What percent of people you know do you think are in debt/paycheck to paycheck?

[Anonymous]

Not the general population, but people you actually know - friends/family/neighbors/coworkers - have car payments/leases, credit card debt, would need to go into debt for a home repair/major vacation, etc. ?

We live in a upper middle class (but not rich) neighborhood of $600-800K houses and I actually think A LOT of people lease cars, have home equity lines, credit card debt, etc. to live the lives they lead. Maybe 1/3. DH thinks this number is way too high.

WDYT?

[Anonymous]

90% of america including the dc area is like this. DCUM is full of a bunch of rich fucks out of touch w/ reality

[Anonymous]

DCUM is also full of people that describe their fantasy life as if they are living it. Many people are not as well off as they make themselves sound.

[Anonymous]

I think 1/3 is about right.
Off the top of my head, just out of the 10 couples I know most in my area, 4 of them are maxed out financially and struggling. All double income professional couples with student loans payments late, credit card debt, 2 car payments, little to no retirement savings and say that they are planning on catching up "later."
I also know their husbands would be upset if they knew their wives have told me these things about their finances.

[Anonymous]

OP here. A friend of mine just leased yet another luxury vehicle. She has also told me separately that they A.) only could put 5% down on their recent home purchase and B.) had to use a credit card to buy replace their old furnace.

I just find those 3 financial decisions to be irrational when looked at all together. But I also think its fairly common.

[Anonymous]

Yes I know lots of people who share decisions like that.
Most recently someone told me sadly they couldn't afford to put their child in preschool, were months behind on student loan payments in the thousand dollars range and then a couple months later bought a brand new Suburban (family of 4).
It's more priorities than anything else.
Can't let it bother you, the stress of all that juggling money and debt has to be more unpleasant at w certain point than the joy of having things.

[Anonymous]

I get what you are asking OP, but I don't think having a car payment (or student loan payment as another PP mentioned) is really comparable to living paycheck to paycheck and needing to put home repairs on a credit card.

DH and I have student loans (not all of us are fortunate enough to start out the gate with school paid for) and we have a car payment, but drove our last cars for a decade. We have zero credit card debt and savings for home repairs/money for the occasional vacation, etc.

There is a huge gap out there between being DCUM rich and living paycheck to paycheck. I imagine the vast majority of people fall somewhere here.

[Anonymous]

I meant we have zero debt AND we do have savings ... that last post was a little ambiguous!

[Anonymous]

I don't think most people I know fall into that category. When we were younger we had a friend/couple who didn't believe in living within their means but even they seemed to have shifted as they get closer to retirement (which in their case is farther away than most because they took money out of their retirement plan years ago to fund a dumb purchase).

[Anonymous]

I found it to be much much worse in NY. Mostly because my friends spent such a large percentage of their income on rent and vacations. Even if they are maxing out their retirement it won't be enough to pay for rent and their lifestyle in retirement.

Personally sometimes I mess up the budget and end up having to put some stuff on a credit card before a paycheck. but we are contributing close to 100k a year towards retirement, own our home and have three rental properties. It's not like we aren't saving money.

[Anonymous]

We put most expenses on our credit cards, which we pay completely every month.
If we had a major expense such as an unforeseen medical emergency or home repair above $10-20K, depending on the time of year, we would need to sell capital investments.

I'm not sure if that's the category of folk you are referring to.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and we save for retirement and college. So I suppose we're not the people you're referring to.

[Anonymous]

The running joke among my colleagues is how our nannies have nicer cars than we do. And how we blink our eyes the first of the month - and bam, there goes $7k just with mortgage and nanny. Not to say everyone is putting their groceries on their credit cards and not paying off each month... but this area is expensive, esp if you are close in with multiple young kids... It isn't forever, but it is hard to save a lot right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get what you are asking OP, but I don't think having a car payment (or student loan payment as another PP mentioned) is really comparable to living paycheck to paycheck and needing to put home repairs on a credit card.

DH and I have student loans (not all of us are fortunate enough to start out the gate with school paid for) and we have a car payment, but drove our last cars for a decade. We have zero credit card debt and savings for home repairs/money for the occasional vacation, etc.

There is a huge gap out there between being DCUM rich and living paycheck to paycheck. I imagine the vast majority of people fall somewhere here.

OP here. To be clear, I think there is a huge difference between a car payment on a sensible car (and then driving a paid off car for a while) and leasing a luxury car every 2-3 years, which MANY MANY people in my neighborhood seem to do. It seems they really only care about what they can afford on a monthly basis rather than looking at a larger financial picture. Sometimes my friends seem baffled that DH and I don't spend they way they do - our cars and house are sensible not showy, and we save A LOT toward kids college and retirement. Its not exciting.

[Anonymous]

If you define going in debt to mean having a net worth below 0 then hardly anyone I know meets that definition. If you mean at times they don't have emergency funds to cover an unexpected major expense and need to borrow money to cover it, then I'd say about half the people I know meet that definition.