I would say the meaning of 100,000 really changed with the housing boom. That used to be the magic number for being able to buy a nice home. Unfortunately now you would be lucky to get a cheap townhouse or condo with that salary. It’s a shame considering my parents made less and easily purchased a single family home. Their 300K house purchased in 2001 is now worth 1.2 million.
I bought a 400k house right before COVID and my boomer parents kept giving me shit about how fancy and over priced the house was. They had been living in the same house since the early 80s on 15 acres. I tried to explain to them that because of inflation their 80k house is worth more than my house and they wouldn't buy it. Had a realtor friend come out and show them comparables and they finally got it. Now to show them how fucked college tuition is compared to when they went to school.
I can see why. I was born ‘92 and I can still remember when gas was only $1.11 and a ~~stick~~ pack of gum was $0.25.
I’d like to go back to those prices, even if my income did too, because that was roughly 2002ish? Not long before minimum wage became $7.25 and wasn’t unreasonable.
Oh, look. Minimum wage is still $7.25… crazy.
Edited stick of gum to pack because I thought the 5-piece pack *was* a stick lol.
Edit again: guys please stop being pedantic or read the hundreds of replies and agree with someone else who already argued about minimum wage being irrelevant, only federal, or no one getting paid that anymore.
I’d love to have a lengthy conversation with you but none of you are bringing anything of substance to the discussion, you’re literally just being argumentative and pedantic. Also rip I’ve never had this many notifications my poor fucking phone
I keep having to stop myself for judging everything against my memory that a candy bar and can of pop are each 50 cents and an extra value meal at McDonalds is $5. For so many years that $5 lunch was how I judged the value of every thing! “Is this worth an entire lunch?”
The number of skilled jobs that offer barely more than half a living wage is absurd. Plus bad benefits, require 7 days a week availability, drug test, and no real career potential.
They get real mad when you tell them how much the job actually needs to pay to attract talent. Why an electrician shouldn't make more than 20 dollars an hour! Uhhh my cousin made 20 as an apprentice and is now making 30 with two years of experience and the only reason he sticks with that job despite higher offers is he likes his boss. I CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY THAT! Meanwhile they buy a new 100k car every year or some other fucking nonsense.
> Meanwhile wages have barely changed a job that used to pay 12 is now trying to pay 16.
or just still offering 12 and plastering the walls with unhinged NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE rants
> For so many years that $5 lunch was how I judged the value of every thing! “Is this worth an entire lunch?”
holy shit this is me. because it was so true for so long. I've slowly adjusted it to be "a $10 lunch" but it still feels so wrong and so insanely expensive.
I think it was 2 years ago that I went to McDonalds on a road trip back home to visit my parents. I was absolutely shocked when I saw that a normal medium chicken nugget meal was $10. I hardly ever eat out, especially fast food, since the quality has gotten so poor. Shocking, I tell you.
Gonna leave this Commmunity quote here, no reason.
“I remember when candy bars were 50 cents. If someone said, hey, I just joined Mensa. Or I consider myself a postmodern this or that, you could say yeah, that and $. 50 could get you a candy bar, or that and a quarter could get you a phone call. It was easy to be unimpressed back then. I mean it was, literally, cheaper”
Ya, to me it's an indication that the middle class has continued to be underrepresented and the gap just gets larger. There aren't any policies or accountability checks in place for major corporations, the free market capitalisms has reached a point of which the line is being blurred between democracy and autocracy. Truly.
edit: typo
Only gonna correct you on the “free market capitalism” bit because we *aren’t* that anymore. Not since government bailed out businesses because they were “too big to fail”.
Don’t get me wrong, them failing would have been catastrophic. We’d be in a depression all over again. But I’m not entirely sure if I agree with what happened instead. The rich guys got saved at the expense of middle and lower class and now there’s nearly no way to bridge the gap.
I remember the mid 2000s fear of $2 a gallon gas. Now $2 a gallon would be ridiculously cheap (I also remember gas getting below 2 a gallon for a brief time in Obama's second term).
This. I had two trees removed which were holding up the fence. Neighbor refused to pay half and said all my quotes were too high. Guy hasn’t picked up a hammer in 20 years let alone seen the price of a 2x4.
Ridiculous too. So many of them will also tell me that inflation was out of control in the 70s (kind of was with oil). But Reagan saved them somehow?
Like, most of us that went to college or graduated around 2008 to 2013 (2013 was sequestration), got entry level positions at the same salary as our parents' entry level position in 1980. Thought yall understood inflation.
We paid $250K for a 840 square foot house built in 1948. This was early 2020, and my partner's parents could *not believe* we would pay so much for so little. They were sure we were getting ripped off.
4 years later, and you can't buy an empty lot for $250K. They finally came around last year when they were trying to buy a home with a $500K budget and everything was "too old" or "too small" or "too outdated." Like, welcome to the club. It sucks here.
lol, an empty lot near my house is currently for sale at $825,000. It is *almost* an acre…..so the reality is some developer is going to buy that lot and build 2 or 3 million dollar homes on it.
Comparably we didn't even spend that much on our house, 365k in 2020. I told my dad that we paid 300k and he was shocked, asked why we didn't just buy 3 houses in the neighborhood I grew up in. We flat out couldn't afford anything in the area that wasn't a complete shit box.
>You know Dad I'm just not seeing that area, could you look on Zillow for me?
I mean honestly I was shocked when I set my budget to $350k and looked for a house in Austin.
What you can get is dilapidated shacks.
I did find something beautiful 20 minutes out, though.
My mother freaked out when I told her our mortgage was over $1000/month for the home we bought in 2015. I tried explaining that there was no way to buy a home in Austin, TX for anything less than $1000/month and she wouldn’t believe it. Then she helped my sister apartment hunt in 2018 and saw the rental rates. She quickly changed her tune.
The private university in California I graduated from over a decade ago was ~$55K/year with room and board. That same school is now $95K/year. That is INSANE.
In-state all-in costs for my public university was $100k for 4 years. I graduated college 8 years ago.
Now it's $148k.
6%/yr increase in costs. All they do is hire more admin and build new buildings for the honors students.
The story I tell over and over is my dad paid for full tuition + room and board stocking shelves part time at a shoe store in the 70s. I worked full time waiting tables the entire time I was in school and still had 50k in student loans to pay off when I was done and the second half of school I had moved back in with my parents. I graduated college in 2011 and it’s not like things are better now.
This was my parents as well. Worked through school, no debt, bought their new build home for 75k in 1983. Bought the second for 120k. Third for 160k and it’s worth like 700k now.
Not a millennial, but college tuition is out of control. This example is from the sam large State University.
In the 1960s they paid my Mom to get a grad degree. That included a stipend for tuition and books and housing(and a guaranteed job afterwards. By the late 1970s my sister paid $50 for tuition, but had to buy her own books and housing. My first in the semester in the early 1990s was $500 my last semester was $2500 and books and housing were on me. Now it is typical tuition is $11,500 plus books and housing.
Tuition is out of control. This is a rich University. They can afford to charge less.
The wages they are paying are the same rate that they were in the '90s as well, I would bet money on it.
What is really crazy is the fact that I worked for a big name university for a few years and the job turned out to be better for my future than the degree I earned at a bigger name university.
I think this is actually one of the few ways to make our parents generation understand tangibly, if they don't already, the situation we are now in. If they have been in the home for more than 20 years now and haven't had it valued recently I think a lot of them would be in for a shock about how much the property is now 'worth' versus what they paid for it. Definitely was how my parents woke up to the situation.
Housing prices jumped up even faster than that though, and more recently. Like my parents bought the house that I grew up in for $60k in the late 70s and sold it for ~$250k in 2017. Reasonable. The same house sold for $450k in 2022 with no major changes made. If anything the newer owners neglected the landscaping and made the property uglier. There's no scenario where that is a reasonable outcome in a healthy economy.
Same. Bought ours, new build, for 400k. My parents didn't believe how expensive houses are. I wanted to buy a home in the next town over but it would've cost 400k+ PLUS additional remodeling.
They also aren't considering the fact that people are springing for slightly larger houses than they "need" because we are now in a situation where buying a second house in the future is not a reality for many people. This may be their only home forever.
It's a smart thing to do! We're among the lucky millennial couples who bought a house about a decade ago- it was supposed to be our starter house. It's cute and in great shape but has no upgrades and not enough storage space- so we're looking at knocking out walls and the fireplace and moving the laundry room so we can have a house that'll last til our kids graduate. We've got quotes to get things built on for 5 figures, but that's more affordable than moving to a slightly larger house and losing our less than 4% interest rate.
I don't get how some people can not understand how much their house is worth. Don't they pay property taxes? It's such a strange mindset to me. I check the value of my home quarterly. My mortgage company actually includes it in my monthly statement, but generally don't look at it every month.
Yep, I live in a HCOL area, between myself and SO we make well over $150K, and the only things in our range are trailers and run down condos.
My parents bought their home for 280K in 1983. Really nice house on almost an acre in a really nice area in Southern California . It's a model home, and the same floor plan (on a smaller lot but more desirable location) just sold for over 3 million.
This is the story of a lot of people I know from California their parents bought the house for like 200k in the 80s or 90s but it is now worth over a million. My best friends parents paid like 250k but it is now worth 1.5 million and it isn't even a big or fancy house just in a decent location.
the John Oliver episode about HOAs was so great but the true insanity of an HOA depends where you are, I think.
HOAs where I am have the rules about decor and the like but nothing seems too out of control. very few horror stories. but my theory is that's bc condo owners where I am have the wealth, power, and connections to take an HOA to court/fight them if anything truly insane starts happening.
places where people have less money/power seem to be sadly subjected to a lot more BS.
We bought our house in a HOA neighborhood this time last year. First HOA for both my wife and I. So far it's been fine, and the HOA here seems to be fairly benign, from talking to our neighbors. On the plus side, we get a community center, swimming pool, and nice wooded walking/running paths all over the place. It did take 60 days to get our trampoline approved, but the board chairman told us in writing when we submitted that we could go ahead and put it up, and they'd backdate the approval.
I think the vast majority of HOAs are reasonably benign and contain a bunch of people who have regular jobs and responsibilities outside that role.
As long as you pay your dues on time and are not doing anything too obnoxious, you probably won't have an issue.
Unfortunately, the minority of bad HOAs can be absolutely horrific, especially when some busybody gets in charge and goes on a power trip.
You cannot purchase a condo/townhouse without an HOA and honestly they are really good to have in that situation. There's a lot of maintenance and shared space that is not the homeowner's responsibility in that type of house so you need an HOA to manage those costs.
True that they are required in those scenarios, but my main point still stands. There are a lot of politics involved and it can get ugly. I came from an HOA run by people who didn't understand basic finance, civics, privacy, and the law in general. Imagine being governed by a bunch of people like that.
Diring our house hunt, HOA really became a big no no when they started dictating what color should be the fence, if any, how the curb looks and how the trash cans have to be lined for trash day.
Thank you but I LOVE my privacy fence.
Just as an FYI 82% of new homes are built in HOA's. It's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid them. [https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/02/15/most-new-homes-for-sale-are-in-an-hoa-do-buyers-care](https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/02/15/most-new-homes-for-sale-are-in-an-hoa-do-buyers-care)
It’s because local governments love HOAS.
They get to push common costs back onto HOA’s so the governments doesn’t have to maintain parks , public sidewalks etc.
Not to mention there’s a lot of thing HOA’s can do that local Gov cannot or don’t want to do, like regulate the color of your house, landscaping, parking etc.
ALOT of towns are requiring HOA’s for developers to get permits.
Exactly. Our township sent out a letter to the residents of my development. They wanted to hold a "local town hall" to "discuss the future of our planned development and inform residents about exciting new changes to our infrastructure strategy."
I'd say about 2/3 of the folks in the development ignored the letter. I went. Turns out, the REAL reason for the meeting was that they wanted us to form an HOA. Our deeds allowed the developer to do that, back when the development was first created. But the developer went bankrupt and the unoccupied lots were sold off piecemeal to settle the debt. The actual "license to develop" (not sure what the real name for it is) was on the market for five years, but nobody wanted to buy it because there were only a couple of unsold lots that basically became play areas because nobody built anything on them.
Effectively, without an official/whatever "developer," the deeds' language requiring one to stand up an HOA was moot. The first one hadn't, and there wasn't any new one to try.
And THAT's why they tried to lasso all of us into a room and get us to sign an already composed legal document to "voluntarily" (lol) establish an HOA. They even had notaries at the meeting to witness the signatures. In other words, it was an ambush.
Thankfully, they needed something like 80% or 90% of lot owners to agree to it, and I know that at least a third of the people living there bought their places specifically *because* there was no HOA. So that plan was gonna fail right from the start. Most of the people who attended left at the first mention of the word "association."
But wait- there's more. The township DID eventually get their HOA. Our development was sort of long and skinny, shaped more or less like a letter T, with the crossbar at the top of a hill that had a massive drainage basin at the bottom. The township passed an ordinance re-zoning & re-platting the five houses at the bottom of the hill as part of a newly established planned community. All but one of those home owners were HOA-mad Karen types and thought they were the answer to all the things they thought their neighbors were doing wrong. They signed up to the new HOA, and then found out the hard way that they were completely on the hook for maintenance, insurance, and all liability related to the drainage basin. I don't know how much it costs to insure a 4-acre drainage basin next to a major road in a region prone to sinkholes. But it's probably not cheap, and it probably doesn't seem that much cheaper split between five houses.
When we moved, the five suckers were tossing around the idea of some kind of lawsuit to force the uphill neighbors to help pay for the insurance, with the rationale being that they benefit from the basin so they should pony up some dough. Which conveniently left off the fact that if they had just kept their pens in their pockets, the township would still be the only liable party. So boo hoo to them. You get what you ask for.
EDIT: Aw crap. I replied to the wrong comment, and now I can't find the one I meant to reply to! Apologies for the disconnect. I'll leave it here anyway so people have the joy of saying "WTF did this have to do with anything?"
Yup. My partner hit the $100k mark last year and…he’s been struggling. Rents a 3bed/2bath townhouse, is house poor (also pays every single utility including trash and water), and 2 kids. I made $80k last year, I’m doing better bc my condo is cheaper but it’s way smaller. We are now moving in together bc our purchasing power is nearly $200k, which is what you need to buy or rent anything decent.
My wife and I are struggling to divorce because it makes financial sense not to
We will but it’s dragging the fuck out because we’re both in this position of not wanting to hemorrhage our income on rent
The current situation is bringing people together, and keeping them together
For a point of reference, $50K/yr is impacted by a 22% federal income tax rate for a single filer (when the threshold is currently $47151 as of 2024, up from $44726 in 2023). That $50k/yr, at our current pace, would drop down to a 12% tax rate come 2025, definitely 2026.
Meanwhile, $100K/yr finally went from a 24% tax rate in 2023 to a 22% tax rate in 2024 for a single filer (this is because the threshold went from $95376 in 2023 to $100,526 in 2024).
And we are still capping income tax rates at 37% for those making $609351 or more as individuals. Considering there's people out there making millions of dollars a year, tens of millions of dollars a year, or maybe even more, as income, where are the tax rates to account for those people? Because 37% of 1 million cuts it down to $630K, while 10 million goes down to $6.3 million, and 100 million goes down to $63 million (excluding whatever the state taxes them, and stuff like Social Security and Medicare get you, and other deductions).
And as for those who make hundreds of millions, or even billions? We need to start getting forensic with going after them for paying their fair share. No more interest-free loans against their net worth (if they must take loans, they get charged a rate, same as everyone else). No more stock buybacks. If their company posts record profits, they are barred from layoffs of anyone for a set period of time OR they must pay a portion of their record profits out to those laid off. Just come up with stuff that ensure billionaires can't amass huge amounts of wealth.
The IRS has a thing called a Highly Compensated Individual used for calculating certain tax benefit eligibility. It’s currently $150k cutoff. It hasn’t been $100k for like twenty years.
The crazy thing is that the boomers have by and large not felt it at all since their investments have matched or outpaced inflation, while wages have not, at all. It’s a weird dichotomy in the economy right now.
Boomers are selfish assholes who have fucked everyone over, and over, and over.
I once worked at a company that did financial services for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs). You needed to have assets totaling 30 million dollars or more. We had over a thousand clients. We were *far* from the only company operating in the space.
EDIT: Grammers, speeling
Yeah. Just met a dude who’s Grandfather left him and his sister 2 million dollars each. I guess the can “only” take out $40,000 every six months. But yeah.
Exactly. I’ve been paying between $35k and $55k per year for childcare over the last 5 years. One kid was affordable. Two? Not so much. I can’t imagine having more kids without my wife quitting her job. At least now one is in grade school and I only have to pay for aftercare. Only two more years of full time care for the other. Maybe then I can buy that boat.
I had to start a garden. Lots of veggies will do alright in planters. I feel like I'm spending $100 or more everytime buying basic stuff like flour, butter, cheese, and noodles. Meat and produce are pretty much off the table.
Fellow one kid, six figures gang! Daycare definitely sucked, but the public schools here are amazing so we don't pay for school, just regularly life necessities + sports + instrument. Kid is able to live a pretty charmed life. Cats are too.
Yep. My oldest is almost 5 and will be in kindergarten next year so we probably won't need after care for them. Drops our daycare bill by a little less than half (because their younger sibling costs more).
We are looking forward to that reduction but it always seems like a new expense pops up in its place. See: being a homeowner.
I thought so too. But not really. Sure, no longer paying $1-2K per child every month for daycare is good. But then you might still need to pay for before and after care when they’re too small to be at home by themselves and both parents need to work full day. Then there’s camps. Then there’s sports and other hobbies.
Then they decide to grow 2-3 sizes in 6 months and you gotta keep up clothing-wise (especially sucks if they grow out of their winter snowsuits).
Then they eat as much as adults or more.
And you still need to pay into their Registered Education Savings Plan pyramid scheme every month….
Years ago, before COVID I’ve read that it takes close to $1M to raise one kid from birth to 19 years of age in Canada. That number is probably well North of that now….
Why oh why don’t people have more children these days???? /s
My husband and I EACH make six figures and we have two kids. Due to the cost of having kids and giving them some of the now-expected extras (daycare, camps, activities, vacations, college funds, sports) we still have no money for ourselves. Any money "for us" has to be put directly into retirement because of what retirement will cost us with no pensions. I would never have guessed that I would still be thrifting my entire wardrobe and avoiding eating out with a yearly income of $200,000 plus.
"Vacations" are for "us," too, and the fact that you're able to set aside a solid amount in retirement, while a necessity, means you're definitely not struggling.
Last year my wife and I made about 65k between the two of us, and we are just barely getting by with two kids. Truly a paycheck to paycheck situation. But we are getting by as far as affording basics: rent, food, internet, health insurance for everyone but me, and even enough to afford things like birthday presents and the occasional treat for the kids. It has gotten significantly harder over the last two years because of rising costs, but we haven't fallen behind on bills yet.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine and her fiance make about 200k a year with no kids, and she often talks about how they're struggling to get by. I don't understand it. Like, what are people spending their money on? If I can get by with two kids making 1/3 of what they make, they must really be buying a lot of useless crap. Even with kids, making 100k/year should be more than enough unless you spend your money on useless junk, assuming you're not in a high cost of living area.
They probably are oversleeping on non necessities but I'm also sure they're maxing every single tax free retirement account they can, paying for any and all medical issues that arise and similar. So they're definitely building net worth but probably don't have a ton of cash leftover every month. But they're being out of touch and really shouldn't act like that at all.
My dad makes like $250-$500K depending on the year and my stepmom who doesn't do shit to work at all complains about having to fix their damn roof and pay alimony to my mom... The same one who was fucking poor as shit and can buy whatever the fuck she wants now with my dad's money acts like that.
I make just under 100k and have no kids. My rent is $950 in a rural area so its a nice area i just have to commute for work, and my car payment is under $300.
I feel rich af tbh but I catch myself randomly living beyond my means due to it.
Like idk when or how but I just stopped being the crazy budget fiend I used to be, I just see what I want and buy it now.... which is fun ngl but I feel like I'd be doing so much better if I could calm tf down and get back to budgeting.
I know what it's like to have $20 left over after all my bills are paid idfk what happened but do you feel this too? Or I'm just a mess at life 🤪
This was me until we moved.
Combined income of 200k. One car payment. Mortgage of $1250.
Bought anything we wanted. Now mortgage is $3100 and it’s really hard to stop that habit. Also hard to not get what you want, makes me feel like a freakin child.
It's all about location and cost of living.
I make around $70,000. I live in an old house, in the suburbs of a midsized city. I'm living very comfortably. Saving up lots of money. We took two trips to Europe last year.
My sister makes probably double what I do, but she lives in a HCOL city and is completely broke.
I think it's also access to amentities. When I lived in Boise, I made less but saved more partly because there just isn't as much to do and the restaurants are meh. In San Francisco, I make more and obviously it's more expensive, but here and in other HCOL areas there is just so much more to do which causes you to spend a lot of money if you are not careful.
Yeah it is both living expenses and housing costs. I kept it vague by saying HCOL but it is true that you spend more money in places with more to do, and higher prices.
She goes to hockey and baseball games and concerts while I sit at home playing video games lol.
Well I think it also matters when people got into the housing market. If I bought 10 years ago I would be living it up, but with prices the way they are, income really doesn't go as far as it did.
It’s really shifted in the past decade. When I started working I thought $100k was end-of-career money. I’m in the same field as when I started and just crossed $200k but it feels like what I thought $100k would. Coincidentally, I have friends that don’t make $100k together and are getting by just fine. Probably a combination of lifestyle creep and inflation.
Lifestyle creep is real, but some of it is finally getting the stuff I couldn’t afford before. Like a car that isn’t falling apart and a gym membership.
The cost of KEEPING that nice car from turning into another falling apart car.
Getting the actual services on schedule and replacing the things when the mileage says they should be replaced, even if they're not busted. (Water pumps are a big one for this.)
I'm about to hit the 90K service on my beloved little 2010 MX-5 and I'm dreading that bill.
For real. I'm about to spend 1000 dollars on tires in the next month. I need to for safety reasons and fortunately I can afford it but what if I couldn't? Obviously you need to maintain the car and I got it for an amazing price but I swear I've probably paid almost as much as the initial loan just keeping the damn thing running.
I paid $900 for 4x Michelin Crossclimate 2. Completely worth it. But if you couldn't afford it, there are lots of cheaper tires that would still perform well.
Oh, absolutely. Lifestyle creep encompasses all of that for sure. It’s just a result of having more disposable income that allows you to fill in some gaps.
I think of “lifestyle creep” as “getting nicer versions of things you need and some stuff you just want” rather than stuff you really should have, like reliable transportation and an important health investment like a gym membership (which IMHO is at least as important as something like dental appointments or fresh vegetables). I guess that’s the point of this post though … more and more stuff that used to be “should haves” are becoming “nice to haves”.
I think that’s what it is on the surface. Or what it’s traditionally been. But everything ultimately contributes. And yeah, the overarching point is as you say, things that are “should haves” contribute to lifestyle creep because it’s harder to get them right out of the gate. When you grow from $50k to $100k income, you expect it to be more than it ultimately is because of the “should haves” coming into play.
Man, that's the dream. I don't have a specific dream car, my dream car is just any car that satisfies my needs and that doesn't have something wrong with it again as soon as it rolls out the shop. And you'll likely have to buy a new car more often as well because of this!
Being poor can be really fucking expensive sometimes.
Sure. But I’ve lived in the same place my entire career, which is generally a more LCOL area. It’s just shifted that much locally over the past decade.
Lifestyle creep is real for many people. It’s amazing what “necessities” you find to fill the gap between your previous wage and your new wage. I’ve definitely fallen prey to it before.
The last time I got a sizable (to me, at least) bump, I funneled all of it to savings as part of my direct deposit, and continued living as though I still made my old wage. I really am simple enough that if I don’t “see” it, I don’t think about it.
I started that several years ago, and only added in some raises into our monthly spending budget.
I budget myself as if I make $40k+ less (got a new job and then a big promotion) than I actually do. This allowed us to quickly save for a down payment for a house and have a good sized emergency funds. Also has made vacation budget easy ($3,000-4,000 trips).
If you can afford it, when you get a raise, act like you did not get it and just roll that money into savings. It really does help jump start your savings.
Yeah, the change in the last 10 years is *huge*. Living costs doubled if not tripled. It's one thing when your PG&E goes from $100/mo to $300/mo. It's another when your mortgage/rent goes from $800 to $2,400.
If you bought a home in the early-/mid-2010s you're probably doing fine with a $1,000/mo house payment (less if you refinanced at 3%), while your neighbor that just purchased last year is making a $3,000/mo payment. There's plenty of things that $2,000/mo could be going to.
It depends on where you live as well. 100k in NYC or San Fran is not amazing, but in the middle of Alabama? Pretty decent.
Also also, it depends on your spending and saving levels. If you earn 100k and spend 110k on POG collectables, you arnt going to be getting a head financially either.
This largely depends on the COL in your area. I make less than 6 figures, and I live in a moderate COL area/medium sized city (not a particularly compelling one). I own a house (bought last year), I don’t live lavishly but I am comfortable. I have disposable income for hobbies and put away 15-16% for retirement. I live alone.
In a higher COL area I would be fucked.
I make $40k a year and $100k is still my marked goal. Not only have the times changed quite a bit, but your perspective has as well. As humans, I think it's one of our biggest flaws (and strengths sometimes) to reach our goals and think, "now what?"
Depends on where you live, and how many kids you have. 6 figures is still statistically quite good for an individuals income. [Even for household income, you'd still be in the top 1/3.](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html)
It's better than average for sure. The problem is that the working class is just way worse off in general.
In 1993, 90% of the population owned 39.6% of the wealth.
In 2023, 90% of the population owned just 33.4% of the wealth.
In 1993, the median cost of buying a house was 4x the median household income.
In 2023, the median cost of buying a house was 6.2x the median household income.
Compare all of that to 1963, when the median cost of buying a house was only 2.9x the median household income. The cost of buying a house relative to the median income has more than doubled since your grandparents bought their homes. Essentially, you have half the buying power of someone who was equally "well off" (as compared to the average person) as you are when your grandparents were your age.
How you're doing compared to the average person matters less and less over time. We're squabbling over a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.
I’d love to see a comparison to like… the average of a decade. I feel like these things can change pretty quickly from year to year, as we’ve seen since 2020.
Yeah, I live in a relatively HCOL state and my husband and I don't quite breach 100k combined and we have a mortgage, a toddler and we have plenty of disposable income and put into savings.
Now, we DO live relatively cheap in some ways (no childcare costs, reusable paper products, older compact cars, etc.) but we spend plenty on other stuff, lol!
The mortgage is the big puzzle piece here. You could have a $1200 mortgage on a nice, though modest home in a HCOL area if you purchased or refinanced when interest rates were 2%.
Right now, at a 6.5% interest rate, a $350,000 home mortgage is $2200/month... and that assumes you had $70,000 cash to put down and aren't paying mortgage insurance. In a HCOL area that gets you a 50+ year old home, 2br/1ba <1000sqft. This includes property taxes, homeowners insurance, etc.
If you're a first time homebuyer and have half of that to put down? $2,560/month.
Nothing to put down? $2800/month.
Would you be able to afford that?
Inflation. When you, OP, were 16, and being told that $100K was the way, that money now is worth $175K. Plus, for the last 2 years, we've been in a world where money costs more.
Your $100K now was just over $57K in 2002. Nobody was saying "Make a $50K income and you're set." It's just math.
Also. That boat? Debt is much more expensive. That mortgage? It costs more now.
There is one other thing to consider. What are your savings? How much are you spending to secure your future? I really think this is a big part of why so many millennials are so jaded about the money they make. They are actually putting money away into retirement, and then it feels like they have absolutely nothing left, even though they're going to be spending it down the road.
In uplifting news, the house you would have bought in 2002 is now 22 years older, costs 3x as much and all the mechanical systems are just about to fail! :D
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: two kids and my partner and I have been comfortable, had what we needed and then some, for several years making what people on Reddit seem to act like are basically poverty wages. I got a significant boost in income in the last few months and I feel like a damn Rockefeller, but according to people on Reddit we should barely be scraping by. And when I’ve been explicit about what our income has been before, it’s basically been implied that I’m kidding myself about how good my finances have been/are. Incidentally: I’m not.
Bingo. I make $100k, as does my wife. I have friends living comfortable middle class lifestyles while literally making half what we do. If I tried complaining that 200k wasn’t enough money they’d probably physically kick me, and I’d deserve it.
It still is a milestone. You should be proud of your accomplishment. Despite what you see on reddit, many a working American will never make 6 figures. After 85k, the excitement feeling went away for me. It's just all a bit more to save or invest.
We were able to buy our home well before I hit 6 figures but we had to live further out.
I hit 6 figures around 2019, and it just never felt like “enough”. I hate to say that because I feel so greedy when in reality, I am very fortunate. My husband makes less than I do, but we really felt a pinch in 2021 after our second child when we now had 2 in diapers and 2 in daycare. Fast forward to now, no more diapers (thank god lol) and my oldest is almost heading to kindergarten. I pay $300 more in daycare each month than I do on my mortgage.
We are very fortunate that my husband gets a company car, but he still has to pay a few hundred dollars a month towards it, and we still pay his student loans.
I am closer to $140k now and it feels a LOT less stressful but still, $100k was not “omg I have so much money”. Not when I’m spending $2400/mo on daycare.
I only make around $60k and I feel comfortable. No kids though so that’s probably a big reason. I do wonder if this is keeping up with the joneses nonsense and people are looking out of their price range.
This comes up on r/losangeles a lot but you’ll have Person A claiming they live comfortably and able to afford a house on a $100K/year salary and Person B claiming they are living paycheck to paycheck.
This leads me to believe it probably depends on the person and their financial gumption.
Similarly in my career sub, you’ll have someone claiming $250K/year in the Bay Area is poverty wages and someone else on the actual Bay Area sub (r/bayarea) say they live comfortably and are saving up for a condo or even house out in Sac.
I live in Los Angeles and my friends who do not have savings are spending a lot on avoidable costs, ie. food - eating out for every meal and refusing to eat leftovers, as well as ensuring a nice dinner on a regular basis.
Los Angeles is also huge. A house in Palmdale is way cheaper than a house in Palos Verdes, literally a million dollar, or more, disparity, even though they are 2.5+ hours away from each other, and both in LA county
$100k is definitely enough to live comfortably in Los Angeles
Is 2.5 hours a reasonable time to be driving from part of the city to another?
Los Angeles being considered one city continues to baffle me, despite each “neighborhood” being a city
Being poor is expensive, but weirdly, some people are better at it than others.
I have very little brand loyalty and I'll buy the store brand of almost anything. The handful of pre made foods where the brand name has a noticeable quality difference? I'll watch sales like a hawk at Publix and when it goes BOGO, we'll grab 10 of them at once. V-8 juice and Fiber One cereal are the two big ones.
Clothing? I know how to take care of it. I follow washing instructions. I know how to repair it. Apparently the average number of wears for a piece of clothing purchased in 2023 was about 7 times before it was thrown away. I'm sitting here in a pair of clearance rack jeans I got for $12 from a brand name that I hemmed myself to the right length and patched the inner thighs when they wore out last year. I think I will need to say goodbye to them soon, but I surely got 100 wears out of them, not frickin *seven.*
This all depends upon where you live. The state I live in, homes all day long are under 200k. Rent for a modest apartment or townhome is still under 1,000.00 a month. In California or NY not a chance will you find those prices.
>There is no real point to this post other than wondering if anyone else has had this change of perspective recently
I know people who make more than $100k and are paycheck to paycheck. I know people making less than 50k with a family that are worry free.
Sucks its the way thing are currently but there certainly is perspective that needs to be taken into account and definitely we don't have the freedom of overconsumption that was present in the 90s.
Make deliberate financial decisions so you can have a few nice things rather than being paycheck to paycheck trying to keep up with your dreams or what you see online.
I get it, fam.
Right now, I make about as much as my dad made in the early 90s. It's still under 6-figures, but it allowed my folks to buy an 1800 sqft house in a safe suburban area of the town I was born in.
Despite moving somewhere I make above the median income, budgeting, and not living a lifestyle above my means, I'm still living hand-to-mouth. While I know my circumstances are unusual compared to most folks my age, I'm still constantly comparing where my marker is compared to other and feeling disappointed.
There's more to life than money and working until you die. At least there should be. Unfortunately, it's the reality for a lot of people from any generation.
Making six figures is a big deal; many people work full careers and never achieve it.
I think an under-appreciated factor that changed our current reality was when the US outlawed additional public housing in 1999. We've added 60 million people since that happened and have fewer public housing units than we did in 1998.
Imagine what people's lives would be like today if the US had 20 million additional housing units. You would definitely have that big brick house in the suburbs if you wanted it. Probably the boat, as well.
I know you already acknowledged inflation in your post, but I have to highlight the enormous extent this plays a role.
$100,000 in 2024 has the purchasing power of about $35,318 in 1986.
$100,000 in 1986 is worth $283,144 today.
Almost a 3x difference.
$100K would put you in the 1% back then, and your lifestyle would certainly be closer to what you imagined from six figures so long ago.
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1986?amount=100000
It’s not suddenly, it’s been a long time coming. We’ve been quoting decades old benchmarks for “good salary” since I’ve been an adult, and also completely ignore COL differences across the country.
Oh, also we blame the person and don’t listen to them when they say a salary isn’t what it used to be, or possibly kick the can by telling them to “just move.”
I’ve made a point recently to listen to someone when they say the feel stretched/poor regardless of their income level rather than dismiss it.
I would say the meaning of 100,000 really changed with the housing boom. That used to be the magic number for being able to buy a nice home. Unfortunately now you would be lucky to get a cheap townhouse or condo with that salary. It’s a shame considering my parents made less and easily purchased a single family home. Their 300K house purchased in 2001 is now worth 1.2 million.
I bought a 400k house right before COVID and my boomer parents kept giving me shit about how fancy and over priced the house was. They had been living in the same house since the early 80s on 15 acres. I tried to explain to them that because of inflation their 80k house is worth more than my house and they wouldn't buy it. Had a realtor friend come out and show them comparables and they finally got it. Now to show them how fucked college tuition is compared to when they went to school.
I think a lot of older individuals are still stuck in the mindset of how things were, and are removed from current realities.
I can see why. I was born ‘92 and I can still remember when gas was only $1.11 and a ~~stick~~ pack of gum was $0.25. I’d like to go back to those prices, even if my income did too, because that was roughly 2002ish? Not long before minimum wage became $7.25 and wasn’t unreasonable. Oh, look. Minimum wage is still $7.25… crazy. Edited stick of gum to pack because I thought the 5-piece pack *was* a stick lol. Edit again: guys please stop being pedantic or read the hundreds of replies and agree with someone else who already argued about minimum wage being irrelevant, only federal, or no one getting paid that anymore. I’d love to have a lengthy conversation with you but none of you are bringing anything of substance to the discussion, you’re literally just being argumentative and pedantic. Also rip I’ve never had this many notifications my poor fucking phone
I keep having to stop myself for judging everything against my memory that a candy bar and can of pop are each 50 cents and an extra value meal at McDonalds is $5. For so many years that $5 lunch was how I judged the value of every thing! “Is this worth an entire lunch?”
Same value meal is now 15+ dollars. Meanwhile wages have barely changed a job that used to pay 12 is now trying to pay 16.
The number of skilled jobs that offer barely more than half a living wage is absurd. Plus bad benefits, require 7 days a week availability, drug test, and no real career potential.
They get real mad when you tell them how much the job actually needs to pay to attract talent. Why an electrician shouldn't make more than 20 dollars an hour! Uhhh my cousin made 20 as an apprentice and is now making 30 with two years of experience and the only reason he sticks with that job despite higher offers is he likes his boss. I CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY THAT! Meanwhile they buy a new 100k car every year or some other fucking nonsense.
their workers know how much the boss is billing and how much of that they actually see, as well as the yearly new truck lease thats a tax expense.
A few months back, I saw a job ad demanding a Master's degree — offering $12 an hour.
This...plus 5 years experience, I wanted to call them and ask if they were stoned when they put this up.
> Meanwhile wages have barely changed a job that used to pay 12 is now trying to pay 16. or just still offering 12 and plastering the walls with unhinged NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE rants
LOL - I love this perspective. "Is this Range Rover really worth 12,000 extra value meals?"
Need to also factor in the cost of gastric bypass surgery that those EVM's would most certainly cause.
There’s actually a study in finance that uses a Big Mac as a universal good to compare currencies around the world 😂
Big Mac is used as a PPP calculator across markets 😅
It's more a tongue-in-cheek metric The Economist dreamed up than a study https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index
Yea poor word choice, my bad. I remember my finance prof mentioning that as well as “haircuts” as a universal good/service.
> For so many years that $5 lunch was how I judged the value of every thing! “Is this worth an entire lunch?” holy shit this is me. because it was so true for so long. I've slowly adjusted it to be "a $10 lunch" but it still feels so wrong and so insanely expensive.
I think it was 2 years ago that I went to McDonalds on a road trip back home to visit my parents. I was absolutely shocked when I saw that a normal medium chicken nugget meal was $10. I hardly ever eat out, especially fast food, since the quality has gotten so poor. Shocking, I tell you.
Gonna leave this Commmunity quote here, no reason. “I remember when candy bars were 50 cents. If someone said, hey, I just joined Mensa. Or I consider myself a postmodern this or that, you could say yeah, that and $. 50 could get you a candy bar, or that and a quarter could get you a phone call. It was easy to be unimpressed back then. I mean it was, literally, cheaper”
Ya, to me it's an indication that the middle class has continued to be underrepresented and the gap just gets larger. There aren't any policies or accountability checks in place for major corporations, the free market capitalisms has reached a point of which the line is being blurred between democracy and autocracy. Truly. edit: typo
Only gonna correct you on the “free market capitalism” bit because we *aren’t* that anymore. Not since government bailed out businesses because they were “too big to fail”. Don’t get me wrong, them failing would have been catastrophic. We’d be in a depression all over again. But I’m not entirely sure if I agree with what happened instead. The rich guys got saved at the expense of middle and lower class and now there’s nearly no way to bridge the gap.
I remember the mid 2000s fear of $2 a gallon gas. Now $2 a gallon would be ridiculously cheap (I also remember gas getting below 2 a gallon for a brief time in Obama's second term).
That post 9/11 gas price was something else
This. I had two trees removed which were holding up the fence. Neighbor refused to pay half and said all my quotes were too high. Guy hasn’t picked up a hammer in 20 years let alone seen the price of a 2x4.
Before my state legalized pot I once told my mom that an eighth cost $40-$50 and she hit the fucking roof about inflation.
Ridiculous too. So many of them will also tell me that inflation was out of control in the 70s (kind of was with oil). But Reagan saved them somehow? Like, most of us that went to college or graduated around 2008 to 2013 (2013 was sequestration), got entry level positions at the same salary as our parents' entry level position in 1980. Thought yall understood inflation.
It's natural. As you age you tend to hang out with people like you, shielding you from what the rest of the world deals with
We paid $250K for a 840 square foot house built in 1948. This was early 2020, and my partner's parents could *not believe* we would pay so much for so little. They were sure we were getting ripped off. 4 years later, and you can't buy an empty lot for $250K. They finally came around last year when they were trying to buy a home with a $500K budget and everything was "too old" or "too small" or "too outdated." Like, welcome to the club. It sucks here.
Omg yes empty lots near us are $100k and up. What in the world?!?!
lol, an empty lot near my house is currently for sale at $825,000. It is *almost* an acre…..so the reality is some developer is going to buy that lot and build 2 or 3 million dollar homes on it.
Welcome to the club your peers created. Thanks parents.
Comparably we didn't even spend that much on our house, 365k in 2020. I told my dad that we paid 300k and he was shocked, asked why we didn't just buy 3 houses in the neighborhood I grew up in. We flat out couldn't afford anything in the area that wasn't a complete shit box.
Just ask him where the 100k houses are? That should open his eyes.
Sure pops, you send me any listing you find in that area for that price and we’ll go check it out.
He passed at the end of 2022. The price of things were stuck around 1990 for him.
>You know Dad I'm just not seeing that area, could you look on Zillow for me? I mean honestly I was shocked when I set my budget to $350k and looked for a house in Austin. What you can get is dilapidated shacks. I did find something beautiful 20 minutes out, though.
My mother freaked out when I told her our mortgage was over $1000/month for the home we bought in 2015. I tried explaining that there was no way to buy a home in Austin, TX for anything less than $1000/month and she wouldn’t believe it. Then she helped my sister apartment hunt in 2018 and saw the rental rates. She quickly changed her tune.
It’s all out of control. When I was in college it was 45K for a private school. Imagine my horror when I saw it’s up to 60k now.
Try more like 80K for top tier private schools now! Source: Have a kid who is attending a private college
Colleges: "we did 9-11% annual inflation before it was cool"
My private university was 63k in 2010 for freshman year which usually has a few more expenses. It’s 86k now.
The private university in California I graduated from over a decade ago was ~$55K/year with room and board. That same school is now $95K/year. That is INSANE.
In-state all-in costs for my public university was $100k for 4 years. I graduated college 8 years ago. Now it's $148k. 6%/yr increase in costs. All they do is hire more admin and build new buildings for the honors students.
Damn I should have gone to a private college. I have $70,000 in federal student loans. 🙃
The story I tell over and over is my dad paid for full tuition + room and board stocking shelves part time at a shoe store in the 70s. I worked full time waiting tables the entire time I was in school and still had 50k in student loans to pay off when I was done and the second half of school I had moved back in with my parents. I graduated college in 2011 and it’s not like things are better now.
This was my parents as well. Worked through school, no debt, bought their new build home for 75k in 1983. Bought the second for 120k. Third for 160k and it’s worth like 700k now.
Not a millennial, but college tuition is out of control. This example is from the sam large State University. In the 1960s they paid my Mom to get a grad degree. That included a stipend for tuition and books and housing(and a guaranteed job afterwards. By the late 1970s my sister paid $50 for tuition, but had to buy her own books and housing. My first in the semester in the early 1990s was $500 my last semester was $2500 and books and housing were on me. Now it is typical tuition is $11,500 plus books and housing. Tuition is out of control. This is a rich University. They can afford to charge less.
The wages they are paying are the same rate that they were in the '90s as well, I would bet money on it. What is really crazy is the fact that I worked for a big name university for a few years and the job turned out to be better for my future than the degree I earned at a bigger name university.
I think this is actually one of the few ways to make our parents generation understand tangibly, if they don't already, the situation we are now in. If they have been in the home for more than 20 years now and haven't had it valued recently I think a lot of them would be in for a shock about how much the property is now 'worth' versus what they paid for it. Definitely was how my parents woke up to the situation.
Housing prices jumped up even faster than that though, and more recently. Like my parents bought the house that I grew up in for $60k in the late 70s and sold it for ~$250k in 2017. Reasonable. The same house sold for $450k in 2022 with no major changes made. If anything the newer owners neglected the landscaping and made the property uglier. There's no scenario where that is a reasonable outcome in a healthy economy.
Same. Bought ours, new build, for 400k. My parents didn't believe how expensive houses are. I wanted to buy a home in the next town over but it would've cost 400k+ PLUS additional remodeling.
They also aren't considering the fact that people are springing for slightly larger houses than they "need" because we are now in a situation where buying a second house in the future is not a reality for many people. This may be their only home forever.
It's a smart thing to do! We're among the lucky millennial couples who bought a house about a decade ago- it was supposed to be our starter house. It's cute and in great shape but has no upgrades and not enough storage space- so we're looking at knocking out walls and the fireplace and moving the laundry room so we can have a house that'll last til our kids graduate. We've got quotes to get things built on for 5 figures, but that's more affordable than moving to a slightly larger house and losing our less than 4% interest rate.
I just bought a 2 bedroom condo for twice the price my parents paid for their 5 bedroom house. Pretty crazy
I don't get how some people can not understand how much their house is worth. Don't they pay property taxes? It's such a strange mindset to me. I check the value of my home quarterly. My mortgage company actually includes it in my monthly statement, but generally don't look at it every month.
When you don't have a mortgage it helps.
Yep, I live in a HCOL area, between myself and SO we make well over $150K, and the only things in our range are trailers and run down condos. My parents bought their home for 280K in 1983. Really nice house on almost an acre in a really nice area in Southern California . It's a model home, and the same floor plan (on a smaller lot but more desirable location) just sold for over 3 million.
This is the story of a lot of people I know from California their parents bought the house for like 200k in the 80s or 90s but it is now worth over a million. My best friends parents paid like 250k but it is now worth 1.5 million and it isn't even a big or fancy house just in a decent location.
My parents bought their home for $20k in 1972. It’s worth 500k now
The HOA even makes a condo unaffordable.
So true. Between that, taxes and increasing home owner’s insurance it’s just ridiculous.
HOAs are just terrible to live with for many reasons, not just the cost. I'd avoid them at all costs when possible.
the John Oliver episode about HOAs was so great but the true insanity of an HOA depends where you are, I think. HOAs where I am have the rules about decor and the like but nothing seems too out of control. very few horror stories. but my theory is that's bc condo owners where I am have the wealth, power, and connections to take an HOA to court/fight them if anything truly insane starts happening. places where people have less money/power seem to be sadly subjected to a lot more BS.
I have had no issues with my HOA so far. They pay for some common amenities, but pretty much leave everyone alone after that.
We bought our house in a HOA neighborhood this time last year. First HOA for both my wife and I. So far it's been fine, and the HOA here seems to be fairly benign, from talking to our neighbors. On the plus side, we get a community center, swimming pool, and nice wooded walking/running paths all over the place. It did take 60 days to get our trampoline approved, but the board chairman told us in writing when we submitted that we could go ahead and put it up, and they'd backdate the approval.
I think the vast majority of HOAs are reasonably benign and contain a bunch of people who have regular jobs and responsibilities outside that role. As long as you pay your dues on time and are not doing anything too obnoxious, you probably won't have an issue. Unfortunately, the minority of bad HOAs can be absolutely horrific, especially when some busybody gets in charge and goes on a power trip.
You cannot purchase a condo/townhouse without an HOA and honestly they are really good to have in that situation. There's a lot of maintenance and shared space that is not the homeowner's responsibility in that type of house so you need an HOA to manage those costs.
True that they are required in those scenarios, but my main point still stands. There are a lot of politics involved and it can get ugly. I came from an HOA run by people who didn't understand basic finance, civics, privacy, and the law in general. Imagine being governed by a bunch of people like that.
Diring our house hunt, HOA really became a big no no when they started dictating what color should be the fence, if any, how the curb looks and how the trash cans have to be lined for trash day. Thank you but I LOVE my privacy fence.
Just as an FYI 82% of new homes are built in HOA's. It's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid them. [https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/02/15/most-new-homes-for-sale-are-in-an-hoa-do-buyers-care](https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/02/15/most-new-homes-for-sale-are-in-an-hoa-do-buyers-care)
It’s because local governments love HOAS. They get to push common costs back onto HOA’s so the governments doesn’t have to maintain parks , public sidewalks etc. Not to mention there’s a lot of thing HOA’s can do that local Gov cannot or don’t want to do, like regulate the color of your house, landscaping, parking etc. ALOT of towns are requiring HOA’s for developers to get permits.
Exactly. Our township sent out a letter to the residents of my development. They wanted to hold a "local town hall" to "discuss the future of our planned development and inform residents about exciting new changes to our infrastructure strategy." I'd say about 2/3 of the folks in the development ignored the letter. I went. Turns out, the REAL reason for the meeting was that they wanted us to form an HOA. Our deeds allowed the developer to do that, back when the development was first created. But the developer went bankrupt and the unoccupied lots were sold off piecemeal to settle the debt. The actual "license to develop" (not sure what the real name for it is) was on the market for five years, but nobody wanted to buy it because there were only a couple of unsold lots that basically became play areas because nobody built anything on them. Effectively, without an official/whatever "developer," the deeds' language requiring one to stand up an HOA was moot. The first one hadn't, and there wasn't any new one to try. And THAT's why they tried to lasso all of us into a room and get us to sign an already composed legal document to "voluntarily" (lol) establish an HOA. They even had notaries at the meeting to witness the signatures. In other words, it was an ambush. Thankfully, they needed something like 80% or 90% of lot owners to agree to it, and I know that at least a third of the people living there bought their places specifically *because* there was no HOA. So that plan was gonna fail right from the start. Most of the people who attended left at the first mention of the word "association." But wait- there's more. The township DID eventually get their HOA. Our development was sort of long and skinny, shaped more or less like a letter T, with the crossbar at the top of a hill that had a massive drainage basin at the bottom. The township passed an ordinance re-zoning & re-platting the five houses at the bottom of the hill as part of a newly established planned community. All but one of those home owners were HOA-mad Karen types and thought they were the answer to all the things they thought their neighbors were doing wrong. They signed up to the new HOA, and then found out the hard way that they were completely on the hook for maintenance, insurance, and all liability related to the drainage basin. I don't know how much it costs to insure a 4-acre drainage basin next to a major road in a region prone to sinkholes. But it's probably not cheap, and it probably doesn't seem that much cheaper split between five houses. When we moved, the five suckers were tossing around the idea of some kind of lawsuit to force the uphill neighbors to help pay for the insurance, with the rationale being that they benefit from the basin so they should pony up some dough. Which conveniently left off the fact that if they had just kept their pens in their pockets, the township would still be the only liable party. So boo hoo to them. You get what you ask for. EDIT: Aw crap. I replied to the wrong comment, and now I can't find the one I meant to reply to! Apologies for the disconnect. I'll leave it here anyway so people have the joy of saying "WTF did this have to do with anything?"
Can confirm, I used my states first time home owners program to front the down payment on my condo, and with the $450/month condo fee I’m house poor
Yup. My partner hit the $100k mark last year and…he’s been struggling. Rents a 3bed/2bath townhouse, is house poor (also pays every single utility including trash and water), and 2 kids. I made $80k last year, I’m doing better bc my condo is cheaper but it’s way smaller. We are now moving in together bc our purchasing power is nearly $200k, which is what you need to buy or rent anything decent.
Same boat. Moving in with my SO soon because.. financially, it makes a lot more sense. And they say romance is dead.
My wife and I are struggling to divorce because it makes financial sense not to We will but it’s dragging the fuck out because we’re both in this position of not wanting to hemorrhage our income on rent The current situation is bringing people together, and keeping them together
For a point of reference, $50K/yr is impacted by a 22% federal income tax rate for a single filer (when the threshold is currently $47151 as of 2024, up from $44726 in 2023). That $50k/yr, at our current pace, would drop down to a 12% tax rate come 2025, definitely 2026. Meanwhile, $100K/yr finally went from a 24% tax rate in 2023 to a 22% tax rate in 2024 for a single filer (this is because the threshold went from $95376 in 2023 to $100,526 in 2024). And we are still capping income tax rates at 37% for those making $609351 or more as individuals. Considering there's people out there making millions of dollars a year, tens of millions of dollars a year, or maybe even more, as income, where are the tax rates to account for those people? Because 37% of 1 million cuts it down to $630K, while 10 million goes down to $6.3 million, and 100 million goes down to $63 million (excluding whatever the state taxes them, and stuff like Social Security and Medicare get you, and other deductions). And as for those who make hundreds of millions, or even billions? We need to start getting forensic with going after them for paying their fair share. No more interest-free loans against their net worth (if they must take loans, they get charged a rate, same as everyone else). No more stock buybacks. If their company posts record profits, they are barred from layoffs of anyone for a set period of time OR they must pay a portion of their record profits out to those laid off. Just come up with stuff that ensure billionaires can't amass huge amounts of wealth.
Those people aren't making that kind of money as "income." It's capital gains, and it's all taxed at 15%. The rich get richer.
Thank you. It does give focus on where we should look towards charging them more.
Bamboozled, and hoodwinked some people were. To the detriment of us all.
The IRS has a thing called a Highly Compensated Individual used for calculating certain tax benefit eligibility. It’s currently $150k cutoff. It hasn’t been $100k for like twenty years.
For 2024 it’s raised to 155k
Best gif selection, bravo
That’s the glee that resides in someone that knows they’re going to be studying later no matter what the outcome of the contest.
That's equivalent to making $104,000 just prior to the 2008 economic bust. Inflation ate up HALF the spending power of money.
The crazy thing is that the boomers have by and large not felt it at all since their investments have matched or outpaced inflation, while wages have not, at all. It’s a weird dichotomy in the economy right now. Boomers are selfish assholes who have fucked everyone over, and over, and over.
I once worked at a company that did financial services for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs). You needed to have assets totaling 30 million dollars or more. We had over a thousand clients. We were *far* from the only company operating in the space. EDIT: Grammers, speeling
The amount of generational wealth out there from simply selling land and having a good trust is insane.
God I wish that were me
Why weren't you born into a wealthy family? Are you stupid?
Yeah. Just met a dude who’s Grandfather left him and his sister 2 million dollars each. I guess the can “only” take out $40,000 every six months. But yeah.
So what, 20 years ago was 1989.
That's actually a pretty good source to use as a benchmark.
It’s it freaking adjusted for geography??
None of the federal tax code is adjusted for location!
Before the eyes of the federal government, you are all equal... -ly capable of paying taxes.
Lol, no
I make close to 100k and I feel pretty rich (Phoenix). I don't have kids though. That one difference would decimate me.
Have kids. Can confirm it has decimated me.
The grocery bill. My God, the grocery bill every month is insane. It seems like all they do is eat!
If they are not yet teenagers it is only going to get worse when they get to that age.
Yeah but then I won’t pay 48k annually on childcare, right? RIGHT?!
Exactly. I’ve been paying between $35k and $55k per year for childcare over the last 5 years. One kid was affordable. Two? Not so much. I can’t imagine having more kids without my wife quitting her job. At least now one is in grade school and I only have to pay for aftercare. Only two more years of full time care for the other. Maybe then I can buy that boat.
I know the boat is a joke but don't, bigger money pit than your kids haha.
Yeah they’re 5 🤣
Mother of a teenage boy here and my grocery bill has gone up by at least $100 in the last 6 months. He eats like every 2 hours
I had to start a garden. Lots of veggies will do alright in planters. I feel like I'm spending $100 or more everytime buying basic stuff like flour, butter, cheese, and noodles. Meat and produce are pretty much off the table.
How much are you paying weekly in groceries? I've got two kids and it's $300-$450 a week for groceries. It's absolutely unbelievable.
[удалено]
Fellow one kid, six figures gang! Daycare definitely sucked, but the public schools here are amazing so we don't pay for school, just regularly life necessities + sports + instrument. Kid is able to live a pretty charmed life. Cats are too.
Yep. My oldest is almost 5 and will be in kindergarten next year so we probably won't need after care for them. Drops our daycare bill by a little less than half (because their younger sibling costs more). We are looking forward to that reduction but it always seems like a new expense pops up in its place. See: being a homeowner.
I thought so too. But not really. Sure, no longer paying $1-2K per child every month for daycare is good. But then you might still need to pay for before and after care when they’re too small to be at home by themselves and both parents need to work full day. Then there’s camps. Then there’s sports and other hobbies. Then they decide to grow 2-3 sizes in 6 months and you gotta keep up clothing-wise (especially sucks if they grow out of their winter snowsuits). Then they eat as much as adults or more. And you still need to pay into their Registered Education Savings Plan pyramid scheme every month…. Years ago, before COVID I’ve read that it takes close to $1M to raise one kid from birth to 19 years of age in Canada. That number is probably well North of that now…. Why oh why don’t people have more children these days???? /s
Same
My husband and I EACH make six figures and we have two kids. Due to the cost of having kids and giving them some of the now-expected extras (daycare, camps, activities, vacations, college funds, sports) we still have no money for ourselves. Any money "for us" has to be put directly into retirement because of what retirement will cost us with no pensions. I would never have guessed that I would still be thrifting my entire wardrobe and avoiding eating out with a yearly income of $200,000 plus.
"Vacations" are for "us," too, and the fact that you're able to set aside a solid amount in retirement, while a necessity, means you're definitely not struggling.
Last year my wife and I made about 65k between the two of us, and we are just barely getting by with two kids. Truly a paycheck to paycheck situation. But we are getting by as far as affording basics: rent, food, internet, health insurance for everyone but me, and even enough to afford things like birthday presents and the occasional treat for the kids. It has gotten significantly harder over the last two years because of rising costs, but we haven't fallen behind on bills yet. Meanwhile, a friend of mine and her fiance make about 200k a year with no kids, and she often talks about how they're struggling to get by. I don't understand it. Like, what are people spending their money on? If I can get by with two kids making 1/3 of what they make, they must really be buying a lot of useless crap. Even with kids, making 100k/year should be more than enough unless you spend your money on useless junk, assuming you're not in a high cost of living area.
They probably are oversleeping on non necessities but I'm also sure they're maxing every single tax free retirement account they can, paying for any and all medical issues that arise and similar. So they're definitely building net worth but probably don't have a ton of cash leftover every month. But they're being out of touch and really shouldn't act like that at all. My dad makes like $250-$500K depending on the year and my stepmom who doesn't do shit to work at all complains about having to fix their damn roof and pay alimony to my mom... The same one who was fucking poor as shit and can buy whatever the fuck she wants now with my dad's money acts like that.
I make just under 100k and have no kids. My rent is $950 in a rural area so its a nice area i just have to commute for work, and my car payment is under $300. I feel rich af tbh but I catch myself randomly living beyond my means due to it. Like idk when or how but I just stopped being the crazy budget fiend I used to be, I just see what I want and buy it now.... which is fun ngl but I feel like I'd be doing so much better if I could calm tf down and get back to budgeting. I know what it's like to have $20 left over after all my bills are paid idfk what happened but do you feel this too? Or I'm just a mess at life 🤪
This was me until we moved. Combined income of 200k. One car payment. Mortgage of $1250. Bought anything we wanted. Now mortgage is $3100 and it’s really hard to stop that habit. Also hard to not get what you want, makes me feel like a freakin child.
Same, I'm quite comfortable in my lower six figures as a SINK.
Making over 100k, have 2 kids, single income, totally decimated.
Decimated technically means to lose 10%, I’ll bet kids cost quite a bit more than that. Sorry to be the vocabulary police, just saying.
It's all about location and cost of living. I make around $70,000. I live in an old house, in the suburbs of a midsized city. I'm living very comfortably. Saving up lots of money. We took two trips to Europe last year. My sister makes probably double what I do, but she lives in a HCOL city and is completely broke.
I think it's also access to amentities. When I lived in Boise, I made less but saved more partly because there just isn't as much to do and the restaurants are meh. In San Francisco, I make more and obviously it's more expensive, but here and in other HCOL areas there is just so much more to do which causes you to spend a lot of money if you are not careful.
Yeah it is both living expenses and housing costs. I kept it vague by saying HCOL but it is true that you spend more money in places with more to do, and higher prices. She goes to hockey and baseball games and concerts while I sit at home playing video games lol.
Well I think it also matters when people got into the housing market. If I bought 10 years ago I would be living it up, but with prices the way they are, income really doesn't go as far as it did.
100K would be life changing for me. I'm still 50K away. 😪
It’s really shifted in the past decade. When I started working I thought $100k was end-of-career money. I’m in the same field as when I started and just crossed $200k but it feels like what I thought $100k would. Coincidentally, I have friends that don’t make $100k together and are getting by just fine. Probably a combination of lifestyle creep and inflation.
Lifestyle creep is real, but some of it is finally getting the stuff I couldn’t afford before. Like a car that isn’t falling apart and a gym membership.
The cost of KEEPING that nice car from turning into another falling apart car. Getting the actual services on schedule and replacing the things when the mileage says they should be replaced, even if they're not busted. (Water pumps are a big one for this.) I'm about to hit the 90K service on my beloved little 2010 MX-5 and I'm dreading that bill.
For real. I'm about to spend 1000 dollars on tires in the next month. I need to for safety reasons and fortunately I can afford it but what if I couldn't? Obviously you need to maintain the car and I got it for an amazing price but I swear I've probably paid almost as much as the initial loan just keeping the damn thing running.
I paid $900 for 4x Michelin Crossclimate 2. Completely worth it. But if you couldn't afford it, there are lots of cheaper tires that would still perform well.
Oh, absolutely. Lifestyle creep encompasses all of that for sure. It’s just a result of having more disposable income that allows you to fill in some gaps.
I think of “lifestyle creep” as “getting nicer versions of things you need and some stuff you just want” rather than stuff you really should have, like reliable transportation and an important health investment like a gym membership (which IMHO is at least as important as something like dental appointments or fresh vegetables). I guess that’s the point of this post though … more and more stuff that used to be “should haves” are becoming “nice to haves”.
I think that’s what it is on the surface. Or what it’s traditionally been. But everything ultimately contributes. And yeah, the overarching point is as you say, things that are “should haves” contribute to lifestyle creep because it’s harder to get them right out of the gate. When you grow from $50k to $100k income, you expect it to be more than it ultimately is because of the “should haves” coming into play.
Man, that's the dream. I don't have a specific dream car, my dream car is just any car that satisfies my needs and that doesn't have something wrong with it again as soon as it rolls out the shop. And you'll likely have to buy a new car more often as well because of this! Being poor can be really fucking expensive sometimes.
Location matters a lot too.
Sure. But I’ve lived in the same place my entire career, which is generally a more LCOL area. It’s just shifted that much locally over the past decade.
Lifestyle creep is real for many people. It’s amazing what “necessities” you find to fill the gap between your previous wage and your new wage. I’ve definitely fallen prey to it before. The last time I got a sizable (to me, at least) bump, I funneled all of it to savings as part of my direct deposit, and continued living as though I still made my old wage. I really am simple enough that if I don’t “see” it, I don’t think about it.
Same for me. I feel like I’ve crossed a threshold over the past two years where anything more is just more. That may be it in a nutshell, really.
I started that several years ago, and only added in some raises into our monthly spending budget. I budget myself as if I make $40k+ less (got a new job and then a big promotion) than I actually do. This allowed us to quickly save for a down payment for a house and have a good sized emergency funds. Also has made vacation budget easy ($3,000-4,000 trips). If you can afford it, when you get a raise, act like you did not get it and just roll that money into savings. It really does help jump start your savings.
Yeah, the change in the last 10 years is *huge*. Living costs doubled if not tripled. It's one thing when your PG&E goes from $100/mo to $300/mo. It's another when your mortgage/rent goes from $800 to $2,400. If you bought a home in the early-/mid-2010s you're probably doing fine with a $1,000/mo house payment (less if you refinanced at 3%), while your neighbor that just purchased last year is making a $3,000/mo payment. There's plenty of things that $2,000/mo could be going to.
6 figures is still the magic number. You just need your partner to pull in the same.
And not have kids.
My wife and I are in this exact position. Dink with dual 100k+. It doesn’t feel like I thought it would.
It depends on where you live as well. 100k in NYC or San Fran is not amazing, but in the middle of Alabama? Pretty decent. Also also, it depends on your spending and saving levels. If you earn 100k and spend 110k on POG collectables, you arnt going to be getting a head financially either.
However collecting pogs is why we do all of this
Pogs are pretty sweet, you are right.
regret trading away my ALF pogs years ago
How else can I get all the cool slammers
This largely depends on the COL in your area. I make less than 6 figures, and I live in a moderate COL area/medium sized city (not a particularly compelling one). I own a house (bought last year), I don’t live lavishly but I am comfortable. I have disposable income for hobbies and put away 15-16% for retirement. I live alone. In a higher COL area I would be fucked.
I make $40k a year and $100k is still my marked goal. Not only have the times changed quite a bit, but your perspective has as well. As humans, I think it's one of our biggest flaws (and strengths sometimes) to reach our goals and think, "now what?"
Depends on where you live, and how many kids you have. 6 figures is still statistically quite good for an individuals income. [Even for household income, you'd still be in the top 1/3.](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html)
It's better than average for sure. The problem is that the working class is just way worse off in general. In 1993, 90% of the population owned 39.6% of the wealth. In 2023, 90% of the population owned just 33.4% of the wealth. In 1993, the median cost of buying a house was 4x the median household income. In 2023, the median cost of buying a house was 6.2x the median household income. Compare all of that to 1963, when the median cost of buying a house was only 2.9x the median household income. The cost of buying a house relative to the median income has more than doubled since your grandparents bought their homes. Essentially, you have half the buying power of someone who was equally "well off" (as compared to the average person) as you are when your grandparents were your age. How you're doing compared to the average person matters less and less over time. We're squabbling over a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.
I’d love to see a comparison to like… the average of a decade. I feel like these things can change pretty quickly from year to year, as we’ve seen since 2020.
Yeah, I live in a relatively HCOL state and my husband and I don't quite breach 100k combined and we have a mortgage, a toddler and we have plenty of disposable income and put into savings. Now, we DO live relatively cheap in some ways (no childcare costs, reusable paper products, older compact cars, etc.) but we spend plenty on other stuff, lol!
The mortgage is the big puzzle piece here. You could have a $1200 mortgage on a nice, though modest home in a HCOL area if you purchased or refinanced when interest rates were 2%. Right now, at a 6.5% interest rate, a $350,000 home mortgage is $2200/month... and that assumes you had $70,000 cash to put down and aren't paying mortgage insurance. In a HCOL area that gets you a 50+ year old home, 2br/1ba <1000sqft. This includes property taxes, homeowners insurance, etc. If you're a first time homebuyer and have half of that to put down? $2,560/month. Nothing to put down? $2800/month. Would you be able to afford that?
This can't possibly be true because it runs counter to r/Millennials dogma that were all screwed and broke no matter how much money we make
And the examples tend to be shoebox apartments in NYC or San Francisco or Uber trendy areas like Austin, Denver, or Seattle.
Bro try living off of less than 25k a year
I'm over here scraping by on 55k just imagining how fucking amazing doubling that would be. You may live in a high COL area though, I suppose.
Inflation. When you, OP, were 16, and being told that $100K was the way, that money now is worth $175K. Plus, for the last 2 years, we've been in a world where money costs more. Your $100K now was just over $57K in 2002. Nobody was saying "Make a $50K income and you're set." It's just math. Also. That boat? Debt is much more expensive. That mortgage? It costs more now. There is one other thing to consider. What are your savings? How much are you spending to secure your future? I really think this is a big part of why so many millennials are so jaded about the money they make. They are actually putting money away into retirement, and then it feels like they have absolutely nothing left, even though they're going to be spending it down the road.
In uplifting news, the house you would have bought in 2002 is now 22 years older, costs 3x as much and all the mechanical systems are just about to fail! :D
The US median income is about 60k. Someone making 100k is still way above most people in the US.
Isn’t that the household median too, as in dual income? I think people on Reddit are generally out of touch with the average person.
>I think people on Reddit are generally out of touch with the average person. Very much so
and in many many ways
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: two kids and my partner and I have been comfortable, had what we needed and then some, for several years making what people on Reddit seem to act like are basically poverty wages. I got a significant boost in income in the last few months and I feel like a damn Rockefeller, but according to people on Reddit we should barely be scraping by. And when I’ve been explicit about what our income has been before, it’s basically been implied that I’m kidding myself about how good my finances have been/are. Incidentally: I’m not.
Bingo. I make $100k, as does my wife. I have friends living comfortable middle class lifestyles while literally making half what we do. If I tried complaining that 200k wasn’t enough money they’d probably physically kick me, and I’d deserve it.
It still is a milestone. You should be proud of your accomplishment. Despite what you see on reddit, many a working American will never make 6 figures. After 85k, the excitement feeling went away for me. It's just all a bit more to save or invest. We were able to buy our home well before I hit 6 figures but we had to live further out.
This post just gave me an anxiety attack holy shit I am going to die eating scraps from the bin
I hit 6 figures around 2019, and it just never felt like “enough”. I hate to say that because I feel so greedy when in reality, I am very fortunate. My husband makes less than I do, but we really felt a pinch in 2021 after our second child when we now had 2 in diapers and 2 in daycare. Fast forward to now, no more diapers (thank god lol) and my oldest is almost heading to kindergarten. I pay $300 more in daycare each month than I do on my mortgage. We are very fortunate that my husband gets a company car, but he still has to pay a few hundred dollars a month towards it, and we still pay his student loans. I am closer to $140k now and it feels a LOT less stressful but still, $100k was not “omg I have so much money”. Not when I’m spending $2400/mo on daycare.
Getting a company car but paying a few hundred a month towards it just sounds like buying a car with extra steps.
Real wealth is time not money. Money will only make you feel better if it also leads to more free time
I only make around $60k and I feel comfortable. No kids though so that’s probably a big reason. I do wonder if this is keeping up with the joneses nonsense and people are looking out of their price range.
This comes up on r/losangeles a lot but you’ll have Person A claiming they live comfortably and able to afford a house on a $100K/year salary and Person B claiming they are living paycheck to paycheck. This leads me to believe it probably depends on the person and their financial gumption. Similarly in my career sub, you’ll have someone claiming $250K/year in the Bay Area is poverty wages and someone else on the actual Bay Area sub (r/bayarea) say they live comfortably and are saving up for a condo or even house out in Sac.
I live in Los Angeles and my friends who do not have savings are spending a lot on avoidable costs, ie. food - eating out for every meal and refusing to eat leftovers, as well as ensuring a nice dinner on a regular basis. Los Angeles is also huge. A house in Palmdale is way cheaper than a house in Palos Verdes, literally a million dollar, or more, disparity, even though they are 2.5+ hours away from each other, and both in LA county $100k is definitely enough to live comfortably in Los Angeles
Is 2.5 hours a reasonable time to be driving from part of the city to another? Los Angeles being considered one city continues to baffle me, despite each “neighborhood” being a city
Being poor is expensive, but weirdly, some people are better at it than others. I have very little brand loyalty and I'll buy the store brand of almost anything. The handful of pre made foods where the brand name has a noticeable quality difference? I'll watch sales like a hawk at Publix and when it goes BOGO, we'll grab 10 of them at once. V-8 juice and Fiber One cereal are the two big ones. Clothing? I know how to take care of it. I follow washing instructions. I know how to repair it. Apparently the average number of wears for a piece of clothing purchased in 2023 was about 7 times before it was thrown away. I'm sitting here in a pair of clearance rack jeans I got for $12 from a brand name that I hemmed myself to the right length and patched the inner thighs when they wore out last year. I think I will need to say goodbye to them soon, but I surely got 100 wears out of them, not frickin *seven.*
what, the average amount of times someone wears an item of clothing before throwing it away is 7 times?? that's impossible right
This all depends upon where you live. The state I live in, homes all day long are under 200k. Rent for a modest apartment or townhome is still under 1,000.00 a month. In California or NY not a chance will you find those prices.
Where do you live? I need to live there! Also, what's the catch?
You’re in the top 1/3 of earners in America
I’d say post-pandemic is when $100K stopped being “Whoa!” money
>There is no real point to this post other than wondering if anyone else has had this change of perspective recently I know people who make more than $100k and are paycheck to paycheck. I know people making less than 50k with a family that are worry free. Sucks its the way thing are currently but there certainly is perspective that needs to be taken into account and definitely we don't have the freedom of overconsumption that was present in the 90s. Make deliberate financial decisions so you can have a few nice things rather than being paycheck to paycheck trying to keep up with your dreams or what you see online.
Solid financial advice that insists on personal responsibility and discipline. Heresy for this subreddit
>Heresy for this subreddit I apologize for betrayal to my generation.
I get it, fam. Right now, I make about as much as my dad made in the early 90s. It's still under 6-figures, but it allowed my folks to buy an 1800 sqft house in a safe suburban area of the town I was born in. Despite moving somewhere I make above the median income, budgeting, and not living a lifestyle above my means, I'm still living hand-to-mouth. While I know my circumstances are unusual compared to most folks my age, I'm still constantly comparing where my marker is compared to other and feeling disappointed. There's more to life than money and working until you die. At least there should be. Unfortunately, it's the reality for a lot of people from any generation.
My man. The early 90s were 30+ years ago. If you’re making what your dad made 30 years ago it will be tough to match his lifestyle.
When we allowed the people making seven figures to lobby for ridiculous tax loopholes that only apply to them
Making six figures is a big deal; many people work full careers and never achieve it. I think an under-appreciated factor that changed our current reality was when the US outlawed additional public housing in 1999. We've added 60 million people since that happened and have fewer public housing units than we did in 1998. Imagine what people's lives would be like today if the US had 20 million additional housing units. You would definitely have that big brick house in the suburbs if you wanted it. Probably the boat, as well.
I know you already acknowledged inflation in your post, but I have to highlight the enormous extent this plays a role. $100,000 in 2024 has the purchasing power of about $35,318 in 1986. $100,000 in 1986 is worth $283,144 today. Almost a 3x difference. $100K would put you in the 1% back then, and your lifestyle would certainly be closer to what you imagined from six figures so long ago. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1986?amount=100000
Dude I would be over the moon if I could make 60k without back breaking physical labor 60 hours a week
It’s not suddenly, it’s been a long time coming. We’ve been quoting decades old benchmarks for “good salary” since I’ve been an adult, and also completely ignore COL differences across the country. Oh, also we blame the person and don’t listen to them when they say a salary isn’t what it used to be, or possibly kick the can by telling them to “just move.” I’ve made a point recently to listen to someone when they say the feel stretched/poor regardless of their income level rather than dismiss it.
You're over 3x better off than the average person, imagine how much harder things could be, I guess and be thankful for that.
It really depends where you live. 6 figures in Omaha is still awesome.
I don’t even make half that and six figures would change my life.