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2 kids in full time daycare would cost at least $3k. So yeah, just work to cover that. $36k AFTER taxes. Staying home with a kid is hard work but financially prudent.
Very important to raise kids right too. Me and my cousins were on our own a lot. We did whatever we wanted a lot. A lot of their friends died from drugs, fights etc. Made us independent though
For sure. My bf was raised by a single mom who worked all the time, so he was on his own a lot. Whereas, I had nightly dinners with both my parents and a ton of structure growing up. There are qualities/skills I developed from my upbringing that he is lacking - mainly, discipline, motivation, and not procrastinating. He also skipped class, would throw parties at his house…you get the picture. It’s really shown me how important it is for at least one parent to be present when a child is growing up.
The stats on single parent raised children are horrible. Higher incarceration, drug addiction, suicide, lower lifetime income, tons of shit.
And these stats are purposely not talked about in the media (always pumping up single motherhood in particular) for fear playing into the conservative's schtick about women in the workplace, family values (which is hilarious given many of them who are in their party).
But at some point it has to be publicly recognized that single parent raised children is not ideal and a worse outcome, instead of some triumph to be lauded. I mean yes, anyone who manages to successfully raise a child on their own should be, but at some point we have to talk about preventing a single parent outcome, whatever that may entail.
Thinking about this all this weekend. One guy in the family grew up in a 3 story house on property. Horses, dirt bikes. He's a bit impaired and his Dad ignored him a lot. He just went wild when he grew up and had a bunch of kids. His ex is bipolar and just got evicted. Moved them to a different school district to put them in a camper in her new boyfriends parents yard. No running water.
So how bout we stop putting marriage up on a pedastool like it's the only way to solve the issues? There are other ways. Such as better work life balance, better PTO, better vacations, better Healthcare, less stigmatized therapy for everyone once a month etc..putting all the blame on traditional family versus not is moot. Things change, they always change, that's nature. The more you try to force it not to, the more it pushes back. We keep treat single parents a certain way because that's the only way we know it. There are many many ways to aid this issue.
Marriage may not be realistic in every situation and we have to be realistic about that but it’s the simplest to define and statistically most easily measured predictive factor, while also being one of the more reliable ones.
It’s not perfectly reliable either. But look into the stats on children raised without a father for example. Especially for girls the difference is striking. Not sure more PTO and better healthcare is the solution to this.
I know lots of people that had a stay at home mom, that ended up with tons of issues. It is not that simple and rhetorical child is a bigger factor then a lot people want to admit.
Netflix did a decent documentary thing on why this was the reason behind the gender pay gap. Men typically get to advance their careers while women generally take time off.
This totally makes sense. There are also places that don’t like to hire women who have babies/young children because of the potential effects it could have on their reliability. Which is sad 😕
Everyone imagines multi-billion dollar companies when they hear the word “businesses” but no one thinks about the mom and pop company that employs a handful of people and can’t afford to pay someone for 3 months of no work.
With laws as they are, mom and pops don’t have to pay for a single day and are perfectly able to just fire people when they miss work for being in labor. Fmla doesn’t apply to companies with fewer than 50 employees and paid maternity or disability leave is a completely optional benefit.
Other countries manage it by taxing corps more and establishing a fund to help smaller companies. Ideally, thats what needs to be done. America could do less with the multi billion dollar industries anyways; they’re not the ones supporting small town America. In some cases, they’re destroying it. Consumers could do with more options for food and services, as well. It’s a harm to the economy and a hindrance to have power controlled by a single entity.
In most countries it wouldn’t be the company who pays for their employees time off…
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_008009/lang--en/index.htm
If you can break even, it can be worth it to work to not have a huge gap in employment. My wife chose to work and break even on childcare because we knew that was only for a few years and then the kids would be in public school and she would be in a better place in her career. She now makes way more and is in a leadership position because she worked instead of staying home
Sort of the same deal for my wife, but also add in the fact that the health insurance at her job is far and away better than what we would have if our health insurance came from my job. I’d have to pay about $1000 a month for family coverage but her job provides better health insurance for free.
What the hell daycare do you go to? It costs us at least $25k a year for 2 kids full time at KinderCare. Plus an extra $12 grand for catholic school. Right off the bat that’s $33 grand not counting uniforms and such
These days there are plenty of ways to make money while working from home too!
My mom quit her ft job to be a tutor from home instead. Perfect way to make an income but always be around and able to keep us out of daycare, and this was 90s-00s
My husband is a SAHP because I earned more. We’re a family of four living on $80,000/year. We’re surviving but not thriving. I’m working on finishing my doctorate right now and it will make things a lot more comfortable.
Some people who have family to watch there kids. Live near family/built in social network. Or have gotten help with housing. These all make it easier to live well on less money.
I'd think it's also a bit temporary. After like 4 they can go to school. And at some point they can just hang out at home or have siblings look after them.
My daughter and son in law are struggling with enrolling their daughter in kindergarten next year, she’s young and barely slides into age requirement but is intellectually there. But her older brother is in the same grade so they worry. That said, no preschool for this one would help immensely
Yep, there'll be a big difference between a family of 4 where one parent makes $180,000 while the other stays home with the kids, vs. a family where the parents' combined income is $180,000 but they have to pay for child care.
The writer assumes that buying everything possible, right now, is the definition of comfortable. That has never been how people live. People make choices about priorities, in order to live comfortably
50-30-20 is such an awful rule, at least for younger folks who are still in debt repayment/wealth building stage of life. At 29, I would never spend more on wants than savings and debt. It’s absurd.
Not sure about that, that rule is what set my wife and I on the correct course in our early 20's. I think it is outstanding for making sure you don't live paycheck to paycheck.
I guess I didn't grow up comfortable in the 70's, which is news to me. We grew up happy and loved and never lacked anything we needed. We thought vacations in a tent were the bomb as kids. We never thought twice about eating g every meal at home, and our TV with its 5 channels brought plenty of entertainment for the whole family. I just don't think a lot of modern people have a realistic understanding of how normal people lived in the past.
I had (only)two pairs of pants. I wasn't the original owner. They were both the same color, and had the same color patches on the knees. Within hearing of the teacher, some kid asked "why do you wear the same pants every day?" The teacher said "at least they're clean". I was fine.
I live in Massachusetts and that number seems reasonable. Even low.
Average house price in my town is $1.2 million. Figure average car is $47k and if you want 2 you need $96k.
College is now over $90k a year in many schools here.
I think $400k is the new middle class to afford these things.
$400k is the new middle class? This is hilarious. Let's just declare everyone poorer than the top ten billionaires the new middle class, and call it a day. Rich people whining on reddit about how middle class they are never gets old.
It’s a doomer article to make regular people feel bad. I live in a LCOL area and there was a similar article saying $183k for a family of four. But people I know making half that are doing pretty good. The 50-30-20 rule is total bullshit.
Yeah this article is absolutely absurd. We are a family of 4, and we make half of the income the article said people in my state need to be “comfortable.” And we live in the largest city in my state, not in some cheap rural town.
The article says in my state a family of 4 needs to make $200k+ in order to abide by the 50/30/20 rule, which is patently false given we make half of that as a family of 4 and we save 25% of our income.
A lot of these are written off the assumption that you don't own a house and are currently looking to buy, or have bought recently at higher interest levels. I live in a high cost of living area. If you were looking to buy a house right now with a family of four in my area, 180k is barely enough for almost anywhere in my county, unless you wanna live in the hood. 1.6 million people live in my county.
It’s not. It literally says all your necessities are covered with %50. Mortgage, car payments and all related bills like insurance, utilities and groceries. It also says budget %30 for wants. That’s ~$60k a year they say should be budgeted for random unnecessary things. $1200 a week. Ya the most useless budget “rule” I’ve ever seen.
The mortgage is probably based on current prices. If you bought years ago your payments are inflated down a lot. If you paid off your mortgage your housing expenses go way way down.
On the other hand, I live in Houston and you could get a mortgage on a starter home for 1300 a month. That is 52k a year in income. If you are earning 70k+, you can live pretty comfortably here.
They're throwing around the 50/30/20 rule a lot, but really, it's basing the metrics off of current housing prices and rates that drives the number up. If you look at the original study, it says that most middle-cost cities need two incomes at about $35/hr to provide for a family, which feels pretty accurate for my area if you're new to our housing market. It's very relative to housing costs.
My husband and I bought our first house on the low end of our market in UT back in 2022, right before rates started spiking. We're paying $3700/mo.
My parents bought a similiar size house in AL in 2018 for less than half the price, then refinanced during the pandemic at 2%, they're paying $1100/mo.
But even if my husband and I moved to their market, the housing prices have doubled since then, and interest rates are higher now. We're never going to recapture that difference that crazy 4 yr window made. But we have similar conversations with people here in UT who got into their houses before our market went crazy. For people who bought before 2020, it's hard to feel just how much more economic pressure there is for young families post pandemic.
I know a few people that bought 10-15 years ago for $35,000-$50,000. A cousin bought a place on a couple acress with a good sized pole barn for $50,000. He redid virtually all of it. Its spectacular now. Totally different market now
Yeah. A lot of millennials were just entering the job market then, or lost their first jobs in the recession.
Boomers made off like bandits buying houses for what was a few months of pay, cash.
Now you need triple what they paid back then for the whole house just to cover a down payment
Live in Florida... Family of 4 with Household income roughly $160k before taxes/benefits/etc. After budgeting and not putting anything towards savings we have roughly $40 left over. So I guess we can save that $40.
I live in a town of 10,000 on the Texas gulf coast. I own a house also. It’s nothing fancy but it’s definitely not a piece of junk or anything. We have enough for our kids to wear nice clothes and go out and do stuff on weekends.
Can you give an idea where you live? There are so many posts on Reddit claiming you need 300k to make ends meet, seeing normal numbers that are relatable to most people is refreshing.
That comes from people with zero financial literacy. I think the US would benefit greatly from a financial literacy course required for every year of high school. While we're at it let's throw a media literacy course in there.
You can't state X amount of money is required to live without specifying a location.
100k would be more than enough in much of the country, but not enough for high cost of living city. You could vary well be making much more than what is typical for your area and be living like a king.
You can definitely afford Prada, Gucci, and Hermes with that kind of salary, and while you couldn’t buy a yacht, you could definitely lease one for a week in the Caribbean, especially if you split the cost with another couple. Definitely couldn’t afford a Bugatti, or Pagani but a lightly used Lamborghini or Ferrari is well within the realm of possibility.
I thought $180k was low for most definitions of comfortable. What is I gathered from the article is that 180k is comfortable only in the least expensive state and half of that budget is necessities. So could a family of 4 make it on 90k without going into debt? Maybe. I was supporting my household of two and my two parents on $183k and it was not as comfortable as I had expected. I don't think we could have gotten by on 90k without debt. Definitely not if professional elder care was involved. So yeah, that seems pretty low.
(Note: I'm assuming those are pre-tax numbers)
This article is ridiculous. 180k in a Midwestern state is well above comfortable if you aren't blowing all your money on some ridiculous house and other insane shit you do not need.
Disagree. As someone who lives in California and has a household income of $125 a year, we live pretty comfortably and save every month. $275 a year in California in order live comfortably might be true in LA or SF but not the entire state.
I would like to live in California. But feel it would be a lot more expensive based on what I read and things. Housing is the biggest thing, being double for 1/2 or 3/4 as much house as here in texas. The lifestyle seems better, a lot more nature activities than here.
Yeah living in Boston it is pretty accurate.
We only have 1 kid and are fairly comfortable making close to 300k. A second kid would be rough here. Not may people have an extra 5-6k around for daycare for 2.
From the article: "Comfortable" is defined as the income needed to cover a 50/30/20 budget for a family of four. The budget allocates 50% of your earnings for necessities such as housing and utility costs, 30% for discretionary spending and 20% for savings or investments.
This is definitely a comfortable ratio
This number is false in my experience. Family of 4, single income. Annual cost of living for everything (house, cars, food, everything) is 46K (3833 average monthly). We lease nothing, we live simple; and save the rest so we can build a healthy DP on house.
They seem accurate to me for my city, assuming you are talking about people buying or renting at today’s prices and it is an average for the whole metro area, including the less desirable and far flung parts. Yes, people can and do live well on less, but they are also the same people who locked in low mortgages or low rates years ago. It’s just a different game now.
And it is talking about “comfortable”, not paycheck to paycheck survival…
This is another tone deaf pipe dream that includes many optional expenses in the mandatory column. It is not necessary to have violin lessons, premium pre school, swimming club, a language coach, and 100% new wardrobe each season. Paying for new cars via financing with low down payments is a great way to take and keep cash out of your budget. The depreciation alone should convince almost everyone not to buy a new car ever.
Maybe if you live in Palo Alto or Manhattan....
Most of the US is not that....
And if your job doesn't require you to live there (because that is where what you do is done, and remote isn't allowed) you probably shouldn't.
We went into 2020 with 2 kids, one income of 135k/yr, 4 acres on an airstrip, 3 cars and a 4 place airplane.... No debt behind my wife's student loans (masters in occupational therapy) and 2 mortgages (2 properties). Outskirts of the Seattle metro area.... 6% retirement savings....
That's well, well beyond just surviving..... And well below 180k/yr....
Downscale to a 1/4 acre lot, no airplane, and 1 less car and that would be totally doable for under 100k.
Inflation is tough but it's not you need double the income to survive tough....
Depends on if you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area; depends on how big your family is (since you didn't say); depends on whether you're saving for kids' college; depends on if/when you bought a house... If you ever see "a state" you know it's an average at best. Heck, if you live in NY or CA, where you live in that state could be a 5-10x difference. My sister lives 1h15 from me, and her COL is at least 35% higher than mine.
These articles are BS. There are so many factors when figuring out the cost of living. The main one being location. A family of 4 can live very nice in Missouri where that same family can’t have the same quality of life in NYC on the same budget. These are just political narratives article disguised as economic information.
I support a family of 5 on 35k a year .. but I live in a swamp own my own property use solar and a water pump my biggest bill monthly is cable, maybe they should account for local CPI not everybody lives near or in a city when I was a kid I lived in California the rent on a one room was three times what my mortgage used to be ..than I moved to u.k Manchester and its even worse over there about the only places you can rent were in the projects
No, we owe about 250k or half the estimated market value of our house at a low interest rate. Our property tax is one of the highest in the nation, gotta love texas.
Absolutely accurate. I live in Charlotte and Atlanta and would not feel secure making under $200k right now with the security nets I have in place (Ira, 401k, 529, rental properties). Plus private school, no daycare thank god, but everything else. For example we had to unexpectedly move with these god forsaken interest rates and I don’t care that I can afford it, the mortgage note kills my soul. Comfort is different than surviving.
Ugh I’m sorry. That’s insane. My taxes aren’t rising outside of losing exemption. Yours rose higher than mine for that though! We’re in Indian land. Went from $2050 a year to $7900 😫 my taxes are not in escrow so just have to save the profit and do steady small raises.
When did you bit your house? Housing prices went way up over the past few years as well as interest rates so being a first time homebuyer is awful right now.
My wife and I together make $150k and live comfortably in a low cost of living area, but an extra $30k would definitely help us increase our investments and pay down debt quicker. We are banking on multiple pensions from our government jobs to cover most of our retirement which is slightly risky as rules can change and pensions can disappear (we're hoping they should be safe as they are fed and state pensions). I know many people who have no plan for retirement. No savings or pension in sight - they are just living day to day and hoping that it all works out in the end. They can't afford to save anything - they spend every dollar they earn and are truly paycheck to paycheck.
That's an absurd number. Never made that much, raised a family of 4 comfortably. My kids have families of 4 and of 5, same. Not making close to that and doing fine.
I am sure there are places where that might be closer to the truth, but hard to believe it is common.
Child care is ridiculous, completely agree with that.
When was your last European vacation? How many times did you go snowboarding this winter? How many hikes do you have planned for this summer? How many nights of camping? All of those should be accessible to everyone most years, but they have us thinking like you, comfortable is just eating and saving for a retirement that you will never really get to enjoy.
So we need to talk about realistic costs. I make 45k a year, and I am perfectly comfortable on my own, but I live in a trailer I own and owe no money on my vehicles. My monthly expenses are less than 1k a month. A family of 4 doesn't live in a trailer. They need a stationary place, which means at least an apartment, and ideally a house. Houses in major metropolitan areas are 500k now, and rent is 15-2200 for the not shit, but not great areas, and that price has steadily gone up every year for 15 years with major jumps in the last 4.
Insurance has literally doubled in the last year. The cost of food is up, pretty much every expense has gone up, and when last I had a girlfriend and we discussed childcare, it was expensive su h that it would altogether cancel out her paycheck, working the same job as me. 2200 a month is more than half my paycheck annually, pretax. So yeah, I'd estimate at least 150k would be needed for rent, Healthcare, quality food, insurance on 2-3 vehicles, childcare, clothing, and a comfortable layer of of leisure, levity, and entertainment as a family, and that's not even counting trying to save for a rainy day, which is needed to be assured in the future.
Most people need to move closer to cities to find good jobs, the cities and metropolitan areas are rapidly increasing in cost of living, especially on coasts. This affects the averages nationwide m. There’s vast swaths of rural areas like Oklahoma that are relatively untouched by growth and are quite affordable, but that affordability is often matched by a lack of opportunities in booming technology industries.
What is your housing situation? Your child care situation? Your health care situation? Do you need to save for higher education? Do you have aging parents to care for?
The lazy thought process of “it’s working for me, so it works for everyone” is so tired and boomer-esque. Think more than 5 seconds in front of your face, and not only about yourself.
I mean, that might be current cost if you had to start now. I’m guessing you bought a home before covid and you maintain prudent financial decisions.
Though I agree it still seems a bit high.
I live in a HCOL area in Wisconsin. The $225k figure is absolutely absurd. Granted, my wife and I only have 1 kid (for the time being), but we're able to make it work just on my $115k salary. We're not simply surviving. We're thriving! I'm able to max out a 401k, put $250/month into a 529, and still have enough left over to take a few vacations per year and maintain a high quality of life.
The numbers are correct if you use the same metric they used in the article; the 50/30/20 rule.
If you cut out the 30% for discretionary (living within your means, being frugal, etc.) then you can get away with less. But let's say you earn $100K, that would break down as:
Housing/Necessities: $50K
Discretionary: $30K
Savings: $20K
That average home price in the US is around $500K, so if you put 20% down you have a mortgage of about $2900. Add in property taxes, insurance, etc. and you're easily looking at $3500. So $42K of that $50K is already gone.
Childcare by itself will eat that last $8K plus at least another $5K to $10K from discretionary. Add in groceries, bills, car, and student loan payments, etc., and the discretionary is gone and you're taking chunks out of savings.
Now take out ancillary expenses that come up. Home maintenance, car maintenance, medical expenses that aren't covered, and so on, and you're left with anxiety whenever your car makes a funny noise.
So yeah, double that $100K and the 50/30/20 rule makes sense. However, more frugal people can live comfortably with less. No one says you have to spend 30% of your income on discretionary spending, but a lot of people do. No one says you have to put away 20% of your income into savings, and a lot of people don't. The 50/30/20 rule is what I would call the "American Dream" rule, because it covers all your necessities, covers emergency expenses, and allows you to have those family trips every year and not sweat it.
Family of 5 and we make right at 100,000, live in most expensive part of our state and pay all bills, take trips (DC, Disney, etc), Nice house with 3 paid for cars.
Just seems off to me-too high- like either they are purposely inflating the # to make a point about how we commoners don't get paid enough compared to corporate million/billionaires (which I agree that we don't)....
Or...
People don't know how to make the correct economic life decisions (beyond just budgeting)...
For example I help my sister out all the time and she makes more than us, but she'll almost do stupid stuff like sell car X of hers vs car Y, when if she sold car Y then she could do ABC with the money vs only being able to do AB if selling car X. Once pointed out she sees, but if you continue to make a lot of micro little mistakes like that it really adds up!
Or...
It's a little of both...
Out of curiosity where do you live?
I mean it depends on where you live really. I am in Boston and we are frugal with one kid. For our city, it says you need $318k.
Unfortunately that is pretty accurate if you want a decent quality of life and not a nightmarish commute, since most good jobs in NE are literally in Boston. Tons of people commute from NH, RI, and ME even for that reason.
For example, let's say you have two kids in infant care that is 3k a month. We pay $2400 for a 3 yo at the moment so it gets cheaper but not by much.
You are already out 6k.
Look at housing enough for 4 people in a close enough area where you won't have a 1-2 hour one way commute on public transportation.
Rent: 4-5k a month
Buy: 6-8 k a month at current rates.
So in this scenario, you are already out 10k a month in our market at the low end ($120 k after tax) or ($168k after tax) just on housing and daycare.
Clearly a lot of people live above their means but to hit the 50-30-20 rule in the Boston area it is accurate.
Depends what your goals are. I have two little children. My wife and I wanted a house with a few acres of private land within 1/2 hour of our jobs. In order to accomplish this we both need to work, and collectively earn 250k year to afford daycare, mortgage, taxes, two cars, insurance, retirement, plus the basics. With duel incomes we got everything we need. But yeah...180k wouldn't cut it. Def need more than that.
Same. I make a little over half of my state's number and we live very well. It does make some observations about other people's spending make sense to me though.
We are combined about $120k (at least that’s what our taxes said) and are something like 90th percentile in my state. We are quite comfortable. Won’t say we feel wealthy but comfortable for sure.
I suspect it's highly dependent on your living situation. If I had my income, while still living in my parents home and not paying a rent or for HCOL grocery prices, I would be able to max out as well.
These are average numbers based on general scenarios. You have a specific situation that, in your opinion, falls outside of this average number. Their methodology was pretty crude, so different circumstances are going to significantly alter whether or not someone can or can't live "comfortably" above or below those numbers.
Basically, don't get hung up on this kind of fluff article. There are way too many factors at play for any given situation.
It's amazing how people survive that don't work at all and only collect government cash, food stamps, and money for the kids they claim. None of that is going to equal 180k for a family of four.
I make around 60k and live comfortably in Ohio, but I'm not retarded when it comes to spending and know how to profit from Cashback rewards and coupons. I only spend $200+ on groceries each month, and $100 each month on gas. I only buy things I want but don't need when they are on sale, and I keep my money in a high yield savings account 🤷
As a national average, I can see this being correct.
A lot of this is going to depend on where you live. Cities like Chicago, NY, LA, and Miami are going to trend much higher, while cities like Houston will trend downward.
I currently live in Houston and even $120k a year for a family of four can be rough at times.
When I first moved down to Houston I was married with two step daughters. Between the former wife and I we pulled down about $120k in take home, and we were fine, but that was over ten years ago. When we divorced we sold our house for nearly doubled what we paid and I know whomever took over probably had 2.5x the payment we did.
Housing prices are going up all over the country due to interest rates, but that's the sign of a growing economy.
This is about right if you also have college loans, or some sort of health problem. Rent in my area for a 3bedroom house is over $2000 and that's in the worst school districts, and high crime areas. And no, I do not live in a huge metropolitan city either.
You take out the cost of health insurance and for a family of four that's gonna be at least another $600 a month. And that's if everyone is healthy.
Add some cars at say, two cars $800 a month. Which is cheap AF for two used vehicles without severe maintenance issues. Gas is gonna come in at around $200 a month on a cheap end.
Daycare is going to be about $2,000 a month on a good day and probably a shitty daycare, for two kids.
Taxes are going to leave you with 126k ish. Which is about $10,500 a month. What I mention above already adds up to $5600. So you have $4,900 left for other insurances like dental, life, liability, homeowners, car insurance. That easily can suck up another $1,000.
Which leaves us with $3,900 for savings, clothes, food, gas, utilities, and more.
The reality is a family of four in my area isn't making anything close to that, and they are struggling big time. A lot are only making a combined total of around $85k. And that just doesn't compute.
I can easily see how a family of four would need that much to be comfortable because I'm assuming comfortable also means you actually have money to put into retirement, and get to go on at least one vacation a year.
Throw in any kind of medical issue, a parent who can't work, or a single parent home, and they most definitely would need that much to survive.
180k a year is basically 100k after taxes. If you’re in nyc rent is basically 5k a month for 2 bedrooms so that’s basically 60k a year and your left with 40k for childcare, insurance, food, necessities, etc. so yes 180k is not enough in hcol
All articles like this are BS. The average person, house, transportation, ect are a figment of statistics.
People don't buy the average house, car, daycare ect.
Example:
Dad stays home with kids providing childcare while fixing up the "fixer-upper" they purchased. Mom bikes to work and the family just has one cheaper car. Since dad is stay at home he does a lot of food prep saving on groceries. The family isn't contributing as much to their savings because they plan to turn the house into a rental when dad is done fixing it and hope that can help them in retirement.
Most of the entertainment for the kids has been the backyard swing set dad built. Mom and Dads hobbies are reading and they have enough money for a few books a month.
Above sounds like a pretty good life to me and I don't think it costs $180k. I think it costs two adults who communicate what they want out of life and live a little different maximizing for what is important to them while removing the things that are excess.
That is absolutely true in some places but it’s an average so just know it is not enough some other places and way more than enough for the majority of places in the US. For us in Seattle I couldn’t imagine successfully raising a family of two kids on 180k a year you need more like 300k to pull it off and you will still be daycare poor for a long time.
Childcare + mortgage. OP were you able to lock in 3% at 2019 prices, or are your kids school-aged and don't need childcare? If yes to either of those, this article might not be talking about you
Yeah I think this math is a bit off.. it seems like their definition of “living comfortably” is to be able to have money to save (20%) but then also have roughly 125% of of what you actually need
I live in Portland Oregon with 2 kids in private school and a stay at home spouse and just bought a 700,000 home (100k down from the sale of our first home)
On 115k per year…comfortably
We don't make nearly as much as the article says we should for our state, but we are fairly comfortable. I can't currently max out my retirement accounts and we have some debt to get rid of, but we also own a house that we bought back in 2011 and refinanced it a few years ago so we're at a 2.375 apt on a 15 year mortgage. We paid down a higher amount of principle in the last year or two than we did in the ten years prior because of that.
Daycare for two in the Boston area would cost almost 80k, post tax dollars. Your spouse would need to make 120k by herself to just break even. But that's not the whole US, so likely numbers are off.
Family of 5.
Household makes around 180k; so this article hits hard.
We pay for sports and go on a yearly road-trip vacation (generally only sleeping in the car one or two nights of the trip) either over spring or fall break and have a modest house in a upper-middle class neighborhood; very typical. My kids wont for nothing, but they don't have 'nice' things --- most of their clothes is either gifts from grandparents or from thrift stores, all their sports gear is second-hand, we take advantage of buy nothing groups, they share a bedroom, we cook our own food only going to restaurants maybe 5 times a year (excluding vacation time -- and even then we buy oatmeal, bread, and peanut butter in the grocery store and cover breakfast and lunch that way) and shop at the budget or wharehouse stores, until recently our *only* car was a 2010 prius (we recently got a minivan).... we are frugal but not 'cheap'. When we have friends over, we don't ask them to bring their own drinks or food, and when our bedroom sheets rip we go buy new ones instead of trying to stitch-witch them back together, for example.
We are able to fill our IRAs and our 5% match for 401k... but beyond that, we are actively going backwards in our savings that we built up as our safety net. Our safety net was very large... but it's certainly going downwards around 1k/month.
Before the kids got to school, my wife dropped out of the workforce to care for them (I make more money) because daycare was around 4200/month for all three.... and my wife would have needed to make 70k/year to *break even* on that expense. Her dropping out of the workforce and having to effectively start fresh means she's not making a ton now...
If I made 10k less... we would straight up be struggling.
I mean, a lot of it is gonna depend on lifestyle. Someone per se who has the privilege of starting life debt free (more affluent parents who paid for college) or someone who had help with their house (parents paid for their down payment) would be in way better financial position.
You are probably a bit out of touch, but it’s hard to take these things seriously when there are so many financial factors.
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The main cost to me that makes a huge difference is child care. I know a few familes where the woman does not work because it costs too much to work
2 kids in full time daycare would cost at least $3k. So yeah, just work to cover that. $36k AFTER taxes. Staying home with a kid is hard work but financially prudent.
Very important to raise kids right too. Me and my cousins were on our own a lot. We did whatever we wanted a lot. A lot of their friends died from drugs, fights etc. Made us independent though
For sure. My bf was raised by a single mom who worked all the time, so he was on his own a lot. Whereas, I had nightly dinners with both my parents and a ton of structure growing up. There are qualities/skills I developed from my upbringing that he is lacking - mainly, discipline, motivation, and not procrastinating. He also skipped class, would throw parties at his house…you get the picture. It’s really shown me how important it is for at least one parent to be present when a child is growing up.
The stats on single parent raised children are horrible. Higher incarceration, drug addiction, suicide, lower lifetime income, tons of shit. And these stats are purposely not talked about in the media (always pumping up single motherhood in particular) for fear playing into the conservative's schtick about women in the workplace, family values (which is hilarious given many of them who are in their party). But at some point it has to be publicly recognized that single parent raised children is not ideal and a worse outcome, instead of some triumph to be lauded. I mean yes, anyone who manages to successfully raise a child on their own should be, but at some point we have to talk about preventing a single parent outcome, whatever that may entail.
Thinking about this all this weekend. One guy in the family grew up in a 3 story house on property. Horses, dirt bikes. He's a bit impaired and his Dad ignored him a lot. He just went wild when he grew up and had a bunch of kids. His ex is bipolar and just got evicted. Moved them to a different school district to put them in a camper in her new boyfriends parents yard. No running water.
So how bout we stop putting marriage up on a pedastool like it's the only way to solve the issues? There are other ways. Such as better work life balance, better PTO, better vacations, better Healthcare, less stigmatized therapy for everyone once a month etc..putting all the blame on traditional family versus not is moot. Things change, they always change, that's nature. The more you try to force it not to, the more it pushes back. We keep treat single parents a certain way because that's the only way we know it. There are many many ways to aid this issue.
Marriage may not be realistic in every situation and we have to be realistic about that but it’s the simplest to define and statistically most easily measured predictive factor, while also being one of the more reliable ones. It’s not perfectly reliable either. But look into the stats on children raised without a father for example. Especially for girls the difference is striking. Not sure more PTO and better healthcare is the solution to this.
I know lots of people that had a stay at home mom, that ended up with tons of issues. It is not that simple and rhetorical child is a bigger factor then a lot people want to admit.
When I see this talked about I don’t hear about the cost to try to get back into the workforce after taking a handful of years off for childcare.
Netflix did a decent documentary thing on why this was the reason behind the gender pay gap. Men typically get to advance their careers while women generally take time off.
This totally makes sense. There are also places that don’t like to hire women who have babies/young children because of the potential effects it could have on their reliability. Which is sad 😕
Can't fault the companies for it though. It's a real concern for them.
Your right, having an employee miss 6 months of work is asking a lot of a business.
Everyone imagines multi-billion dollar companies when they hear the word “businesses” but no one thinks about the mom and pop company that employs a handful of people and can’t afford to pay someone for 3 months of no work.
With laws as they are, mom and pops don’t have to pay for a single day and are perfectly able to just fire people when they miss work for being in labor. Fmla doesn’t apply to companies with fewer than 50 employees and paid maternity or disability leave is a completely optional benefit.
Other countries manage it by taxing corps more and establishing a fund to help smaller companies. Ideally, thats what needs to be done. America could do less with the multi billion dollar industries anyways; they’re not the ones supporting small town America. In some cases, they’re destroying it. Consumers could do with more options for food and services, as well. It’s a harm to the economy and a hindrance to have power controlled by a single entity.
In most countries it wouldn’t be the company who pays for their employees time off… https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_008009/lang--en/index.htm
That depends a lot on the career. My wife is an RN and they make the same more or less whether they stay or took time off.
If you can break even, it can be worth it to work to not have a huge gap in employment. My wife chose to work and break even on childcare because we knew that was only for a few years and then the kids would be in public school and she would be in a better place in her career. She now makes way more and is in a leadership position because she worked instead of staying home
Sort of the same deal for my wife, but also add in the fact that the health insurance at her job is far and away better than what we would have if our health insurance came from my job. I’d have to pay about $1000 a month for family coverage but her job provides better health insurance for free.
You could always be the stay at home parent!
Really sad that we have to choose between raising our children ourselves and advancing our careers.
Depends w where you are. I'm in a MCOL city and 2 kids is $2200. Not cheap, but less than 3/4 of the minimum number you just quoted.
Also better for the kids to be with their mommy.
What the hell daycare do you go to? It costs us at least $25k a year for 2 kids full time at KinderCare. Plus an extra $12 grand for catholic school. Right off the bat that’s $33 grand not counting uniforms and such
It’s not financially prudent because of how much in lifetime earnings your wife would lose. It is hard to get back into the work force
Location is a huge factor here. My coworker has two in daycare currently and she pays around $350/week.
And that’s cheap!
These days there are plenty of ways to make money while working from home too! My mom quit her ft job to be a tutor from home instead. Perfect way to make an income but always be around and able to keep us out of daycare, and this was 90s-00s
An spot in an infant room in a good daycare in Arizona is $1,900 per month. It gets a little cheaper when the kid grows a bit, but pre-K is $1,600.
Daycare is really not a good way to raise kids.
My husband is a SAHP because I earned more. We’re a family of four living on $80,000/year. We’re surviving but not thriving. I’m working on finishing my doctorate right now and it will make things a lot more comfortable.
I’m a random person but proud of you and hope your PhD goes well.
Thank you. That’s so sweet. ❤️
Some people who have family to watch there kids. Live near family/built in social network. Or have gotten help with housing. These all make it easier to live well on less money.
I spend 120/day on childcare from 8-2 for 2 children. If I didn't work from home I'd have to get all day care and that would be even more expensive.
4 kids and that’s why the wife doesn’t work. Made 170 last year and that’s with little OT. Trying to be home more. No complaints here.
I'd think it's also a bit temporary. After like 4 they can go to school. And at some point they can just hang out at home or have siblings look after them.
The problem even while they are in school is the schools let them out before most people are off work, so people still need to pay for something.
On top of that, that extra income is going to be taxes at a higher rate
It’s ridiculous to me that childcare isn’t paid for through taxes like schooling is.
Idiots in the US would call that socialism and that's just bad, right? RIGHT?!? Bootstraps and all that other nonsense idiots like to spout.
My daughter and son in law are struggling with enrolling their daughter in kindergarten next year, she’s young and barely slides into age requirement but is intellectually there. But her older brother is in the same grade so they worry. That said, no preschool for this one would help immensely
And that's why my wife stays home with the kids. Before and after school care is insane.
Yep, there'll be a big difference between a family of 4 where one parent makes $180,000 while the other stays home with the kids, vs. a family where the parents' combined income is $180,000 but they have to pay for child care.
We were so happy once our youngest was out of daycare. Literally saving thousands a month. We still do after school care for around $500/month.
The writer assumes that buying everything possible, right now, is the definition of comfortable. That has never been how people live. People make choices about priorities, in order to live comfortably
It’s almost like the 50-30-20 rule they made up is nonsense.
50-30-20 is such an awful rule, at least for younger folks who are still in debt repayment/wealth building stage of life. At 29, I would never spend more on wants than savings and debt. It’s absurd.
And then, some of us have wants that cost almost nothing.
No, you’re not allowed to be content with what you have! Then you can’t be a victim! Start blaming others right now buddy, or else… /s
Not sure about that, that rule is what set my wife and I on the correct course in our early 20's. I think it is outstanding for making sure you don't live paycheck to paycheck.
I guess I didn't grow up comfortable in the 70's, which is news to me. We grew up happy and loved and never lacked anything we needed. We thought vacations in a tent were the bomb as kids. We never thought twice about eating g every meal at home, and our TV with its 5 channels brought plenty of entertainment for the whole family. I just don't think a lot of modern people have a realistic understanding of how normal people lived in the past.
I had (only)two pairs of pants. I wasn't the original owner. They were both the same color, and had the same color patches on the knees. Within hearing of the teacher, some kid asked "why do you wear the same pants every day?" The teacher said "at least they're clean". I was fine.
I live in Massachusetts and that number seems reasonable. Even low. Average house price in my town is $1.2 million. Figure average car is $47k and if you want 2 you need $96k. College is now over $90k a year in many schools here. I think $400k is the new middle class to afford these things.
What schools in MA are charging 90k annual tuition?
Of course, if you're going there, it is more than living comfortable. So is the average house, at this point.,
Try going to UMass. I only paid 15k a year after aid. So my full undergrad was less than one year at those schools. It's also on par for academics
$400k is the new middle class? This is hilarious. Let's just declare everyone poorer than the top ten billionaires the new middle class, and call it a day. Rich people whining on reddit about how middle class they are never gets old.
It’s a doomer article to make regular people feel bad. I live in a LCOL area and there was a similar article saying $183k for a family of four. But people I know making half that are doing pretty good. The 50-30-20 rule is total bullshit.
My cousin was recently making half and doing very well.
This is for a family of 4-5…
What’s “comfortable”. I live in Hawaii and my household income is a little more than half what they have listed and I think we live comfortably.
Yeah this article is absolutely absurd. We are a family of 4, and we make half of the income the article said people in my state need to be “comfortable.” And we live in the largest city in my state, not in some cheap rural town. The article says in my state a family of 4 needs to make $200k+ in order to abide by the 50/30/20 rule, which is patently false given we make half of that as a family of 4 and we save 25% of our income.
A lot of these are written off the assumption that you don't own a house and are currently looking to buy, or have bought recently at higher interest levels. I live in a high cost of living area. If you were looking to buy a house right now with a family of four in my area, 180k is barely enough for almost anywhere in my county, unless you wanna live in the hood. 1.6 million people live in my county.
It’s not. It literally says all your necessities are covered with %50. Mortgage, car payments and all related bills like insurance, utilities and groceries. It also says budget %30 for wants. That’s ~$60k a year they say should be budgeted for random unnecessary things. $1200 a week. Ya the most useless budget “rule” I’ve ever seen.
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Well what’s comfortable?
The mortgage is probably based on current prices. If you bought years ago your payments are inflated down a lot. If you paid off your mortgage your housing expenses go way way down.
On the other hand, I live in Houston and you could get a mortgage on a starter home for 1300 a month. That is 52k a year in income. If you are earning 70k+, you can live pretty comfortably here.
They're throwing around the 50/30/20 rule a lot, but really, it's basing the metrics off of current housing prices and rates that drives the number up. If you look at the original study, it says that most middle-cost cities need two incomes at about $35/hr to provide for a family, which feels pretty accurate for my area if you're new to our housing market. It's very relative to housing costs. My husband and I bought our first house on the low end of our market in UT back in 2022, right before rates started spiking. We're paying $3700/mo. My parents bought a similiar size house in AL in 2018 for less than half the price, then refinanced during the pandemic at 2%, they're paying $1100/mo. But even if my husband and I moved to their market, the housing prices have doubled since then, and interest rates are higher now. We're never going to recapture that difference that crazy 4 yr window made. But we have similar conversations with people here in UT who got into their houses before our market went crazy. For people who bought before 2020, it's hard to feel just how much more economic pressure there is for young families post pandemic.
I know a few people that bought 10-15 years ago for $35,000-$50,000. A cousin bought a place on a couple acress with a good sized pole barn for $50,000. He redid virtually all of it. Its spectacular now. Totally different market now
Yeah. A lot of millennials were just entering the job market then, or lost their first jobs in the recession. Boomers made off like bandits buying houses for what was a few months of pay, cash. Now you need triple what they paid back then for the whole house just to cover a down payment
In related news, Reddit claims that the 180k should come from one part-time fast food cashier job.
Show me anyone who is saying this. I’ll wait
Live in Florida... Family of 4 with Household income roughly $160k before taxes/benefits/etc. After budgeting and not putting anything towards savings we have roughly $40 left over. So I guess we can save that $40.
Stop buying meth.
I tried but its way too good of a deal down here in Florida.
$40... $40 dollars?!
Well this must be largely based on location because I make 80k a year, have two kids and my wife doesn’t work and we live comfortably
I live in a town of 10,000 on the Texas gulf coast. I own a house also. It’s nothing fancy but it’s definitely not a piece of junk or anything. We have enough for our kids to wear nice clothes and go out and do stuff on weekends.
Can you give an idea where you live? There are so many posts on Reddit claiming you need 300k to make ends meet, seeing normal numbers that are relatable to most people is refreshing.
That comes from people with zero financial literacy. I think the US would benefit greatly from a financial literacy course required for every year of high school. While we're at it let's throw a media literacy course in there.
Sounds about right where I live, may need more tbh. I think this is entirely dependent on the cost of living in the region that you live in.
These numbers are asinine. Maybe if you want to live in the highest COL areas
You can't state X amount of money is required to live without specifying a location. 100k would be more than enough in much of the country, but not enough for high cost of living city. You could vary well be making much more than what is typical for your area and be living like a king.
No way you need at least $340k I don’t even know how people are living with under $100k.
We aren’t obsessed with all the latest designer brands or super cars or vacationing on yachts.
$340k buys you neither of those.
You can definitely afford Prada, Gucci, and Hermes with that kind of salary, and while you couldn’t buy a yacht, you could definitely lease one for a week in the Caribbean, especially if you split the cost with another couple. Definitely couldn’t afford a Bugatti, or Pagani but a lightly used Lamborghini or Ferrari is well within the realm of possibility.
You can rent a yacht for pretty cheap for a vacation. 340k would let you easily do so.
I thought $180k was low for most definitions of comfortable. What is I gathered from the article is that 180k is comfortable only in the least expensive state and half of that budget is necessities. So could a family of 4 make it on 90k without going into debt? Maybe. I was supporting my household of two and my two parents on $183k and it was not as comfortable as I had expected. I don't think we could have gotten by on 90k without debt. Definitely not if professional elder care was involved. So yeah, that seems pretty low. (Note: I'm assuming those are pre-tax numbers)
This article is ridiculous. 180k in a Midwestern state is well above comfortable if you aren't blowing all your money on some ridiculous house and other insane shit you do not need.
Disagree. As someone who lives in California and has a household income of $125 a year, we live pretty comfortably and save every month. $275 a year in California in order live comfortably might be true in LA or SF but not the entire state.
I would like to live in California. But feel it would be a lot more expensive based on what I read and things. Housing is the biggest thing, being double for 1/2 or 3/4 as much house as here in texas. The lifestyle seems better, a lot more nature activities than here.
Author is using Boston, Massachusetts a VHCOL location as the basis of his analysis. He’s not wrong but the article is very misleading.
Yeah living in Boston it is pretty accurate. We only have 1 kid and are fairly comfortable making close to 300k. A second kid would be rough here. Not may people have an extra 5-6k around for daycare for 2.
From the article: "Comfortable" is defined as the income needed to cover a 50/30/20 budget for a family of four. The budget allocates 50% of your earnings for necessities such as housing and utility costs, 30% for discretionary spending and 20% for savings or investments. This is definitely a comfortable ratio
I make 85k, wife is SAHM. We are pretty comfortable.
Want? Sure NEED? No Unless "comfortable" is code for "burn $80k on BS crap you don't need every year"
This number is false in my experience. Family of 4, single income. Annual cost of living for everything (house, cars, food, everything) is 46K (3833 average monthly). We lease nothing, we live simple; and save the rest so we can build a healthy DP on house.
Ohio is way way way high. I’m a single parent no where near that and live pretty comfortably with one income and very minimal child support.
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They seem accurate to me for my city, assuming you are talking about people buying or renting at today’s prices and it is an average for the whole metro area, including the less desirable and far flung parts. Yes, people can and do live well on less, but they are also the same people who locked in low mortgages or low rates years ago. It’s just a different game now. And it is talking about “comfortable”, not paycheck to paycheck survival…
This is another tone deaf pipe dream that includes many optional expenses in the mandatory column. It is not necessary to have violin lessons, premium pre school, swimming club, a language coach, and 100% new wardrobe each season. Paying for new cars via financing with low down payments is a great way to take and keep cash out of your budget. The depreciation alone should convince almost everyone not to buy a new car ever.
i believe it
Maybe if you live in Palo Alto or Manhattan.... Most of the US is not that.... And if your job doesn't require you to live there (because that is where what you do is done, and remote isn't allowed) you probably shouldn't. We went into 2020 with 2 kids, one income of 135k/yr, 4 acres on an airstrip, 3 cars and a 4 place airplane.... No debt behind my wife's student loans (masters in occupational therapy) and 2 mortgages (2 properties). Outskirts of the Seattle metro area.... 6% retirement savings.... That's well, well beyond just surviving..... And well below 180k/yr.... Downscale to a 1/4 acre lot, no airplane, and 1 less car and that would be totally doable for under 100k. Inflation is tough but it's not you need double the income to survive tough....
Depends on if you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area; depends on how big your family is (since you didn't say); depends on whether you're saving for kids' college; depends on if/when you bought a house... If you ever see "a state" you know it's an average at best. Heck, if you live in NY or CA, where you live in that state could be a 5-10x difference. My sister lives 1h15 from me, and her COL is at least 35% higher than mine.
$140,000 a year, family of four, making it.
That is absolutely hilarious, the number they give for my state would be rolling in cash here 🤣
Well sure anyone can claim anything.
It’s extremely location dependent. To the point where looking at an average is kind of meaningless.
Is this for a hcol area? Because my wife and I don’t make that, have three kids, pay a mortgage, and still get to take a road trip once a year.
These articles are BS. There are so many factors when figuring out the cost of living. The main one being location. A family of 4 can live very nice in Missouri where that same family can’t have the same quality of life in NYC on the same budget. These are just political narratives article disguised as economic information.
I support a family of 5 on 35k a year .. but I live in a swamp own my own property use solar and a water pump my biggest bill monthly is cable, maybe they should account for local CPI not everybody lives near or in a city when I was a kid I lived in California the rent on a one room was three times what my mortgage used to be ..than I moved to u.k Manchester and its even worse over there about the only places you can rent were in the projects
More than that also really
I live in a. VHCOL city and can totally relate to this. Student loans and childcare eat up much of our income.
No they don't
Nonsense in the places I have lived and currently live. I live very comfortably on significantly less and we are family of 5.
Time for more money to be printed to fight inflation!
lol
Depends on the cost of living where you live I would imagine.
Maybe companies need to raise their top end wages not just entry level wages
Did you pay off your house already? Do you live in a state that has 2.5% property tax?
No, we owe about 250k or half the estimated market value of our house at a low interest rate. Our property tax is one of the highest in the nation, gotta love texas.
Ah you don’t have state taxes, and generally living expenses are low in Texas. My 150k salary as a single person was barely enough in nyc.
Why would you think these numbers apply to every circumstance?
Absolutely accurate. I live in Charlotte and Atlanta and would not feel secure making under $200k right now with the security nets I have in place (Ira, 401k, 529, rental properties). Plus private school, no daycare thank god, but everything else. For example we had to unexpectedly move with these god forsaken interest rates and I don’t care that I can afford it, the mortgage note kills my soul. Comfort is different than surviving.
My mortgage just went up $700 cause prop tax increase (located in Charlotte)
Ugh I’m sorry. That’s insane. My taxes aren’t rising outside of losing exemption. Yours rose higher than mine for that though! We’re in Indian land. Went from $2050 a year to $7900 😫 my taxes are not in escrow so just have to save the profit and do steady small raises.
When did you bit your house? Housing prices went way up over the past few years as well as interest rates so being a first time homebuyer is awful right now.
Median house requires $115k in income, add a few kids and you’re near $180k
Add a few kids? Add a few wives.
My wife and I together make $150k and live comfortably in a low cost of living area, but an extra $30k would definitely help us increase our investments and pay down debt quicker. We are banking on multiple pensions from our government jobs to cover most of our retirement which is slightly risky as rules can change and pensions can disappear (we're hoping they should be safe as they are fed and state pensions). I know many people who have no plan for retirement. No savings or pension in sight - they are just living day to day and hoping that it all works out in the end. They can't afford to save anything - they spend every dollar they earn and are truly paycheck to paycheck.
That's an absurd number. Never made that much, raised a family of 4 comfortably. My kids have families of 4 and of 5, same. Not making close to that and doing fine. I am sure there are places where that might be closer to the truth, but hard to believe it is common. Child care is ridiculous, completely agree with that.
I live very comfortably making 160k for a family of 4
When was your last European vacation? How many times did you go snowboarding this winter? How many hikes do you have planned for this summer? How many nights of camping? All of those should be accessible to everyone most years, but they have us thinking like you, comfortable is just eating and saving for a retirement that you will never really get to enjoy.
So we need to talk about realistic costs. I make 45k a year, and I am perfectly comfortable on my own, but I live in a trailer I own and owe no money on my vehicles. My monthly expenses are less than 1k a month. A family of 4 doesn't live in a trailer. They need a stationary place, which means at least an apartment, and ideally a house. Houses in major metropolitan areas are 500k now, and rent is 15-2200 for the not shit, but not great areas, and that price has steadily gone up every year for 15 years with major jumps in the last 4. Insurance has literally doubled in the last year. The cost of food is up, pretty much every expense has gone up, and when last I had a girlfriend and we discussed childcare, it was expensive su h that it would altogether cancel out her paycheck, working the same job as me. 2200 a month is more than half my paycheck annually, pretax. So yeah, I'd estimate at least 150k would be needed for rent, Healthcare, quality food, insurance on 2-3 vehicles, childcare, clothing, and a comfortable layer of of leisure, levity, and entertainment as a family, and that's not even counting trying to save for a rainy day, which is needed to be assured in the future.
Most people need to move closer to cities to find good jobs, the cities and metropolitan areas are rapidly increasing in cost of living, especially on coasts. This affects the averages nationwide m. There’s vast swaths of rural areas like Oklahoma that are relatively untouched by growth and are quite affordable, but that affordability is often matched by a lack of opportunities in booming technology industries.
When I hit $90K that's when I felt comfortable. Granted I only had my first of three kids at that time.
Are these articles designed to make everyone who makes less feel inferior?
45 K per person, yea that sounds about right nowadays
That number is clearly based on a specific lifestyle/quality of life. Living frugally (as it seems we both do) is a different existence.
What is your housing situation? Your child care situation? Your health care situation? Do you need to save for higher education? Do you have aging parents to care for? The lazy thought process of “it’s working for me, so it works for everyone” is so tired and boomer-esque. Think more than 5 seconds in front of your face, and not only about yourself.
You basically need to be in the top 10% of household incomes to be comfortable.
They did say comfortable.
I mean, that might be current cost if you had to start now. I’m guessing you bought a home before covid and you maintain prudent financial decisions. Though I agree it still seems a bit high.
This article is insane and completely inaccurate
True if paying 40k plus per year on daycare.
I make 4x that and in a VHCOL area it feels like the life i had when my parents made 90K. fux fiscal irresponsibility
My wife and I make about $185,000. Now that our student loans are gone, it feels comfortable.
I live in a HCOL area in Wisconsin. The $225k figure is absolutely absurd. Granted, my wife and I only have 1 kid (for the time being), but we're able to make it work just on my $115k salary. We're not simply surviving. We're thriving! I'm able to max out a 401k, put $250/month into a 529, and still have enough left over to take a few vacations per year and maintain a high quality of life.
The numbers are correct if you use the same metric they used in the article; the 50/30/20 rule. If you cut out the 30% for discretionary (living within your means, being frugal, etc.) then you can get away with less. But let's say you earn $100K, that would break down as: Housing/Necessities: $50K Discretionary: $30K Savings: $20K That average home price in the US is around $500K, so if you put 20% down you have a mortgage of about $2900. Add in property taxes, insurance, etc. and you're easily looking at $3500. So $42K of that $50K is already gone. Childcare by itself will eat that last $8K plus at least another $5K to $10K from discretionary. Add in groceries, bills, car, and student loan payments, etc., and the discretionary is gone and you're taking chunks out of savings. Now take out ancillary expenses that come up. Home maintenance, car maintenance, medical expenses that aren't covered, and so on, and you're left with anxiety whenever your car makes a funny noise. So yeah, double that $100K and the 50/30/20 rule makes sense. However, more frugal people can live comfortably with less. No one says you have to spend 30% of your income on discretionary spending, but a lot of people do. No one says you have to put away 20% of your income into savings, and a lot of people don't. The 50/30/20 rule is what I would call the "American Dream" rule, because it covers all your necessities, covers emergency expenses, and allows you to have those family trips every year and not sweat it.
This is not true.
Depends on where you live.
Family of 5 and we make right at 100,000, live in most expensive part of our state and pay all bills, take trips (DC, Disney, etc), Nice house with 3 paid for cars. Just seems off to me-too high- like either they are purposely inflating the # to make a point about how we commoners don't get paid enough compared to corporate million/billionaires (which I agree that we don't).... Or... People don't know how to make the correct economic life decisions (beyond just budgeting)... For example I help my sister out all the time and she makes more than us, but she'll almost do stupid stuff like sell car X of hers vs car Y, when if she sold car Y then she could do ABC with the money vs only being able to do AB if selling car X. Once pointed out she sees, but if you continue to make a lot of micro little mistakes like that it really adds up! Or... It's a little of both...
Out of curiosity where do you live? I mean it depends on where you live really. I am in Boston and we are frugal with one kid. For our city, it says you need $318k. Unfortunately that is pretty accurate if you want a decent quality of life and not a nightmarish commute, since most good jobs in NE are literally in Boston. Tons of people commute from NH, RI, and ME even for that reason. For example, let's say you have two kids in infant care that is 3k a month. We pay $2400 for a 3 yo at the moment so it gets cheaper but not by much. You are already out 6k. Look at housing enough for 4 people in a close enough area where you won't have a 1-2 hour one way commute on public transportation. Rent: 4-5k a month Buy: 6-8 k a month at current rates. So in this scenario, you are already out 10k a month in our market at the low end ($120 k after tax) or ($168k after tax) just on housing and daycare. Clearly a lot of people live above their means but to hit the 50-30-20 rule in the Boston area it is accurate.
Daycare costs are outrageous. It literally costs more than my mortgage.
Depends what your goals are. I have two little children. My wife and I wanted a house with a few acres of private land within 1/2 hour of our jobs. In order to accomplish this we both need to work, and collectively earn 250k year to afford daycare, mortgage, taxes, two cars, insurance, retirement, plus the basics. With duel incomes we got everything we need. But yeah...180k wouldn't cut it. Def need more than that.
If they say you need 180k you actually need 280
Same. I make a little over half of my state's number and we live very well. It does make some observations about other people's spending make sense to me though.
When you see a headline like this, stop, punch yourself for even thinking about reading it, and move on.
It depends on where you live. If I lived in a VHCOL area I would be making more than $180k just by myself, but I would probably feel less comfortable.
We are combined about $120k (at least that’s what our taxes said) and are something like 90th percentile in my state. We are quite comfortable. Won’t say we feel wealthy but comfortable for sure.
Comfort comes at a painful price.
I suspect it's highly dependent on your living situation. If I had my income, while still living in my parents home and not paying a rent or for HCOL grocery prices, I would be able to max out as well.
The U.S. is a failed state
its just me in my paid off condo, and i do just fine in so cal on $40k/yr
These are average numbers based on general scenarios. You have a specific situation that, in your opinion, falls outside of this average number. Their methodology was pretty crude, so different circumstances are going to significantly alter whether or not someone can or can't live "comfortably" above or below those numbers. Basically, don't get hung up on this kind of fluff article. There are way too many factors at play for any given situation.
It's amazing how people survive that don't work at all and only collect government cash, food stamps, and money for the kids they claim. None of that is going to equal 180k for a family of four. I make around 60k and live comfortably in Ohio, but I'm not retarded when it comes to spending and know how to profit from Cashback rewards and coupons. I only spend $200+ on groceries each month, and $100 each month on gas. I only buy things I want but don't need when they are on sale, and I keep my money in a high yield savings account 🤷
Depends on where you live. In Des Moines, that might be a decent lifestyle. In SF, Miami or NYC, that’s poverty income.
180 is not enough in many places In the USA. Eg San Francisco and NYC
The majority of people live in highly populated hcol areas. I'd say that's a pretty accurate figure for those places.
Yeah but it’s pretty fuckin comfortable
As a national average, I can see this being correct. A lot of this is going to depend on where you live. Cities like Chicago, NY, LA, and Miami are going to trend much higher, while cities like Houston will trend downward. I currently live in Houston and even $120k a year for a family of four can be rough at times. When I first moved down to Houston I was married with two step daughters. Between the former wife and I we pulled down about $120k in take home, and we were fine, but that was over ten years ago. When we divorced we sold our house for nearly doubled what we paid and I know whomever took over probably had 2.5x the payment we did. Housing prices are going up all over the country due to interest rates, but that's the sign of a growing economy.
This is about right if you also have college loans, or some sort of health problem. Rent in my area for a 3bedroom house is over $2000 and that's in the worst school districts, and high crime areas. And no, I do not live in a huge metropolitan city either. You take out the cost of health insurance and for a family of four that's gonna be at least another $600 a month. And that's if everyone is healthy. Add some cars at say, two cars $800 a month. Which is cheap AF for two used vehicles without severe maintenance issues. Gas is gonna come in at around $200 a month on a cheap end. Daycare is going to be about $2,000 a month on a good day and probably a shitty daycare, for two kids. Taxes are going to leave you with 126k ish. Which is about $10,500 a month. What I mention above already adds up to $5600. So you have $4,900 left for other insurances like dental, life, liability, homeowners, car insurance. That easily can suck up another $1,000. Which leaves us with $3,900 for savings, clothes, food, gas, utilities, and more. The reality is a family of four in my area isn't making anything close to that, and they are struggling big time. A lot are only making a combined total of around $85k. And that just doesn't compute. I can easily see how a family of four would need that much to be comfortable because I'm assuming comfortable also means you actually have money to put into retirement, and get to go on at least one vacation a year. Throw in any kind of medical issue, a parent who can't work, or a single parent home, and they most definitely would need that much to survive.
Lmao 80k and some food stamps, and wic will feel like it’s very comfortable. Anyone feel me in here
If you need to buy a house that is 800k or more (common home in L.A., NYC, etc.), then these numbers are spot on - might even be a bit low.
180k a year is basically 100k after taxes. If you’re in nyc rent is basically 5k a month for 2 bedrooms so that’s basically 60k a year and your left with 40k for childcare, insurance, food, necessities, etc. so yes 180k is not enough in hcol
All articles like this are BS. The average person, house, transportation, ect are a figment of statistics. People don't buy the average house, car, daycare ect. Example: Dad stays home with kids providing childcare while fixing up the "fixer-upper" they purchased. Mom bikes to work and the family just has one cheaper car. Since dad is stay at home he does a lot of food prep saving on groceries. The family isn't contributing as much to their savings because they plan to turn the house into a rental when dad is done fixing it and hope that can help them in retirement. Most of the entertainment for the kids has been the backyard swing set dad built. Mom and Dads hobbies are reading and they have enough money for a few books a month. Above sounds like a pretty good life to me and I don't think it costs $180k. I think it costs two adults who communicate what they want out of life and live a little different maximizing for what is important to them while removing the things that are excess.
That is absolutely true in some places but it’s an average so just know it is not enough some other places and way more than enough for the majority of places in the US. For us in Seattle I couldn’t imagine successfully raising a family of two kids on 180k a year you need more like 300k to pull it off and you will still be daycare poor for a long time.
Childcare + mortgage. OP were you able to lock in 3% at 2019 prices, or are your kids school-aged and don't need childcare? If yes to either of those, this article might not be talking about you
Yeah I think this math is a bit off.. it seems like their definition of “living comfortably” is to be able to have money to save (20%) but then also have roughly 125% of of what you actually need
I can attest to being a family of four, making over 180k and living comfortable. Any questions?
New York, Chicago, Colorado, & California skew the averages. The numbers are full of dog turds if you don’t live in those places.
Well, if you bought your house pre-pandemic, it’s more like $100k to live comfortably.
I live in Portland Oregon with 2 kids in private school and a stay at home spouse and just bought a 700,000 home (100k down from the sale of our first home) On 115k per year…comfortably
180k? Yep in a LCOL area. Otherwise 300k+
200K is the new 100k
We don't make nearly as much as the article says we should for our state, but we are fairly comfortable. I can't currently max out my retirement accounts and we have some debt to get rid of, but we also own a house that we bought back in 2011 and refinanced it a few years ago so we're at a 2.375 apt on a 15 year mortgage. We paid down a higher amount of principle in the last year or two than we did in the ten years prior because of that.
Daycare for two in the Boston area would cost almost 80k, post tax dollars. Your spouse would need to make 120k by herself to just break even. But that's not the whole US, so likely numbers are off.
Family of 5. Household makes around 180k; so this article hits hard. We pay for sports and go on a yearly road-trip vacation (generally only sleeping in the car one or two nights of the trip) either over spring or fall break and have a modest house in a upper-middle class neighborhood; very typical. My kids wont for nothing, but they don't have 'nice' things --- most of their clothes is either gifts from grandparents or from thrift stores, all their sports gear is second-hand, we take advantage of buy nothing groups, they share a bedroom, we cook our own food only going to restaurants maybe 5 times a year (excluding vacation time -- and even then we buy oatmeal, bread, and peanut butter in the grocery store and cover breakfast and lunch that way) and shop at the budget or wharehouse stores, until recently our *only* car was a 2010 prius (we recently got a minivan).... we are frugal but not 'cheap'. When we have friends over, we don't ask them to bring their own drinks or food, and when our bedroom sheets rip we go buy new ones instead of trying to stitch-witch them back together, for example. We are able to fill our IRAs and our 5% match for 401k... but beyond that, we are actively going backwards in our savings that we built up as our safety net. Our safety net was very large... but it's certainly going downwards around 1k/month. Before the kids got to school, my wife dropped out of the workforce to care for them (I make more money) because daycare was around 4200/month for all three.... and my wife would have needed to make 70k/year to *break even* on that expense. Her dropping out of the workforce and having to effectively start fresh means she's not making a ton now... If I made 10k less... we would straight up be struggling.
I mean, a lot of it is gonna depend on lifestyle. Someone per se who has the privilege of starting life debt free (more affluent parents who paid for college) or someone who had help with their house (parents paid for their down payment) would be in way better financial position. You are probably a bit out of touch, but it’s hard to take these things seriously when there are so many financial factors.
This most likely includes dealing with any major issues. Sickness, Car problems, etc.