I Live Comfortably on Less than $70K After-Tax in DC Area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP spends $250 a year, YEAR!, on vacations.
Sad life. That's not even a hotel room for one night.

That was a monthly rate, so it's $3000. That could be a trip to Europe or a cruise. Not so sad.

[Anonymous]

Fairfax County. Bleh. Enough said.

[Anonymous]

OP, you're single. That's really the end of the conversation. It's a completely different ballgame with children. That's why people can't relate to you.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure you do live comfortably as a single person. Your after tax earnings probably mean you earn over $100k per year pre-tax / retirement.

I would send you a medal for your achievements, but haven't worked that expense into my budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never understood it either OP. We make $200K and have more money than we know what do with.

This is so true. We have one kid and net annual salary is about $135,000 (this does not include about $35k a year in automatic retirement withholdings), so about $11,300 a month. This is so much more then we need to live comfortably that I don't bother budgeting for individual expenses, but as a general breakdown:

1. $3,300 a month mortgage/PITI.
2. $600 a month childcare.
3. $3,000 a month for everything else. Basically, pretty much everything goes on the credit card, and the monthly bill averages to around $3,000 a month.

So that's $6,900 a month in expenses, I'll round that up to $7,000. That gives us about $4,300 a month extra, which I add to "the pile".

Side eye at that

So lets assume for some reason I am lying about that $600 and am really paying $2,000 a month for childcare for some super posh before/after care. That just reduces the amount going into the pile every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people screaming "YOU"D BE POOR IF YOU HAD KIDS!" are still wrong. The median HHI in DC is 75k, which by definition includes 2 children. Once again, it's really just a question of most people on this forum not wanting to live the way most people are actually living in the area.

Absolutely true. I know a guy with a SAH wife and a small baby, and he earns around $80k. They're at the beach right now, in a rental, for the week.

Laughing at this. Is this something to OOOHHH AHHHH omg over?

And out comes the DCUM snobs....

The point is that going to the beach for a week is a middle-class type of vacation, and apparently a young family with a HHI of $80k can do it. Nothing to ooooohhhhh and ahhhhh over, granted, by that certainly isn't how poor people live. You all need to stop saying $80k is poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County. Bleh. Enough said.

Snob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you're single. That's really the end of the conversation. It's a completely different ballgame with children. That's why people can't relate to you.

But that certainly refutes all the people who keep clamoring that $80k is poor, even for a single person. That's the underlying point of her post.

[Anonymous]

We do the same and we have kids! We are very comfortable living inside the beltway. We live in a good school district so we don't pay tuition, we don't have a lot of debt, we don't have a maid or lawn service either. But we eat out a lot and go on nice vacations. I don't get why people are struggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you're single. That's really the end of the conversation. It's a completely different ballgame with children. That's why people can't relate to you.

But that certainly refutes all the people who keep clamoring that $80k is poor, even for a single person. That's the underlying point of her post.

Very often, the conversations are NOT about after tax / retirement income.

$80k doesn't really end up as much after taking out taxes and retirement. Let's make sure we're comparing apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County. Bleh. Enough said.

Yes, it's cheaper here because we don't need rat exterminators and home security systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, and my carpool just honked. I'll catch up later.

How far do you live from work? You're not getting picked up for carpool until 8:45?

Sounds like the life. What time do you come home?

I don't think you recognize your privilege. Making $80K+ as a single person isn't the norm either.

OP here.....if you MUST know, we work from 10 to 6 (flextime), but this morning one of us had a 9:30 meeting so we left earlier.

Also, as far as my "privilege," I do recognize it. I said I live very comfortably, which is why I posted - is counter to all these people saying &80k is poor. (And they're saying that for a single person.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all have children. Because we are on a site called DC Urbanmoms.

x 1000
Try living on that 70k after tax with two kids in daycare and see if you are still crowing about being "comfortable."

In other words, STFU childless people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, and my carpool just honked. I'll catch up later.

How far do you live from work? You're not getting picked up for carpool until 8:45?

Sounds like the life. What time do you come home?

I don't think you recognize your privilege. Making $80K+ as a single person isn't the norm either.

OP here.....if you MUST know, we work from 10 to 6 (flextime), but this morning one of us had a 9:30 meeting so we left earlier.

Also, as far as my "privilege," I do recognize it. I said I live very comfortably, which is why I posted - is counter to all these people saying &80k is poor. (And they're saying that for a single person.)

But you don't make $80K. You make more, which gives you a buffer even if you aren't spending it. And you're not trying to support a family on it, which most people are. You're not countering anything.

10 - 6, nice schedule for someone making $100K+. Lunch break?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you're ridiculous- living on $70k post-tax should be easy for someone who doesn't have children. Heck I lived comfortably on a lot less here when I was single.

I still don't understand everyone else crying poor, though. We have a HHI of $200k with two kids and are still comfortable.

Yeah but most people want you to acknowledge that you're rich not just "comfortable"