Does anyone here live very well on very little?

[Anonymous]

*spend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

I do live very well on very little. Income is a bit less than $100,000. We are retired. We own a 4 bdrm house in an upper middle class neighborhood in another part of the country. I have a good sense of design, so the house is expertly decorated. We have a 3 bdrm apt in Chevy Chase. We commute back and forth between the 2 homes. We have a reverse mortgage on the house, and dh is a 100% disabled vet, so we pay no property taxes. We drive 2 luxury cars. I'm culinary school trained, so I cook and bake almost everything from scratch. I do my own hair manis and pedis. We shop at the commissary and PX, this lowers our purchases about 30%. Several times a month we do Whole Foods takeout. I am presently taking 4 college classes for free through the Va, and we do not pay for health insurance. I buy designer purses such as Chloe, Gucci and Ferragamo on EBay or Fashionphile, greatly discounted. I like expensive face creams such as La Mer and LifeCell. Nice perfumes such as Chanel No 5 and Burbeery Brit. I get these on EBay. I am very frugal.

I purchased my house while single years ago. I left the DC area, because I could not afford the high prices. I settled in a lower cost area where I could afford to buy. Shortly after, I married my first dh. Five years after he passed away, I married my second dh. But even with my first dh, we were able to live well on very little. I was a corporate traveler, and so was my late husband. We racked up a lot of airline and hotel points, and were able to vacation in places like Hawaii for free. I don't travel as much now, because my present dh is on dialysis.

How much do you soend on travel?
Sorry but cooking, doing your own mani and pedis sounds crappy.

You sound plenty crappy yourself, and frankly completely out of touch with reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking about trying to get by on 150K?

Yes, $150,000 or less.

Not really doable. You need at least 320k to be ok here. Not sure when it became like this. Late 90s?

You people are amazingly out of touch with reality.

In the DC metro area, the median household income ranges between $75K and $92K. $344K is the top 1% of the region. There are about 2 million households in the region. There are only 20,000 families that live on an income of $344K or higher. The other 1,980,000 live on less. More than 1,000,000 households live on $100K or less. More than 900,000 households live on 75K or less per year. And that includes households in Washington DC, Montgomery County, and Northern Va.

Some of you talk about not wanting to live on less, being willing to work 2 jobs to make more to live on more. You have such a upper class attitude and have no understanding that there are many folks who live the lives you just talk about being better than. I bet most of you who say that you wouldn't want to live on whatever, would not be able to hack two jobs for more than a year. You all are too used to luxuries that you think some of them are necessities and you think it's easy to work multiple jobs, still try to negotiate affordable child care, feed and clothe a family and still see and interact with your children. Such silver spoon babies.

A lot of people on this forum simply lie about their incomes.

Exactly what I was thinking. They are give those who believe the illusion that they make a certain amount of money. Even if people do, how many are in debt up to there eyes balls and stressing on how to pay such and such or trying to figure when to file for bankruptcy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking about trying to get by on 150K?

Yes, $150,000 or less.

Not really doable. You need at least 320k to be ok here. Not sure when it became like this. Late 90s?

You people are amazingly out of touch with reality.

In the DC metro area, the median household income ranges between $75K and $92K. $344K is the top 1% of the region. There are about 2 million households in the region. There are only 20,000 families that live on an income of $344K or higher. The other 1,980,000 live on less. More than 1,000,000 households live on $100K or less. More than 900,000 households live on 75K or less per year. And that includes households in Washington DC, Montgomery County, and Northern Va.

Some of you talk about not wanting to live on less, being willing to work 2 jobs to make more to live on more. You have such a upper class attitude and have no understanding that there are many folks who live the lives you just talk about being better than. I bet most of you who say that you wouldn't want to live on whatever, would not be able to hack two jobs for more than a year. You all are too used to luxuries that you think some of them are necessities and you think it's easy to work multiple jobs, still try to negotiate affordable child care, feed and clothe a family and still see and interact with your children. Such silver spoon babies.

A lot of people on this forum simply lie about their incomes.

Exactly what I was thinking. They are give those who believe the illusion that they make a certain amount of money. Even if people do, how many are in debt up to there eyes balls and stressing on how to pay such and such or trying to figure when to file for bankruptcy

I agree with you that people lie -- bc it's unlikely that 1% of the HHIs in this area exceed 315k and yet 50% of the people posting here say they make 400k+. But how can anyone believe an illusion that they make a certain amount of money? You paycheck says what it says, and same with your investment account. How could you possibly fool yourself into believing there's more??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

I do live very well on very little. Income is a bit less than $100,000. We are retired. We own a 4 bdrm house in an upper middle class neighborhood in another part of the country. I have a good sense of design, so the house is expertly decorated. We have a 3 bdrm apt in Chevy Chase. We commute back and forth between the 2 homes. We have a reverse mortgage on the house, and dh is a 100% disabled vet, so we pay no property taxes. We drive 2 luxury cars. I'm culinary school trained, so I cook and bake almost everything from scratch. I do my own hair manis and pedis. We shop at the commissary and PX, this lowers our purchases about 30%. Several times a month we do Whole Foods takeout. I am presently taking 4 college classes for free through the Va, and we do not pay for health insurance. I buy designer purses such as Chloe, Gucci and Ferragamo on EBay or Fashionphile, greatly discounted. I like expensive face creams such as La Mer and LifeCell. Nice perfumes such as Chanel No 5 and Burberry Brit. I get these on EBay. I am very frugal.

I purchased my house while single years ago. I left the DC area, because I could not afford the high prices. I settled in a lower cost area where I could afford to buy. Shortly after, I married my first dh. Five years after he passed away, I married my second dh. But even with my first dh, we were able to live well on very little. I was a corporate traveler, and so was my late husband. We racked up a lot of airline and hotel points, and were able to vacation in places like Hawaii for free. I don't travel as much now, because my present dh is on dialysis.

How much do you soend on travel?
Sorry but cooking, doing your own mani and pedis sounds crappy.

I'm a trained chef with two professionally published cookbooks, I enjoy cooking and baking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

I do live very well on very little. Income is a bit less than $100,000. We are retired. We own a 4 bdrm house in an upper middle class neighborhood in another part of the country. I have a good sense of design, so the house is expertly decorated. We have a 3 bdrm apt in Chevy Chase. We commute back and forth between the 2 homes. We have a reverse mortgage on the house, and dh is a 100% disabled vet, so we pay no property taxes. We drive 2 luxury cars. I'm culinary school trained, so I cook and bake almost everything from scratch. I do my own hair manis and pedis. We shop at the commissary and PX, this lowers our purchases about 30%. Several times a month we do Whole Foods takeout. I am presently taking 4 college classes for free through the Va, and we do not pay for health insurance. I buy designer purses such as Chloe, Gucci and Ferragamo on EBay or Fashionphile, greatly discounted. I like expensive face creams such as La Mer and LifeCell. Nice perfumes such as Chanel No 5 and Burberry Brit. I get these on EBay. I am very frugal.

I purchased my house while single years ago. I left the DC area, because I could not afford the high prices. I settled in a lower cost area where I could afford to buy. Shortly after, I married my first dh. Five years after he passed away, I married my second dh. But even with my first dh, we were able to live well on very little. I was a corporate traveler, and so was my late husband. We racked up a lot of airline and hotel points, and were able to vacation in places like Hawaii for free. I don't travel as much now, because my present dh is on dialysis.

How much do you soend on travel?
Sorry but cooking, doing your own mani and pedis sounds crappy.

I'm a trained chef with two professionally published cookbooks, I enjoy cooking and baking.

Sorry, I failed to answer your other questions. As previously mentioned, we do not spend much on travel these days due to my dh's dialysis. I no longer travel internationally. But I have been to three quarters of the States in the US. I've been to Canada and Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. I've taken a few cruises. My DD lives in Los Angeles, so I do visit her, and for Thanksgiving we are traveling to a mountain lodge in Tennessee to spend the holidays with about 30 of my dh's relatives. I would like to do more international travel, but not without my dh.

I don't feel the need to get regular mani's and pedi's, as my nails naturally grow long quickly. I don't have to do much for them to look good. The exception is when I am doing a television appearance, or appearing in a magazine spread to promote my book. These entail close-ups of my hands so I will go to a manicurist. Or a large syndication like Better Homes & Gardens will send a makeup artist to my room to do my hair, makeup and nails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$150ish HHI

2 working parents, 4 kids

Nice $650k house (with a low mortgage thanks to the huge profit we made on our first home), but nothing too fancy

Way out in the burbs in a nice school district that is essentially Family Town, USA

Plenty of money for sports and activities

Lots of travel (but nothing too exotic--we only fly as a family once every year or two)

Our cars are older, but functional.

We are fairly frugal, but aren't afraid to splurge.

DH and I are vested in pensions and saving for retirement.

Saving for college, but planning on state schools.

We don't feel like money is tight (except for my pet peeve of not being able to afford a beach house or take more exotic vacations).


I think people with more money piss through it unnecessarily. If we made $250 instead of $150, we wouldn't change much (we wouldn't buy a more expensive home or new cars). Instead, we would probably save more (for college) and take more expensive vacations.

You sounded quite nice till this comment. No most people with more money simply pay more for mortgage b/c they didn't get to buy before the boom. Why don't you accept your luck rather than pissing on others?

[Anonymous]

how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

We bought in 2008. Had a large down payment saved up and bought in an unpopular (at the time) neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

We bought in 2008. Had a large down payment saved up and bought in an unpopular (at the time) neighborhood.

How did you manage to save a large down payment while living well on very little? And why was area unpopular? Are you gambling on charter schools or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a miserable way to live.

If you want to retire early, get income to start a business or be financially secure so that a job loss doesn't wipe you out, it is a must.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

You don't have to live in arlington or mclean.

You don't have to have a big house.

[Anonymous]

Also, you don't start in McLean/Arlington

you buy a condo/th and then trade up

or you buy near VRE where you can get a SFH even today for around 550kish in a good school district with a mortgage around 2500ish which should be doable for most folks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

We live in PG County where homes are cheaper so we have a pretty low mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how does everyone have such low mortgages? did you all buy in the 1990s?

We live in PG County where homes are cheaper so we have a pretty low mortgage.

PG County prices are drastically lower than DC and close-in NoVa. I was shocked at the prices in a friend's subdivision in Greenbelt; things were selling for literally half (or less than half) the cost of a comparable house in the city of Alexandria.