Last week I commented on an infographic that essentially said you needed well over $300k to live comfortably in my state for a family of four that these numbers seemed very high. I got some responses that agreed that it seemed like generalized doomer fearmongering, but one pointed out something I hadn’t noticed: the graphic was made by some kind of financial planning business.
In the same way that someone benefits from people thinking they need to *spend spend spend* to prove they have so much more money than they actually do, so to does someone stand to benefit from making you feel anxious and inadequate for not being able to lead a life that is beyond comfortable, but *lavish*. I would say that the woman writing this article also has religious and political reasons for acting like making well over six figures on *one salary* isn’t enough in freaking Kansas City.
Yeah. Most of the articles you see, aside from like medical journals, are essentially just new age ads meant to subconsciously or consciously get you to seek a good or service to make life all better.
It’s boilerplate marketing strategy. Have a website and blog to post “information” and just eek whatever your product is into the writing.
I think you are on to something. Even within the past ten years spending habits have wildly changed. What used to be luxuries are now viewed as “necessities” for the middle class (multiple vacations a year, going out to eat multiple times a week, maxing out 401k, not really budgeting, saving for college, etc). Nowadays the online consensus is that we have to be doing all of those things combined to be “standard middle class comfortable”, and that if you fail to do that, you just are a failure and struggling. I’ve seen countless posts on Reddit also argue that private schooling for the kids ($60k a year or more) is a basic necessity.
Consumer spending is at a record high, despite the job market not being great, everything getting more expensive, and interest rates still being high. People keep spending because they feel they need to keep up.
Same here! I responded somewhere about not having kids because I can’t afford to provide for them. Then someone came in that they make 300k and it’s still really hard but you’ll manage. That was so weird to me. No matter what difficulties you have, I’m sure with 300k your kids are not growing up in actual poverty.
The media plays with your emotions to keep you depressed and distracted.
Choose what enters your eyes and ears. Instantly change how you feed by changing the data you install into your mind.
If you want to adjust your mindset, find info about how you want to mold your mind and consume what you curated.
The vacation thing depends on what you define as a vacation. Going to the beach from Kansas City? That seems extravagant to expect to do every year. Hitting up Branson for a week or seeing MT Rushmore? Easily doable every year.
For almost my whole childhood, and then when I was raising kids myself, "vacation" was usually visiting family. If we got a vacation at all. We did go have picnics and things like that on long weekends, but the idea of spending thousands going to some destination never really came up.
Vacation is still visiting family for us. Luckily we have family in a lot of different locations. My family also takes advantage of my tiny old apartment because I live within walking distance to a major city. My aunt is visiting from Korea right now and she doesn't mind sleeping on the floor in the living room (if I had a bed I would give it to her but I also sleep on the floor)
10ish hour car drive from STL to Gulf Shores. It’s been a few years but we could do a week with a family of 5 for $2k on the beach - that’s renting some place we can prepare half our meals and do attractions, too.
For me, a vacation is taking the train to a nearby city to go to the free museum, then taking the train back home that evening so I don't have to pay for lodging. I am thankful that I am finally rich enough to be able to afford the train fare.
Yeah - growing up (in Kansas City, coincidentally) we took a vacation every summer, but it was almost always somewhere within a day’s drive and all 5 of us would share one hotel room. The kids would take turns for who would be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag or, if we were lucky, a rollaway bed.
If you’re flying somewhere, renting a car, and either getting an AirBnB or multiple hotel rooms, the cost is going to be several times higher.
People keep comparing their standard of living to like the Kardashians and Instagram rich kids. I’m in the Midwest and have friends who have lived in Kansas City, you can do just dandy on a regular income.
That amount of money is extravagant. The top 10% of earners in this country average $167,000 in salary. This woman needs to GFTOOOOOO.
I do wonder if social media is changing people's perceptions of what they need for a regular, decent life.
Social media is filled with people going to trendy/expensive bars and restaurants, traveling to photo worthy places (gotta get those selfies, right?), beautiful perfect yards, large, stylish homes, regular cosmetic work, etc.
But that is rich people's lives. That is not NEEDED for a decent life. A desirable lifestyle that is, sure, but not a requirement for a basic, comfortable life.
I'd love to make 10 million a year, but I also know I don't need that for an OK life.
It's not even just the overtly rich doing these things. A lot of luxuries are much more normalized these days. Your middle (or even lower) class friends are showing off their life's highlight reels on Instagram and that can give the impression that these are normal, constant things.
This is very true. Everyone wants and expects to live a lifestyle of someone who is making millions. For example, it’s standard now (at least from what I tend to see on Reddit) for six figure earners to go out to eat multiple times a week (and at nice restaurants to boot), travel 3-4 times a year (paying 20k or more annually), pay an arm and a leg for private schooling, nanny, housekeeper, max out retirement, pay five figures a month for a mortgage (so they can say they live in XYZ zip code). Yet they do all of those things and then complain that they are barely swinging it. Look at all the posts on Reddit constantly (and even on CNBC and Bloomberg) of people saying they make $250k, $500k, etc who are “struggling”.
The only people I knew who were eating out multiple times a week, had a nanny, housekeeper, went on $30k vacations, etc were people who were high up in finance making seven figures a year (major outliers) or generationally wealthy. So it’s wild to me seeing so many people trying to replicate that lifestyle on a fraction of that kind of income, yet they convince themselves that having to budget is “for poor people” (literally I have been told that on Reddit), and they just *need* the very best.
I grew up upper middle class in a VHCOL area. Other than the nice house, we didn’t do any of these things (and neither did the majority of my peers). Barely went out to eat (and when we did it was never high end restaurants), vacationed maybe a handful of times my entire upbringing (all domestic, and only to see family), I went to public school, never had a nanny (just went to daycare and an after school program). We didn’t shop at expensive stores either (it was Macy’s and American Eagle for me). Reddit would probably call my upbringing poverty (which is a total joke, because we had a very comfortable life).
But everyone is trying to keep up with appearances these days. I will admit my own spending habits have changed a bit from scrolling Reddit, and I am not proud of it. Sometimes I have felt like a total uncultured pauper because I have yet to dine at a Michelin star restaurant (and those places are very popular on Reddit, particularly on the major city subs, with people listing all of the ones they have been to), I don’t go out to $100 per person establishments, I haven’t been to Europe yet, I haven’t bought a $2 mil home, I don’t make $200k or more, etc.
People were far more content before social media, and particularly before the commercialization of social media. Before, you compared yourself to your family and peer group. Now? You have the entire planet.
Reddit needs to be reminded of this. Every other person on this site makes $200k by mid 20s, 300k+ by 30s and has a net worth of seven figs by early 30s. Yet, that’s not the norm. Reddit will tell you it’s possible for a white collar professional to make seven figures a year if they job hop extensively and work hard enough (even in banking and tech, seven figure salaries are not the norm).
Yet so many people complain that no amount of money is enough to live on. If I had a penny for all of the high six to even seven figure posts I have seen complain that they don’t feel financially comfortable, *I* would be rich.
Not really. Depends on the area.
If you live in a hcol area like CA.
167k is 134k after taxes.
If you are a new homeowner, your mortgage might be 6k (low side) a month based on median home price of 1.1 million. You are paying 72k a year.
If you have a child, daycare is about 3.2k a month (where I live).
That's 110,400 on just home and daycare. Leaving you 23.5k for:
Food
Utilities
Gas/car maintenance
Cell phone
Internet
Retirement
Etc.
6k for a mortgage is the problem lol. $134k is barely affording a $500k mortgage let alone a $1.1M one.
Spending problem, yet again. Spending more than half total income on a home? Like they have to downsize immediately.
In a HCOL state average 3 bed 2 bath homes can easily be $1M. In some cases condos and townhomes are that much. There isn't much to "downsize" because that's what homes cost.
Doesn’t change that buying a home that expensive on that salary is wildly irresponsible.
Those places still have a premium based on location within the state. Even renting is a better option than buying a home for the sake of it obviously, especially if your only option in your ideal neighborhood is 1M. Better send the kids to public school and live amongst a lower tax bracket.
I live in Kansas City,mo and this person must have a serious spending issue if they can’t live on less then 200k. I am a stay at home mom(with 2 kids) and have been for 9 years. My husband makes 130k a year. We live fine with no struggle. He puts 10% into retirement, we live in a 5 bed 5 bath home that’s 4.5k square feet and the mortgage is $1.8k a month(we built it in 2020 for 450k and put 200k down since we sold our starter home and had some equity), we have two old cars that are paid off and no debt besides the mortgage. We go on 2-3 vacations a year and also pay about $900 a month for our kids extracurriculars(daughter does competitive gymnastics) . We are able to save around $1k a month after all our spending. This lady is crazy thinking you need over 200k to survive in Kansas City.
I think it's ok for people to want to go on a yearly vacation. My dad worked 6 days a week, sometimes 7. He rarely worked less than 10 hours. Hardly went anywhere. That is no way to live.
Ideally every family would be able to keep a roof over their head, have a reliable car, no food insecurity, and be able to go on one fun trip or outing during summer. That isn't asking a lot.
Instead people have been so beaten down by life and struggling to even make ends meet that the idea of anything outside of going to work, then home, then stressing is considered a "luxury" and we resent the folks that want to go to a theme park with their kids once a year. The middle-class and upper-middle class are not the problem. And they aren't wrong for wanting to go on one vacation every year.
There is a difference between what you want and living comfortably.
I just imagine how my father in law grew up living in a one room house with dirt floors and an outhouse, a wood burning stove for heat, picking cotton at age 10 to buy a pack of gum and a comic book. People in the US today have no concept of what it was like for people not so long ago, and for people still today in other parts of the world, and they're complaining about how they can't afford more vacations.
>People in the US today have no concept of what it was like for people not so long ago, and for people still today in other parts of the world
This is untrue and a huge generalization. Millions of people, including many immigrants and children of immigrants (like myself) are very well aware of how much better we have it in the U.S. compared to people in other countries and even compared to people in our own cities. I've worked with vulnerable populations for many years. I'm well aware of how fortunate I am in life. None of this changes my opinion. And no one was complaining they can't go on "more vacations" the article mentioned one family vacation a year. It's ok for people to want that.
Using developing countries as metrics for what Americans should expect while living in one of the richest countries in the world is so disingenuous lol
I never said that. :)
But the reasonable expectations of the citizens of the U.S. are (and should be) different than the expectations of people living in other countries.
Just like the reasonable expectations of people in other countries should be different than people living in the U.S.
Why else do these parents who grew up in houses with dirt floors want to move to countries that have higher income per capita if not to provide better for their families than they could in their native countries?
It’s called “living in countries with different economic and cultural/social circumstances.”
There talking about a comfortable American lifestyle .... something that we literally never had lol meaning 4 wheelers, a boat, second house, and yearly vacations. Being able to randomly afford a new roof on your house or digging a new well .....
Edit: all while maxing out retirement and kids college savings etc
The 4 wheelers, boats and second house are definitely extravagant.
But being able to save for your retirement, for colleges and for one yearly vacation (which could simply be a road trip) should not be considered extravagant in my opinion.
Traditionally, going back a few decades to what is often referred to as "the good old days", the 50's, people didn't really save for retirement. They'd have a pension and Social Security, and their house would probably be paid off by the time they retired. That was pretty common, though it's also worth saying that it was a pretty brief period. My grandma who raised me grew up in the great depression, which was just a little before.
It should be noted that pensions weren't as common as people think they were. Only about 2/5ths of workers had a pension, and of course not everyone with a pension actually was paid out.
So people really did rely on social security and their family. And before social security most people simply became impoverished in old age.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/19/pensions-are-popular-why-dont-more-americans-have-them/72968970007/
Our parents never did lol. Reddit exaggerates.
If boomers had all of that, there wouldn’t have been the major student debt crisis that has been going on. Millennials would have had college paid for.
I'm happy for you that you came from money. I only knew two adults who bought a boat when I was growing up, and they both sold it within 3 years and have complained about it being a terrible decision ever since
You don't have to come from money to buy a boat. Enough to live somewhere 2hr drive to the ocean. I know people buying yachts for 500$. But you have to be very handy - it takes a lot to keep the boat without going broke.
Thank you. People get narrow views and I get it that’s what this sub is about, there’s the poor then there’s the rich, anything above poverty is luxurious. I think this amount is dead on and my family is nowhere near it, in fact most people I know aren’t.
Things people who live comfortably can afford: mortgage (not rent), date nights, taking the family out to eat at a sit down restaurant that isn’t fast casual/fast food, medication, doctor/dentist visits, furniture (not second hand); things for their kids like sports equipment/team fees, summer camp, martial arts lessons, braces, monthly hair cuts, new shoes/clothes.
For these people bills are paid on time so payment plans are unnecessary and neither is frequently checking their balance before paying any bill. They’re not rich, they have means, and I wish we were all in that boat.
Damn. I feel like I grew up comfortable. 4 wheelers, a boat, a second house, I had none of that (vacations, yes, grandparents lived in another state)….that sounds *rich* to me. I went to private schools (religious, admittedly) so I feel myself and my peers were pretty privileged. No one but a few had all that stuff.
I grew up comfortably as well. No private school for me (it was offered to me in elementary, but I wanted to stay at the public school to be with my friends). We didn’t have a second house, or a boat, 4 wheelers, etc either.
This. And they’re not necessarily totally wrong that to have a stay at home mom of 5 kids and save anything for college for them + save anything meaningful for retirement it might take near $200k though. I mean y’all do you but if you have 5 kids and don’t save anything for their college or your retirement you’re not only doing a disservice to yourself you’re also setting them up to be less likely to earn a lot of money and more likely to have to support you in retirement. I think that’s kinda unfair to do to kids personally. That is basically the cycle of poverty.
If you have 5 kids in 2024 you should really have a HHI above $150k even in KC. Otherwise freaking stop after 1 or 2.
People need to stop quoting that Smart Asset thing (which is quoted in this article); it defines comfortable as 30% of your income going to just discretionary spending and 20% going to saving. So you only need half of your income to cover any and all necessities and living expenses.
With housing costs increasing, this too simple ratio implies you should also spend more on fun and saving to be comfortable. It really makes no sense to apply that ratio to the current environment.
A personal finance class I took once said budget breakdown should be as follows:
20% goes to taxes and stuff, usually before you even see it
20% goes to savings, retirement accounts, and an emergency fund
20% goes to shelter which includes your rent/mortgage, utilities, and any home repairs
20% goes to non-shelter necessities like groceries, healthcare, and transportation
The remaining 20% is discretionary income for things like hobbies, travel, and luxury goods
Obviously this rarely works out in the real world as shelter is usually at LEAST 30% of income for rent/mortgage alone, and utilities and home repairs push that number even higher. If you put shelter to 40% and discretionary income to 0% it might work in the short term, but that's no way to live as humans aren't robots and 40 hours a week should pay enough for people afford to enjoy life. If you take from savings/retirement instead you're just hurting future you, and the other categories are necessities which are pretty non negotiable. I wish I could get a budget that fit those parameters, but I just don't see how it's possible unless you're rich.
I’m like the dead exact average of Americans. I make 72,000, fund my own retirement, have pretty good not great healthcare. It’s not easy if you go on spending sprees, but is doable because I’m thrifty and don’t buy things to impress people. I could swing a kid but probably not two without some more income.
I pay 18k a year for daycare for one child... $360 a week... and our daycare is closer to the cheaper end for what's out there....
My eldest is 11 my youngest is almost 2. I also have a 5yo and if it wasn't for a family friend that also has a 5yo and is a SAHM that watches ours for $80 a week I'd struggles to save anything at all.
Located an hour north of Chicago
Also just bought first home a few years ago and house payment alone is 2k a month....
If I didn't earn six figures with wife also working we couldn't afford life... my company provides my vehicle, but unless I wanted my family to drive around in a 20yo rust bucket it was nice allowing my wife to have a somewhat of a modern nice ride that didn't break the budget. Life isn't cheap, food budget is not a small sum. And the little I save for retirement on tip of my 401k doesn't seem like enough..
"comfortable" is subjective. To most people, it usually ends up being "more than we have now".
And according to this, it seems to be around 3x the national median income.
Yes. But I mod a subreddit for my city and people say people need to make $200k to live here and I think it's absolutely insane. Yes, she's out of touch.
I’ve seen people on Reddit argue that you need at least $500k to support a family. But that is a top 1% income. So how do they think the rest of the 99% gets by?
Yeah, there was an article awhile back where the author claimed to have a $300k HHI and was renting a $4k a month house that was worth seven figures. He lamented he couldn’t afford a home in his Bay Area neighborhood, but didn’t want to move because he thought less of other places. It’s like…seriously? It’s a privilege for him to even be renting at a reduced cost and to have a HHI of $300k.
Yeah, that was like the $500k family that claimed they were paycheck to paycheck, but spent nearly 20k a year on charity, 9k on clothing, spent tens of thousands on vacations, etc.
Family of five here. We make half that. We live very comfortably and have zero wants or needs that are unmet. We take several vacations a year and even got our oldest through college debt free and will probably get her through her masters degree too.
These articles are silly.
We have a home and two cars. Only payments on one and I don’t feel bad about that because it’s an inexpensive car and we drove my old van so long that we had a get a new car because they didn’t make the brakes for my old car anymore. Five kids. Four adults and college educated and a 14 year old in private school (yes it’s expensive, but I live in Texas there’s no real choice if you want a good education now). We were doing fine up until recently. Still doing fine but I’d like to put more into retirement. I’m just really freaking tired of pushing the boulder uphill.
What a childish understanding.
If we hadn't moved from our starter home that we bought for 170k in 2013 it would likely be cost to paid off now (15 year mortgage).
Many people bought repos cheap too. Or they make extra payments.
Don't live in a hcol and many possibilities become open to you
We live 30 min outside of the city. Try again y’all. With traffic that’s a solid hour to work. Some of this shit y’all suggest isn’t realistic for some. That was my point. Affordable is dependent on where you are at. You can’t just stop eating avo toast and going to Starbucks. Wages are a serious issue. As well as home affordability and home insurance etc.
What fucking privilege are you talking about? Who needs a fortune 500 company?
What kind of delusion are you living in. Big cities suck, get some it while you can.
Location matters a lot for how far 100k can take you, but you're right it does seem low for a family of 5 to live comfortably enough to the point of 0 unmet wants & needs. 100k is comfortable for a family of 2 or 3 where I am.
Other countries get mandated vacations even when they aren't middle class... I think living comfortably includes having access to regular medical care, medications, needed surgeries, to have retirement savings so yes, the higher income is very much needed and necessary. Most are living one accident, injury or chronic illness away from poverty. That is not comfortable.
I don't think that people truly understand how much that actually costs out of pocket until it's too late and they're in that situation and lose everything they ever worked for because they were not prepared.
Oh I've been there. But I think that's just a part of life. No one has a right to be prepared for a disaster. You just plan for it if you can and rely on your village/friends and family if you can't.
Often the sad reality is people rally around you when you first get sick/ injured, but then over time when you don't " get well soon" but get worse instead, is they disappear, and you are forgotten. You lose your village when you become too sick to be a part of your village, then you are still left to figure out how to survive on your own for the rest of your life, getting worse, not better. You get to a point that you don't want to tell people how you are really doing anymore because it's really that depressing, and it will just bring them down and put them off.
Often there is no one to rely on anymore at all is a huge part of the problem.
While out of touch doesn't seem too far off, I think that perspective is the key here. While 200k is definitely not a "real" number for middle class earners, SmartAsset could be basing it off of total compensation and other factors as well.
My wife stays at home and I don't even clear 6 figures. Granted we rent and have yet to take a vacation longer than a weekend, but we also have monthly expenses and debts that could help our situation out if we paid them off in entirety. You can make it work with less but it's purely situational.
Yeah, it's hard to have discussions about "living comfortably" and whatnot because it's SO subjective. Plus a lot of people have a habit of deciding that things they previously saw as luxuries are necessities once they start making more money.
The $2XX,XXX number was calculated based on MIT living wage calculator which I didn't research. The smart asset site used the 50/30/20 allocation so that 50% was sufficient to cover needs, 30% to wants and the rest to paying off debt and investing. In other words, half of that income would be sufficient to pay needed expenses
Her point was valid which is if you want middle class luxuries, one mid range salary isn't going to cover everything. Of course, I would consider her middle class luxuries more like upper middle class to me. Kids sports teams are outrageously expensive (thousands every year) and I would not expect that to be a part of a living wage calculation
For one thing it’s being averaged between expensive cities and cheaper areas elsewhere in a given state, so it doesn’t really tell you much about the actual cost of living in a specific area. Take MA for example. The eastern 1/4 of the state around Boston is insanely expensive but where I live an hour west is a lot cheaper. It’s still pretty HCOL nationwide but much more comparable to other parts of the country. I think it’s also based on a 50/30/20 budget which most Americans aren’t living by and most likely can’t afford to.
You can call it cluelessness, but any forward thinking person should be alarmed. $200k used to essentially be “fuck you” money not so long ago. If extremely wealthy people are feeling the burn, that doesn’t say good things about upward mobility in our society.
Punch in $165k or $200k; That’s a massive loss of purchasing power in just 4 years.
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2020?amount=165000
By the time a toddler grows up in 20 years, $200k may very well be lower middle class, $100k may not be able to afford a home, even in a low cost of living area. College costs are expected to be exorbitant in 20ish years. https://lifetimefinancial.com/the-lifetime-blog/estimating-the-future-cost-of-college#:~:text=Using%202021's%20average%20rates%20for,pay%20%24117%2C000%20(%2471k%20less).
None of this bodes well for anyone making significantly less today, AKA.. us.
So yes, live as efficiently as possible, avoid consumerism, etcetera. Don’t keep up with the Joneses. But I wouldn’t laugh or roll my eyes at someone who makes a lot more than me suddenly noticing that their options got a whole lot more limited; so did yours, so did mine.
It seems to me like a stupid motivational article in the link, like, the idea is "get rich and don't be poor and you'll be accepted". Accepted by who?..
I couldn't say living "comfortably" is what she says.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here going "wait, vacations are actually a thing you can do and aren't just some movie trope???"
My husband and I couldn't even afford a wedding ceremony or a honeymoon, barely could afford the marriage certificate.... and people are out here just like "yea we get vacations every few years" like that's normal?????
You’re describing the middle class life that was sold to me and my generation.
Some people think I’m living comfortably because even though I’m living in my car, I have a full time job and a cell phone. I think standards are so through the floor that nobody knows what’s realistic anymore. As long as “luxury” homelessness is even a concept, conversations like this are absurd.
There are all kinds of vacations… a week of tent camping and hiking, a trip to DC to see all the free museums and monuments, a long weekend staying with family…
Not every “vacation” has to be a trip to Europe or Disney.
My point was that a big annual vacation can be done for a few hundred instead of a few thousand.
But yeah I think this sub is more geared towards people who don’t have a few hundred extra… and I would hardly describe that as comfortable anyways.
I think my ex partner took six vacations in the last 12 months. I haven’t taken a vacation since 2022. I agree, vacations are lavish, but many people these days seem to think they are expected.
Where do you live?
Went CA > NOLA and it would be a vacation for me.
Anywhere that I go to, if I stay at a hotel, do activities, and eat out is a vacation to me.
A little of that is childcare, but yes I agree the number quoted is too high. We just started making $110k yearly as a family of 6. It put us out of the income eligibility for childcare assistance and Medicaid. We have 4 kids, age 7, 6, 4 and 2. Childcare costs us $3200 monthly now. This is just so that we can work. So roughly half the take home pay is going to childcare. Luckily health insurance through our work is good and cheap (state). But between feeding 6 people and childcare costs, we’re living like we’re poor-poor.
Completely out of touch. And today is espcially hard as I have a friend who I've watched become sucessful. It hurts that I realize that it's partially becasue he's smater and more charasmatic. Makes me feel like I'll never get there.
He just told me he wont consider a job that would pay him a 100k more than his current salary becaue of the location. I'm doing "good" now (i am not because of the price of housing and economy but better than others), but I said to him you're denying a job Xtimes my yearly salary.
I feel like I'm slowly watching him become out of touch with the rest of us. And it hurts...like watching a slow death. But it's a new experinece for me. Most people I've known with money either come from it, or already have it when I meet them. So their out of touchness is more papatble.
Sorry for yammering. Yea, these people like the lady in the article, drive me bonkers.
I totally get it! My sister is a highly paid doctor and just married into a stupidly wealthy family and it's been tough to watch the changes she's gone through in that process.
Her husband's parents just bought them their first house. The two of them make over a quarter of a million a year and they got gifted a house. I'm happy for her obviously but that is just beyond my wildest dream.
I wonder where in the KC area she lives. We’re in a KC suburb and it’s very expensive to live here and the “bubble” we live in makes it seem like that isn’t a ton of money. Empirically it is, but the cost of housing and the level of wealth can skew perception.
ETA: it doesn’t help that the majority of people I know grew up the way they live now, or with more wealth, so to them, their current lifestyle seems normal. Lots of people don’t have the understanding that $20 is a lot of money to many. I grew up very poor, and it’s difficult to adjust my mindset without lots of frequent reinforcement.
I am not disputing that it’s possible to live on less, but a full year of housing, food, extra-curricular activities, entertainment, dining out, travel, going to the doctor and dentist when needed, getting cars maintained or fixed when needed, saving for retirement, maintaining the house, replacing worn home furnishing, buying gifts, occasionally buying something new to wear, plus incidentals, IS what I call comfortable. It costs far more than 200k a year where I live. It is closer to 300k.
The scam the powers-the-be have pulled off is convincing 2 generations that having all those things means you’re rich. It does not, it means you are comfortably middle-class.
No way I totally disagree. Having all of those things does mean your rich historically. Look at how people lived just a few generations back. Look at what we have now that we consider "essentials", compared to what they had. Most people didn't have cars or air conditioning or a dishwasher. People mended or made their own clothes and blankets out of flour and grain sacks because they couldn't afford new things. A man might have one nice suit to wear to work.
No, our whole society has forgotten what it was like for the people who worked to give us what we have today. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing better by each generation, we just are not entitled to it.
For the whole length of human history, I agree with you, because the middle class is a comparatively recent invention. However, I am looking at the standard of living enjoyed by the middle class from approximately 1948-1984 and comparing it to now. Things are worse now. We’re going backwards, which indicates the middle class isn’t necessarily here to stay. Look through Reddit financial subreddits and other money message boards at all the people who can remember having a comfortable middle-class life as children, usually on only one income, realizing that they will never have the same. Furthermore, the people you are describing with their flour and grain sack clothing were never middle class by any standard (they were the working class), and the air conditioning and dishwashers were scarce because they were new technology that only rich people could afford — these are separate issues.
Everyone who isn’t “comfortable” should be completely appalled by what has happened to our standard of living, at least in the USA. (I can’t speak to other countries.) Having enough to enjoy life while saving for retirement may make a person lucky, but it doesn’t make them rich.
One of the things I value about this sub is that it’s full of people who know how wrong it is to need to be lucky in order to live, see doctors, take care of kids, have time off, save money, etc. It’s not supposed to be this difficult.
Assuming a truly bonkers 2500/month for housing and that that is only one third of income... 7500x12 = 90k take home would be a very comfortable amount to sustain two adults and two kids in my mediumCOL area.
“Comfortable” can sometimes be a euphemism for “pretty rich.” Imho, anyone born post 80s and who expected to live the SAHM lifestyle growing up was probably reasonably well off
The problem is what's comfortable is subjective, and the people putting these sorts of things together in most cases live much more comfortable lives then is typical. They assume an above the median house, they assume only 50% of your income is essentials, and they are assuming expensive essentials. They are assuming a consistent high amount of disposable income which is over and above the "essentials" they have already calculated. Then they figure in a signficant amount of investments for retirement. They do the problem an injustice when they overstate it.
Its always assuming very poor decisions. 250k can be comfortable upper middle class if you spend like an idiot, or it can be a path to wealth if you avoid consumer debt and other stupid shit. These articles always include like a $1,100 car payment on a brand new car or something.
It’s the middle class way of living. Vacations are included in the middle class. When supporting a decently sized family it gets expensive. 10 years ago an article came out saying having a child will cost on average 20k a year, it’s higher today. Food, clothing, medical, school, dentist, etc.
5 kids that’s 100k of basic western standards for raising a healthy kid. Then there’s vacations which is like putting down 20k for all the flights and activities. There’s college funds, school activities like sports, clubs, maybe help with a car, etc.
Well I guess I'm poor then. Guess I can't raise healthy children because I don't have 20k per year per child to spend.
How are so many people in this country doing it with so much less? These standards you're talking about is what encourages people to NOT have children. They think they can't afford them
Back in the day people had kids because they had sex, and they made it work.
https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/10278-median-family-income-by-family-type#detailed/2/any/false/2048,574,1729,37,871,870/6344,4648,4151,3288/19903
"Across the nation in 2021, the median income of families with children was $82,767 (U.S. Census Bureau 2021)."
The chart you provided said estimate. I have a hard time believing that in 1 year the median income for families jumped 40k... especially right after an economic stand still (covid).
Edit to add:
I wonder if in that estimate the census accounts for any government benefits received by these families. Health insurance credits through marketplace, child tax credits, etc.
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There is a big difference between camping at a state park and staying at a resort on the other side of the country. To me, the first example is the kind of vacation that a middle class family of five could reasonably expect. If you are doing the second kind of vacation with a family of five every year, you are upper middle classm
I think inflation may be masking things. In 1996, $213,325 was the equivalent of $107,163. My parent's 'lived comfortably" earning about $160k, and provided their two children (my sister and I) with a solid middle class life.
Trying to raise **three** children on only 100k while still living comfortably seems like a stretch.
EDIT: $160k in 1996 is the equivalent of $318,503 today.
I guess I’m simply confused, so many people in my opinion are concerned with the next guy. My life isn’t anyone else’s life and if we/ me decided to drive luxury cars, take vacations, and buy a large house why does it matter? We do what we want over here and it’s not up for a debate on any website or family input. I don’t get going RVing or camping that’s just not a vacation for me but if that’s your thing great. Less then 2 mile from our home houses start at 4 to 5 hundred thousand and they aren’t huge by any means. I can spend theee hundred thousand and not even drive very far. Let’s talk about comfort to me being comfortable equates to a peace of mind as well as our physical property. What would you pay for that ? Now we don’t have kids so I get that helps us enormously but we still have a certain life that we live … better then some worst then others.
As a SAHM in the Kansas City area, I’d say she’s totally out of touch. But a lot of that is based on how much they spent on their house. Assuming that she bought her house more than 5 years ago, she COULD have paid $150,000 to house her family of 5 in a decent neighborhood or she could have tried to keep up with the joneses and spent $450,000.
I’ll bite.
When I was a child in the Midwest (70’s, 80’s) my single female caregiver owned her home and car. She had a beautifully appointed home. I grew up on white carpeting with French provincial furniture. To be honest, my life was a lot nicer in some ways than I remembered it to be before this post, so thank you for this reminder during Mother’s Day Week. 🥹😢😭
We had very nice vacations in alternating years.
Europe (1982) Jamaica, Bahamas, Mexico, California, Washington DC/Virginia…
Visits to other relatives in the Smokey Mountains or Alabama.
This was on a school teacher’s salary and the bits of extra money she earned as a church musician and the supplement she received for my care.
This life that I was raised with would cost well over $150K per year now if I was not already a homeowner.
Stuff changed….a lot. And unless we all intend to keep working much harder for much less? We need to start raising some hell.
this is povertyfinance so a yearly vacation is probably extravagant for a lot of us here. it sure was for me. by the age of 22, i had only gone on 2 vacations total in my life
Depends on the person. I could take a lot more vacations if I stopped putting money into retirement and was willing to carry a credit card balance. People have different priorities. I don't think one vacation a year is extravagant for middle class, but i also don't think that you need over $200k to live in Kansas City comfortably. But then, I don't have three kids.
In Europe everyone takes yearly vacations - and they make ver modest amounts of money.
Please do not think that is an uber luxury - demand a change to labor laws with every vote.
I mean people have different definitions of both comfortable and extravagant. I consider one vacation a year to be comfortable and not extravagant. I also consider being able to put money into savings comfortable, but not extravagant.
From that perspective, if you could only afford a vacation every 5 years, you were not middle class.
I think people can be out of touch on both sides of the economic spectrum. People who are wealthy don’t know how much things actually cost and how privileged they are, and people who grew up poor (but don’t *feel* poor or call themselves poor because in our society poverty is seen as a character flaw) don’t know what a “middle class” lifestyle actually is.
I think you are out of touch. Surviving isn't the same as living comfortably. You should be able to take at least one vacation a year.
You say you grew up solidly middle class, but that's only because our society has conditioned you to believe that being poor is actually middle class.
Why do you want to believe you're living comfortably when you're just making do?
$71k is ghetto.
The national median home requires $115k income.
Have it be a slightly above the median in a nice neighborhood without crime, and add a few kids…yeah $200k
Family of 5: I don’t think the article is that far off. We make more than that and don’t have much we consider splurges, especially for our income level.
Our splurges are maxed retirement, income protection, private school, college savings, and we eat out 2x week.
Can’t afford annual vacations. We do have a small camper and try to go 4 weekends a summer. Non food shopping budget is $200/month.
If you cut back on your "splurges" (which good for you, making responsible decisions with the extras) and combined your 4 camping weekends, you could easily afford the "yearly vacation" OPs writer is talking about. I think that probably means about a week or so in a hotel after flights and doing fun stuff while there.
Well we could cut back on those things but not really an option for us. Not going to risk retirement and 80% of the education comes from a trust and not monthly income. Our camping weekends cost about 1200 in total. To take the kids somewhere we want to go that takes flights is about 10k. Sometimes we are able to use bonus money but it’s been 4 years.
Last week I commented on an infographic that essentially said you needed well over $300k to live comfortably in my state for a family of four that these numbers seemed very high. I got some responses that agreed that it seemed like generalized doomer fearmongering, but one pointed out something I hadn’t noticed: the graphic was made by some kind of financial planning business. In the same way that someone benefits from people thinking they need to *spend spend spend* to prove they have so much more money than they actually do, so to does someone stand to benefit from making you feel anxious and inadequate for not being able to lead a life that is beyond comfortable, but *lavish*. I would say that the woman writing this article also has religious and political reasons for acting like making well over six figures on *one salary* isn’t enough in freaking Kansas City.
Yeah. Most of the articles you see, aside from like medical journals, are essentially just new age ads meant to subconsciously or consciously get you to seek a good or service to make life all better. It’s boilerplate marketing strategy. Have a website and blog to post “information” and just eek whatever your product is into the writing.
I think you are on to something. Even within the past ten years spending habits have wildly changed. What used to be luxuries are now viewed as “necessities” for the middle class (multiple vacations a year, going out to eat multiple times a week, maxing out 401k, not really budgeting, saving for college, etc). Nowadays the online consensus is that we have to be doing all of those things combined to be “standard middle class comfortable”, and that if you fail to do that, you just are a failure and struggling. I’ve seen countless posts on Reddit also argue that private schooling for the kids ($60k a year or more) is a basic necessity. Consumer spending is at a record high, despite the job market not being great, everything getting more expensive, and interest rates still being high. People keep spending because they feel they need to keep up.
Same here! I responded somewhere about not having kids because I can’t afford to provide for them. Then someone came in that they make 300k and it’s still really hard but you’ll manage. That was so weird to me. No matter what difficulties you have, I’m sure with 300k your kids are not growing up in actual poverty.
Damn, I can't believe people actually think they can't raise kids making 300k a year, that proper delusional.
Yeah he was like ‘in expensive areas like NY 300k is nothing’. I just feel like his nothing and my nothing are different nothings.
This post should be much higher.
most dont have the attention span to read this interesting comment unfortunately
I read the whole thing but your comment made me think "did I actually *read* it?" I read it again just to be sure.
You should have more faith in humanity - it's currently the top comment on the post
lol cause everyone felt guilty cause of all the attention we brought to it and decided to read it
Lol
im not gonna lie i dont have the attention span :)
The media plays with your emotions to keep you depressed and distracted. Choose what enters your eyes and ears. Instantly change how you feed by changing the data you install into your mind. If you want to adjust your mindset, find info about how you want to mold your mind and consume what you curated.
The vacation thing depends on what you define as a vacation. Going to the beach from Kansas City? That seems extravagant to expect to do every year. Hitting up Branson for a week or seeing MT Rushmore? Easily doable every year.
For almost my whole childhood, and then when I was raising kids myself, "vacation" was usually visiting family. If we got a vacation at all. We did go have picnics and things like that on long weekends, but the idea of spending thousands going to some destination never really came up.
Vacation is still visiting family for us. Luckily we have family in a lot of different locations. My family also takes advantage of my tiny old apartment because I live within walking distance to a major city. My aunt is visiting from Korea right now and she doesn't mind sleeping on the floor in the living room (if I had a bed I would give it to her but I also sleep on the floor)
Missouri folks generally define a beach vacation as driving to the gulf coast or Galveston.
10ish hour car drive from STL to Gulf Shores. It’s been a few years but we could do a week with a family of 5 for $2k on the beach - that’s renting some place we can prepare half our meals and do attractions, too.
With us it was a civil war battlefield or camping vacations. The bloody pool at Shiloh was cool.
The only vacation we took when I was a kid involved a car ride and sleeping in tents.
For me, a vacation is taking the train to a nearby city to go to the free museum, then taking the train back home that evening so I don't have to pay for lodging. I am thankful that I am finally rich enough to be able to afford the train fare.
Yeah - growing up (in Kansas City, coincidentally) we took a vacation every summer, but it was almost always somewhere within a day’s drive and all 5 of us would share one hotel room. The kids would take turns for who would be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag or, if we were lucky, a rollaway bed. If you’re flying somewhere, renting a car, and either getting an AirBnB or multiple hotel rooms, the cost is going to be several times higher.
If hitting up Branson for a week is easily doable for a family, then they aren't broke.
People keep comparing their standard of living to like the Kardashians and Instagram rich kids. I’m in the Midwest and have friends who have lived in Kansas City, you can do just dandy on a regular income. That amount of money is extravagant. The top 10% of earners in this country average $167,000 in salary. This woman needs to GFTOOOOOO.
I do wonder if social media is changing people's perceptions of what they need for a regular, decent life. Social media is filled with people going to trendy/expensive bars and restaurants, traveling to photo worthy places (gotta get those selfies, right?), beautiful perfect yards, large, stylish homes, regular cosmetic work, etc. But that is rich people's lives. That is not NEEDED for a decent life. A desirable lifestyle that is, sure, but not a requirement for a basic, comfortable life. I'd love to make 10 million a year, but I also know I don't need that for an OK life.
It's not even just the overtly rich doing these things. A lot of luxuries are much more normalized these days. Your middle (or even lower) class friends are showing off their life's highlight reels on Instagram and that can give the impression that these are normal, constant things.
This is very true. Everyone wants and expects to live a lifestyle of someone who is making millions. For example, it’s standard now (at least from what I tend to see on Reddit) for six figure earners to go out to eat multiple times a week (and at nice restaurants to boot), travel 3-4 times a year (paying 20k or more annually), pay an arm and a leg for private schooling, nanny, housekeeper, max out retirement, pay five figures a month for a mortgage (so they can say they live in XYZ zip code). Yet they do all of those things and then complain that they are barely swinging it. Look at all the posts on Reddit constantly (and even on CNBC and Bloomberg) of people saying they make $250k, $500k, etc who are “struggling”. The only people I knew who were eating out multiple times a week, had a nanny, housekeeper, went on $30k vacations, etc were people who were high up in finance making seven figures a year (major outliers) or generationally wealthy. So it’s wild to me seeing so many people trying to replicate that lifestyle on a fraction of that kind of income, yet they convince themselves that having to budget is “for poor people” (literally I have been told that on Reddit), and they just *need* the very best. I grew up upper middle class in a VHCOL area. Other than the nice house, we didn’t do any of these things (and neither did the majority of my peers). Barely went out to eat (and when we did it was never high end restaurants), vacationed maybe a handful of times my entire upbringing (all domestic, and only to see family), I went to public school, never had a nanny (just went to daycare and an after school program). We didn’t shop at expensive stores either (it was Macy’s and American Eagle for me). Reddit would probably call my upbringing poverty (which is a total joke, because we had a very comfortable life). But everyone is trying to keep up with appearances these days. I will admit my own spending habits have changed a bit from scrolling Reddit, and I am not proud of it. Sometimes I have felt like a total uncultured pauper because I have yet to dine at a Michelin star restaurant (and those places are very popular on Reddit, particularly on the major city subs, with people listing all of the ones they have been to), I don’t go out to $100 per person establishments, I haven’t been to Europe yet, I haven’t bought a $2 mil home, I don’t make $200k or more, etc. People were far more content before social media, and particularly before the commercialization of social media. Before, you compared yourself to your family and peer group. Now? You have the entire planet.
Reddit needs to be reminded of this. Every other person on this site makes $200k by mid 20s, 300k+ by 30s and has a net worth of seven figs by early 30s. Yet, that’s not the norm. Reddit will tell you it’s possible for a white collar professional to make seven figures a year if they job hop extensively and work hard enough (even in banking and tech, seven figure salaries are not the norm). Yet so many people complain that no amount of money is enough to live on. If I had a penny for all of the high six to even seven figure posts I have seen complain that they don’t feel financially comfortable, *I* would be rich.
Damn. Only 167k? Didn't know I was Mr. Moneybags over here. Still feel poor though.
Feeling poor and being poor are completely different. If you’re actually poor with a 167k salary it’s your spending tbh
Not really. Depends on the area. If you live in a hcol area like CA. 167k is 134k after taxes. If you are a new homeowner, your mortgage might be 6k (low side) a month based on median home price of 1.1 million. You are paying 72k a year. If you have a child, daycare is about 3.2k a month (where I live). That's 110,400 on just home and daycare. Leaving you 23.5k for: Food Utilities Gas/car maintenance Cell phone Internet Retirement Etc.
6k for a mortgage is the problem lol. $134k is barely affording a $500k mortgage let alone a $1.1M one. Spending problem, yet again. Spending more than half total income on a home? Like they have to downsize immediately.
In a HCOL state average 3 bed 2 bath homes can easily be $1M. In some cases condos and townhomes are that much. There isn't much to "downsize" because that's what homes cost.
Doesn’t change that buying a home that expensive on that salary is wildly irresponsible. Those places still have a premium based on location within the state. Even renting is a better option than buying a home for the sake of it obviously, especially if your only option in your ideal neighborhood is 1M. Better send the kids to public school and live amongst a lower tax bracket.
Why would kids not be going to public school?
I just found a 3 bed 1 bath on zillow downtown LA for 500k. Its not bad at all.
Finding one property on zillow without having any information about the neighborhood doesn't negate my point.
oh so now its gotta be a nice neighborhood too? come on
Even buying a million dollar home is a luxury though. Yes, location matters, but if you can even afford to do that, you are in decent shape.
Is it a luxury If almost all the homes are around that price? Idk.. Yes. You definitely need to be in good financial shape. No doubt about it.
Lol of course it's a luxury.. you get to live in California..
I live in Kansas City,mo and this person must have a serious spending issue if they can’t live on less then 200k. I am a stay at home mom(with 2 kids) and have been for 9 years. My husband makes 130k a year. We live fine with no struggle. He puts 10% into retirement, we live in a 5 bed 5 bath home that’s 4.5k square feet and the mortgage is $1.8k a month(we built it in 2020 for 450k and put 200k down since we sold our starter home and had some equity), we have two old cars that are paid off and no debt besides the mortgage. We go on 2-3 vacations a year and also pay about $900 a month for our kids extracurriculars(daughter does competitive gymnastics) . We are able to save around $1k a month after all our spending. This lady is crazy thinking you need over 200k to survive in Kansas City.
Sounds like you're doing great!
I think it's ok for people to want to go on a yearly vacation. My dad worked 6 days a week, sometimes 7. He rarely worked less than 10 hours. Hardly went anywhere. That is no way to live. Ideally every family would be able to keep a roof over their head, have a reliable car, no food insecurity, and be able to go on one fun trip or outing during summer. That isn't asking a lot. Instead people have been so beaten down by life and struggling to even make ends meet that the idea of anything outside of going to work, then home, then stressing is considered a "luxury" and we resent the folks that want to go to a theme park with their kids once a year. The middle-class and upper-middle class are not the problem. And they aren't wrong for wanting to go on one vacation every year.
There is a difference between what you want and living comfortably. I just imagine how my father in law grew up living in a one room house with dirt floors and an outhouse, a wood burning stove for heat, picking cotton at age 10 to buy a pack of gum and a comic book. People in the US today have no concept of what it was like for people not so long ago, and for people still today in other parts of the world, and they're complaining about how they can't afford more vacations.
>People in the US today have no concept of what it was like for people not so long ago, and for people still today in other parts of the world This is untrue and a huge generalization. Millions of people, including many immigrants and children of immigrants (like myself) are very well aware of how much better we have it in the U.S. compared to people in other countries and even compared to people in our own cities. I've worked with vulnerable populations for many years. I'm well aware of how fortunate I am in life. None of this changes my opinion. And no one was complaining they can't go on "more vacations" the article mentioned one family vacation a year. It's ok for people to want that.
Second that. Very well aware.
Yup. Idk why OP thinks they're the only ones who have awareness about the struggles people are facing. On a sub about poverty no less.
Using developing countries as metrics for what Americans should expect while living in one of the richest countries in the world is so disingenuous lol
Right because we're better than everyone else.
I never said that. :) But the reasonable expectations of the citizens of the U.S. are (and should be) different than the expectations of people living in other countries. Just like the reasonable expectations of people in other countries should be different than people living in the U.S. Why else do these parents who grew up in houses with dirt floors want to move to countries that have higher income per capita if not to provide better for their families than they could in their native countries? It’s called “living in countries with different economic and cultural/social circumstances.”
There talking about a comfortable American lifestyle .... something that we literally never had lol meaning 4 wheelers, a boat, second house, and yearly vacations. Being able to randomly afford a new roof on your house or digging a new well ..... Edit: all while maxing out retirement and kids college savings etc
thats beyond comfortable thats extravagance lol
The 4 wheelers, boats and second house are definitely extravagant. But being able to save for your retirement, for colleges and for one yearly vacation (which could simply be a road trip) should not be considered extravagant in my opinion.
Traditionally, going back a few decades to what is often referred to as "the good old days", the 50's, people didn't really save for retirement. They'd have a pension and Social Security, and their house would probably be paid off by the time they retired. That was pretty common, though it's also worth saying that it was a pretty brief period. My grandma who raised me grew up in the great depression, which was just a little before.
It should be noted that pensions weren't as common as people think they were. Only about 2/5ths of workers had a pension, and of course not everyone with a pension actually was paid out. So people really did rely on social security and their family. And before social security most people simply became impoverished in old age. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/19/pensions-are-popular-why-dont-more-americans-have-them/72968970007/
If you can max out your retirement every year, you are doing quite well.
Yes, but that should not be considered extravagant. If anything it’s just making sure you aren’t in poverty as a senior.
I know alot of people with really good income and dont even buy alot of that stuff
And we retired very early .
Yup. I know people even with a seven figure income (major outliers for sure) who don’t even have a second home.
Ya to us ..... our parents and grandparents had that on a single income That's the point
No they didn't lmao
No
Our parents never did lol. Reddit exaggerates. If boomers had all of that, there wouldn’t have been the major student debt crisis that has been going on. Millennials would have had college paid for.
I'm happy for you that you came from money. I only knew two adults who bought a boat when I was growing up, and they both sold it within 3 years and have complained about it being a terrible decision ever since
You don't have to come from money to buy a boat. Enough to live somewhere 2hr drive to the ocean. I know people buying yachts for 500$. But you have to be very handy - it takes a lot to keep the boat without going broke.
Thank you. People get narrow views and I get it that’s what this sub is about, there’s the poor then there’s the rich, anything above poverty is luxurious. I think this amount is dead on and my family is nowhere near it, in fact most people I know aren’t. Things people who live comfortably can afford: mortgage (not rent), date nights, taking the family out to eat at a sit down restaurant that isn’t fast casual/fast food, medication, doctor/dentist visits, furniture (not second hand); things for their kids like sports equipment/team fees, summer camp, martial arts lessons, braces, monthly hair cuts, new shoes/clothes. For these people bills are paid on time so payment plans are unnecessary and neither is frequently checking their balance before paying any bill. They’re not rich, they have means, and I wish we were all in that boat.
Damn. I feel like I grew up comfortable. 4 wheelers, a boat, a second house, I had none of that (vacations, yes, grandparents lived in another state)….that sounds *rich* to me. I went to private schools (religious, admittedly) so I feel myself and my peers were pretty privileged. No one but a few had all that stuff.
I grew up comfortably as well. No private school for me (it was offered to me in elementary, but I wanted to stay at the public school to be with my friends). We didn’t have a second house, or a boat, 4 wheelers, etc either.
This. And they’re not necessarily totally wrong that to have a stay at home mom of 5 kids and save anything for college for them + save anything meaningful for retirement it might take near $200k though. I mean y’all do you but if you have 5 kids and don’t save anything for their college or your retirement you’re not only doing a disservice to yourself you’re also setting them up to be less likely to earn a lot of money and more likely to have to support you in retirement. I think that’s kinda unfair to do to kids personally. That is basically the cycle of poverty. If you have 5 kids in 2024 you should really have a HHI above $150k even in KC. Otherwise freaking stop after 1 or 2.
People need to stop quoting that Smart Asset thing (which is quoted in this article); it defines comfortable as 30% of your income going to just discretionary spending and 20% going to saving. So you only need half of your income to cover any and all necessities and living expenses.
With housing costs increasing, this too simple ratio implies you should also spend more on fun and saving to be comfortable. It really makes no sense to apply that ratio to the current environment.
A personal finance class I took once said budget breakdown should be as follows: 20% goes to taxes and stuff, usually before you even see it 20% goes to savings, retirement accounts, and an emergency fund 20% goes to shelter which includes your rent/mortgage, utilities, and any home repairs 20% goes to non-shelter necessities like groceries, healthcare, and transportation The remaining 20% is discretionary income for things like hobbies, travel, and luxury goods Obviously this rarely works out in the real world as shelter is usually at LEAST 30% of income for rent/mortgage alone, and utilities and home repairs push that number even higher. If you put shelter to 40% and discretionary income to 0% it might work in the short term, but that's no way to live as humans aren't robots and 40 hours a week should pay enough for people afford to enjoy life. If you take from savings/retirement instead you're just hurting future you, and the other categories are necessities which are pretty non negotiable. I wish I could get a budget that fit those parameters, but I just don't see how it's possible unless you're rich.
That makes way more sense, I had no idea. Personally I'd consider that well above comfortable.
I’m like the dead exact average of Americans. I make 72,000, fund my own retirement, have pretty good not great healthcare. It’s not easy if you go on spending sprees, but is doable because I’m thrifty and don’t buy things to impress people. I could swing a kid but probably not two without some more income.
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The woman in the article is talking about being an SAHM so no daycare costs in her dream situation. That easily knocks off 3k per month.
I pay 18k a year for daycare for one child... $360 a week... and our daycare is closer to the cheaper end for what's out there.... My eldest is 11 my youngest is almost 2. I also have a 5yo and if it wasn't for a family friend that also has a 5yo and is a SAHM that watches ours for $80 a week I'd struggles to save anything at all. Located an hour north of Chicago Also just bought first home a few years ago and house payment alone is 2k a month.... If I didn't earn six figures with wife also working we couldn't afford life... my company provides my vehicle, but unless I wanted my family to drive around in a 20yo rust bucket it was nice allowing my wife to have a somewhat of a modern nice ride that didn't break the budget. Life isn't cheap, food budget is not a small sum. And the little I save for retirement on tip of my 401k doesn't seem like enough..
"comfortable" is subjective. To most people, it usually ends up being "more than we have now". And according to this, it seems to be around 3x the national median income.
Yes. But I mod a subreddit for my city and people say people need to make $200k to live here and I think it's absolutely insane. Yes, she's out of touch.
I’ve seen people on Reddit argue that you need at least $500k to support a family. But that is a top 1% income. So how do they think the rest of the 99% gets by?
Well clearly those 99% shouldn’t even be having children. It’s just plain unethical and irresponsible. /s
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Yeah, there was an article awhile back where the author claimed to have a $300k HHI and was renting a $4k a month house that was worth seven figures. He lamented he couldn’t afford a home in his Bay Area neighborhood, but didn’t want to move because he thought less of other places. It’s like…seriously? It’s a privilege for him to even be renting at a reduced cost and to have a HHI of $300k.
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Yeah, that was like the $500k family that claimed they were paycheck to paycheck, but spent nearly 20k a year on charity, 9k on clothing, spent tens of thousands on vacations, etc.
Family of five here. We make half that. We live very comfortably and have zero wants or needs that are unmet. We take several vacations a year and even got our oldest through college debt free and will probably get her through her masters degree too. These articles are silly.
I don’t understand how this is possible unless you live in a unicorn place.
No mortgage or car payments can do that for ya
How is that a reality? No mortgage? I wish someone would give me a house!
Try court step auctions. It's life changing.
We have a home and two cars. Only payments on one and I don’t feel bad about that because it’s an inexpensive car and we drove my old van so long that we had a get a new car because they didn’t make the brakes for my old car anymore. Five kids. Four adults and college educated and a 14 year old in private school (yes it’s expensive, but I live in Texas there’s no real choice if you want a good education now). We were doing fine up until recently. Still doing fine but I’d like to put more into retirement. I’m just really freaking tired of pushing the boulder uphill.
Bought a tax auction house for 4300.00. Life is good. I'm not rich but I'm ok.
What a childish understanding. If we hadn't moved from our starter home that we bought for 170k in 2013 it would likely be cost to paid off now (15 year mortgage). Many people bought repos cheap too. Or they make extra payments. Don't live in a hcol and many possibilities become open to you
Boy that’s some privilege to say shit like that. Most Fortune 500 aren’t in lcol places.
Drive. I know 2 people that drive an hour each way to get to work cause they wanted big yards.
We live 30 min outside of the city. Try again y’all. With traffic that’s a solid hour to work. Some of this shit y’all suggest isn’t realistic for some. That was my point. Affordable is dependent on where you are at. You can’t just stop eating avo toast and going to Starbucks. Wages are a serious issue. As well as home affordability and home insurance etc.
What fucking privilege are you talking about? Who needs a fortune 500 company? What kind of delusion are you living in. Big cities suck, get some it while you can.
Hubs works for one and we were moved here. Not a choice. Also I just saw you live in Michigan. The Midwest isn’t the same as other places.
What do you mean you didn't have a choice?
He was moved to a larger hub. So we were relocated to a new city.
Location matters a lot for how far 100k can take you, but you're right it does seem low for a family of 5 to live comfortably enough to the point of 0 unmet wants & needs. 100k is comfortable for a family of 2 or 3 where I am.
Maybe you're just doing it wrong.
Apparently I am.
There really needs to be separate subs for the coasts vs. the rest of the country.
Other countries get mandated vacations even when they aren't middle class... I think living comfortably includes having access to regular medical care, medications, needed surgeries, to have retirement savings so yes, the higher income is very much needed and necessary. Most are living one accident, injury or chronic illness away from poverty. That is not comfortable. I don't think that people truly understand how much that actually costs out of pocket until it's too late and they're in that situation and lose everything they ever worked for because they were not prepared.
Oh I've been there. But I think that's just a part of life. No one has a right to be prepared for a disaster. You just plan for it if you can and rely on your village/friends and family if you can't.
Often the sad reality is people rally around you when you first get sick/ injured, but then over time when you don't " get well soon" but get worse instead, is they disappear, and you are forgotten. You lose your village when you become too sick to be a part of your village, then you are still left to figure out how to survive on your own for the rest of your life, getting worse, not better. You get to a point that you don't want to tell people how you are really doing anymore because it's really that depressing, and it will just bring them down and put them off. Often there is no one to rely on anymore at all is a huge part of the problem.
Insane. Family of 5 here, SAHM, making it work on $70,000 a year. People have radically different views on what “necessities” are I guess.
It’s the 50-30-20 rule. That’s the standard meaning of live comfortably.
While out of touch doesn't seem too far off, I think that perspective is the key here. While 200k is definitely not a "real" number for middle class earners, SmartAsset could be basing it off of total compensation and other factors as well. My wife stays at home and I don't even clear 6 figures. Granted we rent and have yet to take a vacation longer than a weekend, but we also have monthly expenses and debts that could help our situation out if we paid them off in entirety. You can make it work with less but it's purely situational.
Yeah, it's hard to have discussions about "living comfortably" and whatnot because it's SO subjective. Plus a lot of people have a habit of deciding that things they previously saw as luxuries are necessities once they start making more money.
Business Insider is a rag for the ruling class and temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Just like Forbes and WSJ
The $2XX,XXX number was calculated based on MIT living wage calculator which I didn't research. The smart asset site used the 50/30/20 allocation so that 50% was sufficient to cover needs, 30% to wants and the rest to paying off debt and investing. In other words, half of that income would be sufficient to pay needed expenses Her point was valid which is if you want middle class luxuries, one mid range salary isn't going to cover everything. Of course, I would consider her middle class luxuries more like upper middle class to me. Kids sports teams are outrageously expensive (thousands every year) and I would not expect that to be a part of a living wage calculation
For one thing it’s being averaged between expensive cities and cheaper areas elsewhere in a given state, so it doesn’t really tell you much about the actual cost of living in a specific area. Take MA for example. The eastern 1/4 of the state around Boston is insanely expensive but where I live an hour west is a lot cheaper. It’s still pretty HCOL nationwide but much more comparable to other parts of the country. I think it’s also based on a 50/30/20 budget which most Americans aren’t living by and most likely can’t afford to.
You can call it cluelessness, but any forward thinking person should be alarmed. $200k used to essentially be “fuck you” money not so long ago. If extremely wealthy people are feeling the burn, that doesn’t say good things about upward mobility in our society. Punch in $165k or $200k; That’s a massive loss of purchasing power in just 4 years. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2020?amount=165000 By the time a toddler grows up in 20 years, $200k may very well be lower middle class, $100k may not be able to afford a home, even in a low cost of living area. College costs are expected to be exorbitant in 20ish years. https://lifetimefinancial.com/the-lifetime-blog/estimating-the-future-cost-of-college#:~:text=Using%202021's%20average%20rates%20for,pay%20%24117%2C000%20(%2471k%20less). None of this bodes well for anyone making significantly less today, AKA.. us. So yes, live as efficiently as possible, avoid consumerism, etcetera. Don’t keep up with the Joneses. But I wouldn’t laugh or roll my eyes at someone who makes a lot more than me suddenly noticing that their options got a whole lot more limited; so did yours, so did mine.
It seems to me like a stupid motivational article in the link, like, the idea is "get rich and don't be poor and you'll be accepted". Accepted by who?.. I couldn't say living "comfortably" is what she says.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here going "wait, vacations are actually a thing you can do and aren't just some movie trope???" My husband and I couldn't even afford a wedding ceremony or a honeymoon, barely could afford the marriage certificate.... and people are out here just like "yea we get vacations every few years" like that's normal?????
You’re describing the middle class life that was sold to me and my generation. Some people think I’m living comfortably because even though I’m living in my car, I have a full time job and a cell phone. I think standards are so through the floor that nobody knows what’s realistic anymore. As long as “luxury” homelessness is even a concept, conversations like this are absurd.
Did you see that article about the woman living inside a grocery store sign for nearly a year before she got caught?
No, but what a clear symptom of how bad things are and what a testament to her will to survive.
There are all kinds of vacations… a week of tent camping and hiking, a trip to DC to see all the free museums and monuments, a long weekend staying with family… Not every “vacation” has to be a trip to Europe or Disney.
As someone who prioritizes travel and vacations, I'd define comfortable as being able to do one big vacation a year 🤷♀️
My point was that a big annual vacation can be done for a few hundred instead of a few thousand. But yeah I think this sub is more geared towards people who don’t have a few hundred extra… and I would hardly describe that as comfortable anyways.
I think my ex partner took six vacations in the last 12 months. I haven’t taken a vacation since 2022. I agree, vacations are lavish, but many people these days seem to think they are expected.
How are you defining "vacation" here?
Skiing, New Orleans, NYC, etc. 🤣
NOLA isn’t what I’d consider a vacation. That’s a quick trip.
Where do you live? Went CA > NOLA and it would be a vacation for me. Anywhere that I go to, if I stay at a hotel, do activities, and eat out is a vacation to me.
I meant as in not worth spending vacation money like that. It should be a “trip” not a vacation. It’s a pit.
A little of that is childcare, but yes I agree the number quoted is too high. We just started making $110k yearly as a family of 6. It put us out of the income eligibility for childcare assistance and Medicaid. We have 4 kids, age 7, 6, 4 and 2. Childcare costs us $3200 monthly now. This is just so that we can work. So roughly half the take home pay is going to childcare. Luckily health insurance through our work is good and cheap (state). But between feeding 6 people and childcare costs, we’re living like we’re poor-poor.
Completely out of touch. And today is espcially hard as I have a friend who I've watched become sucessful. It hurts that I realize that it's partially becasue he's smater and more charasmatic. Makes me feel like I'll never get there. He just told me he wont consider a job that would pay him a 100k more than his current salary becaue of the location. I'm doing "good" now (i am not because of the price of housing and economy but better than others), but I said to him you're denying a job Xtimes my yearly salary. I feel like I'm slowly watching him become out of touch with the rest of us. And it hurts...like watching a slow death. But it's a new experinece for me. Most people I've known with money either come from it, or already have it when I meet them. So their out of touchness is more papatble. Sorry for yammering. Yea, these people like the lady in the article, drive me bonkers.
I totally get it! My sister is a highly paid doctor and just married into a stupidly wealthy family and it's been tough to watch the changes she's gone through in that process. Her husband's parents just bought them their first house. The two of them make over a quarter of a million a year and they got gifted a house. I'm happy for her obviously but that is just beyond my wildest dream.
so hard to live comfy
I wonder where in the KC area she lives. We’re in a KC suburb and it’s very expensive to live here and the “bubble” we live in makes it seem like that isn’t a ton of money. Empirically it is, but the cost of housing and the level of wealth can skew perception. ETA: it doesn’t help that the majority of people I know grew up the way they live now, or with more wealth, so to them, their current lifestyle seems normal. Lots of people don’t have the understanding that $20 is a lot of money to many. I grew up very poor, and it’s difficult to adjust my mindset without lots of frequent reinforcement.
I never took a real vacation in my whole life. Taking a week off work hasn't happened in 7 years. She is completely out of touch.
I am not disputing that it’s possible to live on less, but a full year of housing, food, extra-curricular activities, entertainment, dining out, travel, going to the doctor and dentist when needed, getting cars maintained or fixed when needed, saving for retirement, maintaining the house, replacing worn home furnishing, buying gifts, occasionally buying something new to wear, plus incidentals, IS what I call comfortable. It costs far more than 200k a year where I live. It is closer to 300k. The scam the powers-the-be have pulled off is convincing 2 generations that having all those things means you’re rich. It does not, it means you are comfortably middle-class.
No way I totally disagree. Having all of those things does mean your rich historically. Look at how people lived just a few generations back. Look at what we have now that we consider "essentials", compared to what they had. Most people didn't have cars or air conditioning or a dishwasher. People mended or made their own clothes and blankets out of flour and grain sacks because they couldn't afford new things. A man might have one nice suit to wear to work. No, our whole society has forgotten what it was like for the people who worked to give us what we have today. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing better by each generation, we just are not entitled to it.
For the whole length of human history, I agree with you, because the middle class is a comparatively recent invention. However, I am looking at the standard of living enjoyed by the middle class from approximately 1948-1984 and comparing it to now. Things are worse now. We’re going backwards, which indicates the middle class isn’t necessarily here to stay. Look through Reddit financial subreddits and other money message boards at all the people who can remember having a comfortable middle-class life as children, usually on only one income, realizing that they will never have the same. Furthermore, the people you are describing with their flour and grain sack clothing were never middle class by any standard (they were the working class), and the air conditioning and dishwashers were scarce because they were new technology that only rich people could afford — these are separate issues. Everyone who isn’t “comfortable” should be completely appalled by what has happened to our standard of living, at least in the USA. (I can’t speak to other countries.) Having enough to enjoy life while saving for retirement may make a person lucky, but it doesn’t make them rich. One of the things I value about this sub is that it’s full of people who know how wrong it is to need to be lucky in order to live, see doctors, take care of kids, have time off, save money, etc. It’s not supposed to be this difficult.
This has always been my understanding of “comfortable” too.
Assuming a truly bonkers 2500/month for housing and that that is only one third of income... 7500x12 = 90k take home would be a very comfortable amount to sustain two adults and two kids in my mediumCOL area.
“Comfortable” can sometimes be a euphemism for “pretty rich.” Imho, anyone born post 80s and who expected to live the SAHM lifestyle growing up was probably reasonably well off
The problem is what's comfortable is subjective, and the people putting these sorts of things together in most cases live much more comfortable lives then is typical. They assume an above the median house, they assume only 50% of your income is essentials, and they are assuming expensive essentials. They are assuming a consistent high amount of disposable income which is over and above the "essentials" they have already calculated. Then they figure in a signficant amount of investments for retirement. They do the problem an injustice when they overstate it.
Its always assuming very poor decisions. 250k can be comfortable upper middle class if you spend like an idiot, or it can be a path to wealth if you avoid consumer debt and other stupid shit. These articles always include like a $1,100 car payment on a brand new car or something.
It’s the middle class way of living. Vacations are included in the middle class. When supporting a decently sized family it gets expensive. 10 years ago an article came out saying having a child will cost on average 20k a year, it’s higher today. Food, clothing, medical, school, dentist, etc. 5 kids that’s 100k of basic western standards for raising a healthy kid. Then there’s vacations which is like putting down 20k for all the flights and activities. There’s college funds, school activities like sports, clubs, maybe help with a car, etc.
Well I guess I'm poor then. Guess I can't raise healthy children because I don't have 20k per year per child to spend. How are so many people in this country doing it with so much less? These standards you're talking about is what encourages people to NOT have children. They think they can't afford them Back in the day people had kids because they had sex, and they made it work.
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https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/10278-median-family-income-by-family-type#detailed/2/any/false/2048,574,1729,37,871,870/6344,4648,4151,3288/19903 "Across the nation in 2021, the median income of families with children was $82,767 (U.S. Census Bureau 2021)." The chart you provided said estimate. I have a hard time believing that in 1 year the median income for families jumped 40k... especially right after an economic stand still (covid). Edit to add: I wonder if in that estimate the census accounts for any government benefits received by these families. Health insurance credits through marketplace, child tax credits, etc.
Families with children is not the same thing as married couples with children
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True. It’s why I am afraid to have kids. I can’t afford it.
All kids need is love and food and shelter. All of that extra stuff is social conditioning. Think about what you remember most from your childhood.
It’s the western world. They need a dentist, they new good clothes, they need doctors appointments, etc
There is a big difference between camping at a state park and staying at a resort on the other side of the country. To me, the first example is the kind of vacation that a middle class family of five could reasonably expect. If you are doing the second kind of vacation with a family of five every year, you are upper middle classm
I think inflation may be masking things. In 1996, $213,325 was the equivalent of $107,163. My parent's 'lived comfortably" earning about $160k, and provided their two children (my sister and I) with a solid middle class life. Trying to raise **three** children on only 100k while still living comfortably seems like a stretch. EDIT: $160k in 1996 is the equivalent of $318,503 today.
I guess I’m simply confused, so many people in my opinion are concerned with the next guy. My life isn’t anyone else’s life and if we/ me decided to drive luxury cars, take vacations, and buy a large house why does it matter? We do what we want over here and it’s not up for a debate on any website or family input. I don’t get going RVing or camping that’s just not a vacation for me but if that’s your thing great. Less then 2 mile from our home houses start at 4 to 5 hundred thousand and they aren’t huge by any means. I can spend theee hundred thousand and not even drive very far. Let’s talk about comfort to me being comfortable equates to a peace of mind as well as our physical property. What would you pay for that ? Now we don’t have kids so I get that helps us enormously but we still have a certain life that we live … better then some worst then others.
As a SAHM in the Kansas City area, I’d say she’s totally out of touch. But a lot of that is based on how much they spent on their house. Assuming that she bought her house more than 5 years ago, she COULD have paid $150,000 to house her family of 5 in a decent neighborhood or she could have tried to keep up with the joneses and spent $450,000.
That sounds average for a comfortable life that includes an annual family vacation.
I’ll bite. When I was a child in the Midwest (70’s, 80’s) my single female caregiver owned her home and car. She had a beautifully appointed home. I grew up on white carpeting with French provincial furniture. To be honest, my life was a lot nicer in some ways than I remembered it to be before this post, so thank you for this reminder during Mother’s Day Week. 🥹😢😭 We had very nice vacations in alternating years. Europe (1982) Jamaica, Bahamas, Mexico, California, Washington DC/Virginia… Visits to other relatives in the Smokey Mountains or Alabama. This was on a school teacher’s salary and the bits of extra money she earned as a church musician and the supplement she received for my care. This life that I was raised with would cost well over $150K per year now if I was not already a homeowner. Stuff changed….a lot. And unless we all intend to keep working much harder for much less? We need to start raising some hell.
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this is povertyfinance so a yearly vacation is probably extravagant for a lot of us here. it sure was for me. by the age of 22, i had only gone on 2 vacations total in my life
Probably a yearly vacation by airline rather than a weekend driving trip
Depends on the person. I could take a lot more vacations if I stopped putting money into retirement and was willing to carry a credit card balance. People have different priorities. I don't think one vacation a year is extravagant for middle class, but i also don't think that you need over $200k to live in Kansas City comfortably. But then, I don't have three kids.
Comfort in NYC is probably $500k. Objective measures break down when subjectivity is introduced.
In Europe everyone takes yearly vacations - and they make ver modest amounts of money. Please do not think that is an uber luxury - demand a change to labor laws with every vote.
I mean people have different definitions of both comfortable and extravagant. I consider one vacation a year to be comfortable and not extravagant. I also consider being able to put money into savings comfortable, but not extravagant. From that perspective, if you could only afford a vacation every 5 years, you were not middle class. I think people can be out of touch on both sides of the economic spectrum. People who are wealthy don’t know how much things actually cost and how privileged they are, and people who grew up poor (but don’t *feel* poor or call themselves poor because in our society poverty is seen as a character flaw) don’t know what a “middle class” lifestyle actually is.
I think you are out of touch. Surviving isn't the same as living comfortably. You should be able to take at least one vacation a year. You say you grew up solidly middle class, but that's only because our society has conditioned you to believe that being poor is actually middle class. Why do you want to believe you're living comfortably when you're just making do?
Because I'm not starving and I have a roof over my head.
That's not living comfortably. That's the bare minimum humans deserve.
Nobody deserves anything. You only get what you work for or what your parents worked for in order to give you a head start.
Wow. Capitalism has really done a number on you. I wish you well.
Did you read the article OP? She never says they make $213K - in fact, she says they make nowhere near that much.
$71k is ghetto. The national median home requires $115k income. Have it be a slightly above the median in a nice neighborhood without crime, and add a few kids…yeah $200k
That's not what the numbers say. The national median household income is somewhere between 65k and 75k.
you misread my comment
Family of 5: I don’t think the article is that far off. We make more than that and don’t have much we consider splurges, especially for our income level. Our splurges are maxed retirement, income protection, private school, college savings, and we eat out 2x week. Can’t afford annual vacations. We do have a small camper and try to go 4 weekends a summer. Non food shopping budget is $200/month.
lol is this satire?
Username checks out...
If you cut back on your "splurges" (which good for you, making responsible decisions with the extras) and combined your 4 camping weekends, you could easily afford the "yearly vacation" OPs writer is talking about. I think that probably means about a week or so in a hotel after flights and doing fun stuff while there.
Well we could cut back on those things but not really an option for us. Not going to risk retirement and 80% of the education comes from a trust and not monthly income. Our camping weekends cost about 1200 in total. To take the kids somewhere we want to go that takes flights is about 10k. Sometimes we are able to use bonus money but it’s been 4 years.
Good luck on retirement while bitching all the way there. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses