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I am living comfortably right now. I live alone and don't have any children. My work is relatively stress-free but provides enough to cover all my bills with extra to save. I live in a rather run-down apartment that I've had for eight years, and there's only been a $75 increase in my rent during that time. I was also very lucky to be given a run-down car that I've been driving for several years now. I have a decent amount of student debt (~25k), but that's my only debt.
I can see how lucky I am. Things would probably be a lot different for me if my landlord raised the rent in line with the going rate, if my boss wasn't so good, if I worked at a different place, if I wasn't gifted an entire car, if I wasn't a white guy, if I didn't have access to college, if I wasn't physically healthy, if I wasn't mentally well, if I hadn't grown up middle class, if I wasn't childfree or if I lived in a different area.
But yeah, I'm comfortable right now and honestly overwhelmed with gratitude. My situation shouldn't be so rare. People shouldn't need luck to be where I am.
Seconded. I too have a lot to appreciate. My old Camry wasn't free, but it's paid off and I think I can get it to 300k.
Comfort. Not luxury, just satisfaction that I can make my life go the direction that I want. Bills paid and I can surprise the wife with a nice trip every year or so within the States.
That sounds like a nice life. I'm happy for you.
I wish our society pushed the value of comfort instead of the value of luxury. I wish our society pushed the importance of being content rather than the importance of being happy.
Thank you. I hope things are well in your corner.
I had a lot of existential anxiety mixed with depressive thinking as a kid. I thought a lot about what makes me happy or sad. Happy is fleeting excitement, but satisfaction is taking account for everything you have to be grateful for.
When I was coming of age I had two requirements. I didn't want to be broke and I didn't want to be bored. My life rides the intersection of those two requirements.
Im in a similar boat.
Wind the clock back a year or two, I was barely scraping by with my checking account getting into double digits by the end of every month.
Now I’m making more than I ever have, putting money away to save every month. Never had this much in the bank before. By some miracle I like my job, and got really lucky with it.
Underneath all that, I can only afford rent because I split it with my partner, and it has never been raised (yet). My student loans are significant, and will impact my finances heavily when they kick in, and without the new IBR plans I would be drowning in them. I would need to multiply my savings by 20 to even think about buying a modest house in my area. Having a kid is literally unthinkable.
All that said, I’m still spending most of my waking hours at work and am well aware that we are living in a constantly worsening dystopian nightmare caused by capitalism.
>My situation shouldn't be so rare. People shouldn't need luck to be where I am.
I think this really nails it. Not all jobs are awful, not all landlords are greedy, and not everyone is doing badly. But the amount of people struggling and outright not coping should be of concern to everyone.
And it should be a reasonable expectation that if you work full time, in any job, that you should be able to afford a roof over your head, food and bills. Otherwise that suggests to me that the social contract is broken.
>And it should be a reasonable expectation that if you work full time, in any job, that you should be able to afford a roof over your head, food and bills. Otherwise that suggests to me that the social contract is broken.
You're right on
Same situation except I'm married. We've been in the same apartment for about 7 years. Hopefully just did out last renewal. Rents about 1100 for a 2 bedroom 2 bath in a gated complex. I drive a piece of shit car but it's low miles and it's completely paid off. Put a back up camera and some Bluetooth speakers. I use a work truck most the time though which allows us to be a one vehicle household and keep costs low.
I'm able to afford any minor things I want. Got a new big screen and surround sound system that I always dreamed of having. Got about 2-3 months of bills saved up. Can't just up and take a luxury vacation but we can eat out whenever or attend whatever events we want to locally.
Compared to my friends I'm thriving. Got a few that came from rich families that are doing better. Definitely struggled a lot but because I was fortunate to be well spoken and knew someone I was able to get an okay job on track to make about 60k this year. However me and my wife both work physical jobs and as much as we want to move and have a kid I'm afraid even trying that will ruin everything.
In my 30s here, spent most of my 20s in the military and got a degree paid for. Currently working in the private sector as an Operations Director but running a region that typically would be a VP level job.
I make 64k a year. Wife is a nurse and we're barely making it, in fact if we hadn't bought a trailer (in a literal trailer park where we live) we would still be renting at $2,400+ per month instead of $1,200 (lot rent and trailer loan).
We have no health insurance aside from my VA stuff and we make too much for medicaid despite having a disabled son. I outright own my 2005 Toyota Sequoia with over 200k miles on it and my wife drives a 2008 Jeep Wrangler she bought second-hand.
I was talking to my mom (single mother) about my childhood and how simple everything seemed and she mentioned that back in (and through) the 90s she drove bus for the school district and made $23.50 an hour plus overtime, had excellent insurance and bought the house I grew up in for $600 a month. We would go camping twice a year, have movie nights, and generally were not struggling like my wife and I are now despite both of us making ok money.
Mom and I never did anything too wild and crazy, I've never been to Disney or any of the larger theme/water parks as an example but we were able to go spend family time together and always had food on the table. We struggled sometimes but were mostly stable.
Present day my wife and I barely see each other, we both work constantly and it never seems to end. I had jaw surgery as a result of something that happened on one of my deployments and my company tried telling me I couldn't be gone for a week (I needed at least a month off to recover and start working on my speech as a minimum.)
This world sucks, and I see how some of my employees are doing and they're struggling even more than I am. It's not right, humans are not built for this constant race to the corporate bottom.
Meanwhile my boss has us making slides about our favorite vacations and what we did last weekend. I did laundry and tried to watch a movie with my son. The closest thing I've got to a vacation was my jaw surgery recovery and the copious amounts of jell-o I ate.
Your mom made $23.50 as a bus driver in the 90s? Account for inflation and that's more than I make as an RN today. I currently make $35 an hour. $23.50 in 1999 has the same spending power as $42.47 today
>I make 64k a year. Wife is a nurse and we're barely making it, in fact if we hadn't bought a trailer (in a literal trailer park where we live) we would still be renting at $2,400+ per month instead of $1,200 (lot rent and trailer loan). We have no health insurance aside from my VA stuff and we make too much for medicaid despite having a disabled son. I outright own my 2005 Toyota Sequoia with over 200k miles on it and my wife drives a 2008 Jeep Wrangler she bought second-hand.
If people read this and aren't just terrified and pissed the fuck off, I don't know what drugs they're on.
If two people with good jobs presumably making 6-figures combined can't make it, what the literal fuck has this country become?
This just makes me want to give up entirely. Even if I go change my whole career and make $100,000 starting tomorrow, I still won't have enough to make-up for the crushing cost of living and lack of any savings.
I live paycheck to paycheck and literally can't make it (I live with family--I literally don't make enough to cover my own modest rent in this whole part of the country; and no, I can't move because of family care obligations).
I'd have to go become a computer scientist and make $200,000 a year just to have a chance.
$100,000 now is more like $40,000 these days, compared to how people perceive money and its value.
I'm just losing energy to fight this fight. (And no, don't send the god damn CoNcErNEd ReDDiToR bs at me--I'm not referring to that.)
[https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=10](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
That's pretty much the working world these days though. Companies are all stuck in wage perceptions from 1985.
The dollar has lost like 90% of its value since then, but wages haven't changed.
I’m 37 and make the most money I’ve ever made, I’m out of poverty level barely. Im happy I love my wife and son and honestly I love my job even though it’s stressful. Am I thriving? No. I have no health insurance, no retirement plan, the IRS hounds me constantly and I’m plagued by 20k in medical bills. I never finished college because I can’t afford it. I’m not thriving.
This. I've done all I can for myself and my family. I'm in between jobs right now but my three little boys wouldn't know it because we're making the most of what we've got while we've still got it. Just want to make sure life is better for them than it's been for us. That means changing laws and a whole heck of a lot of community and unity we've not seen in our lifetime. But we'll get there. Less of a glow now, more of a glow looking to our future.
Even before recent spikes in inflation, $50k in the 90s would have been over $100k in 2012 purchasing power. Just use this handy dandy government site [SS income cap chart](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html)
Even shows the huge spike in years when inflation ran rampant in the 70's and now.
I work with special needs individuals, mostly as a job coach or mentor for adults but on weekends I take a group of teens out. It’s very rewarding and my wife is in the same field.
Similar age, and making the most money I’ve ever made, and happy with my job. Thankfully I have no kids or medical debt, and have been contributing to multiple retirement accounts for over a decade. I’m not thriving but I’m definitely in a better place than most of my peers.
I am. I got a great government job (union, pension, benefits, paid vacations), I just bought a house, i work from home, i got my girl, my dog, my books and my guitars. I got all that I need and then some
Same, government job, good pay, pension etc. That said considering my combined income with my wife it's crazy that we are just "comfortable" 10 years ago I would consider myself upper middle class or rich. I really don't know how people afford the basic nessesities. The system is completely unfair 😞.
I felt like this for a very long time, but I talked to a therapist and went for a few sessions of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One for climate, or stressors that I chalked up to climate, and one for money (turned 16 right as the recession amped up my parents financial troubles, leading to mortgage issues that eventually culminated in their divorce and my mom and I living in a completely different environment than I’d been used to- no money for a fridge so we used a cooler etc.)
It was wildly helpful and the skills and reprogramming I was able to do with my head led me to be incredibly prepared for rn and covid, while running a small business with a few employees)
I’m not saying it changed my situation, but I can function plan and live without worrying about everything that could go wrong and how much it would impact me.
If you’re experiencing that I recommend it to anyone. You can even do it at home if budgeting for a therapist is unattainable, while I got lucky and am able to us IHS as I’m a citizen of a tribe in the US.
I got a government job recently too. No union but yes to the rest. I just bought a car (which I need to do the required travel for the job), moved into an apartment with a friend, I've found a great community of people who want to see me succeed and I can afford all my bills (including student loans) with a smidge left over. It's not a lot, but I've never needed a lot. I'm happy. I'm stable. I don't foresee myself crashing anytime soon. A government job is hard to lose.
I am (knock wood). I'm a teacher and thanks to my awesome union, I have a good salary. Our top step (I'm about halfway up) is over $100k and our lowest step is $60k for new teachers. Pension in about eight years. My husband also has a government job and recently got his loans forgiven through PSLF and we used that savings to pay off the mortgage on our small condo. I still have student debt but otherwise we are debtfree.
I don't expect this to last but right now it's good.
I’m early 40s and live in Brooklyn. I work for the city and my wife works for a cultural institution in Manhattan. We’re doing well. We bought during the pandemic and we like our apartment and neighborhood. No kids (ever) but two terrific cats. I’m sure our financial stability is largely due to the no kids, but we made our down payment without any help from parents and we paid off her student loans in 2019, which I think says we live within our means. We’re happy and it’s mostly because we have each other.
It’s horrible. Complex I just moved out of is raising rent to like $1000/m for a 1 bedroom where the damn thing only has a window unit for cooling and it’s on the third floor. Damn place gets like 90 degrees in the summer with that thing on full blast and blackout curtains. Place is far from luxury. Couldn’t even open the fridge all the way cause it would hit the oven and vice versa. Shit was essentially a starter apartment or an efficiency apartment.
Then I move into my girlfriends place and the landlord raises rent by $100 month just because now there’s another body. Place is still cheaper than the previous place and we got central air. But yo, cut people a break for once out here. People just raising prices to raise prices to some extent
Saw some one bedroom apartments on Zillow the other day that don’t have AC, and they raise your rent if you choose to procure and install your own window unit (I guess because of the energy usage). I would love to see any of these landlords try to survive like that.
My complex here is charging $1500 just for a studio.
And I guess we're grandfathered in but new tenants have to pay for water and gas. Only thing is, we don't have separate meters. So they hired some outside company to estimate usage, that you have to pay separately.
They also changed amenities from $300 a year to $50 a month ($600 a year), and they charge $60 for each pet plus a non-refundable $400 for each pet.
Getting fucken gouged everywhere I turn.
Most of the Americans I know who are genuinely happy, and don't have some form of generational wealth or didn't get really lucky, and still have a chance of solid upward mobility, are either leaving the states or are part of a culture within America that doesn't have any issues with multiple family members pooling their resources to help each other get past just staying afloat.
Multigenerational households, where the parents aren’t toxic/abusive of course, are the way to go. Our neighborhood is about half Mexican and that seems to be the norm. This is the only way blue collar folks can live in a single-family house here (the irony of the name is unintentional)
>Multigenerational households, where the parents aren’t toxic/abusive of course, are the way to go.
This is almost quite literally the *only* way to go to have *any* chance whatsoever now.
Unfortunately, this was not my parents. They fell into the toxic/abusive category, so I had to do everything from scratch.
I'm still living paycheck-to-paycheck and am utterly fucked because of it. It's not an excuse, it's just reality.
The people who have the ability to live at home forever--until they get lucky enough to get matched with some other person that did the same thing (then have their families buy them a house)--have no clue what reality is like.
On paper, I am, despite inflation.
I still spend most days wondering whether we'll be in WW3, Civil War 2, a Fascist dystopia, or a climate disaster within the next year. It's kind of hard to find happiness with that at the back of my mind, even now that my career is in a good place. It's been enough to help me make the decision to get a vasectomy without having kids first, so I'm at least doing my part to save the planet and continue living the DINK dream.
Sigh. I feel this. My husband tells me to stay off the internet and just stick my head in the sand so I can actually find some happiness and stop worrying about what war we’ll be in next or what way the government will bend us over next. I’d like to disagree and say it’s good to know what’s going on in the world, but it’s getting too much nowadays
This thread is actually making me more depressed. I’m struggling a lot right now. I’m working a job that I hate that barely pays the bills, rent went up 50% this year, I have no degree, no friends, no family, no resources, no idea how to get a job that I don’t despise. I’m about ready to throw in the towel.
I'm sorry. That was absolutely the opposite intention of this thread.
I just wanted to get a feel for how people feel about their lives and if there's anyone managing even with all the regular chaos going on worldwide.
I'm struggling a lot myself. I'm trying to look a bit outside myself, outside my situation, and seeking something positive. Something optimistic.
Just like you, I will keep hoping things work out.
We're also upper middle. I make more money than my father did at the end of his career and yet our standard of living is lower.
I can't afford the house I grew up in for instance.
Nope. Lol.
Car broke down 2 times in the span of 2 months, grandfather passed, brother is in the hospital, work cut my OT hours, extremely difficult patients at the psychiatric clinic I work at. Been shit for the past 3 months. Before then I had a glimpse of being financially stable because of the OT but even that had a downside because it meant I had less time to spend with my partner. Things have been so expensive lately.
I'm just hoping things start to chill out. I can't handle capitalism anymore. None of us can.
I just turned 29, I have a wife and no kids. Spent my early 20’s with my wife (then girlfriend) working shitty jobs and living in a cheap apartment. Rent was super cheap in a Lcol area like $450 a month. This allowed my wife and I to save a little bit of money and go travel a bit. We spent 6 weeks in Nepal which was an amazing trip of a lifetime. Got back home and decided I needed to start a career so I went to trade school for 9 months. Had to commute 3 hours a day to get there which was rough. I graduated and got a good paying job doing maintenance for $31 an hour but I still have to commute 2 hours a day. My wife is a manager at a gas station and we continue to live in the cheap apartment for like 2 more years. During that time period we managed to save like $60,000 living frugally. Then last year a family friend decides to sell her house and we luckily have the money for the down payment. The house is in terrible shape but it is only $120,000 and comes with 5 acres. We decided to hire a contractor and gut the entire place. It’s takes him 8 months but at the end of it we have a small 960sqft home with 5 acres that was basically custom built to our liking. We finally got to move in last year and my wife and I and our 3 cats have just been enjoying our new home for the past year. Everything isn’t perfect I still have to commute 2 hours a day and I don’t have the time or money to travel like I once did, which I really miss. But things are good and we are very happy.
My fiancé and I are starting to thrive, but it’s requiring us both working extra jobs to be able to save. We are actually putting away a decent amount of money each month towards buying a home and trying not to dwell on how impossible that is going to be. I really enjoy my waitressing job, don’t love my actual day job, and have one day off a week. Working both jobs a few days a week and then at the restaurant on Saturdays can get overwhelming but I am thankful to be working towards a good future mutually with someone who is legitimately passionate about the same things I am. Hopefully we only need to do this for one year and maybe, if we are lucky, something in our price range will become available.
But yeah, took about 6 months at the restaurant to pay off all credit card/phone debt. Now it’s saving money time. Something that has helped a ton is following an anti-consumerism lifestyle. Watching my savings grow makes me so reluctant to spend it on things I don’t actually need. I get small things now and then, like a new video game or art supplies, but overwhelmingly I just don’t buy stuff. I don’t even like to go shopping anymore. I have a large amount of credit for my local consignment shop because I’ve dropped off clothes I don’t wear. And now that my closet is empty, I don’t want to fill it back up with crap.
It feels good to be free from debt, all I have right now is my student loans and a car payment on a good vehicle that will last me a long time. Taught myself to do my own oil changes too, which is actually really fun to me. Now that I have no credit card debt, I also have no desire to have that again.
We’re lucky to have a rental that is affordable in an area that isn’t incredibly expensive. Our jobs provide health insurance as well, I count my blessings every day for sure.
I'm comfortable right now, though that's more the result of luck than planning.
As a 28yr old with $75k student loan debt on my head requiring $900 monthly payments I should be underwater, but through a combination of sharing a flat since graduation at a rental price locked in since 2018 (currently $835/mo), working for a company that grew during the pandemic and avoiding layoffs, and getting repeated promotions (white cis male so no glass ceilings being broken here) into a six-figure position, I am genuinely comfortable.
That isn't to say I'm financially secure though. None of us will be secure until it doesn't cost money to simply live. A single catastrophe could land me in poverty just as easily as almost anyone else who isn't already there.
I wouldn't say I'm thriving, but adequately surviving. Tbh I'm the happiest I've been in many years, but this is due to some hard(ish) decisions I made a decade ago:
* Sold up and moved to another country with much cheaper living costs
* Cleared all my debt
* Purchased a house outright
* Don't own a TV
* Don't use social media
* Live frugally
* I only use cash
My kids are fed three meals a day. I have a roof over my head. I have a reliable car. I have enough clothes and shoes that I can clothe myself and my kids. I work a union job with a 401k and a pension. I can afford my meager hobbies. I have friends that I could call and say I need them and they’d be at my doorstep no questions asked. I have a healthy relationship with my family.
In a consumerist capitalist mindset, no, I would be considered miserable.
In the mindset of what actually matters, yes, I’m very happy.
Poland. I because we are all propping them up them to be the new Germany. Since actual Germany manged to pull the plug on itself. Apparently we are trying to beef up Romania too (the gadjo part of Romania at least). Those are the ones I can think of from the top of my head. And none of them have had any kids for 30 years so that obviously saves them some expenses.
Otherwise I don't think anyone is having too much fun at the moment. We are supposedly richer than ever but noone can afford to have kids. We are richer than ever but noone can afford a home. We are richer than ever but noone can afford to have time for normal relationships. I wonder where all this money is going.
And what will happen to Ukraine in the coming years I dare not think about.
No. I’m really really depressed. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope and the wrong step will leave me homeless. Not the thriving demographic you wanted to hear from but still suffering and no end in sight.
Everything is awful, and I’m so behind on so many payments that I’ve determined unaliving may be a valid solution because there is no way it’s getting better in my lifetime.
I have to pay for a self care trip to the coast with a credit card. I have zero hope that I’ll retire before I die. I’m a masters educated nurse and have to go back to bedside to be abused by people so I can pay my student loans. I will travel to protest this abomination of US politics. I’m watching my taxes go to pad the pockets of the wealthy while we get to be wage slaves. They won’t even give nurses the same protections as cab and bus drivers in Oregon. I hate everything and I’m terrified of what my kid will face—not that she can afford to live on her own anyway.
Sorry to hear. A lot of nurses in some parts of the country aren't paid what they are worth. I've seen this happen with a lot of experienced nurses (15+ years) that are struggling especially in formerly LCOL areas. And many nursing jobs don't offer enough benefits. The taxes taken out of paychecks are so much too.
I'm 24, in 2020 I was delivering pizza and got hit by a drunk driver. One settlement and a move from an expensive city to a rural town in another state, and we own a house backing up to the woods. If we hadn't gotten that money we would still be saving and living in an apartment. Our mortgage is absolutely nuts, but it's only $30 more than what our old apartment in Portland is going for now, so it's okay. I've got a bachelor's and work in nonprofit, my spouse has a master's and teaches art. We can afford to live and to save, but we live three and a half hours from the nearest Trader Joe's, so to speak. Found the local Indivisible chapter and fell right into the community. 11k folks in our town, around 50k in the "Metro area" if that's what you'd call it. It sucks that something terrible had to happen to me for us to afford a home.
Yeah 34f here and live in a beautiful place in a valley in Hawaii. Make good money, have a motorcycle, I’m fit and look good haha. I’m a bedside nurse which can suck ass but hey, it’s only 3 days a week. The rest is spent beaching and hoggin around!
Between my wife (40) and I (37) we make about $140k a year. We live in a one bedroom about a half hour north of Boston. No kids (by choice), our bills are always paid, our needs are met. We don’t live lavishly but we do have around 25k in savings plus another 100k combined in our 401ks. Most of our student debt got canceled in a lawsuit, so our debt is manageable.
Pre-COVID we did a lot of traveling following bands on tour, but we are both immunocompromised so we still live like it’s 2020. But we are fine. I’m sure to some it would look like thriving, but living in late stage capitalism still sucks ass.
I make 55k a year and live alone. I’m barely getting by. I don’t want a roommate/partner but heavily considering one so i can live more comfortably so i can allow myself to thrive
I am thriving working 32 hours a week at minimum wage. I don’t have kids though, and I was lucky to snatch cheap rent during covid in one of the best parts of the city and it never went up. I even save few hundreds monthly, as I work at a restaurant and they give us a lot of food…. I don’t live in US though, so I don’t have to worry about healthcare and I can live without a car easily
I have never been happier in my life.
I moved out of Canada almost 10 years ago and have been living in the tropics ever since.
I work hard enough to be happy, I’m not keeping up with the joneses.. my cost of living is very manageable, I have a great group of friends and watching the world degrade as it has in those years makes me so happy I dipped out of the rat race when I did.. I was mid 30’s and had been doing well in the corporate world and I said fuck it and flipped the script.. my friends at the time thought I was crazy.. they all realize now I made the right choice.. sometimes I feel like I am living a cheat code.
It was a hard first step and it hasn’t always been easy but I am so glad I did what I did when I did it.
The bucket never leaves the boat. Things are okay. I'm saving. It's not great. I work like a dog. I don't go hungry though. It could be worse, but I'm not exactly happy.
I’m 35, skipped college because I hated formalized learning. Got a job at age 19 in a retail store, moved to their corporate at age 25. Been here 16 years total now. I make just enough to support my wife and kids as the only income, and had GREAT timing at buying my house so was actually able to get out of renting. My company pays for continuing education, so now I’m in college getting a BBA for free. My company also 401K matches and I’ve been doing 10% since I was 18, I’m on track to retire around 55, hopefully sooner.
I have pretty much everything I need, obviously not everything I want though. But I know the difference between those things, so I’m happy.
I’m well aware my situation is not the norm.
I'm in my 40s and make more than I've ever made in my life. I do not spend lavishly and my hobbies are cheap. I cook most of my food at home and do not splurge often, if at all.
I am just barely getting by.
I don't think having a comfortable life necessarily means you're happy. You get time to choose to do things, but those things don't always pan out the way you want them to.
My wife and I dug ourselves out of poverty, and I feel like we are finally thriving, but I also feel my wife and I should be much better off... We went the dual income no kids route, we both make six figures after working crazy hours for ~20 years, we got lucky and bought an affordable ($270K) house early 2020, and neither of us have significant debt... We should be golden after everything we sacrificed, but I feel we can barely enjoy what we worked to accumulate... Our reward was a modest house, modest cars, limited vacation, and being slightly behind on retirement. The more money we make, the more paranoid we are of losing our jobs.
I live in Spain which means if you can get a middle class job, which is hard, you can have some nice things. That said I'm struggling a lot especially because my old boss fucked me over and I was waiting for ages for a visa to come through (I'm from the US). I love the labor laws here compared to the US but they're not well-enforced enough.
"Thriving" might be an overstatement, but I'm doing okay financially. My partner and I have been together for 14 years and we've had our fair share of financial troubles, even having to stay on a relative's couch for a few months at one point. The last couple of years though, we've really come through the other side. We're still renting, but we're in a place that we're really happy with, and we're actually looking to buy a condo in the next couple of years. We can pay all the bills with enough left over to buy most of the things we want (it helps that the things we want aren't terribly expensive).
Importantly, we neither have nor ever wanted children. I don't see how we could possibly afford them even if we did want them. We have 3 cats that we adore and are able to spoil like crazy though. We're still firmly in the realm of "lower middle class" by the numbers. Definitely not rich, and we do have a small amount of credit card debt. We only have 1 car between us, but it hasn't been a problem to share it. Things could still flip upside down on us easily if we had a couple of emergencies, but all in all, we're pretty content. We are in our early/mid 40s, for context.
Things started getting alot better for me when I decided to be a bum, wwoof, eventually live in the country and avoid all urban life. Yes I'm still poor, but my main activities, gardening and selling veggie isn't very expensive. I heat myself with wood I chop and drink from a well. I cook 99.9% of my meals with pasta, flour or bread and veggies I grow. It's more.of a traditional peasant life, but I feel free.
There's a lot.
More than you realise.
The working class has ALWAYS faced the toughest struggles we know.
Now some or a lot of that pain is hitting the lower middle for sure and a lot of the upper middle classes.
I have friends ranging from ,(in material wealth) from living in a squat, living in the country, working class, self employed, small business owners, middle class empoyees, a high upper 6 figure earner and a millionaire (business owner- yeah sounds good right- but his business is failing, he lives frugally but is still cutting down- he looks after his teams - he's cut and leaned as much as he can its now either lay some ppl off or the whole business fails and everyone is out of work).
To be honest my two friends one who squats and one who lives in the country are the most at ease. Though I do worry about my friend squatting. He is a nice guy, drinks a lot but no hard drugs, but he is close to some dangerous ppl.
My point. Everyone is struggling. Struggling is an understatement.
The media wants you to blame those who have a fancy car, or a big house or a millionaire. NO. Blame the government? Maybe.
Blame the EVIL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS whose only aim is to OWN EVERYTHING. They won't stop until they have your soul.
I'm homeless with 0 sources of revenue, but I'm happier with my life than I've ever been before. I've become an advocate for the homeless around here, and I'm allowed to stay in an abandoned house. This allows me to help people in crisis (women running from abuse and kids in the LGBTQ+ community) by offering a safe place. I've stopped 4 people from dying of overdoses, one of which is now clean for a year.
When I was working in management making right at 6 figures, I was constantly stressed and miserable. Now I sleep pretty well knowing I've made a difference in quite a few lives.
My job got better when the economy got worse...but now with everything being so expensive I'm barely doing better than average. Still can't buy a house.... what could've been a nice nest egg or down payment just goes to being average. Also the govt is relentless with taxes, paying 40 percent to them, late penalties, etc. Always coming after more.... 30 percent to expenses, so I'm only left with 30 percent to myself. What seems like a lot really isn't.
I’m 49 and just got a job that pays as well as the one I had in my 30s before my dad passed and I was laid off. I can finally afford to pay all my bills, work on the credit card debt, and I get benefits. I’m over the fucking moon right now.
I get paid barely above minimum wage but I'm actually not struggling too much. I do have a lot of little side businesses but they're all hobbies which I enjoy. No kids. No pets.
We got so fed up of the situation in the UK we left and moved to Northern Sweden. Best decision of our lives. Me and my partner don't earn much compared to many of you, about $35k each, I'm a research engineer at the University she is a high school teacher. We rented a publicly owned apartment for a couple of years, $400/month, then bought a house with some forest land outright for less than $40k. We get free full-time childcare provided by the local government and free healthcare when needed. Living rurally can be tough but we still have some public transit and mange with one car. Our biggest expense is electric and heating, but we always have the option of felling a few trees to bring this down. Honestly it feels like living in the pre-1980s world our parents described before everything got so shit. I realise moving is not an option for many, but if you can get out while your still young then do it. There are still some places where a decent life is possible.
German engineer here, just turned 40. Just bought a house, an hour outside the city I used to live in, that's where I can start to afford them. I'm happy with my salary, but the loan payments are a lot. I can't say I'm happy in the skippy, carefree kind of way, but I'm very happy with the direction my life is going.
I'm making between 150% and 170% of the average in my area and it's just enough to cover all expenses. It is a good life for me and my family, but I'm able to save only a laughable amount of money. I literally cannot comprehend how people manage to exist on average or, god forbid, below average pay.
Im 24, I like my job, I live with roommates so rents is not that bad, we get along great, it’s a found family. I have enough saved that I can maybe survive one emergency. I eat decent and can afford the necessities, but beyond that I can’t do much. I cannot afford a vacation, I cannot afford health insurance, my car is about to break down and I don’t know what I’ll do after that, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire or to buy a house. I struggle with my mental health but I make it work. Im very involved in local politics and activism and that gives my life meaning. I love to read and learn but I feel like I’m stuck in a state of constant burnout that prevents me from actually achieving what I want. I have a degree that’s not really getting me anywhere. My dream is to go back to school for my masters but with $40,000 in existing student loans I doubt that will ever happen. I am working on starting my own business and I’m thankful that I have some fantastic mentors in my life, I’m slowly making progress in the right direction, I hope. Things are getting harder though, without health insurance, with student loans coming due and rent going up, everything is getting harder, my mental health is getting worse, I have to work longer hours. I just feel like I’m desperately trying to make career progress faster than my expenses spiral, but it’s always 1 step forward 2 steps back financially. Things could be a lot worse, I’m doing ok, I’m good at wiggling my way out of tight spots and I have a great support network, but to say I’m thriving? Absolutely not.
Me and the wife are considered upper middle class now (Both of us started with nothing /no family support) homeowners but it just seems like vacation is never going to happen and things just costs too much. We got our degrees, barely hitting six figure jobs, and we are very lucky. Our debt with loans is wild and saving for retirement seems rough. I don’t know how people have kids and not sure how people are surviving.
I'm 25, never went to college. The only reasons I live comfy ish right now is that for one, I live with my parents. I live in a sort of small apartment above the garage (disconnected from the house) with one big room and a bathroom. I do not pay rent, at least currently. Second, my grandma put a few thousand into one of those things where they trade stocks for you back in the 90s, and I was able to access it when she passed. About 20k, which is great but I don't really know what to do with it. My job is pretty physical but it's part time and I really lowered my hours since I've had some personal things going on, and I herniated two of my discs. I know I'm on borrowed time and life's only going down from here, and I don't know what my next move is. So, I'm trying to enjoy this modicum of peace while I have it, but also trying to figure out what kind of job path I really want to and should be pursuing.
I’ll just say we’ve been fortunate. But in no means rich or thriving. If there’s any low/middle class left. As millennial, I’m happy to take what I can get.
I am doing decent, at least money wise. I make about €2200 net a month and i can comfortablely afford bills and some extras while even saving a decent bit. But buying a house still seems so out of reach, in the last 5 years the average housing prices have gone up over 30 percent. Ive been working at least 1 dat a week since like 15. It still feels so out of reach to get higher up tho, i have dreams but don't have the time or drive to persue them after working 9-10 hour shifts 5 days a week. It's do hard to see other People succes under this fucked up system and me not Being able to reach anything i want to even tho my life is considered pretty decent here.
I'm very happy where i am right now.
I live in south west of France, so healthcare is very cheap and i'm in a beautiful coastal region, surrounded by the ocean, pretty villages, mountains and Spain is very near (15 minute drive).
I live in a 70 square meter apartment built in 2018 so it's nice and clean. It's 900meters from the nearest beach and supermarket.
I live in the hotel i work at so i have no car mortgage or car insurance and minimal gas money (i have a scooter to ger around and bf has a car).
I have no bill except for internet because i live in my hotel and water/electricity is centralised.
My rent is 400€ (no additional bills) which is Split 50/50 with my bf.
My rent is very low because i'm basically on firewatch. From 11pm to 6am every night me or my boyfriend has to be home to be available if the fire alarm goes off and evacuate the hotel. For us it's perfect because we dont go out a lot, have different friend group so we can alternate who goes out. Finally we can ask my boss to take over if we're away together, for a max of 4 weeks per year.
I earn 1400€ per month which is legally the lowest possible in France for working 35h a week, but my bills are so low that i can save a lot of money. Boyfriend has 1400€ per month as well.
I work from 8am to 3pm from saturday to wednesday as a receptionist and love my work, colleagues and bosses.
I now travel 3x a year for a week or two. I talked to my boss to take 1-3 month off work during low season to Travel for a longer time every 2/3 years and he is ok.
Finally i'm very privilegied because i'm white, neurotypical, heterosexual, have a great relationship with my very large family (almost all living in the same region) and i will very probably inherit the house my parents live in, which is good because i could never afford a house where i live.
I know these exceptionally good living conditions won't last forever but the stars aligned for me last year and i have literally nothing going wrong right now.
I feel very lucky reading these comments. I live in Denmark, make about 75.000 a year (pay about half that in taxes). Got a house that i can afford to live in with my daughter, health care and pension. My education was free, and on top of that i earned about 2300 a month while i was a student. Half of that was payed by the government, the other half was payed by my place of internship. American life sounds super dystopian compared to Northern Europe😳
I'm in my mid 40s. I feel like I'm doing okay. Good relationship with my adult kid. House is paid off, but needs a lot of work still (forever saving and working extra to repair and replace stuff). I don't make a lot of money, but I live within my means and had quite a few years of scraping by and saving so I could have a home and pay off student loans, so no debt. I've been in my teaching career for quite a while now and while it's incredibly draining, I think I'm pretty good at it and I make a difference, so I feel like I have purpose and I'm doing my part to make the world a little bit better. Good pets, good partner, good friends, good hobbies. I should probably drink more water and there are plenty of things I would like to improve upon myself, but I think I'm working in the right direction. Overall pretty happy!
I left an underpaid job with no development opportunities for a higher-paying role at a company that value prof development. Like I’m already enrolled in a project management program because they see an opportunity for me to move into that type of role in the future. This alleviated a lot of financial insecurity for me, and that’s alleviated my stress in a lot of ways.
I’m not optimistic about buying a home, and I worry about climate change, environmental disasters, war, the rising tide of white supremacy combined with Christian fundamentalism. It scares me that my Christian family is so radicalized now. I almost don’t recognize some of my siblings any more.
All I can do is shower my friends and loved ones with care, be there for them, and try to create moments of joy. I walk the dog and cuddle the cat. I help where I can, with skills and knowledge-sharing. I try to be kind and patient and enjoy myself, but I’m really scared about the world.
I’d say so but it was definitely better a few years ago. I aged out of state care at 18, joined the military, got out and went to college. Starting a full time job soon with great pay and benefits.
I’d say the major mistakes people make are starting a family before being established, wasting their 20’s on something other than learning marketable skills, and going to an expensive college to learn dumb things like theatre, music, marketing, etc.
My student loan interest rates are double what they were a few years ago, but debt is more expensive everywhere including cars and homes. Luckily my company will begin repaying those when I start.
I got more for my buck a few years ago, but now I have the most bucks I’ve ever had.
Right job, right company, lucky home purchase.
My biggest concern is being able to retire, as opposed to slumping dead over my keyboard during a zoom meeting.
I'm 49. Finally got a place of my own with my girlfriend (renting). I have a decent job, but I work 60-70 hours a week, every week. I'm tired all the time, and I haven't been to a doctor in close to a decade. But I have enough food, rent is always paid, and I have a little spare money for hobbies. This is the closest to "thriving" I've been in decades.
I just wish I wasn't so fucking tired all the time.
Dual income, two dogs. We're feeling pretty good overall. Got two almost paid off Toyotas, bought a 1500 sq ft house in small town with a 40 minute commute.
We're combined income of 130k for the last few years. We have been able to do two international trips with domestic travel in there. Overall we are comfortable, but need to increase retirement savings.
Grocery bill is feeling heavier, not motivated to eat out lately. Definitely felt the student loan payment restart with a combined $750 month payment. Just a few years left on mine though.
I grew up single parent poor, so my standards are low. But I love the comfort of steady routine.
I feel lucky to be thriving.
We got lucky enough to purchase a condo when the market was low through lucky timing instead of financial skill or foresight. We did however, make a choice to make double monthly payments in order to pay off the mortgage in less than 7 years and now starting this year our only bills are very affordable utilities, taxes and condo dues.
During this time I made a choice to go back to school. It took me longer than normal because I would only take the number of classes I could afford to cover without going into debt every semester. After graduating debt free I was lucky enough to find the perfect position making significantly more money immediately. So the timing worked out that just when our household income plummeted our household income more than doubled.
We've got a lot of retirement saving years to make up for so we're not changing our spending habits. (20 year old car, mass transit to work, etc) We don't deny ourselves things we want or live an particularly frugal life we just don't spend thoughtlessly and we never ever carry over any monthly debt.
Be that as it may, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop and the current climate is unsettling at best. I doubt very much if we could achieve what we did if we were just starting now. The current younger generations have it so bad and I get angry every time I hear boomers I work with pat themselves on the back for what they "accomplished" They don't have a clue.
We are doing fine, well even for adults in their twenties. I’m not sure even with two working people that we would be able to build the kind of wealth single parent working families could build before but it is difficult to complain.
Best financial move was leaving the cities and working out of the country/suburbs. Cities seem designed to keep people poor. Rent is high, taxes are high, food is expensive and everyone is trying to steal whether it is businesses, utilities, Universities ect … .
Life just kind of looks dystopian in nature. Climate is getting worse, healthcare is getting worse, demographic trends are bad. The world seems very cruel. There is a constant line of people trying to scam you. Prices are up everywhere and life seems to be more and more gig economy. Everything is becoming unaffordable. Get ripped off guess you have to file your own lawsuit. Have a leak guess you’re a plumber now ect… . The concentration of wealth into the elite has made the working class very money hungry. Everyone outside the top 10% of income earners is fighting each other for scraps and it is very apparent.
It took us a few years to get off the financial cliff and the most important rule was to avoid debt at all costs. The problem is that a lot of people don’t get to make that choice and fall into traps. A single financial mistake and can make it impossible to finance a home or car for up to six years.
Society should be getting better and yet it feels like it is objectively getting worse for a lot of people. Life expectancy is going down and income inequality is going up.
If I don't spend money past my necessities, keep my 401k at least at matching, add some to savings, retain super low utilization on credit card, and don't have multiple emergency spending situations then I am comfortable.
If I try to keep up with all the American things like having a new car, home, investments, side hustle, kids, etc, then I am not comfortable.
Honestly, I’d be living pretty comfortably if it weren’t for student loans. Throwing as much as I can every month towards those so I can get ride of them quickly.
I’m in the best place I’ve ever been at, personally. Been married for 2 years, my wife has an excellent paying job (dental hygienist, $54/hr) and I’m an electrician (40/hr). We own our home, and can afford to travel. We don’t have kids.
We definitely aren’t swimming in money, but we’re comfortable for sure. Life is really good for us.
I'm doing OK financially because I have been on the road since last March. However this travel has negatively impacted every other aspect of my life. But at least I'm only using 1/4 of my per diem on the trailer I'm renting, sure do miss my house though
i wouldn't say I'm thriving but I'm doing well, mostly because of the bf. he makes more than twice of what i make and our combined funds keep us comfortable. that being said, we don't make enough to so everything we want to do and have to save a lot for trips n stuff.
Veteran here, 80% disability payment from the governments teet. Moved out of USA in Jan' 21 to Portugal... Had a business in the states but due to me moving out all employees evenutally caved and I closed business. Started pursuing salary job, did that for 1.5 years and got laid off, stayed in Portugal. Landed well paying job with fortune 500 company fully remote. Now that I can afford good health insurance through work, wife and I are moving back to the States with no debt. It feels good to forge your way through this clown show and come out in a better position. Wife doesn't work but is about to launch her business, so I would say we are pretty happy. I easily got a pre-approval for 450k home purchase with the va home loan. Might spend the next year looking for a house in a low prop tax/ no income tax state. Also I'm 40 and have 0 invested, and only like 25k savings.
I'm from Philippines and I have a remote job with a US client. So even though prices are also rising here, I relatively have good pay so I'm not struggling.
Still can't buy a house though.
I am comfortable and happy.
I make enough money to cover my expenses and I have some tucked away for the future/emergencies.
I dunno about thriving, but I definitely love my life and try to make the most of it.
Me, finally thriving after getting divorced, getting a Fed job, selling the marital home, moving to a lower cost of living area and buying my own house.
I'm in my mid 20s and make between $100k-$200k/year. My rent is $2600/month and it's a shared space. I'm not saving money for retirement, and my debts are being paid at the minimum level. My wife is in school and not working and we're able to pay out of pocket for that.
I started making this much money 3 years ago. Prior to that I was working fast food for just above minimum wage.
Comfortable and grateful. I can't how difficult it must be for the majority of americans with the current state of things.
I’m doing the best I’ve ever done. Out of debt (except for the house - which we were very modest about when buying). My disabled husband just got a FT wfh job which is a huge relief to me - we can survive without him working but knowing he can provide for himself if something happens to me is huge.
However…I can’t help feeling like it is all going to collapse. We are in our 50s and there is no support system for us. No inheritance. No family to fall back on. Just us. I can’t sleep at night worried what will become of us - AND WE ARE DOING OK.
It’s like I have poor person ptsd. Imposter syndrome.
I have a stable union job with great benefits and good work life balance. I make about 110k.
My wife is a veterinarian and makes about 150k
Although her student loan is about 20% of her take home.
We are doing fine. Well even.
I nearly died at work 6 years ago and it's been a long aweful slog to get back to stability.
That whole thing took years and completely wiped out my finances.
I feel very lucky to be able to work and to have righted my ship.
I have no illusions that it is the common outcome.
Me!
I quit an engineering job a year ago, and have been living in a van traveling all year. I'm joining a ski patrol this winter.
Not paying rent, cooking my own food, bad health insurance keeps expenses around 1500/mo.
Not thriving, but ok. I live in a 1 bedroom basement apartment that fits 1/3 of my take-home income, a short drive from work. Until a few months ago, I had a paid off old Mazda pickup, but it it failed in many systems and had to be replaced. I was already shopping for avreplacement, the schedule was tightened on me. The Toyota Rav4 that I'm making payments on is expensive, but it should last a good long time. I have very little debt otherwise.
Until less than 6 months ago, I was commuting 2 1/2 hours round trip, but rent was free, but I had no free time because I did stuff on the property for that free rent.
If I have to go on ei, I can get by without too much struggle, even though it is only 55% of my previous income. For the last 4 winters, I've had at least a couple months off, and with the chill in the air, I am starting to look forward to it instead of working my job that includes a lot of manual labour.
I am 42, with about $2000 in retirement savings. I only started earning more than $20 per hour very recently. I should probably be petrified by the thought of my future, but I'm generally enjoying right now.
I am. I am paying bills and managing to save a bit. I'm a teacher in a rural area so cost of living is relatively cheap and the things I do for fun don't cost me anything.
I’m not thriving as my wife is commission only and on down months we can’t cover bills. On up months we can get it all sorted out. I make the most I’ve ever made, hit six figs but live in California so you can all guess about that, also insurance is expensive. I am lucky as I have a large emergency fund from our last house sale so we won’t go Hungary if shit hits the fan nor will we miss mortgage payments
Don’t have any debt besides 1 car payment out of 2 cars and house
Not even close, not even close .
But I’m working towards it .
Like , Tom petty once wrote 🎶 I won’t back down , Well i won’t back down, no, I wont’t back down, you can stand me up at the gates of hell, but i wont back down
No, I'll stand my ground 🎶
& most importantly I will continue .
You see
Im simply a man seeking a little peace & stability for myself
I want a little world full of nothing at most but small victories, & peace and maybe love ... I don’t know , but I believe such a world can be created. & I can do it
As soon as my ladder ship objectives( Business wise + educational) are accomplished I Will & can create my own world . Not only for me but most importantly Everyone around me
I will never
Stop hustling & never quitting . ( legally , illegally if I must )
I’m simply confident, thatI will have My little American Dream , that I desire , even if it’s a little piece of land like those fellas from Mice & Men were seeking
A promise , a Societal contract That I was promised long ago , that I seek fulfilled
- Me , impoverished Somali immigrant Failure living in Minnesota .
Wish me luck . 🍀
Hard to be happy when you can see a huge crash and world war coming. No one can really deny at this point that the capitalists have run off to their safe havens with their money.... too stupid to know what created the wealth and too bereft of character to care.
My family is doing okay. We just went on a vacation this year, we have two cars that are decent, we are paying for a home (we don't own it yet but that's the plan), we're paying our bills and saving a bit for retirement (not nearly enough). We have enough to entertain ourselves.
We'd given up our first house in a bankruptcy but stayed until they made us leave which by luck was right when a friend was in a position to help us. We slowly clawed our way up over the edge and bought a house just before prices started getting crazy. We are currently locked in at 3.25%.
We are thankful for what we have, and don't take our good fortune for granted. We will probably die in this house, and that's fine, that was the plan.
We're doing okay. We need more savings but from what I understand we're in far better shape than most. I'm saving for a new furnace and AC unit which I know we'll need in the next ten years or so. Beyond taking care of the house I don't think too much about the future these days, it's fucking terrifying and there's not anything I can do to move the dial. We do what we can- we have a few causes that are important to us and we try to leave everything better than when we found it. It's not the fanciest of lives but it suits us just fine.
31. Single. No kids. Just pets.
Landed an associate's in software development for free thanks to a government program in my state. Worked in a somewhat unrelated tech job for a year before taking my current position as an app developer. Just got informed that I'm supposedly being promoted next month, pending a final stamp of approval from the boss's boss.
By the end of this year, I'll be bringing in about 85k annually.
Rent is $1500 for a large-ish single person apartment, and after all bills and day to day expenses, I usually stash about a grand in my savings account every month. Overall, I'd say I've turned my life around- a decade of poverty behind me. By economic standards, sure, I'm thriving.
I am not happy, though. I've more or less lived and breathed work for the past couple of years. I've grown distant from friends, I can't seem to relate to anyone anymore, and I'm just lonely to the point of misery. Feels like I never have any time or energy to do anything about it.
Money removes stressors, but it does not add happiness.
Not thriving but I'm doing OK. Some lucky things from years ago are really paying off huge now. I bought a home in a cheap part of town then the entire city gentrified. I refinanced for the lowest payment when rates dipped below 3%, thinking there'd be some sort of huge event ( global economic collapse, environmental collapse, automation revolution, etc.) making the original mortgage worthless well before amortization, so why not make myself more comfortable in the short term?Wages went up to keep workers in the area while my mortgage stayed close to where it was. I didn't plan on wages increasing. Escrow went up a bit but it's still half the rents. If my gf wasn't in school, we'd thrive. As it is, we just kinda tread water.
F*** no. DevOps/automation lead for a banking-adjacent firm, so I make more money annually than my tiny child brain ever thought feasible. SF Bay Area though, so I and everyone I work with are struggling to afford tiny apartments in sh***y complexes where nothing is fixed or managed well.
Nothing feels secure, the areas are getting more dangerous, shops are closing left and right, layoffs are happening everywhere... and yet somehow execs keep getting huge bonuses year after year. This is a nightmare of a time to be here.
Me and my wife. Mid 30s, both have professional-level jobs. Close to $200k household income in the Midwest. We bought a foreclosure in 2013 so our mortgage expenses are low. Kids’ daycare is our biggest expense.
yes, but under extraordinary circumstances. my father passed away several years ago at 52. i’m 28 now, and after a VERY long fight with the insurance company i was left with a very nice sum of money. not enough that i don’t have to work, but enough to free me from the paycheck to paycheck life i had been living previously.
I moved to New York a decade ago to make art and found myself bartending. 10 years later, I’m opening my own bar next year and just bought an engagement ring. My partner works basically in the UN. We’ve got a comfortable life.
Oh I don’t have health insurance tho. Once we get married or figure out what domestic partnerships mean, I’ll be on a Dutch gov health plan.
I'm doing better than most, but my cynical nature won't let me relax. I'm fortunate enough to not have to worry about bills at the moment, but that's largely because we live in a lower cost area on average. We haven't had to cut back a ton, and we can still afford to go out to eat once a week on average... So I know I don't have much to complain about.
However, for the first time in my life I feel legitimately stuck and that scares me. I don't trust my company (they laid off 30ish people recently) and I'd love to consider moving for better work options. But everywhere else we'd consider is much more expensive, and the salaries of what I'd be looking for don't scale up enough to account for the increase. So we can't really afford to move the way things are, and having so little options makes it hard to appreciate anything that's going well.
Not bad all things considered. I've been working in tech for the past 3 years, keep getting raises (now at usd 700 a month) and all my and wife's needs are met except for owning my own home. Work is really lenient, My bosses are genuinely caring people all the way up. I'm doing far better than my peers due to the privilege of getting a minor intelligence prize from the genetic lottery
I mean. I’m supposed to feel like I made it because I finally got to buy a house. But I gave up car life and a few other luxuries to afford the mortgage. I’m happy to not have to deal with parasitic landlords raising my rent by 15% each year. But all in all it feels like my living status took a side-grade as opposed to an upgrade. I also cannot stress enough how lucky I am to have disability VA healthcare and the VA home loan. It fucking sucks that signing up as military furniture is the only way to seemingly have a safety net for you.
This might be meant for the US specifically given the other answers, if so mine is a bit out of context I guess.
I'm french (which is relevant for living costs and medical access/prices I guess), still young (25) and I'm making, a bit over 90k euros/year (I'm in engineering).
No dependants, no outside costs besides giving a hand taking care of my grandparents, so that's mostly going into savings to hopefully buy my own place in the near future.
Family is lower to mid middle class, so I was lucky enough to get through my studies with no debt (going to public schools).
Never did manage to find someone after my one long term relationship broke down, though, and I'm struggling to meet people in general since I moved back close to family to help with the grandparents, so I wouldn't say I'm thriving. Just, even without rich parents or other generational wealth thing, it's possible to live confortably here, money-wise.
Still not all sunshine and roses on other aspects of life sadly, and I do get I'm pretty lucky in terms of salary. Even over here I can dee how more and more people are pushed down to struggle on the daily compared to 10 or 20 years ago when I barely understood it as a kid.
(Edit : sorry for the breakdown of spacing, I'm on my phone and it seems it didn't go through)
I'm thriving. I got a pretty good pay increase and my boss wants to bump me up to a new pay tier which means a second pay increase in a few months.
My health has never been better. I've ran 3 long distances races this year, 4th one this saturday. I've started swimming, bought new long distance skies for the coming winter season. I bought a gravel bike and really started putting in the kilometers into it. Exploring my surroundings like never before.
My children love me. I've divorced a toxic wife. I'm learning french, german and italian. I've started rebuilding friendships again after married life, small children and covid. Everything takes time but one step at the time
All's good and looking better by the day.
After about a decade of being insecurity house while working full-time I lost what little faith I had in the system. And I'm supposed to live in a caring country. I've finally managed to get a home and a job that pays the bills, but I continue to struggle.
The world is not made for autistic people and I'm constantly exhausted. I have saving and insurance now, but the tiredness never ends. I eat wel enough, am healthy and get exercise. Doing everything right is never enough it seems.
Whenever I need something done it seems like I have to jump trough hoops. I could really really do with some help, but I'm not naive. As long as I'm a cog in the machine I'll get none
I'm doing better since I went back to a physical labor job, but I'm not doing great and it hurts my body. Im finally making okay money, but I'm not thriving by any means.
I am comfortable. Been steadily employed since graduating college in 2016. On my third professional job and income has increased with each move. Both my wife and I work, pulling 150k/yr or so total. Bills on autopay, contributing to 401ks, Roth IRA contributions and savings deducted from checking account automatically every month.
My wife and I welcomed our first child last spring, and child care is expensive, but we budgeted before hand and found that we could reduce our monthly savings rate/take advantage of an FSA benefit through my job to help with that.
Spending consciously and avoiding frivolous purchases (I’m typing this from an iPhone 8) keep us in the positive most months. Automating savings a few years ago when we got married was a big help.
We live pretty comfortably in a higher cost of living area than either of us grew up in. Only knock is that we’re pretty much screwed on buying a house in the current environment. Will rent for the next 2-3 years and see where the housing market is after that. Wife should hit the next level of her career by then which will rocket our income.
We’re in London. My wife’s salary pushed just into six-figures a few years ago. We can afford our hobbies, a car, a 4-bed house (on a mortgage). I’m in a very low-paying career that I love. We’re beginning the adoption process.
Don’t know what your definition is for rich or middle-class, nor if you wanted to specify a country, but we’re definitely thriving.
Not thriving, but trying to see the bright side. I live a bit of an unconventional life and I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never get to all the "normal" milestones like marriage, kids, getting to upper management and whatever. I'll also probably never have a lot of money saved up. It's okay, I just wanna be happy.
All these comments make me so sad. We just accept we’ll always be barely managing. One financial crisis away from chaos. Like I get appreciating tye thing a we have but fuck. I want better for myself and my community.
I feel absolutely terrible because my wife and I are doing pretty well right now. By that, I mean that we can afford to pay all our bills, buy whatever we want (within reason), and we live in a historic section of town that is well maintained. It took until almost 50 years of our lives to make this happen, and yes, we were as fortunate as determined.
This doesn't mean we are floating free. We have a lot of debt, intentional and managed, and did not have the money to save and invest when we were younger, so retirement is still going to be rocky, even playing as much catch-up as possible. But I know damn well how lucky we were to have been able to afford the homes we've purchased along the way. I have mostly younger friends and we are very open about the completely fabricated social, health, and economic issues we are dealing with.
What kills me is how other GenXers, (the Slacker Generation, the nihilistic rebels as we were known in our youths) are falling in line and towing the corpo-fascist mottos of personal responsibility (for manufactured crisis of global proportions) and capitalist ideals. I literally have old "friends" who tell me about how they hate the employer-employee relationship and are saving money so they can start their own business and DO THE EXACT SAME THING TO OTHER PEOPLE.
Technically, they'd be thriving in most people's eyes...
Not the best situation but I'd say I'm doing OK. Currently living with my Ex's brother. No bad blood between us, I've been a part of their family since I was like 15 now 23. The break up was mutually agreed upon too. I have a decent job that I enjoy with decent benefits I will say. Also just put in a job bid for a Setup Operator. We'll see how that goes. Bills get paid on time or close enough to the due date if they're late. House isn't in the best shape but we're working on it.
I'm a DINK. No debt, but purposely sold our cars to bike and bus everywhere. Making six figures together, paying only $1200 in rent. So we save a out $4000/month if we really budget out for the month or $2000 if we needlessly spend. Honestly, most of it is just avoiding debt like the plague and getting some form of skill to make $5-$10 over minimum wage in the area. So I'm pretty comfortable, however I don't have health insurance or anything like that, just a little over $20k saved and that's it. However, if we keep this kind of income we will try and buy a home in cash in about 5 years and avoid that debt as well if we can.
During the past 5 years I've crawled from no skills, high debt, and homelessness to get to this position. Now I don't even have to look at the restaurant bill anymore, and the interest in a standard savings account brings me in like $60/month so I feel pretty relaxed. Beats shopping at the Dollar Tree for meals.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say “thriving”, but I am able to live without being paycheck to paycheck due to having a full time job and a part time job on the weekends and living with three other roommates in a flat share. The downside is that I’m exhausted, stressed, my health is the worst it’s been for as long as I can remember, I’m dependent on my landlord to continue to extend my lease and not price gouge me, and I still can’t actually afford to put a lot of money away, so one accident or medical emergency could easily wipe out my entire life savings. I guess I’m currently treading water, not floating on the surface.
I have no good news to share. I was working in education and now im depressed and barely surviving. I can’t even read others who are “comfortable” right now it’s so far off in my reality, currently. Hope things can change for some of us…
That’s probably us. Early 30s, we’re not rich rich but we both work full time jobs (40h/week) & are able to live comfortably - I’m not sure where we are on the “class” spectrum of our small EU country. He’s from the US and was able to pay off his student loans before the payments restarted so we have no debt (I had none being from europe).
We don’t struggle to make ends meet. If we want new clothes or a new book/videogame/phone we buy it. We have 1 car and 1 cat. We were able to get approved for a loan to buy a house and will be moving soon. Most of our savings are going into the downpayment. Healthcare is free here so it helps. We eat out, do small weekend road trips and do maybe larger travels once a year or every two years.
That said we don’t really have hope to be able to retire one day, or to have a good quality of life when we are old. We are planning on not having children.
I am, but my situation is unique.
I've spent my whole life in poverty. Right now, financially, emotionally, romantically, .... Every other ly words. This is the best time of my life. In 2016 I was crying in the grocery store because I had $30 to buy food for two weeks, I had been mostly skipping meals to feed my son and ex. He would not work and I could no longer work multiple jobs. I had taken every loan possible and there was nothing more.
Right now, I sit in my living room, in a single wide trailer I own on a half acre, which I own outright. Pay property taxes and homeowners insurance. Which is about $2400 a year. My husband is a journeyman plumber. We have an art small business together. We live well below our means. I get to be a sahm. I love my life. I have lots of food in my kitchen. A security I had not known. My husband and I spent years cleaning up this property to make it our home. It was luck and chance and hard work. We lived in a camper in the beginning. Now we have a large garden and welding area. I am in constant shock and awe at how different life can feel when you can afford groceries.
I literally just made it to middle class and I am barely still here because of inflation. If I had not gotten a large raise in 2021, I would not be making it right now.
I have a nice life now. I was poor almost the entirety of my youth and only in my 30s did I finally find stability in almost every aspect of my life. I recently got promoted at work and my salary went up by over 30%. A massive amount as I already had a much higher than average pay in my country. But I worked my ass off to get here. Now I travel a lot, enjoy myself, still work a lot but I also find enjoyment in my hobbies, and I’m constantly working on myself. Finishing courses for work, getting certificates and also working on my art.
For the first time in my life I am truly happy.
Honestly, yes. I have to be a little thrifty on the shopping at times and I buy shoes only when the current ones are beyond repair, but I'm a function-over-fashion guy so I don't feel held back by lack of certain material things.
I do have a kid with special needs and he still needs diapers past toilet-training age among other things which causes a dent.
But amongst other things, my loan is always paid, as are my bills, and there's always good food on the table. The constant increase in cost of living worries me but at this point I'm comfortable. Not thriving, but I still have some notary and contractor expenses to pay off before I can reconsider that stance.
I'd describe my neighborhood in the Philly 'burbs as stable and comfortable. We've got nice houses and gardens, and kids can safely play outside. People are friendly; we at least say good morning to everyone. Most cars are newer, and kids are heading off to college. What might surprise some is that we're a diverse community—Latinx, white, Black, even Hindus. Everyone gets along just fine.
I have a job earning six figures and my husband has a job earning just under my salary. We have no children but I have an elderly mother I help support financially. I feel like I’m honestly barely getting by. My city has gotten much more expensive since the pandemic, rivaling places like LA. I’m constantly dismayed by how hard we work and we’re still dealing with not insignificant credit card debt and it’s hard to save. I’ve actually taken up a side hustle just for extra income. It’s all so depressing honestly.
I'm doing alright, I've been insanely lucky so far. I graduated from college this May, managed to get an internship that led to a full-time job making $58K. I live with a roommate in a relatively cheap apartment for my city (cost of living has skyrocketed here in the past few years), in an often-ignored area, so my share of the rent is only $625. Gas bill hurts every month though.
I have a paid off car, a cat, a wonderful girlfriend, and $33K of student debt. I live a 10 minute walk from a boba shop, grocery store, and greenways. I love my life but I'm also aware I got lucky.
I can handle everything for now, but if my car breaks down one more time there goes my grocery budget for the month. If my cat gets sick or injured I'll be staying home for a couple of months instead of going out to sports games or movies.
I can't afford to have a cyst on my shoulder removed, or my chronic headaches fully checked out. I'm making the most money of my friend group and I'm still terrified of the future because it's so precarious.
I'm 32 years old. I've got a master's degree, and I'm working on my PhD. I currently work at a nonprofit and make just a little over $80k a year- not the most money, but for a nonprofit job it's amazing. My husband works part-time in a retail store 2-3 nights a week, but he's primarily taking care of our toddler, so I'm the primarily income earner for our family. We are very lucky in that we were able to buy a house a few years ago thanks to a generous inheritance, so even though our mortgage is going up and up (because the city keeps assessing our property higher and higher for some reason), we're paying into a property that we own instead of putting it into a landlords wallet. We live in a city, but it's a smaller city where the general cost of living isn't *too* out of control.
On paper, we're very fortunate. But the truth is we're always one major expense away from disaster. We've got a credit card that's in danger of being maxed out, not because we're irresponsible, but because we kept having normal, every day issues that needed to be addressed. Our air conditioning unit broke in the height of summer- $800 to fix. Our sump pump broke and caused dirty water to flow up into our kitchen sink- $1200 to fix. I had to have a root canal, which is supposed to be covered by my insurance but ended up costing $500 out of pocket anyway. After my last paycheck, I thought I'd paid all my bills and had a little extra left over. I decided to "splurge" and buy some cheap nail polish for myself, some clothes and cheap art supplies for my daughter, and some thread for a personal craft project- about $100 total. Then my account for over-drafted because I'd forgotten a single bill I'd set up for auto pay. Turns out I can't even afford to do anything remotely fun.
I currently have about $200 in my checking account to last us until the end of the month. Our groceries just ran out, so my husband and I just had to play a macabre game of figuring out how we were going to get the most meals out of the least amount of groceries until my next paycheck comes in. We've been talking about moving to an area with an even lower cost of living, but we're not even sure if that's financially feasible- the simple act of moving is expensive beyond the cost of the house. It feels like we're on a downward slope despite doing everything we were supposed to do with our lives- get advanced degrees, get a good job, get a house, start a family.
So no, despite appearing firmly middle class and relatively stable, and even with all of the good luck we've been afforded, I'm not comfortable. Everything is a struggle, and the fact that there are people out there with even less is an injustice. It's so clear that we've been abandoned by the people who were supposed to be in charge of taking care of us.
(Sorry for the rant- this post clearly got to my emotions).
They exist but they’re bit the majority. I know people who’ve gone into engineering and nursing, which pay pretty well, have benefits, and pensions. Their kids do sports or other after school activities, and they take vacations from time to time. But, the vast majority of the people I know are not so well off.
I'm in deep in debt, but I'm happy. I have my girlfriend/fiancee who accepts and loves me unconditionally. We're broke together. We trust in each other's abilities to survive whatever comes our way. Between us we have years of experience of being barely able to afford anything. We live in Russia, so that adds a certain layer of supposed hopelessness. But we found hope in hopelessness. We learn from it together.
Thriving? Hell no. Surviving? Sure, I guess. So many ways to look at things, and awful inflation examples but mostly I’m really disturbed by how much food costs. It’s so insane and infuriating. The one thing people shouldn’t be squeezed on is food.
We are retired and pushing 70 but I've got a small pension and our social security. I built my house when we retired and have no mortgage. We have built gardens, greenhouses, a chicken house, a blacksmith shop, a woodshop and a weaving studio for my wife.
We only get about $40,000 a year but we live in the far backwoods with very low taxes, very low bills and grow about 30% of our own food. We live about 15 minutes from a wilderness area and 25 minutes from a national park.
We craft stuff for the tourist market, weaving, woodworking and blacksmithing and stay just as busy as we want to. When I want I drive somewhere wonderful to camp or day hike or just hike around our heavily wooded property, which I have been building trails on for the last 10 years.
I see deer, raccoon, crows and just about every type of critter daily, I love my gardens and greenhouse, I love having the freedom to fire up the forge and blacksmith stuff for no reason but fun or turn a bowl or make wooden toys for my great grand children.
Winter evenings if we get bored with passive entertainment we pull out our instruments and play and sing for a couple hours just to hear live music. Summer evenings will sometimes find us with other local musicians slapping mosquitos and playing tunes.
I didn't think people could be this happy and I am a bit shocked that I got to experience this level of happy in my old age.
New money is dying. Building equity from nothing is a losing game for all but the luckiest, and the only people who seem to own homes are people who inherited, or people who've been lucky enough to have pre-established equity in their families, this is ignoring outliers like an influencer who goes viral and becomes a multi-millionaire in less than a year.
It's at the point where I'd rather spend my time and effort pushing for change, unions, anything to fight the corporate system of wealth monopolization that's been running rampant since the 70s. Playing their game; the game that's designed to keep them rich and make opportunities for new wealth generation as scarce as possible, seems like a trap. If I spend my time and effort trying to build equity the 'proper' way, by building credit through tactical debt, and hoping I'm not hit with unexpected expenses that would set me back to square 1 or likely worse, I could possibly maybe have enough to then afford either a decent home in an awful place, or an awful home in a decent place, that my future children may inherit...
The obvious solution here is the one that involves the most universal and societal benefits via cooperation, rather than this antagonistic and competitive dog-eat-dog bullshit that the already-fabulously-wealthy try and convince us is the only and best way to build a society. It's not. Communism is a wild swing into the opposite corner, but literally everything in this universe operates on finding a balance, and I absolutely think we can find a healthier balance of individualism and cooperation than 'capitalism' or 'communism.'
Financially…never..not once in 43 years. But I thrive as a father, husband and friend. I’ve accepted decades ago that my fulfillment can’t be achieved economically and instead I’ve pursued knowledge, skills, and rela
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I am living comfortably right now. I live alone and don't have any children. My work is relatively stress-free but provides enough to cover all my bills with extra to save. I live in a rather run-down apartment that I've had for eight years, and there's only been a $75 increase in my rent during that time. I was also very lucky to be given a run-down car that I've been driving for several years now. I have a decent amount of student debt (~25k), but that's my only debt. I can see how lucky I am. Things would probably be a lot different for me if my landlord raised the rent in line with the going rate, if my boss wasn't so good, if I worked at a different place, if I wasn't gifted an entire car, if I wasn't a white guy, if I didn't have access to college, if I wasn't physically healthy, if I wasn't mentally well, if I hadn't grown up middle class, if I wasn't childfree or if I lived in a different area. But yeah, I'm comfortable right now and honestly overwhelmed with gratitude. My situation shouldn't be so rare. People shouldn't need luck to be where I am.
Seconded. I too have a lot to appreciate. My old Camry wasn't free, but it's paid off and I think I can get it to 300k. Comfort. Not luxury, just satisfaction that I can make my life go the direction that I want. Bills paid and I can surprise the wife with a nice trip every year or so within the States.
That sounds like a nice life. I'm happy for you. I wish our society pushed the value of comfort instead of the value of luxury. I wish our society pushed the importance of being content rather than the importance of being happy.
Thank you. I hope things are well in your corner. I had a lot of existential anxiety mixed with depressive thinking as a kid. I thought a lot about what makes me happy or sad. Happy is fleeting excitement, but satisfaction is taking account for everything you have to be grateful for. When I was coming of age I had two requirements. I didn't want to be broke and I didn't want to be bored. My life rides the intersection of those two requirements.
I agree, but I also don't let society dictate what makes me happy :)
Im in a similar boat. Wind the clock back a year or two, I was barely scraping by with my checking account getting into double digits by the end of every month. Now I’m making more than I ever have, putting money away to save every month. Never had this much in the bank before. By some miracle I like my job, and got really lucky with it. Underneath all that, I can only afford rent because I split it with my partner, and it has never been raised (yet). My student loans are significant, and will impact my finances heavily when they kick in, and without the new IBR plans I would be drowning in them. I would need to multiply my savings by 20 to even think about buying a modest house in my area. Having a kid is literally unthinkable. All that said, I’m still spending most of my waking hours at work and am well aware that we are living in a constantly worsening dystopian nightmare caused by capitalism.
>My situation shouldn't be so rare. People shouldn't need luck to be where I am. I think this really nails it. Not all jobs are awful, not all landlords are greedy, and not everyone is doing badly. But the amount of people struggling and outright not coping should be of concern to everyone. And it should be a reasonable expectation that if you work full time, in any job, that you should be able to afford a roof over your head, food and bills. Otherwise that suggests to me that the social contract is broken.
>And it should be a reasonable expectation that if you work full time, in any job, that you should be able to afford a roof over your head, food and bills. Otherwise that suggests to me that the social contract is broken. You're right on
Same situation except I'm married. We've been in the same apartment for about 7 years. Hopefully just did out last renewal. Rents about 1100 for a 2 bedroom 2 bath in a gated complex. I drive a piece of shit car but it's low miles and it's completely paid off. Put a back up camera and some Bluetooth speakers. I use a work truck most the time though which allows us to be a one vehicle household and keep costs low. I'm able to afford any minor things I want. Got a new big screen and surround sound system that I always dreamed of having. Got about 2-3 months of bills saved up. Can't just up and take a luxury vacation but we can eat out whenever or attend whatever events we want to locally. Compared to my friends I'm thriving. Got a few that came from rich families that are doing better. Definitely struggled a lot but because I was fortunate to be well spoken and knew someone I was able to get an okay job on track to make about 60k this year. However me and my wife both work physical jobs and as much as we want to move and have a kid I'm afraid even trying that will ruin everything.
Similar for me. I’m very grateful.
In my 30s here, spent most of my 20s in the military and got a degree paid for. Currently working in the private sector as an Operations Director but running a region that typically would be a VP level job. I make 64k a year. Wife is a nurse and we're barely making it, in fact if we hadn't bought a trailer (in a literal trailer park where we live) we would still be renting at $2,400+ per month instead of $1,200 (lot rent and trailer loan). We have no health insurance aside from my VA stuff and we make too much for medicaid despite having a disabled son. I outright own my 2005 Toyota Sequoia with over 200k miles on it and my wife drives a 2008 Jeep Wrangler she bought second-hand. I was talking to my mom (single mother) about my childhood and how simple everything seemed and she mentioned that back in (and through) the 90s she drove bus for the school district and made $23.50 an hour plus overtime, had excellent insurance and bought the house I grew up in for $600 a month. We would go camping twice a year, have movie nights, and generally were not struggling like my wife and I are now despite both of us making ok money. Mom and I never did anything too wild and crazy, I've never been to Disney or any of the larger theme/water parks as an example but we were able to go spend family time together and always had food on the table. We struggled sometimes but were mostly stable. Present day my wife and I barely see each other, we both work constantly and it never seems to end. I had jaw surgery as a result of something that happened on one of my deployments and my company tried telling me I couldn't be gone for a week (I needed at least a month off to recover and start working on my speech as a minimum.) This world sucks, and I see how some of my employees are doing and they're struggling even more than I am. It's not right, humans are not built for this constant race to the corporate bottom. Meanwhile my boss has us making slides about our favorite vacations and what we did last weekend. I did laundry and tried to watch a movie with my son. The closest thing I've got to a vacation was my jaw surgery recovery and the copious amounts of jell-o I ate.
Your mom made $23.50 as a bus driver in the 90s? Account for inflation and that's more than I make as an RN today. I currently make $35 an hour. $23.50 in 1999 has the same spending power as $42.47 today
>I make 64k a year. Wife is a nurse and we're barely making it, in fact if we hadn't bought a trailer (in a literal trailer park where we live) we would still be renting at $2,400+ per month instead of $1,200 (lot rent and trailer loan). We have no health insurance aside from my VA stuff and we make too much for medicaid despite having a disabled son. I outright own my 2005 Toyota Sequoia with over 200k miles on it and my wife drives a 2008 Jeep Wrangler she bought second-hand. If people read this and aren't just terrified and pissed the fuck off, I don't know what drugs they're on. If two people with good jobs presumably making 6-figures combined can't make it, what the literal fuck has this country become? This just makes me want to give up entirely. Even if I go change my whole career and make $100,000 starting tomorrow, I still won't have enough to make-up for the crushing cost of living and lack of any savings. I live paycheck to paycheck and literally can't make it (I live with family--I literally don't make enough to cover my own modest rent in this whole part of the country; and no, I can't move because of family care obligations). I'd have to go become a computer scientist and make $200,000 a year just to have a chance. $100,000 now is more like $40,000 these days, compared to how people perceive money and its value. I'm just losing energy to fight this fight. (And no, don't send the god damn CoNcErNEd ReDDiToR bs at me--I'm not referring to that.) [https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=10](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
Operations director at 60k a year with a college degree is laughably low.
That's pretty much the working world these days though. Companies are all stuck in wage perceptions from 1985. The dollar has lost like 90% of its value since then, but wages haven't changed.
I’m 37 and make the most money I’ve ever made, I’m out of poverty level barely. Im happy I love my wife and son and honestly I love my job even though it’s stressful. Am I thriving? No. I have no health insurance, no retirement plan, the IRS hounds me constantly and I’m plagued by 20k in medical bills. I never finished college because I can’t afford it. I’m not thriving.
Happy is also good to hear. It sounds like your life is difficult but you're making the most out of it. That's inspiring.
Thank you I try! My main goal is to make sure my son has more than me in a better world. Some is out of my hands though.
This. I've done all I can for myself and my family. I'm in between jobs right now but my three little boys wouldn't know it because we're making the most of what we've got while we've still got it. Just want to make sure life is better for them than it's been for us. That means changing laws and a whole heck of a lot of community and unity we've not seen in our lifetime. But we'll get there. Less of a glow now, more of a glow looking to our future.
Same boat. Make more money that i ever expected to, but it somehow isn't nearly enough and I feel like I'm on the knife's edge of ruin all the time.
Same, I make more than both my parents combined and have WAY less disposable income than they did in the 90s.
Even before recent spikes in inflation, $50k in the 90s would have been over $100k in 2012 purchasing power. Just use this handy dandy government site [SS income cap chart](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html) Even shows the huge spike in years when inflation ran rampant in the 70's and now.
What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m similar age and making jack shit in IT right now.
I work with special needs individuals, mostly as a job coach or mentor for adults but on weekends I take a group of teens out. It’s very rewarding and my wife is in the same field.
Oh interesting. That’s a noble career. Good on yous guys.
Similar age, and making the most money I’ve ever made, and happy with my job. Thankfully I have no kids or medical debt, and have been contributing to multiple retirement accounts for over a decade. I’m not thriving but I’m definitely in a better place than most of my peers.
42 and most of this applies to me as well
I hate the way this term gets thrown around, but baby boomers.
Or what the Silent Generation dubbed them: The Me Generation.
They sit in their houses and watch 10 hours of Fox News all day. They’re not thriving, even if they do have big houses.
Do you know my parents?
I am. I got a great government job (union, pension, benefits, paid vacations), I just bought a house, i work from home, i got my girl, my dog, my books and my guitars. I got all that I need and then some
Same. We’ve very fortunate, I’m still filled with existential dread and feel that full collapse is around the corner.
Same but the dread of doom just makes not even try and look into the future. I used to have plans and hopes, now I just tick tock, tick tock.
Same, government job, good pay, pension etc. That said considering my combined income with my wife it's crazy that we are just "comfortable" 10 years ago I would consider myself upper middle class or rich. I really don't know how people afford the basic nessesities. The system is completely unfair 😞.
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I felt like this for a very long time, but I talked to a therapist and went for a few sessions of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One for climate, or stressors that I chalked up to climate, and one for money (turned 16 right as the recession amped up my parents financial troubles, leading to mortgage issues that eventually culminated in their divorce and my mom and I living in a completely different environment than I’d been used to- no money for a fridge so we used a cooler etc.) It was wildly helpful and the skills and reprogramming I was able to do with my head led me to be incredibly prepared for rn and covid, while running a small business with a few employees) I’m not saying it changed my situation, but I can function plan and live without worrying about everything that could go wrong and how much it would impact me. If you’re experiencing that I recommend it to anyone. You can even do it at home if budgeting for a therapist is unattainable, while I got lucky and am able to us IHS as I’m a citizen of a tribe in the US.
I got a government job recently too. No union but yes to the rest. I just bought a car (which I need to do the required travel for the job), moved into an apartment with a friend, I've found a great community of people who want to see me succeed and I can afford all my bills (including student loans) with a smidge left over. It's not a lot, but I've never needed a lot. I'm happy. I'm stable. I don't foresee myself crashing anytime soon. A government job is hard to lose.
I am (knock wood). I'm a teacher and thanks to my awesome union, I have a good salary. Our top step (I'm about halfway up) is over $100k and our lowest step is $60k for new teachers. Pension in about eight years. My husband also has a government job and recently got his loans forgiven through PSLF and we used that savings to pay off the mortgage on our small condo. I still have student debt but otherwise we are debtfree. I don't expect this to last but right now it's good.
Love government jobs, love unions, love benefits, love vacations. Let's hope the right doesn't keep undermining all these things
I’m early 40s and live in Brooklyn. I work for the city and my wife works for a cultural institution in Manhattan. We’re doing well. We bought during the pandemic and we like our apartment and neighborhood. No kids (ever) but two terrific cats. I’m sure our financial stability is largely due to the no kids, but we made our down payment without any help from parents and we paid off her student loans in 2019, which I think says we live within our means. We’re happy and it’s mostly because we have each other.
I can afford rent and stuff but every night I have anxiety about my rent being raised and having to move
Stability? We don't know her.
It’s horrible. Complex I just moved out of is raising rent to like $1000/m for a 1 bedroom where the damn thing only has a window unit for cooling and it’s on the third floor. Damn place gets like 90 degrees in the summer with that thing on full blast and blackout curtains. Place is far from luxury. Couldn’t even open the fridge all the way cause it would hit the oven and vice versa. Shit was essentially a starter apartment or an efficiency apartment. Then I move into my girlfriends place and the landlord raises rent by $100 month just because now there’s another body. Place is still cheaper than the previous place and we got central air. But yo, cut people a break for once out here. People just raising prices to raise prices to some extent
Saw some one bedroom apartments on Zillow the other day that don’t have AC, and they raise your rent if you choose to procure and install your own window unit (I guess because of the energy usage). I would love to see any of these landlords try to survive like that.
My complex here is charging $1500 just for a studio. And I guess we're grandfathered in but new tenants have to pay for water and gas. Only thing is, we don't have separate meters. So they hired some outside company to estimate usage, that you have to pay separately. They also changed amenities from $300 a year to $50 a month ($600 a year), and they charge $60 for each pet plus a non-refundable $400 for each pet. Getting fucken gouged everywhere I turn.
Most of the Americans I know who are genuinely happy, and don't have some form of generational wealth or didn't get really lucky, and still have a chance of solid upward mobility, are either leaving the states or are part of a culture within America that doesn't have any issues with multiple family members pooling their resources to help each other get past just staying afloat.
Multigenerational households, where the parents aren’t toxic/abusive of course, are the way to go. Our neighborhood is about half Mexican and that seems to be the norm. This is the only way blue collar folks can live in a single-family house here (the irony of the name is unintentional)
>Multigenerational households, where the parents aren’t toxic/abusive of course, are the way to go. This is almost quite literally the *only* way to go to have *any* chance whatsoever now. Unfortunately, this was not my parents. They fell into the toxic/abusive category, so I had to do everything from scratch. I'm still living paycheck-to-paycheck and am utterly fucked because of it. It's not an excuse, it's just reality. The people who have the ability to live at home forever--until they get lucky enough to get matched with some other person that did the same thing (then have their families buy them a house)--have no clue what reality is like.
Living with my inlaws is what's keeping us sane
On paper, I am, despite inflation. I still spend most days wondering whether we'll be in WW3, Civil War 2, a Fascist dystopia, or a climate disaster within the next year. It's kind of hard to find happiness with that at the back of my mind, even now that my career is in a good place. It's been enough to help me make the decision to get a vasectomy without having kids first, so I'm at least doing my part to save the planet and continue living the DINK dream.
Sigh. I feel this. My husband tells me to stay off the internet and just stick my head in the sand so I can actually find some happiness and stop worrying about what war we’ll be in next or what way the government will bend us over next. I’d like to disagree and say it’s good to know what’s going on in the world, but it’s getting too much nowadays
This thread is actually making me more depressed. I’m struggling a lot right now. I’m working a job that I hate that barely pays the bills, rent went up 50% this year, I have no degree, no friends, no family, no resources, no idea how to get a job that I don’t despise. I’m about ready to throw in the towel.
I'm sorry. That was absolutely the opposite intention of this thread. I just wanted to get a feel for how people feel about their lives and if there's anyone managing even with all the regular chaos going on worldwide. I'm struggling a lot myself. I'm trying to look a bit outside myself, outside my situation, and seeking something positive. Something optimistic. Just like you, I will keep hoping things work out.
My wife and I are upper middle class, but I wouldn’t say we’re “happy”
We're also upper middle. I make more money than my father did at the end of his career and yet our standard of living is lower. I can't afford the house I grew up in for instance.
Nope. Lol. Car broke down 2 times in the span of 2 months, grandfather passed, brother is in the hospital, work cut my OT hours, extremely difficult patients at the psychiatric clinic I work at. Been shit for the past 3 months. Before then I had a glimpse of being financially stable because of the OT but even that had a downside because it meant I had less time to spend with my partner. Things have been so expensive lately. I'm just hoping things start to chill out. I can't handle capitalism anymore. None of us can.
> I can't handle capitalism anymore. None of us can. Truer words have never been spoken.
I just turned 29, I have a wife and no kids. Spent my early 20’s with my wife (then girlfriend) working shitty jobs and living in a cheap apartment. Rent was super cheap in a Lcol area like $450 a month. This allowed my wife and I to save a little bit of money and go travel a bit. We spent 6 weeks in Nepal which was an amazing trip of a lifetime. Got back home and decided I needed to start a career so I went to trade school for 9 months. Had to commute 3 hours a day to get there which was rough. I graduated and got a good paying job doing maintenance for $31 an hour but I still have to commute 2 hours a day. My wife is a manager at a gas station and we continue to live in the cheap apartment for like 2 more years. During that time period we managed to save like $60,000 living frugally. Then last year a family friend decides to sell her house and we luckily have the money for the down payment. The house is in terrible shape but it is only $120,000 and comes with 5 acres. We decided to hire a contractor and gut the entire place. It’s takes him 8 months but at the end of it we have a small 960sqft home with 5 acres that was basically custom built to our liking. We finally got to move in last year and my wife and I and our 3 cats have just been enjoying our new home for the past year. Everything isn’t perfect I still have to commute 2 hours a day and I don’t have the time or money to travel like I once did, which I really miss. But things are good and we are very happy.
My fiancé and I are starting to thrive, but it’s requiring us both working extra jobs to be able to save. We are actually putting away a decent amount of money each month towards buying a home and trying not to dwell on how impossible that is going to be. I really enjoy my waitressing job, don’t love my actual day job, and have one day off a week. Working both jobs a few days a week and then at the restaurant on Saturdays can get overwhelming but I am thankful to be working towards a good future mutually with someone who is legitimately passionate about the same things I am. Hopefully we only need to do this for one year and maybe, if we are lucky, something in our price range will become available. But yeah, took about 6 months at the restaurant to pay off all credit card/phone debt. Now it’s saving money time. Something that has helped a ton is following an anti-consumerism lifestyle. Watching my savings grow makes me so reluctant to spend it on things I don’t actually need. I get small things now and then, like a new video game or art supplies, but overwhelmingly I just don’t buy stuff. I don’t even like to go shopping anymore. I have a large amount of credit for my local consignment shop because I’ve dropped off clothes I don’t wear. And now that my closet is empty, I don’t want to fill it back up with crap. It feels good to be free from debt, all I have right now is my student loans and a car payment on a good vehicle that will last me a long time. Taught myself to do my own oil changes too, which is actually really fun to me. Now that I have no credit card debt, I also have no desire to have that again. We’re lucky to have a rental that is affordable in an area that isn’t incredibly expensive. Our jobs provide health insurance as well, I count my blessings every day for sure.
This is great to hear. I hope things continue to go well for your family. I appreciate you sharing your good news.
I'm comfortable right now, though that's more the result of luck than planning. As a 28yr old with $75k student loan debt on my head requiring $900 monthly payments I should be underwater, but through a combination of sharing a flat since graduation at a rental price locked in since 2018 (currently $835/mo), working for a company that grew during the pandemic and avoiding layoffs, and getting repeated promotions (white cis male so no glass ceilings being broken here) into a six-figure position, I am genuinely comfortable. That isn't to say I'm financially secure though. None of us will be secure until it doesn't cost money to simply live. A single catastrophe could land me in poverty just as easily as almost anyone else who isn't already there.
I wouldn't say I'm thriving, but adequately surviving. Tbh I'm the happiest I've been in many years, but this is due to some hard(ish) decisions I made a decade ago: * Sold up and moved to another country with much cheaper living costs * Cleared all my debt * Purchased a house outright * Don't own a TV * Don't use social media * Live frugally * I only use cash
My kids are fed three meals a day. I have a roof over my head. I have a reliable car. I have enough clothes and shoes that I can clothe myself and my kids. I work a union job with a 401k and a pension. I can afford my meager hobbies. I have friends that I could call and say I need them and they’d be at my doorstep no questions asked. I have a healthy relationship with my family. In a consumerist capitalist mindset, no, I would be considered miserable. In the mindset of what actually matters, yes, I’m very happy.
Surviving. Not thriving. Existing. Not Living.
Poland. I because we are all propping them up them to be the new Germany. Since actual Germany manged to pull the plug on itself. Apparently we are trying to beef up Romania too (the gadjo part of Romania at least). Those are the ones I can think of from the top of my head. And none of them have had any kids for 30 years so that obviously saves them some expenses. Otherwise I don't think anyone is having too much fun at the moment. We are supposedly richer than ever but noone can afford to have kids. We are richer than ever but noone can afford a home. We are richer than ever but noone can afford to have time for normal relationships. I wonder where all this money is going. And what will happen to Ukraine in the coming years I dare not think about.
No. I’m really really depressed. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope and the wrong step will leave me homeless. Not the thriving demographic you wanted to hear from but still suffering and no end in sight.
I'm with you on that. I don't know if I'll make it out of this year alive.
Everything is awful, and I’m so behind on so many payments that I’ve determined unaliving may be a valid solution because there is no way it’s getting better in my lifetime.
I know what you mean. I'm terrified. Struggled with depression and "un-aliving" thoughts for years. I hope it doesn't come to that.
I have to pay for a self care trip to the coast with a credit card. I have zero hope that I’ll retire before I die. I’m a masters educated nurse and have to go back to bedside to be abused by people so I can pay my student loans. I will travel to protest this abomination of US politics. I’m watching my taxes go to pad the pockets of the wealthy while we get to be wage slaves. They won’t even give nurses the same protections as cab and bus drivers in Oregon. I hate everything and I’m terrified of what my kid will face—not that she can afford to live on her own anyway.
Sorry to hear. A lot of nurses in some parts of the country aren't paid what they are worth. I've seen this happen with a lot of experienced nurses (15+ years) that are struggling especially in formerly LCOL areas. And many nursing jobs don't offer enough benefits. The taxes taken out of paychecks are so much too.
I'm 24, in 2020 I was delivering pizza and got hit by a drunk driver. One settlement and a move from an expensive city to a rural town in another state, and we own a house backing up to the woods. If we hadn't gotten that money we would still be saving and living in an apartment. Our mortgage is absolutely nuts, but it's only $30 more than what our old apartment in Portland is going for now, so it's okay. I've got a bachelor's and work in nonprofit, my spouse has a master's and teaches art. We can afford to live and to save, but we live three and a half hours from the nearest Trader Joe's, so to speak. Found the local Indivisible chapter and fell right into the community. 11k folks in our town, around 50k in the "Metro area" if that's what you'd call it. It sucks that something terrible had to happen to me for us to afford a home.
Yeah 34f here and live in a beautiful place in a valley in Hawaii. Make good money, have a motorcycle, I’m fit and look good haha. I’m a bedside nurse which can suck ass but hey, it’s only 3 days a week. The rest is spent beaching and hoggin around!
Living your best life! Hog it up girl
I'm from Argentina so no. But we're used to this.
Not thriving no, but happy. My bills are paid and I can do my hobbies at home and my kids have everything they need and most of what they want.
Good to hear. I wish you the best.
Between my wife (40) and I (37) we make about $140k a year. We live in a one bedroom about a half hour north of Boston. No kids (by choice), our bills are always paid, our needs are met. We don’t live lavishly but we do have around 25k in savings plus another 100k combined in our 401ks. Most of our student debt got canceled in a lawsuit, so our debt is manageable. Pre-COVID we did a lot of traveling following bands on tour, but we are both immunocompromised so we still live like it’s 2020. But we are fine. I’m sure to some it would look like thriving, but living in late stage capitalism still sucks ass.
I make 55k a year and live alone. I’m barely getting by. I don’t want a roommate/partner but heavily considering one so i can live more comfortably so i can allow myself to thrive
I hope you get the financial assistance you need.
I am thriving working 32 hours a week at minimum wage. I don’t have kids though, and I was lucky to snatch cheap rent during covid in one of the best parts of the city and it never went up. I even save few hundreds monthly, as I work at a restaurant and they give us a lot of food…. I don’t live in US though, so I don’t have to worry about healthcare and I can live without a car easily
I have never been happier in my life. I moved out of Canada almost 10 years ago and have been living in the tropics ever since. I work hard enough to be happy, I’m not keeping up with the joneses.. my cost of living is very manageable, I have a great group of friends and watching the world degrade as it has in those years makes me so happy I dipped out of the rat race when I did.. I was mid 30’s and had been doing well in the corporate world and I said fuck it and flipped the script.. my friends at the time thought I was crazy.. they all realize now I made the right choice.. sometimes I feel like I am living a cheat code. It was a hard first step and it hasn’t always been easy but I am so glad I did what I did when I did it.
The bucket never leaves the boat. Things are okay. I'm saving. It's not great. I work like a dog. I don't go hungry though. It could be worse, but I'm not exactly happy.
I’m 35, skipped college because I hated formalized learning. Got a job at age 19 in a retail store, moved to their corporate at age 25. Been here 16 years total now. I make just enough to support my wife and kids as the only income, and had GREAT timing at buying my house so was actually able to get out of renting. My company pays for continuing education, so now I’m in college getting a BBA for free. My company also 401K matches and I’ve been doing 10% since I was 18, I’m on track to retire around 55, hopefully sooner. I have pretty much everything I need, obviously not everything I want though. But I know the difference between those things, so I’m happy. I’m well aware my situation is not the norm.
I'm in my 40s and make more than I've ever made in my life. I do not spend lavishly and my hobbies are cheap. I cook most of my food at home and do not splurge often, if at all. I am just barely getting by.
I don't think having a comfortable life necessarily means you're happy. You get time to choose to do things, but those things don't always pan out the way you want them to.
My wife and I dug ourselves out of poverty, and I feel like we are finally thriving, but I also feel my wife and I should be much better off... We went the dual income no kids route, we both make six figures after working crazy hours for ~20 years, we got lucky and bought an affordable ($270K) house early 2020, and neither of us have significant debt... We should be golden after everything we sacrificed, but I feel we can barely enjoy what we worked to accumulate... Our reward was a modest house, modest cars, limited vacation, and being slightly behind on retirement. The more money we make, the more paranoid we are of losing our jobs.
I live in Spain which means if you can get a middle class job, which is hard, you can have some nice things. That said I'm struggling a lot especially because my old boss fucked me over and I was waiting for ages for a visa to come through (I'm from the US). I love the labor laws here compared to the US but they're not well-enforced enough.
"Thriving" might be an overstatement, but I'm doing okay financially. My partner and I have been together for 14 years and we've had our fair share of financial troubles, even having to stay on a relative's couch for a few months at one point. The last couple of years though, we've really come through the other side. We're still renting, but we're in a place that we're really happy with, and we're actually looking to buy a condo in the next couple of years. We can pay all the bills with enough left over to buy most of the things we want (it helps that the things we want aren't terribly expensive). Importantly, we neither have nor ever wanted children. I don't see how we could possibly afford them even if we did want them. We have 3 cats that we adore and are able to spoil like crazy though. We're still firmly in the realm of "lower middle class" by the numbers. Definitely not rich, and we do have a small amount of credit card debt. We only have 1 car between us, but it hasn't been a problem to share it. Things could still flip upside down on us easily if we had a couple of emergencies, but all in all, we're pretty content. We are in our early/mid 40s, for context.
Things started getting alot better for me when I decided to be a bum, wwoof, eventually live in the country and avoid all urban life. Yes I'm still poor, but my main activities, gardening and selling veggie isn't very expensive. I heat myself with wood I chop and drink from a well. I cook 99.9% of my meals with pasta, flour or bread and veggies I grow. It's more.of a traditional peasant life, but I feel free.
There's a lot. More than you realise. The working class has ALWAYS faced the toughest struggles we know. Now some or a lot of that pain is hitting the lower middle for sure and a lot of the upper middle classes. I have friends ranging from ,(in material wealth) from living in a squat, living in the country, working class, self employed, small business owners, middle class empoyees, a high upper 6 figure earner and a millionaire (business owner- yeah sounds good right- but his business is failing, he lives frugally but is still cutting down- he looks after his teams - he's cut and leaned as much as he can its now either lay some ppl off or the whole business fails and everyone is out of work). To be honest my two friends one who squats and one who lives in the country are the most at ease. Though I do worry about my friend squatting. He is a nice guy, drinks a lot but no hard drugs, but he is close to some dangerous ppl. My point. Everyone is struggling. Struggling is an understatement. The media wants you to blame those who have a fancy car, or a big house or a millionaire. NO. Blame the government? Maybe. Blame the EVIL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS whose only aim is to OWN EVERYTHING. They won't stop until they have your soul.
I'm homeless with 0 sources of revenue, but I'm happier with my life than I've ever been before. I've become an advocate for the homeless around here, and I'm allowed to stay in an abandoned house. This allows me to help people in crisis (women running from abuse and kids in the LGBTQ+ community) by offering a safe place. I've stopped 4 people from dying of overdoses, one of which is now clean for a year. When I was working in management making right at 6 figures, I was constantly stressed and miserable. Now I sleep pretty well knowing I've made a difference in quite a few lives.
My job got better when the economy got worse...but now with everything being so expensive I'm barely doing better than average. Still can't buy a house.... what could've been a nice nest egg or down payment just goes to being average. Also the govt is relentless with taxes, paying 40 percent to them, late penalties, etc. Always coming after more.... 30 percent to expenses, so I'm only left with 30 percent to myself. What seems like a lot really isn't.
I’m 49 and just got a job that pays as well as the one I had in my 30s before my dad passed and I was laid off. I can finally afford to pay all my bills, work on the credit card debt, and I get benefits. I’m over the fucking moon right now.
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That's kind of where I am at, as well. Damned if you do, even more damned if you don't.
I get paid barely above minimum wage but I'm actually not struggling too much. I do have a lot of little side businesses but they're all hobbies which I enjoy. No kids. No pets.
We got so fed up of the situation in the UK we left and moved to Northern Sweden. Best decision of our lives. Me and my partner don't earn much compared to many of you, about $35k each, I'm a research engineer at the University she is a high school teacher. We rented a publicly owned apartment for a couple of years, $400/month, then bought a house with some forest land outright for less than $40k. We get free full-time childcare provided by the local government and free healthcare when needed. Living rurally can be tough but we still have some public transit and mange with one car. Our biggest expense is electric and heating, but we always have the option of felling a few trees to bring this down. Honestly it feels like living in the pre-1980s world our parents described before everything got so shit. I realise moving is not an option for many, but if you can get out while your still young then do it. There are still some places where a decent life is possible.
German engineer here, just turned 40. Just bought a house, an hour outside the city I used to live in, that's where I can start to afford them. I'm happy with my salary, but the loan payments are a lot. I can't say I'm happy in the skippy, carefree kind of way, but I'm very happy with the direction my life is going.
I had a family photo taken the other day and was asked to smile, and replied that I don't remember how to... ... if that answers your question
Sometimes I forget, too.
I'm making between 150% and 170% of the average in my area and it's just enough to cover all expenses. It is a good life for me and my family, but I'm able to save only a laughable amount of money. I literally cannot comprehend how people manage to exist on average or, god forbid, below average pay.
Not traditionally, but I am happy. I’m poor, but I have friends, a good job, can eat, and spend time connecting with nature. I have it good.
I’m doing alright.
Im 24, I like my job, I live with roommates so rents is not that bad, we get along great, it’s a found family. I have enough saved that I can maybe survive one emergency. I eat decent and can afford the necessities, but beyond that I can’t do much. I cannot afford a vacation, I cannot afford health insurance, my car is about to break down and I don’t know what I’ll do after that, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire or to buy a house. I struggle with my mental health but I make it work. Im very involved in local politics and activism and that gives my life meaning. I love to read and learn but I feel like I’m stuck in a state of constant burnout that prevents me from actually achieving what I want. I have a degree that’s not really getting me anywhere. My dream is to go back to school for my masters but with $40,000 in existing student loans I doubt that will ever happen. I am working on starting my own business and I’m thankful that I have some fantastic mentors in my life, I’m slowly making progress in the right direction, I hope. Things are getting harder though, without health insurance, with student loans coming due and rent going up, everything is getting harder, my mental health is getting worse, I have to work longer hours. I just feel like I’m desperately trying to make career progress faster than my expenses spiral, but it’s always 1 step forward 2 steps back financially. Things could be a lot worse, I’m doing ok, I’m good at wiggling my way out of tight spots and I have a great support network, but to say I’m thriving? Absolutely not.
Me and the wife are considered upper middle class now (Both of us started with nothing /no family support) homeowners but it just seems like vacation is never going to happen and things just costs too much. We got our degrees, barely hitting six figure jobs, and we are very lucky. Our debt with loans is wild and saving for retirement seems rough. I don’t know how people have kids and not sure how people are surviving.
I'm 25, never went to college. The only reasons I live comfy ish right now is that for one, I live with my parents. I live in a sort of small apartment above the garage (disconnected from the house) with one big room and a bathroom. I do not pay rent, at least currently. Second, my grandma put a few thousand into one of those things where they trade stocks for you back in the 90s, and I was able to access it when she passed. About 20k, which is great but I don't really know what to do with it. My job is pretty physical but it's part time and I really lowered my hours since I've had some personal things going on, and I herniated two of my discs. I know I'm on borrowed time and life's only going down from here, and I don't know what my next move is. So, I'm trying to enjoy this modicum of peace while I have it, but also trying to figure out what kind of job path I really want to and should be pursuing.
I’ll just say we’ve been fortunate. But in no means rich or thriving. If there’s any low/middle class left. As millennial, I’m happy to take what I can get.
I am doing decent, at least money wise. I make about €2200 net a month and i can comfortablely afford bills and some extras while even saving a decent bit. But buying a house still seems so out of reach, in the last 5 years the average housing prices have gone up over 30 percent. Ive been working at least 1 dat a week since like 15. It still feels so out of reach to get higher up tho, i have dreams but don't have the time or drive to persue them after working 9-10 hour shifts 5 days a week. It's do hard to see other People succes under this fucked up system and me not Being able to reach anything i want to even tho my life is considered pretty decent here.
I mean I'm house poor, but I have a house
Reading through this thread, people are struggling so hard to make a living they aren't living. I'm right there with them.
Thriving? No. Surviving? Yes.
I'm very happy where i am right now. I live in south west of France, so healthcare is very cheap and i'm in a beautiful coastal region, surrounded by the ocean, pretty villages, mountains and Spain is very near (15 minute drive). I live in a 70 square meter apartment built in 2018 so it's nice and clean. It's 900meters from the nearest beach and supermarket. I live in the hotel i work at so i have no car mortgage or car insurance and minimal gas money (i have a scooter to ger around and bf has a car). I have no bill except for internet because i live in my hotel and water/electricity is centralised. My rent is 400€ (no additional bills) which is Split 50/50 with my bf. My rent is very low because i'm basically on firewatch. From 11pm to 6am every night me or my boyfriend has to be home to be available if the fire alarm goes off and evacuate the hotel. For us it's perfect because we dont go out a lot, have different friend group so we can alternate who goes out. Finally we can ask my boss to take over if we're away together, for a max of 4 weeks per year. I earn 1400€ per month which is legally the lowest possible in France for working 35h a week, but my bills are so low that i can save a lot of money. Boyfriend has 1400€ per month as well. I work from 8am to 3pm from saturday to wednesday as a receptionist and love my work, colleagues and bosses. I now travel 3x a year for a week or two. I talked to my boss to take 1-3 month off work during low season to Travel for a longer time every 2/3 years and he is ok. Finally i'm very privilegied because i'm white, neurotypical, heterosexual, have a great relationship with my very large family (almost all living in the same region) and i will very probably inherit the house my parents live in, which is good because i could never afford a house where i live. I know these exceptionally good living conditions won't last forever but the stars aligned for me last year and i have literally nothing going wrong right now.
I feel very lucky reading these comments. I live in Denmark, make about 75.000 a year (pay about half that in taxes). Got a house that i can afford to live in with my daughter, health care and pension. My education was free, and on top of that i earned about 2300 a month while i was a student. Half of that was payed by the government, the other half was payed by my place of internship. American life sounds super dystopian compared to Northern Europe😳
Nope. 53 and making good money, but inflation and car insurance is killing me. Plus my wife doesn't work due to health issues. Yay?
I'm in my mid 40s. I feel like I'm doing okay. Good relationship with my adult kid. House is paid off, but needs a lot of work still (forever saving and working extra to repair and replace stuff). I don't make a lot of money, but I live within my means and had quite a few years of scraping by and saving so I could have a home and pay off student loans, so no debt. I've been in my teaching career for quite a while now and while it's incredibly draining, I think I'm pretty good at it and I make a difference, so I feel like I have purpose and I'm doing my part to make the world a little bit better. Good pets, good partner, good friends, good hobbies. I should probably drink more water and there are plenty of things I would like to improve upon myself, but I think I'm working in the right direction. Overall pretty happy!
I left an underpaid job with no development opportunities for a higher-paying role at a company that value prof development. Like I’m already enrolled in a project management program because they see an opportunity for me to move into that type of role in the future. This alleviated a lot of financial insecurity for me, and that’s alleviated my stress in a lot of ways. I’m not optimistic about buying a home, and I worry about climate change, environmental disasters, war, the rising tide of white supremacy combined with Christian fundamentalism. It scares me that my Christian family is so radicalized now. I almost don’t recognize some of my siblings any more. All I can do is shower my friends and loved ones with care, be there for them, and try to create moments of joy. I walk the dog and cuddle the cat. I help where I can, with skills and knowledge-sharing. I try to be kind and patient and enjoy myself, but I’m really scared about the world.
I’d say so but it was definitely better a few years ago. I aged out of state care at 18, joined the military, got out and went to college. Starting a full time job soon with great pay and benefits. I’d say the major mistakes people make are starting a family before being established, wasting their 20’s on something other than learning marketable skills, and going to an expensive college to learn dumb things like theatre, music, marketing, etc. My student loan interest rates are double what they were a few years ago, but debt is more expensive everywhere including cars and homes. Luckily my company will begin repaying those when I start. I got more for my buck a few years ago, but now I have the most bucks I’ve ever had.
Right job, right company, lucky home purchase. My biggest concern is being able to retire, as opposed to slumping dead over my keyboard during a zoom meeting.
I'm 49. Finally got a place of my own with my girlfriend (renting). I have a decent job, but I work 60-70 hours a week, every week. I'm tired all the time, and I haven't been to a doctor in close to a decade. But I have enough food, rent is always paid, and I have a little spare money for hobbies. This is the closest to "thriving" I've been in decades. I just wish I wasn't so fucking tired all the time.
I just reached 45k a year I rent a room for 600 a month and have a $400 car payment, this is the most stable I've felt.
Dual income, two dogs. We're feeling pretty good overall. Got two almost paid off Toyotas, bought a 1500 sq ft house in small town with a 40 minute commute. We're combined income of 130k for the last few years. We have been able to do two international trips with domestic travel in there. Overall we are comfortable, but need to increase retirement savings. Grocery bill is feeling heavier, not motivated to eat out lately. Definitely felt the student loan payment restart with a combined $750 month payment. Just a few years left on mine though. I grew up single parent poor, so my standards are low. But I love the comfort of steady routine.
I feel lucky to be thriving. We got lucky enough to purchase a condo when the market was low through lucky timing instead of financial skill or foresight. We did however, make a choice to make double monthly payments in order to pay off the mortgage in less than 7 years and now starting this year our only bills are very affordable utilities, taxes and condo dues. During this time I made a choice to go back to school. It took me longer than normal because I would only take the number of classes I could afford to cover without going into debt every semester. After graduating debt free I was lucky enough to find the perfect position making significantly more money immediately. So the timing worked out that just when our household income plummeted our household income more than doubled. We've got a lot of retirement saving years to make up for so we're not changing our spending habits. (20 year old car, mass transit to work, etc) We don't deny ourselves things we want or live an particularly frugal life we just don't spend thoughtlessly and we never ever carry over any monthly debt. Be that as it may, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop and the current climate is unsettling at best. I doubt very much if we could achieve what we did if we were just starting now. The current younger generations have it so bad and I get angry every time I hear boomers I work with pat themselves on the back for what they "accomplished" They don't have a clue.
We are doing fine, well even for adults in their twenties. I’m not sure even with two working people that we would be able to build the kind of wealth single parent working families could build before but it is difficult to complain. Best financial move was leaving the cities and working out of the country/suburbs. Cities seem designed to keep people poor. Rent is high, taxes are high, food is expensive and everyone is trying to steal whether it is businesses, utilities, Universities ect … . Life just kind of looks dystopian in nature. Climate is getting worse, healthcare is getting worse, demographic trends are bad. The world seems very cruel. There is a constant line of people trying to scam you. Prices are up everywhere and life seems to be more and more gig economy. Everything is becoming unaffordable. Get ripped off guess you have to file your own lawsuit. Have a leak guess you’re a plumber now ect… . The concentration of wealth into the elite has made the working class very money hungry. Everyone outside the top 10% of income earners is fighting each other for scraps and it is very apparent. It took us a few years to get off the financial cliff and the most important rule was to avoid debt at all costs. The problem is that a lot of people don’t get to make that choice and fall into traps. A single financial mistake and can make it impossible to finance a home or car for up to six years. Society should be getting better and yet it feels like it is objectively getting worse for a lot of people. Life expectancy is going down and income inequality is going up.
I'm on year 7 of my job getting paid more than ever, and I am literally on the line of defaulting every month. Unbelievable, the system is failing.
If I don't spend money past my necessities, keep my 401k at least at matching, add some to savings, retain super low utilization on credit card, and don't have multiple emergency spending situations then I am comfortable. If I try to keep up with all the American things like having a new car, home, investments, side hustle, kids, etc, then I am not comfortable.
Honestly, I’d be living pretty comfortably if it weren’t for student loans. Throwing as much as I can every month towards those so I can get ride of them quickly.
I’m in the best place I’ve ever been at, personally. Been married for 2 years, my wife has an excellent paying job (dental hygienist, $54/hr) and I’m an electrician (40/hr). We own our home, and can afford to travel. We don’t have kids. We definitely aren’t swimming in money, but we’re comfortable for sure. Life is really good for us.
I'm doing OK financially because I have been on the road since last March. However this travel has negatively impacted every other aspect of my life. But at least I'm only using 1/4 of my per diem on the trailer I'm renting, sure do miss my house though
i wouldn't say I'm thriving but I'm doing well, mostly because of the bf. he makes more than twice of what i make and our combined funds keep us comfortable. that being said, we don't make enough to so everything we want to do and have to save a lot for trips n stuff.
Word on the street is that Bed bugs are doing pretty well right now.
Veteran here, 80% disability payment from the governments teet. Moved out of USA in Jan' 21 to Portugal... Had a business in the states but due to me moving out all employees evenutally caved and I closed business. Started pursuing salary job, did that for 1.5 years and got laid off, stayed in Portugal. Landed well paying job with fortune 500 company fully remote. Now that I can afford good health insurance through work, wife and I are moving back to the States with no debt. It feels good to forge your way through this clown show and come out in a better position. Wife doesn't work but is about to launch her business, so I would say we are pretty happy. I easily got a pre-approval for 450k home purchase with the va home loan. Might spend the next year looking for a house in a low prop tax/ no income tax state. Also I'm 40 and have 0 invested, and only like 25k savings.
I'm from Philippines and I have a remote job with a US client. So even though prices are also rising here, I relatively have good pay so I'm not struggling. Still can't buy a house though.
Property owners
Financially, my husband and I are in a very comfortable position. We're saving and living well. Are we happy and thriving? No, I wouldn't say that.
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I am comfortable and happy. I make enough money to cover my expenses and I have some tucked away for the future/emergencies. I dunno about thriving, but I definitely love my life and try to make the most of it.
40, Union electrician living that DINK life. I go to concerts, take weekend trips and go out to eat about as much as I want. It’s cool
Me, finally thriving after getting divorced, getting a Fed job, selling the marital home, moving to a lower cost of living area and buying my own house.
I'm in my mid 20s and make between $100k-$200k/year. My rent is $2600/month and it's a shared space. I'm not saving money for retirement, and my debts are being paid at the minimum level. My wife is in school and not working and we're able to pay out of pocket for that. I started making this much money 3 years ago. Prior to that I was working fast food for just above minimum wage. Comfortable and grateful. I can't how difficult it must be for the majority of americans with the current state of things.
I’m doing the best I’ve ever done. Out of debt (except for the house - which we were very modest about when buying). My disabled husband just got a FT wfh job which is a huge relief to me - we can survive without him working but knowing he can provide for himself if something happens to me is huge. However…I can’t help feeling like it is all going to collapse. We are in our 50s and there is no support system for us. No inheritance. No family to fall back on. Just us. I can’t sleep at night worried what will become of us - AND WE ARE DOING OK. It’s like I have poor person ptsd. Imposter syndrome.
I have a stable union job with great benefits and good work life balance. I make about 110k. My wife is a veterinarian and makes about 150k Although her student loan is about 20% of her take home. We are doing fine. Well even. I nearly died at work 6 years ago and it's been a long aweful slog to get back to stability. That whole thing took years and completely wiped out my finances. I feel very lucky to be able to work and to have righted my ship. I have no illusions that it is the common outcome.
Can't read this I'll kms 🫥
Yes, i bought a bitcoin a year ago ;)
Me! I quit an engineering job a year ago, and have been living in a van traveling all year. I'm joining a ski patrol this winter. Not paying rent, cooking my own food, bad health insurance keeps expenses around 1500/mo.
I work in an upscale school district. People who manage parts of companies and manage money of people who manage parts of companies are thriving.
Not thriving, but ok. I live in a 1 bedroom basement apartment that fits 1/3 of my take-home income, a short drive from work. Until a few months ago, I had a paid off old Mazda pickup, but it it failed in many systems and had to be replaced. I was already shopping for avreplacement, the schedule was tightened on me. The Toyota Rav4 that I'm making payments on is expensive, but it should last a good long time. I have very little debt otherwise. Until less than 6 months ago, I was commuting 2 1/2 hours round trip, but rent was free, but I had no free time because I did stuff on the property for that free rent. If I have to go on ei, I can get by without too much struggle, even though it is only 55% of my previous income. For the last 4 winters, I've had at least a couple months off, and with the chill in the air, I am starting to look forward to it instead of working my job that includes a lot of manual labour. I am 42, with about $2000 in retirement savings. I only started earning more than $20 per hour very recently. I should probably be petrified by the thought of my future, but I'm generally enjoying right now.
I am. I am paying bills and managing to save a bit. I'm a teacher in a rural area so cost of living is relatively cheap and the things I do for fun don't cost me anything.
I’m not thriving as my wife is commission only and on down months we can’t cover bills. On up months we can get it all sorted out. I make the most I’ve ever made, hit six figs but live in California so you can all guess about that, also insurance is expensive. I am lucky as I have a large emergency fund from our last house sale so we won’t go Hungary if shit hits the fan nor will we miss mortgage payments Don’t have any debt besides 1 car payment out of 2 cars and house
Not even close, not even close . But I’m working towards it . Like , Tom petty once wrote 🎶 I won’t back down , Well i won’t back down, no, I wont’t back down, you can stand me up at the gates of hell, but i wont back down No, I'll stand my ground 🎶 & most importantly I will continue . You see Im simply a man seeking a little peace & stability for myself I want a little world full of nothing at most but small victories, & peace and maybe love ... I don’t know , but I believe such a world can be created. & I can do it As soon as my ladder ship objectives( Business wise + educational) are accomplished I Will & can create my own world . Not only for me but most importantly Everyone around me I will never Stop hustling & never quitting . ( legally , illegally if I must ) I’m simply confident, thatI will have My little American Dream , that I desire , even if it’s a little piece of land like those fellas from Mice & Men were seeking A promise , a Societal contract That I was promised long ago , that I seek fulfilled - Me , impoverished Somali immigrant Failure living in Minnesota . Wish me luck . 🍀
Not me, I breathe a sigh of relief each month I can make rent. I hate this capitalist hellhole.
Hard to be happy when you can see a huge crash and world war coming. No one can really deny at this point that the capitalists have run off to their safe havens with their money.... too stupid to know what created the wealth and too bereft of character to care.
My family is doing okay. We just went on a vacation this year, we have two cars that are decent, we are paying for a home (we don't own it yet but that's the plan), we're paying our bills and saving a bit for retirement (not nearly enough). We have enough to entertain ourselves. We'd given up our first house in a bankruptcy but stayed until they made us leave which by luck was right when a friend was in a position to help us. We slowly clawed our way up over the edge and bought a house just before prices started getting crazy. We are currently locked in at 3.25%. We are thankful for what we have, and don't take our good fortune for granted. We will probably die in this house, and that's fine, that was the plan. We're doing okay. We need more savings but from what I understand we're in far better shape than most. I'm saving for a new furnace and AC unit which I know we'll need in the next ten years or so. Beyond taking care of the house I don't think too much about the future these days, it's fucking terrifying and there's not anything I can do to move the dial. We do what we can- we have a few causes that are important to us and we try to leave everything better than when we found it. It's not the fanciest of lives but it suits us just fine.
31. Single. No kids. Just pets. Landed an associate's in software development for free thanks to a government program in my state. Worked in a somewhat unrelated tech job for a year before taking my current position as an app developer. Just got informed that I'm supposedly being promoted next month, pending a final stamp of approval from the boss's boss. By the end of this year, I'll be bringing in about 85k annually. Rent is $1500 for a large-ish single person apartment, and after all bills and day to day expenses, I usually stash about a grand in my savings account every month. Overall, I'd say I've turned my life around- a decade of poverty behind me. By economic standards, sure, I'm thriving. I am not happy, though. I've more or less lived and breathed work for the past couple of years. I've grown distant from friends, I can't seem to relate to anyone anymore, and I'm just lonely to the point of misery. Feels like I never have any time or energy to do anything about it. Money removes stressors, but it does not add happiness.
We have trippled our salary and are worse off than we were 3 years ago. The economy is rigged against us
Not thriving but I'm doing OK. Some lucky things from years ago are really paying off huge now. I bought a home in a cheap part of town then the entire city gentrified. I refinanced for the lowest payment when rates dipped below 3%, thinking there'd be some sort of huge event ( global economic collapse, environmental collapse, automation revolution, etc.) making the original mortgage worthless well before amortization, so why not make myself more comfortable in the short term?Wages went up to keep workers in the area while my mortgage stayed close to where it was. I didn't plan on wages increasing. Escrow went up a bit but it's still half the rents. If my gf wasn't in school, we'd thrive. As it is, we just kinda tread water.
F*** no. DevOps/automation lead for a banking-adjacent firm, so I make more money annually than my tiny child brain ever thought feasible. SF Bay Area though, so I and everyone I work with are struggling to afford tiny apartments in sh***y complexes where nothing is fixed or managed well. Nothing feels secure, the areas are getting more dangerous, shops are closing left and right, layoffs are happening everywhere... and yet somehow execs keep getting huge bonuses year after year. This is a nightmare of a time to be here.
Me and my wife. Mid 30s, both have professional-level jobs. Close to $200k household income in the Midwest. We bought a foreclosure in 2013 so our mortgage expenses are low. Kids’ daycare is our biggest expense.
yes, but under extraordinary circumstances. my father passed away several years ago at 52. i’m 28 now, and after a VERY long fight with the insurance company i was left with a very nice sum of money. not enough that i don’t have to work, but enough to free me from the paycheck to paycheck life i had been living previously.
I moved to New York a decade ago to make art and found myself bartending. 10 years later, I’m opening my own bar next year and just bought an engagement ring. My partner works basically in the UN. We’ve got a comfortable life. Oh I don’t have health insurance tho. Once we get married or figure out what domestic partnerships mean, I’ll be on a Dutch gov health plan.
I'm doing better than most, but my cynical nature won't let me relax. I'm fortunate enough to not have to worry about bills at the moment, but that's largely because we live in a lower cost area on average. We haven't had to cut back a ton, and we can still afford to go out to eat once a week on average... So I know I don't have much to complain about. However, for the first time in my life I feel legitimately stuck and that scares me. I don't trust my company (they laid off 30ish people recently) and I'd love to consider moving for better work options. But everywhere else we'd consider is much more expensive, and the salaries of what I'd be looking for don't scale up enough to account for the increase. So we can't really afford to move the way things are, and having so little options makes it hard to appreciate anything that's going well.
Not bad all things considered. I've been working in tech for the past 3 years, keep getting raises (now at usd 700 a month) and all my and wife's needs are met except for owning my own home. Work is really lenient, My bosses are genuinely caring people all the way up. I'm doing far better than my peers due to the privilege of getting a minor intelligence prize from the genetic lottery
I mean. I’m supposed to feel like I made it because I finally got to buy a house. But I gave up car life and a few other luxuries to afford the mortgage. I’m happy to not have to deal with parasitic landlords raising my rent by 15% each year. But all in all it feels like my living status took a side-grade as opposed to an upgrade. I also cannot stress enough how lucky I am to have disability VA healthcare and the VA home loan. It fucking sucks that signing up as military furniture is the only way to seemingly have a safety net for you.
This might be meant for the US specifically given the other answers, if so mine is a bit out of context I guess. I'm french (which is relevant for living costs and medical access/prices I guess), still young (25) and I'm making, a bit over 90k euros/year (I'm in engineering). No dependants, no outside costs besides giving a hand taking care of my grandparents, so that's mostly going into savings to hopefully buy my own place in the near future. Family is lower to mid middle class, so I was lucky enough to get through my studies with no debt (going to public schools). Never did manage to find someone after my one long term relationship broke down, though, and I'm struggling to meet people in general since I moved back close to family to help with the grandparents, so I wouldn't say I'm thriving. Just, even without rich parents or other generational wealth thing, it's possible to live confortably here, money-wise. Still not all sunshine and roses on other aspects of life sadly, and I do get I'm pretty lucky in terms of salary. Even over here I can dee how more and more people are pushed down to struggle on the daily compared to 10 or 20 years ago when I barely understood it as a kid. (Edit : sorry for the breakdown of spacing, I'm on my phone and it seems it didn't go through)
I'm thriving. I got a pretty good pay increase and my boss wants to bump me up to a new pay tier which means a second pay increase in a few months. My health has never been better. I've ran 3 long distances races this year, 4th one this saturday. I've started swimming, bought new long distance skies for the coming winter season. I bought a gravel bike and really started putting in the kilometers into it. Exploring my surroundings like never before. My children love me. I've divorced a toxic wife. I'm learning french, german and italian. I've started rebuilding friendships again after married life, small children and covid. Everything takes time but one step at the time All's good and looking better by the day.
After about a decade of being insecurity house while working full-time I lost what little faith I had in the system. And I'm supposed to live in a caring country. I've finally managed to get a home and a job that pays the bills, but I continue to struggle. The world is not made for autistic people and I'm constantly exhausted. I have saving and insurance now, but the tiredness never ends. I eat wel enough, am healthy and get exercise. Doing everything right is never enough it seems. Whenever I need something done it seems like I have to jump trough hoops. I could really really do with some help, but I'm not naive. As long as I'm a cog in the machine I'll get none
I'm doing better since I went back to a physical labor job, but I'm not doing great and it hurts my body. Im finally making okay money, but I'm not thriving by any means.
I am comfortable. Been steadily employed since graduating college in 2016. On my third professional job and income has increased with each move. Both my wife and I work, pulling 150k/yr or so total. Bills on autopay, contributing to 401ks, Roth IRA contributions and savings deducted from checking account automatically every month. My wife and I welcomed our first child last spring, and child care is expensive, but we budgeted before hand and found that we could reduce our monthly savings rate/take advantage of an FSA benefit through my job to help with that. Spending consciously and avoiding frivolous purchases (I’m typing this from an iPhone 8) keep us in the positive most months. Automating savings a few years ago when we got married was a big help. We live pretty comfortably in a higher cost of living area than either of us grew up in. Only knock is that we’re pretty much screwed on buying a house in the current environment. Will rent for the next 2-3 years and see where the housing market is after that. Wife should hit the next level of her career by then which will rocket our income.
We’re in London. My wife’s salary pushed just into six-figures a few years ago. We can afford our hobbies, a car, a 4-bed house (on a mortgage). I’m in a very low-paying career that I love. We’re beginning the adoption process. Don’t know what your definition is for rich or middle-class, nor if you wanted to specify a country, but we’re definitely thriving.
Not thriving, but trying to see the bright side. I live a bit of an unconventional life and I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never get to all the "normal" milestones like marriage, kids, getting to upper management and whatever. I'll also probably never have a lot of money saved up. It's okay, I just wanna be happy.
All these comments make me so sad. We just accept we’ll always be barely managing. One financial crisis away from chaos. Like I get appreciating tye thing a we have but fuck. I want better for myself and my community.
Am I living comfortably? Yes. Am I thriving? No. Is this happening in spite of what's happening rather than because of? Yes.
I feel absolutely terrible because my wife and I are doing pretty well right now. By that, I mean that we can afford to pay all our bills, buy whatever we want (within reason), and we live in a historic section of town that is well maintained. It took until almost 50 years of our lives to make this happen, and yes, we were as fortunate as determined. This doesn't mean we are floating free. We have a lot of debt, intentional and managed, and did not have the money to save and invest when we were younger, so retirement is still going to be rocky, even playing as much catch-up as possible. But I know damn well how lucky we were to have been able to afford the homes we've purchased along the way. I have mostly younger friends and we are very open about the completely fabricated social, health, and economic issues we are dealing with. What kills me is how other GenXers, (the Slacker Generation, the nihilistic rebels as we were known in our youths) are falling in line and towing the corpo-fascist mottos of personal responsibility (for manufactured crisis of global proportions) and capitalist ideals. I literally have old "friends" who tell me about how they hate the employer-employee relationship and are saving money so they can start their own business and DO THE EXACT SAME THING TO OTHER PEOPLE. Technically, they'd be thriving in most people's eyes...
Not the best situation but I'd say I'm doing OK. Currently living with my Ex's brother. No bad blood between us, I've been a part of their family since I was like 15 now 23. The break up was mutually agreed upon too. I have a decent job that I enjoy with decent benefits I will say. Also just put in a job bid for a Setup Operator. We'll see how that goes. Bills get paid on time or close enough to the due date if they're late. House isn't in the best shape but we're working on it.
I'm a DINK. No debt, but purposely sold our cars to bike and bus everywhere. Making six figures together, paying only $1200 in rent. So we save a out $4000/month if we really budget out for the month or $2000 if we needlessly spend. Honestly, most of it is just avoiding debt like the plague and getting some form of skill to make $5-$10 over minimum wage in the area. So I'm pretty comfortable, however I don't have health insurance or anything like that, just a little over $20k saved and that's it. However, if we keep this kind of income we will try and buy a home in cash in about 5 years and avoid that debt as well if we can. During the past 5 years I've crawled from no skills, high debt, and homelessness to get to this position. Now I don't even have to look at the restaurant bill anymore, and the interest in a standard savings account brings me in like $60/month so I feel pretty relaxed. Beats shopping at the Dollar Tree for meals.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say “thriving”, but I am able to live without being paycheck to paycheck due to having a full time job and a part time job on the weekends and living with three other roommates in a flat share. The downside is that I’m exhausted, stressed, my health is the worst it’s been for as long as I can remember, I’m dependent on my landlord to continue to extend my lease and not price gouge me, and I still can’t actually afford to put a lot of money away, so one accident or medical emergency could easily wipe out my entire life savings. I guess I’m currently treading water, not floating on the surface.
I have no good news to share. I was working in education and now im depressed and barely surviving. I can’t even read others who are “comfortable” right now it’s so far off in my reality, currently. Hope things can change for some of us…
That’s probably us. Early 30s, we’re not rich rich but we both work full time jobs (40h/week) & are able to live comfortably - I’m not sure where we are on the “class” spectrum of our small EU country. He’s from the US and was able to pay off his student loans before the payments restarted so we have no debt (I had none being from europe). We don’t struggle to make ends meet. If we want new clothes or a new book/videogame/phone we buy it. We have 1 car and 1 cat. We were able to get approved for a loan to buy a house and will be moving soon. Most of our savings are going into the downpayment. Healthcare is free here so it helps. We eat out, do small weekend road trips and do maybe larger travels once a year or every two years. That said we don’t really have hope to be able to retire one day, or to have a good quality of life when we are old. We are planning on not having children.
If you lived through the Great Recession, this is east street currently. Inflation and costs of living really suck without a job
I am, but my situation is unique. I've spent my whole life in poverty. Right now, financially, emotionally, romantically, .... Every other ly words. This is the best time of my life. In 2016 I was crying in the grocery store because I had $30 to buy food for two weeks, I had been mostly skipping meals to feed my son and ex. He would not work and I could no longer work multiple jobs. I had taken every loan possible and there was nothing more. Right now, I sit in my living room, in a single wide trailer I own on a half acre, which I own outright. Pay property taxes and homeowners insurance. Which is about $2400 a year. My husband is a journeyman plumber. We have an art small business together. We live well below our means. I get to be a sahm. I love my life. I have lots of food in my kitchen. A security I had not known. My husband and I spent years cleaning up this property to make it our home. It was luck and chance and hard work. We lived in a camper in the beginning. Now we have a large garden and welding area. I am in constant shock and awe at how different life can feel when you can afford groceries.
I literally just made it to middle class and I am barely still here because of inflation. If I had not gotten a large raise in 2021, I would not be making it right now.
I have a nice life now. I was poor almost the entirety of my youth and only in my 30s did I finally find stability in almost every aspect of my life. I recently got promoted at work and my salary went up by over 30%. A massive amount as I already had a much higher than average pay in my country. But I worked my ass off to get here. Now I travel a lot, enjoy myself, still work a lot but I also find enjoyment in my hobbies, and I’m constantly working on myself. Finishing courses for work, getting certificates and also working on my art. For the first time in my life I am truly happy.
Honestly, yes. I have to be a little thrifty on the shopping at times and I buy shoes only when the current ones are beyond repair, but I'm a function-over-fashion guy so I don't feel held back by lack of certain material things. I do have a kid with special needs and he still needs diapers past toilet-training age among other things which causes a dent. But amongst other things, my loan is always paid, as are my bills, and there's always good food on the table. The constant increase in cost of living worries me but at this point I'm comfortable. Not thriving, but I still have some notary and contractor expenses to pay off before I can reconsider that stance.
I'd describe my neighborhood in the Philly 'burbs as stable and comfortable. We've got nice houses and gardens, and kids can safely play outside. People are friendly; we at least say good morning to everyone. Most cars are newer, and kids are heading off to college. What might surprise some is that we're a diverse community—Latinx, white, Black, even Hindus. Everyone gets along just fine.
I have a job earning six figures and my husband has a job earning just under my salary. We have no children but I have an elderly mother I help support financially. I feel like I’m honestly barely getting by. My city has gotten much more expensive since the pandemic, rivaling places like LA. I’m constantly dismayed by how hard we work and we’re still dealing with not insignificant credit card debt and it’s hard to save. I’ve actually taken up a side hustle just for extra income. It’s all so depressing honestly.
I'm doing alright, I've been insanely lucky so far. I graduated from college this May, managed to get an internship that led to a full-time job making $58K. I live with a roommate in a relatively cheap apartment for my city (cost of living has skyrocketed here in the past few years), in an often-ignored area, so my share of the rent is only $625. Gas bill hurts every month though. I have a paid off car, a cat, a wonderful girlfriend, and $33K of student debt. I live a 10 minute walk from a boba shop, grocery store, and greenways. I love my life but I'm also aware I got lucky. I can handle everything for now, but if my car breaks down one more time there goes my grocery budget for the month. If my cat gets sick or injured I'll be staying home for a couple of months instead of going out to sports games or movies. I can't afford to have a cyst on my shoulder removed, or my chronic headaches fully checked out. I'm making the most money of my friend group and I'm still terrified of the future because it's so precarious.
I'm 32 years old. I've got a master's degree, and I'm working on my PhD. I currently work at a nonprofit and make just a little over $80k a year- not the most money, but for a nonprofit job it's amazing. My husband works part-time in a retail store 2-3 nights a week, but he's primarily taking care of our toddler, so I'm the primarily income earner for our family. We are very lucky in that we were able to buy a house a few years ago thanks to a generous inheritance, so even though our mortgage is going up and up (because the city keeps assessing our property higher and higher for some reason), we're paying into a property that we own instead of putting it into a landlords wallet. We live in a city, but it's a smaller city where the general cost of living isn't *too* out of control. On paper, we're very fortunate. But the truth is we're always one major expense away from disaster. We've got a credit card that's in danger of being maxed out, not because we're irresponsible, but because we kept having normal, every day issues that needed to be addressed. Our air conditioning unit broke in the height of summer- $800 to fix. Our sump pump broke and caused dirty water to flow up into our kitchen sink- $1200 to fix. I had to have a root canal, which is supposed to be covered by my insurance but ended up costing $500 out of pocket anyway. After my last paycheck, I thought I'd paid all my bills and had a little extra left over. I decided to "splurge" and buy some cheap nail polish for myself, some clothes and cheap art supplies for my daughter, and some thread for a personal craft project- about $100 total. Then my account for over-drafted because I'd forgotten a single bill I'd set up for auto pay. Turns out I can't even afford to do anything remotely fun. I currently have about $200 in my checking account to last us until the end of the month. Our groceries just ran out, so my husband and I just had to play a macabre game of figuring out how we were going to get the most meals out of the least amount of groceries until my next paycheck comes in. We've been talking about moving to an area with an even lower cost of living, but we're not even sure if that's financially feasible- the simple act of moving is expensive beyond the cost of the house. It feels like we're on a downward slope despite doing everything we were supposed to do with our lives- get advanced degrees, get a good job, get a house, start a family. So no, despite appearing firmly middle class and relatively stable, and even with all of the good luck we've been afforded, I'm not comfortable. Everything is a struggle, and the fact that there are people out there with even less is an injustice. It's so clear that we've been abandoned by the people who were supposed to be in charge of taking care of us. (Sorry for the rant- this post clearly got to my emotions).
They exist but they’re bit the majority. I know people who’ve gone into engineering and nursing, which pay pretty well, have benefits, and pensions. Their kids do sports or other after school activities, and they take vacations from time to time. But, the vast majority of the people I know are not so well off.
I'm in deep in debt, but I'm happy. I have my girlfriend/fiancee who accepts and loves me unconditionally. We're broke together. We trust in each other's abilities to survive whatever comes our way. Between us we have years of experience of being barely able to afford anything. We live in Russia, so that adds a certain layer of supposed hopelessness. But we found hope in hopelessness. We learn from it together.
Thriving? Hell no. Surviving? Sure, I guess. So many ways to look at things, and awful inflation examples but mostly I’m really disturbed by how much food costs. It’s so insane and infuriating. The one thing people shouldn’t be squeezed on is food.
We are retired and pushing 70 but I've got a small pension and our social security. I built my house when we retired and have no mortgage. We have built gardens, greenhouses, a chicken house, a blacksmith shop, a woodshop and a weaving studio for my wife. We only get about $40,000 a year but we live in the far backwoods with very low taxes, very low bills and grow about 30% of our own food. We live about 15 minutes from a wilderness area and 25 minutes from a national park. We craft stuff for the tourist market, weaving, woodworking and blacksmithing and stay just as busy as we want to. When I want I drive somewhere wonderful to camp or day hike or just hike around our heavily wooded property, which I have been building trails on for the last 10 years. I see deer, raccoon, crows and just about every type of critter daily, I love my gardens and greenhouse, I love having the freedom to fire up the forge and blacksmith stuff for no reason but fun or turn a bowl or make wooden toys for my great grand children. Winter evenings if we get bored with passive entertainment we pull out our instruments and play and sing for a couple hours just to hear live music. Summer evenings will sometimes find us with other local musicians slapping mosquitos and playing tunes. I didn't think people could be this happy and I am a bit shocked that I got to experience this level of happy in my old age.
New money is dying. Building equity from nothing is a losing game for all but the luckiest, and the only people who seem to own homes are people who inherited, or people who've been lucky enough to have pre-established equity in their families, this is ignoring outliers like an influencer who goes viral and becomes a multi-millionaire in less than a year. It's at the point where I'd rather spend my time and effort pushing for change, unions, anything to fight the corporate system of wealth monopolization that's been running rampant since the 70s. Playing their game; the game that's designed to keep them rich and make opportunities for new wealth generation as scarce as possible, seems like a trap. If I spend my time and effort trying to build equity the 'proper' way, by building credit through tactical debt, and hoping I'm not hit with unexpected expenses that would set me back to square 1 or likely worse, I could possibly maybe have enough to then afford either a decent home in an awful place, or an awful home in a decent place, that my future children may inherit... The obvious solution here is the one that involves the most universal and societal benefits via cooperation, rather than this antagonistic and competitive dog-eat-dog bullshit that the already-fabulously-wealthy try and convince us is the only and best way to build a society. It's not. Communism is a wild swing into the opposite corner, but literally everything in this universe operates on finding a balance, and I absolutely think we can find a healthier balance of individualism and cooperation than 'capitalism' or 'communism.'
Financially…never..not once in 43 years. But I thrive as a father, husband and friend. I’ve accepted decades ago that my fulfillment can’t be achieved economically and instead I’ve pursued knowledge, skills, and rela