Anonymous wrote:How old are you? My guess is you're 10 years younger than a lot of posters with similar incomes and more savings.

You're putting away a lot in retirement - the typical American family is nowhere near that. You can't compare yourself to people who have far less wealth than you, but manage to get by day-to-day.

I am not sure why you are going on and on about the typical American experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your budget? You bring home probably around $10,000 or $11,000 a month, right? And pay, what, $3000 or $3500 towards your mortgage? Where does the rest of it go?

I wish it were this month per month. After taxes health care and 401k max, $230k is trash income. Like I said, I make about $150k and after taxes, 401k healthcare and all of the deductions, I'm only pulling $5000 per mo. My spouse who makes $72k and who contributes only 13% only pulls home about $3500 per mo after contributions, tax, and other deductions. Total take home is about $8500 per mo. Mortgage is $3100 for a $560k loan at 2.87% interest. Internet 80, gas + electric =$200-300, entertainment on streaming apps = $50, groceries = $500-600 per mo..other crap for gas, clothes etc. Not even counting. Then when you get hit with surprise car and hkuse repairs I just get crushed. I feel so stupidly poor on this salary. How the hell do American families making less than $100k survive? The median hhi is well below $100k, so clearly people with families are doing it. I'm also dumbfounded by the savings levels and invesmtnet levels by people on this forum purportedly to be single moms making $140-170k who claim claim to have $50k in emergency savings, $700k in retirement, and $100k saved for college. Yeah sure, do you ever have a home repair, major car repair, or need a new car? I just can't believe these #s on this forum.

$5000/month take home seems too low for your income. I make 50% more than you but bring home more than twice as much per month after same deductions. Granted I have two dependents but still. Is your health insurance extra expensive?

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand what you are going on about. We pull in almost the exact same, live in DC, bought a 550k house, have a child, take frequent extravagant vacations and never feel concerned about money, in any way. About 150k squirreled away in savings in addition to IRAs, retirement, college fund etc. You are doing life wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your budget? You bring home probably around $10,000 or $11,000 a month, right? And pay, what, $3000 or $3500 towards your mortgage? Where does the rest of it go?

I wish it were this month per month. After taxes health care and 401k max, $230k is trash income. Like I said, I make about $150k and after taxes, 401k healthcare and all of the deductions, I'm only pulling $5000 per mo. My spouse who makes $72k and who contributes only 13% only pulls home about $3500 per mo after contributions, tax, and other deductions. Total take home is about $8500 per mo. Mortgage is $3100 for a $560k loan at 2.87% interest. Internet 80, gas + electric =$200-300, entertainment on streaming apps = $50, groceries = $500-600 per mo..other crap for gas, clothes etc. Not even counting. Then when you get hit with surprise car and hkuse repairs I just get crushed. I feel so stupidly poor on this salary. How the hell do American families making less than $100k survive? The median hhi is well below $100k, so clearly people with families are doing it. I'm also dumbfounded by the savings levels and invesmtnet levels by people on this forum purportedly to be single moms making $140-170k who claim claim to have $50k in emergency savings, $700k in retirement, and $100k saved for college. Yeah sure, do you ever have a home repair, major car repair, or need a new car? I just can't believe these #s on this forum.

Anonymous wrote:What's your budget? You bring home probably around $10,000 or $11,000 a month, right? And pay, what, $3000 or $3500 towards your mortgage? Where does the rest of it go?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 150k and my spouse around 75k. After yearly bonuses, we pull in about 230k. It sucks. I constantly, constantly feel like we still have to watch our spending and can never relax and spend without worrying. Every time the car or house needs to be fixed, I cringe. Every time I go to the grocery store, I cringe spending $120.

We do not have an insane mortgage. We took out $540k, which is only 2.4x our income....not absurd. A lot of pain is self inflicted....I max out my 401k while my spouse puts away 13%. Yet I constantly feel stretched and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck too much. We have zero kids. I'm reading this forum and seeing people making $150k or so claiming they have $60k in saving for emergencies $700k+ in retirements, and no problems upgrading their house or paying for repairs. Wtf? How is this possible?

If we make this much and feel terrible about finances God help the rest of Americans and their median HHIs below $70k. Basically, no one is saving anything for retirement? I can't imagine needing a $1800 in car repairs and making $70k hhi.

Wow, I’m not sure what you’re doing wrong. We make $225k, have our kid in an excellent private school (full pay) and feel rich.

This year has been bad. We had to spend $10k installing brand new brick steps because the stairs to our house were terrible, crumbling, and.had a bad foundation. Right exact at the same.time, a bad storm ruined our fence and we had to replace 100' for about $4k. Simultaneously, our 2016 Mazda needed a lot of maintenance and required about $4000 in repairs etc. Just non-stop hit after hit. But I still feel ridiculously poor making $230k hhi from simply encountering a home an auto repair.

If we struggle this bad, how the hell does rest of America live?

Why does this make you feel poor? Serious question. Are you trying to cash flow all these big expenses without touching savings? Do you keep very low cash savings on purpose? That is a total of $18k, which is less than 10% of your yearly income, comes out to 1.5k a month, and much less than the two of you are saving for retirement every year.

I feel you, our HHI is 165 with two kids so those expenses are huge for us too, but we have an emergency fund in a regular bank savings account for stuff like this so we don't feel ridiculously poor. You have objectively significantly more money than we do, so there has to be a way to manage it that would make you feel more secure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 150k and my spouse around 75k. After yearly bonuses, we pull in about 230k. It sucks. I constantly, constantly feel like we still have to watch our spending and can never relax and spend without worrying. Every time the car or house needs to be fixed, I cringe. Every time I go to the grocery store, I cringe spending $120.

We do not have an insane mortgage. We took out $540k, which is only 2.4x our income....not absurd. A lot of pain is self inflicted....I max out my 401k while my spouse puts away 13%. Yet I constantly feel stretched and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck too much. We have zero kids. I'm reading this forum and seeing people making $150k or so claiming they have $60k in saving for emergencies $700k+ in retirements, and no problems upgrading their house or paying for repairs. Wtf? How is this possible?

If we make this much and feel terrible about finances God help the rest of Americans and their median HHIs below $70k. Basically, no one is saving anything for retirement? I can't imagine needing a $1800 in car repairs and making $70k hhi.

Wow, I’m not sure what you’re doing wrong. We make $225k, have our kid in an excellent private school (full pay) and feel rich.

This year has been bad. We had to spend $10k installing brand new brick steps because the stairs to our house were terrible, crumbling, and.had a bad foundation. Right exact at the same.time, a bad storm ruined our fence and we had to replace 100' for about $4k. Simultaneously, our 2016 Mazda needed a lot of maintenance and required about $4000 in repairs etc. Just non-stop hit after hit. But I still feel ridiculously poor making $230k hhi from simply encountering a home an auto repair.

If we struggle this bad, how the hell does rest of America live?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 150k and my spouse around 75k. After yearly bonuses, we pull in about 230k. It sucks. I constantly, constantly feel like we still have to watch our spending and can never relax and spend without worrying. Every time the car or house needs to be fixed, I cringe. Every time I go to the grocery store, I cringe spending $120.

We do not have an insane mortgage. We took out $540k, which is only 2.4x our income....not absurd. A lot of pain is self inflicted....I max out my 401k while my spouse puts away 13%. Yet I constantly feel stretched and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck too much. We have zero kids. I'm reading this forum and seeing people making $150k or so claiming they have $60k in saving for emergencies $700k+ in retirements, and no problems upgrading their house or paying for repairs. Wtf? How is this possible?

If we make this much and feel terrible about finances God help the rest of Americans and their median HHIs below $70k. Basically, no one is saving anything for retirement? I can't imagine needing a $1800 in car repairs and making $70k hhi.

Wow, I’m not sure what you’re doing wrong. We make $225k, have our kid in an excellent private school (full pay) and feel rich.

This year has been bad. We had to spend $10k installing brand new brick steps because the stairs to our house were terrible, crumbling, and.had a bad foundation. Right exact at the same.time, a bad storm ruined our fence and we had to replace 100' for about $4k. Simultaneously, our 2016 Mazda needed a lot of maintenance and required about $4000 in repairs etc. Just non-stop hit after hit. But I still feel ridiculously poor making $230k hhi from simply encountering a home an auto repair.

If we struggle this bad, how the hell does rest of America live?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 150k and my spouse around 75k. After yearly bonuses, we pull in about 230k. It sucks. I constantly, constantly feel like we still have to watch our spending and can never relax and spend without worrying. Every time the car or house needs to be fixed, I cringe. Every time I go to the grocery store, I cringe spending $120.

We do not have an insane mortgage. We took out $540k, which is only 2.4x our income....not absurd. A lot of pain is self inflicted....I max out my 401k while my spouse puts away 13%. Yet I constantly feel stretched and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck too much. We have zero kids. I'm reading this forum and seeing people making $150k or so claiming they have $60k in saving for emergencies $700k+ in retirements, and no problems upgrading their house or paying for repairs. Wtf? How is this possible?

If we make this much and feel terrible about finances God help the rest of Americans and their median HHIs below $70k. Basically, no one is saving anything for retirement? I can't imagine needing a $1800 in car repairs and making $70k hhi.

Wow, I’m not sure what you’re doing wrong. We make $225k, have our kid in an excellent private school (full pay) and feel rich.