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Reply to "In your opinion, how much salary would a person need to make per year to life comfortably in DC?"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a young nanny living in DC. I make $36k. My boyfriend and I have an $80k income combined. I think you all are completely out of touch as to what "comfortable" means. I have enough to pay my bills including student loans, I eat out occasionally, we take a yearly vacation, and we have some left over to save. There have been times in my life where I had to choose do I want groceries or heat? I feel pretty damn comfortable now![/quote] I think you are out of touch when it comes to savings. How much are you saving? How much are you paying in rent? I can't imagine you are saving enough for retirement. You must not have a car and no children. [/quote] We're 22. No I'm not saving a ton yet but it will come. I'm not out of touch. There are a lot of people who do just fine on less than $100k in this area I promise you. It's really very sad that so many of you have soooo much and still truly believe you need more to be happy/comfortable. To say that you need $300k or more is truly laughable. You're clearly doing it wrong. [/quote] I made 30K at 22 as well and my boyfriend (now husband) was in law school and made nothing/lived on student loans. We also felt like we were doing fine, and in truth we were for 22. We had enough to pay rent, eat, go on the kind of vacations that are fun at 22 (backpacking in Europe, hiking out West, etc.) I have no doubt that you feel you can make it in DC on your salaries because you can right now. But, you will not feel this comfortable if your income stays the same and your expenses go up, as they will inevitably as you age. Kids are expensive, requiring you to find a bigger apartment, buy more food, wash more clothes, etc. You will need to start saving for retirement, college, buy life insurance to protect your kids' futures, medical expenses will go up as you age (I didn't go to the doctor once between 20 and 30 and I am still relatively healthy now, but there have been more medical expenses in the last decade.) If you both work, there will be daycare to pay for, school lunches, summer camp (or summer daycare during elementary school), a bigger car, carseats, then booster seats, diapers, new shoes as they outgrow them every six months. There are expenses you haven't even thought of yet in your future. People definitely make it in DC on less than 100K, but most of them would not tell you that they can do it without a great deal of anxiety and would not describe themselves as "comfortable." 22 is a great age because the world seems full of endless possibilities and money doesn't seem to be an impediment to reaching them. Hang onto that. But, keep in the back of your mind that there are some different realities coming and you will also want to start laying the groundwork for how you are going to pay for your new responsibilities. [/quote] This pp is spot on! We have a HHI of 80 with 2 kids and everything adds up and it's often not things you think about. When budgeting for kids, you don't think that your cleaning supply budget goes up, your detergent budget goes up, your tp consumption goes up, your electricity budget goes up because you run the vacuum so much. When you budget diapers, you don't think about the kid getting a stomach bug and how you go through 5 times the number of diapers and all the extra costs with something so small. My kids don't go to the fancy preschool and it's still a lot more than we planned and it's been going up every year. I didn't realize that preschool adds more doctor visit co-pays, more laundry, all the fundraisers, etc. We are leaving this city because we can't do it on 80 no matter how many coupons, cutbacks and things we go without! I think you have to have a HHI of at least 200.[/quote]
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