lifestyle for $500K HHI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are not going to get a lot of love on this board. I find it very hard to believe that you can not afford to buy a piece of furniture or take a yearly vacation. What exactly is your student loan payment and mortgage?

This is DCUM my friend, 500K is tight ass middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious how this is for others too. We are closer to 400k but we can't seem to wrap our heads around the fact that this is what doing well in this economy in DC looks like. Our money goes to mortgage, one car payment, student loans, max out 401k, childcare so we can remain in our busy jobs, preschool, life insurance and other insurances (homeowner, car, etc). We don't worry about money day to day in terms of buying food out at lunchtime, family meals out a few times a month, babysitters here and there, but I can't remember the last time we had money to pay for a nice vacation or buy a new piece of furniture. Our house is a close-in townhouse so we can get to our jobs with modest commutes that is 3 bedrooms and we can't figure out how we will afford to move to anything bigger in a good school district. Private school is impossible to pay for long term, at least with current childcare costs.

We're at less than $100k. We bought our car outright, don't have childcare costs thanks to a stay at home spouse and DCPS preschool but have no problem paying for a vacation and an occasional splurge. Also live in a "close-in" townhouse if by that you mean a DC rowhouse and everything else is similar. Do you really spent more than $300k on student loans and childcare?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We net about 18K per month after taxes and pre-tax retirement contributions and insurance.

Monthly Expenses

$900 taxes and insurance on house (mortgage paid off)
$1000 utilities and insurance other than house
$1200 groceries and meals out

Spend $4,000 a year on vacation, about $700 a year on car maintenance.

No childcare expenses or debt of any kind.

We save about $8 - $9K a month.

So where is the remaining approx. $5k a month being spent on?

[Anonymous]

$500k HHI here.

House $1.5m,

3 cars, all paid for, all foreign 'luxury', but none brand new.
private school for 2 kids
nanny, housekeeping service
lawn service
3 vacations per year, 1 skiing Europe, 1 spring skiing west coast, 1 caribean trip. (roughly 4 wks total)
sports for kids, after school activities.

Some designer clothing, but all of it on sale. No expensive handbags in the $2000 range. (crazy!)

Oh, and investments, college, retirement, all of that is being paid as well.

[Anonymous]

$1.3m HHI in 2013
approx $7m net worth
live in $700K SFH (paid off)
no student loans - DH and I both attended a state school when college was cheap!
2 rental condos on Cap. Hill worth $250K each (paid off)
2 kids in public school, no nanny
two cars paid off
2x month house cleaning
1 yearly trip to Hawaii
2-3 trips to other coast
camp many weekends
I own one purse a $150 Coach bag I bought at the outlet 2 years ago.

DH hopes to retire in ten years by which he'll be 52. I am a SAHM thinking of working part time next fall.

We are the "Millionaire Next Door" nobody thinks is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$1.3m HHI in 2013
approx $7m net worth
live in $700K SFH (paid off)
no student loans - DH and I both attended a state school when college was cheap!
2 rental condos on Cap. Hill worth $250K each (paid off)
2 kids in public school, no nanny
two cars paid off
2x month house cleaning
1 yearly trip to Hawaii
2-3 trips to other coast
camp many weekends
I own one purse a $150 Coach bag I bought at the outlet 2 years ago.

DH hopes to retire in ten years by which he'll be 52. I am a SAHM thinking of working part time next fall.

We are the "Millionaire Next Door" nobody thinks is.

This technique normally works - make a lot, spend a little.


We are more like make a lot, spend a lot. We really don't travel a lot, its not a priority for us but we also spend a bunch at home.

800K HHI
$1.5M House
3 cars, all paid off - all are essentially new
Nanny and housekeeping
CC and Golf Club Memberships
$3M net worth, currently saving about 30% of our HHI - could be more but we balance today and tomorrow
Agree with the 'nice stuff on sale' approach to fashion
Debating private school - one kid, currently 3.5
Also debating my DW giving up the job, she makes about 25% of the HHI
We are work to live people - currently early 40s but want to be done with this rat race in a dozen years, 15 max.

[Anonymous]

We gross about $470. We save about $120K.

[Anonymous]

We make around that and tbh we do have a lot of extra cash. We easily put 200k into savings every year. Thing is, our house is paid off so no mortgage (I realize that is somewhat uncommon) and no SLs. Also kids go to public school so that frees things up. Lifestyle stuff: DH has an 80k car, mine was around 50k. We take 4-5 vacations each year. One Caribbean and one ski trip in winter, two to the beach in summer, and then one to some place like Disney in fall. Retirement and college are well funded. It's not bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A huge factor would be whether that's from one income or two, and also number and ages of children.

Yep. Most of the dual posters on here pay crippling childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$500k HHI here.

House $1.5m,

3 cars, all paid for, all foreign 'luxury', but none brand new.
private school for 2 kids
nanny, housekeeping service
lawn service
3 vacations per year, 1 skiing Europe, 1 spring skiing west coast, 1 caribean trip. (roughly 4 wks total)
sports for kids, after school activities.

Some designer clothing, but all of it on sale. No expensive handbags in the $2000 range. (crazy!)

Oh, and investments, college, retirement, all of that is being paid as well.

I want your life. How much is your mortgage? How much do you spend on your three vacations per year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make around that and tbh we do have a lot of extra cash. We easily put 200k into savings every year. Thing is, our house is paid off so no mortgage (I realize that is somewhat uncommon) and no SLs. Also kids go to public school so that frees things up. Lifestyle stuff: DH has an 80k car, mine was around 50k. We take 4-5 vacations each year. One Caribbean and one ski trip in winter, two to the beach in summer, and then one to some place like Disney in fall. Retirement and college are well funded. It's not bad.

We make $450 and save "only" about $130K. We also have no mortgage or student loans, and kids go to public school. We pay over $140K in taxes. How do you save 200K?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the problem is you work so hard to get up to that sort of income, only to realize that is buys you jack shit. same dumpy house, same dumpy cars, maybe you eat out a bit more or take a nicer vacation, but quality of life stays the same.

Apart from the house, I think a lot of what people spend their money on is stuff you can't see. Being able to retire at 57, being able to pay for your kid's college, nice vacations, private school for the kids, expensive summer camps or hobbies for the kids, giving more to charity etc. They are also outsourcing things like lawn services and cleaning service. I think you can still do something similar on less than 500K but maybe not all those things or on a different scale, like maybe you retire later or your quality of life when you retire doesn't allow for lots of travel, or you can pay for public college not private college for your kids.

What were you hoping would happen when you made more money? If I made 500K (coming from 200K) it would basically change private school and college savings for the kids and maybe getting a vacation home. We wouldn't want to move at this point since we are established in the neighborhood. I would have to make enough to retire early and maintain the same lifestyle for more money to be a game changer and I'm not sure that would happen at 500K.

vacation home is on my list. need to decide where. I expect to work into my 70s, which is ok with me, so savings is not as critical.

Do you own your business, or do you plan to? Simply "planning" on working into your 70s is not a great idea. Older workers face discrimination and health problems can pop up at any age.

lawyer. geezers work here until they drop. and by "work", I mean they take 5-6 weeks off a year, etc.

My dad had the same thought process: work until well into his 70s, so savings weren't *critical*. Ha!!! He got cancer at 70, and died a year later. Didn't enjoy any retirement and had panic attacks about money - is that really how you want to live?