Anonymous wrote:Wow are you serious? You want someone who is underwater on two properties and has hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt at a fixed interest rate of over 8% to do what exactly? Put their kids in public school? Sell their car so they can't get to work? You're all morons. Go cry for the poor somewhere else.

LOL! Nothing more to see here folks, this sums everything nicely.

Stfu live within your means people, you probably all bought houses before 2005 , for others that dont haves fake equity down payments 250k a year ain't shit considering a decent house is 750k

Wow are you serious? You want someone who is underwater on two properties and has hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt at a fixed interest rate of over 8% to do what exactly? Put their kids in public school? Sell their car so they can't get to work? You're all morons. Go cry for the poor somewhere else.

I agree with the last two posters. If you are making 250 K and drowning in debt, you need to buck up and change your lifestyle completely and many people are very very slow to make those changes. Putting the kids in public school, moving to a lesser home, selling your car(s), no vacations, no outsourcing.....these things bite but the first three are the ones we all avoid. But sometimes they are the ones that need adjusting to get things back on track.
Still no comparison to someone living below the poverty line. NONE. I had a family member who was estranged from us for a long while and then when they finally reached out they were below the poverty line. It effected every aspect of who they are - we almost didnt recognize them emotionally or physically. It was very sad and suddenly all of our complaining at a family dinner the week prior about the economy sucking and us not being able to do certain things was pretty embarrassing to say the least. People really need to put things in perspective.

Anonymous wrote:And here we go...

18:24 -- You really think someone making $11,000 a year has a nice, comfortable net worth? Yes, you're drowning in debt. So are many making $250K+ who choose to spend more than they make and/or assume they can never lose their jobs.

Please. Do not try to put your situation side by side with people living below the poverty line. Just don't. Show a little compassion and admit that you wouldn't last 30 minutes on $11K a year.

YES. Exactly.

But thanks for not disappointing us, 18:24.

And here we go...

18:24 -- You really think someone making $11,000 a year has a nice, comfortable net worth? Yes, you're drowning in debt. So are many making $250K+ who choose to spend more than they make and/or assume they can never lose their jobs.

Please. Do not try to put your situation side by side with people living below the poverty line. Just don't. Show a little compassion and admit that you wouldn't last 30 minutes on $11K a year.

18:24 I'm tethered to unemployment I hate.

Are your children in private school?
Did you take a nice vacation last summer?
Do you own or lease two cars?
Do you use a cleaning service?

Thanks.

Y'all are confusing income and net worth. Just because you have a decent income doesn't mean your debt doesn't murder you each month. Our HHI is around $250k, which sounds great until you consider that we're 100K underwater on a property that we had to move from in order to find work after being laid off for six months. We're paying off that property and covering a mortgage in the DMV -- which we bought before we realized the other place would not sell, unfortunately. We certainly don't worry about eating the way we did when we were putting ourselves through college, but we put every dollar we can toward our crazy debts and as a result, have far, far, far less disposable income than you'd think. Eventually this will all work itself out, but in the meantime we're tethered to jobs we hate, we may never be able to retire, and on a daily basis we're super frugal. Sometimes we have to stretch at the end of the month to make it all work. FWIW - I'd rather make $100k a year, or even $50k, and not have a negative net worth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone can't make ends meet on 200K+ (or close to that) - they're doing something wrong.

I agree with your basic point, but in fairness, I've read those threads, and you're setting up a bit of a straw man (as is OP with the thread title), since the 250K posters don't say they can't make ends meet, just that they aren't living a "rich" lifestyle.

"We make about $290K and we have a nanny. And after 401k and such, we pretty much live paycheck to paycheck."

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/6305.page#32573

That's just one example.

Anonymous wrote:If someone can't make ends meet on 200K+ (or close to that) - they're doing something wrong.

I agree with your basic point, but in fairness, I've read those threads, and you're setting up a bit of a straw man (as is OP with the thread title), since the 250K posters don't say they can't make ends meet, just that they aren't living a "rich" lifestyle.

Cue the defenders of the baring-scraping-by 95+%....

That only makes sense if you think a family of four making $11k is making ends meet. It is probably impossible for that to happen in this area without signficant public assistance.

Anonymous wrote:If someone can't make ends meet on 200K+ (or close to that) - they're doing something wrong.

I agree, but it is a common refrain in this forum.

If someone can't make ends meet on 200K+ (or close to that) - they're doing something wrong.

40 states and the District of Columbia had increases in the poorest poor since 2007, and none saw decreases. The District of Columbia ranked highest at 10.7 percent.

In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.

http://news.yahoo.com/poorest-poor-us-hits-record-1-15-people-040233161.html