We are 54 and started making 850k around 46, for us there is a lot of catching up for retirement, kid’s college and investing. No private school here, we are in McLean zoned for Langley so we feel no need for private.

Rest of the lifestyle has remained what it was at 350k, just a lot of stashing away.

For us a doubling of our 450K would probably result in a renovation to our existing house, a move to a different house or 2nd house around when DS starts college in 4 years, and zero concern about college cost. And much more travel without budgeting.

We are well into retirement but once we hit what today is $500k we were so happy and when we went beyond that we didn’t spend any more. We were living the dream given where we came from and we were happy. After that all the additional money went into saving and investing and we enjoyed the benefit of compounding. When you make $500k enjoy the ride but save and invest because when you finally have the time to really enjoy it, it’s wonderful. We are still young enough to travel and do it really well but it is so nice to have the resources to help others and not just family.

Anonymous wrote:We make $300K and I can't think of anything we would do with the extra money except be in a position to retire sooner. We have everything we need and want and still save a lot.

+1

Anonymous wrote:We make $300K and I can't think of anything we would do with the extra money except be in a position to retire sooner. We have everything we need and want and still save a lot.

Bravo! You have figured it out. You have everything you need and want and you are setting yourself up for a very nice future.

Anonymous wrote:For us, probably fanicer travel and earlier retirement.

Or just a lot of dogs. SO MANY dogs. (Look, we all have our luxuries.)

My luxuries are kids and dogs.

Wow income tax is too low.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re around 500k. At a million, private school is a lot more accessible as is three kids.

500k is solidly UMC in a HCOL area.

It’s about the 96th percentile of HHs in the DMV, so UMC is being used a bit loosely here.

It's LMC (Lower Millionaire Class)

We make $300K and I can't think of anything we would do with the extra money except be in a position to retire sooner. We have everything we need and want and still save a lot.

Anonymous wrote:We’re around 500k. At a million, private school is a lot more accessible as is three kids.

500k is solidly UMC in a HCOL area.

It’s about the 96th percentile of HHs in the DMV, so UMC is being used a bit loosely here.

As our income moved up we never really changed our lifestyle except we saved a lot more and felt a lot less stress. If we had a problem car rather than pouring repair dollars in to it we’d buy a new car. When it came time for college we simply wrote the checks. When it came time for retirement we wrote a check for a very nice vacation home.

We are at $420. Doubling it would mean not even thinking before deciding on private school versus attempting to save $400k per kid (2 kids) for full pay private college since we live in DC and can’t rely on our kids possibly getting merit aid.

Anonymous wrote:That would be significant. We are in $400-$500k and have to be quite careful. $800k would be a different beast. That’s double!

+1. Same here. Objectively a lot of money, but not a ton to live in a normal house in either a decent school district or send to private, fund retirement and college, maintain a home, send kids to camps, medical expenses, buy mostly organic food, take 1 decent vacation per year, pay for cars and commuting, and fund childcare (since many people at this income level have 2 working parents)

We’re around 500k. At a million, private school is a lot more accessible as is three kids.

500k is solidly UMC in a HCOL area.

This is an odd question to me. It's twice as much of what is already a lot of money.