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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I lived comfortably on 30K a year when I was single.  Now I earn a LOT more, but money is a lot tighter, because I have to pay childcare for 3 kids, student loans, non-subsidized health insurance, preschool, a safe and large enough car (3 kids in carseats won't fit in a cheap two-door like I had back then), health care, the list goes on and on.

Now back when I was earning 30k, single and had enough left over to travel internationally, I could have been super-smug and claimed that I didn't understand how families making twice or three times my salary weren't rich.  But I wasn't a jerk, and wasn't so arrogant as to assume that I knew other people's situations, or that I had a right to judge.[/quote]
OP here. I wasn't being smug. My comment was in response to DCUMers who keep saying that $80k is poor, even for a single w/o kids.  I was showing how that isn't true, and how $70k after tax (which is around $85k gross) is a nice standard of living (if one doesn't insist on living in DC.) 
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If $70k after tax is $85k gross, I want to speak with you accountant.  I'm getting screwed.  [/quote]
OP here. It all depends on your deductions. Do you deduct mortgage interest and property tax? (That was accounted for in my PITI.) But also, remember, I'm not earning $85,000 - that's the amount I estimated would yield $70k net. That's almost 20% in tax
es, which is actually more than would be expected. (People confuse their marginal tax rate with the percent of income going to taxes.)[/quote]

Do you live somewhere that you don't pay state taxes?  [/quote]
No....state taxes are included in the $15,000. But let's even say I'm wrong, and it takes $90k gross to net $70k. That still should show people who are saying $90k is poor - I've seen people calling even $100k poor  on this forum - that they are wrong, and a single can live nicely on that income. So, if a single earning $90k is comfortable, I just don't het how families earning $250k - triple, almost! - are struggling. [/quote]

Mostly it's that as a childless adult you can live someplace with so-so to bad schools in a tiny rundown place with lead paint.

And your schedule is flexible enough you can carpool. [/quote]

Not to mention no student loans, fine with living in the burbs and only taking one vacation/year. [/quote]
OP here. Why would you assume I live in a tiny run-down place with lead paint? I own a beautiful 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom townhouse, built less than 15 years ago. No asbestos, either.

And as far as one vacation a year, that's quite typical - and explains why families earning $300k are saying it's not much money. I guess it's not much money if you want to go on a winter ski trip, spring break in the Caribbean, and another week up in Nantucket in the summer. But that's how rich people live. That's more than "comfortable."

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