What HHI does a family of 5 need to feel comfortable: NW DC or close-in Bethesda/Nova

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was thread recently on Reddit where they mocked DCUM for its cluelessness. This is why. If you need 600k to be comfortable, you are doing something wrong or your head is up your arse.

Can you post a link to the Reddit discussion so we can laugh at ourselves?

[Anonymous]

4-500 pubic schools ,1m+ private

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m coming to the sad realization that the basics of a good middle class lifestyle cost a fortune around here. A house with Bedrooms for all the kids, college, annual family vacation, saving for retirement. Is 600k the point where all this becomes doable without financial strain?

600k will be ample.

A house is gonna run 6k/mo
College savings 6k/mo
Vacations 2k/mo
2 60k cars every 5 years over 20 years is going to be 1,666/mo
Food/dining out 2500/mo
Utilities/lawn 1,000/mo

Assuming 2 workers 40k 401k annual deductions, 12k annual health and then 25% taxes, you're left with 411k or 34k net/mo.

Minus out the above UMC "essentials" at 20k/mo, you are left with 14k to do ad you wish. Home repairs, investing, luxuries, private school, household help...ect

This is a very very nice lifestyle. You'll be hurting if you don't do hand me down cars for your teens otnifbyounoptnfor private. That does of thing will make you feel "broke"

You are way underestimating taxes. I just got done with our taxes at a tad over $600k, and with federal (including FICA (two earners), medicare and additional medicare) and state (MD), our taxes were $206k.

I'm basing it on what we owe, minus investment income. I pay about 25% in taxes once I back out 2 401ks and health insurance (obviously this takes into account other deductions).

I would love to know how you are only paying 25% (inclusive of payroll and state taxes) on a $600k income. Do you have some massive charitable deductions? Or is some of this not W-2? Or no state income tax? Absent that, I don't know how that would be possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m coming to the sad realization that the basics of a good middle class lifestyle cost a fortune around here. A house with Bedrooms for all the kids, college, annual family vacation, saving for retirement. Is 600k the point where all this becomes doable without financial strain?

600k will be ample.

A house is gonna run 6k/mo
College savings 6k/mo
Vacations 2k/mo
2 60k cars every 5 years over 20 years is going to be 1,666/mo
Food/dining out 2500/mo
Utilities/lawn 1,000/mo

Assuming 2 workers 40k 401k annual deductions, 12k annual health and then 25% taxes, you're left with 411k or 34k net/mo.

Minus out the above UMC "essentials" at 20k/mo, you are left with 14k to do ad you wish. Home repairs, investing, luxuries, private school, household help...ect

This is a very very nice lifestyle. You'll be hurting if you don't do hand me down cars for your teens otnifbyounoptnfor private. That does of thing will make you feel "broke"

You are way underestimating taxes. I just got done with our taxes at a tad over $600k, and with federal (including FICA (two earners), medicare and additional medicare) and state (MD), our taxes were $206k.

I'm basing it on what we owe, minus investment income. I pay about 25% in taxes once I back out 2 401ks and health insurance (obviously this takes into account other deductions).

I would love to know how you are only paying 25% (inclusive of payroll and state taxes) on a $600k income. Do you have some massive charitable deductions? Or is some of this not W-2? Or no state income tax? Absent that, I don't know how that would be possible.

Assuming 3 kids, 2k a month in college savings seems excessive if you started out right when they were born.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was thread recently on Reddit where they mocked DCUM for its cluelessness. This is why. If you need 600k to be comfortable, you are doing something wrong or your head is up your arse.

If you read the budgets of all these "need $600k to be comfortable" posters, the fine print is that they are saving $8-15K/month IN ADDITION TO RETIREMENT.
So yes, if a line item in your budget is to save vast sums of money each month, you are going to "just be making it" on a 1% income.

that 8-15k is for retirement...most wealthy people's largest retirement assets are not an IRA or 401(k)... my taxable is far larger than our combined 401(k)s and will always be. If you are making 600k + you need to save WAY more than the max 401k allotments to be in any shape to retire comfortably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was thread recently on Reddit where they mocked DCUM for its cluelessness. This is why. If you need 600k to be comfortable, you are doing something wrong or your head is up your arse.

If you read the budgets of all these "need $600k to be comfortable" posters, the fine print is that they are saving $8-15K/month IN ADDITION TO RETIREMENT.
So yes, if a line item in your budget is to save vast sums of money each month, you are going to "just be making it" on a 1% income.

that 8-15k is for retirement...most wealthy people's largest retirement assets are not an IRA or 401(k)... my taxable is far larger than our combined 401(k)s and will always be. If you are making 600k + you need to save WAY more than the max 401k allotments to be in any shape to retire comfortably.

how do you save? just a savings account?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was thread recently on Reddit where they mocked DCUM for its cluelessness. This is why. If you need 600k to be comfortable, you are doing something wrong or your head is up your arse.

If you read the budgets of all these "need $600k to be comfortable" posters, the fine print is that they are saving $8-15K/month IN ADDITION TO RETIREMENT.
So yes, if a line item in your budget is to save vast sums of money each month, you are going to "just be making it" on a 1% income.

that 8-15k is for retirement...most wealthy people's largest retirement assets are not an IRA or 401(k)... my taxable is far larger than our combined 401(k)s and will always be. If you are making 600k + you need to save WAY more than the max 401k allotments to be in any shape to retire comfortably.

how do you save? just a savings account?

boring old brokerage account (ETFs, Index Funds, etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m coming to the sad realization that the basics of a good middle class lifestyle cost a fortune around here. A house with Bedrooms for all the kids, college, annual family vacation, saving for retirement. Is 600k the point where all this becomes doable without financial strain?

$600K is not middle class.

$600K is the top 1% of DC. The only thing it is middle for is the middle of the wealthy class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do people spend their money on? I have a HHI of $250k, just finished paying off student loans, three kids (2 in public, 1 in daycare) and live comfortably. Vacation a few times a year, max out retirement and put money in 529s. We don’t have a ton left over after all that, but feel comfortable.

Our mortgage is $3500/month.

This is me, too, with one kid in private. Live in a 4br townhouse in very close-in Nova, bought for about $900k in 2018. Refinanced last year to 2.6%.

I honestly don't know what people are spending their money on who make twice as much!

$3500 is my mortgage on 550K. So either you had a huge down-payment or something is amiss with these numbers.

PP here. Down payment was 20%, mortgage is also $3500, so not sure what is amiss?

[Anonymous]

We have an HHI of about $420. 2 kids, one in private and 1 in public. Mortgage $800k we max out 401ks and put away some into 529s. We have older cars but are still paying student loans and have about 5 years left on those. I can tell you that if we did not have the private, kids activities and vacations, we would save a lot, probably around $4k a month. But we one kid needs to be in private, and activities and vacations are worth it to us. But we are comfortable, O think our HHI is good for close in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was thread recently on Reddit where they mocked DCUM for its cluelessness. This is why. If you need 600k to be comfortable, you are doing something wrong or your head is up your arse.

Can you link to that thread? Would love to read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4-500 pubic schools ,1m+ private

You don’t need and extra $250k net for private.

[Anonymous]

lifestyle creep

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have an HHI of about $420. 2 kids, one in private and 1 in public. Mortgage $800k we max out 401ks and put away some into 529s. We have older cars but are still paying student loans and have about 5 years left on those. I can tell you that if we did not have the private, kids activities and vacations, we would save a lot, probably around $4k a month. But we one kid needs to be in private, and activities and vacations are worth it to us. But we are comfortable, O think our HHI is good for close in

You either have family money or expect and inheritance one day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have an HHI of about $420. 2 kids, one in private and 1 in public. Mortgage $800k we max out 401ks and put away some into 529s. We have older cars but are still paying student loans and have about 5 years left on those. I can tell you that if we did not have the private, kids activities and vacations, we would save a lot, probably around $4k a month. But we one kid needs to be in private, and activities and vacations are worth it to us. But we are comfortable, O think our HHI is good for close in

You either have family money or expect and inheritance one day.

Why do you say that? (I’m not the person you’re replying to -only curious)