Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

I do live very well on very little. Income is a bit less than $100,000. We are retired. We own a 4 bdrm house in an upper middle class neighborhood in another part of the country. I have a good sense of design, so the house is expertly decorated. We have a 3 bdrm apt in Chevy Chase. We commute back and forth between the 2 homes. We have a reverse mortgage on the house, and dh is a 100% disabled vet, so we pay no property taxes. We drive 2 luxury cars. I'm culinary school trained, so I cook and bake almost everything from scratch. I do my own hair manis and pedis. We shop at the commissary and PX, this lowers our purchases about 30%. Several times a month we do Whole Foods takeout. I am presently taking 4 college classes for free through the Va, and we do not pay for health insurance. I buy designer purses such as Chloe, Gucci and Ferragamo on EBay or Fashionphile, greatly discounted. I like expensive face creams such as La Mer and LifeCell. Nice perfumes such as Chanel No 5 and Burbeery Brit. I get these on EBay. I am very frugal.

I purchased my house while single years ago. I left the DC area, because I could not afford the high prices. I settled in a lower cost area where I could afford to buy. Shortly after, I married my first dh. Five years after he passed away, I married my second dh. But even with my first dh, we were able to live well on very little. I was a corporate traveler, and so was my late husband. We racked up a lot of airline and hotel points, and were able to vacation in places like Hawaii for free. I don't travel as much now, because my present dh is on dialysis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live well on 110 a year. Family of 3, living in the city to keep commute costs down in a neighborhood that many would not have considered when we bought, but is now gaining in popularity. This is what makes our mortgage low enough to manage, but we had no way of knowing this would happen when we bought. We swing private school, and max the one 401k we have access to (I work part time, from home) and college savings are ok. We do all the typical things to keep expenses low, but can still chose the costo organic chicken and whole foods organic broccoli, while using Giant for everything else. One small economical car and three "vacations" a year. 2 are to visit family, so, you know, but one is just us, for fun. When we travel internationally, we only visit family once. There are trade offs, but we feel remarkably fortunate every day and know others struggle to make it on much less.

Do you get significant financial aid at the private school? Otherwise, how do you swing that with three vacations and maxing 401k, and presumably some liquid saving? TIA!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The bottom line is, you prioritize what you really want out of life, and you go frugal on the rest. Then you can live very happily on a middle-class budget. The middle class has to make financial choices, unlike the wealthy.

Family of 4 on 100K.

Organic food.
Tiny house, in an expensive neighborhood with good schools and a 5 minute commute to work.
No impulse purchases and no spending on consumables, like eating out and cinema, etc.
International vacation once a year.
Expensive extra-curriculars for the kids.

Not possible. All these 100k posters claiming to be living 5 min from their jobs, organic food and international vacation need to provide a breakdown if their budget because all this isn't happening on 100k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

I do live very well on very little. Income is a bit less than $100,000. We are retired. We own a 4 bdrm house in an upper middle class neighborhood in another part of the country. I have a good sense of design, so the house is expertly decorated. We have a 3 bdrm apt in Chevy Chase. We commute back and forth between the 2 homes. We have a reverse mortgage on the house, and dh is a 100% disabled vet, so we pay no property taxes. We drive 2 luxury cars. I'm culinary school trained, so I cook and bake almost everything from scratch. I do my own hair manis and pedis. We shop at the commissary and PX, this lowers our purchases about 30%. Several times a month we do Whole Foods takeout. I am presently taking 4 college classes for free through the Va, and we do not pay for health insurance. I buy designer purses such as Chloe, Gucci and Ferragamo on EBay or Fashionphile, greatly discounted. I like expensive face creams such as La Mer and LifeCell. Nice perfumes such as Chanel No 5 and Burbeery Brit. I get these on EBay. I am very frugal.

I purchased my house while single years ago. I left the DC area, because I could not afford the high prices. I settled in a lower cost area where I could afford to buy. Shortly after, I married my first dh. Five years after he passed away, I married my second dh. But even with my first dh, we were able to live well on very little. I was a corporate traveler, and so was my late husband. We racked up a lot of airline and hotel points, and were able to vacation in places like Hawaii for free. I don't travel as much now, because my present dh is on dialysis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought OP meant below 50k, even by dcum standards six figure income is not "very little".

Right? I'm the one with the t-shirt from sixth grade, and I earn $73k. I don't feel miserable or pinched or anything. I grew up cutting out coupons every Sunday, and stocking up on non-perishables when they go on sale, and checking to see if the dress I liked had gone on sale yet, so this is all second nature to me.

I bought a new car once (Hyundai) before realizing how much of a waste it was and I've only bought used since. I feel zero need for a fancy car. Zero. I feel zero need for a Gucci purse or whatever rich people have. That's not what makes me feel good. A huge part of why I "live well" is my perspective. Yesterday I took a long walk along the water and took pictures for an hour. It was tons of fun! To me, THAT is living well. I don't want for spas or manicures or whatever. I want to cook with my daughter, and spend time outside, and spend time with family and friends. To me, that is living well. I save 25% of my take-home pay, at least. So I feel like I have plenty.

This is nice. But I walk along the water and take pics and have fun (I love to take pictures of architecture) and carry a nice purse and drive a nice car and spend time with my family and cook meals and eat out too. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Anonymous wrote:You cant live VERY well on VERY little.
You can live decently on little but lets not exaggerate.

Anonymous wrote:

A lot of people on this forum simply lie about their incomes.

I'd say 99% lie.

Anonymous wrote:
The bottom line is, you prioritize what you really want out of life, and you go frugal on the rest. Then you can live very happily on a middle-class budget. The middle class has to make financial choices, unlike the wealthy.

Family of 4 on 100K.

Organic food.
Tiny house, in an expensive neighborhood with good schools and a 5 minute commute to work.
No impulse purchases and no spending on consumables, like eating out and cinema, etc.
International vacation once a year.
Expensive extra-curriculars for the kids.

Not possible. All these 100k posters claiming to be living 5 min from their jobs, organic food and international vacation need to provide a breakdown if their budget because all this isn't happening on 100k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live well on 110 a year. Family of 3, living in the city to keep commute costs down in a neighborhood that many would not have considered when we bought, but is now gaining in popularity. This is what makes our mortgage low enough to manage, but we had no way of knowing this would happen when we bought. We swing private school, and max the one 401k we have access to (I work part time, from home) and college savings are ok. We do all the typical things to keep expenses low, but can still chose the costo organic chicken and whole foods organic broccoli, while using Giant for everything else. One small economical car and three "vacations" a year. 2 are to visit family, so, you know, but one is just us, for fun. When we travel internationally, we only visit family once. There are trade offs, but we feel remarkably fortunate every day and know others struggle to make it on much less.

Do you get significant financial aid at the private school? Otherwise, how do you swing that with three vacations and maxing 401k, and presumably some liquid saving? TIA!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low fixed expenses = low stress
Discretionary expenses are such an individual preference. I like to allow for, what I call, the luxury of forgiveness. Forgiving myself for not being perfect, for the occasional bad decision or mishap.

Low fixed expenses is the secret to happiness. We have a modest mortgage of $2,500 a month, taxes included. No other debt. That's the key.

Where do you live, if I may ask, and do you have children?

Au park. 2 kids. We bought a $900K house and put down $500.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A lot of people on this forum simply lie about their incomes.

I'd say 99% lie.

+1. Very easy to show up to an anonymous forum and say you are barely getting by on 400k and you don't know how your neighbors making 200k aren't on food stamps. Especially when you know it'll stir up a reaction and make others feel bad.

Or the top 1% of income folks (making 350k+) have nothing better to do than to spend all their time on DCUM; you know -- maybe they've eschewed the country club, yacht, international travel, or anything else fun and instead prefer to have a phone in their face responding to every DCUM post.