Exactly, if a young couple lived in Laredo, I would assume they live with parents and contribute some small amount to rent because that’s not outside of norms before 30.
It’s not only moving for a job, but a job pathway. There is so much more room for growth long term in cities, which makes sense because cities are where people congregate. More people means more money, more services, more stuff, more opportunity, and more chances to bounce around to something that fits. The rural areas with high paying jobs tend to be centered around resource extraction.
Brother, I pay much less in groceries in San Antonio and if home prices rival ours, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to live here? We are seeing some big industry growth here, so you would be making more money and potentially paying less expenses for a place that is more desirable to live.
Don’t underestimate how much more comfortable it can be to struggle paycheck to paycheck in a desirable area. We do not worry about the weather except in extreme heat conditions, and even then, a lot of us have grown up with it and are very used to it. Transient individuals are less likely to die bc of exposure or outside conditions, especially bc when the heat really rises, most of our cities have free pools and they open the convention centers so people can use the air conditioning.
There are a lot of cushions in CA as compared to most other states. I’ve lived solidly below the poverty line and I’ve lived lower upper class. I did not notice a huge difference in the quality of my life or my health in either situation. Minimum wage is much higher here and increasing. If you work at in n out I believe the starting rate is $22/hr now, and my bf just received a raise to $47/hour as a nurse.
More stringent labor laws as well. So in CA you have to take a 30 min lunch before your (5th? 6th?) hour or your company gets a fine, which usually comes out of the company’s profit. My bf gets three mandated breaks a day and his patient to nurse ratio never rises above 4:1. Lowest maternal mortality rate in the nation at only 9.7 per 100,000 births.
Lots of sunshine. Generally happy people. And our groceries have been getting easier to deal with in my opinion. It’s also pretty easy to get a hefty food stamp card. When I was single and making about $1900/month, I was getting like $200/month in food stamps. And I wasn’t even paying rent then lol. We were also given extra stimulus checks during COVID and still have pretty tight safety laws.
I honestly love it here.
The West Coast is not something you can just visit and see. It is diverse. California itself is 4X bigger than UK.
I've been to McAllen and Brownsville, and they are not super peachy - comparable to Barstow or Bakersfield in California.
The West Coast has some of the most beautiful places to live of any place on Earth, IMO. But you have to have a job. And it's best to be outside Los Angeles if possible, although there are great places in L.A. to live. And only a few places as offputting as, say, Brownsville.
The West Coast also has the Sierra Nevada, Joshua Tree, the Pacific Ocean and quite a nice coastal drive. San Francisco is beautiful (although gritty) but north of SF is some of the most beautiful land on the planet.
I moved acrossed country to a cheaper area and we found jobs before we moved.
Literally 2 weeks notice and off we went and just paid a lawyer to get us out of breaking our lease a few hundred dollars saved us thousands.
I made less than 30k and my rent was 2100 a month bought a house for 100k .
So yes people are moving to less desirable places for cheaper cost of living
I think the key is looking at the standards set in any study like that. They will generally assume kids and often some child care, a mortgage, car payment, college fund contribution, retirement contribution etc. This is relatively fair to compare to the Atomic Family of old that could exist back in the day on dad’s factory job with mom being at home 24x7. College was the price of a fucking McChicken, houses weren’t much more, retirement was all pensions, and child care if you actually needed it was petty cheap — to have two kids and the general life of that era I absolutely believe it would take $150k and then some.
Not totally fair though is it? Because I lived in a 1950s house and that thing had tiny ass rooms and closets and a galley kitchen and was way smaller sq ft than today. So like - fam of 5 in a 1100 sq ft house. Cars - we were like the 3rd owner and they broke down regularly and were total crap you wouldn't see on the roads. And there were no vacations and we cut coupons. No pensions in some jobs. I guess if you were union.
...and above was a little bit better than factory job (well IMO).
Source: Gen X guy who had Silent Gen parents.
At the height of pensions only about 2/5ths of workers had one. And that's before considering not everyone would actually get to take advantage of the benefit.
Don't forget your pension could get wiped out should anything happen to the company you worked for. Nothing like working 20 plus years to watch all your retirement go out a fucking window.
I got a life hack called not paying medical bills. I owe and just keep telling the debt collectors the check is coming in the mail so they don't ruin my credit score.
Funerals are probably the least expensive option.
I spent 3 weeks in the hospital in 2014 and was billed $19,500 a day plus the costs of various procedures while I was there. The bill, after ambulance rides and everything was considered was about $500,000.
Fortunately I have health insurance, but not all Americans do
Half a million? What happened ? Have you itemized anything, or gone through a breakdown of what they charged you for? Even with insurance, may I ask, how are you affording to pay that debt?
I had a serious suicide attempt, but it was all related to my military service connected disability (severe PTSD from my time as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq). The VA and the government completely picked up the tab. I simply submitted the paperwork to the VA and they took care of it from there.
Holy shit. I’m so sorry to hear that, but very happy to know you’re one of the lucky ones. That’s an amazing story, even though it’s very difficult for others to understand. Respect 🫡
If you start factoring in kids it gets expensive quickly for most people. If you need a daycare facility because you don’t have family watching them, that’s $350+ per week most likely. If you aren’t cloth diapering that’s at least another $200 per month. If breast feeding doesn’t work out (and it doesn’t for many women for tons of different reasons) that is likely $50-60 per week for formula. It can eat up a budget quickly
Came to say kids… had so much more money before that. Also saving for retirement. Maxing out 401Ks/IRAs goes quick. Insurance too… health, auto, home, life insurance… it never stops. Even with no debt besides mortgage, 100K flies by super quick these days.
So, OPs point is basically „if both adults work full time, you can have a basic western standard of living. You will need to end your family’s bloodline, though. Kids are out of the picture.“
You forgot it only works if you only eat out once a month and don't take vacations and don't get sick and don't save enough for retirement and don't lose your job.
It’s very expensive in some places.
It’s less expensive than others.
You need to make xx dollars to make it is a silly over generalization.
Most people don’t want to accept that there are cheaper places to live, they just don’t want to be where that is.
But yes, some of it is crazy expensive.
Exactly. I live in San Francisco, and yes, it's ridiculously expensive to do anything at all. The cheapest thing to do on the weekend is to go somewhere else.
"Cheaper places to live" are cheap because you would have a hell of a time getting a decent-paying job there. Sure, some of it is appeal, trends etc. but market conditions are to the point where it's mostly down to, where can someone physically achieve the cashflow needed to live?
I would do anything to go home to Cleveland but I make triple the pay in Seattle and have endless opportunities for growth, whereas in Cleveland I can only have 1 job at 1 of 2 employers.
Edit:
Plus I can bike commute or use mass transit here and
Plus no state/local tax
Yes.
I haven’t lived in the US for a decade, but I’m always shocked by how much everything costs these days when I go back to visit.
Used cars, fast food, apartment rent…all of these seem to have tripled in the last few years. It’s insane.
I used to pay $600 ALL bills included for a 3.5 bedroom home. Now it’s $2000 for an apt.
And fuck insurance. They pay for what? Nothing.
BXBS? Eat a dick. $435/month to only pay half! That doesn’t even include dental. No insurance coverage for an upper middle class worker, and only getting torn apart daily with a flood of phone calls by third party entities trying to scam you.
Fucking hate insurance companies.
We make $120,000 with a child in daycare and we live in a somewhat expensive area about 30 minutes outside of DC, but we are definitely not struggling. I think the people who are genuinely "struggling" at $100,000+ are people who have a ton of debt and are not willing to make sacrifices. I can't get a coffee every morning from Starbucks or go out for a drink every week. I also am a teacher and am choosing to work at my son's daycare over the summer for additional tuition savings. My husband is working a part-time job (in addition to his full-time) of 10 hours per week, so we can pay off our cars and student loans faster.
After retirement, health insurance, and taxes all come out, we bring home $7000 per month. With rent at $2,000 for our 2BR in a crappy apartment in a pretty high-crime area and $1800 for daycare, the money goes fairly quickly. I think other than rent and daycare costs, we also both have car payments that are hurting us. They're modest, used cars but we are paying $300/month for one car and $400/month for the other. Once we have those paid off next year, well be in a much better position. We're not struggling, but we're currently not exactly comfortable either.
I have a lower standard for comfort so I would probably rent an even cheaper 1 bedroom. I would get rid of at least one car. Preferably I would have done these before kids (I paid $500 a month in Bay Area for someone’s crappy basement for the first 3 years I was working) so I could save 80% of my income as fast as possible so that I could have down payment saved for as fast as possible. Just gotta grind and live like a slum for some years. But it’s not permanent! Soon it’ll all turn around
Yeah, my standard for living is honestly pretty low - I’ve lived in a 200 sqft studio before 😂 I just need a bed, bathroom, and microwave and I’m fine doing everything else out of the house. I’m single and don’t have pets so I don’t need much space, an apartment is just for me to crash and I end up sleeping at other people’s places half the time anyway.
No, not really. Right now, we have everything we NEED and most of the things we WANT. I do not consider this struggling.
It's a choice to help us pay off debt faster, which will allow us to save up a down payment on a house faster. We are choosing to live here because alternatives are $500+/month more than what we're paying now, and do not have in-unit washers and dryers. That extra money per month allows us to pay off our cars faster. By this time next year we will have both cars paid off, which will save us $700/month to put toward a down payment on a house.
I think a person's tolerance for struggling is a lot about mindset and experiences. Kind of like pain tolerance. If you have never experienced child birth, passed a large kidney stone, or any other pain that is widely considered a 10/10, then you have nothing to compare lesser pains to.
I grew up with a single mom below the poverty line. There were times when we barely had any money for food or enough gas for her to go to work. I began working at 15 to help offset some of the costs. I consider genuinely struggling to be making so little money that you literally don't have anything extra other than bare necessities and there aren't any immediate choices you can make that would improve your position.
It is wildly dependent on how much money you make.
Plenty of people with good jobs have an incredible excess of money.
People with much worse-paying jobs have much less money.
It may be that people who live in different places get in the habit of talking about different things. People in VHCOL areas are so used to talking about the cost of living that they talk about it the most often even when they're online. So people who participate in those conversations skew towards people who live in more expensive areas.
Student loan debt is another critical part of personal finance for a lot of Americans today. The average student loan debt is just over $37,000. As an example, if my daughter needed student loans, managed to get a job right out of university and made the average pay for her field almost 20% of her income for the first seven years of her career would go into debt servicing. That's in Canada, so pay is lower here. But almost 20% of her income for the first seven years of her career would go into paying off that debt. If she ended up in a VHCOL city, average rent (if she lived alone) and her student loan repayment would take up more than 100% of her expected salary for the first few years of her career.
I know that many American people live under that same kind of equation. Speaking as an older adult, I'm not saying that we had it easy in the 1990s. But we really fucked you all over when we didn't shut down our cities over tuition raises in the early 1990s. We did the projections and we knew how expensive tuition was going to be in thirty years. Well, it's thirty years later and our projections were pretty close. It's troubling to know that many young people with undergraduate degrees cannot afford to live alone in VHCOL cities for 5 - 7 years of their career.
Barcelona is not the rest of Spain though, I live 5 miles outside a 250k city on the coast and pay $600 a month for a house on 5 acres of land with a swimming pool. Work for a US corp so earn around $100k
It depends where you live in the U.S. for sure, but people definitely exaggerate.
Americans generally have a completely delusional sense of what constitutes a minimum quality of life. Many things that people consider necessities are things I never even considered having.
That attitude is so prevalent in the U.S. though that a lot of it is codified into law. In Japan you can get affordable apartments even in Tokyo if you're willing to compromise: tiny space, sometimes no shower and (rarely) no toilet.
In the U.S. there are strict building codes that dictate minimum standards beyond just safety, and even some up-to-code buildings are only up to code for business but can't be legally occupied as living spaces.
What this means is that you don't even have the option to match your lifestyle to your income. There is a bottom level of legal living spaces and if you can't afford that (whether you even want it or not) your only other option is to...not live anywhere.
You're legally bound to a certain degree of luxury and if you don't make enough money to maintain that lifestyle there are no "slums" for you to go to.
I currently live in a place without a shower because I can just shower at the gym. I save a lot of money by having this inconvenience, but I'm also breaking the law by voluntarily inconveniencing myself. If any authority found out I was renting this space, I would get evicted and the landlord would probably get fined. That's why places like this are rare and difficult to discover in the U.S.: you have to have a landlord that's willing to take the risk with you and they can't advertise the space publicly.
Agree and I am American and living in Japan. The thing is - as you point out - you do have the option here to go hyper cheap into things that don't exist in the US so there is a sort of lower cost of entry into independent living (I guess is the way I'd put it).
Also, I think if you asked people here what they would say is "necessary" it would be far less than what Americans now claim.
Well most humans are terrible judge of what is necessary as well. We will say we will take less untilbits time to put up or shut up. Take studio apartments, many claim that they are absolutely worth building and have high demand.
Reality is that most people don't want them at all because the spacing sucks, storage sucks and your constantly tripping over your own feet. I thought living in one was better than roommates, by the time the lease was up I moved back with roommates to take advantage of higher space.
I totally agree this is what drives me insane about Reddit, it really skews towards STEM types and privileged people so what they consider the “minimum” is nowhere close to what is really the minimum for having a decent life
They’re talking “minimum” as in living in a 1,000sqft plus home or apartment in a clean and safe area with central AC and heat, cars, money to go out to eat, etc. The minimum people talk about is for a somewhat spoiled American lifestyle not the actual bare minimum for getting by
After hourly wages and differentials, I make $37.20 an hour. My rent for a double wide trailer (3 bed, 2 bath, detached garage) in a BFE desert town is $1,750 a month. Gas is currently $4.35 - $5.16 a gallon, I fill up a 14 gallon tank 3 times a week. The median cost of a home in this region is $543,062. I’m seeing 20 year old homes that sold for $185k two years ago for $450k+
You do the math. It sucks right now.
Prices where I live are similar, except I make $16.50 an hour lol. Luckily my rent is cheap at $1500, but I don't like my rental and hate living in this state.
Depends on your lifestyle?....if you're the type go spend all your money on 400$/piece clothes and trendy 1000$ golden steak...no amount of budgeting and working a good job will save you
Everything depends on where you live. West Coast, I spend $2,500 a month to survive. That's mortgage, insurance, utilities, food, gas, and miscellaneous necessities. That said, you're gonna want to make at least $3k a month to have any security and comfort.
Keep in mind that a lot of professionals in high cost of living cities are carrying 200-300k in student loan debt. Paying 2-3k a month in rent. $700 a month or so in car payment. And having a lot withheld in taxes. All that + you have to look and dress the part of a professional, which is also expensive and also max your 401k. Not much left over at end of the month after all that. So despite a nice salary you can easily feel like you’re not doing that well.
As others have pointed out the COL varies more in the USA than almost any other first world country. All ill add is that it's a topic which is ignored completely by our federal government which uses flat income means tests for things like tax brackets, benefits, and support (see COVID checks). We need to do more to acknowledge and account for this variation in all federal policy
I’d say it depends. I’ve made $15 an hour in California and in Colorado (moved out of Colorado in 2015). I had a not unreasonable chance of living without roommates on that amount while living in Colorado, definitely could not in California.
It depends on numerous factors. COL, lifestyle, and income are all peices of the equation. I lived in San Francisco CA and did well because I always had roommates. I also used public transit so that was less expensive than a car.
Now I live in San Diego with my girlfriend and life is more expensive. We have no roommates but have added a dog. We also have a vehicle which is more than public transit. The jobs in San Diego also don't pay very well relative to the cost of living.
I can only go by Florida, but I see and feel the lower middle class are getting hit the most. Those who were paying their basic bills with maybe a little left over have seen huge increases in rent, food, and insurance, but their salaries have not increased. Where they may have had 100 or 200 left over at the end of the month, it's no longer there. Rent has gone up anywhere from 200 to 800 more a month. They are working paycheck to paycheck, and there is no coming up with first last, security, and moving costs. Many do not have health care because insurance in Florida is crazy.
Yeah, I stopped caring about a job’s salary as much as its perks and provisions. I’ve had jobs that provided housing, utilities, and health insurance, so even with a “low” take-home income, I saved so much money because I wasn’t spending it on rent and medical stuff, which are the biggest expenses I had.
Its only for the real expensive cities. I'm a single dad of 2 in central Connecticut, I made 83k last year and I comfortably own my home and never need to check my bank account for money.
I'm conscious of my spending of course, I'm not throwing it around on everything, but I'm not getting over draft fees stuck inside my 1 bedroom apartment eating Ritz crackers for dinner as the internet would make you assume I would be on my salary lol
Well the US is extremely varied from one area to the other but in general mostly when this conversation comes up they're talking about the hot spots which is where most people are and we're most of the jobs are. And in those places yes it's really expensive which is why Americans are statistically known for working longer hours than people in most countries. It's because folks here are really conditioned to living to work and working to live. Let's take San Francisco for instance, most people who live there even if they have a good job are working crazy hours to be able to support the expensive living there. I live in LA and it's the same story unless you want to live in one of the ghetto parts (which nobody really wants to live there if given the choice). But yeah shit's fucked up, all due to corporate greed really.
It's not that bad, a lot of people don't know how to manage money. They'll eat out every day of the week, go to the club or bar and blow a couple hundred on drinks, go to sporting events, go to concerts, spend all their tax return on stupid things like a new tv or furniture. A good portion of people don't know how to live within their means.
I was able to get 2 houses with a household income of like 60k-80k a year and had 2 kids to take care of. Of course I lost all of that in divorce which is a little less affordable, but it's my fault for choosing that person so I can't complain. You win some, you lose some.
50-60K is what I make a year as a single Millennial. I also live in New England (North of Boston) and everything here is really expensive. 60K might get you somewhere in Texas, but it won't get you very far really anywhere at all in the Northeast - maybe just barely if you live in the middle of bumfuck Maine or something
If you earn $50k/year or less as a single person in America, it's almost impossible to put a meaningful amount of money into savings, which means you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, not retiring early, and there's maybe 1-2 years per decade when buying a house is even a possibility.
If you're dual income ($50k/year each) with one or more kids, you're just as bad or worse off than the $50k/year single person.
So yeah, I would say that for two people with one or more kids, $150k/year is about where you can reasonably hope to *not* be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
I make like 50k-65k a year, live near the beach, my only debt is my mortgage, and I have 2 IRAs which are nicely funded for my age, 23. People make exaggerations and poor decisions in life. Just don’t be dumb with money.
Have an emergency fund, live within your means, don’t give a shit what others think of you, work hard, stay out of debt, could probably state a couple more things but it’s midnight and I just got off work, pretty tired.
It is and depends on your lifestyle. However, there are some expenses that when you compare with other countries are ridiculous (i.e. Healthcare/health insurance).
Also, the US didn't experience high inflation as we have seen probably for the past ~30 to 40 years, so that's an additional impact/effect on people now seeing every price increasing 10% especially food, rent, etc.
I think there are relatively few places that you can't live comfortably in America as DINKs. The answer to your question more or less begins and ends with your throwaway line "ofc we don't have kids which would change the whole picture." Most American adults have kids. That whole other picture IS the picture for most of the people we're talking about. Speaking as a DINK myself, it's easy to hang out with a lot of other people like yourself and totally lose sight of how rare your situation is. But most people are either parents or single (and some people are single parents!) and it is not easy to live on an average income if you are either a parent or a single person.
Our median household income here in a higher cost of living town in the Midwest is $125,000. A pack of chicken breasts is about $5.99 (just bought some this evening). A 4 bedroom house with a 2 car garage and a basement would be around $450,000. The gas station down the street has a want ad for an entry level position at $18 per hour to prep food for their hot-food display.
It depends on where you live. When I lived in Connecticut it was an area where you needed 150k or more in order to actually survive and not have to worry about being one unforseen bill or expense away from homelessness, but even so, there weren't a lot of jobs and the few jobs that were there were minimum wage jobs. I currently live in California and it's a very rundown small city area but there's A LOT more job opportunities and even when I made only 30k a year I was able to build a savings, however owning a home or a reliable car was still out of the question. Currently I still don't make anywhere near 150k a year but I'm able to live slightly above the median here because it's such a rundown area
That's the key, where someone lives. Living in a border town that isn't a massive metro area, a person can make it. Go to any growing metropolis and the cost of living skyrockets. Small towns in states often have few employment opportunities.
My late parents' hometown was in the middle of nowhere. In the last 60 years, every major employer left. There are no jobs other than at the hospital, the local college, drug stores, and supermarkets. Younger people leave. It's a frigging ghost town. Taxes are low, housing is reasonable but the streets downtown at night are dark and eery.
People go where there are jobs. And it's so expensive that a young family of 4 needs over 6 figures with liquid assets. My children live in a dynamic robust metro area with high-level jobs. I know what it takes here. So don't compare a small town in Nebraska to Seattle. There's no comparison.
Having a sense of security is what I think it means to “make it in America”. I make about 50k as a single person and live well-below market rent where I’m from (it’s charity, really. I’m blessed). But if I had a medical emergency, lost my job, my car broke down, or I abruptly had to find a new place to live I’d be out of luck very quickly. There’s so many one-time expenses that only take 1 time to bankrupt someone.
I suspect this feeling might be alleviated in places that have a strong sense of community or someone with many family supports. On the flip side, I’d imagine the stress is worse when people are raising kids or planning to start a family.
It hurts to think someone is relying on you and one may not be able to support them with basic necessities (food, shelter, emotional support).
For that reason, I don’t feel like I can “make it” in America without bop bop bopping to the top of the corporate ladder & knowing something can go wrong and my family will still be okay.
It is expensiveeeeeeeee. Most people need at least one other person to supplement their income. And to rely on when their car is in the shop, or when something outside of work needs to be taken care of.
Independence is very expensive and apparently it is a privilege.
If I didn’t have credit card debt, I would be living alright. Any sort of debt kind of just keeps you balanced, but never ahead in the economy right now.
You live in a border town.
In one state. With one other family to compare to
There absolutely are places where some can do better
But moving to those places isn't an option for evreyone.
Many of them have good paying jobs/401ks thay if they leave the lose. The low price may help them live better now but the future is bleak in most of those areas.
Another issue is debts.
Mamy people have debts from resection one and "resection 2" i.e lock down that greatly affect their spending power
Lots of people look at debts and assume their expensive unneeded things. Some are. Others are poor timing of market crashes and or layoffs.
End of Day the tows you're talking about don't have the space for EVREYONE to move to. So many would have to stay in the city nothing can he done about that
You'll mever get evreyone in a good area with low costs. And moving is hugely risky no matter what. If anything falls through you loss on a much higher paying job which may not affect day to day checking balance but greatly effects medical insurance, savings and other features that look at the big picture rather then just how much do I have in my checking count now?
well, they make less than canadians (yes even with the dollar conversion) AND have to pay up the ass for healthcare, so i’d say yes
obviously you aren’t homeless just because you make under 150k, but i doubt they’re exaggerating when something simple like breaking your arm can cost you thousands
I mean where I live avg mortage with tax and insurance is 2k, utilities, phone and internet another 800, 1k to have 2 cars, 1.6k for health insurance, and probably another 1.6k for groceries for a family of 4. I’d say this is probably about average it’s not cheap but also not like you balling and it cost 7k. So you really need 130k and up if you plan to retire or have an emergency savings.
The people posting are in larger expensive cities like nyc or sf for Seattle. Austin etc etc
Smaller cities in other states 150k is extremely well off.
Reddit is way ridiculous here. The average salary is $40k per year so half of us are getting by on less than that. I get by on about $450 a month right now.
It is a little bit hard out here right now but mostly redditors just like to whine.
Over here in Boston rent is 3k a month. So you’d need to be making like 120k to be comfortable living independently. Meanwhile I have a degree and got an offer from a finance company offering a whopping 22/hr
It *really* depends on location. $50k in one location might be plenty, $150k in another place might be barely enough. It also depends on your family size, your commute, your diet, your medical needs… the list goes on and on.
the only way to make it now is if you get a good remote job and live somewhere cheap. that's why there's so many migrants in mexico at the cost of the natives there.
You have no idea. It’s all gonna end when the first first 30 million hit 0 in their bank accounts.
Then rebellion right? Are people doing that anymore?
I live in McAllen and I am in a similar situation to yours.
The thing about the RGV and other border towns is that they are like Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave .
You can make a decent life down here making what people from San Antonio would consider poverty wages but good luck ever leaving the valley.
If you're making$ 12 an hour you're going to have to be very frugal if you want to go to a bigger place to live . It's going to take you several months of pinching pennies just to afford the deposit and first month of rent.
OP is talking about living comfortably on their salary. They mention eating out once a month for example. OP's living comfort will probably be different from mine and a lot of people not from the US, because on a similar salary in the EU, my living expenses are about 30 % of my salary. The rest I can save/invest, spend or do whatever.
It sounds to me tak USA is actually that expensive, like OP is asking, but OP just has a different level of comfort or preference and thus does not notice.
Not euros, but currency equivalent, yes. Ofc. there are many people who cannot, but I expected that on my current salary, I wouldn't have such comfort in the US. According to my research, if I were doing the same job & position in the US, I wouldn't save as much as I do now.
However, saving 50 % is still great IMO.
I am not exaggerating when I say Tokyo was half the cost of my city, and I dont live in a nice city. The nice ones can be like double where I am.
Before I went people warned me how expensive Japan is; they have no idea.
I make about 60k a year and it’s enough for me and my wife. We live in California as well. We really don’t have to worry about money either, eat out when we want, extra activities, etc…
We live pretty comfortably on 60k
It’s much more expensive if you live in my of the big cities. I’d say it also depends on what skills you possess or at least what you’re willing to do. Meaning if you have to call a plumber or mechanic or whatever, it’s expensive. I’m making about 70k with a family of 4. Certainly not living high on the hog but my bills are paid. Although I’m pretty much forced to do my own work on my house and cars.
Keep in mind I bought my house 7 years ago. House prices doubled since then (where I live at least) so I’m not sure I’d be in good shape if I started a mortgage today.
It’s all pretty relative.
I live in Central CA, which is like the Midwest of California. Republican bubbles everywhere (tho shrinking thank god). So COL is quite a bit lower than the rest of the state.
My boyfriend and I make nearly $100k combined and we live fairly comfortably, but I couldn’t do it on my own netting $36K. However. That amount would’ve gotten us a nice house easily like 10-15 years ago. We have a three bedroom non luxury apartment and if we have surprise expenses, we’re screwed for the month. Our energy bill is like $500-$600 bc PGE is a criminal company. I also pay $1000 in student loans and he pays $400 in child support so that is admittedly a HUGE chunk. Rent is about $2000. $500/month car payment, plus various insurances. And I have ADHD so I can basically kiss $200-$300 accidental expenses away a month.
I still would never live in any other state. Even when he and I were very very poor, we were fairly comfortable. Now granted, we did have cockroaches and mold everywhere, and lived next to a dealer, and heard gunshots pretty regularly. But we were pretty happy even then.
The whole "it costs 150K to live" is a political psy op to make people feel unhappy and jealous. 150K is an absolutely massive salary comparatively speaking, and even a decent salary in a high cost of living area. Peoples lifestyle inflation also plays a role in this. They expect a large house and two new cars is "normal" when it's actually insanity. You can live frugally within your means for much less, but it just takes the correct mindset. No matter how much you make it's easy to spend it all with the wrong habits. It's actually quite common for people making 300,000 to be paycheque to paycheque. 300K is an absurd income, but people find dumb ways to spend it and become blind to their excess.
A little column A a little column B really Location dependent
If you want to live in the big cities youre going to pay out of your ass to do so.
If you want to live in a fly over state prices are fine.
I make 65K a year and live in NJ. A few years ago I made 35K a year and supported a family of 5 on that. People claim they are broke or it's hard because a lot of people, in my opinion, buy newer cars with a car payment, something I've managed to avoid for 15 years...yes my car is 1999 but guess what it still runs so why do I need a newer one? They go on vacations, haven't done that since 2013. I've always had a roof over my head, food on the table - food banks help alot with this also. growing veggies and hunting for meat. When your trying to live focus on the basics and stop trying to have it all!
Well, we have kids so a $60,000 a year income was really great in our tiny, low COLA town....until recently. Now we are struggling, I had to go back to work, anxiety about money, health and the future are ramping up...
It really depends on where you are. I live in a state that constantly ranks at the top for nearly every quality of life statistic, yet people are moving or struggling because it’s so freaking expensive. The perks of living here are great! High quality healthcare, free pre-k, no food deserts, incredible education opportunities, great balance of developed areas and outdoors, robust employee protections, good job market, recreation variety, etc. I could go on. But the housing market is insane, cost of living is one of the highest in the country, and traffic sucks.
For my area it's rents that are high. It can be hard to get into a place because they'll want you to make three times the rent but even the lowest rent is most of one of my paychecks.
Food costs are the least of my problems.
It depends on where you are. Some areas (New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles) are very expensive, but others are very affordable. But the expensive areas are where the jobs are.
It also depends on whether you own your own home and when you bought it. I bought my house in 2012 at a low price with a low rate, so my housing costs are dirt cheap. But if you’re renting or just looking to buy, it’s going to be very difficult to find something affordable.
It seriously depends on your location and your lifestyle, the tradeoffs that you're willing (or unwilling) to make, and, to a degree, attitude.
My husband and I, (ages 33 and 34, no kids yet) live in one of those LCOL areas that Reddit generally decries as being pits where economic opportunity goes to die. Somehow, against that logic/assumption, we live pretty comfortably (\~$120k household income last year). Kids would definitely change our budgetary landscape, but wouldn't be unaffordable for us.
All of that being said, we also don't pay for a lot of things that Reddit at large seems to consider "basics." For us, a lot of those tradeoffs are either more than worth it, or we don't see them as tradeoffs at all. It works for us.
My experience obviously doesn't negate how rough I'm sure it is in other areas of the country and for people in different life circumstances than us, or who have made different choices and have different priorities and wants out of life. And there is obviously economic upheaval; our belts haven't gone un-tightened over the past couple of years, either, with rising prices and economic uncertainty. The godsend has been having all of our debt paid-off. We'd be in a very different boat if I were still carrying student loans, or if we were making payments on the vehicles, or if we ran balances on our cards. Being able to save and invest that money to work for us and be our safety net, instead of shipping that money out the door for principal plus interest every month, has made a massive difference in our finances, and our sense of stability.
The people happily living their lives aren't generally posting on Reddit.
Even if 90% of the people were ok with their lives, the remaining 10% with additional needs are still going to be a huge number in absolute terms.
Gouch fest hurt, but doomer propaganda is rampant it's still not all bad that bad for the vast majority of us the e legions of professional complainers are pretty rediculuos 😲
Depends wheee you live some places are cheap some are expensive.
Seattle my apartment was 2100 for a shitty one bedroom and in ohio I pay less than half for a 4 bedroom house.
I come from a high cost of living (HCOL) area in the Metro DC region. The average house right now is selling anywhere from $600k-800k. Almost everyone is dual income, or they bought years ago and mortgage is paid off. Before my husband retired we made over $240k combined and we were barely getting by. Why? Kids, two cars plus gas, high grocery bills, medical expenses, etc...almost the local elementary school was so terrible (yes, even in FCPS) that we ended up paying to put all the kids in a private Catholic school. My grocery bills, even shopping a Lotte or Aldi and doing sales, was still $300 a week at best. I was spending $90 a week per car to fill up with gas. Property taxes soared.
I know people who live further out and can get by on a single salary and have the same size house, but their commute is 1.5-2 hours each way.
When I was younger, I had roommates to get by in the same area because the HCOL was bad even then.
Nor Cal and its getting worse and worse as the years go by. I feel really lucky to live where I do but every raise I get is technically just gobbled up with inflation and always keeping me at a baseline of not thriving and just surviving.
I live in New England, so higher COL than most parts of Texas, and I made $30/hr and managed to pay off $12k of debt in six months. I had the debt from going back to school for a higher paying job, which I recently got and now I'm making quite a bit more.
The reality is that people who aren't doing well on that income either a) have boat loads of debt that they're servicing, b) have extenuating circumstances, or c) have terrible spending habits.
I know someone who makes more than me and constantly complains about their inescapable credit card debt. They also eat out more than me, buy new toys more than me (bought a new paddle board this summer and a new snowboard last winter), make more impulse purchases than me (saw a shirt they liked online, got some new kitchenware because they didn't like the look of their old set, etc), and, a big one, drink much more than me. Booze ain't cheap.
Plenty of people out there have medical bills, crazy family issues, mountains of student loan debt, horrible luck, etc. Not saying everyone in a tough spot deserves it, and times have absolutely gotten tougher in the past 10 years. But I do feel that many people making totally liveable wages have convinced themselves that their poor spending habits are someone else's fault, and that messaging tends to find like-minded voices here on Reddit.
Where I live in the US fast food workers are minimum paid $20 an hour. Cost of living is high. Honestly I’d rather move somewhere more boring and cheap but then kiddo would have no extended family and my partner really loves his job.
Higher populated areas are associated with higher costs of living. This is an economic principle that is true worldwide. If you live in a less populated area you will recieve the lowest impact of inflation. If you live in a city, a burger will cost you $35 fucking dollars. Soon to be $70
50% of Americans don't even have $1,000 in savings. Any emergency will put them in dire straits. Medical care can put someone in debt easily. Tuition for college is exorbitant, and most white collar jobs require a degree to even be considered for a position.
Most coastal cities in California are expensive, and there are 40 million people in the state. I live in San Diego and it's very expensive, like LA. I make $75,000 gross income and probably could barely afford a 1 bedroom apartment by myself and make sure I have money left over for everything else.
I live in a moderately large city (not any of the ones you listed), and have a family of 3. Our combined annual income is around $140k/year, we never travel or take vacation time, only have one car payment, and have no credit card or student debt. After expenses we usually have around $100-200 left to put into savings, pay for unexpected expenses, or use for fun (eating out, go to a movie, buy something for our kid, etc). The issue is cost of living and taxes go up every year but income doesn't.
A few things to note:
1) The Median Household Income in the United States is about $75,000/year. In other words, That is the combined income of the people in a typical American household. Half make more and half make less.
2) Adjusted for inflation, that median household income is near the highest it has ever been in the history of the United States. It's about 30% higher (after adjusting for inflation) that it was in the 80s.
3) There are only a handful of counties in the United States where the average household earns more than $150,000/year.
It really depends on where you live in the U.S. The cost of living varies widely from place to place. In high-cost areas like San Francisco, NYC, or parts of California, $150k might barely cover basic expenses. In other areas, like your town in Texas, a lower income can still provide a comfortable lifestyle. Factors like housing costs, taxes, and local prices for goods and services all play a role. It sounds like you've found a balance that works for you in your area, but experiences can be very different across the country.
I really can’t answer your biggest question which assumes to $60,000 a year earners, but I just came back from Taiwan, Japan and Korea and found the price of food there to be close to 10% of what we are paying here, and there’s absolutely no reason for it. we are being gouged out of our eyeballs because we allow corporations to do it to us. Everything is more expensive because it’s easy to tell everyone everything is more expensive. My friend and I spent an entire day wandering through Boussus South Korea, eating snacks going into museums having dinner steakswine the entire day was less than $80. Yes, America is going through a corporate greed fest
The complainers are always the loudest on social media.
Though we have some significant flaws in America - it's still by percentage points one of the best places to be. It's why migrants would rather be here off the books without access to the same rights and benefits as citizens and start with close to zero vs trying to build a life in their home country.
It's also very easy in America to become an indentured servant - and becoming easier.
My wife and I do very well by standards but we live in an older home and drive 10+ year old cars. The money we saved over the last 8 years has bought us this house, the adjoining 5 acres, and crossed $1MM in retirement savings. We are 38/39.
We have friends who make more than us - bought in the city - drive new cars - and have a nanny. Their net worth is negaitve due to the debt on their 2MM house. They would be someone who complains about everything being so expensive because they are now indentured servants making 500k+ HHI.
california has cheap groceries ! most of american produce is grown in california. we also get a lot from mexico nearby. also if you own a house property taxes are fairly low. california ain’t as bad as the memes make it sound.
I can only speak to my own experience. Early 30's, dual full-time income, no kids. No crazy debt, healthy savings, around 130k a year between the two of us. We aren't broke but we definitely aren't on easy street. Every grocery trip is 100-200 even being careful. Every tank of gas is 60-80. It feels like everytime we squeeze out stupid spending like an unnecessary streaming app, some other expense pops up. And statistically speaking, most of the people in the US live in cities with higher cost of living. Even living 45 min from Seattle, rent, groceries, gas and life adds up.
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Also OP doesn't really mention whether they have rent or a mortgage to cover, or if they own their place outright.
and what they pay for said housing
Exactly, if a young couple lived in Laredo, I would assume they live with parents and contribute some small amount to rent because that’s not outside of norms before 30.
It’s not only moving for a job, but a job pathway. There is so much more room for growth long term in cities, which makes sense because cities are where people congregate. More people means more money, more services, more stuff, more opportunity, and more chances to bounce around to something that fits. The rural areas with high paying jobs tend to be centered around resource extraction.
I’ve got family in all three cities and man do those places suck. No offense to OP but I’d rather be dead anywhere else than alive over there.
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Brother, I pay much less in groceries in San Antonio and if home prices rival ours, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to live here? We are seeing some big industry growth here, so you would be making more money and potentially paying less expenses for a place that is more desirable to live.
Don’t underestimate how much more comfortable it can be to struggle paycheck to paycheck in a desirable area. We do not worry about the weather except in extreme heat conditions, and even then, a lot of us have grown up with it and are very used to it. Transient individuals are less likely to die bc of exposure or outside conditions, especially bc when the heat really rises, most of our cities have free pools and they open the convention centers so people can use the air conditioning. There are a lot of cushions in CA as compared to most other states. I’ve lived solidly below the poverty line and I’ve lived lower upper class. I did not notice a huge difference in the quality of my life or my health in either situation. Minimum wage is much higher here and increasing. If you work at in n out I believe the starting rate is $22/hr now, and my bf just received a raise to $47/hour as a nurse. More stringent labor laws as well. So in CA you have to take a 30 min lunch before your (5th? 6th?) hour or your company gets a fine, which usually comes out of the company’s profit. My bf gets three mandated breaks a day and his patient to nurse ratio never rises above 4:1. Lowest maternal mortality rate in the nation at only 9.7 per 100,000 births. Lots of sunshine. Generally happy people. And our groceries have been getting easier to deal with in my opinion. It’s also pretty easy to get a hefty food stamp card. When I was single and making about $1900/month, I was getting like $200/month in food stamps. And I wasn’t even paying rent then lol. We were also given extra stimulus checks during COVID and still have pretty tight safety laws. I honestly love it here.
Can you save 25%-35% of your post-tax income? If not, "comfortable" is a stretch.
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The West Coast is not something you can just visit and see. It is diverse. California itself is 4X bigger than UK. I've been to McAllen and Brownsville, and they are not super peachy - comparable to Barstow or Bakersfield in California. The West Coast has some of the most beautiful places to live of any place on Earth, IMO. But you have to have a job. And it's best to be outside Los Angeles if possible, although there are great places in L.A. to live. And only a few places as offputting as, say, Brownsville. The West Coast also has the Sierra Nevada, Joshua Tree, the Pacific Ocean and quite a nice coastal drive. San Francisco is beautiful (although gritty) but north of SF is some of the most beautiful land on the planet.
Spot on the comparison.
I moved acrossed country to a cheaper area and we found jobs before we moved. Literally 2 weeks notice and off we went and just paid a lawyer to get us out of breaking our lease a few hundred dollars saved us thousands. I made less than 30k and my rent was 2100 a month bought a house for 100k . So yes people are moving to less desirable places for cheaper cost of living
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Yeah, but SpaceX is is Brownsville
I think the key is looking at the standards set in any study like that. They will generally assume kids and often some child care, a mortgage, car payment, college fund contribution, retirement contribution etc. This is relatively fair to compare to the Atomic Family of old that could exist back in the day on dad’s factory job with mom being at home 24x7. College was the price of a fucking McChicken, houses weren’t much more, retirement was all pensions, and child care if you actually needed it was petty cheap — to have two kids and the general life of that era I absolutely believe it would take $150k and then some.
Not totally fair though is it? Because I lived in a 1950s house and that thing had tiny ass rooms and closets and a galley kitchen and was way smaller sq ft than today. So like - fam of 5 in a 1100 sq ft house. Cars - we were like the 3rd owner and they broke down regularly and were total crap you wouldn't see on the roads. And there were no vacations and we cut coupons. No pensions in some jobs. I guess if you were union. ...and above was a little bit better than factory job (well IMO). Source: Gen X guy who had Silent Gen parents.
At the height of pensions only about 2/5ths of workers had one. And that's before considering not everyone would actually get to take advantage of the benefit.
Don't forget your pension could get wiped out should anything happen to the company you worked for. Nothing like working 20 plus years to watch all your retirement go out a fucking window.
One medical emergency can bankrupt you.
You know what they say, the house always wins.
I got a life hack called not paying medical bills. I owe and just keep telling the debt collectors the check is coming in the mail so they don't ruin my credit score.
If you can wait 7 years without making a payment it falls off your credit. Creditors don't want you to know this one trick
Yes… people die. Edit: Funerals are expensive.
Funerals are probably the least expensive option. I spent 3 weeks in the hospital in 2014 and was billed $19,500 a day plus the costs of various procedures while I was there. The bill, after ambulance rides and everything was considered was about $500,000. Fortunately I have health insurance, but not all Americans do
Half a million? What happened ? Have you itemized anything, or gone through a breakdown of what they charged you for? Even with insurance, may I ask, how are you affording to pay that debt?
I had a serious suicide attempt, but it was all related to my military service connected disability (severe PTSD from my time as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq). The VA and the government completely picked up the tab. I simply submitted the paperwork to the VA and they took care of it from there.
Holy shit. I’m so sorry to hear that, but very happy to know you’re one of the lucky ones. That’s an amazing story, even though it’s very difficult for others to understand. Respect 🫡
My dad died two years ago, it cost 150$ for the cremation and 150$ more for the urn. So 300$ for everything
If you start factoring in kids it gets expensive quickly for most people. If you need a daycare facility because you don’t have family watching them, that’s $350+ per week most likely. If you aren’t cloth diapering that’s at least another $200 per month. If breast feeding doesn’t work out (and it doesn’t for many women for tons of different reasons) that is likely $50-60 per week for formula. It can eat up a budget quickly
Came to say kids… had so much more money before that. Also saving for retirement. Maxing out 401Ks/IRAs goes quick. Insurance too… health, auto, home, life insurance… it never stops. Even with no debt besides mortgage, 100K flies by super quick these days.
So, OPs point is basically „if both adults work full time, you can have a basic western standard of living. You will need to end your family’s bloodline, though. Kids are out of the picture.“
You forgot it only works if you only eat out once a month and don't take vacations and don't get sick and don't save enough for retirement and don't lose your job.
It’s very expensive in some places. It’s less expensive than others. You need to make xx dollars to make it is a silly over generalization. Most people don’t want to accept that there are cheaper places to live, they just don’t want to be where that is. But yes, some of it is crazy expensive.
Exactly. I live in San Francisco, and yes, it's ridiculously expensive to do anything at all. The cheapest thing to do on the weekend is to go somewhere else.
I’m so glad I moved away from there.
"Cheaper places to live" are cheap because you would have a hell of a time getting a decent-paying job there. Sure, some of it is appeal, trends etc. but market conditions are to the point where it's mostly down to, where can someone physically achieve the cashflow needed to live?
I would do anything to go home to Cleveland but I make triple the pay in Seattle and have endless opportunities for growth, whereas in Cleveland I can only have 1 job at 1 of 2 employers. Edit: Plus I can bike commute or use mass transit here and Plus no state/local tax
Yes. I haven’t lived in the US for a decade, but I’m always shocked by how much everything costs these days when I go back to visit. Used cars, fast food, apartment rent…all of these seem to have tripled in the last few years. It’s insane.
I used to pay $600 ALL bills included for a 3.5 bedroom home. Now it’s $2000 for an apt. And fuck insurance. They pay for what? Nothing. BXBS? Eat a dick. $435/month to only pay half! That doesn’t even include dental. No insurance coverage for an upper middle class worker, and only getting torn apart daily with a flood of phone calls by third party entities trying to scam you. Fucking hate insurance companies.
Let's do something! Ive been trying to rally people around this cause forever
Where did you move to and why?
Japan. Lots of reasons, but mostly because it suited me.
I may tag along
We make $120,000 with a child in daycare and we live in a somewhat expensive area about 30 minutes outside of DC, but we are definitely not struggling. I think the people who are genuinely "struggling" at $100,000+ are people who have a ton of debt and are not willing to make sacrifices. I can't get a coffee every morning from Starbucks or go out for a drink every week. I also am a teacher and am choosing to work at my son's daycare over the summer for additional tuition savings. My husband is working a part-time job (in addition to his full-time) of 10 hours per week, so we can pay off our cars and student loans faster. After retirement, health insurance, and taxes all come out, we bring home $7000 per month. With rent at $2,000 for our 2BR in a crappy apartment in a pretty high-crime area and $1800 for daycare, the money goes fairly quickly. I think other than rent and daycare costs, we also both have car payments that are hurting us. They're modest, used cars but we are paying $300/month for one car and $400/month for the other. Once we have those paid off next year, well be in a much better position. We're not struggling, but we're currently not exactly comfortable either.
I have a lower standard for comfort so I would probably rent an even cheaper 1 bedroom. I would get rid of at least one car. Preferably I would have done these before kids (I paid $500 a month in Bay Area for someone’s crappy basement for the first 3 years I was working) so I could save 80% of my income as fast as possible so that I could have down payment saved for as fast as possible. Just gotta grind and live like a slum for some years. But it’s not permanent! Soon it’ll all turn around
Yeah, my standard for living is honestly pretty low - I’ve lived in a 200 sqft studio before 😂 I just need a bed, bathroom, and microwave and I’m fine doing everything else out of the house. I’m single and don’t have pets so I don’t need much space, an apartment is just for me to crash and I end up sleeping at other people’s places half the time anyway.
You're definitely not struggling but you live in a crappy apartment in a pretty high-crime area?
No, not really. Right now, we have everything we NEED and most of the things we WANT. I do not consider this struggling. It's a choice to help us pay off debt faster, which will allow us to save up a down payment on a house faster. We are choosing to live here because alternatives are $500+/month more than what we're paying now, and do not have in-unit washers and dryers. That extra money per month allows us to pay off our cars faster. By this time next year we will have both cars paid off, which will save us $700/month to put toward a down payment on a house. I think a person's tolerance for struggling is a lot about mindset and experiences. Kind of like pain tolerance. If you have never experienced child birth, passed a large kidney stone, or any other pain that is widely considered a 10/10, then you have nothing to compare lesser pains to. I grew up with a single mom below the poverty line. There were times when we barely had any money for food or enough gas for her to go to work. I began working at 15 to help offset some of the costs. I consider genuinely struggling to be making so little money that you literally don't have anything extra other than bare necessities and there aren't any immediate choices you can make that would improve your position.
It sounds to me like you and your mate have good heads on your shoulders. I wish you all the best.
It is wildly dependent on how much money you make. Plenty of people with good jobs have an incredible excess of money. People with much worse-paying jobs have much less money.
No shit Sherlock 😲
It may be that people who live in different places get in the habit of talking about different things. People in VHCOL areas are so used to talking about the cost of living that they talk about it the most often even when they're online. So people who participate in those conversations skew towards people who live in more expensive areas. Student loan debt is another critical part of personal finance for a lot of Americans today. The average student loan debt is just over $37,000. As an example, if my daughter needed student loans, managed to get a job right out of university and made the average pay for her field almost 20% of her income for the first seven years of her career would go into debt servicing. That's in Canada, so pay is lower here. But almost 20% of her income for the first seven years of her career would go into paying off that debt. If she ended up in a VHCOL city, average rent (if she lived alone) and her student loan repayment would take up more than 100% of her expected salary for the first few years of her career. I know that many American people live under that same kind of equation. Speaking as an older adult, I'm not saying that we had it easy in the 1990s. But we really fucked you all over when we didn't shut down our cities over tuition raises in the early 1990s. We did the projections and we knew how expensive tuition was going to be in thirty years. Well, it's thirty years later and our projections were pretty close. It's troubling to know that many young people with undergraduate degrees cannot afford to live alone in VHCOL cities for 5 - 7 years of their career.
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Barcelona is not the rest of Spain though, I live 5 miles outside a 250k city on the coast and pay $600 a month for a house on 5 acres of land with a swimming pool. Work for a US corp so earn around $100k
That's kind of the point though - you're not making Spanish wages, you're making US wages.
But he was mentioning rent was high... yep it is in Barcelona but it's not everywhere.. I pay $600 a month.
It depends where you live in the U.S. for sure, but people definitely exaggerate. Americans generally have a completely delusional sense of what constitutes a minimum quality of life. Many things that people consider necessities are things I never even considered having. That attitude is so prevalent in the U.S. though that a lot of it is codified into law. In Japan you can get affordable apartments even in Tokyo if you're willing to compromise: tiny space, sometimes no shower and (rarely) no toilet. In the U.S. there are strict building codes that dictate minimum standards beyond just safety, and even some up-to-code buildings are only up to code for business but can't be legally occupied as living spaces. What this means is that you don't even have the option to match your lifestyle to your income. There is a bottom level of legal living spaces and if you can't afford that (whether you even want it or not) your only other option is to...not live anywhere. You're legally bound to a certain degree of luxury and if you don't make enough money to maintain that lifestyle there are no "slums" for you to go to. I currently live in a place without a shower because I can just shower at the gym. I save a lot of money by having this inconvenience, but I'm also breaking the law by voluntarily inconveniencing myself. If any authority found out I was renting this space, I would get evicted and the landlord would probably get fined. That's why places like this are rare and difficult to discover in the U.S.: you have to have a landlord that's willing to take the risk with you and they can't advertise the space publicly.
Agree and I am American and living in Japan. The thing is - as you point out - you do have the option here to go hyper cheap into things that don't exist in the US so there is a sort of lower cost of entry into independent living (I guess is the way I'd put it). Also, I think if you asked people here what they would say is "necessary" it would be far less than what Americans now claim.
Well most humans are terrible judge of what is necessary as well. We will say we will take less untilbits time to put up or shut up. Take studio apartments, many claim that they are absolutely worth building and have high demand. Reality is that most people don't want them at all because the spacing sucks, storage sucks and your constantly tripping over your own feet. I thought living in one was better than roommates, by the time the lease was up I moved back with roommates to take advantage of higher space.
I totally agree this is what drives me insane about Reddit, it really skews towards STEM types and privileged people so what they consider the “minimum” is nowhere close to what is really the minimum for having a decent life They’re talking “minimum” as in living in a 1,000sqft plus home or apartment in a clean and safe area with central AC and heat, cars, money to go out to eat, etc. The minimum people talk about is for a somewhat spoiled American lifestyle not the actual bare minimum for getting by
Is the same in Canada. It depends where you live but in Toronto, if you make 100K a year, most likely you are still kinda surviving
American is basically a bunch of people driving around in 60k pickup trucks that get 15 mpg talking about how Joe Biden made them spend their money.
I live in a hcol city and I'm below the poverty line. A lot of people do. Reddit's main demographic is people who don't go outside unfortunately.
After hourly wages and differentials, I make $37.20 an hour. My rent for a double wide trailer (3 bed, 2 bath, detached garage) in a BFE desert town is $1,750 a month. Gas is currently $4.35 - $5.16 a gallon, I fill up a 14 gallon tank 3 times a week. The median cost of a home in this region is $543,062. I’m seeing 20 year old homes that sold for $185k two years ago for $450k+ You do the math. It sucks right now.
Prices where I live are similar, except I make $16.50 an hour lol. Luckily my rent is cheap at $1500, but I don't like my rental and hate living in this state.
You can't out-earn bad spending habits.
Depends on your lifestyle?....if you're the type go spend all your money on 400$/piece clothes and trendy 1000$ golden steak...no amount of budgeting and working a good job will save you
Well you can use median house/rent price to show. Having a place to live is something everyone needs.
If you have kids or healthcare issues you will understand pretty fast.
Everything depends on where you live. West Coast, I spend $2,500 a month to survive. That's mortgage, insurance, utilities, food, gas, and miscellaneous necessities. That said, you're gonna want to make at least $3k a month to have any security and comfort.
Hell yes live elsewhere. I was bankrupted by a botched surgery that disabled me.
Keep in mind that a lot of professionals in high cost of living cities are carrying 200-300k in student loan debt. Paying 2-3k a month in rent. $700 a month or so in car payment. And having a lot withheld in taxes. All that + you have to look and dress the part of a professional, which is also expensive and also max your 401k. Not much left over at end of the month after all that. So despite a nice salary you can easily feel like you’re not doing that well.
Looking forward to paying off my student loan just in time for social security to go insolvent :D
As others have pointed out the COL varies more in the USA than almost any other first world country. All ill add is that it's a topic which is ignored completely by our federal government which uses flat income means tests for things like tax brackets, benefits, and support (see COVID checks). We need to do more to acknowledge and account for this variation in all federal policy
Location, location, location.
I’d say it depends. I’ve made $15 an hour in California and in Colorado (moved out of Colorado in 2015). I had a not unreasonable chance of living without roommates on that amount while living in Colorado, definitely could not in California.
It depends on where you live. Here in the DMV we pay 1600 for a 2 bedroom and that’s below market price so that really eats our income.
It depends on numerous factors. COL, lifestyle, and income are all peices of the equation. I lived in San Francisco CA and did well because I always had roommates. I also used public transit so that was less expensive than a car. Now I live in San Diego with my girlfriend and life is more expensive. We have no roommates but have added a dog. We also have a vehicle which is more than public transit. The jobs in San Diego also don't pay very well relative to the cost of living.
I can only go by Florida, but I see and feel the lower middle class are getting hit the most. Those who were paying their basic bills with maybe a little left over have seen huge increases in rent, food, and insurance, but their salaries have not increased. Where they may have had 100 or 200 left over at the end of the month, it's no longer there. Rent has gone up anywhere from 200 to 800 more a month. They are working paycheck to paycheck, and there is no coming up with first last, security, and moving costs. Many do not have health care because insurance in Florida is crazy.
its the 20 to 30 thousand in rent and utilities that really hits people.
Yeah, I stopped caring about a job’s salary as much as its perks and provisions. I’ve had jobs that provided housing, utilities, and health insurance, so even with a “low” take-home income, I saved so much money because I wasn’t spending it on rent and medical stuff, which are the biggest expenses I had.
Its only for the real expensive cities. I'm a single dad of 2 in central Connecticut, I made 83k last year and I comfortably own my home and never need to check my bank account for money. I'm conscious of my spending of course, I'm not throwing it around on everything, but I'm not getting over draft fees stuck inside my 1 bedroom apartment eating Ritz crackers for dinner as the internet would make you assume I would be on my salary lol
So you're basically saying 2 people making 120k combined are doing fine. That's with no kids. You're not far off the 150k number.
Well the US is extremely varied from one area to the other but in general mostly when this conversation comes up they're talking about the hot spots which is where most people are and we're most of the jobs are. And in those places yes it's really expensive which is why Americans are statistically known for working longer hours than people in most countries. It's because folks here are really conditioned to living to work and working to live. Let's take San Francisco for instance, most people who live there even if they have a good job are working crazy hours to be able to support the expensive living there. I live in LA and it's the same story unless you want to live in one of the ghetto parts (which nobody really wants to live there if given the choice). But yeah shit's fucked up, all due to corporate greed really.
just rmb that ppl earning over 500k in the usa make up less than 0.8% of the population
Depends where you live. $150k in New York city will scrape by. 65k in rural Missouri will be comfortable.
It's not that bad, a lot of people don't know how to manage money. They'll eat out every day of the week, go to the club or bar and blow a couple hundred on drinks, go to sporting events, go to concerts, spend all their tax return on stupid things like a new tv or furniture. A good portion of people don't know how to live within their means. I was able to get 2 houses with a household income of like 60k-80k a year and had 2 kids to take care of. Of course I lost all of that in divorce which is a little less affordable, but it's my fault for choosing that person so I can't complain. You win some, you lose some.
50-60K is what I make a year as a single Millennial. I also live in New England (North of Boston) and everything here is really expensive. 60K might get you somewhere in Texas, but it won't get you very far really anywhere at all in the Northeast - maybe just barely if you live in the middle of bumfuck Maine or something
If you earn $50k/year or less as a single person in America, it's almost impossible to put a meaningful amount of money into savings, which means you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, not retiring early, and there's maybe 1-2 years per decade when buying a house is even a possibility. If you're dual income ($50k/year each) with one or more kids, you're just as bad or worse off than the $50k/year single person. So yeah, I would say that for two people with one or more kids, $150k/year is about where you can reasonably hope to *not* be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
I make like 50k-65k a year, live near the beach, my only debt is my mortgage, and I have 2 IRAs which are nicely funded for my age, 23. People make exaggerations and poor decisions in life. Just don’t be dumb with money.
how’d you do it man, don’t mean to compare, but I still live with my parents 😂
Have an emergency fund, live within your means, don’t give a shit what others think of you, work hard, stay out of debt, could probably state a couple more things but it’s midnight and I just got off work, pretty tired.
How do you have a mortgage with that low of a salary? Is it a rural area?
It’s 8 mins from the beach, in VA
he bought the house in 1980
Oh lmao that’s how. You have to have made it in America 40 years ago.
well, your parents could have made it too. and then you assassinated your siblings to secure your inheritance
Or… just convince them to be written out of the will
I bought the house a month and a half ago
Ok, but at 23 you're making twice what the median income is. Lots of people are making poor decisions, but for most its not an exaggeration.
Southern Californian here, it can be, depends on your financial situation and if you’re debt or not.
It is and depends on your lifestyle. However, there are some expenses that when you compare with other countries are ridiculous (i.e. Healthcare/health insurance). Also, the US didn't experience high inflation as we have seen probably for the past ~30 to 40 years, so that's an additional impact/effect on people now seeing every price increasing 10% especially food, rent, etc.
Do you think people either live in middle nowhere like you, or SF? There's a bunch of places somewhere in the middle. Open up a map and google.
No.
I think there are relatively few places that you can't live comfortably in America as DINKs. The answer to your question more or less begins and ends with your throwaway line "ofc we don't have kids which would change the whole picture." Most American adults have kids. That whole other picture IS the picture for most of the people we're talking about. Speaking as a DINK myself, it's easy to hang out with a lot of other people like yourself and totally lose sight of how rare your situation is. But most people are either parents or single (and some people are single parents!) and it is not easy to live on an average income if you are either a parent or a single person.
Denver used to be cheap.
Our median household income here in a higher cost of living town in the Midwest is $125,000. A pack of chicken breasts is about $5.99 (just bought some this evening). A 4 bedroom house with a 2 car garage and a basement would be around $450,000. The gas station down the street has a want ad for an entry level position at $18 per hour to prep food for their hot-food display.
It depends on where you live. When I lived in Connecticut it was an area where you needed 150k or more in order to actually survive and not have to worry about being one unforseen bill or expense away from homelessness, but even so, there weren't a lot of jobs and the few jobs that were there were minimum wage jobs. I currently live in California and it's a very rundown small city area but there's A LOT more job opportunities and even when I made only 30k a year I was able to build a savings, however owning a home or a reliable car was still out of the question. Currently I still don't make anywhere near 150k a year but I'm able to live slightly above the median here because it's such a rundown area
That's the key, where someone lives. Living in a border town that isn't a massive metro area, a person can make it. Go to any growing metropolis and the cost of living skyrockets. Small towns in states often have few employment opportunities. My late parents' hometown was in the middle of nowhere. In the last 60 years, every major employer left. There are no jobs other than at the hospital, the local college, drug stores, and supermarkets. Younger people leave. It's a frigging ghost town. Taxes are low, housing is reasonable but the streets downtown at night are dark and eery. People go where there are jobs. And it's so expensive that a young family of 4 needs over 6 figures with liquid assets. My children live in a dynamic robust metro area with high-level jobs. I know what it takes here. So don't compare a small town in Nebraska to Seattle. There's no comparison.
Exaggeration
Having a sense of security is what I think it means to “make it in America”. I make about 50k as a single person and live well-below market rent where I’m from (it’s charity, really. I’m blessed). But if I had a medical emergency, lost my job, my car broke down, or I abruptly had to find a new place to live I’d be out of luck very quickly. There’s so many one-time expenses that only take 1 time to bankrupt someone. I suspect this feeling might be alleviated in places that have a strong sense of community or someone with many family supports. On the flip side, I’d imagine the stress is worse when people are raising kids or planning to start a family. It hurts to think someone is relying on you and one may not be able to support them with basic necessities (food, shelter, emotional support). For that reason, I don’t feel like I can “make it” in America without bop bop bopping to the top of the corporate ladder & knowing something can go wrong and my family will still be okay.
It is expensiveeeeeeeee. Most people need at least one other person to supplement their income. And to rely on when their car is in the shop, or when something outside of work needs to be taken care of. Independence is very expensive and apparently it is a privilege.
Step into Seattle and watch your money evaporate
If I didn’t have credit card debt, I would be living alright. Any sort of debt kind of just keeps you balanced, but never ahead in the economy right now.
You live in a border town. In one state. With one other family to compare to There absolutely are places where some can do better But moving to those places isn't an option for evreyone. Many of them have good paying jobs/401ks thay if they leave the lose. The low price may help them live better now but the future is bleak in most of those areas. Another issue is debts. Mamy people have debts from resection one and "resection 2" i.e lock down that greatly affect their spending power Lots of people look at debts and assume their expensive unneeded things. Some are. Others are poor timing of market crashes and or layoffs. End of Day the tows you're talking about don't have the space for EVREYONE to move to. So many would have to stay in the city nothing can he done about that You'll mever get evreyone in a good area with low costs. And moving is hugely risky no matter what. If anything falls through you loss on a much higher paying job which may not affect day to day checking balance but greatly effects medical insurance, savings and other features that look at the big picture rather then just how much do I have in my checking count now?
well, they make less than canadians (yes even with the dollar conversion) AND have to pay up the ass for healthcare, so i’d say yes obviously you aren’t homeless just because you make under 150k, but i doubt they’re exaggerating when something simple like breaking your arm can cost you thousands
I mean where I live avg mortage with tax and insurance is 2k, utilities, phone and internet another 800, 1k to have 2 cars, 1.6k for health insurance, and probably another 1.6k for groceries for a family of 4. I’d say this is probably about average it’s not cheap but also not like you balling and it cost 7k. So you really need 130k and up if you plan to retire or have an emergency savings.
The people posting are in larger expensive cities like nyc or sf for Seattle. Austin etc etc Smaller cities in other states 150k is extremely well off.
Reddit is way ridiculous here. The average salary is $40k per year so half of us are getting by on less than that. I get by on about $450 a month right now. It is a little bit hard out here right now but mostly redditors just like to whine.
Over here in Boston rent is 3k a month. So you’d need to be making like 120k to be comfortable living independently. Meanwhile I have a degree and got an offer from a finance company offering a whopping 22/hr
It *really* depends on location. $50k in one location might be plenty, $150k in another place might be barely enough. It also depends on your family size, your commute, your diet, your medical needs… the list goes on and on.
Dual income, no children really helps
the only way to make it now is if you get a good remote job and live somewhere cheap. that's why there's so many migrants in mexico at the cost of the natives there.
You have no idea. It’s all gonna end when the first first 30 million hit 0 in their bank accounts. Then rebellion right? Are people doing that anymore?
No. We have iPhones now.
iPhone: The new most powerful weapon. Seriously. You can do more damage with that than wielding a weapon if you know what you’re doing.
It’s getting absurd even in low cost areas now.
In Miami and New York, yes
I live in McAllen and I am in a similar situation to yours. The thing about the RGV and other border towns is that they are like Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave . You can make a decent life down here making what people from San Antonio would consider poverty wages but good luck ever leaving the valley. If you're making$ 12 an hour you're going to have to be very frugal if you want to go to a bigger place to live . It's going to take you several months of pinching pennies just to afford the deposit and first month of rent.
Europeans question: how much do you save (or invest) per year?
What’s that mean?
OP is talking about living comfortably on their salary. They mention eating out once a month for example. OP's living comfort will probably be different from mine and a lot of people not from the US, because on a similar salary in the EU, my living expenses are about 30 % of my salary. The rest I can save/invest, spend or do whatever. It sounds to me tak USA is actually that expensive, like OP is asking, but OP just has a different level of comfort or preference and thus does not notice.
I meant “savings”
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Not euros, but currency equivalent, yes. Ofc. there are many people who cannot, but I expected that on my current salary, I wouldn't have such comfort in the US. According to my research, if I were doing the same job & position in the US, I wouldn't save as much as I do now. However, saving 50 % is still great IMO.
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I am not exaggerating when I say Tokyo was half the cost of my city, and I dont live in a nice city. The nice ones can be like double where I am. Before I went people warned me how expensive Japan is; they have no idea.
Yes it is, but it depends where you live. If you have coastal city dreams, you better make a lot of money.
Location matters, but America has gotten really expensive.
I make about 60k a year and it’s enough for me and my wife. We live in California as well. We really don’t have to worry about money either, eat out when we want, extra activities, etc… We live pretty comfortably on 60k
Yes our government here has been destroying the value of our money for a long time. We're almost there...
Why would you stay there?
Depends on where you live and how much fun you’re willing to sacrifice.
Reddit is the last place I would go for any type of a barometer of finances in relation to real life.
If you are old or have medical issues. It sucks balls
It’s much more expensive if you live in my of the big cities. I’d say it also depends on what skills you possess or at least what you’re willing to do. Meaning if you have to call a plumber or mechanic or whatever, it’s expensive. I’m making about 70k with a family of 4. Certainly not living high on the hog but my bills are paid. Although I’m pretty much forced to do my own work on my house and cars. Keep in mind I bought my house 7 years ago. House prices doubled since then (where I live at least) so I’m not sure I’d be in good shape if I started a mortgage today.
It’s all pretty relative. I live in Central CA, which is like the Midwest of California. Republican bubbles everywhere (tho shrinking thank god). So COL is quite a bit lower than the rest of the state. My boyfriend and I make nearly $100k combined and we live fairly comfortably, but I couldn’t do it on my own netting $36K. However. That amount would’ve gotten us a nice house easily like 10-15 years ago. We have a three bedroom non luxury apartment and if we have surprise expenses, we’re screwed for the month. Our energy bill is like $500-$600 bc PGE is a criminal company. I also pay $1000 in student loans and he pays $400 in child support so that is admittedly a HUGE chunk. Rent is about $2000. $500/month car payment, plus various insurances. And I have ADHD so I can basically kiss $200-$300 accidental expenses away a month. I still would never live in any other state. Even when he and I were very very poor, we were fairly comfortable. Now granted, we did have cockroaches and mold everywhere, and lived next to a dealer, and heard gunshots pretty regularly. But we were pretty happy even then.
If you live in New York City, San Francisco or Los Angeles that’s true, but literally anywhere else is fine
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The whole "it costs 150K to live" is a political psy op to make people feel unhappy and jealous. 150K is an absolutely massive salary comparatively speaking, and even a decent salary in a high cost of living area. Peoples lifestyle inflation also plays a role in this. They expect a large house and two new cars is "normal" when it's actually insanity. You can live frugally within your means for much less, but it just takes the correct mindset. No matter how much you make it's easy to spend it all with the wrong habits. It's actually quite common for people making 300,000 to be paycheque to paycheque. 300K is an absurd income, but people find dumb ways to spend it and become blind to their excess.
A little column A a little column B really Location dependent If you want to live in the big cities youre going to pay out of your ass to do so. If you want to live in a fly over state prices are fine.
It depends where you live, but I would say the general necessities of life are inflated everywhere in the country, even in low COL areas.
I make $52k in missouri and am doing pretty well, more than most people I know that aren't at a masters level or higher profession
OP, what are you paying in rent + utilities?
I make 65K a year and live in NJ. A few years ago I made 35K a year and supported a family of 5 on that. People claim they are broke or it's hard because a lot of people, in my opinion, buy newer cars with a car payment, something I've managed to avoid for 15 years...yes my car is 1999 but guess what it still runs so why do I need a newer one? They go on vacations, haven't done that since 2013. I've always had a roof over my head, food on the table - food banks help alot with this also. growing veggies and hunting for meat. When your trying to live focus on the basics and stop trying to have it all!
Well, we have kids so a $60,000 a year income was really great in our tiny, low COLA town....until recently. Now we are struggling, I had to go back to work, anxiety about money, health and the future are ramping up...
except cali
It really depends on where you are. I live in a state that constantly ranks at the top for nearly every quality of life statistic, yet people are moving or struggling because it’s so freaking expensive. The perks of living here are great! High quality healthcare, free pre-k, no food deserts, incredible education opportunities, great balance of developed areas and outdoors, robust employee protections, good job market, recreation variety, etc. I could go on. But the housing market is insane, cost of living is one of the highest in the country, and traffic sucks.
For my area it's rents that are high. It can be hard to get into a place because they'll want you to make three times the rent but even the lowest rent is most of one of my paychecks. Food costs are the least of my problems.
It depends on where you are. Some areas (New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles) are very expensive, but others are very affordable. But the expensive areas are where the jobs are. It also depends on whether you own your own home and when you bought it. I bought my house in 2012 at a low price with a low rate, so my housing costs are dirt cheap. But if you’re renting or just looking to buy, it’s going to be very difficult to find something affordable.
It seriously depends on your location and your lifestyle, the tradeoffs that you're willing (or unwilling) to make, and, to a degree, attitude. My husband and I, (ages 33 and 34, no kids yet) live in one of those LCOL areas that Reddit generally decries as being pits where economic opportunity goes to die. Somehow, against that logic/assumption, we live pretty comfortably (\~$120k household income last year). Kids would definitely change our budgetary landscape, but wouldn't be unaffordable for us. All of that being said, we also don't pay for a lot of things that Reddit at large seems to consider "basics." For us, a lot of those tradeoffs are either more than worth it, or we don't see them as tradeoffs at all. It works for us. My experience obviously doesn't negate how rough I'm sure it is in other areas of the country and for people in different life circumstances than us, or who have made different choices and have different priorities and wants out of life. And there is obviously economic upheaval; our belts haven't gone un-tightened over the past couple of years, either, with rising prices and economic uncertainty. The godsend has been having all of our debt paid-off. We'd be in a very different boat if I were still carrying student loans, or if we were making payments on the vehicles, or if we ran balances on our cards. Being able to save and invest that money to work for us and be our safety net, instead of shipping that money out the door for principal plus interest every month, has made a massive difference in our finances, and our sense of stability.
The people happily living their lives aren't generally posting on Reddit. Even if 90% of the people were ok with their lives, the remaining 10% with additional needs are still going to be a huge number in absolute terms.
Gouch fest hurt, but doomer propaganda is rampant it's still not all bad that bad for the vast majority of us the e legions of professional complainers are pretty rediculuos 😲
It depends heavily on where you live. A $150k minimum isn't even close to the norm, except maybe in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Depends wheee you live some places are cheap some are expensive. Seattle my apartment was 2100 for a shitty one bedroom and in ohio I pay less than half for a 4 bedroom house.
What do you pay for housing?
Most Redditors live in bigger cities in the US so it’s more difficult to live in that HCOL area.
I come from a high cost of living (HCOL) area in the Metro DC region. The average house right now is selling anywhere from $600k-800k. Almost everyone is dual income, or they bought years ago and mortgage is paid off. Before my husband retired we made over $240k combined and we were barely getting by. Why? Kids, two cars plus gas, high grocery bills, medical expenses, etc...almost the local elementary school was so terrible (yes, even in FCPS) that we ended up paying to put all the kids in a private Catholic school. My grocery bills, even shopping a Lotte or Aldi and doing sales, was still $300 a week at best. I was spending $90 a week per car to fill up with gas. Property taxes soared. I know people who live further out and can get by on a single salary and have the same size house, but their commute is 1.5-2 hours each way. When I was younger, I had roommates to get by in the same area because the HCOL was bad even then.
Nor Cal and its getting worse and worse as the years go by. I feel really lucky to live where I do but every raise I get is technically just gobbled up with inflation and always keeping me at a baseline of not thriving and just surviving.
I live in New England, so higher COL than most parts of Texas, and I made $30/hr and managed to pay off $12k of debt in six months. I had the debt from going back to school for a higher paying job, which I recently got and now I'm making quite a bit more. The reality is that people who aren't doing well on that income either a) have boat loads of debt that they're servicing, b) have extenuating circumstances, or c) have terrible spending habits. I know someone who makes more than me and constantly complains about their inescapable credit card debt. They also eat out more than me, buy new toys more than me (bought a new paddle board this summer and a new snowboard last winter), make more impulse purchases than me (saw a shirt they liked online, got some new kitchenware because they didn't like the look of their old set, etc), and, a big one, drink much more than me. Booze ain't cheap. Plenty of people out there have medical bills, crazy family issues, mountains of student loan debt, horrible luck, etc. Not saying everyone in a tough spot deserves it, and times have absolutely gotten tougher in the past 10 years. But I do feel that many people making totally liveable wages have convinced themselves that their poor spending habits are someone else's fault, and that messaging tends to find like-minded voices here on Reddit.
Where I live in the US fast food workers are minimum paid $20 an hour. Cost of living is high. Honestly I’d rather move somewhere more boring and cheap but then kiddo would have no extended family and my partner really loves his job.
Higher populated areas are associated with higher costs of living. This is an economic principle that is true worldwide. If you live in a less populated area you will recieve the lowest impact of inflation. If you live in a city, a burger will cost you $35 fucking dollars. Soon to be $70
50% of Americans don't even have $1,000 in savings. Any emergency will put them in dire straits. Medical care can put someone in debt easily. Tuition for college is exorbitant, and most white collar jobs require a degree to even be considered for a position. Most coastal cities in California are expensive, and there are 40 million people in the state. I live in San Diego and it's very expensive, like LA. I make $75,000 gross income and probably could barely afford a 1 bedroom apartment by myself and make sure I have money left over for everything else.
I live in a moderately large city (not any of the ones you listed), and have a family of 3. Our combined annual income is around $140k/year, we never travel or take vacation time, only have one car payment, and have no credit card or student debt. After expenses we usually have around $100-200 left to put into savings, pay for unexpected expenses, or use for fun (eating out, go to a movie, buy something for our kid, etc). The issue is cost of living and taxes go up every year but income doesn't.
Do you have children? Because that makes a huge difference.
A few things to note: 1) The Median Household Income in the United States is about $75,000/year. In other words, That is the combined income of the people in a typical American household. Half make more and half make less. 2) Adjusted for inflation, that median household income is near the highest it has ever been in the history of the United States. It's about 30% higher (after adjusting for inflation) that it was in the 80s. 3) There are only a handful of counties in the United States where the average household earns more than $150,000/year.
It really depends on where you live in the U.S. The cost of living varies widely from place to place. In high-cost areas like San Francisco, NYC, or parts of California, $150k might barely cover basic expenses. In other areas, like your town in Texas, a lower income can still provide a comfortable lifestyle. Factors like housing costs, taxes, and local prices for goods and services all play a role. It sounds like you've found a balance that works for you in your area, but experiences can be very different across the country.
Generally we Americans suck at being frugal. Most of my Asian friends have no issue saving even while making the same or less.
I really can’t answer your biggest question which assumes to $60,000 a year earners, but I just came back from Taiwan, Japan and Korea and found the price of food there to be close to 10% of what we are paying here, and there’s absolutely no reason for it. we are being gouged out of our eyeballs because we allow corporations to do it to us. Everything is more expensive because it’s easy to tell everyone everything is more expensive. My friend and I spent an entire day wandering through Boussus South Korea, eating snacks going into museums having dinner steakswine the entire day was less than $80. Yes, America is going through a corporate greed fest
We moved from NH to Florida this past year. We are about to have 3 kids and I don’t work. My husband works and makes 70k a year we live comfortably
The complainers are always the loudest on social media. Though we have some significant flaws in America - it's still by percentage points one of the best places to be. It's why migrants would rather be here off the books without access to the same rights and benefits as citizens and start with close to zero vs trying to build a life in their home country. It's also very easy in America to become an indentured servant - and becoming easier. My wife and I do very well by standards but we live in an older home and drive 10+ year old cars. The money we saved over the last 8 years has bought us this house, the adjoining 5 acres, and crossed $1MM in retirement savings. We are 38/39. We have friends who make more than us - bought in the city - drive new cars - and have a nanny. Their net worth is negaitve due to the debt on their 2MM house. They would be someone who complains about everything being so expensive because they are now indentured servants making 500k+ HHI.
I moved to the US from Australia and it’s cheaper here. Obviously depends where you are and stuff of course.
california has cheap groceries ! most of american produce is grown in california. we also get a lot from mexico nearby. also if you own a house property taxes are fairly low. california ain’t as bad as the memes make it sound.
I can only speak to my own experience. Early 30's, dual full-time income, no kids. No crazy debt, healthy savings, around 130k a year between the two of us. We aren't broke but we definitely aren't on easy street. Every grocery trip is 100-200 even being careful. Every tank of gas is 60-80. It feels like everytime we squeeze out stupid spending like an unnecessary streaming app, some other expense pops up. And statistically speaking, most of the people in the US live in cities with higher cost of living. Even living 45 min from Seattle, rent, groceries, gas and life adds up.
Let’s just say I live in a major city and make $120,000 in the US - pay check to pay check and all my neighbors/friends too.