Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 13:39     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.


Have you ever had or do you plan to have daycare, school, or college costs?


For new families, day care is so costly, mortgage rates are still high, you have to start saving in a 529 plan from birth to have enough to pay for college, and health care costs are rising, and many have student loan payments. We older millennials or Gen Xers with 2.8% mortgages and older kids can't really compare ourselves to the late twenties cohort just starting to settle down and have kids with two working parents.


This. We’ve got a $6K PITI on $700K mortgage. Neighbors who refinanced during COVID pay same PITI on their $1.3M mortgages. That’s a $600K decrease in buying power over 3-4 years.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 13:36     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.


Have you ever had or do you plan to have daycare, school, or college costs?


My wife parents stayed with us to take care of daycare, and school. My Asian parents gave us 750K for taking care of two kids college education.


How are you in a fully paid off $3.5M home? Parents, or a lucky NVIDIA-like investment? Or hopped from another field like owning a business you sold into fed gov? Numbers don’t make sense.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 13:36     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:I mean, we save about 150K a year through deductions from our checks. There are months we're sort of paycheck to paycheck (neber doing without, but making different decisions) but this is just not accurate in terms of what paycheck to paycheck means, unless someone has taken out a 3m mortgage.


It doesn’t describe your situation but it describes a lot of people. After taxes, expenses, deductions, kids, they aren’t saving, they are spending like they are part of the 1%.

$500k doesn’t go far IF you’re buying a $3 million dollar house, two $80k cars, flying off to wherever the rich people go. If people are understanding what they can afford based on their salaries they will be a lot happier. And have more money in their pockets.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:55     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.


Have you ever had or do you plan to have daycare, school, or college costs?


My wife parents stayed with us to take care of daycare, and school. My Asian parents gave us 750K for taking care of two kids college education.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:53     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.


Have you ever had or do you plan to have daycare, school, or college costs?


For new families, day care is so costly, mortgage rates are still high, you have to start saving in a 529 plan from birth to have enough to pay for college, and health care costs are rising, and many have student loan payments. We older millennials or Gen Xers with 2.8% mortgages and older kids can't really compare ourselves to the late twenties cohort just starting to settle down and have kids with two working parents.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:48     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.


Have you ever had or do you plan to have daycare, school, or college costs?
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:47     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Our interest rate is actually 6.5%. The mortgage is low because we bought a house we could afford with 35% down after saving for a long time.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:43     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k. We max out most deductions, have a $4,800 mortgage payment, no daycare or debt and we pay cash for cars and vacations, and I can not fathom paying for a nanny, dual private, country club, and cleaning. When college comes we have savings. No quarterly tax payments (we're regular employees).


Must be nice to have such a low mortgage


Two GS-15 Fed on 375K HHI. No mortgage on a 3.5M home in McLean, no car payment on two 2024 Lexus vehicles, 2M in TSP and 4M in investment. I only pay utilities, property tax, home insurance, home maintenance. I am a sucker for guitar and piano. I recently bought a 150K piano and three vintage guitars for 40K each, without breaking a sweat. Still have a lot left over on both paychecks.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 12:26     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A lot of people in this bracket are the ones trying to keep up with the Joneses. So they have multiple car notes, possibly two mortgages if they want a second place, etc.



I agree!!! I live in a neighborhood of people like this…

We used to rent my mom's house when she went to assisted living and it was in a wealthy area. I was shocked when I saw the prospective tenants' applications. They made huge salaries but had things like 20k a month payments to Amex and expensive car payments. Some people spend a lot so even with all the examples of people who do it right, it's not hard to believe there are high earners living paycheck to paycheck.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:48     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Sounds like the wealthy need some tax relief.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:46     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yea I do not understand people, this year it looks like we will hit about 800K (two incomes). Between us we will have put 47k into 401K before employer contribution and another 40K of after tax mega roth money. We then do direct deposit of 30% of our net income into our brokerage account at every pay cycle. Even after forking over ~222,000 each year to retirement and taxable investments, we still are left to blow 23,000/mo on life. The key for us is we do all of this out of payroll deductions so there is no lifestyle creep, we never see that money.. And yes, we do have a 2nd home and do drive expensive cars and do take ski trips out to the rockies. At this point our investments are like having 3rd full time wage earner in the house. Our growth last quarter was around 250K...not bad for 3 months of work! And yes at age 48 if we both lost our jobs we could get by on taking a low wage job just for the health insurance. We would not lose our home, our kids would still have college paid for and we still would live a good life.

If you make our income and are strapped and not reaching your short and long term financial goals you are a complete and total moron.


Curious, what’s your net worth? We are 44/43 and very similar financials.


to be honest i don’t really know. My spouse handles all of the finances and we just do a “state of the union” twice a year. All I know is what we contribute and that we have never pulled money out. We also have rentals that i pay exactly zero attention to which factor into NW. Probably 8M? he just makes grand announcements when we have a particularly good quarter.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:33     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:Yea I do not understand people, this year it looks like we will hit about 800K (two incomes). Between us we will have put 47k into 401K before employer contribution and another 40K of after tax mega roth money. We then do direct deposit of 30% of our net income into our brokerage account at every pay cycle. Even after forking over ~222,000 each year to retirement and taxable investments, we still are left to blow 23,000/mo on life. The key for us is we do all of this out of payroll deductions so there is no lifestyle creep, we never see that money.. And yes, we do have a 2nd home and do drive expensive cars and do take ski trips out to the rockies. At this point our investments are like having 3rd full time wage earner in the house. Our growth last quarter was around 250K...not bad for 3 months of work! And yes at age 48 if we both lost our jobs we could get by on taking a low wage job just for the health insurance. We would not lose our home, our kids would still have college paid for and we still would live a good life.

If you make our income and are strapped and not reaching your short and long term financial goals you are a complete and total moron.


Curious, what’s your net worth? We are 44/43 and very similar financials.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:28     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:My gross HHI is $300k. 15% goes to retirement (pre-tax), 15% to savings, 5% to kids college savings. We have a mortgage on a home that cost $390k 15 years ago, now worth ~$750k with just a few more years until it is paid off. Our house is on the “lower end” of the price range for our neighborhood. Our cars are 5-10 years old, mid range (Chrysler Pacifica, Honda Pilot). We eat out frequently, have newer iPhones, but do not buy designer clothes. We take one large domestic vacation each summer.
Our neighbors, in homes that are worth $1.25M, have similar careers, take elaborate international vacations, have expensive cars and designer clothing… I always wonder if they are not saving any money, or if my husband and I are somehow doing something wrong since we are not risky in our investments. This article tells me they are likely not saving.


It comes down to net worth more than HHI. People who get on the property ladder early and follow basic principals like investing everything past their emergency fund in the S&P 500 (ie. don’t time the market based on factors like COVID or personal politics) can easily have millions in their early 40s. Once you get the millions saved up early, interest takes over and becomes much more of a factor than HHI. Thus people can appear to be “keeping up with the Joneses” on a lower HHI but in reality have the net worth to back it up. It comes down to making smart but basic financial decisions early and throughout your life and not deviating based on fear.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:22     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Yea I do not understand people, this year it looks like we will hit about 800K (two incomes). Between us we will have put 47k into 401K before employer contribution and another 40K of after tax mega roth money. We then do direct deposit of 30% of our net income into our brokerage account at every pay cycle. Even after forking over ~222,000 each year to retirement and taxable investments, we still are left to blow 23,000/mo on life. The key for us is we do all of this out of payroll deductions so there is no lifestyle creep, we never see that money.. And yes, we do have a 2nd home and do drive expensive cars and do take ski trips out to the rockies. At this point our investments are like having 3rd full time wage earner in the house. Our growth last quarter was around 250K...not bad for 3 months of work! And yes at age 48 if we both lost our jobs we could get by on taking a low wage job just for the health insurance. We would not lose our home, our kids would still have college paid for and we still would live a good life.

If you make our income and are strapped and not reaching your short and long term financial goals you are a complete and total moron.
Anonymous
Post 12/12/2025 11:02     Subject: Goldman Sachs: 40% of $400-500K and $500K+ households “live paycheck to paycheck”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I assume at that income level they mean they aren't very liquid and therefore rely on each paycheck to pay their bills. They just don't want to sell off property or stock/bonds, but they could if they lost their income, so it's not really paycheck to paycheck like it would be for low-income families.


I assume the same thing.


Did you read the article and see the graphic? I think you are ASSuming things because you cannot read.