Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They either rent or bought 10+ years ago, or live in an area with bad schools.

Mom stays at home, or grandma watches the kids, or they use a really cheap in-home daycare.

They never eat out.

They never go on vacations.

We are 35. We bought in 2009 (700k) in a great school district (HS in top 5 in VA). We have a 3800/month nanny. Make almost exactly 200k now, made substantially less 3 years ago. We max our 401k, IRAs, and save for college. Now, we vacation inexpensively, we drive paid off cars, did not have student loans, and we mostly eat at home. We have a net worth of almost 800k. You can live very well on 200k in this area. You can't live like the kardashians, but few can. Seems like many have a twisted sense of what "average" and "middle class" are. Take a couple minutes and see where your money goes. Evaluate wants vs needs, decide what is important to you, but don't complain and poor mouth when you are in the top 3-5% of incomes. It's just rude.

I am caling bull shit on this one, you must have bought a house before the bubble or put a lot down. Most people can't do 20% down on their first house but for your example I did below.

Your Pay Check Results

Monthly Gross Pay (200k HHI) $16,666.67
Federal Withholding $2,410.42
Social Security $853.53
Medicare $199.62
Virginia $746.84
401k max for 2 people $2,900.00
Net Pay ~$9,556

Expenditures:
-3800 (nanny)
-3235 (mortgage on a 750K house w/ 20% down 2009 Annual Average 5.04%)
-700 (house insurance)
-500 (property taxes)
- 200 (car insurance)
- 300 (utilities)
- 500 (food)
-----------
$321 a month left

As you can see with the above conservative calculations, living on 200K HHI isn't really affluent.

In fact the above doesn't have the following: college tuition, savings, after school activities, car payments, recreation money.

Anonymous wrote:OP, with a household income of $200,000, you are rich. Yes, you are. What's more, you are rich even though there are people who have more money than you do. You are rich even though the cost of living in DC is high. You are rich even though you spend almost everything you earn. You are rich even though you live in a medium-sized house and drive used cars and only take two vacations a year.

You want to know how people survive making under $200,000 household income? Start reading here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/nyregion/older-workers-are-increasingly-entering-fast-food-industry.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-finds-unprecedented-anxiety-about-jobs-economy/2013/11/25/fb6a5ac8-5145-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2013/07/19/how-she-lives-on-minimum-wage-one-mcdonalds-workers-budget/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They either rent or bought 10+ years ago, or live in an area with bad schools.

Mom stays at home, or grandma watches the kids, or they use a really cheap in-home daycare.

They never eat out.

They never go on vacations.

We are 35. We bought in 2009 (700k) in a great school district (HS in top 5 in VA). We have a 3800/month nanny. Make almost exactly 200k now, made substantially less 3 years ago. We max our 401k, IRAs, and save for college. Now, we vacation inexpensively, we drive paid off cars, did not have student loans, and we mostly eat at home. We have a net worth of almost 800k. You can live very well on 200k in this area. You can't live like the kardashians, but few can. Seems like many have a twisted sense of what "average" and "middle class" are. Take a couple minutes and see where your money goes. Evaluate wants vs needs, decide what is important to you, but don't complain and poor mouth when you are in the top 3-5% of incomes. It's just rude.

I am caling bull shit on this one, you must have bought a house before the bubble or put a lot down. Most people can't do 20% down on their first house but for your example I did below.

Your Pay Check Results

Monthly Gross Pay (200k HHI) $16,666.67
Federal Withholding $2,410.42
Social Security $853.53
Medicare $199.62
Virginia $746.84
401k max for 2 people $2,900.00
Net Pay ~$9,556

Expenditures:
-3800 (nanny)
-3235 (mortgage on a 750K house w/ 20% down 2009 Annual Average 5.04%)
-700 (house insurance)
-500 (property taxes)
- 200 (car insurance)
- 300 (utilities)
- 500 (food)
-----------
$321 a month left

As you can see with the above conservative calculations, living on 200K HHI isn't really affluent.

In fact the above doesn't have the following: college tuition, savings, after school activities, car payments, recreation money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They either rent or bought 10+ years ago, or live in an area with bad schools.

Mom stays at home, or grandma watches the kids, or they use a really cheap in-home daycare.

They never eat out.

They never go on vacations.

We are 35. We bought in 2009 (700k) in a great school district (HS in top 5 in VA). We have a 3800/month nanny. Make almost exactly 200k now, made substantially less 3 years ago. We max our 401k, IRAs, and save for college. Now, we vacation inexpensively, we drive paid off cars, did not have student loans, and we mostly eat at home. We have a net worth of almost 800k. You can live very well on 200k in this area. You can't live like the kardashians, but few can. Seems like many have a twisted sense of what "average" and "middle class" are. Take a couple minutes and see where your money goes. Evaluate wants vs needs, decide what is important to you, but don't complain and poor mouth when you are in the top 3-5% of incomes. It's just rude.

Anonymous wrote:They either rent or bought 10+ years ago, or live in an area with bad schools.

Mom stays at home, or grandma watches the kids, or they use a really cheap in-home daycare.

They never eat out.

They never go on vacations.

We wash and reuse our zip lock bags.


Wow, I am a pretty frugal low key person, but that is too much for me. I don't think they are a huge expense, I don't use them that often, it sounds like it would be hard to get them dry.

I wash and reuse plastic baggies too.

Anonymous wrote:

We wash and reuse our zip lock bags.

Wow, I am a pretty frugal low key person, but that is too much for me. I don't think they are a huge expense, I don't use them that often, it sounds like it would be hard to get them dry.

go on 2 vacations a year somewhere on the east coast,

Anonymous wrote:

We wash and reuse our zip lock bags.

Wow, I am a pretty frugal low key person, but that is too much for me. I don't think they are a huge expense, I don't use them that often, it sounds like it would be hard to get them dry.

We wash and reuse our zip lock bags.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2000 square feet is not a "modest" home.

If you can't afford to furnish your home, stop buying furniture, even "slowly."

Stop eating out.

2 vacations/year is 2 more than many people have.

$200k is a helluva lot of money, but your expenses are high. If you want to continue to pay for daycare, then you'll have to cut back in other areas. That's all there is to it.

Did you come from the villages of africa?

The above is very modest in most of the country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a frugal people. All four of our parents grew up during the depression and came of age during the rationing of WWII. With the exception of a house and occasionally a car, we buy when we have the money (pay as you go).

We wash our shirts (only use dry cleaners a few times a year). We don't do Starbucks. We don't buy lunch more than once a week. We eat real food prepared at home. We keep our thermostat at 68' in the winter and 74' in the summer. We did the non sexy stuff to our house first (insulated, roof, efficient heating and Air conditioning). We drive cars until they die, but take care of them so they don't die prematurely. We fix things, reuse things then recycle them. We buy high quality clothes that last and not tons of them ( we have a regular closet- no walk in). We mow our own lawn. We do get an every other week housecleaner. We plan our errands. We plan our purchases. We tithe. We don't go to concerts or plays (except local free or nearly free ones). We use the library weekly. We clean our own gutters. We go to family for summer vacations most years (have a bigger vacation every 2-4 years- use VBRO type of places). We use DH's frequent flyer miles when we fly (which is not often). We host potlucks. DH has a smart phone from work, but the DCs and I have a pay as you go phones that cost $100/year each. We have purchased couches, beds and mattresses, but most of our other furniture is "inherited" (I call it 'early attic'). We have done renovations to our house once we have saved up the money. We wash and reuse our zip lock bags. We use cloths napkins and dish towels instead of paper in the kitchen. We use rags for cleaning instead of paper towels. From the get go, we set our expenses off of one salary and saved as much as we could.

Little things add up. It isn't just the Starbucks habit- it is 12-24 Starbuck type habits.

Wow! Way to live large, dude.