Reply to Why are DCUM salaries so much higher than in "real life"?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Why are DCUM salaries so much higher than in "real life"?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me.  I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1)  DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2)  These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3)  People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?[/quote]

Probably some of each, but #1 is not that it attracts high earners, but rather that high earners are more likely to respond to questions about HHI/NW.  Partly to brag and partly because it's taboo to talk about this stuff IRL so this is a place to get a feel for whether similarly-situated people think you're doing okay or making an obvious mistake you cannot see.  I used to post in FIRE forums but the responses started being "at that HHI you should be able to quit work yesterday what are you wasting all your money on" and it became obvious that even if they're doing well in terms of their own personal goals, someone willing to live in a semi-off-the-grid trailer in Idaho is not the sounding board I'm looking for.  Plus I didn't grow up with money and most of my family don't have it still so I do have some questions.  You have to weed through some chaff to get the wheat here, but the DCUM money boards do provide a service.[/quote]
I agree with all of this and you sound similar to me. I grew up without much and am unsophisticated enough about finances that I find this forum really helpful. Thanks to DCUM, I can ask our financial advisor questions without sounding like an idiot.  I even learned some things about our 529s that my much more savvy DH didn’t know.

But returning to OP’s question, I do think #1 is a factor not only because the richer you are the more engaged you tend to be with money discussions, but also because DCUM attracts a lot of UMC posters.  Check out the Private school forum if you haven’t. It’s very active (and extremely amusing) and most of those posters are not receiving financial aid. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics