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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's honestly really hard to gauge how other people are doing financially. There's their income, which you could guess at pretty easily, and their housing costs, which you can also probably guess at pretty easily.

But there are all these other factors. Student loan debt, family money, whether they are needing to support other family members in some way, what kinds of other help they get from family (like grandparents paying for private school, or funding down payments, or maxing out annual gifts), there might be health expenses you can't possibly know about. It can go one way or the other and you just have no idea.

And it's psychological, too. I have some friends who I would assume are very well off -- Big Law partner at a firm where I know what that means in terms of income. They live in a big house in a very pricy neighborhood. But they probably talk about "affording things" more than any of my other friends. They do not take a lot of vacations and the ones they take often aren't particularly extravagant. They do spend money on cars but nothing insane for what I know their income must be. I honestly don't know if maybe they have other expenses that are putting pressure on them, or potentially they are just the sort of people who stress about money a lot. Both grew up UMC but that doesn't mean they didn't grow up without money stress (UMC people can get laid off, their businesses run into rough patches, they have unanticipated medical expenses, etc.).

Meanwhile, we have other friends who might seem overextended from the outside (both of student debt, bought a house even they admitted at the time was more than they could afford, working for government or NGOs where income can never go that high) and they take two foreign vacations a year, always have new everything, and never express any money concerns. Are they just good with money, have secret sources of money we don't know about, or just chill people who don't talk about it publicly? Could be any of the above or something else I haven't thought of.

Which is why you can't compare yourself to other people on this point. You just don't know. Keep your head down and focus on your own finances. Look for advice from neutral resources, not your peers. Their situation is unlikely to be as similar to yours as you might think.[/quote]

Don't assume govt workers only live off their salaries. I now plenty who work for the govt because they believe in the mission or need something to do and not necessarily for the paycheck.   Also, govt employees who put in 20 plus years will receive cushy pensions, healthcare subsidies, etc....they can spend more while working, take more risks with investments aware they have a safety net. [/quote]

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