Washingtonians say $3 million = "wealthy", $720K = comfortable"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only make slightly more than you and we have 2 million liquid and another 500k in home equity. How?

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage - 15 year (no HELOC - we pay cash for home repairs/renovations): $4700
Two Luxury SUVs (one 11 year old SUV and 2 year old Honda Accord that we paid cash for): $0
Eating Out: $400
Entertainment $400
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $400
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $700
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. (we have none of these and do our own cleaning and yardwork) - $0
Groceries $600
Gas $150
Insurance and other similar Crap $1000 (Homewowners, Life, Disability, etc)

2 maxed out 401ks plus matches, 2 maxed out Roths (backdoor), plus taxable investments = around 100k a year invested/saved.

You are living a fancy lifestyle for your HHI and that's where you money is going. Because you have done that it is likely you won't be able to get off the hamster wheel since you won't be able to save enough to ever pay for your lifestyle creep out of savings/investments and SS sure won't cover it. We have chosen to live a slightly more frugal, yet comfortable life and will both be retired with a paid off house in our mid-50s. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, but just realize that crying poor is kind of a bullshit excuse. The real problem is you want to live like you are rich on a 300k HHI and something has to give in order to support that lifestyle so you have chosen not to save much.

How many children do you have to only spend $600/month on groceries? Are you saving for college for them? Who watches them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We only make slightly more than you and we have 2 million liquid and another 500k in home equity. How?

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage - 15 year (no HELOC - we pay cash for home repairs/renovations): $4700
Two Luxury SUVs (one 11 year old SUV and 2 year old Honda Accord that we paid cash for): $0
Eating Out: $400
Entertainment $400
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $400
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $700
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. (we have none of these and do our own cleaning and yardwork) - $0
Groceries $600
Gas $150
Insurance and other similar Crap $1000 (Homewowners, Life, Disability, etc)

2 maxed out 401ks plus matches, 2 maxed out Roths (backdoor), plus taxable investments = around 100k a year invested/saved.

You are living a fancy lifestyle for your HHI and that's where you money is going. Because you have done that it is likely you won't be able to get off the hamster wheel since you won't be able to save enough to ever pay for your lifestyle creep out of savings/investments and SS sure won't cover it. We have chosen to live a slightly more frugal, yet comfortable life and will both be retired with a paid off house in our mid-50s. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, but just realize that crying poor is kind of a bullshit excuse. The real problem is you want to live like you are rich on a 300k HHI and something has to give in order to support that lifestyle so you have chosen not to save much.

How many children do you have to only spend $600/month on groceries? Are you saving for college for them? Who watches them?

PP here. I was trying to back DD and DS out of it since the OP didn't include child expenses in his/her budget breakdown. I matched category for category less kids so kind of guesstimated on the groceries, eating out entertainment, etc.

[Anonymous]

Like one the PPs said, if you're making $300k and feel broke, you have a spending problem. You can't live like you're rich, but you can be comfortable and secure. We only make $270k, and we save/invest $70-80k per year, with 1 kid in DC. How? Let's compare budgets (yours is listed below and then I put mine in bold).

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage (first and HELOC): $4300 ($2600, no HELOC)
Two Luxury SUVs: $2000 ($0. We don't own a car, but I would never finance a car unless it had incredible terms (ie, 0% interest))
Eating Out: $2500 ($1000. And I feel that's pretty lavish. Can't imagine doubling it.)
Entertainment $1500 ($1000. This includes travel as you indicated yours does as well)
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $500 ($500)
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $1000 ($1000)
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. $1200 ($100)
Groceries $1000 ($750)
Gas $500 ($250. I include uber/taxis/metro here since we don't have a car)
Insurance and other similar crap $1000 (Homeowners, Life, Disability, etc) ($500)

That's about $7k less per month for us. Though we do spend additional money that you didn't list (e.g., $1700/mo. on daycare, $1100/mo. on student loans, and $400/mo. to a 529 account). But still, that means we're spending $4k/mo less than you are (which goes to savings above and beyond maxing 401(k) accounts). And I feel like we're living pretty comfortably. We go to nice restaurants at least once every week! We travel multiple times per year! We live in a nice (if smallish) townhouse.

So, I know firsthand how well you can live in this area on ~$300k. If you feel broke with that income, you have a spending issue and I'd suggest you tackle it early rather than late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We only make slightly more than you and we have 2 million liquid and another 500k in home equity. How?

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage - 15 year (no HELOC - we pay cash for home repairs/renovations): $4700
Two Luxury SUVs (one 11 year old SUV and 2 year old Honda Accord that we paid cash for): $0
Eating Out: $400
Entertainment $400
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $400
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $700
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. (we have none of these and do our own cleaning and yardwork) - $0
Groceries $600
Gas $150
Insurance and other similar Crap $1000 (Homewowners, Life, Disability, etc)

2 maxed out 401ks plus matches, 2 maxed out Roths (backdoor), plus taxable investments = around 100k a year invested/saved.

You are living a fancy lifestyle for your HHI and that's where you money is going. Because you have done that it is likely you won't be able to get off the hamster wheel since you won't be able to save enough to ever pay for your lifestyle creep out of savings/investments and SS sure won't cover it. We have chosen to live a slightly more frugal, yet comfortable life and will both be retired with a paid off house in our mid-50s. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, but just realize that crying poor is kind of a bullshit excuse. The real problem is you want to live like you are rich on a 300k HHI and something has to give in order to support that lifestyle so you have chosen not to save much.

How many children do you have to only spend $600/month on groceries? Are you saving for college for them? Who watches them?

PP here. I was trying to back DD and DS out of it since the OP didn't include child expenses in his/her budget breakdown. I matched category for category less kids so kind of guesstimated on the groceries, eating out entertainment, etc.

So you didn't include the cost of feeding/clothing/schooling/caring for your kids? That's a bit disingenuous don't you think? I know that our food and entertainment budget exploded as our kids are graduating from the kids menu to the adult menu. Private school, college, the crazy costs of 4 season wardrobes for multiple kids and sports, vacations etc is crazy. I don't know how you present a budget yet back your kids out of it when (at least in our case) kids are probably the major expense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tend to agree with the 3 million number. HHI is 300,000 in Northern VA and I feel broke.

My Net Worth is around 1.3 million but most of it is not liquid. I often told my spouse that we would feel comfortable if we had 2-3 million in the bank, liquid.

You got budget problems. Seriously.

Umm not really.

Take Home after only 401K: $15,000ish (depends on time of year) a month

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage (first and HELOC): $4300
Two Luxury SUVs: $2000
Eating Out: $2500
Entertainment $1500
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $500
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $1000
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. $1200
Groceries $1000
Gas $500
Insurance and other similar Crap $1000 (Homewowners, Life, Disability, etc)

My God. Do you light your cigarettes with $100 bills?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tend to agree with the 3 million number. HHI is 300,000 in Northern VA and I feel broke.

My Net Worth is around 1.3 million but most of it is not liquid. I often told my spouse that we would feel comfortable if we had 2-3 million in the bank, liquid.

You got budget problems. Seriously.

Umm not really.

Take Home after only 401K: $15,000ish (depends on time of year) a month

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage (first and HELOC): $4300
Two Luxury SUVs: $2000
Eating Out: $2500
Entertainment $1500
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $500
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $1000
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. $1200
Groceries $1000
Gas $500
Insurance and other similar Crap $1000 (Homewowners, Life, Disability, etc)

Your finances are WAY OUT OF CONTROL, despite having a relatively high net worth.

You are wasting 116 dollars on food every day. Your eating out budget should not be bigger than your grocery budget. Are you eating out every day, spending $83 a day eating out? Thats INSANE. Cut it back to once a week at most for the whole family. You could save 2000 a month more easily just off that.

$2,000 on luxury SUVs is wasteful. That is a huge depreciating asset. Get a more reasonable car and cut the payments to $800 a month if you absolutely have to have brand new vehicles.

Your gas bill is insane because you are driving SUVs around. If you have to get an SUV get a diesel (not that you have many choices), or one with a v6, or 4 cylander turbo that has plenty of power but returns far better fuel economy.

If you cut back on your expenses, you could easily find another $5,000 to put away a month. In 10 years time, you will have close to another million in net worth from your savings alone.

[Anonymous]

Also, why are you traveling every single month (I am imaging weekend getaways)? That is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, why are you traveling every single month (I am imaging weekend getaways)? That is insane.

I agree that PPs budget is out of control -- I am the PP above that posted my budget in comparison in bold.

But, just because there is a monthly budget for travel, doesn't mean they are travelling every month. If you have a once a year trip that costs $6k, then that just gets budgeted as $500/mo.

[Anonymous]

Eating out/order out every day will also cause havoc to your health, no matter how healthy you try to be.

[Anonymous]

If you have a lot of debt and expenses you can be as rich as Donald Trump and still be as poor as him.

The trick simply is to earn much more than your expenses AND be debt free. After that you can use your savings to grow your money.

[Anonymous]

So I was the $300,000 broke person. To respond, poster that said costs went up as kids got older and in private school hit the nail on the head. There is five of us, including three teenagers. Second, we buy salads form Chopt and other similar places for us several times a week. Each time is $50 per order for five people So it can be healthy. SUVs are leased. Give up after warranty get new ones. No maintenance costs or minimal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I was the $300,000 broke person. To respond, poster that said costs went up as kids got older and in private school hit the nail on the head. There is five of us, including three teenagers. Second, we buy salads form Chopt and other similar places for us several times a week. Each time is $50 per order for five people So it can be healthy. SUVs are leased. Give up after warranty get new ones. No maintenance costs or minimal.

You're not broke. You made a choice to spend your money on luxuries like a $3500 monthly food budget. Broke people don't have those kinds of choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I was the $300,000 broke person. To respond, poster that said costs went up as kids got older and in private school hit the nail on the head. There is five of us, including three teenagers. Second, we buy salads form Chopt and other similar places for us several times a week. Each time is $50 per order for five people So it can be healthy. SUVs are leased. Give up after warranty get new ones. No maintenance costs or minimal.

You're not broke. You made a choice to spend your money on luxuries like a $3500 monthly food budget. Broke people don't have those kinds of choices.

https://goo.gl/images/6RRThK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like one the PPs said, if you're making $300k and feel broke, you have a spending problem. You can't live like you're rich, but you can be comfortable and secure. We only make $270k, and we save/invest $70-80k per year, with 1 kid in DC. How? Let's compare budgets (yours is listed below and then I put mine in bold).

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage (first and HELOC): $4300 ($2600, no HELOC)
Two Luxury SUVs: $2000 ($0. We don't own a car, but I would never finance a car unless it had incredible terms (ie, 0% interest))
Eating Out: $2500 ($1000. And I feel that's pretty lavish. Can't imagine doubling it.)
Entertainment $1500 ($1000. This includes travel as you indicated yours does as well)
Clothes and other Miscellaneous $500 ($500)
Utilities, Cable, Etc. $1000 ($1000)
Gardener, Tutor, Maid Service, etc. $1200 ($100)
Groceries $1000 ($750)
Gas $500 ($250. I include uber/taxis/metro here since we don't have a car)
Insurance and other similar crap $1000 (Homeowners, Life, Disability, etc) ($500)

That's about $7k less per month for us. Though we do spend additional money that you didn't list (e.g., $1700/mo. on daycare, $1100/mo. on student loans, and $400/mo. to a 529 account). But still, that means we're spending $4k/mo less than you are (which goes to savings above and beyond maxing 401(k) accounts). And I feel like we're living pretty comfortably. We go to nice restaurants at least once every week! We travel multiple times per year! We live in a nice (if smallish) townhouse.

So, I know firsthand how well you can live in this area on ~$300k. If you feel broke with that income, you have a spending issue and I'd suggest you tackle it early rather than late.

This is a good comparison! Pp should take note. We also make over 300k (closer to 400k) and save a good 70-80k outside of retirement. Our budget is similar except we spend more on travel, dining out and clothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a lot of debt and expenses you can be as rich as Donald Trump and still be as poor as him.

The trick simply is to earn much more than your expenses AND be debt free. After that you can use your savings to grow your money.

At least she is not making $1million ++ like Hillary and claiming to be like the middle class. ???????