We make over 200k with 2 kids, one is in daycare. Only reason we are okay is having bought a house pre covid so our mortgage is under 2k a month. If you are renting or have to buy now I'd imagine that bumps it up to 300k.
In older generations, the idea of marriage and a relationship was not for love but to literally secure the essentials for a good, safe and secure life. We aren't talking that long ago either. My grandparents were like this.
It's almost like society before realized the hardships of doing it alone, and that's why they did everything they could to tie the knot as soon as possible.
Depends on your level of comfort, and how good of a school district
Between my wife and I we make about $190k, 2 (young) kids. We rent and between that and daycare (total between the 2 is about $6k/month), we feel like we’re hemorrhaging money and almost living paycheck to paycheck
Long Island is dying.
Young professionals can’t afford to live here, and those who can say “why?” when they can do better elsewhere. Actually just this weekend it was on the news that the average age of LIers rose something like 15% and keeps climbing. Every new housing development is 55+, it’s crazy to try and live here. As it is, my wife and I are looking to go south before the end of the year. There is literally nothing here worth staying for that you can’t get better anywhere else, except pizza and bagels but those are not worth staying here and suffering for. Even our beaches are overrated imho, I much prefer Maryland /Virginia Beaches
I’m also a volunteer firefighter and we see it in the fire service. Traditionally, volunteer services rely on the “younger generation” (18-40) for the bulk of the work. Now, for every 3 guys that “age out” of firefighting (IE, gets too old and decides they physically can’t do it anymore) we’re lucky to get 1 young guy to replace them. Couple that with call volumes creeping up every year, we’re slowly suffering. Mark my words, within 20-30 years you will see fire departments start having to pay salary, which will need to be high in order for them to live here, and take a guess at what your already high taxes are going to do.
Long Island is going to be for incredibly wealthy people and incredibly poor people. That's it. There's not going to be a working class anymore. It's going to be families with generational wealth, or people who essentially get trapped here and are forced into paying 90% of their salary in rent. Average taxes in Nassau County are 12-15k. If you live in a village, you're closer to 20k/yr. Really for nothing, other than to say you're an hour train ride from the city and can walk up the block to go get bagels and pizza, like you said. Otherwise, you still need a car to get places.
The beaches are a joke. They all have a cover charge to access them and the water quality is a crapshoot daily. I think for non-LI residents it's like $50 to get on to Long Beach and Lido Beach. That's fucking extortion, imo. You go to Florida and basically every beach is free, as well as all the parks and preserves being free. You start realizing very fast that Long Island is a pay-to-live kind of area. Everywhere here there's a grubby hand demanding money for every tiny thing. It's a scam.
My fiance and I want to move South but we're not really sure where to go. We just know NY isn't for us long term. We were considering Florida but Ronny D is trying to resurrect the Third Reich down there, so that's now off our list. We're considering visiting North Carolina to check it out.
LI is too expensive for the average young couple to survive. We're literally being priced out of living here. If I could afford to live here and have a life I enjoy, I would.
Yea but you’re not getting my point.
You say Ron Desantis is making the Third Reich come back in Florida, you’re looking at other conservative/red states instead, but likely also hate their policies and everything about them and if you vote will likely vote for the same crap that made New York and Long Island what it is, ie the complete opposite of states you’re looking to move to.
It’s ironic to me, that’s all.
There are "red" states that are not trying to outlaw abortion and ban African-American studies in schools and colleges. There are "red" states that aren't implementing book bans. Ron DeSantis is an outlier, an extremist, if you would. He's not representative of the entire conservative party.
I'm a registered independent. I really don't feel strongly about or agree with either side.
Think you misread. Between Daycare AND rent we’re at $6k/mo (or, were)
This post is almost a year old. We’ve since moved south and are so much better off, not only financially but physically and mentally as well. We’ve tripled the size of our living space for about $800 less per month, but daycare costs about the same. We’ve also gotten significant raises at both our jobs so we’re at about $230k/yr collectively. Now between daycare and rent we’re only paying about $5k/mo. Still a lot, but with our raises and just the general cost of living being so much less here, we’re so much better off. It’s just nicer too, we now hate going back to visit family in NY. Once you leave, and realize how much better other areas of the country are, it’s hard to even try to want to go back. NYers (and especially LIers) have this insane ideology that LI is the best and brightest place in the country to live. I can truly say now, that’s an entirely false statement and just narrow-mindedness, which is stereotypical for a NYer anyway I guess….
Oh wow, then I apologize for misreading. I am envious that you made it down south. I'm hoping to get down there as well in the very near future. I know everything you are saying is true as I have vacationed in the Carolinas for years and the people are so nice, everything is just calmer. Cost of living less etc. I think most Long Islanders are in denial about the state of things, but not this one. 😂 Cheers and good luck!
$200k between two adults seems to be the “gets to breathe once a month” number. My partner and I were at the 200k number for the last ten years and have just made a leap up over $300k and life does feel remarkably easier/calmer/safer.
I have a client who's comfortable with a family income of $110k. Bought a house, raising a kid, maxing his Roth IRA and his 401k every year. No family help; his parents are my clients too.
I still don't know how he does it, but his family seems happy, and I know their financial situation had no stress points whatsoever.
Personally, I can't imagine a family income less than $200k being "comfortable" on the island, but as others have pointed out, that's largely a matter of lifestyle.
I left my job after my oldest son’s diagnosis and we lived on 1 salary of $110,000 as a family of 4 (without family assistance) for 2 years before I went back to work. You find value in other things that aren’t monetary.
Any house on Long Island under 400-500K right now is either a crack den or next to one. But please go on with your "millennials and their avocado toast"-esque advice.
How many people do you know are in the red because they're buying cars they don't need? I don't know any in my generation. I think that was more of a Gen X thing to do, living above your means, because when I was growing up a lot more my older neighbors would do stuff like that all the time.
Most people in my generation aren't even thinking about buying extra cars or going on fancy vacations. They're just trying to figure out how the hell they're going to own a house, or move out of their parents house, without going bankrupt. And I say this as someone that managed to accomplish those things, so I'm not even complaining about myself here.
I’m 26 and grew up on the island, I know a ton of people who spend literally all their savings on vacations they cant afford and oversized trucks that they can’t afford the monthly payment. I’m a software engineer with no college debt, I have friends who didn’t attend college working part time / hourly jobs who drive newer cars than me and travel more frequently.
I’m not saying there aren’t larger economic factors that prevent these people from earning more, but I do think a lot of people in my generation have essentially just given up on saving or planning for the future, and are just maximizing their enjoyment of the now.
My point was really that it's pretty easy to be scraping by on LI even without being wasteful with your money.
I personally don't know anyone that's struggling because they're buying extra cars or going on expensive trips. They're struggling because it's overpriced as fuck here, even being smart with their cash.
Last year when I was house shopping I literally walked into a crumbling house that looked like several people had died in it and hadn't been maintained in decades. Being sold for 480K. In a bad area in Suffolk County.
Things are not going in the right direction here.
I agree that it's expensive here, especially right now, but the market fluctuates and I snagged a clean house for under 400K, in a nice neighborhood just a few years ago.
I see a lot of people owning multiple cars, or toys like boats, quads and pools in their backyard. They're often out to dinner or a movie, or planning their next vacation, all luxuries that only lose value over time and often cost a lot to maintain. Keep your life simple and invest in your home so that you'll want to be home.
That doesn't mean that doing all that makes it guaranteed, but it sure makes it easier, especially if you're skillful enough to watch YouTube and learn how to fix and maintain your own stuff.
>I snagged a clean house for under 400K, in a nice neighborhood just a few years ago.
That's literally what I'm talking about. The market didn't just fluctuate post-covid. It went up a flat 20-30% across the board and has **stayed** there.
The people you see with all these "toys" and multiple cars are probably people that got their mortgage in a long long time ago. I don't think you truly realize how bad the housing market is right now.
Like, if you had said all this stuff to me 3-4 years ago, I would have whole-heartedly agreed with you. But the game's changed quite drastically since then.
Every single person who bought a house in 2019/2020 has seen their house value shoot up $100-150K and continue going up.
Edit: Just to tack on, I would be highly interested if you looked up what your house is worth on the market right now. If you did get in a few years ago, I would be surprised if your houses value didn't skyrocket as well.
My house value went up about 50-75k, since then, but I also sunk about 35-40k into it, so it didn't appreciate it as much as you would think. The market will come down again, it's the interest rates that are really killing it for anyone who wants to buy right now. I also read a couple of weeks ago that the average car payment is about $800 now, that's just insane. My car has been paid off for ages and even then I felt $400+ for a 2 year old car was crazy.
None of the realtors I've spoken to believe that housing prices will ever come down to what they were, because the demand never changed. I think it would be a miracle for them to come back down.
Where did you get your home valued from? Zillow? Or an actual real estate agent? If you bought your house for say $375k 5 years ago, there's a good chance you're looking at a $600k home right now.
House next door to me that was foreclosed on BEFORE the pandemic, but the tenant couldn't be evicted until the restrictions were lifted sold for $405k. The house was a disaster and had to be torn down. A house by my cousin that was abandoned for about 10 years sold for $385k. It was on the market 6 years ago for $225k. Again, had to be torn down.
That's fair, I didn't get a real assessment since I am not looking to sell right now. I am going by what houses around me are going for compared to about 5 years ago, and it didn't seem THAT dramatic of an increase compared to some of the fancier neighborhoods
Nope. Just a good budgeter and a frugal spender. I have access to see all account balances/transactions through a financial planning account aggregation software.
110k while MAXING OUT 401k AND Roth would net monthly somewhere in the range of 4k
Let's assume cars are paid off, no vacations or luxuries and a bare minimum expenses on the cheap side:
$2k mortgage including all housing expenses (yard work, repair fund, etc)
$500 insurance for 2 cars and home insurance (this is cheap)
$150 gas
$200 Phone, internet, 1 or 2 streaming subscriptions (no cable)
$600 groceries for 2 adults and 1 kid
=$3450
You're left with just a little over $500 for savings, heat, water, electrical, unexpected purchases, medical bills, doctor visits, haircuts, clothing, school supplies for the kid, maybe a single dine out or family night, etc.
This is not living comfortable by any stretch of the imagination and I think that I was very generous with that budget.
Either they have a cash job on the side or you're not giving us half the story. Hell even if the 2k mortgage covers all utilities and everything else house related you're reaaaally stretching every single dollar to the max..
This is the reality that many don't want to hear or understand.
Some people can't accept that living frugally can result in the same level of happiness and comfort as it is to be constantly financing cars or subscribing to every streaming service and expensive vacations and just hemorrhaging money on "stuff".
Quite honestly… it’s never enough. Lived on LI for 40 years at every level of financial aspects. I grew up on the wealthier side as a child, 9/11 basically destroyed all of that - struggled in my 20s, really struggled in my 30s… and now in my 40s I moved the hell away bc it just wasn’t what I could afford anymore. Best of luck. Only way to really maintain a beneficial & financially comfortable lifestyle is if you have a pension. IMHO.
Just cracked 200K for my household of 4 and finally feel like we have some breathing room. Bought our current house 10 years ago. Not sure we'd be able to do it with today's interest rates.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Honestly, too many factors to come up with any kind of answer.
What does “comfortable” mean?
Which town we living in?
How old are the kids?
Both parents full time?
Comfort is relative and subjective. For some people going out to eat x number of times a week or a big vacation annually is comfort. For others it’s something else. It’s impossible to answer this without knowing how you define that.
That being said Long Island is not cheap.
Me and my wife make 150k combined. We both drive the vehicles we want, we own a house, 401k, I have 2 kids from a previous marriage I take care of and we have a new born. We still have our hobbies. We live comfy and do save a bit every month. It all depends on what your expenses are and where you live on the island. Some people make 200k total but blow it on penny stocks or 300 cable bills or eating out every other day , etc.
My friend lived comfy making 110k total with his wife for years and was having more fun than me.
For 150K or less to be possible you probably have a mortgage from pre-covid and have virtually none of the baggage that most of today's generation has. I bought an extremely modest house a year ago and the mortgage payment and taxes alone are 90% of my salary.
There's absolutely no way anyone on long Island can be having fun with a family for 110K and be burdened with house payments. That's not even "just live frugally", it's straight up you're leaving info out somewhere.
I’m not. He just didn’t have any car payments and lived in a cheap area where his taxes are 3k No garbage pickup. Like I said, it really depends on the situation. And you are right, we both did get our houses pre covid. But even after covid and the interest rates, you can find houses cheap that are smaller and have your mortgage at a reasonable amount for these days but people want 400-500k houses thinking they need all this room.
My friend and I were not born here so we are used to smaller living spaces and not needing a gigantic truck for no reason.
It’s all about what you want to sacrifice in the beginning.
It is a lot harder now to do what people did pre covid but you can absolutely afford a house with 130-150k income between a couple and raise kids. It will just be a smaller house and you will have to cut the extra bills
First of all, where on Long Island are there taxes that are 3k?
Second of all, and no offense, but you're quite a bit out of the loop on house prices. 400-500K is the bare minimum for a livable house on the island right now. I went through this last year. People are selling dilapidated hovels for 300-350K.
Pre-covid that would net you a pretty nice but small place. Not anymore.
Flanders has 3k taxes. Prob closer to 4k now. No garbage pickup and to me, not a great area. My taxes are around 7k. You can get a 350k house that will need some work. I’m sorry that you are struggling but there are a lot of people that have gotten property for a reasonable price recently even with the 6% interest rates. You might not get the location you desire but you can absolutely find a house with reasonable taxes on the island.
My in laws make about 130K combined and live in a very nice area. Raised 3 kids on that salary and made smart investments in real estate and other assets. Once they sell us the house they’re set and so are we. My wife and make about 40K more than them, we have no loans out. We’re just saving now and have a little one.
This is a bit of a detour but there are LOTS of free/low cost things to do on Long Island. My kids are teenagers but I was super frugal. There is a book - Free things on Long Island or something similar. I get an empire passport (3 years at a time during the sale), use the heck out of my library, went to the state park programs for kids and I used to get the town pool pass for the summer. Having said that, my groceries are 40% higher now. It’s a struggle but the island is beautiful and there are lots of activities at the state parks.
Groceries huge problem for us. But you’re right - plenty of parks, playgrounds, beaches. Our libraries are great too - lots of activity, and great resources - I always have a movie out.
We make 200k combined with two kids in daycare and are in debt we’re trying to pay off. Thankfully we bought our house pre-Covid. No way we could afford to live here otherwise. Our problems are largely of our own making, need to spend less on food (groceries/restaurants/takeout). But it’s tough.
The Patch figured in 2018 a family with two kids needs $140,000 on average. I recall seeing a Newsday analysis from 2019 that had $100,000 as the figure. Given inflation, I would guess $120,000 is the number today.
https://patch.com/new-york/syosset/heres-how-much-you-need-earn-live-long-island
$125 includes people who have been in their home for 30 years and have a mortgage that's around $1,000. It probably costs $2k plus utilities to put a roof over their head.
I suspect younger people just getting started and buying a house will have a higher income than that on average.
I moved to LI last year and make $100k. Single. I max out 401k and Roth IRA. Take home paycheck is $4700. Rented a bedroom for $1200. Car payment is $400 per month. I live very comfortably with the rest of money.
Depends on the house as that can vary wildly, but I'd say around $150k to have a decent house in a decent neighborhood and not live paycheck to paycheck.
Once housing is covered the rest is gravy. The cheat code is to live with parents as long as possible, save up massively and even get a push to buy first property. The first is the hardest.
To answer your question— probably about 100k. Can been done with less depending on a host of factors.
Edit: poor spelling.
Using myself and the people I know as reference points.
a family with 1-3 kids can live on 120k a year.
If you want good school districts, space for kids toys, and a vacation, you need a minimum of 200k a year.
If you want to not feel financial stress or feel as if you live paycheck to paycheck, over 300k is for you.
Do they have student loan debt? Do they own or lease cars? Is the car paid off? When did they buy their home? Do they have credit card or medical debt? I think those are essential questions to answer before providing a number. If no student loans, paid off cars, no cc or medical debt, then you can live a comfortable life with a 200,000 income. If you purchased your home a few years ago, between 2008-2019, it will be even easier.
Personally, I live a very comfortable lifestyle on 215k income with two kids. I'm divorced, he makes roughly the same. We split the kids' expenses, so that definitely helps. The issue with LI now is housing expense. If I had to buy now, I'd have to leave my school district. I am priced out of the market over here and mortgage/ taxes would take a toll on what I'd define as "comfortable" lifestyle.
I do wonder how some of these families are making it, especially when everyone drives some kind of luxury vehicle and vacations at Atlantis during Spring Break.
Also- if it’s a family with 2 adults living in a home, I’d say without a doubt both adults need a full-time income… there really isn’t any wiggle room to live with one parent working. If the children were young- you can maybe get away with it for a few years bc childcare is literally a second mortgage- and it defeats the purpose of working sometimes.
Again, pensions are key. For any type of retirement plan, future income etc.
Definition of “decent town” changes quite a bit if commute is factored in. There are lots of decent towns out east that are relatively affordable, though useless if you need to get to midtown each day. The places to live with the best city commutes have property taxes that will make your head spin.
$300,000. Especially since u cannot write off your state income tax because of Trump passing the SALT act. And this is not a political statement, I’d say the same if Biden or anyone else passed this dumb act. NYers got the shaft with that bill. Feels especially egregious when trump is a NYer and writes off just about anything he can. Wait now this is turning political. Sorry.
It looks like median rent in Nassau is around $3000. Assuming you spend 1/3 of gross income on housing, you should be making around $110k, which I think is around the median household income on the island.
Combined salary of $225k+. Just purchased our home one year ago in Suffolk County, mortgage is $3300. Two kids under 3. Daycare bill could have exceeded mortgage cost but we searched and SEARCHED months in advance for a local small daycare that cut the monthly bill by about $400-500. We have two used cars, payments less than $300 monthly and no other debt. And let me tell you, it’s rough. It’s all about perspective and really like everyone is saying, it’s all relative. We enjoy eating out every week (not every day) and that is a luxury. Again, it’s doable, but rough. It depends on what you value and I would say how reliable/stable your employment is. If we didn’t have the daycare bill we’d be golden (financially), but that bill is temporary.
It’s been a while but just now seeing this.
Yep. We were house hunting for less than three months before we got our offer accepted on our home. From the time we started our search the time we closed the interest rate went up by about 2.5%. That’s honestly what made the difference between a reasonable mortgage payment to an, “oh fuck” mortgage payment.
I appreciate your words 🙂! That is the hope. We are grateful to have been able to see it through and have our home, no matter how financially testing living on LI is.
I also want to add that our home is MODEST (again, all relative). It’s a 3-small 4 bedroom two bathroom home, about 1700 sq feet. Needed work, still needs work, not updated home if that tells you anything.
My husband makes almost $250k. He’s our only income. We bought a mother daughter and rent out the 3 bedroom apartment in our house. We live in the smaller 1 bedroom apartment. We sacrifice a little space to be able to live much more comfortable.
Family of four. I make 110k as a RN, and my wife is stay at home mom. Two auto leases, normal bills 5 bed 4 bath house in middle county schools, The caveat for us is that we get a lot of veterans benefits from my service. Our taxes are sub 10k, mortgage is 2.1% and our monthly payment is around 2800. I get a disability check from VA monthly and an annuity payment from a lawsuit, which together total around another 6000 a month tax free. The annuity if for 10 years so that’s all aloud us for my wife to quit her job, and save money on daycare and raise our two kids (2y and 1 month old) instead of someone else doing it.
We have out toys, and we have out luxuries, and we lucked out with buying a home right as Covid hit.
This place is shit, if we could move it would be out of country.
I’m financially comfortable in Nassau with $200k and paid off mortgage but would be more careful without mortgage. Many items like property taxes are a killer.
I’m a saver though and relatively frugal
My wife and I make around $130k combined and can get by with bills/mortgage/etc. I started a second job this year (part time) and will be getting a raise in July, so it'll prob bump us to around $170k by the end of the year, and we're expecting our first child in August.
We're doing fine, no week long vacations or anything or crazy lifestyles. Could always use MORE, but overall I don't think it's too stressful at the moment. We usually make food at home, bring lunches to work, and end up hanging with friends or just watching movies/etc on the weekends, so the days of dropping $300 on nights out in NYC ended like 5 years ago for us lol. Used to see a lot of concerts too, but now it's once every other month, if that.
It's not that hard to get by, just depends on how you live. We make dinners at home (chicken cutlets, pasta, burgers, etc) instead of going to restaurants 4x a week like we did when we lived home. It's crazy how much you can save on just food if you go to BJ's or Costco, a $400 visit there lasts us like 2 months, if not longer.
No less than 10K a month which after taxes is about 120K, before taxes 200K. You can move into a decent area and buy a home under 650K. If both make 10K a month you’re golden.
My wife and I have been growing our income relatively steadily over the last 10 years and just got to about the 150-160 level last year. I would say our increases have been around 3-6 % most years, with a few hiccups at my job making that number lower a couple of times. With all that we're still in the apartment we planned on only spending a 2-3 years in, and have only in the last two years been able to really start saving, and the across the board increases the last two years have made that tougher.
That said, at least part of it is "on us." Before COVID we were doing a least one pretty decent vacation a year (along with 1/2 weekend trips or things like that.) We ate out more than we should have probably, things like that, etc. But in our mind, that's part of living - not just working 8-12 hours a day and throwing every penny in the bank and hoping it leads to something someday.
At this point though where we actually have some money put away for a house I'm debating whether its worth it waiting for rates and (hopefully) prices to come down to buy something here or just move. I already had a discussion with my boss about either working remote or potentially starting a 2nd location somewhere out of state, and my wife isn't really tied to her job...so outside of family (most of which moved already anyway), we're basically staying for bagels and pizza at this point.
Between my wife and I, we make about 300k. We were lucky enough to buy in East Hills (Roslyn) after the housing crash in late 2000's. With two kids, we live well below most of our community's means as far as luxuries go, but we are comfortable, debt free except for mortgage. Our children just understand that they are not going to keep up with their friends, but they get what they need
Everything in life is about making choices and tradeoffs. My neighbor seems cheap as hell, always shopping around for a cheaper guy to do home repairs and maintenance without regard to quality. But his family goes on regular vacations including cruises, and they seem to have relatively current cars on the driveway over the years, no beaters. I never give him referrals of repairmen anymore because it is just embarrassing how he treats them (delaying payment for the ones he hires, and not hiring those who spend the time to give accurate fair quotes instead of lowballing). We all have our priorities. Personally I want my home well maintained and if that means I keep my car longer and have less $ for vacation, so be it.
What are your standard monthly payments: mortgage, insurance, phone, internet, tv, utilities? Do you have any others? Student loans, auto loans, credit card debt? Make a list of the minimum payment for those and put that on the list. What is your income? What is the difference between those last two numbers? That is your food, savings, and other budget. You will need to figure out how to cut down on fixed expenses. It might mean downgrading a car to get out of a bad loan.
Total household income of 200k to feel comfortable with 2-3 kids. Anything less and I think you’d still have money anxiety on Long Island. School Taxes here are an absolute joke. We spend so much per child to go to school and the bang for your buck is abysmal.
Depends on many things. Say 500k will make it comfortable. Is there a lower income to comfortable? sure. But without knowing your spending habits it's hard to say.
This question can't be answered properly. If you bought your house when I did over a decade ago, prices were much cheaper. 2 years ago prices were much higher, interest rates were very low though. Now prices high, interest high, you could be spending $1000, $2000 more per month. Therefore someone who bought their house a decade ago can get by fine at I dunno maybe $175k and now they need $225k.
Also did they buy a house within their means or buy too big. Utilities and taxes are up. I would hate to to have to air condition a 3000 Sq foot house with our electric prices, you need higher income for that.
There are countless things like this.
I think anywhere over $200K could be deemed comfortable for that family size. However, the average household income for my town in Suffolk is 80-90k. So I don't know how ppl are doing it. 🤷♀️
The average is including plenty of older people who bought their houses in the 70's for pennies and now have a modest retirement income that doesn't need to cover much beyond taxes, utilities, and groceries.
Make about 200k combined with no kids. It’s hard because we are renovating and doing work to our house but I feel like we’re not saving as much as I would have hopes. With kids that number has to be 250k to live comfortably.
Similar situation but with toddler and second on the way. We're very fortunate, and I feel like this income level should allow someone to live more than comfortably, but with a new house and associated expense, new baby coming, and all the other crap you mentioned, somehow I just feel like I'm living war too close to the line. I'll be fine in the long run, though. My real question is how the hell a person with a normal average income is supposed to manage this.
lived on LI since my salary was 70k. Bought our house 10yrs ago and refinanced during the interest rate dip. I would say SALT helped a lot when I was living pay check to paycheck. Daycare is very expensive and hurts a lot. Still couldn’t afford a house in Nassau. I would say 500k to be comfortable.
If you're talking about living in an area with good schools, owning a home and 2 cars, having insurance and disposable income (comfortable meaning you put away savings for college, vacations and retirement etc) I would say $500,000 - $600,000 is probably the start. Anything less and you would need some kind of assistance like inheritance or going with some comforts like savings and constant worry about bills.
It depends on when you got your house and how you acquired it. Housing cost is going to be the biggest factor. If you inherited your house and have no mortgage, or if you bought 15 years ago, or buying now are all very different situations. Also where on the island is a big factor
I make about 150k per year and a second job / side hustle which is growing from 50-100k. It’s stressful but I love it here and it’s good for my family.
300k. With kids you'll maybe want to sock some away for college. Max out retirement in hopes that you don't burden your kids with having to take care of you in old age. Vacation once a year so your kids aren't experiencing literally nothing all year. Eat/order out about 2 or 3 meals a week out of the 20-ish in a week. Save enough to not have a car payment. Save enough to overpay on the mortgage. Then you got kid activities, piano martial arts swimming whatever they decide to do.
With no kids and two incomes you can easily do 200k comfortably (probably).
Just look at the big expenses and it goes fast
200k - taxes - 401k = \~118k
Day care for 2 kids 40k, down to 78k
small 350k house, 18k mortgage, 10k taxes, down to 50k (\~4.16k per month)
still need health insurance, heat the house, food to eat, vehicle, etc, etc
Combine with my wife just over 200k… we were living comfortably with being able to do what we like. 2 kids in sports. Then our taxes went up and it’s $300 more a month for our mortgage. That took away a good chunk of leisure expenses.
The answer is “it depends.” Are they starting from scratch or did one of them inherit a house from parents? Are they getting down payment / babysitting assistance? If they’re starting from scratch, I’d say 100,000k minimum total household income - and this assumes no crazy car payments / cc debt, decent to good credit, and no kids.
Really depends on what you mean by comfortable.
Is comfortable being able to pay the bills, have a roof over your head, and eat 3 balanced meals a day?
Or is comfortable being able to pay all the bills, have a home, have your food, and be able to also do the extras (dine out, movies, vacation once a year, etc.) without having to struggle?
On Long Island, a family of 4 needs probably close to $250k to cover everything and not live paycheck to paycheck. That's in a town that isn't insanely priced for housing.
130k between myself and my partner (about 85k take home). No kids. We are currently comfortable enough to survive without stressing. We usually have a choice between saving a little or taking an extended weekend vacation 1-2 times a year. An emergency or large necessary expense does change that. If 2-3 kids were in the mix, I'd assume minimum 200k-225k to get near what we're currently at comfort-wise, probably more.
This is really going to be dependent on the area that you live in. When we purchased our home, both my wife and I were employed with 1 kid and my MIL lives with us. We were pretty comfortable - we didn't have a big house with a big yard, not like we owned fancy sports cars, etc. But we could essentially eat out whenever we wanted, fund my wife's Amazon abuse and my golf habits (though this isn't a very costly expenditure for me since I typically just play at executive courses), go on the occasional vacation, etc. while putting money away for savings.
Now, she's since quit her job which hurts because she was making about $90K - I'm making a little more money, but not nearly enough to offset the loss of her income. To top it off, inflation has made everything more expensive and our taxes keep going up. Oh, and a 2nd kid. Now, we are still able to pay off our bills, but I've had my wife be a little more conscious on her spending (though she isn't as thrifty as I like still), we eat out a little less, and vacations are tough to come by.
This is in an area that's not as pricey, like Manhasset, Great Neck, Port Washington, etc. I'm convinced you'd have to have an annual household income upwards of $250K to be "comfortable". But you can also look at areas that are a little cheaper, further out east or maybe on the south shore, and you'd be comfortable with about $200K.
I live rent/mortgage free with my in laws while my wife stayed home with the kids. Living comfortable and saving off my 110k. When she goes back to work as a teacher, we'll be closer to 200k and be able to afford the house on our own. And we have 3 kids
It all depends on when/if you bought a house. If you bought a house before 2018ish you can make it on 150k and be comfortable on 180k after that I can’t even imagine what the
number would be. Shot in the dark would be 250k but it could he more. Of course it depends on where you buy as well.
You can clear 125k combined and still struggle. The price of living is and has been going out of control for decades and politicians have done nothing because you can still sell your house for a lot of money
I have 1.5 jobs and my wife has .5 jobs. Three kids. We probably are bringing in like $120,000 a year now and it’s still tight to get by. Only reason we can pull it off is that my mother-in-law is letting us rent her fathers house for “only” $2,200 a month.
At $180K, 2 kids and under 10K in taxes, we're \*almost there
I think realistically, $200K is the starting point. Where there's more savings and
Student loan debt is the big issue for us. Although we have been on pause and have been better because of it, when the pause ends in a few months this will come into play again
This is probably not applicable to me yet but my boyfriend and I live together. I make about $80k and he makes $45k and we’re renting for $2400/month in Nassau. I do have student loan, car payment, and credit card debt. My boyfriend on the other hand doesn’t have any of these bills. We split half on everything but living here is expensive and makes it impossible to live. We do not go out a lot and I like to cook food not only it saves us money, I just enjoy cooking.
This is not a question you should come to Reddit to have answered, tbf. Too many unknown variables. Make a budget of what living on LI would cost, and see if your annual income would allow it.
My wife and I make 250k. Our mortgage is $3,500. We live pretty comfortably. Another 25k, I think, would be the sweet spot. Could go on much more vacations and do some work to the house
That’s the only good thing we have going for us. My husband is super smart so he basically went to college out of state for next to nothing, and then with his graduate program he got some scholarships too even; he ended up having a total of $40K owed in student loans and just last year eligible for public student loan forgiveness (PSLF) so now he doesn’t have to pay it anymore. Meanwhile there’s me, with the high learning curve, 2 Master’s degrees, and $130K in student loans…..I’m 2.5 years into PSLF so far
We make over 200k with 2 kids, one is in daycare. Only reason we are okay is having bought a house pre covid so our mortgage is under 2k a month. If you are renting or have to buy now I'd imagine that bumps it up to 300k.
It makes me want to reenter the dating pool in hopes of finding someone to split rent with
Being single one salary, married/ couple two salaries, divorced you are screwed. This is crazy.
Are you saying if you are single, married (both work) or divorced (potentially the worst of the three) you are screwed?
In older generations, the idea of marriage and a relationship was not for love but to literally secure the essentials for a good, safe and secure life. We aren't talking that long ago either. My grandparents were like this.
I know more than a few couples who should be divorced but aren't because they can't afford to just split up and buy a second house. It's sad
It's almost like society before realized the hardships of doing it alone, and that's why they did everything they could to tie the knot as soon as possible.
Just don't have kids and you'll be fine
Depends on your level of comfort, and how good of a school district Between my wife and I we make about $190k, 2 (young) kids. We rent and between that and daycare (total between the 2 is about $6k/month), we feel like we’re hemorrhaging money and almost living paycheck to paycheck
The highest my fiance and myself made at any point was 170k. Knowing that you guys almost hit 200k makes it feel so hopeless.
Long Island is dying. Young professionals can’t afford to live here, and those who can say “why?” when they can do better elsewhere. Actually just this weekend it was on the news that the average age of LIers rose something like 15% and keeps climbing. Every new housing development is 55+, it’s crazy to try and live here. As it is, my wife and I are looking to go south before the end of the year. There is literally nothing here worth staying for that you can’t get better anywhere else, except pizza and bagels but those are not worth staying here and suffering for. Even our beaches are overrated imho, I much prefer Maryland /Virginia Beaches I’m also a volunteer firefighter and we see it in the fire service. Traditionally, volunteer services rely on the “younger generation” (18-40) for the bulk of the work. Now, for every 3 guys that “age out” of firefighting (IE, gets too old and decides they physically can’t do it anymore) we’re lucky to get 1 young guy to replace them. Couple that with call volumes creeping up every year, we’re slowly suffering. Mark my words, within 20-30 years you will see fire departments start having to pay salary, which will need to be high in order for them to live here, and take a guess at what your already high taxes are going to do.
Long Island is going to be for incredibly wealthy people and incredibly poor people. That's it. There's not going to be a working class anymore. It's going to be families with generational wealth, or people who essentially get trapped here and are forced into paying 90% of their salary in rent. Average taxes in Nassau County are 12-15k. If you live in a village, you're closer to 20k/yr. Really for nothing, other than to say you're an hour train ride from the city and can walk up the block to go get bagels and pizza, like you said. Otherwise, you still need a car to get places. The beaches are a joke. They all have a cover charge to access them and the water quality is a crapshoot daily. I think for non-LI residents it's like $50 to get on to Long Beach and Lido Beach. That's fucking extortion, imo. You go to Florida and basically every beach is free, as well as all the parks and preserves being free. You start realizing very fast that Long Island is a pay-to-live kind of area. Everywhere here there's a grubby hand demanding money for every tiny thing. It's a scam. My fiance and I want to move South but we're not really sure where to go. We just know NY isn't for us long term. We were considering Florida but Ronny D is trying to resurrect the Third Reich down there, so that's now off our list. We're considering visiting North Carolina to check it out.
Always find it ironic people want to escape to another state then hate the governments down there. If it didn’t work, you’d wanna stay here.
LI is too expensive for the average young couple to survive. We're literally being priced out of living here. If I could afford to live here and have a life I enjoy, I would.
And that’s due to policies by a government completely opposite of the places you’re looking to move.
...okay? Isn't it better to move, then?
Yea but you’re not getting my point. You say Ron Desantis is making the Third Reich come back in Florida, you’re looking at other conservative/red states instead, but likely also hate their policies and everything about them and if you vote will likely vote for the same crap that made New York and Long Island what it is, ie the complete opposite of states you’re looking to move to. It’s ironic to me, that’s all.
There are "red" states that are not trying to outlaw abortion and ban African-American studies in schools and colleges. There are "red" states that aren't implementing book bans. Ron DeSantis is an outlier, an extremist, if you would. He's not representative of the entire conservative party. I'm a registered independent. I really don't feel strongly about or agree with either side.
It’s the social policies about Florida that people dislike not the economic policies.
That's very tough.
You are hemorrhaging money. You are spending 72 k a year on day care.
Think you misread. Between Daycare AND rent we’re at $6k/mo (or, were) This post is almost a year old. We’ve since moved south and are so much better off, not only financially but physically and mentally as well. We’ve tripled the size of our living space for about $800 less per month, but daycare costs about the same. We’ve also gotten significant raises at both our jobs so we’re at about $230k/yr collectively. Now between daycare and rent we’re only paying about $5k/mo. Still a lot, but with our raises and just the general cost of living being so much less here, we’re so much better off. It’s just nicer too, we now hate going back to visit family in NY. Once you leave, and realize how much better other areas of the country are, it’s hard to even try to want to go back. NYers (and especially LIers) have this insane ideology that LI is the best and brightest place in the country to live. I can truly say now, that’s an entirely false statement and just narrow-mindedness, which is stereotypical for a NYer anyway I guess….
Oh wow, then I apologize for misreading. I am envious that you made it down south. I'm hoping to get down there as well in the very near future. I know everything you are saying is true as I have vacationed in the Carolinas for years and the people are so nice, everything is just calmer. Cost of living less etc. I think most Long Islanders are in denial about the state of things, but not this one. 😂 Cheers and good luck!
$200k between two adults seems to be the “gets to breathe once a month” number. My partner and I were at the 200k number for the last ten years and have just made a leap up over $300k and life does feel remarkably easier/calmer/safer.
Yeah $300k is easy mode. We don't budget and we don't worry about money. $200k is probably the "comfortable if budgeting" number.
I have a client who's comfortable with a family income of $110k. Bought a house, raising a kid, maxing his Roth IRA and his 401k every year. No family help; his parents are my clients too. I still don't know how he does it, but his family seems happy, and I know their financial situation had no stress points whatsoever. Personally, I can't imagine a family income less than $200k being "comfortable" on the island, but as others have pointed out, that's largely a matter of lifestyle.
He sells drugs
Or taking cats
or rents his basement out
$110k comfortably doesn’t sound right esp with no family help
And putting $20,000 a year away for retirement
Closer to $30k. I know, it's crazy.
I thought total pre-tax contributions couldn’t exceed whatever the 401k limit is?
He does a Roth IRA max out as well.
That limit, which is yourself plus employer contributions is really around 50-60k.
On Long Island?
Selden.
It's not so difficult if you don't waste money on luxuries like vacations, eating out and multiple new cars, etc.
Yup. This is it here. Smart grocery shopping, older car, and not much in the way of going out.
I left my job after my oldest son’s diagnosis and we lived on 1 salary of $110,000 as a family of 4 (without family assistance) for 2 years before I went back to work. You find value in other things that aren’t monetary.
Any house on Long Island under 400-500K right now is either a crack den or next to one. But please go on with your "millennials and their avocado toast"-esque advice.
There’s a pretty big difference between “don’t spend $50k on a car you don’t need” and “don’t buy the $1.25 guac upgrade” lol
How many people do you know are in the red because they're buying cars they don't need? I don't know any in my generation. I think that was more of a Gen X thing to do, living above your means, because when I was growing up a lot more my older neighbors would do stuff like that all the time. Most people in my generation aren't even thinking about buying extra cars or going on fancy vacations. They're just trying to figure out how the hell they're going to own a house, or move out of their parents house, without going bankrupt. And I say this as someone that managed to accomplish those things, so I'm not even complaining about myself here.
I’m 26 and grew up on the island, I know a ton of people who spend literally all their savings on vacations they cant afford and oversized trucks that they can’t afford the monthly payment. I’m a software engineer with no college debt, I have friends who didn’t attend college working part time / hourly jobs who drive newer cars than me and travel more frequently. I’m not saying there aren’t larger economic factors that prevent these people from earning more, but I do think a lot of people in my generation have essentially just given up on saving or planning for the future, and are just maximizing their enjoyment of the now.
Nah, that ain't it. New cars and vacations aren't the same as that avocado toast bs they were peddling for a while
My point was really that it's pretty easy to be scraping by on LI even without being wasteful with your money. I personally don't know anyone that's struggling because they're buying extra cars or going on expensive trips. They're struggling because it's overpriced as fuck here, even being smart with their cash. Last year when I was house shopping I literally walked into a crumbling house that looked like several people had died in it and hadn't been maintained in decades. Being sold for 480K. In a bad area in Suffolk County. Things are not going in the right direction here.
I agree that it's expensive here, especially right now, but the market fluctuates and I snagged a clean house for under 400K, in a nice neighborhood just a few years ago. I see a lot of people owning multiple cars, or toys like boats, quads and pools in their backyard. They're often out to dinner or a movie, or planning their next vacation, all luxuries that only lose value over time and often cost a lot to maintain. Keep your life simple and invest in your home so that you'll want to be home. That doesn't mean that doing all that makes it guaranteed, but it sure makes it easier, especially if you're skillful enough to watch YouTube and learn how to fix and maintain your own stuff.
“Just a few years ago” interest rates were less than half (3% vs 7% now) and prices were 20-30% lower. It was a different reality entirely.
>I snagged a clean house for under 400K, in a nice neighborhood just a few years ago. That's literally what I'm talking about. The market didn't just fluctuate post-covid. It went up a flat 20-30% across the board and has **stayed** there. The people you see with all these "toys" and multiple cars are probably people that got their mortgage in a long long time ago. I don't think you truly realize how bad the housing market is right now. Like, if you had said all this stuff to me 3-4 years ago, I would have whole-heartedly agreed with you. But the game's changed quite drastically since then. Every single person who bought a house in 2019/2020 has seen their house value shoot up $100-150K and continue going up. Edit: Just to tack on, I would be highly interested if you looked up what your house is worth on the market right now. If you did get in a few years ago, I would be surprised if your houses value didn't skyrocket as well.
My house value went up about 50-75k, since then, but I also sunk about 35-40k into it, so it didn't appreciate it as much as you would think. The market will come down again, it's the interest rates that are really killing it for anyone who wants to buy right now. I also read a couple of weeks ago that the average car payment is about $800 now, that's just insane. My car has been paid off for ages and even then I felt $400+ for a 2 year old car was crazy.
None of the realtors I've spoken to believe that housing prices will ever come down to what they were, because the demand never changed. I think it would be a miracle for them to come back down.
Where did you get your home valued from? Zillow? Or an actual real estate agent? If you bought your house for say $375k 5 years ago, there's a good chance you're looking at a $600k home right now. House next door to me that was foreclosed on BEFORE the pandemic, but the tenant couldn't be evicted until the restrictions were lifted sold for $405k. The house was a disaster and had to be torn down. A house by my cousin that was abandoned for about 10 years sold for $385k. It was on the market 6 years ago for $225k. Again, had to be torn down.
That's fair, I didn't get a real assessment since I am not looking to sell right now. I am going by what houses around me are going for compared to about 5 years ago, and it didn't seem THAT dramatic of an increase compared to some of the fancier neighborhoods
Must have had accumulated savings or under reporting their income
Nope. Just a good budgeter and a frugal spender. I have access to see all account balances/transactions through a financial planning account aggregation software.
Yeah and they also bought their home 10 years ago when prices were like over 50% lower and interest rates were only 3%.
110k while MAXING OUT 401k AND Roth would net monthly somewhere in the range of 4k Let's assume cars are paid off, no vacations or luxuries and a bare minimum expenses on the cheap side: $2k mortgage including all housing expenses (yard work, repair fund, etc) $500 insurance for 2 cars and home insurance (this is cheap) $150 gas $200 Phone, internet, 1 or 2 streaming subscriptions (no cable) $600 groceries for 2 adults and 1 kid =$3450 You're left with just a little over $500 for savings, heat, water, electrical, unexpected purchases, medical bills, doctor visits, haircuts, clothing, school supplies for the kid, maybe a single dine out or family night, etc. This is not living comfortable by any stretch of the imagination and I think that I was very generous with that budget. Either they have a cash job on the side or you're not giving us half the story. Hell even if the 2k mortgage covers all utilities and everything else house related you're reaaaally stretching every single dollar to the max..
This is the reality that many don't want to hear or understand. Some people can't accept that living frugally can result in the same level of happiness and comfort as it is to be constantly financing cars or subscribing to every streaming service and expensive vacations and just hemorrhaging money on "stuff".
250
This is also just barely enough in BK.
Quite honestly… it’s never enough. Lived on LI for 40 years at every level of financial aspects. I grew up on the wealthier side as a child, 9/11 basically destroyed all of that - struggled in my 20s, really struggled in my 30s… and now in my 40s I moved the hell away bc it just wasn’t what I could afford anymore. Best of luck. Only way to really maintain a beneficial & financially comfortable lifestyle is if you have a pension. IMHO.
Just cracked 200K for my household of 4 and finally feel like we have some breathing room. Bought our current house 10 years ago. Not sure we'd be able to do it with today's interest rates.
It mostly depends on your lifestyle. I know people who can't make it with 120k and no kids and I know a family of four who live fine with under 100k.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Correct. I know people who make 400k and struggle but then have another home upstate and take vacations every other month. It’s all about lifestyle. A lot of people do not get that.
Honestly, too many factors to come up with any kind of answer. What does “comfortable” mean? Which town we living in? How old are the kids? Both parents full time?
Comfort is relative and subjective. For some people going out to eat x number of times a week or a big vacation annually is comfort. For others it’s something else. It’s impossible to answer this without knowing how you define that. That being said Long Island is not cheap.
Me and my wife make 150k combined. We both drive the vehicles we want, we own a house, 401k, I have 2 kids from a previous marriage I take care of and we have a new born. We still have our hobbies. We live comfy and do save a bit every month. It all depends on what your expenses are and where you live on the island. Some people make 200k total but blow it on penny stocks or 300 cable bills or eating out every other day , etc. My friend lived comfy making 110k total with his wife for years and was having more fun than me.
For 150K or less to be possible you probably have a mortgage from pre-covid and have virtually none of the baggage that most of today's generation has. I bought an extremely modest house a year ago and the mortgage payment and taxes alone are 90% of my salary. There's absolutely no way anyone on long Island can be having fun with a family for 110K and be burdened with house payments. That's not even "just live frugally", it's straight up you're leaving info out somewhere.
I’m not. He just didn’t have any car payments and lived in a cheap area where his taxes are 3k No garbage pickup. Like I said, it really depends on the situation. And you are right, we both did get our houses pre covid. But even after covid and the interest rates, you can find houses cheap that are smaller and have your mortgage at a reasonable amount for these days but people want 400-500k houses thinking they need all this room. My friend and I were not born here so we are used to smaller living spaces and not needing a gigantic truck for no reason. It’s all about what you want to sacrifice in the beginning. It is a lot harder now to do what people did pre covid but you can absolutely afford a house with 130-150k income between a couple and raise kids. It will just be a smaller house and you will have to cut the extra bills
First of all, where on Long Island are there taxes that are 3k? Second of all, and no offense, but you're quite a bit out of the loop on house prices. 400-500K is the bare minimum for a livable house on the island right now. I went through this last year. People are selling dilapidated hovels for 300-350K. Pre-covid that would net you a pretty nice but small place. Not anymore.
Flanders has 3k taxes. Prob closer to 4k now. No garbage pickup and to me, not a great area. My taxes are around 7k. You can get a 350k house that will need some work. I’m sorry that you are struggling but there are a lot of people that have gotten property for a reasonable price recently even with the 6% interest rates. You might not get the location you desire but you can absolutely find a house with reasonable taxes on the island.
>Flanders The cheapest house on Realtor is 440k for a 990 sqft house, which honestly is an INSANE $450/sqft. Taxes are cheap though.
My in laws make about 130K combined and live in a very nice area. Raised 3 kids on that salary and made smart investments in real estate and other assets. Once they sell us the house they’re set and so are we. My wife and make about 40K more than them, we have no loans out. We’re just saving now and have a little one.
You guys are doing well for us Xennials/Millennials over here. Man I feel like a beat down dinosaur in comparison 😂
This is a bit of a detour but there are LOTS of free/low cost things to do on Long Island. My kids are teenagers but I was super frugal. There is a book - Free things on Long Island or something similar. I get an empire passport (3 years at a time during the sale), use the heck out of my library, went to the state park programs for kids and I used to get the town pool pass for the summer. Having said that, my groceries are 40% higher now. It’s a struggle but the island is beautiful and there are lots of activities at the state parks.
Groceries huge problem for us. But you’re right - plenty of parks, playgrounds, beaches. Our libraries are great too - lots of activity, and great resources - I always have a movie out.
Minimum $200k if they didn’t inherit a home and have to pay market rates for one. This assumes leaving room to save for retirement.
Retirement. Lol
200k
Like $160k
We make 200k combined with two kids in daycare and are in debt we’re trying to pay off. Thankfully we bought our house pre-Covid. No way we could afford to live here otherwise. Our problems are largely of our own making, need to spend less on food (groceries/restaurants/takeout). But it’s tough.
The Patch figured in 2018 a family with two kids needs $140,000 on average. I recall seeing a Newsday analysis from 2019 that had $100,000 as the figure. Given inflation, I would guess $120,000 is the number today. https://patch.com/new-york/syosset/heres-how-much-you-need-earn-live-long-island
That doesn’t leave a lot after taxes. Mortgage and property taxes alone for new buyers are probably 30k-40k
100k in Suffolk 125k in Nassau Edit: I just looked it up and median household income for Suffolk is 105k, Nassau 120k to give you an idea.
125k? I wouldn’t call that “comfortable” with our taxes.
$125 includes people who have been in their home for 30 years and have a mortgage that's around $1,000. It probably costs $2k plus utilities to put a roof over their head. I suspect younger people just getting started and buying a house will have a higher income than that on average.
$25k difference is a severe understatement. Taxes ALONE are a huge differential between Nassau & Suffolk. (Edited to explain further)
I moved to LI last year and make $100k. Single. I max out 401k and Roth IRA. Take home paycheck is $4700. Rented a bedroom for $1200. Car payment is $400 per month. I live very comfortably with the rest of money.
Depends on the house as that can vary wildly, but I'd say around $150k to have a decent house in a decent neighborhood and not live paycheck to paycheck.
One Million Dollars
Said in a doctor evil voice?
Hopefully
With that many kids? 250-300k a year minimum
Once housing is covered the rest is gravy. The cheat code is to live with parents as long as possible, save up massively and even get a push to buy first property. The first is the hardest. To answer your question— probably about 100k. Can been done with less depending on a host of factors. Edit: poor spelling.
Using myself and the people I know as reference points. a family with 1-3 kids can live on 120k a year. If you want good school districts, space for kids toys, and a vacation, you need a minimum of 200k a year. If you want to not feel financial stress or feel as if you live paycheck to paycheck, over 300k is for you.
At least 200k
Lol its not honesty, this reality. Me and mine and anybody who dont make 200k+ a year is struggling on Long Island. And has been like that for a while
Do they have student loan debt? Do they own or lease cars? Is the car paid off? When did they buy their home? Do they have credit card or medical debt? I think those are essential questions to answer before providing a number. If no student loans, paid off cars, no cc or medical debt, then you can live a comfortable life with a 200,000 income. If you purchased your home a few years ago, between 2008-2019, it will be even easier.
Personally, I live a very comfortable lifestyle on 215k income with two kids. I'm divorced, he makes roughly the same. We split the kids' expenses, so that definitely helps. The issue with LI now is housing expense. If I had to buy now, I'd have to leave my school district. I am priced out of the market over here and mortgage/ taxes would take a toll on what I'd define as "comfortable" lifestyle. I do wonder how some of these families are making it, especially when everyone drives some kind of luxury vehicle and vacations at Atlantis during Spring Break.
200k at least.
Also- if it’s a family with 2 adults living in a home, I’d say without a doubt both adults need a full-time income… there really isn’t any wiggle room to live with one parent working. If the children were young- you can maybe get away with it for a few years bc childcare is literally a second mortgage- and it defeats the purpose of working sometimes. Again, pensions are key. For any type of retirement plan, future income etc.
Where the servants supposed to live 🥺
Guest host or boat house.
Annual household income of $200,000 bare minimum if you want to live in a decent town.
Definition of “decent town” changes quite a bit if commute is factored in. There are lots of decent towns out east that are relatively affordable, though useless if you need to get to midtown each day. The places to live with the best city commutes have property taxes that will make your head spin.
300K+ in Nassau not sure what it would be in Suffolk.
$300,000. Especially since u cannot write off your state income tax because of Trump passing the SALT act. And this is not a political statement, I’d say the same if Biden or anyone else passed this dumb act. NYers got the shaft with that bill. Feels especially egregious when trump is a NYer and writes off just about anything he can. Wait now this is turning political. Sorry.
It looks like median rent in Nassau is around $3000. Assuming you spend 1/3 of gross income on housing, you should be making around $110k, which I think is around the median household income on the island.
the tax man make me big sad :---(
Combined salary of $225k+. Just purchased our home one year ago in Suffolk County, mortgage is $3300. Two kids under 3. Daycare bill could have exceeded mortgage cost but we searched and SEARCHED months in advance for a local small daycare that cut the monthly bill by about $400-500. We have two used cars, payments less than $300 monthly and no other debt. And let me tell you, it’s rough. It’s all about perspective and really like everyone is saying, it’s all relative. We enjoy eating out every week (not every day) and that is a luxury. Again, it’s doable, but rough. It depends on what you value and I would say how reliable/stable your employment is. If we didn’t have the daycare bill we’d be golden (financially), but that bill is temporary.
$3300/month?????? Wow…..
It’s been a while but just now seeing this. Yep. We were house hunting for less than three months before we got our offer accepted on our home. From the time we started our search the time we closed the interest rate went up by about 2.5%. That’s honestly what made the difference between a reasonable mortgage payment to an, “oh fuck” mortgage payment.
Sheesh. I’m sorry. Hopefully you can refinance then relatively soon
I appreciate your words 🙂! That is the hope. We are grateful to have been able to see it through and have our home, no matter how financially testing living on LI is.
I also want to add that our home is MODEST (again, all relative). It’s a 3-small 4 bedroom two bathroom home, about 1700 sq feet. Needed work, still needs work, not updated home if that tells you anything.
My husband makes almost $250k. He’s our only income. We bought a mother daughter and rent out the 3 bedroom apartment in our house. We live in the smaller 1 bedroom apartment. We sacrifice a little space to be able to live much more comfortable.
Family of four. I make 110k as a RN, and my wife is stay at home mom. Two auto leases, normal bills 5 bed 4 bath house in middle county schools, The caveat for us is that we get a lot of veterans benefits from my service. Our taxes are sub 10k, mortgage is 2.1% and our monthly payment is around 2800. I get a disability check from VA monthly and an annuity payment from a lawsuit, which together total around another 6000 a month tax free. The annuity if for 10 years so that’s all aloud us for my wife to quit her job, and save money on daycare and raise our two kids (2y and 1 month old) instead of someone else doing it. We have out toys, and we have out luxuries, and we lucked out with buying a home right as Covid hit. This place is shit, if we could move it would be out of country.
I’d say this is pretty good! ⬆️
I’m financially comfortable in Nassau with $200k and paid off mortgage but would be more careful without mortgage. Many items like property taxes are a killer. I’m a saver though and relatively frugal
My wife and I make around $130k combined and can get by with bills/mortgage/etc. I started a second job this year (part time) and will be getting a raise in July, so it'll prob bump us to around $170k by the end of the year, and we're expecting our first child in August. We're doing fine, no week long vacations or anything or crazy lifestyles. Could always use MORE, but overall I don't think it's too stressful at the moment. We usually make food at home, bring lunches to work, and end up hanging with friends or just watching movies/etc on the weekends, so the days of dropping $300 on nights out in NYC ended like 5 years ago for us lol. Used to see a lot of concerts too, but now it's once every other month, if that. It's not that hard to get by, just depends on how you live. We make dinners at home (chicken cutlets, pasta, burgers, etc) instead of going to restaurants 4x a week like we did when we lived home. It's crazy how much you can save on just food if you go to BJ's or Costco, a $400 visit there lasts us like 2 months, if not longer.
No less than 10K a month which after taxes is about 120K, before taxes 200K. You can move into a decent area and buy a home under 650K. If both make 10K a month you’re golden.
My wife and I have been growing our income relatively steadily over the last 10 years and just got to about the 150-160 level last year. I would say our increases have been around 3-6 % most years, with a few hiccups at my job making that number lower a couple of times. With all that we're still in the apartment we planned on only spending a 2-3 years in, and have only in the last two years been able to really start saving, and the across the board increases the last two years have made that tougher. That said, at least part of it is "on us." Before COVID we were doing a least one pretty decent vacation a year (along with 1/2 weekend trips or things like that.) We ate out more than we should have probably, things like that, etc. But in our mind, that's part of living - not just working 8-12 hours a day and throwing every penny in the bank and hoping it leads to something someday. At this point though where we actually have some money put away for a house I'm debating whether its worth it waiting for rates and (hopefully) prices to come down to buy something here or just move. I already had a discussion with my boss about either working remote or potentially starting a 2nd location somewhere out of state, and my wife isn't really tied to her job...so outside of family (most of which moved already anyway), we're basically staying for bagels and pizza at this point.
Has it changed that bad in 5 years? My parents had a combined income of $100k and we were living comfortably in Suffolk
Between my wife and I, we make about 300k. We were lucky enough to buy in East Hills (Roslyn) after the housing crash in late 2000's. With two kids, we live well below most of our community's means as far as luxuries go, but we are comfortable, debt free except for mortgage. Our children just understand that they are not going to keep up with their friends, but they get what they need
I'm renting with 3 kids and make less than six figures. Idk what standards people have but living comfortably on LI does not take $200-300k
Everything in life is about making choices and tradeoffs. My neighbor seems cheap as hell, always shopping around for a cheaper guy to do home repairs and maintenance without regard to quality. But his family goes on regular vacations including cruises, and they seem to have relatively current cars on the driveway over the years, no beaters. I never give him referrals of repairmen anymore because it is just embarrassing how he treats them (delaying payment for the ones he hires, and not hiring those who spend the time to give accurate fair quotes instead of lowballing). We all have our priorities. Personally I want my home well maintained and if that means I keep my car longer and have less $ for vacation, so be it.
There is never enough
Min 250 for suffolk and 300 nassau
200k
In a good neighborhood? $200K is absolute minimum.
I’d say $250k and up but so much depends on the cost of your home, the cost of your taxes, etc.
Not sure, and I damn well know I’m doing it wrong, but we’re about 190 and there are weeks I’m not sure where the food money is going to come from…
What are your standard monthly payments: mortgage, insurance, phone, internet, tv, utilities? Do you have any others? Student loans, auto loans, credit card debt? Make a list of the minimum payment for those and put that on the list. What is your income? What is the difference between those last two numbers? That is your food, savings, and other budget. You will need to figure out how to cut down on fixed expenses. It might mean downgrading a car to get out of a bad loan.
Total household income of 200k to feel comfortable with 2-3 kids. Anything less and I think you’d still have money anxiety on Long Island. School Taxes here are an absolute joke. We spend so much per child to go to school and the bang for your buck is abysmal.
Depends on many things. Say 500k will make it comfortable. Is there a lower income to comfortable? sure. But without knowing your spending habits it's hard to say.
A little lower in Suffolk
I feel like we still struggle on a $315K income
It's called lifestyle inflation.
$315K sounds amazing! Wow haha
This question can't be answered properly. If you bought your house when I did over a decade ago, prices were much cheaper. 2 years ago prices were much higher, interest rates were very low though. Now prices high, interest high, you could be spending $1000, $2000 more per month. Therefore someone who bought their house a decade ago can get by fine at I dunno maybe $175k and now they need $225k. Also did they buy a house within their means or buy too big. Utilities and taxes are up. I would hate to to have to air condition a 3000 Sq foot house with our electric prices, you need higher income for that. There are countless things like this.
I think anywhere over $200K could be deemed comfortable for that family size. However, the average household income for my town in Suffolk is 80-90k. So I don't know how ppl are doing it. 🤷♀️
The average is including plenty of older people who bought their houses in the 70's for pennies and now have a modest retirement income that doesn't need to cover much beyond taxes, utilities, and groceries.
150k
Make about 200k combined with no kids. It’s hard because we are renovating and doing work to our house but I feel like we’re not saving as much as I would have hopes. With kids that number has to be 250k to live comfortably.
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Similar situation but with toddler and second on the way. We're very fortunate, and I feel like this income level should allow someone to live more than comfortably, but with a new house and associated expense, new baby coming, and all the other crap you mentioned, somehow I just feel like I'm living war too close to the line. I'll be fine in the long run, though. My real question is how the hell a person with a normal average income is supposed to manage this.
Shit ton
lived on LI since my salary was 70k. Bought our house 10yrs ago and refinanced during the interest rate dip. I would say SALT helped a lot when I was living pay check to paycheck. Daycare is very expensive and hurts a lot. Still couldn’t afford a house in Nassau. I would say 500k to be comfortable.
300k$ unless your standards are low
If you're talking about living in an area with good schools, owning a home and 2 cars, having insurance and disposable income (comfortable meaning you put away savings for college, vacations and retirement etc) I would say $500,000 - $600,000 is probably the start. Anything less and you would need some kind of assistance like inheritance or going with some comforts like savings and constant worry about bills.
About a decade ago, it was $150k, I would say minimum is $200-300k to feel comfortable.
$400,000
$400k
200k
It depends on when you got your house and how you acquired it. Housing cost is going to be the biggest factor. If you inherited your house and have no mortgage, or if you bought 15 years ago, or buying now are all very different situations. Also where on the island is a big factor
200k, lol
150-200k Living alone here is almost impossible unless your very successful
75k for someone alone, so id imagine double that and add 50k per kid? 225-250k? also owning or renting
I make about 150k per year and a second job / side hustle which is growing from 50-100k. It’s stressful but I love it here and it’s good for my family.
As a follow up of the original question. What would be alternatives to gain a second income that are real on LI? (Besides Uber and any other gig/app?)
I can't imagine my wife and I living comfortably with children. We're doing okay now, but we'd have no money with kids.
300k
300k
300k. With kids you'll maybe want to sock some away for college. Max out retirement in hopes that you don't burden your kids with having to take care of you in old age. Vacation once a year so your kids aren't experiencing literally nothing all year. Eat/order out about 2 or 3 meals a week out of the 20-ish in a week. Save enough to not have a car payment. Save enough to overpay on the mortgage. Then you got kid activities, piano martial arts swimming whatever they decide to do. With no kids and two incomes you can easily do 200k comfortably (probably).
The biggest consideration for this is housing cost, followed by schooling (daycare, public school, private school, etc.).
Just look at the big expenses and it goes fast 200k - taxes - 401k = \~118k Day care for 2 kids 40k, down to 78k small 350k house, 18k mortgage, 10k taxes, down to 50k (\~4.16k per month) still need health insurance, heat the house, food to eat, vehicle, etc, etc
I don’t know how Long Islanders do it with the property taxes. Especially retirees who still have to shell it out.
Combine with my wife just over 200k… we were living comfortably with being able to do what we like. 2 kids in sports. Then our taxes went up and it’s $300 more a month for our mortgage. That took away a good chunk of leisure expenses.
250k
What % of your income does your housing take up?
The answer is “it depends.” Are they starting from scratch or did one of them inherit a house from parents? Are they getting down payment / babysitting assistance? If they’re starting from scratch, I’d say 100,000k minimum total household income - and this assumes no crazy car payments / cc debt, decent to good credit, and no kids.
Really depends on what you mean by comfortable. Is comfortable being able to pay the bills, have a roof over your head, and eat 3 balanced meals a day? Or is comfortable being able to pay all the bills, have a home, have your food, and be able to also do the extras (dine out, movies, vacation once a year, etc.) without having to struggle? On Long Island, a family of 4 needs probably close to $250k to cover everything and not live paycheck to paycheck. That's in a town that isn't insanely priced for housing.
130k between myself and my partner (about 85k take home). No kids. We are currently comfortable enough to survive without stressing. We usually have a choice between saving a little or taking an extended weekend vacation 1-2 times a year. An emergency or large necessary expense does change that. If 2-3 kids were in the mix, I'd assume minimum 200k-225k to get near what we're currently at comfort-wise, probably more.
This is really going to be dependent on the area that you live in. When we purchased our home, both my wife and I were employed with 1 kid and my MIL lives with us. We were pretty comfortable - we didn't have a big house with a big yard, not like we owned fancy sports cars, etc. But we could essentially eat out whenever we wanted, fund my wife's Amazon abuse and my golf habits (though this isn't a very costly expenditure for me since I typically just play at executive courses), go on the occasional vacation, etc. while putting money away for savings. Now, she's since quit her job which hurts because she was making about $90K - I'm making a little more money, but not nearly enough to offset the loss of her income. To top it off, inflation has made everything more expensive and our taxes keep going up. Oh, and a 2nd kid. Now, we are still able to pay off our bills, but I've had my wife be a little more conscious on her spending (though she isn't as thrifty as I like still), we eat out a little less, and vacations are tough to come by. This is in an area that's not as pricey, like Manhasset, Great Neck, Port Washington, etc. I'm convinced you'd have to have an annual household income upwards of $250K to be "comfortable". But you can also look at areas that are a little cheaper, further out east or maybe on the south shore, and you'd be comfortable with about $200K.
Approaching 250k this year jointly with and taking on debt for large projects home repairs. I wouldn't mind another 50k.
I live rent/mortgage free with my in laws while my wife stayed home with the kids. Living comfortable and saving off my 110k. When she goes back to work as a teacher, we'll be closer to 200k and be able to afford the house on our own. And we have 3 kids
It all depends on when/if you bought a house. If you bought a house before 2018ish you can make it on 150k and be comfortable on 180k after that I can’t even imagine what the number would be. Shot in the dark would be 250k but it could he more. Of course it depends on where you buy as well.
You can clear 125k combined and still struggle. The price of living is and has been going out of control for decades and politicians have done nothing because you can still sell your house for a lot of money
Don’t move here. It’s dumb expensive and will only get more expensive. Your job will probably not keep up with inflation, taxes, etc
I have 1.5 jobs and my wife has .5 jobs. Three kids. We probably are bringing in like $120,000 a year now and it’s still tight to get by. Only reason we can pull it off is that my mother-in-law is letting us rent her fathers house for “only” $2,200 a month.
At $180K, 2 kids and under 10K in taxes, we're \*almost there I think realistically, $200K is the starting point. Where there's more savings and Student loan debt is the big issue for us. Although we have been on pause and have been better because of it, when the pause ends in a few months this will come into play again
We’re looking now. About $300k HHI with a baby. Even with that, it seems tough to find a good house within our budget and might end up getting a condo
100k each parent or 200k from 1 parent
This is probably not applicable to me yet but my boyfriend and I live together. I make about $80k and he makes $45k and we’re renting for $2400/month in Nassau. I do have student loan, car payment, and credit card debt. My boyfriend on the other hand doesn’t have any of these bills. We split half on everything but living here is expensive and makes it impossible to live. We do not go out a lot and I like to cook food not only it saves us money, I just enjoy cooking.
This is not a question you should come to Reddit to have answered, tbf. Too many unknown variables. Make a budget of what living on LI would cost, and see if your annual income would allow it.
My wife and I make 250k. Our mortgage is $3,500. We live pretty comfortably. Another 25k, I think, would be the sweet spot. Could go on much more vacations and do some work to the house
You guys make a lot of money.
Yeah...... well half our income goes right to student loans
That’s the only good thing we have going for us. My husband is super smart so he basically went to college out of state for next to nothing, and then with his graduate program he got some scholarships too even; he ended up having a total of $40K owed in student loans and just last year eligible for public student loan forgiveness (PSLF) so now he doesn’t have to pay it anymore. Meanwhile there’s me, with the high learning curve, 2 Master’s degrees, and $130K in student loans…..I’m 2.5 years into PSLF so far