Why are DCUM salaries so much higher than in "real life"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me. I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1) DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2) These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3) People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?

Almost every person who posts on this site is lying and exaggerating. There is another current post in Money and Finance on having a 15 year vs. 30 year mortgage. What’s interesting there, is that every sound and conservative advisor knows that a 15 year mortgage is the way to go. Yet on DCUM, there is a high concentration of vehement opposition to a 15 year and support for a 30 year. This makes no sense for a group that is allegedly pulling in $500K+ in HHI. People on here know enough to lie about HHI, net worth, and home values. But, they’re not smart enough to know about the less obvious wealth revealing indicators. I especially like the ones in their mid-30s they already have 1M+ in their 401k and retirement plans. A near impossibility given federal limits on annual contributions. They’re just to dumb to know this isn’t possible.

Ok this is just bullshit. Plenty of financial advisors recommend the 30 over the 15. paying 0.5-1% more to retain financial flexibility (even if you could pay) seems like a fair tradeoff. Plus if you believe in any decent expected returns, you want to minimize home payments. We take our savings from our 2.5% 30-year re-fi and buy I-bonds and equities. We could've done a 15 year at 2%, but that would have be a silly move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I post my income on DCUM. I do not post my weight. I am sure many people are happy to share the most brag-worthy thing about their life but keep to themselves the thing they are struggling with.

Haha. Truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I confess. I lie here. And I lie on other forums. Why do I lie? - Mainly to not give too much identifying detail
- Sometimes to crowdsource info because DCUM is also a great place to get info and advice
- Sometimes to give good and relevant info to DCUM
- Sometimes to shut up some annoying posters

But yes, mainly the top three.

How exactly does lying help you "give good and relevant info"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH makes almost 1M (including bonus) and you’d never know it if you met us. We live in a nice but not extravagant house. We drive normal not flashy cars. Our kids go to public. We go to Bethany for vacations, not Turks and Caicos. I don’t work but other than that we wouldn’t seem to make that much. So I think likely there are a lot of people making a lot of money and you just have no clue. (Also, in our neighborhood I feel like we are on the lower income side based on the houses and cars and vacations of my kids’ friends)

We make more than that and are UHNW. Yet, in reality we are still fairly frugal. I drive a 12 yo vehicle, person with newest car is our 17yo (since new cars are a better deal right now than used cars and we needed a vehicle for the teen). We do take fancy vacations (Europe, Hawaii, etc) but still are focused on getting a good deal and are planned for. Still fly coach unless business is an amazing deal---just cannot bring ourselves to spend the extra despite being able to "afford" it. I find the people that actually have the money are not extravagant, those that appear extravagant are often leveraged to the max.

I find this pathetic. You’re a hoarder living so much smaller than you need to. You can’t take it with you.

Personally I find it pathetic that you feel the need to tell others how to live. I suspect a troll, or just simple jealously.

We are well aware we can't take it with us. But we can provide well for our kids and any future grandkids/generations if we are fiscally smart. We can donate to charity and help those who need it much more than we do. We can (and do) give to our kids now, as we'd prefer they see the money while we are alive, not once they are 50+ and we are gone. Own two homes already, both worth over $2M and drive luxury cars, just older ones as there is no need to replace a great vehicle that has no issues. I'd say we are living just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe a little 3, but mostly 1 and 2.

Most families I know with two working parents make at least $400k. Plus there are TONS of lawyers. Some entrepreneurs and executives.

This, and all it takes is two government workers, but two making $400k is a lot different than one making $400k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me. I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1) DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2) These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3) People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?

Almost every person who posts on this site is lying and exaggerating. There is another current post in Money and Finance on having a 15 year vs. 30 year mortgage. What’s interesting there, is that every sound and conservative advisor knows that a 15 year mortgage is the way to go. Yet on DCUM, there is a high concentration of vehement opposition to a 15 year and support for a 30 year. This makes no sense for a group that is allegedly pulling in $500K+ in HHI. People on here know enough to lie about HHI, net worth, and home values. But, they’re not smart enough to know about the less obvious wealth revealing indicators. I especially like the ones in their mid-30s they already have 1M+ in their 401k and retirement plans. A near impossibility given federal limits on annual contributions. They’re just to dumb to know this isn’t possible.

Ok this is just bullshit. Plenty of financial advisors recommend the 30 over the 15. paying 0.5-1% more to retain financial flexibility (even if you could pay) seems like a fair tradeoff. Plus if you believe in any decent expected returns, you want to minimize home payments. We take our savings from our 2.5% 30-year re-fi and buy I-bonds and equities. We could've done a 15 year at 2%, but that would have be a silly move.

Right---and many FA recommend taking a 30year, especially when the interest rate isn't much different, and just pay it off like a 15 year. That way you have the flexibility to not make the extra payment should you need to direct the money elsewhere that month/year. Personally, I'm a pay off the home and not pay any interest, as it's a guaranteed return (hello stock market 2022). But then again, I didn't do that until I had 5+ years of living in savings (became "wealthy"). Before that we did 30 year and paid extra. Then again the last mortgage I had was for a 600K home and we only had a 250K mortgage, so we already had a "small mortgage".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me. I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1) DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2) These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3) People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?

Almost every person who posts on this site is lying and exaggerating. There is another current post in Money and Finance on having a 15 year vs. 30 year mortgage. What’s interesting there, is that every sound and conservative advisor knows that a 15 year mortgage is the way to go. Yet on DCUM, there is a high concentration of vehement opposition to a 15 year and support for a 30 year. This makes no sense for a group that is allegedly pulling in $500K+ in HHI. People on here know enough to lie about HHI, net worth, and home values. But, they’re not smart enough to know about the less obvious wealth revealing indicators. I especially like the ones in their mid-30s they already have 1M+ in their 401k and retirement plans. A near impossibility given federal limits on annual contributions. They’re just to dumb to know this isn’t possible.

Actually, when your income is that high and the mortgage rates were as low as they were recently, it made total sense to go with a 30 year mortgage. At that level of income, your home is a small part of your wealth and you should be aiming to keep things flexible.

Interesting. Then do what with the additional net income per month? The only smart move is to spend it on an investment that grows at a greater rate than that of the 30 year mortgage interest. This goes without saying.

But, are we to believe that the majority of homeowners in DMV that have 30 year mortgages have them for this reason? Total nonsense. The majority of 30 year mortgages are taken because people cannot afford the monthly payments against a 15 year mortgage of the same principal amount. This is a very well researched and documented fact. Lenders and underwriters all over the country have detailed data on this. It is ESPECIALLY true in DMV, where countless people are trying to live too far beyond their means. So desperate to live inside the beltway or in NW D.C. that they’ll stretch to the financial limit. Then try to justify later as some outlier case of financial ingenuity.

Look, you simply can’t extrapolate the personal finance research from “all over the country” to a very specific market. What percentage of your neighbors have a college degree? Went to graduate school? Received financial assistance from their parents past age 18? Do you know what that percentage is all over the country?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH makes almost 1M (including bonus) and you’d never know it if you met us. We live in a nice but not extravagant house. We drive normal not flashy cars. Our kids go to public. We go to Bethany for vacations, not Turks and Caicos. I don’t work but other than that we wouldn’t seem to make that much. So I think likely there are a lot of people making a lot of money and you just have no clue. (Also, in our neighborhood I feel like we are on the lower income side based on the houses and cars and vacations of my kids’ friends)

We make more than that and are UHNW. Yet, in reality we are still fairly frugal. I drive a 12 yo vehicle, person with newest car is our 17yo (since new cars are a better deal right now than used cars and we needed a vehicle for the teen). We do take fancy vacations (Europe, Hawaii, etc) but still are focused on getting a good deal and are planned for. Still fly coach unless business is an amazing deal---just cannot bring ourselves to spend the extra despite being able to "afford" it. I find the people that actually have the money are not extravagant, those that appear extravagant are often leveraged to the max.

I find this pathetic. You’re a hoarder living so much smaller than you need to. You can’t take it with you.

NP. The goal is not to take it with me; the goal is to leave a legacy, so that each next generation doesn’t have to start from nothing like I did. I know, it’s hard to understand for people like you.

[Anonymous]

3. 400K is realistic, 2 M not so much. I bet most are around 400-500K. I also have a 30 year mortgage on our main home, I don't see the point of having 15. But I also do things that would give DCUM a stroke - I have only 500k in my TSP (I'm a trust funder), I spend a gazillion of money on myself, my grocery bill is high, we travel a lot and no, we don't share bathrooms or bedrooms with our kids even when we travel.

[Anonymous]

Dh earns $2m+. We live in an affluent area and country club members. I’m pretty sure most/all families we know have a HHI of 400k+.

Two feds are probably the lowest earners we know and even they will have a HHI of $200k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dh earns $2m+. We live in an affluent area and country club members. I’m pretty sure most/all families we know have a HHI of 400k+.

Two feds are probably the lowest earners we know and even they will have a HHI of $200k.

To answer your question, I think it is probably a mix of all 3. I don’t lie about income but I sometimes change specific details of a post in attempts to stay anonymous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This area just has a lot of rich people. I just attended my sister's wedding where the best man was the son of a billionaire.

Everyone we know is in tech sales, defense contracting, real estate, business owners, or law. Everyone makes 300k+ starting early thirties.

+1

This doesn't even include the lawyers who make serious bank.

All of this is selection bias. “Everyone I know is like me” does not mean “everyone is like me.” For all of those floors of offices full of people making $400k and up, there are hundreds of people who clean the office, repair the office, build the office, answer the phone at the office, serve lunch to the office, sell clothes to the workers in the office, paint the toes of the people in the office. You don’t know those people, they don’t post on DCUM much and in the money and finance forum even less, because the cluelessness there about what incomes are normal is maddening.

If you want to know what people earn look at data. Look up what percentage of people make what income by state, city or even zip code. When people do that they often say “but that can’t be true, I can’t be in the top 5% because 100% of the people I know make the same as me or more. I must be middle class and the data must not apply.” It applies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH makes almost 1M (including bonus) and you’d never know it if you met us. We live in a nice but not extravagant house. We drive normal not flashy cars. Our kids go to public. We go to Bethany for vacations, not Turks and Caicos. I don’t work but other than that we wouldn’t seem to make that much. So I think likely there are a lot of people making a lot of money and you just have no clue. (Also, in our neighborhood I feel like we are on the lower income side based on the houses and cars and vacations of my kids’ friends)

We make more than that and are UHNW. Yet, in reality we are still fairly frugal. I drive a 12 yo vehicle, person with newest car is our 17yo (since new cars are a better deal right now than used cars and we needed a vehicle for the teen). We do take fancy vacations (Europe, Hawaii, etc) but still are focused on getting a good deal and are planned for. Still fly coach unless business is an amazing deal---just cannot bring ourselves to spend the extra despite being able to "afford" it. I find the people that actually have the money are not extravagant, those that appear extravagant are often leveraged to the max.

I find this pathetic. You’re a hoarder living so much smaller than you need to. You can’t take it with you.

NP. The goal is not to take it with me; the goal is to leave a legacy, so that each next generation doesn’t have to start from nothing like I did. I know, it’s hard to understand for people like you.

Right!?!?! That poster would most likely blow thru millions with nothing to show for it. Not to mention, that I don't want my kids to be entitled---they will get financial help from us, but they still need to work in life as if we are not helping them (unless there is a major issue, medical or otherwise that prevents that). My kids will work hard and excel at life as if their parents did not come into extreme wealth. Yes, we will pay for college, first cars (and future cars as needed), family vacations, downpayment for house/condo, and provide for future generations to do the same. Our help will be the bonus for them and for any true emergencies we will obviously step in and assist.
But I feel that my grandkids and GGK and beyond deserve some of that legacy rather than us just blowing thru it on ridiculous extravagance. And we will pick a charity(ies) to support and champion, ensuring our millions help more than just a few.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe a little 3, but mostly 1 and 2.

Most families I know with two working parents make at least $400k. Plus there are TONS of lawyers. Some entrepreneurs and executives.

Are you kidding?
Most families I know with two working parents have one who is part time or in a lower paying field. Most aren’t making 400k! Wow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me. I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1) DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2) These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3) People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?

Almost every person who posts on this site is lying and exaggerating. There is another current post in Money and Finance on having a 15 year vs. 30 year mortgage. What’s interesting there, is that every sound and conservative advisor knows that a 15 year mortgage is the way to go. Yet on DCUM, there is a high concentration of vehement opposition to a 15 year and support for a 30 year. This makes no sense for a group that is allegedly pulling in $500K+ in HHI. People on here know enough to lie about HHI, net worth, and home values. But, they’re not smart enough to know about the less obvious wealth revealing indicators. I especially like the ones in their mid-30s they already have 1M+ in their 401k and retirement plans. A near impossibility given federal limits on annual contributions. They’re just to dumb to know this isn’t possible.

Actually, when your income is that high and the mortgage rates were as low as they were recently, it made total sense to go with a 30 year mortgage. At that level of income, your home is a small part of your wealth and you should be aiming to keep things flexible.

+1

We have always done 30 year and pay down premium at our own pace, but like the flexibility/leverage.

This. Especially if interest rates are low, take out a 30 year and pay more than required. You have cheap money and flexibility.

Also, the PP who equated mortgage debt and credit card debt is either nuts, or pretty ignorant.