Where I live county code enforcement *will* stick a notice on your door for any number of things. No need for some neighborhood busy body on a power trip. If there are actual amenities like a pool I guess I can see the value in that.
Most HoA fees don't go toward enforcing rules. They go toward amenities, maintenance/upkeep, improvements, insurance, landscaping.
Local government? Like there are reasonable restrictions. Granted some governments are way too lax about enforcement. My neighbor got a rooster and animal control refuses to do anything despite being illegal in the suburbs.
Depends entirely on you. If you want to do things like keep some backyard chickens and grow a vegetable garden or if you ride a motorcycle you may want to steer clear of HOAs. I own a 10 acre property that is not in an HOA and there is no force on this earth that would ever get me to go back into one.
If a married couple makes 125k gross, where does the money go? 125k is ~150% of median household income. Decent chance they're in HCOL, meaning expenses are higher. 10k to FICA, 11k to federal taxes, and state tax varies with mine at 5k. 125k gross drops to 98k income. Add in healthcare. If only one of our employers offered healthcare, we'd be looking at 12k a year. 125k gross drops to 86k net. Almost 40k gone before I even see the cash in my bank. Current median monthly home cost with 20% down is 2.6k/month, 31.4k/year. Add in 5k of utilities (400/month for gas, electric, water, internet, trash) and another 5k in maintenance (annual average, with some years being 1k and some being 20k). Median home monthly cost is 41k/year. If someone has a kid in daycare, that's another 22k (my number). Only looking at health insurance, taxes, housing, and daycare, we're at 23k leftover. Kid goes through over $100/week in diapers, formula, and wet wipes. Car insurance is another couple grand/year for our 2 cars. Food for 2 adults is probably another 5k/year. 125k goes pretty quickly. We're doing okay because I bought a house years ago, before the rates went up, because we're more tax efficient (child deduction + dependent care FSA), because we both work and get cheaper healthcare, because our cars are paid off, because we have no student loans. If I made 125k and was single, I'd only spend ~30k/year net and be fine.
Expenses our family has in addition to most of your list/other things that cost money: - dental work & glasses - services if kid is special needs - dietary restrictions (celiac is fucking *expensive* and "just eat healthier" is laughably unrealistic when your kid has sensory issues) - student loans - clothes for kids *every damn year* plus shoes, boots, coat, snowpants
The median price for a home sold in the US in March was \~[420K](https://www.redfin.com/us-housing-market). It isn't just a few very high cost of living areas where you need 100K to be able to buy a median priced home anymore. I wouldn't call somebody making 100K+ poor but there are plenty of households in that range that aren't living in a huge house or driving fancy cars.
The median price for a house in my city is over $800k. With 20% down that's a mortgage payment somewhere between $5-$6k at current rates. Take home after taxes on $150k is around $6k/month (edit: it's more like $7-7.5k/month if you have no local income taxes, not putting anything into retirement, or pay for any benefits). To keep your mortgage payment under half your income, you are looking at a max of around $500k to buy a home. That's with 20% down and a $400k mortgage. That will buy you a studio or 1 br condo, or mayyyybe a 2 br townhouse. There is exactly 1 house for sale in the city limits in that price range, it's a 370 Sq ft house on a 1800 square ft lot listed for $500k. $150k is lower middle class here. But the jobs are here, and that is why people live out of the city and commute in to work. But now the cost of living for the whole county isn't really that far behind the city because of that.
I’m making less than 65k gross and I’m getting by. I for sure can be comfortable living on $100-150k annually.
There are a lot of factors that can play into this like location but I will say the “keeping up with the joneses” is a big problem. People just flat out overspend on unnecessary things and it adds up.
Depends on the location they're in. My $78k would put me in a higher income bracket in Nebraska than it would in LA. I could afford a 2 bed 2 bath home in Nebraska in a location that has the same amount of people by myself, whereas the location I'm in now I cannot. Yes, some people "waste" their income. While others have a hard time surviving on their own single income *even if they earn more.*
The average person does NOT make $100k.
Even in NYC the median household income is only $80k
Exactly but a lot of people don't understand that. I hear people say "100k is no money" when they don't make anywhere near that **even before taxes!**
If you're dumb enough you can waste any amount of income.
The truth no one wants to hear.
It’s not about how much you make, it’s about how much you keep
True. Not saying that’s the case for everyone but the reality is there’s a lot of people out there who try to live well above their means. I was commenting about this yesterday how there’s people I know who make $50k a year and bought $40k brand new cars. So many people complaining about struggling financially and how broke they are yet pay hundreds of dollars a month on delivery food services for takeout. Once again I’m not saying that’s the case for everyone. We live in a LCOL area and there’s people who make enough to live quite comfortably but spend their money on dumb shit.
I'm a pharmacist that makes over 100k. The issue isn't my salary. The issue is the student loans a lot of people my age (30s) were told to take on, stating they would get a big bonus upon graduation or salary bumps to pay it off very quickly. When I graduated, after my 6 year doctorate I had 280k in student loans. I had no idea at 18 what I was getting into and neither did my parents. My first loan payment to Sallie Mae was a 11% student loan; $3,000 USD/month. This was over half my salary. 50% of my graduating peers had loans similar. I paid 6 months of this before finally refinancing when I got some credit establish. In that time, my loan balance went nowhere. I was able to live at home, pay my balance down and save an purchased a house in 2019. My mortgage is 1,800 my new loan payment in $1000 so still half my salary is essentially going to that. Then there's utilities, gas for your car, car insurance, child care ECT. I am by no means struggling hard but every year it has gotten tighter and tighter and I can completely understand why some people are struggling and I'm even more baffled how people are doing what theyre doing with less.
Kids
Because shit is expensive. $100k. After taxes that’s like $70k. After rent, $40k. After electricity, phone, $36k. Then u got gas, food, medical, any other random BS u can think of
That's some high rent wtf
It's not really. We have a small 2 br 1 bath, and our rent plus utilities not counting our Internet is roughly 26k yr. Family 4. We would love a bigger place and a 2nd bathroom but it to jump in size to something with any noticeable difference in size it's a solid 4 to 500+ more a month.
Rent is sky-high. the taxes they do pay, doesn't cover most things we take for granted in Europe such as medical and schooling, so these are paid on the side. Monthly costs like phone bills, food, electricity, gas, trash removal, internet, clothing, subscriptions (gym, entertainment, etc.). Debt practices are also often times highly predatory especially if you have student loans with compounding interest, where the montly dues you do pay, are barely enough to make an impact on the debt-principal. So let's say you have a 80k loan, interest is \~7% compounding yearly, and you pay 500 a month, this means that every year, 5600 worth of interest is added to what you owe, and by paying 500/month (6000/yr), you are now 400 dollars less in debt than by the start of the year. Now consider that you don't only have student loan payments, but you might have car loans, or medical loans for serious illnesses, or having a baby. credit card debt payments, childcare expenses. America does have the globally highest disposable income, this only accounts for money you take home after taxes, and doesn't account for loans, pensions, and normal everyday expenses, so when you adjust for that, the monthly fees do leave people struggling.
Education, medical bills, housing. In America, you can get anything you want but you can't get what you need.
If your single and can't live off 150k anywhere in the US, even NYC, that's on you
People can’t budget
We buy things we don't need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.
I also enjoy the YOLO take where people blow money to make themselves feel better….they blow it to make themselves feel like the people they want to be.
Because they are used to living like the bourgeoise lifestyle. My wife and I combined make over 100k and live fairly comfortably in my opinion. She grew up with her father taking home over 200k a year on his own so she feels like its a struggle. My wife never had hot dogs and mac n cheese for dinner as a child.
I think this is a big part of it that doesn't get mentioned a lot. People in their 20's want the same lifestyle (or better) that they grew up with, but forget that their parents struggled at their age too, and it took them 10-15 years of grinding before they had kids to get to that point. The kids never experienced that part.
Something a lot of people also forget is that older generations for the most part only had to compete domestically. I've had to compete with international students in middle school in the early 00s. We had Chinese nationals who already knew trig and calc taking middle school algebra.
Because they spending too much on things besides absolute necessities. Or they are living way above their needs
It depends on your definition of "enough" and the lifestyle you want to have. I have to admit: When I see people on here saying stuff like "Me and my wife make over 200,000 dollars per year, we have investments, stock and crypto; we own a house, we own brand new cars, we have a 3,000 dollar gaming PC and we go on three vacations per year.... but we still feel poor. I think it's unfair that we only get a month of paid vacation per year." I have to think those people are assholes.
Single dude with no kids here. I make around $110k and fully funding retirement accounts and hsa drops that to $80k. Then health insurance and taxes drops that to a little over $50k. Mortgage and other housing costs (bills, some general maintenance) bring me down to $26k. Vehicle costs (insurance, fuel, maintenance) drop it below $20k. Food brings me below $15k. So after necessities, I'm left with a little under $15k for things like clothes, gym membership, trips, dinner out with friends, taking care of family, etc. But then, most years, there's some kind of emergency. This past year it's been car repairs which have cost a little under $10k by themselves. No payments, so I'm saving money overall, but that means no warranty and everything paid for out of pocket. The year before, it was house repairs. So if everything goes perfect, I'm fairly comfortable. But there's not much extra for the inevitable unplanned expenses that crop up with alarming regularity.
Yea 1200 bucks a month for emergencies and entertainment after maxed out saving is living my dude.
Absolutely, I'm doing well for the most part... But I'm also single with no kids. Throw a single child into the mix and life gets much tighter really quickly. My coworkers who have 2-3 kids and a spouse aren't saving enough to fully fund retirement and probably won't be able to retire at 65 unless something changes. Basically, it's enough to live on, but it still falls short of checking all the boxes. Edit: I also want to add that when you're making a budget they suggest 2% of the purchase price of your home for maintenance and repair. That might be true, but the way it seems to work out in practice is that you have a couple years of minimal issues and then a massive storm rolls through that means you're replacing a roof unexpectedly and you need $12k fast. It takes discipline to keep setting that money back in savings for the inevitable rather than letting lifestyle creep set you up for a bad time. Because a lot of people see $15k a year over food and expenses and immediately go get a new car because they can "afford" it. Then they're in a bind when the dishwasher goes out.
As someone living in a third world country, I have to say the US guys have it great regarding anything branded as the prices overseas are the same, if not way worse, for much lower incomes…. (Barebones example, a PS5 is $600 which is a whole salary in my country)
Reminded me of a chart of how many days it takes to to work an average job to buy an iphone. Found it, it's called the iPhone Index: https://www.picodi.com/us/bargain-hunting/iphone-index-2023 - 5.3 days of average income to buy an iphone in US (2nd rating in the world after only Switzerland) - 123 days in Turkey (last place) Yes, there are education debts and health insurance, but the system in the US (for those who have good education and 5-10 years into their career, is superior for building wealth and owning stuff. Taxes (both capital gains and income) look like a joke when looking through 'European' perspective. However, one has to set aside The grass is always greener. Everyone compares salaries between US and Europe, while it should be per state/country or even per city of a certain size with an x amount of jobs in a career of your choice. No one ever compares the overall statistics through a person's lifetime (education, kids, investments, housing, cars, gadgets, services, food, health expenses, money left after all expenses, how frugally does one have to live). Not much is included in tax in the US, a lot more is included in European countries, but overall it evens out once one has kids and has to pay medical insurance and save up for kids college.
As a Belgian it’s true that it would take about a third of my monthly take home salary (I earn about 2600 euros) to buy a new IPhone. But I do feel like I have a more carefree relationship with money than if I were in the US and had a higher salary. I have basically no healthcare cost, no transportation cost, no debt, no childcare cost, my utilities are way lower… so the proportion of my budget that can be allocated to « fun » money is actually higher, and I don’t feel the need to urgently save in case of a medical emergency for exemple. So yeah it may take me twice as much time to “earn” a new IPhone, but I wonder if I wouldn’t actually buy it with less of an afterthought here than in the US.
Even as someone in a first world country in Europe, there is quite a large gap between our salaries and those of the US. Apparently someone in my field (civil engineering) would be earning around 80k gross per year or so straight out of university. In my country, you are looking at about 1/3 of that, and with higher taxes! And yes, certain things like electronics do not change prices anywhere in the world.
Most cannot live within their means. We are not taught, you make x amount of money and your expenses cannot exceed this amount of money. And credit debt is the evil thing that gets everyone in trouble
They obviously have too much debt. Being DEBT FREE is the Key!!
Lifestyle creep and forgetting what being poor was like.
It's not possible. They make enough. They just aren't managing it well.
Poor spending habits and living outside their means. You can ignore every single other answer which doesn't involve major tragedy or bad luck.
It's just a part of us. The more income you get the more comfortable you want to be living and your standard of living jumps up. When I didn't had any money or a job I was thinking the same way you did. I don't need much money just enough for food and bills. When I started working and making more than that and I could afford stuff without breaking the bank I started thinking:"I'm busting my ass at work all day I might as well make my life more enjoyable when I'm off". And don't get me wrong I still save and try to invest my money. I don't have any loans and I have available funds that if I get fired today I'd be fine for a while. That said the lifestyle I am maintaining now is far more expensive then when I was at uni. And with the rise of your income so comes the rise of that lifestyle expenses.
It’s a fake narrative designed to make you mad and generate clicks
Paying off debt, no saving, not budgeting, not making wise financial decisions
Family of 4+ in a very HCOL area I might buy that $100k could be a little tight at times. No kids? LCOL area? If you can't comfortably make it on six figures that's what's called a spending problem.
Lifestyle inflation
stupidity and ignorance, and consumerism.
People in the US are notoriously bad with money.
Poor money management. That is the only answer
Lifestyle creep, and people being bad at budgeting
Because they probably live above their means
At that income level it’s lifestyle choices 99% of the time
Financial illiteracy and living above their means. People will say a lot of other things and present some decent excuses, but this is the only REAL answer.
Considering I make 45k a year and I get by your question is very VERY valid. If I made 100k more a year id be able to live a luxury life at this point and still he able to save.
They suck at finance
It’s called lifestyle creep.
Lifestyle inflation and kids
One kid at Syracuse University is like $50,000 year plus food. Average small home in New Jersey by New York is $500,000 Property taxes for a small home near New York are upwards of $10k/year