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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let's just say you have a $150k salary in DC: 
- After taxes, your net pay is $98,826
- After rent ($2k p/month) you're at $74,826
- After Utility (~$110) & Wifi ($54.99) you're at $72,826
- After car & health insurance you're at $60,826
- After car payments, you're at $57,226
[b]- after food $800 a month $47,626
- after ordering out  $300 a month $44206
- after eating out(2x week) $240 a month $41326[/b]
- buying new clothes $200 a month $38926
[b]- Nexflix, Hulu etc… $200 a month $36526
- vacation twice a year $3000.        $33526
- gambling and entertainment. 6000yr $27526z
- miscellaneous.     500 month 6000 year.$21000[/b]
Tell me again how we are rich?????
[/quote]

wasting so much money. how can one person spend 1350 per month (16000 per year) and another 16000 a year on vacation, entertainment?? That's 32000 right there. it's not your earning, it's your spending dummy. [/quote]

This. Everything in bold is way too much and way too excessive. You have a major spending problem. Major. [b]Most people with families don’t waste this much money. [/b]

You could cut down your food bill almost in half if you cut back on the eating out. You spent way too much on vacation. Way too much on entertainment and $500 a month of some thing going nowhere is kind of ridiculous as well. You also should not be spending that much money on streaming services…pick one.

Honestly, you should really go on a no spend month and spend nothing except it’s necessities and see how much money you have then start investing that money. Maybe you can figure out that you’re actually very well off: you’re just spending every penny you have.

This income and no children? You are loaded.[/quote]

This. Before we had kids, we had an HHI of 200k on 2 incomes (both making around 100k). We didn’t feel rich, but we had enough money to take a couple nice vacations a year, go out to eat whenever we wanted, go to concerts, etc., and still save money.

Then we had a baby. I wanted to stay home with her and my work has a 2-yr sabbatical option so I could take two years off and still be guaranteed my job at current salary afterwards. I took it. So for 2 years we lived off 100k in the DMV.

I thought it would be much harder than it was! I mean, we saved nothing those years. But it wasn’t that hard to cut out a bunch of excess spending. We had a baby so we were tired and focused on her, it was easy to give up concerts and a lot of travel that wouldn’t have been fun with a baby/toddler anyway. I was home all day so we met from eating out 3-4 days a week to like twice a month. We didn’t buy new clothes really at all. We got most baby stuff second hand from friends and on buy nothing groups. We went to the library instead of buying books. We didn’t upgrade phones or computers unless absolutely necessary. We got rid of cable and instead of paying fir a bunch of streaming services, we paid for two at a time and rotated when we felt we’d exhausted the content on one. No house cleaners since I was home and could clean.

The year I returned to work, we had to pay for childcare so we kept up that frugal lifestyle that year.

Then DD started public preschool. We still have to pay for aftercare and summer camp, but it winds up being about the same amount that DH’s income has increased since she was born, so it’s a wash.

We now make 240k as a family if three and I feel RICH. Like I feel like we save so much money. We never worry about paying for things. Very healthy emergency fund. We’ve kept a bunch of our frugal habits that turned out to be no problem— cook at home 6 days a week, get a lot of stuff 2nd hand, wait to upgrade tech and cars until absolutely necessary. We do have a house cleaner again, and DH and I do go out on dates a couple times a month to nicer restaurants and hire sitters, which feels extravagant. We go to concerts a few times a year. We take real vacations again.

But we still manage to save over 50k a year on top of 401k contributions. We are going to use some to do some long postponed renovations on our house, but the rest goes into a college fund, I-bonds, cds, high-interest savings, or gets invested. I feel great about our finances.

OP and others need an attitude adjustment and some perspective. Go on a financial diet for a year and see what you learn. You are probably wasting a TON of money.[/quote]

That’s great you good about your finances but you’re in no way even close to rich. Saving 50k/yr on top of 401k is very little nowadays and won’t get you through college expenses and comfortable retirement. That’s why OP is worried about only having 21k left over. Unless they do some creative investing to turn  that 21k into 400k every year, they’re always going to feel behind.

So you can spare OP the lecture on attitude adjustment. You’re doing the most you can with the little you have but the fact is 150k is almost paycheck to paycheck pretty much anywhere now.[/quote]

I didn't say I am rich. I said I feel rich. Because I learned how to live on less than half what we currently make, discovered some of those frugal solutions were actually not even remotely painful and kept them even when we more than doubled our income.

And you're wrong about the value of saving 50k+ a year. We stick as much as we can in the 529 and we will be able to stop contributing to that by the time our kid is in middle school because we'll have hit our target even with conservative growth projections. We just bought a new car in cash (thus only saving 50k last year since that was a big expense) and won't need another one for at least another 8 years, hopefully more like 10+ (drove our last car for 13.5 years). You can grow that money so fast when you invest and don't touch it. We're planning on retiring around 60 and by then our home will be paid off, college paid for, and we should have about 4m in the bank on top of 401ks. Are we rolling in it? No. But we're in great shape and I feel very financially secure and don't stress about money. So, yes, I feel rich. And I think those two years of living on one income and really figuring out the difference between "necessary" and "nice to have" is made the difference.

OP could take a year and do the same and she'd be shocked at how much it could transform her finances. She could be saving more than I do at this stage, since she's making more than we had during our "diet" and it's just for one person. Take one year and lock down spending and see how much you can save. Do it for three and then use the savings to buy a fixer upper. Do it another three and fix it up. Sell it and invest the proceeds in another home plus other investments. By the time you're 40, you'll be in a place where you, too, can "feel rich."

Anyone can do this. OP needs to stop spending all her capital on Chipotle and "gambling" and new clothes and go make her money work for her. She's squandering a stellar opportunity.[/quote]

You sound like a FIRE devotee. Not everyone is going to feel rich buying secondhand clothes, living in some dump, and constantly watching your spending. The only difference between you and OP is that she’s honest and you’re delusional. If you have to be this vigilant to save a couple of million in your 40’s (which is peanuts nowadays), then yeah, as OP says, you’re barely making it.[/quote]

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