HHI is around $120k -- are we the only ones on here?

[Anonymous]

We make 150k between the 2 of us. Neither of us went to college. We own our own home ( mortgage) have one kid, two dogs, and two cars ( payment of one of those)
We also own a Condo at the beach that was supposed to be a rental but Covid has made that suck this year, we can still afford the mortgage on it though.

[Anonymous]

OP. dcum is not the place to seek "reality." Most people are living like you rather than the extremely rich on here. As long as you are enjoying your life and able to do the things you want, keep doing what you are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. dcum is not the place to seek "reality." Most people are living like you rather than the extremely rich on here. As long as you are enjoying your life and able to do the things you want, keep doing what you are doing.

Agreed it's not a great place for reality, but people talk very openly about money on here whereas most people are not that forthcoming IRL. We've known for a long time that we are in a different financial situation that many of our friends and peers, but after a couple months on these boards I started to wonder if we are a weird outlier. I'm glad to hear there are others in similar financial situations. I think the reason we are alone among our friends is because our educations but us in social circles with a lot of people who come from money or who went into very lucrative fields. So we just don't come across many people at our income level. Even in our jobs, we both tend to work with people who are the lower-earners in a 2-person couple, with the other person pulling in a big salary in law or consulting. I also feel that in the last 15 years ago, there has been a real shift towards higher earners among people who live in DC proper. When I first moved here (20 years ago), wealthier people refused to live anywhere east of Connecticut Ave, and many preferred Northern Virginia. That's changed a lot, obviously. I think we've gone from being at the high end of earners in our neighborhood to the middle or even bottom 50%. It's amazing how quickly that shift has happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you afford rent or a house around here?

OP here. We bought about eight years ago, so prices were not quite as insane as they are now. We are very good savers, so we were able to put down more than 20% (no help from family, who have less money than we do) and get good terms. Housing still eats up a good chunk of hour monthly nut, but we are frugal in other areas (don't eat out a lot, don't spend a ton on clothes and other extras). I think we actually assumed that by now we would have sold our place and moved outside the city, but then we decided to stop at one kid and when we looked at houses in the suburbs, we just couldn't stop thinking about all the stuff we'd give up, like access to free museums, being able to walk or bike most places, socializing with our friends, and living in a more diverse community. We also just didn't find a town in the suburbs that called to us. Many are as expensive as the city (bigger homes, yes, but we don't really need a five bedroom house anyway) and those that aren't just feel kind of sleepy compared to what we're used to.

I am grateful we bought when we did. I think if we were still renting, we'd have had no choice but to move (or leave our jobs for the private sector so we could earn more). The amount rents in the city have gone up since we last rented is jaw dropping.

Dear lord, it gets worse and worse. You've been employed after college for 8 years and this is all you are making?? My DH and i were making a combined HHI of 110k back in 1999 when we graduated college.

Did you buy an ADU? I hope so because you certainly would have qualified with that income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you afford rent or a house around here?

OP here. We bought about eight years ago, so prices were not quite as insane as they are now. We are very good savers, so we were able to put down more than 20% (no help from family, who have less money than we do) and get good terms. Housing still eats up a good chunk of hour monthly nut, but we are frugal in other areas (don't eat out a lot, don't spend a ton on clothes and other extras). I think we actually assumed that by now we would have sold our place and moved outside the city, but then we decided to stop at one kid and when we looked at houses in the suburbs, we just couldn't stop thinking about all the stuff we'd give up, like access to free museums, being able to walk or bike most places, socializing with our friends, and living in a more diverse community. We also just didn't find a town in the suburbs that called to us. Many are as expensive as the city (bigger homes, yes, but we don't really need a five bedroom house anyway) and those that aren't just feel kind of sleepy compared to what we're used to.

I am grateful we bought when we did. I think if we were still renting, we'd have had no choice but to move (or leave our jobs for the private sector so we could earn more). The amount rents in the city have gone up since we last rented is jaw dropping.

Dear lord, it gets worse and worse. You've been employed after college for 8 years and this is all you are making?? My DH and i were making a combined HHI of 110k back in 1999 when we graduated college.

Did you buy an ADU? I hope so because you certainly would have qualified with that income.

DP. Why do you care? That's two less people striving for the same jobs and same dollars as you and your DH. As long as OP isn't complaining about her situation in life, live and let live. Someone's gotta do those low-paying jobs.

[Anonymous]

We have roughly 140k gross but really only because I quit my job to stay at home with the kid until kindergarten. Quality of life is better this way for a few years and then when the kid is full time school I can get a job to build up our HHI.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI varies between 100-130K, we live in NoVA, two kids, dog, own a SFH and seem to be doing just fine. We have enough saved for retirement and college and don't have any unmet needs, and not even really any major wants.

[Anonymous]

Hi! We’re like you, except we have 3 kids and we live in Rockville. We have SFH, kids will go to public schools, one parent stays home right now so we have the potential to significantly increase income once kids are older.

You’re not alone.

[Anonymous]

We had a similar income (fed + non-profit). It was hard in this area with 2 kids in daycare and we were not living extravagantly by any means (no vacations other than driving to family, old cars, trying to save for house and college and retirement). I wanted a third but we decided we couldn’t do it and give kids the kind of experiences we wanted (again, not extravagant, but not having to second guess every Rec sport sign up). Now kids are tweens and income is closer to $180k and it’s a lot easier. Sad about the lack of third kid but still think it was the right call given the cost of raising kids here.

[Anonymous]

^ should say, we’re totally happy though and all needs are met plus some

[Anonymous]

We make more but we know a lot of people who make in the same range as you. Why? We had children late? We are in our 50's with ES children. We hang around with a lot of people who are 10-15 years younger than we are with kids the same ages. And many of them make in the same range as you, my estimate is the bulk of those friends make in the $120-170K range combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you afford rent or a house around here?

OP here. We bought about eight years ago, so prices were not quite as insane as they are now. We are very good savers, so we were able to put down more than 20% (no help from family, who have less money than we do) and get good terms. Housing still eats up a good chunk of hour monthly nut, but we are frugal in other areas (don't eat out a lot, don't spend a ton on clothes and other extras). I think we actually assumed that by now we would have sold our place and moved outside the city, but then we decided to stop at one kid and when we looked at houses in the suburbs, we just couldn't stop thinking about all the stuff we'd give up, like access to free museums, being able to walk or bike most places, socializing with our friends, and living in a more diverse community. We also just didn't find a town in the suburbs that called to us. Many are as expensive as the city (bigger homes, yes, but we don't really need a five bedroom house anyway) and those that aren't just feel kind of sleepy compared to what we're used to.

I am grateful we bought when we did. I think if we were still renting, we'd have had no choice but to move (or leave our jobs for the private sector so we could earn more). The amount rents in the city have gone up since we last rented is jaw dropping.

Dear lord, it gets worse and worse. You've been employed after college for 8 years and this is all you are making?? My DH and i were making a combined HHI of 110k back in 1999 when we graduated college.
WTF is wrong with you, PP? 110k combined is a perfectly respectable income out of college.

Did you buy an ADU? I hope so because you certainly would have qualified with that income.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is 167k on one salary (I SAH) and to me, we have an amazing life. I can't understand people complaining and claiming "poor" (not really poor, but complaining of money woes on 250K + or even 400K as I saw the other day).

We live in a good house in a nice suburb - very middle class: no one here is going on international vacations every year or even every other year. The kids are all in ps, cars are normal japanese/some other asian brand and the like. Yard service and cleaning service is common, as in one or 2 weeks at the beach per year.


I guess that the more people have, the more they spend so it kind of always feels like you "are middle class" as you can't have the next big thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is 167k on one salary (I SAH) and to me, we have an amazing life. I can't understand people complaining and claiming "poor" (not really poor, but complaining of money woes on 250K + or even 400K as I saw the other day).

We live in a good house in a nice suburb - very middle class: no one here is going on international vacations every year or even every other year. The kids are all in ps, cars are normal japanese/some other asian brand and the like. Yard service and cleaning service is common, as in one or 2 weeks at the beach per year.


I guess that the more people have, the more they spend so it kind of always feels like you "are middle class" as you can't have the next big thing.

Very middle class don't have yard service and cleaning service and 2 weeks at the beach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is 167k on one salary (I SAH) and to me, we have an amazing life. I can't understand people complaining and claiming "poor" (not really poor, but complaining of money woes on 250K + or even 400K as I saw the other day).

We live in a good house in a nice suburb - very middle class: no one here is going on international vacations every year or even every other year. The kids are all in ps, cars are normal japanese/some other asian brand and the like. Yard service and cleaning service is common, as in one or 2 weeks at the beach per year.


I guess that the more people have, the more they spend so it kind of always feels like you "are middle class" as you can't have the next big thing.

Very middle class don't have yard service and cleaning service and 2 weeks at the beach.

In this area that is it of course. I feel MS with a 167k salary. Our house cost 700K - seems Mc for me in this area. Two kids, in ps - small saving for them for college (10k/year combined), maxed IRA for both plus and maxed retirement for husband.

But the devil is in the details pp - our yard service costs us $70 per month so $840/year. Cleaning around here is about 80-120 for each visit bi-weekly (we pay more because our cl has been with us for 10 years and has gotten raises and I pay her a "bonus" for x-mas of around 2 weeks of service, but I round it up a bit).

Our rental for the beach costs us around $1400.00 per week and we drive there 9 long hours.

If you make more money, you probably would have a cleaning service every week at the very least, top notch yard work (not just a hispanic guy and his crew to cut your grasses - but fertilizers, aeration, seeding, etc. We have none of that because we don't care about it. I would rather spend my money on my cleaning lady).

Also, we do not eat out and rarely order take out (less than once/month). Husband doesn't eat out during work (well, I guess now no one does).

We eat very well and don't check prices before putting on cart, but I generally don't even go looking for filet mignon unless it is an special occasion. Kids have nice birthday parties every year but nothing over the top.

Car are paid for currently. Student loan will be payed off next year thank god!

From what I read here, I think most people feel MC is because the more money they have, the more they spend on their house/mortgage. So in the end, unless they have real wealth, they end up having to making the same kind of choices we do with some variations.

It is all about the house you buy and how much of your budget the monthly payment and maintenance of the house costs you.