Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Few people are struggling at $100,000 a year. Those who are are dealing with problems, have dependents, or have dependencies.
How do people who make around $100k/yr struggle, assuming normal situation?
- Thread starter Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Bestbank Tiger
Deity
We do have places in the US where 100k isn't a lot of money. I did a quick search for NYC apartments:
www.zillow.com
Yikes.
1 Bedroom Apartments For Rent in New York NY | Zillow
Find your next 1 bedroom apartment in New York NY on Zillow. Use our detailed filters to find the perfect place, then get in touch with the property manager.
www.zillow.com
Yikes.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
I think a lot of people don’t know what struggling is.
What if your choice of occupations has limited choices of where to work for good pay? And that you have to start in a very high cost area at a pay which is difficult to live on in that location in order to make really high pay and be well off later in your career?
This isn't necessarily forever. Could be just the early parts of a career.
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Because they have skill issue
$90,000 HH income puts one in the 60th percentile not the 75th in the US.
Zardnaar
Deity
Somewhere with high cost of living or single income supporting a large family 5+?
I seriously can't fathom how someone could struggle on 100k/year. Seriously. People like me are expected to live for FIVE years on that, and even then there are people who think we should all be rounded up, out of the way of "normal people" so they can get on with their lives.
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Struggling for a person on $100 USD/year is “Egads! Margaret, I am sorry dear we will only be able to afford three trips to Europe this year instead of four. Ah, truly we are struggling…”
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Time to turn off 401k contributions....
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Akka
Moody old mage.
I'm earning about 30K€/year after taxes and I'm quite comfortable. It's just not possible to "struggle" on 100K a year unless you're braindead or have absolutely HUGE loans/dependencies costs.
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Hm, well some jobs pay far more ridiculous amounts. Eg some euro mps get 20.000 euros (roughly 20.000 dollars) each month. And they still steal/get bribed
Being greedy =/= struggling
Maybe. But one would expect that the 100K/year person can always rent/pay mortgage somewhere cheaper. And those mps are struggling to buy million-dollar yachts that they feel they deserve.
Didn't realise that was the case in US. It isn't here. A fixed rate mortgage here is fixed only for 2-5 years. A lot of people have variable or tracker mortgages as well.
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"Struggle" is of course relative, but I believe most of these cases fall into "living at their means (or beyond them), and then their income falls unexpectedly".
A lot of people aren't very good at being financially responsible, and perhaps that is more likely if you've never really had to be financially responsible.
There are plenty of ways to spend $100K or more a year. A large, fancy house. Fancy vehicles. Frequent, expensive travel. Private schools for your kids. Some of those come with long-term commitments to continue paying, or take a loss if you sell too early (e.g. home ownership). Then there's the people who've been through divorces and owe alimony or child support; I know of at least two people who, while making quite a bit less than $100K, got into financial issues due to divorces. In both cases they wanted to keep the house that had been signed for with their combined salary, but now only had one salary.
Cars are also much more required in the U.S. than in Sweden, as the quality of public transit is much poorer. In my experience, in even midsize Swedish cities, you can pretty much get where you might need to go without a car; in the U.S. that's the case only in the largest cities. I'm in a medium-large city, and if you live in the right place, you can get by without a car, but you'll only be able to reach parts of the city. Not that you need a fancy car here, a basic one will do just fine. But it is very much a car culture. I don't understand the appeal of the big, fancy cars that I see people buying, but a lot of people put a lot of money into their cars.
So, I certainly see how it happens, but especially as you get more and more above $100K for more and more years, at least for me there's an expectation of having some savings. You shouldn't go from $150K for 5 years to in line in the soup kitchen in a month; if you do, you've been living beyond your means. Such cases happen, but I have a harder time being sympathetic for those than for the guy who was raising a family with 7 kids on a $17/hour job at Valvoline.
A lot of people aren't very good at being financially responsible, and perhaps that is more likely if you've never really had to be financially responsible.
There are plenty of ways to spend $100K or more a year. A large, fancy house. Fancy vehicles. Frequent, expensive travel. Private schools for your kids. Some of those come with long-term commitments to continue paying, or take a loss if you sell too early (e.g. home ownership). Then there's the people who've been through divorces and owe alimony or child support; I know of at least two people who, while making quite a bit less than $100K, got into financial issues due to divorces. In both cases they wanted to keep the house that had been signed for with their combined salary, but now only had one salary.
Cars are also much more required in the U.S. than in Sweden, as the quality of public transit is much poorer. In my experience, in even midsize Swedish cities, you can pretty much get where you might need to go without a car; in the U.S. that's the case only in the largest cities. I'm in a medium-large city, and if you live in the right place, you can get by without a car, but you'll only be able to reach parts of the city. Not that you need a fancy car here, a basic one will do just fine. But it is very much a car culture. I don't understand the appeal of the big, fancy cars that I see people buying, but a lot of people put a lot of money into their cars.
So, I certainly see how it happens, but especially as you get more and more above $100K for more and more years, at least for me there's an expectation of having some savings. You shouldn't go from $150K for 5 years to in line in the soup kitchen in a month; if you do, you've been living beyond your means. Such cases happen, but I have a harder time being sympathetic for those than for the guy who was raising a family with 7 kids on a $17/hour job at Valvoline.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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If you look through the list you can find apartments under $2000 per month, so even in NYC you can find very affordable appartments.
Can you actually find any major profession that is in such situation with high pay but very location limited?
I'm not talking about household income but labor compensation/salary. People who make $100k if they live with somebody probably going to live with making around the same salary so $200k household with 2 people each making $100k.
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Zardnaar
Deity
4-5 kids in area with high rent will do it.
Failing that very bad financial skills eg debt or drug habit.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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$100k in USA after taxes is about $6k a month with I assume $1000 if saved for retirement, $5k left. Cost of living for a single person that is just the necessary stuff is probably not going to be higher than like $2500. Each additional person maybe add like $500 to that cost, mainly food, so with $100k salary in USA one person could maybe support themself and like 5 others and still manage retirement, but it will be pretty minimum.
Now add in another $100k salary, $200k and 4 children and it should be pretty luxurious lifestyle.
Now add in another $100k salary, $200k and 4 children and it should be pretty luxurious lifestyle.
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