What salary would be "enough" for you

[Cu Chulainn]

I make less than 50k and have more than enough money to live comfortably as a single person in Indiana. While more would be nice, I am almost completely satisfied with what I'm making now given my current lifestyle. I am rather pissed that we haven't gotten raises in two years but that's more about gratitude than the money.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I could live comfortably off $60,000, and very comfortably off $100,000. Any more than that just seems horribly excessive. If I had a family, I might raise that to $150,000 or $200,000, depending on the size. Any more than that I would probably donate to charity; I've seen first-hand what it's like to live with a salary of $500,000 and a salary of $20,000, and the $20,000 is unpleasant enough that making $500,000 and not donating at least a portion of it to those less fortunate just seems cruel and greedy.

 

[MobBoss]

I could live comfortably off $60,000, and very comfortably off $100,000. Any more than that just seems horribly excessive. If I had a family, I might raise that to $150,000 or $200,000, depending on the size. Any more than that I would probably donate to charity; I've seen first-hand what it's like to live with a salary of $500,000 and a salary of $20,000, and the $20,000 is unpleasant enough that making $500,000 and not donating at least a portion of it to those less fortunate just seems cruel and greedy.

This is about how I feel.

The truth of the matter, is you pretty much adjust your lifestyle to your rate of income. If you make more, you just spend more.

 

[Disgustipated]

What the hell are you going to do with your life?

I'm serious actually. Have you considered what you are living for? What you want/should do, or what your "purpose" is?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Is my purpose in life supposed to be to spend money? I'm sure that's what the capitalists want. While I support capitalism, I do what I want, not what they want me to do.

I've found spending time with good people far outweighs fancy cars. I owned a fancy car once, it really didn't get me any friends. And it ended up getting sideswiped in a parking lot, and the guy drove off. I miss that car. I had it going over 145 mph. But I probably would have killed myself in that car, so it's best I live a more sensible life now.

the last activity I really enjoyed was just hanging out with a friend bowling. It was early so we got it for $1 a game. I fail to see how I need to make $100,000 for this. Now if I had kids $100,000 might be good. But not necessary. I have enough money saved up right now to put 2 or 3 kids through college.

 

[Joecoolyo]

the last activity I really enjoyed was just hanging out with a friend bowling. It was early so we got it for $1 a game. I fail to see how I need to make $100,000 for this. Now if I had kids $100,000 might be good. But not necessary. I have enough money saved up right now to put 2 or 3 kids through college.

If you had $100,000 you could have went bowling in Dubai, at a hotel, on the roof.

 

[Disgustipated]

touché.

 

[Traitorfish]

What the hell are you going to do with your life?

I'm serious actually. Have you considered what you are living for? What you want/should do, or what your "purpose" is?

Consumption is not purpose. Consumption is what modern society suggests you use to fill the void left by a lack of purpose.

 

[BSmith1068]

Family income of $200k would be enough for me and my family to comfortably survive. It wouldn’t leave much extra, but enough. That said… I would naturally want to have more, if possible.

$50,000 is all I need. Why do you guys really need more? What the hell are you going to do with that much money?

You ever try to buy a house in the DC area? Seriously, to qualify for low income housing in this area you need a salary of up to $60,000 for a family of 4.

I can't see what you guys are doing with over $50,000 a year. But most of the responses in this thread are Americans, perhaps that explains it.

The only reason to insist on making more money than $50,000 is to buy things to prove your supposed "superiority"over the common man. No one needs to drive around in a BMW or a Porche. That's sickening considering you could be using that money for charity.

Want to take a guess how much it costs to put a kid in daycare? Try 3 at once… And a hefty mortgage for a not too big 60 year old house.

Not everyone who makes over $50k is wasting it on things like BMWs and other luxuries.

I drive around in a Toyota, that's all I need.

I drive a Honda Civic.

Considering my future, however, I'd want to be able to retire early and live off the interest of my investments or at least be able to hold a job that I could work at my leisure knowing full well I am already sustained for the future.

I don't think I could assign a dollar value to that.

Quite true, and I agree fully!


EDIT: @Disgustipated: I just did a quick real estate search for Las Vegas and was shocked by what I found. Now I don’t know what neighborhoods are good and what are bad, but I was finding 4-5 bedroom houses in the 1500-2000sq ft range for $15,000. No I didn’t forget any zeros.

No wonder you feel that you can live fine off of $50,000 per year.

 

[Mise]

$15k for a house

 

[JerichoHill]

To the OP: Assuming dollars, 350K is overkill. Seriously Let's be realistic. 350K puts you in the very top .5% of the bracket or something.

There are studies that show that for US city living, money stops having size-able impacts on ratings of life satisfaction / happiness at 75K or thereabouts (other aspects become more important). So that is a good baseline.

You need less money if you have a more certain stream (see gov't)

My wife and I make far more money than we need to lead comfortable happy lives. We save and invest that so we can do our own thing sooner (say age 45 we retire, which is 15 years for me)

@BSmith 200k for a family of 4 is easy to do in the DC area, just be two mid-level gov't employees.

 

[Tani Coyote]

There is no enough for me. I desire to have as much as I can and more than anybody else. So wealthy that even the elites bow to me when I walk into the room.

---

Tens - hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That'd allow me to do just about anything.

 

[Traitorfish]

There is no enough for me. I desire to have as much as I can and more than anybody else. So wealthy that even the elites bow to me when I walk into the room.

Well, at least we'd know how to guillotine first.

 

[BSmith1068]

@BSmith 200k for a family of 4 is easy to do in the DC area, just be two mid-level gov't employees.

You are correct; it is not too difficult in this area to make that much with two incomes, and to be quite comfortable at that level. I picked that number for the poll because $100k (for a family of 5 for me!) is a little tight given where I live (single family colonial in Arlington) and $500k is way too much!

And I sure will be happy in 5 years when all of my kids are in school and I can stop forking out $3k/month on child care!

 

[Zelig]

So wealthy that even the elites bow to me when I walk into the room.

Nobody worth anything is going to bow to you because of the amount of money you have.

 

[JohnRM]

Probably about 100,000.

 

[Skwink]

So, I was just wondering to you guys: How much would your salary/profits have to be each year before you would not expend considerable amounts of energy to make even more. In other words: How much is "enough" for you to make you completely happy.

For me, if I had a family of 4(which is what I'm planning in the future), I'd say $350,000 per year(adjusted for inflation of course) is "enough".

My parents made maybe 100,000 combined. They were both teachers. We have had a great life. We need a new Computer, we buy it. We want to go on vacation, we go. We also are very frugal.

 

[Fetus4188]

In my current situation (flying solo) 50000 is more than enough to meet my needs. Double that for a family, I guess.

 

[Moss]

In my area, 25-30K would be enough to live on - with relative comfort (own home, cable, internet, possibly one new car, etc...) - for a single individual.

 

[Cutlass]

All of it

 

[Traitorfish]

All of it

Thereby causing society to revert to a barter system and rendering the currency worth no more than the material it is made of?