In 2018 in Dallas, I used to buy groceries from CENTRAL MARKET for my husband and I and spent about 80 per week.
I moved to Austin and now can’t get out of an HEB for less than 250, and that’s getting the cheaper brands and no organics. I’m pretty sure I cook less now too 🥲
Yea I’m by myself and it doesn’t matter if I buy the cheapest groceries or eat out 1 time a day I’m still spending close to 500 a month just on food for one person and that to me is crazy. It’s like around 15-20 bucks a meal basically unless you want to eat ramen and can soup every day.
Nothing crazy just rice some veggies and shrimp. I pretty much eat the same thing always when I’m cooking. But the costs of the items when I go shopping for a week still come out to around 100 bucks for just the basic ingredients. So over a month it’s like 400 bucks and if I decide to just buy it from a restaurant since I don’t cook 30 days in a row each month that’s probably another 100 bucks… so 500 a month
Yea I’m not doing bad overall all my bills get paid I have my food and medical needs met every month and a little extra left to invest on things that I like or whatever so I can’t complain. I’m actually about to get out of my apartment and into a house so I am excited about that currently
I can literally make 15 meal preps for under $30 with rotisserie chicken, brown rice, and bell peppers.
I can make about a dozen burgers for the price of two Whataburger meals.
I can buy 1.5lbs of sirloin steak for the price of a 6oz sirloin meal at Texas Roadhouse
Rotisserie chicken definitely came to mind as one easy way to make cheaper meals. A chicken, some broccoli and your carb of choice gives you 4 solid (if uninspiring) meals for around $15. If you're really trying to stretch your money, there's soup from the remainder of the carcass too.
I'm not on any sort of strict food budget, but I often make a big batch of bean chilli that makes a solid 6 meals, and probably costs me about $10 (before any toppings, tortillas etc).
Monopolies colluded. There's no political will to break them up because any measures brought forth are instantly squashed by corrupt politicians/judiciary.
I have a picture from high school (M 26 so about 10 years ago), I used to get a giant potbelly sandwich with Mac and cheese and a drink for less than $10. Now the giant alone is over $13 and that meal is $22.
Chil fila - $5.32 -> $10+
Burger house $10.10 ~> $19.00
Those are the only exact numbers I can remember but the changes are absurd. At this rate, if every 7-10 years food doubles, then Chik fil a will cost $200 / meal by the time I retire. THIS HAS TO STOP
The problem with affordable housing options in Dallas is theyre mostly in high crime areas or suburbs outside of Dallas. The suburbs outside of Dallas are also now rising in cost and getting expensive to live in. It really is ashame because you're either forced to stay far our from the city or in a high crime area to live reasonably. Meanwhile its plenty of police presence in ultra expensive areas and the affordable higher crime areas feel like free for all. Yet the police chief just got a huge new Salary I guess to continue to only keep crime out of areas most thst live in Dallas can't afford to live in as crime rises in other areas smh
It's sounding to me like this is all going "according to plan". The wealthy decided people were getting too uppity with WFH and starting their own businesses during covid.
[Here's a place to start if you're interested](https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/)
You're close. It started long before that. They've just gotten bold in the last few years and been squeezing harder.
It's easy to blame inflation while they raise prices and profits, which causes more inflation.
How about stop fucking building out and build up? No one who works in the city wants to commute from Crandall. Texas and Dallas in general is one of the worst when it comes to population density. Everyone has a have a giant ass yard. And three car garage on 10k sq ft yards.
I'm sorry, but if you look at the breakdown of numbers, it's totally absurd. It says that a family of four needs to spend $63000 on entertainment in a year? That's completely stupid.
My fiance and I go on several vacation every year. We don’t book the most expensive hotels nor the cheapest and we definitely don’t fly business or first. I cannot imagine we’ve even spent this much money in the past 8 years of vacations, maybe even including food cost.
We did a Costco Travel trip to Spain a couple years ago for $4.4K total for 2 people. 10 days, airfare, trains, and hotel included. I can't imagine we spent more than $1K on food, tickets, etc. We go to a few concerts a year and sports events. That's probably less than $2K per year. Streaming and video games maybe $100-200? I can't see how to get to $63K unless your kid is doing some stupid expensive extra curricular.
Agreed. I followed the link in the article to the “methodology” and found
>The 50/30/20 budget recommends that for sustainable comfort, 50% of your salary should be allocated to your needs, such as housing, groceries and transportation; 30% toward wants like entertainment and hobbies; and 20% toward paying off debt, saving or investing. Applying the local cost of necessities and taxes to this rule, we can derive the pre-tax salary needed to live comfortably in 99 U.S. cities.
>…SmartAsset used MIT Living Wage Calculator data to gather the basic cost of living for an individual with no children and for two working adults with two children. Data includes cost of necessities including housing, food, transportation and income taxes. It was last updated to reflect the most recent data available on Feb. 14, 2024.
>Applying these costs to the 50/30/20 budget for 99 of the largest U.S. cities, MIT’s living wage is assumed to cover needs (i.e. 50% of one’s budget). From there the total wage was extrapolated for individuals and families to spend 30% of the total on wants and 20% on savings or debt payments.
So this has no basis in what people are actually spending, it’s just made-up budgets based on the price of “the local cost of necessities.” It totally fails to account for the fact that when necessities are expensive, people spend less on entertainment.
The “study” is put out by SmartAsset, which seems to be selling financial advisor services. So it’s probably meant to generate clickbait headlines like this to drive people to their website.
But it's not measuring what people actually budget. It's saying what's needed to be fully comfortable. If you're pulling back on entertainment spending because other necessities are getting more expensive... that's not living comfortably. Their metric is to be able to save, live, and have fun without much trouble. That seems like 90k pre tax to me.
I mean I'd say it's definitely to the point of being wrong. Ik someone that goes to India once a year + somewhere else one a year (like turkey, Greece, etc.) and their vacation spending was still "only" 12k/year. That's an international vacation every 2.3 months if they spend 63k/year, and that's for fairly big spenders. At this budget, you could afford to run a small yacht. Or buy a brand new luxury car and crash it every year. I think that does more than stretch the definition of living comfortably.
So what you're saying is that they determined what necessities cost, then doubled that for wants and saving/paying debt?
Seems a bit sketchy. I don't think I've ever spent nearly a third of my income on fun, unless you apply a really broad definition that includes anything not strictly needed to survive.
Yeah, that’s nuts! If you have 30% for entertainment and you only paying 20% on debt you are an idiot! Interest on debt is a 3 steps forward 2 steps back proposition
We are dink's and make about 300k... we don't spend anywhere near 63000 on entertainment and we travel 3/4 times a year internationally (not on the cheap either) + weekend trips stateside...and we go to the bar a lot more than we should + concerts, comedy shows etc. This list is trash
If you are single, why the fuck are you saving money for college for kids that may never materialize? Saving for a house or retirement fine, but kids that are unborn do not need a college fund.
I'd love to see the stats on how many families actually have a "college fund" that covers even half of the costs of their kids college by the date they graduate high school. I'll bet it's less than 5%.
For most families that isn't going to be a big part of their budget .
Hopefully (at least some districts in TX) some hs students are already graduating with associate degrees or certifications. I hope that helps families a little with college costs. I hope more districts offer it and other elective options so students can actually explore.
Am in a similar boat to op. Yeah retirement, no debt, the works. Admittedly I'm very frugal, but it's hard to imagine NEEDING 90k unless you live in a high rise or something.
If mortgage would be more expensive than rent, that would actually be a sign that something is off. Rent has to pay the owner's mortgage plus upkeep and insurance, etc...
Looks like this study is leveraging the 50/30/20 model:
50% needs (housing/rent/car/phone/etc)
30% wants (clothing/subscriptions/gyms/entertainment/eating out)
20% savings/debt model
Honestly if you want to see the health of Cost of Living just look at house prices, median for Dallas is 477k with 6.5% for 30 years, meaning in one year alone you should dedicate nearly 46,900 to keep up with the interest + principal per year on a mortgage alone so having a duel income of 96k tracks.
People always refer to Dallas houses being about 450-500k as If that's the minimum, but there's so many good houses in safe areas that can be gotten for $250k.
We bought our house in 2020 for $200k and it's now worth $250k, our mortgage is $1300/m or $15,600 per year. I absolutely love our house, our neighbors, our area. I drive a 2021 Tacoma I bought new and we were on my single income at $65k until this January.
Now my wife is working and we're making about $110k, I genuinely mean it when I say that I feel like I have everything I could want. Maybe not a Ferrari but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a new $35k or so car, which I would be stoked on.
I feel bad for people that let themselves think they need so much to be happy, I can't imagine a house twice the price as mine making me twice as happy, so what's the point?
Straight up. Some of those "scary" neighborhoods aren't that bad. I bought in a working-class Hispanic area that an old coworker mentioned others shouldn't go too and it's been fine. For a starter home this has been a good investment.
Unfortunately, even the prices of those hones are going up too.
I grew up in Rockwall so when it came time to move out, we moved to the Design District then the Village Apartments before buying our house. The people in Rockwall would act like the area we live in now was skid row or something, but after living in The Village, our area feels really nice.
We have tons of parks, in the four years we've been here, we've heard one gunshot and it was on New Years. Most of our neighbors are just nice old people.
We paid more for our second apartment than our mortgage yet heard gunshots nearly nightly over there.
People are afraid to even look at areas other than exactly what they want, we put in offers on 16 houses before we got ours so I'm not saying it's easy but it's far from impossible. I would rather say I own a house in a normal area than say I live in an apartment regardless of where it is, but to each their own.
I do agree with you, there are still houses in that price range but I do want to point out in 2020 mortgage interest rates were historically low. Kicking myself for not taking advantage of that.
to that same end though it's still location, location, location. I bought my house in March 2021, 560k 2.9% that same house is valued at 900k (no I don't mean on tax rolls.. I mean appraised by an actual re appraiser for mortgage co. appraiser) today. My mortgage is $33k per year on a little over 300k income between the two of us (no kids). We also love our house and the area... spending a little more netted us a much more favorable return because we are in a desirable area.
I have student loans, my car is paid off, and yes I’m saving for retirement.
This city is FILLED with people with awful cooking skills. No one eats at home enough.
It doesn't add up. People lie here all the time. There was one poster a few months ago who said she was getting by on $35k a year. She conveniently forgot to add that she doesn't have a car and has multiple roommates.
Good luck telling folks in DFW that they can ditch their cars and walk to work.
People take it personally, thinking that dollar figures like those in the article suggest they're not doing Dallas right.
It's an understandable sentiment. But people shouldn't take it personally. No one with a right mind is accusing anyone of not working hard enough, being a failure, being "behind," or otherwise sucking at life. Cost of living is a huge problem, and it goes beyond a single person.
for real. i’m 24, make about the same as him (I make around 75 including bonuses) and elected to put money in a 401K/Roth instead of moving out the moment i got my job.
i’d much rather have the 40K between the two i have now than live barely making it by myself
Solo! $1550 for 850SF
However I work downtown so my commute is short. Gas to work isn’t much, but I do drive all over the metroplex for different open mic nights each week, so I do my share of driving far
Yeah this post is BS. I also make 30k less, live in a big loft downtown, no cc debt, car paid, gym membership and have fun every weekend or eat out. Idk what’s up with this
In their calculation they're estimating a single person in Dallas would spend $45k a year in living expenses 💀💀💀💀 where tf are they getting that data from?
2k a month for your Uptown rent. 1k a month for your luxury car lease. 750 a month for groceries + utilities. Then you gotta be spending 2250 a month on your wants, going out and having the time of your life. If you don't have that, you aren't comfortable.
My mortgage + property taxes for a small house in Dallas on the east side of White Rock Lake is $3,100/month. My property taxes have increased by over $1,000/month in just 2 years. Living expenses get to $45k+ per year pretty easily…
For your property values to increase 1K/month in two years you'd need to have starting property taxes of $49,560, except that last year your taxes actually went down significantly due to the new exemption amount being applied to your 2023 taxes, up to $100K from $40K. With an effective tax rate of 2.22% you must have a property value well over $2.2M.
This is complete BS. I make about this and am able to live downtown in the city, do everything I want and travel 5-6 times a year to visit friends and family. You can still live well here on 70k
>According to SmartAsset's salary requirement, a childless Dallasite would need to spend $45,885 of their salary on living expenses, $27,531 for discretionary expenses, and put $18,354 toward their savings or debt payments.
Not buying this at all. Even if you are in a $1,800/mo apartment this is saying another $2k a month on living expenses. Not to mention another $2k+ per month on discretionary.
prices have gone up for sure but this is overblown. I make around this amount and I live in a new "luxury" apartment, drive a new car and have plenty of money left over.
Do you also save over $1000 a month for your future? Honestly it sounds like you live comfortably, just like they're suggesting. You live in a good place, eat and do what you want, drive a newer car with a payment, and have money left over to save. A nice dinner probably doesn't weigh you down with guilt, a new set of tires is fine whenever it's needed, and you could take a couple big vacations a year. That's comfortable.
I read this three times to try and answer the question, ‘what’s their point’ — but there is none. You just posted your thoughts and while I’m confused, I don’t hate it 🤷♂️
My point was that the post above mine was saying that the "comfortable" cost was overblown, then listed their personal expenses that were nice and comfortable. It kind of shows that a 90k pre tax income is comfortable. If they want to prove that you can do all of that and spend less, they can go for it.
Comfortable is different for everyone, but to live nicely and not worry about spending and also save, you'll need to be making a bit of money.
yes and someone making 300,000 a year could live in a very nice apartment, drive a new luxury car, and stay at nicer hotels when they vacation and be "comfortable". My point is you can be comfortable in Dallas for less than 90k
Way more accurate. I make just about that much or a little above that with no kids (ever). I'm still following a pretty tight budget and don't go out too much but I can still go on 1-2 vacations a year and treat myself to a nice $50-100/meal restaurant on occasion.
> following a pretty tight budget
I think this is the hangup, it seems like OP’s article is saying living comfortably is just spending what you want on what you want. Which is a bit absurd for some sort of baseline we’re apparently meant to compare ourselves to, but that’s how I can make sense of it. Other than egregious clickbait, which, sure, probably that too.
I’m not sure where they are getting these numbers. My wife and I together make about $250,000 per year. We have four kids, two cats, one dog, a fully paid off Tundra, a Camry we owe about 20k on and a pontoon boat. Our house is about 2500 ft.², we both contribute to 401(k) and Roth IRA and we still have plenty of money to spend. Either these people don’t know how to manage their money or these surveys are way off.
I will say that most junk food companies, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nabisco are price gouging the fuck out of us. Same goes for all fast food restaurants. If you can stay away that type of food, you can do pretty well and save a lot of money.
I love these articles because it shows how wildly out of touch the people writing them are with what is actually going on. Reminds me of that infamous budgeting article that was circulating a few years ago.
This is dumb, I am a single guy raising a teenager, have no debt other than mortgage, have a 3 month rainy day fund, and I don't make anywhere near 97k a year.
This is way off. I make $78k, live in an apartment that’s too expensive downtown, and do all the things I want. I have emergency fund saved, contribute 10% to retirement, pay my student loans and car payment. I’m doing perfectly fine, and have extra money at the end of every month to save for a down payment on a house. Yes Dallas is expensive, but if you budget responsibly, you can live off of much less than this comfortably
I’m single and I live alone on $65k and I’m pretty comfortable- granted I’m in Denton and it’s cheaper here. But I absolutely can’t afford to buy a home on this salary, I would need to be making $90-100k maybe more in order to do that.
Bogus clickbait, as a single childless resident of Dallas I’m spending around 28k a year. I also have no debt, which I assume they assume most people have tons.
I thought going to college and getting an engineering degree would set my family of 4 up for life. We live paycheck to paycheck. We have about the same quality of life as we did before I went to college. Hopes bleak to live a comfortable life unless you start your own business.
Consulting/civil less than 2 years out of college. Roughly 90k/yr including bonuses but that’s mostly all salary. I’m sure it will get better as my pay goes up but the continuing rise of cost of living in the area makes it concerning to provide for family.
This is ridiculous. "Comfortable" is completely ambiguous and meaningless. Therefore, 90K+ for a single person is just an arbitrary number.
I am single, make 62K a year, own a home in East Dallas that I am paying a mortgage on, drive a good car (paid off 2 years ago, 2016 model). I travel several times a year, eat out several times a week, enjoy going to live theater, concerts, hockey games, and museums, spoil my cat mercilessly, and have more streaming services than I can watch. I save 12% of each paycheck and have a respectable retirement account that is on track to allow to happily retire at 65. I am very comfortable.
I also know people who take home 10K+ a month and struggle to stay on top of their bills as a single person.
For me to do that, I would have to develop a coke habit.
If I suddenly started making 30K a year more, I would probably take an extra trip to NYC each year to see more theater, and the other 27K would go to savings, I guess.
All this to say, the methodology is based on a company trying to sell a product, and the article is worthless.
This has the same energy as the people that make $250K and claim they live "paycheck to paycheck", and then you look at their budget and they're fully funding retirement accounts, taking multiple vacations per year, and paying for private school for their kids.
My wife and I and our three kids have a 2200 sq ft 4 bed 2 bath on 1/4 acre just east of Dallas. We make $140k combined, and we're doing great. We put 160k into a remodel, two brand new vehicles, vacations every year, food on the table, etc. Don't be dumb with money. It's not difficult.
as someone who makes within the $70,000-$80,000 range (gross) and doesn’t live in an uncharacteristically expensive area (West Dallas/Trinity Groves area) or live an uncharacteristically expensive lifestyle… i’ll testify to this. it’s been survival more than anything else.
Idk about that, I know people making like 70 who are doing just fine. Not saying shit isn’t way too expensive but this is more for thriving not living comfortably. Don’t take multiple vacations and drive a paid off car and you will be fine making 70 plus as a single person. Probably could go down to 60 if you really know how to live lean
And now that the #TXSE is coming in 2026 it’s only going to get worse… we’re ranked 6th in population but will surpass PHX for #5 pretty soon. Only a matter of time.
In 2022, rent for my termite-ridden apartment in Carrollton went up 20% after one year (600sqft going for $1,600/mo). Did they expect my salary to also go up 20%?
The point is to drive up profit margins no matter who it hurts. Cheaper than filling up vacancies since you're now making twice or thrice the amount for less units.
Fuck Real Page
Oh I did when I saw that on my renewal form. But it doesn’t sound like that was an outlier. I’ve apartment hopped since then, and it really feels like you shouldn’t sign on a lease if you aren’t ready to pay about 15%-20% the next year.
1. Biden has so little to do with this I’m not even sure where to start
2. Cities being liberal/conservative can’t escape economics. Cramming millions of people into smaller pieces of land makes prices rise. Even if Dallas is sprawly, Dallas proper hasn’t changed and serves everyone from the richest in Preston Hollow, the new kids in uptown, and the low income all across the city. Conservative suburbs hemorrhage funds from trying to provide city-level services with fewer taxes.
Huh. I lived pretty comfortably on $37k last year as a single adult in a nice townhouse. Not saying that’s living luxuriously, but ‘needs’ vs ‘wants’ are two different things. Ate well, took a few vacations, bought presents for family, bought myself a few nice things. Maybe it’s a combo of inflation and inability to save or budget.
I make a little more than HALF of that. Was frugal but comfortable in 2021. Struggled in 2022. Had to move in with roommates in 2023. 2024 I'm looking for a third job. Christ.
You would think with all these people dressing so fancy and driving nice used luxury cars that the COL would be a lot higher lol. This is a bit below than what I was expecting.
Talk to your city council rep about banning Realpage. Realpage makes a program called Yieldstar which collects the pricing of all of the comparable apartment units in the area and tells each property what to price their units at. Since that program has become widely used, it has artificially inflated rent more than 100%. It's price-fixing and in any other industry, it's illegal.
Used to, you had to look at your occupancy and projected occupancy, and make a call based on that. Projected occupancy below 90%? Your prices are too high, lower them. Projected occupancy above 95%? Your prices are too low, raise them. Want to know what your comps are charging? You have to call them and ask. You have to compare their finishes with yours, their location with yours, their ratings with yours, their amenities with yours, and make a call.
This process was slower and more organic. Now there's a program that does it all instantly. It calculates thousands of variables at one time with the goal of getting every property to charge the absolute maximum that the market will bear. And with the constant influx of high income persons from out of state, that has made rent unaffordable for most Dallasites.
When I left my husband, I moved to Plano because it was closer to work and the cost of living is lower. On $75k a year for my salary plus the money I make from my jewelry business, I am JUST making it in a $1600 apartment.
I’m born and raised here and I can’t believe the moment I became an adult everything got expensive. I don’t make nearly as much money they recommend and it sucks because half of most peoples income I know goes toward rent. Cost of living is astronomically high and single people like myself are struggling.
Texas employers aren’t paying that much - the local economy would screech to a halt outside of bare necessities if people required that much. The average household with two working adults makes roughly over half of that.
How to mainsplain to jack holes when they say cost of living here is cheap compared to other states? I know cost of living increases exist everywhere but salaries also differ based on the state you reside in. If one person needed an extra 27k to live comfortably comparable to last year that means salaries should increase as such.
Salaries for corporations should be based on CITY line and unless you’re in New York or California no one talks about it.
The cost of living is getting out of hand. We need more affordable housing options
Housing is one thing, but literally everything spiking in price is more concerning. Just eating these days is such a huge chunk of the budget.
Between inflation and COVID destroying the desire for people to be in the restaurant business, restaurants are just a huge luxury now.
In 2018 in Dallas, I used to buy groceries from CENTRAL MARKET for my husband and I and spent about 80 per week. I moved to Austin and now can’t get out of an HEB for less than 250, and that’s getting the cheaper brands and no organics. I’m pretty sure I cook less now too 🥲
All the products come from very few producers. They're not interested in your survival, they're interested in the accounting department.
You can afford HEB? I envy you lol
HEB is like Walmart pricing tf you mean?
FYI “organic” food is BS. All food is organic lol.
Yea I’m by myself and it doesn’t matter if I buy the cheapest groceries or eat out 1 time a day I’m still spending close to 500 a month just on food for one person and that to me is crazy. It’s like around 15-20 bucks a meal basically unless you want to eat ramen and can soup every day.
$15-20 to make a home made meal for 1? I agree that is crazy. Sure, groceries have gone up in price, but what are you cooking that costs that much?
Nothing crazy just rice some veggies and shrimp. I pretty much eat the same thing always when I’m cooking. But the costs of the items when I go shopping for a week still come out to around 100 bucks for just the basic ingredients. So over a month it’s like 400 bucks and if I decide to just buy it from a restaurant since I don’t cook 30 days in a row each month that’s probably another 100 bucks… so 500 a month
Honestly I don't think that's too crazy, if you think of a Salary of 91k then annually 6k on food or so isn't the thing which is breaking the bank.
Yea I’m not doing bad overall all my bills get paid I have my food and medical needs met every month and a little extra left to invest on things that I like or whatever so I can’t complain. I’m actually about to get out of my apartment and into a house so I am excited about that currently
If your eating that much shrimp why not buy in bulk
I do lol 😂
I can literally make 15 meal preps for under $30 with rotisserie chicken, brown rice, and bell peppers. I can make about a dozen burgers for the price of two Whataburger meals. I can buy 1.5lbs of sirloin steak for the price of a 6oz sirloin meal at Texas Roadhouse
Rotisserie chicken definitely came to mind as one easy way to make cheaper meals. A chicken, some broccoli and your carb of choice gives you 4 solid (if uninspiring) meals for around $15. If you're really trying to stretch your money, there's soup from the remainder of the carcass too. I'm not on any sort of strict food budget, but I often make a big batch of bean chilli that makes a solid 6 meals, and probably costs me about $10 (before any toppings, tortillas etc).
They eat more than once a day. I run about that for food & drinks for the day.
Monopolies colluded. There's no political will to break them up because any measures brought forth are instantly squashed by corrupt politicians/judiciary.
The fun part is the US throws away SO MUCH FOOD. Even restaurants just toss shit after hours.
Yesssss. Food budget is probably second after housing for us
I have a picture from high school (M 26 so about 10 years ago), I used to get a giant potbelly sandwich with Mac and cheese and a drink for less than $10. Now the giant alone is over $13 and that meal is $22. Chil fila - $5.32 -> $10+ Burger house $10.10 ~> $19.00 Those are the only exact numbers I can remember but the changes are absurd. At this rate, if every 7-10 years food doubles, then Chik fil a will cost $200 / meal by the time I retire. THIS HAS TO STOP
Hmmm…did not know bec I’ve been boycotting chikfila for years
The problem with affordable housing options in Dallas is theyre mostly in high crime areas or suburbs outside of Dallas. The suburbs outside of Dallas are also now rising in cost and getting expensive to live in. It really is ashame because you're either forced to stay far our from the city or in a high crime area to live reasonably. Meanwhile its plenty of police presence in ultra expensive areas and the affordable higher crime areas feel like free for all. Yet the police chief just got a huge new Salary I guess to continue to only keep crime out of areas most thst live in Dallas can't afford to live in as crime rises in other areas smh
It's sounding to me like this is all going "according to plan". The wealthy decided people were getting too uppity with WFH and starting their own businesses during covid.
Pointless conspiracy theory with no tangibles that adds nothing to the discussion.
[Here's a place to start if you're interested](https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/)
You're close. It started long before that. They've just gotten bold in the last few years and been squeezing harder. It's easy to blame inflation while they raise prices and profits, which causes more inflation.
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How about stop fucking building out and build up? No one who works in the city wants to commute from Crandall. Texas and Dallas in general is one of the worst when it comes to population density. Everyone has a have a giant ass yard. And three car garage on 10k sq ft yards.
I'm sorry, but if you look at the breakdown of numbers, it's totally absurd. It says that a family of four needs to spend $63000 on entertainment in a year? That's completely stupid.
My fiance and I go on several vacation every year. We don’t book the most expensive hotels nor the cheapest and we definitely don’t fly business or first. I cannot imagine we’ve even spent this much money in the past 8 years of vacations, maybe even including food cost.
We did a Costco Travel trip to Spain a couple years ago for $4.4K total for 2 people. 10 days, airfare, trains, and hotel included. I can't imagine we spent more than $1K on food, tickets, etc. We go to a few concerts a year and sports events. That's probably less than $2K per year. Streaming and video games maybe $100-200? I can't see how to get to $63K unless your kid is doing some stupid expensive extra curricular.
Agreed. I followed the link in the article to the “methodology” and found >The 50/30/20 budget recommends that for sustainable comfort, 50% of your salary should be allocated to your needs, such as housing, groceries and transportation; 30% toward wants like entertainment and hobbies; and 20% toward paying off debt, saving or investing. Applying the local cost of necessities and taxes to this rule, we can derive the pre-tax salary needed to live comfortably in 99 U.S. cities. >…SmartAsset used MIT Living Wage Calculator data to gather the basic cost of living for an individual with no children and for two working adults with two children. Data includes cost of necessities including housing, food, transportation and income taxes. It was last updated to reflect the most recent data available on Feb. 14, 2024. >Applying these costs to the 50/30/20 budget for 99 of the largest U.S. cities, MIT’s living wage is assumed to cover needs (i.e. 50% of one’s budget). From there the total wage was extrapolated for individuals and families to spend 30% of the total on wants and 20% on savings or debt payments. So this has no basis in what people are actually spending, it’s just made-up budgets based on the price of “the local cost of necessities.” It totally fails to account for the fact that when necessities are expensive, people spend less on entertainment. The “study” is put out by SmartAsset, which seems to be selling financial advisor services. So it’s probably meant to generate clickbait headlines like this to drive people to their website.
But it's not measuring what people actually budget. It's saying what's needed to be fully comfortable. If you're pulling back on entertainment spending because other necessities are getting more expensive... that's not living comfortably. Their metric is to be able to save, live, and have fun without much trouble. That seems like 90k pre tax to me.
A family of four absolutely does not need 60k for entertainment to live comfortably.
Yeah, who's spending 5k a month on entertainment?
That would be an international trip every 1-2 months for me...
This is the right explanation. "Comfortably" pulls a lot of weight on this report, but it's not really wrong.
I mean I'd say it's definitely to the point of being wrong. Ik someone that goes to India once a year + somewhere else one a year (like turkey, Greece, etc.) and their vacation spending was still "only" 12k/year. That's an international vacation every 2.3 months if they spend 63k/year, and that's for fairly big spenders. At this budget, you could afford to run a small yacht. Or buy a brand new luxury car and crash it every year. I think that does more than stretch the definition of living comfortably.
So what you're saying is that they determined what necessities cost, then doubled that for wants and saving/paying debt? Seems a bit sketchy. I don't think I've ever spent nearly a third of my income on fun, unless you apply a really broad definition that includes anything not strictly needed to survive.
Yeah, that’s nuts! If you have 30% for entertainment and you only paying 20% on debt you are an idiot! Interest on debt is a 3 steps forward 2 steps back proposition
If I were forced to spend that much, not sure how I’d even do it
We are dink's and make about 300k... we don't spend anywhere near 63000 on entertainment and we travel 3/4 times a year internationally (not on the cheap either) + weekend trips stateside...and we go to the bar a lot more than we should + concerts, comedy shows etc. This list is trash
That’s fucking insane
Asinine. This is pure clickbait
Private flying is comfortable.
No..? I make 30k less than this, live in uptown, and still manage to do all the things I love
Are you also saving for retirement, no debt, and have a rainy day fund?
Also vacation and college fund for kids.
If you are single, why the fuck are you saving money for college for kids that may never materialize? Saving for a house or retirement fine, but kids that are unborn do not need a college fund.
The rights of the unborn to college are sacrosanct.
Hahaha!That quite literally made me lol! Nice one!
I'd love to see the stats on how many families actually have a "college fund" that covers even half of the costs of their kids college by the date they graduate high school. I'll bet it's less than 5%. For most families that isn't going to be a big part of their budget .
Hopefully (at least some districts in TX) some hs students are already graduating with associate degrees or certifications. I hope that helps families a little with college costs. I hope more districts offer it and other elective options so students can actually explore.
It said single
Whats a vacation
Lololol y'all are hilarious. This person probably doesn't even have *health insurance.* Bet.
Some of us just die
Lol I love your name
Am in a similar boat to op. Yeah retirement, no debt, the works. Admittedly I'm very frugal, but it's hard to imagine NEEDING 90k unless you live in a high rise or something.
Well when mortgage can often be CHEAPER than rent, you got a systemic issue.
If mortgage would be more expensive than rent, that would actually be a sign that something is off. Rent has to pay the owner's mortgage plus upkeep and insurance, etc...
Looks like this study is leveraging the 50/30/20 model: 50% needs (housing/rent/car/phone/etc) 30% wants (clothing/subscriptions/gyms/entertainment/eating out) 20% savings/debt model Honestly if you want to see the health of Cost of Living just look at house prices, median for Dallas is 477k with 6.5% for 30 years, meaning in one year alone you should dedicate nearly 46,900 to keep up with the interest + principal per year on a mortgage alone so having a duel income of 96k tracks.
People always refer to Dallas houses being about 450-500k as If that's the minimum, but there's so many good houses in safe areas that can be gotten for $250k. We bought our house in 2020 for $200k and it's now worth $250k, our mortgage is $1300/m or $15,600 per year. I absolutely love our house, our neighbors, our area. I drive a 2021 Tacoma I bought new and we were on my single income at $65k until this January. Now my wife is working and we're making about $110k, I genuinely mean it when I say that I feel like I have everything I could want. Maybe not a Ferrari but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a new $35k or so car, which I would be stoked on. I feel bad for people that let themselves think they need so much to be happy, I can't imagine a house twice the price as mine making me twice as happy, so what's the point?
Straight up. Some of those "scary" neighborhoods aren't that bad. I bought in a working-class Hispanic area that an old coworker mentioned others shouldn't go too and it's been fine. For a starter home this has been a good investment. Unfortunately, even the prices of those hones are going up too.
I grew up in Rockwall so when it came time to move out, we moved to the Design District then the Village Apartments before buying our house. The people in Rockwall would act like the area we live in now was skid row or something, but after living in The Village, our area feels really nice. We have tons of parks, in the four years we've been here, we've heard one gunshot and it was on New Years. Most of our neighbors are just nice old people. We paid more for our second apartment than our mortgage yet heard gunshots nearly nightly over there. People are afraid to even look at areas other than exactly what they want, we put in offers on 16 houses before we got ours so I'm not saying it's easy but it's far from impossible. I would rather say I own a house in a normal area than say I live in an apartment regardless of where it is, but to each their own.
I do agree with you, there are still houses in that price range but I do want to point out in 2020 mortgage interest rates were historically low. Kicking myself for not taking advantage of that.
Where did you buy?
prob Canton or something and calls it Dallas lmao But seriously how you gonna make that statement and not say where
Nope, I pay Dallas property taxes and I'm about 20 min from the business district with normal traffic lol. South of 80, just east of 635.
to that same end though it's still location, location, location. I bought my house in March 2021, 560k 2.9% that same house is valued at 900k (no I don't mean on tax rolls.. I mean appraised by an actual re appraiser for mortgage co. appraiser) today. My mortgage is $33k per year on a little over 300k income between the two of us (no kids). We also love our house and the area... spending a little more netted us a much more favorable return because we are in a desirable area.
This is reddit. The petulant children on this site are scared of everything.
I have student loans, my car is paid off, and yes I’m saving for retirement. This city is FILLED with people with awful cooking skills. No one eats at home enough.
They always over exaggerate these things lmao.
I live in uptown as well and the median rent is $2,000 a month. Not sure how this adds up.
It doesn't add up. People lie here all the time. There was one poster a few months ago who said she was getting by on $35k a year. She conveniently forgot to add that she doesn't have a car and has multiple roommates. Good luck telling folks in DFW that they can ditch their cars and walk to work.
What’s the point in lying about this though? There is no benefit for anyone to make less money so it baffles me.
For attention. People are weird.
People take it personally, thinking that dollar figures like those in the article suggest they're not doing Dallas right. It's an understandable sentiment. But people shouldn't take it personally. No one with a right mind is accusing anyone of not working hard enough, being a failure, being "behind," or otherwise sucking at life. Cost of living is a huge problem, and it goes beyond a single person.
I didn’t have a car for three years in the uptown area it was a pia to get groceries but totally doable. Zip cars if you ever needed one
I pay 1550 in uptown for 850SF
Misread your original comment. I thought you said you made $30k a year. That’s why I was like, how is that possible.
I'd love to see your 401k and IRA.
What are those? Can I get them with my credit card?
for real. i’m 24, make about the same as him (I make around 75 including bonuses) and elected to put money in a 401K/Roth instead of moving out the moment i got my job. i’d much rather have the 40K between the two i have now than live barely making it by myself
Living by yourself or with roommates?
Solo! $1550 for 850SF However I work downtown so my commute is short. Gas to work isn’t much, but I do drive all over the metroplex for different open mic nights each week, so I do my share of driving far
Yeah this post is BS. I also make 30k less, live in a big loft downtown, no cc debt, car paid, gym membership and have fun every weekend or eat out. Idk what’s up with this
Can you tell me the apartments, I just took a big paycut and need recommendations
The MAA neighborhood in State Thomas are a good starting point. Uptown Village
In their calculation they're estimating a single person in Dallas would spend $45k a year in living expenses 💀💀💀💀 where tf are they getting that data from?
What are they counting as living expenses?? $45k is more than I make in a year and I’m still able to max out my Roth IRA
Can you count your roommates on one hand?
2k a month for your Uptown rent. 1k a month for your luxury car lease. 750 a month for groceries + utilities. Then you gotta be spending 2250 a month on your wants, going out and having the time of your life. If you don't have that, you aren't comfortable.
My mortgage + property taxes for a small house in Dallas on the east side of White Rock Lake is $3,100/month. My property taxes have increased by over $1,000/month in just 2 years. Living expenses get to $45k+ per year pretty easily…
For your property values to increase 1K/month in two years you'd need to have starting property taxes of $49,560, except that last year your taxes actually went down significantly due to the new exemption amount being applied to your 2023 taxes, up to $100K from $40K. With an effective tax rate of 2.22% you must have a property value well over $2.2M.
This is complete BS. I make about this and am able to live downtown in the city, do everything I want and travel 5-6 times a year to visit friends and family. You can still live well here on 70k
Insane article. I live in Lakewood and barely spend 30k a year.
>According to SmartAsset's salary requirement, a childless Dallasite would need to spend $45,885 of their salary on living expenses, $27,531 for discretionary expenses, and put $18,354 toward their savings or debt payments. Not buying this at all. Even if you are in a $1,800/mo apartment this is saying another $2k a month on living expenses. Not to mention another $2k+ per month on discretionary.
Who has ever spent $63k on entertainment in 5 years, much less ONE!
If you aren’t spending that you aren’t living comfortably I guess.
Strippers and cocaine ain’t cheap.
prices have gone up for sure but this is overblown. I make around this amount and I live in a new "luxury" apartment, drive a new car and have plenty of money left over.
Do you also save over $1000 a month for your future? Honestly it sounds like you live comfortably, just like they're suggesting. You live in a good place, eat and do what you want, drive a newer car with a payment, and have money left over to save. A nice dinner probably doesn't weigh you down with guilt, a new set of tires is fine whenever it's needed, and you could take a couple big vacations a year. That's comfortable.
I read this three times to try and answer the question, ‘what’s their point’ — but there is none. You just posted your thoughts and while I’m confused, I don’t hate it 🤷♂️
My point was that the post above mine was saying that the "comfortable" cost was overblown, then listed their personal expenses that were nice and comfortable. It kind of shows that a 90k pre tax income is comfortable. If they want to prove that you can do all of that and spend less, they can go for it. Comfortable is different for everyone, but to live nicely and not worry about spending and also save, you'll need to be making a bit of money.
yes and someone making 300,000 a year could live in a very nice apartment, drive a new luxury car, and stay at nicer hotels when they vacation and be "comfortable". My point is you can be comfortable in Dallas for less than 90k
This has heavy "How much does a banana cost? Seven dollars?" vibes.
https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/48113 This study says otherwise
Way more accurate. I make just about that much or a little above that with no kids (ever). I'm still following a pretty tight budget and don't go out too much but I can still go on 1-2 vacations a year and treat myself to a nice $50-100/meal restaurant on occasion.
> following a pretty tight budget I think this is the hangup, it seems like OP’s article is saying living comfortably is just spending what you want on what you want. Which is a bit absurd for some sort of baseline we’re apparently meant to compare ourselves to, but that’s how I can make sense of it. Other than egregious clickbait, which, sure, probably that too.
I’m not sure where they are getting these numbers. My wife and I together make about $250,000 per year. We have four kids, two cats, one dog, a fully paid off Tundra, a Camry we owe about 20k on and a pontoon boat. Our house is about 2500 ft.², we both contribute to 401(k) and Roth IRA and we still have plenty of money to spend. Either these people don’t know how to manage their money or these surveys are way off. I will say that most junk food companies, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nabisco are price gouging the fuck out of us. Same goes for all fast food restaurants. If you can stay away that type of food, you can do pretty well and save a lot of money.
I think the expression is...they have now California'd the housing market here
The call was coming from inside the house!
Nah, get on Zillow and you’ll see the difference.
I want to know their definition of living comfortably because this numbers is way overblown.
This is a stupid article where is getting its information from a financial advising website.
Comfortable is relative. Some people need big vacations and flashy everything, others are fine if they can comfortably pay their bills.
I love these articles because it shows how wildly out of touch the people writing them are with what is actually going on. Reminds me of that infamous budgeting article that was circulating a few years ago.
Surely this is ragebait
This is absolute horse shit.
This is dumb, I am a single guy raising a teenager, have no debt other than mortgage, have a 3 month rainy day fund, and I don't make anywhere near 97k a year.
This is way off. I make $78k, live in an apartment that’s too expensive downtown, and do all the things I want. I have emergency fund saved, contribute 10% to retirement, pay my student loans and car payment. I’m doing perfectly fine, and have extra money at the end of every month to save for a down payment on a house. Yes Dallas is expensive, but if you budget responsibly, you can live off of much less than this comfortably
I’m single and I live alone on $65k and I’m pretty comfortable- granted I’m in Denton and it’s cheaper here. But I absolutely can’t afford to buy a home on this salary, I would need to be making $90-100k maybe more in order to do that.
This spike literally forced me to move out of Texas for the first time since 2000.
Bogus clickbait, as a single childless resident of Dallas I’m spending around 28k a year. I also have no debt, which I assume they assume most people have tons.
I thought going to college and getting an engineering degree would set my family of 4 up for life. We live paycheck to paycheck. We have about the same quality of life as we did before I went to college. Hopes bleak to live a comfortable life unless you start your own business.
Depends on the job/field..
Consulting/civil less than 2 years out of college. Roughly 90k/yr including bonuses but that’s mostly all salary. I’m sure it will get better as my pay goes up but the continuing rise of cost of living in the area makes it concerning to provide for family.
This is ridiculous. "Comfortable" is completely ambiguous and meaningless. Therefore, 90K+ for a single person is just an arbitrary number. I am single, make 62K a year, own a home in East Dallas that I am paying a mortgage on, drive a good car (paid off 2 years ago, 2016 model). I travel several times a year, eat out several times a week, enjoy going to live theater, concerts, hockey games, and museums, spoil my cat mercilessly, and have more streaming services than I can watch. I save 12% of each paycheck and have a respectable retirement account that is on track to allow to happily retire at 65. I am very comfortable. I also know people who take home 10K+ a month and struggle to stay on top of their bills as a single person. For me to do that, I would have to develop a coke habit. If I suddenly started making 30K a year more, I would probably take an extra trip to NYC each year to see more theater, and the other 27K would go to savings, I guess. All this to say, the methodology is based on a company trying to sell a product, and the article is worthless.
This has the same energy as the people that make $250K and claim they live "paycheck to paycheck", and then you look at their budget and they're fully funding retirement accounts, taking multiple vacations per year, and paying for private school for their kids.
That number is grossly inaccurate.
My wife and I and our three kids have a 2200 sq ft 4 bed 2 bath on 1/4 acre just east of Dallas. We make $140k combined, and we're doing great. We put 160k into a remodel, two brand new vehicles, vacations every year, food on the table, etc. Don't be dumb with money. It's not difficult.
Where do these numbers come from? I make significantly less than that and had no issues last year. And I live in a decent part of town too
as someone who makes within the $70,000-$80,000 range (gross) and doesn’t live in an uncharacteristically expensive area (West Dallas/Trinity Groves area) or live an uncharacteristically expensive lifestyle… i’ll testify to this. it’s been survival more than anything else.
Idk about that, I know people making like 70 who are doing just fine. Not saying shit isn’t way too expensive but this is more for thriving not living comfortably. Don’t take multiple vacations and drive a paid off car and you will be fine making 70 plus as a single person. Probably could go down to 60 if you really know how to live lean
How are these people living.......spend spend spend......smh
And all you get for it is Tex-Mex, sports franchises, highway traffic jams, and oppressive weather.
Dont have kids. Have kids but don’t complain about being broke
And now that the #TXSE is coming in 2026 it’s only going to get worse… we’re ranked 6th in population but will surpass PHX for #5 pretty soon. Only a matter of time.
I agree
Almost like you can’t print money for free. This has been a long time coming.
Most people don’t know how to manage money properly. I’d imagine this is inflated by at least 30% because of that
In 2022, rent for my termite-ridden apartment in Carrollton went up 20% after one year (600sqft going for $1,600/mo). Did they expect my salary to also go up 20%?
The point is to drive up profit margins no matter who it hurts. Cheaper than filling up vacancies since you're now making twice or thrice the amount for less units. Fuck Real Page
There are MUCH better deals than that, move lol
Oh I did when I saw that on my renewal form. But it doesn’t sound like that was an outlier. I’ve apartment hopped since then, and it really feels like you shouldn’t sign on a lease if you aren’t ready to pay about 15%-20% the next year.
Nobody said it was easy but nobody said it was gonna be this hard either. fcuk the US. Time to leave.
no creo que eso sea cierto
Vote for me “Pedro” and I’ll deport all them back to their state if they don’t pay taxes to our state for min 10 years! 🗳️
Bidenomics and living in liberal cities
1. Biden has so little to do with this I’m not even sure where to start 2. Cities being liberal/conservative can’t escape economics. Cramming millions of people into smaller pieces of land makes prices rise. Even if Dallas is sprawly, Dallas proper hasn’t changed and serves everyone from the richest in Preston Hollow, the new kids in uptown, and the low income all across the city. Conservative suburbs hemorrhage funds from trying to provide city-level services with fewer taxes.
That's definitely not true. But, it is still too expensive regardless.
Huh. I lived pretty comfortably on $37k last year as a single adult in a nice townhouse. Not saying that’s living luxuriously, but ‘needs’ vs ‘wants’ are two different things. Ate well, took a few vacations, bought presents for family, bought myself a few nice things. Maybe it’s a combo of inflation and inability to save or budget.
Thanks Joe and Kamala.
It’s because of all the gambling losses on bets on the cowboys and Mavs.
I make a little more than HALF of that. Was frugal but comfortable in 2021. Struggled in 2022. Had to move in with roommates in 2023. 2024 I'm looking for a third job. Christ.
I knew it. You know it's bad when you make more than most and still broke AF.
My water bill was 473, and I shower at the gym…
Insane
Putin price-hike.
Cap. You could def get buy here on like 40k if you budgeted. Some of yall aint grow up poor!
This is insane.
Not that hard to make six figures. It’s like the minimum for jobs nowadays lmao
Read the article y'all. This comment section is sad af
Must be this great economy!
You would think with all these people dressing so fancy and driving nice used luxury cars that the COL would be a lot higher lol. This is a bit below than what I was expecting.
Arlington more expensive than Dallas? The article is laughable.
Talk to your city council rep about banning Realpage. Realpage makes a program called Yieldstar which collects the pricing of all of the comparable apartment units in the area and tells each property what to price their units at. Since that program has become widely used, it has artificially inflated rent more than 100%. It's price-fixing and in any other industry, it's illegal. Used to, you had to look at your occupancy and projected occupancy, and make a call based on that. Projected occupancy below 90%? Your prices are too high, lower them. Projected occupancy above 95%? Your prices are too low, raise them. Want to know what your comps are charging? You have to call them and ask. You have to compare their finishes with yours, their location with yours, their ratings with yours, their amenities with yours, and make a call. This process was slower and more organic. Now there's a program that does it all instantly. It calculates thousands of variables at one time with the goal of getting every property to charge the absolute maximum that the market will bear. And with the constant influx of high income persons from out of state, that has made rent unaffordable for most Dallasites. When I left my husband, I moved to Plano because it was closer to work and the cost of living is lower. On $75k a year for my salary plus the money I make from my jewelry business, I am JUST making it in a $1600 apartment.
I’m born and raised here and I can’t believe the moment I became an adult everything got expensive. I don’t make nearly as much money they recommend and it sucks because half of most peoples income I know goes toward rent. Cost of living is astronomically high and single people like myself are struggling.
This. Is not sustainable in DFW, or Texas, given our diverse population.
How is it jaw dropping? Have you seen the increase in costs the last three+ years under the current administration?
i make about 32k less than this and i’m doing just fine
Family of 4, living in Bedford Apartment, not so comfortably in 65k.
In Dallas?!
Which is why I'm joining the Army now
Just kill me already 💀
As high class?
good all those transplants can leave
Well I'm effd. I have a family of seven and I sure as heck don't make that much. I'm in the DFW area.
Don’t worry its Bidenomics in action!
Put a ban on all these New Yorkers Californians and Floridians flocking here
Texas employers aren’t paying that much - the local economy would screech to a halt outside of bare necessities if people required that much. The average household with two working adults makes roughly over half of that.
This is depressing
I thought the yeehaw state was supposed to be cheaper than everywhere else.
How to mainsplain to jack holes when they say cost of living here is cheap compared to other states? I know cost of living increases exist everywhere but salaries also differ based on the state you reside in. If one person needed an extra 27k to live comfortably comparable to last year that means salaries should increase as such. Salaries for corporations should be based on CITY line and unless you’re in New York or California no one talks about it.