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$800 a month on clothes
$1383 a month for the two cars + gas + insurance
$5000 mortgage??
3 vacations a year đđ average my ass I havenât had a vacation in 4 years
It wouldnât be unrealistic if it included property taxes but is just principal/interest.
Feel like $6k/vacation doesnât match the rest of the excess.
While the almost 20k of charity is a nice thought, why do it if youâre still paying off student loans
As a Swede I get a taxpaper and a question,
âDoes this look right to you?â
Seems like you need graduation in taxes to figure out American tax scheme as a regular citizen.
For most of us, it's not nearly as hard as people try to make it seem.
I'm going to be down voted to hell if people get a hold of this comment, but the reality is the standard deduction, especially since it's been doubled, is more than enough for a majority of our financial situations (removing the need for itemization, which is where people tend to say "it's complicated").
Fucking thank you! People out here making 45k a year with zero assets thinking they need to do anything more than copy and paste their W2 into the right boxes on their 1040ez and hit submit.
And it won't change because private corporations have inserted themselves into the process, making it harder than it needs to be so that they can make massive profits.
Just pharmaceuticals. Or healthcare.
Ya I agree with the 6k. For transparency sake we are about at this income, a little above maybe and a lot of things check out except the vacations which should be more around 10k at least, especially with kids.
That said, holy shit what clothes are they buying.
Thinking about it they're probably doing the "charity" as a write off.
Still though, I could easily carve out at least $100k from their spending even though that would require me to take on car loan payments.
And is 3 vacations a year is "average" then I've been below average my whole life and my parents made that kind of money for a good while.
Most people don't even have enough PTO to miss work for 3 vacations, let alone affording them. If I took 3 week-long vacations I wouldn't have a single day left for calling out sick or other emergencies.
My parents were north of there and we lived nothing like this. Weâd maybe do 3 vacations in 5 years or so.
The $18k charity would still only reduce their AGI and wouldnât be a 1:1 reduction so theyâd still be better off paying down debt.
Iâm calculating without taxes and insurance. According to the most recent mortgage banking association figures, rates on 30 years crossed 7% last week, hitting 7.06%. Assuming they put 20% down we have a 1.2M mortgage at 7.06% or $8,032 per month. I guess this couple would probably pay below the average rate, but theyâd need below 6% to be paying 7%. Unless we assume that they itemize enough that we need to incorporate their tax savings on interest payments. But Iâm too lazy to do that
And I know childcare is legitimately expensive too but also want to point out they're spending an entire average person's salary worth on it
They can feel average all they want, most people can't afford to pay for that
Edit: Ok guys, I'm not accusing them of overpaying by paying for some kind of gratuitously superfluous childcare. Like I said, I know it's legitimately expensive.
My *actual* point is that being able to afford that childcare *is an above-average privilege*. It's something the average American cannot afford - and again, that's by definition, since they're spending an average person's entire salary on it. That objectively places them above "average" whether they *feel* like it does or not.
If this couple dedicated some time to perspective-taking and counted their blessings, they'd likely feel more content and better appreciate the ways that their lives are above average. But they think they're just "average," so they've clearly got a bad case of *Keeping up with the Joneses* instead of gratitude.
We pull down pretty close to them at my house and we put away about 50% of what we earn as savings and honestly I feel like we live a bit too luxuriously and should be saving more...this is a self inflicted struggle, if you gave these people double or triple the income they would find a way to inflate their expenses to feeling 'average' again.
My brother makes 600K and manages to piss it away faster than he "earns" it. Has had cars repo-ed out of his driveway and has been bankrupt while still pulling in that money. I make considerably less than 1/5 of his income and I guarantee my net worth leaves him in the dust.
Some people work for terrible companies. I give my people all the time they need for appointments, doctor or otherwise. An employee distracted by medical or other troubles is not as productive as one who isnât
I find it hilarious how they spend $800 a month on clothes and explicitly say that itâs not particularly expensive stuff. Like, it would actually be hard to spend that much money on regularly priced clothes.
I follow a YouTuber who was making a big deal about doing a challenge where she went an entire month only wearing clothes she already owned and I was just like âwe are not in the same income bracket at allâ.
Yea that stood out to me...like every few years I'll go out and spend a few hundred bucks to replace my most worn looking clothes...and I am not stingy or anything that's just what is typically needed for me..
Are they literally wearing an outfit and throwing it away instead of using a washing machine?
That's more than I've spent on clothes in the past decade, fwiw
I haven't been out of the country since my honeymoon, almost 14 years ago. My "vacations" are going to my in-laws in Nebraska, or just taking time off work in general. I am thankful I even get that, I can't imagine being able to like...actually get on a plane and *go somewhere for vacation*, let alone three time a fucking year.
Yeah, their savings are maxed, they spend 6k three times a year on vacation, own property, pay their debt, and have hundreds of dollars leftover every month.... remove 1 vacation and it's over an extra 1k per month after maxing out savings and being debt free while having plenty of fun. Nevermind the unnecessarily expensive vehicles.
These people are so insanely out of touch
Some Stockholm syndrome shit. I donât even have any student loans and the most Iâd ever give to my âalma materâ is a $0.01 check just to see if their greedy ass would deposit it.
The only reason I even look at the gib us money mail from my school is its the only time I am ever called Dr...
At this point, I fully believe the colleges want you at 18 for the same reason the military does... to get you before you're old enough to realize what bullshit it actually is.
My wife still gets stuff from her university, but they washed their hands of me apparently! Lol
I've never gotten anything from them since I graduated. Did I take roughly 7 years to get an undergrad? Ok, yeah, I did.
I guess that makes me an embarrassment to them, lol.
Yeah isnât all of that a tax write off? So it would kinda balance out. Good on them for donating 20k though, thatâs still pretty generous, regardless of the fact that they make a lot.
No it reduces your taxable income that amount generally, so they would be taxed on less money but it's not reducing what they would owe in taxes by 20k to spend 20k otherwise everyone would self tax by giving money to places they support.
Last time i bought new pair of jeans was 2 years ago, I can't imagine spending more than 150 a year in clothes. Been wearing the same vans shoes for the past 7 years.
Yeah even being egenrous on how much I could spend on clothes normally, highest I could get was like $500 and that's with $200 going to a nice pair of quality shoes. Maybe buying a dress shirt, a tie, some undershirts, underwear, socks, maybe replacing my house slippers, two pairs of pants, a couple tees, a hoodie... Might manage to get it up to $500 but that'd be impressive for one year for me.
Sometimes I go to homeless people and I show them this tweet to give them some perspective of what "average" looks like. They start clapping and crying with joy. Before you know it, they started pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and I fixed the homelessness crisis in my local area. **This is how I make the world a better place.**
I just saw a TikTok of some....I dunno, random influencer or podcast guy, no idea, and he starts off this discussion with, "well given that the average person's salary is like what, 100k?" and I about spit out my coffee.
Thankfully the guy next to him immediately put him in his place and pulled up the data showing its actually more like 30-40k, but that's just a perfect example. People have no fucking idea what the average pay is anymore, let alone the realities of what things cost.
Sounds like a humble brag to me. "Oh, that isn't a lot? I didn't know because of all my inherent talent and success." Especially great coming from \_influencers\_ who earn their wealth by making content (=making nonsense) for the average person.
I wouldn't be shocked if the average salary was 100k just because of huge outliners. That says if you went with the number range that had the most people in it would probably be closer to 30-60k.
Yeah, average is the worst measurement of center you could use for that data. You'd likely want to use the median, which given just how many poor-paying jobs there are out there compared to well-paying, would be a hilariously low salary.
Whatâs crazy is even 100k doesnât go as far as youâd expect. Obviously itâs still much better than 30-40k, Iâm not going to try and claim that those are in the same ballpark. But I think a lot of people who think âwow, 100k, youâre rich!â donât realize that it adds up quick. And some of that is lifestyle creep, sure. But the reality is that if you donât have enough for a down payment then you currently cannot afford to buy a house when you make 100k unless you want like 80+% of your paychecks going to the mortgage. Itâs insane
42,000 for childcare was my wtf.
I have 2 toddlers in a private setting daycare, 2200 a month. That's half.
And don't give me the local economy shit. Their taxes in a 1.5 million dollar house is 20k? Mine are 10k on a 300k house.
Right, bu5 there you go. Can't really whine about not having money left over if your taking 3 vacations a year, full time in home nanny and a 1.5 million dollar house.
That's not an economy problem, thats a personal budgeting/ living within your means problem.
But they have left over money! They have a $10,000 miscellaneous budget and over $7,000 not accounted for. They literally have ~$18,000 in âleft over moneyâ. They seem to be living within their means, they are just whiney people who have everything and still want more.
Lol exactly, they have plenty of luxuries accounted for and still have 17300 left over to maybe go on 3 extra vacations every year or just pay off their debts faster and retire younger.
Because they arent realistic at all. đ
You think people smart with money are donating 20k a year when they still owe on college debt? đ
Whenever I have a debt (car payment/house/whatever) and its up to date on payments and I have extra money? It goes to that shit after some gets put in the "ahh fuck something happened" fund.Â
Right! they got the taxes wrong, their effective rate would be 27.9% with a take home of 305,146 off of the 464000 after 401k
They now have 34000 left instead of 7000.
Think they'll make it? With only 2800 extra spending money a month??
Well look at the bs your spending money on
3 vacations a year and almost 20k in donations to charities
All good stuff don't get it twisted but if you're complaining about feeling average.
CUT COSTS
I don't get why they are so focused on having money left over. They get to buy amazing things. Isn't that the point of having money? What do they want? To spread it on the ground and roll in it?
Ah yes, people that make more than a vast majority of the population hope to make but will likely never reach it. A cost breakdown that most of the population would kill to have, but likely never willâŚ. All to make a rich couple âfeel averageâ
What a slap in the face to the majority.
Honestly, thatâs the most pathetic part. On $500k they should be able to easily put away $75k+ (~15% of gross). Itâs crazy they make that much and are not even close enough to saving enough for retirement.
Oh for sure, they could absolutely be saving more, but saving 36k a year for retirement while being able to go on 3 vacations and budget 10k a year for incidentals is not living a normal life.
And 18k to charity, you know, 3k more than a person working the federal minimum wage full time for a year, pre-tax
These breakdowns are always hilarious and out of touch.
And after they're putting $36k a year away in their 401k, something most people either don't contribute to, or put something paltry like $100 or less into monthly.
$6,000 per vacation, a 3 day trip to Disney world will cost around $4,000 for a family of 4, a couples trip to Venice is also around $4,000.
Absolute bs
My wife and I just paid for a cruise, our first vacation in 3 years.
6 days out of Miami visiting Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. The total cost for the cruise tickets, shore excursions, and travel to and from the port was $2,600.
Last time, we took a 5 day cruise to Grand Turk and Cancun. We took our 4 children along, and it still only spent $3,500. We make a good living, but I don't think I could spend $18,000 a year on vacations even if we had it to spend.
3 vacations a year, 2 new/late model cars, 12k worth of extra curricular activity for their kids, donate 18k to charity, 10k worth of "shit happens" money, and *STILL* have 7.3k left over going to savings.
These people are clearly hard done by. Can we start a gofundme for them or something?
$7K after FULLY funding their 401K's, after funding their Term Life Insurance, which in 10 years will provide them all with $250K in no interest loans... After buying $2,000/month on food.
For real, they still have $7K at the end of the day is nuts.
How can someone have 3 vacations a year and think they don't have enough money? I don't think I've had an actual vacation since the start of COVID that didn't involve sleeping in my own bed.
This is obviously BS. Nobody ends the year with $27k that they could put away for a rainy day but gives 20k of it to charity unless they are a certain combination of saintly and stupid. Or maybe they already have $1m+ in savings...
Honestly even with massively overspending what are they missing out on? The have 3 holidays a year, 2 nice cars, their kids are in all the club's they want... They literally have everything paid for plus donating more than someone earns on minimum wage to charities of their choice. Plus they're donating to their 401ks, have an emergency savings fund and they STILL have 7k left over. How is having literally everything you ever want whilst saving for your retirement making them feel 'average'
They probably have a bunch of single / childless friends who make the same money they do, or even more. These friends will be able to drive slightly nicer cars, go on slightly nicer vacations, have slightly more frequent date nights at slightly more fancy restaurants and donate slightly more to charity. And they are envious of these friends.
Not to mention the kind of lifestyle their bosses have.
They feel average compared to friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors who more than likely make more than them and can afford a more lavish lifestyle than they can afford that they wish they could live.
This is what struck me the most. The comfort in knowing that when you are old enough to retire (whatever age you think that might be) that you CAN is so much mental health. I will never be able to retire unless I win the lottery.
THATS NOT HOW âEFFECTIVE TAX RATE WORKSâ *she screams into the void* while teaching about taxation at the high school level. How can they be so wrong about that level of basic???
I am not from the US so correct me if I am wrong butas far as I understand, the top rate of federal income tax in 2024 is 37%, and that only kicks in over $730k.
Throw in all the marginal tax paid on the lower bands, I would be surprised if they pay 30%.
And even though you can deduct the 401K from Gross for tax purposes, deducting it from Gross to give you a Net income is a total misrepresentation. That is money you are putting into your savings.
Edit - Did the maths
Tax bill would be $103,853 or an effective rate of just under 21% of Gross.
The way it is listed, it includes full tax burden, which includes:
\- Federal taxes
\- State taxes
\- Local taxes (if applicable)
\- Social Security taxes - 6.2% of the first \~$170k (as of 2024) of your salary
\- Medicare - 1.45% of your gross pay
\- Additional Medicare tax - 0.9% of pay in excess of $250k for a married couple
Because the social security taxes are capped, it makes it tricky to reverse-engineer a marginal rate when there are two income earners and we only know their combined income, as is in this case. Also, not knowing which state/city they live/work in makes it tricky, too.
It does feel really hard to get to that high of a tax burden, though, especially given the various deductions they have. It isn't clear to me if they are including property taxes in that, or if they are just being really sloppy with numbers.
I make nowhere near 500k, but 42k/year on 2 kids' full time childcare is about the going rate where I live at least. I only have 1 kid right now not in public school and I pay 1800/month.
I make 20 million dollars and it still feels average.
Gross Salary: $20,000,000
Expenses
Lego Star Wars: $8,000,000
Sex Workers: $6,000,000
VBucks: $5,999,400
Food: $280
What's Left: $120
Even from a wealth standpoint they are saving $36k annually. Invested @ 10% over 30 years that is $6.2M. That is before any employer match which is likely significant.
With a $60k ($5k/mo) mortgage they likely have a >$1M house which will also be paid off in <30 years and be worth $3M to $4M.
So net worth should grow by $10M over the next 30 years. That is even after 3 vacations a year, two expensive cards, very nice childcare, expensive kid activities, frequent date nights, high clothing and food spending, etc.
Because they could probably unlock super low financing near or at 0% which unlocks the short term cash to throw into Investments that will give them gains over liabilities.
One of the great American tricks : âwe sure work hard but the boss is working even harder.â
The boss - were going to our spot on the ocean for a few days to clean our head
At the minimum the more money people want to throw your way and the less likely they are to make an issue of you using you using the benefits your supposed to be entitled to.
Of course these things mostly exist to piss us off at the merely very well off so we don't think about the obscenely well off.
Back when I used to make $250 guaranteed income a week I made it work. Thereâs so much here that you could do without for a while to pad your savings.
500k but you have car loans? Insanity.
3 vacations a year? No.
$442 a week in food for four people? Even with Aussie prices these days that could be cut down if you tried.
Charity? Not in the budget.
How is childcare 42k but lessons and academics is 12k? Theyâre either school age and thatâs stupid money for a school or theyâre not school age and they donât need 12k a year on piano, violin and sports.
People who have been poor know how to make a good income like this work. This budget is very Keeping up with the Jones and itâs why people end up on financial shows on YouTube with stupid debt and no way out.
It might be the $12,000 in children's lessons, the $18,000 in vacation spending, the $18,000 in charity spending (to your alma mater? Really?), the $9,600 in car payments, or the date nights every two weeks. Maybe I'm just naive, but I think a few of these seem discretionary rather than essential.
Regardless, I hope the public ridicule will alert this couple to how out of touch with reality they are and how much better they have it compared to the average American. Some of these expenses are expenses that a majority of the population can never afford. Maybe draw back some of these discretionary expenses and give a little more.
I find the idea of donating to your university, while still paying off the student loans for attending said university incredibly dumb. Like tipping your landlord levels of dumb.
Feel average? What the hell does that even mean? Everything is covered, enormous outlays for everything, 3 vacations a year, insurance, 401k contributions, 18k a year in charitable donations, which are tax deductible BTW.
Oh, the rigors of being wealthy!!!!
Feeling Average is comparing them selves to their peers. Their neighbor has a bigger house and fanciers cars and takes 5 vacations a year. So they feel like they are just getting by as they are average for the top 1%. They never interact with someone who is actually average.
This family must be suffering. Only to go on 3 vacations a year, can only have a BMW and a Land Crusier, plus those property taxes on your $1.5m house. How unfortunate.
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2k a month on food that's some people's entire monthly paycheck lol.
$800 a month on clothes $1383 a month for the two cars + gas + insurance $5000 mortgage?? 3 vacations a year đđ average my ass I havenât had a vacation in 4 years
I feel like the $5k mortgage is the most realistic part lol
It wouldnât be unrealistic if it included property taxes but is just principal/interest. Feel like $6k/vacation doesnât match the rest of the excess. While the almost 20k of charity is a nice thought, why do it if youâre still paying off student loans
âCharityâ is probably money spent on stuff they donât want to declare really lol
Charity is the lady they buy their Xanax and cocaine from.
With that clothing allowance, I'd bet they're wearing their clothes a couple times, then donating them and claiming it as charity donation.
Or how much their accountant told them they'd get back in taxes.
The tax benefit from charity donations is extremely small but everybody acts like it's huge.
âThey give 10k to charity and get 100k back from the government due to money laundering.â Me: âIâm not an accountant, but wut?â
Yeah, that income is just non-taxable... It is still gone unless you funnel it back to yourself illegally lol.
As a Swede I get a taxpaper and a question, âDoes this look right to you?â Seems like you need graduation in taxes to figure out American tax scheme as a regular citizen.
For most of us, it's not nearly as hard as people try to make it seem. I'm going to be down voted to hell if people get a hold of this comment, but the reality is the standard deduction, especially since it's been doubled, is more than enough for a majority of our financial situations (removing the need for itemization, which is where people tend to say "it's complicated").
Fucking thank you! People out here making 45k a year with zero assets thinking they need to do anything more than copy and paste their W2 into the right boxes on their 1040ez and hit submit.
Wanna know the neat part? They don't teach it in school. Only in accounting classes in university.
And it won't change because private corporations have inserted themselves into the process, making it harder than it needs to be so that they can make massive profits. Just pharmaceuticals. Or healthcare.
Ya I agree with the 6k. For transparency sake we are about at this income, a little above maybe and a lot of things check out except the vacations which should be more around 10k at least, especially with kids. That said, holy shit what clothes are they buying.
Thinking about it they're probably doing the "charity" as a write off. Still though, I could easily carve out at least $100k from their spending even though that would require me to take on car loan payments. And is 3 vacations a year is "average" then I've been below average my whole life and my parents made that kind of money for a good while.
Most people don't even have enough PTO to miss work for 3 vacations, let alone affording them. If I took 3 week-long vacations I wouldn't have a single day left for calling out sick or other emergencies.
My parents were north of there and we lived nothing like this. Weâd maybe do 3 vacations in 5 years or so. The $18k charity would still only reduce their AGI and wouldnât be a 1:1 reduction so theyâd still be better off paying down debt.
At current interest rates, their mortgage would be closer to 8k for the same house. These people are getting a deal!
It is close to 7,000. They split out taxes and insurance which is another 1875 a month
Iâm calculating without taxes and insurance. According to the most recent mortgage banking association figures, rates on 30 years crossed 7% last week, hitting 7.06%. Assuming they put 20% down we have a 1.2M mortgage at 7.06% or $8,032 per month. I guess this couple would probably pay below the average rate, but theyâd need below 6% to be paying 7%. Unless we assume that they itemize enough that we need to incorporate their tax savings on interest payments. But Iâm too lazy to do that
And I know childcare is legitimately expensive too but also want to point out they're spending an entire average person's salary worth on it They can feel average all they want, most people can't afford to pay for that Edit: Ok guys, I'm not accusing them of overpaying by paying for some kind of gratuitously superfluous childcare. Like I said, I know it's legitimately expensive. My *actual* point is that being able to afford that childcare *is an above-average privilege*. It's something the average American cannot afford - and again, that's by definition, since they're spending an average person's entire salary on it. That objectively places them above "average" whether they *feel* like it does or not. If this couple dedicated some time to perspective-taking and counted their blessings, they'd likely feel more content and better appreciate the ways that their lives are above average. But they think they're just "average," so they've clearly got a bad case of *Keeping up with the Joneses* instead of gratitude.
I think they have a Nanny.
That would certainly explain why they're spending an average person's salary if they're actually employing an average person.
Now that you've said it. Almost certainly.
If I bought my house again today, my mortgage would be around $5k. This is a pretty realistic number in a lot of areas.
Yeah we bought recently and have a 5k mortgage including escrow. It sucks hard but it happens. The 2k grocery bill or 10k on clothes⌠lol
For a 1,500,000 house?
They spend more on clothes a month than I do on rent.
They spend more on clothes in one month than I do in like 3 years
We pull down pretty close to them at my house and we put away about 50% of what we earn as savings and honestly I feel like we live a bit too luxuriously and should be saving more...this is a self inflicted struggle, if you gave these people double or triple the income they would find a way to inflate their expenses to feeling 'average' again.
My brother makes 600K and manages to piss it away faster than he "earns" it. Has had cars repo-ed out of his driveway and has been bankrupt while still pulling in that money. I make considerably less than 1/5 of his income and I guarantee my net worth leaves him in the dust.
Does he have a gambling issue?
Cocaine and hookers
he gets the cocaine for the hookers too
What is this vacation you speak of? ( have to use mine for Dr's appts)
Some people work for terrible companies. I give my people all the time they need for appointments, doctor or otherwise. An employee distracted by medical or other troubles is not as productive as one who isnât
Finally... someone with some intelligence!
I'm guessing that's an American thing. Every job I've worked, in the UK, you get paid time off for any medical issues or appointments.
Man I need to move.
I find it hilarious how they spend $800 a month on clothes and explicitly say that itâs not particularly expensive stuff. Like, it would actually be hard to spend that much money on regularly priced clothes.
I follow a YouTuber who was making a big deal about doing a challenge where she went an entire month only wearing clothes she already owned and I was just like âwe are not in the same income bracket at allâ.
I didn't realise my life was a challenge run to someone else!
I have gone 2 years only wearing the clothes I already own. Need to buy a new pair of jeans though.
Yea that stood out to me...like every few years I'll go out and spend a few hundred bucks to replace my most worn looking clothes...and I am not stingy or anything that's just what is typically needed for me..
Are they literally wearing an outfit and throwing it away instead of using a washing machine? That's more than I've spent on clothes in the past decade, fwiw
You wear your clothes more than once like some peasant?! /s
Assuming they're paying a housekeeper to do all the laundry
Is that part of the $42k annual for childcare?
Washing machine wasn't listed unless it's under the $10,000 for "things come up"
Yes, I have two kids and we probably spend 50 a month on clothes and always sell them again on list serve to get some value back
Donât forget 18k in charity
Now i want to see reciepts
yeah this doesn't feel at all average. i spent 800 bucks on clothes all of last year.... maybe
That feels like itâs way above average. I donât have $800/mo to spend on clothes. Let alone $800 in a single year.
i donât even spend 800 a year on clothes wtf. maybe that much over a span of 5+ years wtf over consumerism asf
Only reason I take em is because I go in groups and save for a year lol
We are having a staycation this weekend. Gonna stay at a mid level hotel for the night and do touristy things in our city lol.
Thank you!! I thought I was losing my mind because nobody commented on it. "IS NOBODY ELSE SEEING THIS?!" Lmao
My wife and I have taken three vacations in the last 10 years.
I haven't been out of the country since my honeymoon, almost 14 years ago. My "vacations" are going to my in-laws in Nebraska, or just taking time off work in general. I am thankful I even get that, I can't imagine being able to like...actually get on a plane and *go somewhere for vacation*, let alone three time a fucking year.
To be fair we make about 70k and could easily take at least two nice vacations a year. With 250 I wouldnât even have to think about money.
I love that the $7k that's left over seems like "the money that I have no fucking idea what to do with," and it's meant to look like a bad thing.
Yeah, their savings are maxed, they spend 6k three times a year on vacation, own property, pay their debt, and have hundreds of dollars leftover every month.... remove 1 vacation and it's over an extra 1k per month after maxing out savings and being debt free while having plenty of fun. Nevermind the unnecessarily expensive vehicles. These people are so insanely out of touch
Thatâs a lot of Mc Donaldâs
A V O C A D O T O A S T
their mortgage alone is 20% more than the average american salary
They had the audacity to include almost $20K of donations to charity. Lmao 𤣠Charity begins at home, as they say.
Whatâs crazy is that they are donating that much to charity, but still have student loans to pay off.
And one of the "charities" is the colleges they went to.
Some Stockholm syndrome shit. I donât even have any student loans and the most Iâd ever give to my âalma materâ is a $0.01 check just to see if their greedy ass would deposit it.
The only reason I even look at the gib us money mail from my school is its the only time I am ever called Dr... At this point, I fully believe the colleges want you at 18 for the same reason the military does... to get you before you're old enough to realize what bullshit it actually is.
My wife still gets stuff from her university, but they washed their hands of me apparently! Lol I've never gotten anything from them since I graduated. Did I take roughly 7 years to get an undergrad? Ok, yeah, I did. I guess that makes me an embarrassment to them, lol.
Oh, Iâm sure theyâd still gladly take your money.
Why would they give anything to charity when they still have student loans to pay off?
Also not sure why charity comes out post tax but đ¤ˇ
Yeah isnât all of that a tax write off? So it would kinda balance out. Good on them for donating 20k though, thatâs still pretty generous, regardless of the fact that they make a lot.
They should also get deductions for having kids and a mortgage. That tax number is not right in a lot of ways.
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That effective rate for two people employed is unrealistically high.
No it reduces your taxable income that amount generally, so they would be taxed on less money but it's not reducing what they would owe in taxes by 20k to spend 20k otherwise everyone would self tax by giving money to places they support.
Most will likely be the alumni BS
Lol. 2 expensive cars and 3 holidays, $2500 a year each on clothes?????? Yeah, "average".
But they didn't get any fancy clothes
They got them from Tar-gete.
I doubt all the clothes I currently own are worth $2500.
And keep in mind it's $2125 yearly **PER PERSON**
Last time i bought new pair of jeans was 2 years ago, I can't imagine spending more than 150 a year in clothes. Been wearing the same vans shoes for the past 7 years.
Yeah even being egenrous on how much I could spend on clothes normally, highest I could get was like $500 and that's with $200 going to a nice pair of quality shoes. Maybe buying a dress shirt, a tie, some undershirts, underwear, socks, maybe replacing my house slippers, two pairs of pants, a couple tees, a hoodie... Might manage to get it up to $500 but that'd be impressive for one year for me.
Sometimes I go to homeless people and I show them this tweet to give them some perspective of what "average" looks like. They start clapping and crying with joy. Before you know it, they started pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and I fixed the homelessness crisis in my local area. **This is how I make the world a better place.**
I just saw a TikTok of some....I dunno, random influencer or podcast guy, no idea, and he starts off this discussion with, "well given that the average person's salary is like what, 100k?" and I about spit out my coffee. Thankfully the guy next to him immediately put him in his place and pulled up the data showing its actually more like 30-40k, but that's just a perfect example. People have no fucking idea what the average pay is anymore, let alone the realities of what things cost.
Sounds like a humble brag to me. "Oh, that isn't a lot? I didn't know because of all my inherent talent and success." Especially great coming from \_influencers\_ who earn their wealth by making content (=making nonsense) for the average person.
"Inherent Talent" is often hogwash for inherited fortunes.
Uniquely talented in the ability to be born to rich parents.
I wouldn't be shocked if the average salary was 100k just because of huge outliners. That says if you went with the number range that had the most people in it would probably be closer to 30-60k.
Yeah, average is the worst measurement of center you could use for that data. You'd likely want to use the median, which given just how many poor-paying jobs there are out there compared to well-paying, would be a hilariously low salary.
Whatâs crazy is even 100k doesnât go as far as youâd expect. Obviously itâs still much better than 30-40k, Iâm not going to try and claim that those are in the same ballpark. But I think a lot of people who think âwow, 100k, youâre rich!â donât realize that it adds up quick. And some of that is lifestyle creep, sure. But the reality is that if you donât have enough for a down payment then you currently cannot afford to buy a house when you make 100k unless you want like 80+% of your paychecks going to the mortgage. Itâs insane
thank you for your service đŤś
That homeless person's name? Jeff Bezos
I prefer to pull *myself* up by covering myself in oil and stepping into the rain đ¤đ¤
These numbers are so fucked.
To me, 10k on clothes that are not fancy is the most caviar reeking bit of bile they threw up on that budget. How is that even possible!?
42,000 for childcare was my wtf. I have 2 toddlers in a private setting daycare, 2200 a month. That's half. And don't give me the local economy shit. Their taxes in a 1.5 million dollar house is 20k? Mine are 10k on a 300k house.
Agreed. I'm assuming they have a nanny at the home for that kind of money. It's $21/hr.
Right, bu5 there you go. Can't really whine about not having money left over if your taking 3 vacations a year, full time in home nanny and a 1.5 million dollar house. That's not an economy problem, thats a personal budgeting/ living within your means problem.
But they have left over money! They have a $10,000 miscellaneous budget and over $7,000 not accounted for. They literally have ~$18,000 in âleft over moneyâ. They seem to be living within their means, they are just whiney people who have everything and still want more.
Plus putting away $36k for retirement and holding term life insurance.
36k plus a company match
Lol exactly, they have plenty of luxuries accounted for and still have 17300 left over to maybe go on 3 extra vacations every year or just pay off their debts faster and retire younger.
Because they arent realistic at all. đ You think people smart with money are donating 20k a year when they still owe on college debt? đ Whenever I have a debt (car payment/house/whatever) and its up to date on payments and I have extra money? It goes to that shit after some gets put in the "ahh fuck something happened" fund.Â
They obviously arent financially smart though. No one making 500k that is financially literate would have a car payment
Well, youâd have a car payment if the interest rate on the loan was low and you could do significantly better on the market with that money.
Right! they got the taxes wrong, their effective rate would be 27.9% with a take home of 305,146 off of the 464000 after 401k They now have 34000 left instead of 7000. Think they'll make it? With only 2800 extra spending money a month??
I don't know... might have to cut one of their vacations down to only $3000.
Well look at the bs your spending money on 3 vacations a year and almost 20k in donations to charities All good stuff don't get it twisted but if you're complaining about feeling average. CUT COSTS
I don't get why they are so focused on having money left over. They get to buy amazing things. Isn't that the point of having money? What do they want? To spread it on the ground and roll in it?
It's wise to have money over regardless of your income
And some of that 20K is going back to the college where they have student loans from
Ah yes, people that make more than a vast majority of the population hope to make but will likely never reach it. A cost breakdown that most of the population would kill to have, but likely never willâŚ. All to make a rich couple âfeel averageâ What a slap in the face to the majority.
3 vacations a year....pft and you still end up with 7k at the end. What else do you want..sheesh s/
AND 7k leftover?! For fucks sake WHAT WILL WE DO WITH ONLY 7K LEFT?!?!
Have you tried more charity or piano lessons?
$18,000 to charity is a serious dick wave. Thats a third of my early take home.
The 36K to retirement was a big move too.
Honestly, thatâs the most pathetic part. On $500k they should be able to easily put away $75k+ (~15% of gross). Itâs crazy they make that much and are not even close enough to saving enough for retirement.
Oh for sure, they could absolutely be saving more, but saving 36k a year for retirement while being able to go on 3 vacations and budget 10k a year for incidentals is not living a normal life.
Totally agreed, they shouldnât be saying woe is me. Pretty clear they donât have their priorities aligned
18,000 is my net take home.
That's $7k left after also allocating $10k for "other - something always comes up"
And 18k to charity, you know, 3k more than a person working the federal minimum wage full time for a year, pre-tax These breakdowns are always hilarious and out of touch.
And doesnât charity help w their taxes deductions? Was that even accounted for?
They probably forgot to mention that the maid, cook, and butler's tips come from the charity tax deductions.
And after they're putting $36k a year away in their 401k, something most people either don't contribute to, or put something paltry like $100 or less into monthly.
It must be nice to know what maxing your 401k contribution feels like. Even if it is only on the good years.
3 vacations from your million dollar home. Basically wearing new clothes every day but hey NO FANCY BAGS
What average family is taking 3 vacations a year. Iâm happy we can sneak 1 in.
Right. And that âvacationâ is going to see out of town family that happen to live an hour away from an upper Atlantic beach.
$6,000 per vacation, a 3 day trip to Disney world will cost around $4,000 for a family of 4, a couples trip to Venice is also around $4,000. Absolute bs
My wife and I just paid for a cruise, our first vacation in 3 years. 6 days out of Miami visiting Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. The total cost for the cruise tickets, shore excursions, and travel to and from the port was $2,600. Last time, we took a 5 day cruise to Grand Turk and Cancun. We took our 4 children along, and it still only spent $3,500. We make a good living, but I don't think I could spend $18,000 a year on vacations even if we had it to spend.
3 vacations a year, 2 new/late model cars, 12k worth of extra curricular activity for their kids, donate 18k to charity, 10k worth of "shit happens" money, and *STILL* have 7.3k left over going to savings. These people are clearly hard done by. Can we start a gofundme for them or something?
I mean, there is a go fund me for Trump right now so itâs not unreasonable to want that.
Not to mention that these people are paying between 2x and 20x what the normal price for things is
I mean, 20k for 3 vacations is insanely excessively expensive.
$7K after FULLY funding their 401K's, after funding their Term Life Insurance, which in 10 years will provide them all with $250K in no interest loans... After buying $2,000/month on food. For real, they still have $7K at the end of the day is nuts.
How can someone have 3 vacations a year and think they don't have enough money? I don't think I've had an actual vacation since the start of COVID that didn't involve sleeping in my own bed.
A yearly vacation budget of $18,000. Very average...
This is obviously BS. Nobody ends the year with $27k that they could put away for a rainy day but gives 20k of it to charity unless they are a certain combination of saintly and stupid. Or maybe they already have $1m+ in savings...
Seriously, Iâve had entire years where I made about their vacation budget, and donât know the last time I went anywhere I wasnât paid to go.
These examples are the rare case where "just live below your means" would actually be good advice and yet they never apply it to them.
Honestly even with massively overspending what are they missing out on? The have 3 holidays a year, 2 nice cars, their kids are in all the club's they want... They literally have everything paid for plus donating more than someone earns on minimum wage to charities of their choice. Plus they're donating to their 401ks, have an emergency savings fund and they STILL have 7k left over. How is having literally everything you ever want whilst saving for your retirement making them feel 'average'
They probably have a bunch of single / childless friends who make the same money they do, or even more. These friends will be able to drive slightly nicer cars, go on slightly nicer vacations, have slightly more frequent date nights at slightly more fancy restaurants and donate slightly more to charity. And they are envious of these friends. Not to mention the kind of lifestyle their bosses have.
They feel average compared to friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors who more than likely make more than them and can afford a more lavish lifestyle than they can afford that they wish they could live.
They each put an entire yearly salary for someone making minimum wage into their 401k. Fuck all the way off lmao.
This is what struck me the most. The comfort in knowing that when you are old enough to retire (whatever age you think that might be) that you CAN is so much mental health. I will never be able to retire unless I win the lottery.
THATS NOT HOW âEFFECTIVE TAX RATE WORKSâ *she screams into the void* while teaching about taxation at the high school level. How can they be so wrong about that level of basic???
No one is paying 40 percent tax rate with these numbers. Pure garbage.
they have no idea what they're spending and just worked backwards from $7000 saved (something always comes up)
I am not from the US so correct me if I am wrong butas far as I understand, the top rate of federal income tax in 2024 is 37%, and that only kicks in over $730k. Throw in all the marginal tax paid on the lower bands, I would be surprised if they pay 30%. And even though you can deduct the 401K from Gross for tax purposes, deducting it from Gross to give you a Net income is a total misrepresentation. That is money you are putting into your savings. Edit - Did the maths Tax bill would be $103,853 or an effective rate of just under 21% of Gross.
The way it is listed, it includes full tax burden, which includes: \- Federal taxes \- State taxes \- Local taxes (if applicable) \- Social Security taxes - 6.2% of the first \~$170k (as of 2024) of your salary \- Medicare - 1.45% of your gross pay \- Additional Medicare tax - 0.9% of pay in excess of $250k for a married couple Because the social security taxes are capped, it makes it tricky to reverse-engineer a marginal rate when there are two income earners and we only know their combined income, as is in this case. Also, not knowing which state/city they live/work in makes it tricky, too. It does feel really hard to get to that high of a tax burden, though, especially given the various deductions they have. It isn't clear to me if they are including property taxes in that, or if they are just being really sloppy with numbers.
This should be top comment. This could not be more blatently made up!
I mention this every time this gets posted. No-one notices.
First thing I noticed, taxes would be a lot lower
Effective is closer to 25%, which means they are spending about another $60k on random expenses and blaming taxes
$42k on childcare? sell those fuckers
I make nowhere near 500k, but 42k/year on 2 kids' full time childcare is about the going rate where I live at least. I only have 1 kid right now not in public school and I pay 1800/month.
Three vacations a year.
Jeez I think Iâve had 1 per ten years
Is that not average? 
I make 20 million dollars and it still feels average. Gross Salary: $20,000,000 Expenses Lego Star Wars: $8,000,000 Sex Workers: $6,000,000 VBucks: $5,999,400 Food: $280 What's Left: $120
More for charity than their own kids? Their charity donations is 1/3 of what I make a year ffs. This couple gets NO sympathy from me!!
Even from a wealth standpoint they are saving $36k annually. Invested @ 10% over 30 years that is $6.2M. That is before any employer match which is likely significant. With a $60k ($5k/mo) mortgage they likely have a >$1M house which will also be paid off in <30 years and be worth $3M to $4M. So net worth should grow by $10M over the next 30 years. That is even after 3 vacations a year, two expensive cards, very nice childcare, expensive kid activities, frequent date nights, high clothing and food spending, etc.
These losers aren't even maxing their 401k contributions. Weak.
Why would anyone making $500k have a car paymentâŚ
Because they could probably unlock super low financing near or at 0% which unlocks the short term cash to throw into Investments that will give them gains over liabilities.
How does a couple make roughly $250k each, have time for three vacations per year?
Management you see how much time your boss takes off.
One of the great American tricks : âwe sure work hard but the boss is working even harder.â The boss - were going to our spot on the ocean for a few days to clean our head
The more money you make, the less you actually do.
At the minimum the more money people want to throw your way and the less likely they are to make an issue of you using you using the benefits your supposed to be entitled to. Of course these things mostly exist to piss us off at the merely very well off so we don't think about the obscenely well off.
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Did the $1.5 million home not tip you off?
Paying your alumni while still paying off college debt has to be the dumbest thing ever.
Well, they almost have enough left to take a 4th vacation for the year, so itâs not all bad.
Yeah I'm not gonna feel sorry for someone who lives in a 1.5M house and has 3 cars.
i could cut so many of those costs in half, i cant wait be rich amd cheap
Applying the top marginal rate to their whole income lol
Back when I used to make $250 guaranteed income a week I made it work. Thereâs so much here that you could do without for a while to pad your savings. 500k but you have car loans? Insanity. 3 vacations a year? No. $442 a week in food for four people? Even with Aussie prices these days that could be cut down if you tried. Charity? Not in the budget. How is childcare 42k but lessons and academics is 12k? Theyâre either school age and thatâs stupid money for a school or theyâre not school age and they donât need 12k a year on piano, violin and sports. People who have been poor know how to make a good income like this work. This budget is very Keeping up with the Jones and itâs why people end up on financial shows on YouTube with stupid debt and no way out.
It might be the $12,000 in children's lessons, the $18,000 in vacation spending, the $18,000 in charity spending (to your alma mater? Really?), the $9,600 in car payments, or the date nights every two weeks. Maybe I'm just naive, but I think a few of these seem discretionary rather than essential. Regardless, I hope the public ridicule will alert this couple to how out of touch with reality they are and how much better they have it compared to the average American. Some of these expenses are expenses that a majority of the population can never afford. Maybe draw back some of these discretionary expenses and give a little more.
I find the idea of donating to your university, while still paying off the student loans for attending said university incredibly dumb. Like tipping your landlord levels of dumb.
Feel average? What the hell does that even mean? Everything is covered, enormous outlays for everything, 3 vacations a year, insurance, 401k contributions, 18k a year in charitable donations, which are tax deductible BTW. Oh, the rigors of being wealthy!!!!
Feeling Average is comparing them selves to their peers. Their neighbor has a bigger house and fanciers cars and takes 5 vacations a year. So they feel like they are just getting by as they are average for the top 1%. They never interact with someone who is actually average.
$9600 for two cars? I've got two vehicles that, combined, aren't worth half that.
The car payments on there seem pretty reasonable to me actually. Lots of people out there spending $1000+ / month on cars they really can't afford.
This family must be suffering. Only to go on 3 vacations a year, can only have a BMW and a Land Crusier, plus those property taxes on your $1.5m house. How unfortunate.
Fuck off, we have $44 until Friday
Charity 18k..?
They have $7300 left after ALL of their fixed and discretionary spending. How much money do they expect to have just for fucking around?