Reply to Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”

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Reply to "Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is crazy to me, see page 20:

https://am.gs.com/cms-assets/gsam-app/documents/insights/en/2025/am-retirement-survey-102025.pdf?view=true

Lots of wild details in this document on “The Future of Retirement”[/quote]Preach. I also think the line in the sand is the interest rate on the mortgage. People with the same income and a 2% rate should be more comfortable especially with saving cash for home repairs.

I can relate. We are in the same income bracket. We live paycheck to paycheck after maxing out 401k, hsa, saving 10k per kid in 529, saving 60k in our brokerage account. We don’t have much left.

[/quote]

Similar. We make 3M/yr but it's almost entirely stock. In terms of cash by the time we put 70k each in 401k, back door roth, max HSA, 10k per kid in 529, 60k in brokerage, then there's only enough cash left to pay all the bills and live an UMC lifestyle. Our NW is growing rapidly, but it takes discipline to never dip into the investments and fit our life into the cash flow. [/quote]

Same except we make $10M/yr and I’m a historian and my spouse keeps bees[/quote]

and were drunk when you posted this? I assume that you are joking but I'm blown away by this thread. HHI 500-700K and we cannot possibly spend all of our take home even after maxing all that stuff out. But we live in a very modest house. I think that makes a huge difference. [/quote]

I was mocking the PP who makes $2M or whatever and said they’re still paycheck to paycheck but that went over your head. [/quote]

I laughed PP. Some people are just dense and don’t get the joke.

While folks are right that many of these high income earners are not truly “paycheck to paycheck”, they are only one job loss and extended unemployment away from materially falling out of this lifestyle. So yes, they may be funding a full 401k, 529, and maybe private school, but those are not enough to fully retire on or replace their income if there’s a job loss. Yes, they’d likely have to move and sell the $2+ million home walking away with 30-50% equity. I’m not going to shed tears over this but I do sympathize with the fact that their financial position is not as strong as their income would suggest. It’s worse for the true middle class, which probably can’t fully find any of these things and has few assets and lots of debt and leases. [/quote]

One job loss from having to reconsider little Timmy's private elementary school for next year, not going to St Bart's this year or not leasing a Range Rover is not paycheck to paycheck. These people will be just fine unless they do not adjust their expenses, which they can do without much pain or deprivation. That includes moving to a 500k house v. a 2 million one. Paycheck to paycheck means truly not having money to pay ongoing expenses, food and housing insecurity, mounting credit card debt and a downward spiral to financial ruin.[/quote]

Someone with $400-$500k is not flying to St Barts during prime season. They could easily be a two income (with one Fed) household, two kids, living in a $800k North Bethesda postwar crappy house, driving a Honda Odyssey and a 10 year old Camry with two kids in public school with just enough to fund the $401k and minimum 529s and deferred maintenance on their house while wondering if they have enough to fund college and retirement. Again, I’m not going to shed tears for these folks but their financial position could be far from really comfortable. [/quote][/quote]

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