S/O American Dream. Would $500-750k HHI be enough for this lifestyle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe…it seems crazy, but even at that income level, you still have to budget and pick and choose what’s important to you.

Income $700,000

Fixed Expenses

Taxes $210,000
Housing $100,000
Utilities $10,000
Insurance (healthcare, car, life, disability) $15,000
Student loan payments? $15,000
Childcare? Private school? $40,000
Total $390,000

Variable Expenses

Retirement $100,000
Charity $20,000
Car savings $10,000
Vacations $70,000
College savings $30,000
Food $32,000
Gas $8,000
Everything else (clothes, camps for kids, furniture for your house, medication, gifts, etc) $30,000
Total $310,000

Your tax estimate is too low.

Yep way too low

You are paying too much in taxes.

[Anonymous]

We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like some lala land weird idea of what family life should look like. We have an 8 figure hhi yet don’t take that many vacations, and it’s nothing to do with money. You seem to have an idealized version of life and want to slot kids into it, but that’s not how it works. Maybe when the kids are very young, but if your kids do serious sports or school activities, a lot of your schedule will revolve around that. For vacations, it depends what level of nice you want, but we have 4 kids, and a ski week alone is well over half your travel budget. You also seem to be ignoring sleep away camps, sport camps, etc. I think you want some instagram version of parenting.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

For 3. It was actually $8k flights are cheap and we stayed for homeexchange points at a resort style townhouse with hot tub. Icon Pass is also cheaper than in the US. Food 30% less . It would cost us 40% more to ski in the US for similar professional quality advanced slopes

I don't know why you think this proves your point. Your trip was $8000 for 3 people, not 5, and *you didn't pay for lodging.* So ~$13,000 for OP's 5 people, plus lodging, which with 2 BR will be at least $4000 for the week, likely more.

Also, you have provided good tips to minimize costs, but what in OP's post makes you believe she is inclined to (or capable of) doing that? If anything, her post reeks of "Canadian Rockies?!?! Pshaw! I insist on Deer Valley!!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

There’s no hacks to save on W2 income at this level unless you invest in oil rigs (dollar for dollar deduction, incredibly risky and very hard to break into), or your spouse goes FT into real estate managing rentals you have, and/or you buy investment property and capture the depreciation to write off your W2 income. The fact is $700-1M HHI via W2 only isn’t worth the risk for the strategies above - they don’t make enough to buy a $1M quad-plex or to give up the spouse’s income to make $50K in real estate annually. It starts to make sense as HHI crosses $2M+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

There’s no hacks to save on W2 income at this level unless you invest in oil rigs (dollar for dollar deduction, incredibly risky and very hard to break into), or your spouse goes FT into real estate managing rentals you have, and/or you buy investment property and capture the depreciation to write off your W2 income. The fact is $700-1M HHI via W2 only isn’t worth the risk for the strategies above - they don’t make enough to buy a $1M quad-plex or to give up the spouse’s income to make $50K in real estate annually. It starts to make sense as HHI crosses $2M+.

Definitely false. I have a lot of tax loopholes that admittedly aren’t super widely applicable (military related), but allow us to avoid tens of thousands in taxes.

And of course, you can always run a money-losing small business out of your house (or money-making and then you can get access to things like a solo 401k and get 70k/yr tax free).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

There’s no hacks to save on W2 income at this level unless you invest in oil rigs (dollar for dollar deduction, incredibly risky and very hard to break into), or your spouse goes FT into real estate managing rentals you have, and/or you buy investment property and capture the depreciation to write off your W2 income. The fact is $700-1M HHI via W2 only isn’t worth the risk for the strategies above - they don’t make enough to buy a $1M quad-plex or to give up the spouse’s income to make $50K in real estate annually. It starts to make sense as HHI crosses $2M+.

Definitely false. I have a lot of tax loopholes that admittedly aren’t super widely applicable (military related), but allow us to avoid tens of thousands in taxes.

And of course, you can always run a money-losing small business out of your house (or money-making and then you can get access to things like a solo 401k and get 70k/yr tax free).

PP. I said W2 income specifically. Self employed / s corps / etc are a different beast. We write off a ton via our side gig LLC that does $200K+ but the rules are totally different vs W2 income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

There’s no hacks to save on W2 income at this level unless you invest in oil rigs (dollar for dollar deduction, incredibly risky and very hard to break into), or your spouse goes FT into real estate managing rentals you have, and/or you buy investment property and capture the depreciation to write off your W2 income. The fact is $700-1M HHI via W2 only isn’t worth the risk for the strategies above - they don’t make enough to buy a $1M quad-plex or to give up the spouse’s income to make $50K in real estate annually. It starts to make sense as HHI crosses $2M+.

Definitely false. I have a lot of tax loopholes that admittedly aren’t super widely applicable (military related), but allow us to avoid tens of thousands in taxes.

And of course, you can always run a money-losing small business out of your house (or money-making and then you can get access to things like a solo 401k and get 70k/yr tax free).

PP. I said W2 income specifically. Self employed / s corps / etc are a different beast. We write off a ton via our side gig LLC that does $200K+ but the rules are totally different vs W2 income.

Right, I make this much in W2 income. And my having a side business (regardless of whether it makes or loses money), you can avoid a ton of taxes. Also plenty of other things you can do, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn about $700k and pay over $300k in taxes.

You need a better accountant

There’s no hacks to save on W2 income at this level unless you invest in oil rigs (dollar for dollar deduction, incredibly risky and very hard to break into), or your spouse goes FT into real estate managing rentals you have, and/or you buy investment property and capture the depreciation to write off your W2 income. The fact is $700-1M HHI via W2 only isn’t worth the risk for the strategies above - they don’t make enough to buy a $1M quad-plex or to give up the spouse’s income to make $50K in real estate annually. It starts to make sense as HHI crosses $2M+.

Definitely false. I have a lot of tax loopholes that admittedly aren’t super widely applicable (military related), but allow us to avoid tens of thousands in taxes.

And of course, you can always run a money-losing small business out of your house (or money-making and then you can get access to things like a solo 401k and get 70k/yr tax free).

PP. I said W2 income specifically. Self employed / s corps / etc are a different beast. We write off a ton via our side gig LLC that does $200K+ but the rules are totally different vs W2 income.

Right, I make this much in W2 income. And my having a side business (regardless of whether it makes or loses money), you can avoid a ton of taxes. Also plenty of other things you can do, as well.

Right? You can also just do normal things like put money in an HSA and 401k or have a mortgage. But even if you don’t do these things, the tax rate isn’t 40+%.

[Anonymous]

What nobody has mentioned, is that the person’s with a household income owner 500k also have generational wealth.
They have no student loans, parents assisted with deposit and down payment for a house, no car loans.

Parents most likely have money set aside for grand kids private school fees and also contribute to their 529s
Vacations are at the family’s holiday home.

Living the American dream on this income is easy

[Anonymous]

Troll post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What nobody has mentioned, is that the person’s with a household income owner 500k also have generational wealth.
They have no student loans, parents assisted with deposit and down payment for a house, no car loans.

Parents most likely have money set aside for grand kids private school fees and also contribute to their 529s
Vacations are at the family’s holiday home.

Living the American dream on this income is easy

It would be nice if this were true!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of you described lives of miserable grind as "affluence". I can never understand this. Making these high incomes or having wealth and still being unable to take more than 1-2 consecutive weeks off or total of 6 weeks per year is a terrible life unless you are absolutely in love with your job and it defines you.

Some people are willing to sacrifice so their kids don’t have to.

Parents often assume they have control over how their kids lives will turn out. It's completely false. There is some bare minimum you need to provide, so that your kids don't "struggle", but it all depends on what you mean by "struggle". Anyone middle class who has a house with multiple bedrooms they will pay off already has achieved this goal of not seeing their kids struggle in the objective sense of having to work just to live (hand to mouth) while getting on their feet. Let them stay home for free until they get higher paying careers, get their business off the ground, get married, etc, and you are already there without even needing all these many millions you think you need. Middle class families in modest homes are doing this all the time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of you described lives of miserable grind as "affluence". I can never understand this. Making these high incomes or having wealth and still being unable to take more than 1-2 consecutive weeks off or total of 6 weeks per year is a terrible life unless you are absolutely in love with your job and it defines you.

Some people are willing to sacrifice so their kids don’t have to.

Parents often assume they have control over how their kids lives will turn out. It's completely false. There is some bare minimum you need to provide, so that your kids don't "struggle", but it all depends on what you mean by "struggle". Anyone middle class who has a house with multiple bedrooms they will pay off already has achieved this goal of not seeing their kids struggle in the objective sense of having to work just to live (hand to mouth) while getting on their feet. Let them stay home for free until they get higher paying careers, get their business off the ground, get married, etc, and you are already there without even needing all these many millions you think you need. Middle class families in modest homes are doing this all the time

And you are living in DC metro which is one of the best job markets in the country, it's not the same as living in some economically depressed area of rural poverty or urban blight. Your kids can get jobs here and save for their own future, so if you own a house mortgage free you are already ahead of vast majority of people in your ability to eliminate "struggle" from your kids lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like some lala land weird idea of what family life should look like. We have an 8 figure hhi yet don’t take that many vacations, and it’s nothing to do with money. You seem to have an idealized version of life and want to slot kids into it, but that’s not how it works. Maybe when the kids are very young, but if your kids do serious sports or school activities, a lot of your schedule will revolve around that. For vacations, it depends what level of nice you want, but we have 4 kids, and a ski week alone is well over half your travel budget. You also seem to be ignoring sleep away camps, sport camps, etc. I think you want some instagram version of parenting.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

yea what a joke. We just went up to stowe for the 4 day holiday. Flights were $1600, truck rental was $350, lodging was 2,220 (and this was 10min drive from the resort), lift tickets were $3744. And Food was god only knows, I don’t even want to think about it. So before food and whatever miscellaneous crap we were $8k for 4 days in friggin Vermont. No family of 5 is traveling from DC to “the Canadian Rockies” to ski for 7 days for 10k. Lift tickets alone will put a family of 5 close to 10k for lift tickets alone.

FYI, Canadian lift ticket prices are significantly cheaper than US prices...even resorts owned by US companies.

We were considering Whistler and it would have been US$380/adult for 4 days' lift tickets over Christmas.

Are you just making crap up or did you hit some weird promotion since December skiing sucks? We are headed to Whistler over college spring break early March and 4 days of lift tickets for 4 people is $3412 USD. We normally avoid Epic resports due to Epic lines. Hopefully since we are doing this during the week it won't be awful.

NP. We are going to Whistler over spring break (late March) and there was a deal over early December that I happened to stumble on. 3 days for 2 adults one kid only costs $740 US. Spouse has EPIC pass separately. My teen is considered a grownup. DC2 still qualifies for kid rates. Glad I booked this, b/c we had to cancel our annual Utah trip (late January). Skiing out west this year has been absolutely a no go.