I see this attitude in my social circle and I find it annoying. This amount of money affords a lot of choices and if you choose to have all of them it's a stretch. It's a false sense of living paycheck to paycheck.
Trips to Hawaii, private school, new clothes, expensive cars, and keeping up with the Jones' houses do not mean you have it hard. A lot of people seem to struggle with the idea of a budget.
I'm not necessarily arguing with you, but I can easily envision a scenario with two working parents, a HHI of roughly $100k, where they pay $600+ a month for insurance premiums through an employer (as we do) and the bulk of their take-home pay goes to a mortgage and full-time daycare for two kids. That leaves little for additional bills, like a car payment, insurance, student loans, groceries, cable/internet (you could argue that cable isn't necessary, but I think internet is), etc. Maybe that's not the case in LCOL or VLCOL areas, but it's pretty easy to use up $100k if you live anywhere else, and I'm not talking about vacations and new clothes.
the Hawaii and expensive cars/giant houses thing seems a bit much. Who is making 100k and taking regular Hawaii trips, putting their kids through private school, paying a giant mortgage and a fancy car payment? These aren't really 100k/year things I don't think unless it's a super LCOL area maybe?
of course you have to make choices, at almost all income levels.
I think even putting your kids through private school seems like a luxury that would surely not be possible for a family on 100k HHI but then again, my HCOL area is probably skewing things for me. It's 30k/year for the private schools near me so even a family with only one child really could not send them to private school since your take home pay would be more like 60k so you are then living on 30k/year after paying tuition? I doubt 100k income would be low enough for private school financial aid
I agree with the point of the article that one would think 100K would leave someone set or a family set. I know inflation and all that, but as kids we grew up on my dad making 40K a year and my mom a SAHM, and did OK.
So when I am making more than 40K, and have my H's salary in there too, I think OK we should be good. And we are good. But we also have high medical bills from a child with special needs and high cost of daycare in a HCOL area, taxes, retirement, insurance, student loans. And anyway that money does go by super fast in just bills without spending freely or going to Hawaii. But I know we are lucky that we can pay most of our bills.
bex I agree that you still need to choose. What I don't agree with is that it's something to complain about in a larger picture. I find grating to here my friends complain about how tight things are for them while not understanding the privellege they have to make these choices. I don't think having to make choices means your life is hard.
Maybe I have a different view of the American dream because I am a first generation American who grew up in a very low income household. I don't really relate to middle class white America.
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I do know people who make probably similar to what we do and really feel slighted by what the world hasn't given them. Feeling that you deserve XYZ because you "work hard" when you just work a job like anybody else, just seems silly to me. Not realizing that having your own home and basic necessities and luxuries like buying a coffee or a shirt you just liked the look of, is privileged in itself and still pretty common I think to not even realize that this is a life of luxury not a basic life of scarcity you are picturing it as in your head.
I actually find the sentiment of "I work hard so I deserve stuff" mentality to be pretty annoying especially since the people who say that to me usually work a desk job. I work a desk job and it's really pretty luxurious to sit at a desk and make enough money to pay your bills? I think about my dad who did manual labor his whole life to feed us, and now his body is all screwed up and I just feel thankful I was able to go to college and now I just get to sit all day for more money than he ever made. Very lucky really.
I hate the phrase, "I work hard so..." It implies people working minimum wage or low-pay jobs DON'T work hard so they don't deserve shit.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
the Hawaii and expensive cars/giant houses thing seems a bit much. Who is making 100k and taking regular Hawaii trips, putting their kids through private school, paying a giant mortgage and a fancy car payment? These aren't really 100k/year things I don't think unless it's a super LCOL area maybe?
of course you have to make choices, at almost all income levels.
I think even putting your kids through private school seems like a luxury that would surely not be possible for a family on 100k HHI but then again, my HCOL area is probably skewing things for me. It's 30k/year for the private schools near me so even a family with only one child really could not send them to private school since your take home pay would be more like 60k so you are then living on 30k/year after paying tuition? I doubt 100k income would be low enough for private school financial aid
Yeah I didn't know annual trips to Hawaii and private school were part of the American dream now. lol
I know it's sort of a tenuous idea to begin with but I thought it was the ability to live in a single family house.
I do know people who make probably similar to what we do and really feel slighted by what the world hasn't given them. Feeling that you deserve XYZ because you "work hard" when you just work a job like anybody else, just seems silly to me. Not realizing that having your own home and basic necessities and luxuries like buying a coffee or a shirt you just liked the look of, is privileged in itself and still pretty common I think to not even realize that this is a life of luxury not a basic life of scarcity you are picturing it as in your head.
I actually find the sentiment of "I work hard so I deserve stuff" mentality to be pretty annoying especially since the people who say that to me usually work a desk job. I work a desk job and it's really pretty luxurious to sit at a desk and make enough money to pay your bills? I think about my dad who did manual labor his whole life to feed us, and now his body is all screwed up and I just feel thankful I was able to go to college and now I just get to sit all day for more money than he ever made. Very lucky really.
I hate the phrase, "I work hard so..." It implies people working minimum wage or low-pay jobs DON'T work hard so they don't deserve shit.
They work harder than anybody!
I had a period in my youth where for $5 or so an hour I scrubbed the toilets at mac donalds and dealt with assholes screaming at me about the cost of ketchup packets, I always smelled like fry oil. Every minute of my work day was filled with actual work. I didn't sit down at all. I'll never forget it, I feel so lucky to have this job now.
I do know people who make probably similar to what we do and really feel slighted by what the world hasn't given them. Feeling that you deserve XYZ because you "work hard" when you just work a job like anybody else, just seems silly to me. Not realizing that having your own home and basic necessities and luxuries like buying a coffee or a shirt you just liked the look of, is privileged in itself and still pretty common I think to not even realize that this is a life of luxury not a basic life of scarcity you are picturing it as in your head.
I actually find the sentiment of "I work hard so I deserve stuff" mentality to be pretty annoying especially since the people who say that to me usually work a desk job. I work a desk job and it's really pretty luxurious to sit at a desk and make enough money to pay your bills? I think about my dad who did manual labor his whole life to feed us, and now his body is all screwed up and I just feel thankful I was able to go to college and now I just get to sit all day for more money than he ever made. Very lucky really.
I hate the phrase, "I work hard so..." It implies people working minimum wage or low-pay jobs DON'T work hard so they don't deserve shit.
Growing up I was thought do well in school, go to a good college and you'll be okay in life. It was a shocking realization around 32 just how much "luck" plays into your life track. The luck of having a caring teacher, the luck of having stable parents, the luck of landing your first job, internship, the luck of getting into a competitive college, etc.. the luck of finding the right spouse.
I see this attitude in my social circle and I find it annoying. This amount of money affords a lot of choices and if you choose to have all of them it's a stretch. It's a false sense of living paycheck to paycheck.
Trips to Hawaii, private school, new clothes, expensive cars, and keeping up with the Jones' houses do not mean you have it hard. A lot of people seem to struggle with the idea of a budget.
I'm not necessarily arguing with you, but I can easily envision a scenario with two working parents, a HHI of roughly $100k, where they pay $600+ a month for insurance premiums through an employer (as we do) and the bulk of their take-home pay goes to a mortgage and full-time daycare for two kids. That leaves little for additional bills, like a car payment, insurance, student loans, groceries, cable/internet (you could argue that cable isn't necessary, but I think internet is), etc. Maybe that's not the case in LCOL or VLCOL areas, but it's pretty easy to use up $100k if you live anywhere else, and I'm not talking about vacations and new clothes.
I'm not arguing either $100k can get easily eaten up, and that was my point about a paycheck to paycheck. As a kid, I only got new clothes 2 a year. I'm able to buy my kids new clothes from Target/Gymboree/etc easily. It doesn't mean I don't have to budget or I can buy J&J, but my kids have new clothes if they need them and that's something I value.
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One thing I think personally that makes a huge difference (well, two things, I guess) is that our health insurance costs are beyond reasonable ($350ish for a family per pay period, with the pay period being a month) for premium health coverage and that we have both 401k match and a pension (that MH is required to contribute to, but it's still a good set up for us since I don't know anyone with real pensions anymore).
It's part of why we stay even though we both feel like we'd be happy if we left. His salary is good/competitive, but it's the benefits that are hard to walk away from.
Anyway, I'm not saying we don't have financial stresses or limits on our budget (right now, we really need to seriously be considering getting new cars and we would like to move, but we're in a holding pattern on that for a few reasons - plus moving isn't critical, it's more of a want, same with the cars - they work, but it's definitely a looming costs). Those things still require juggling, but for the most part, our other needs/wants don't. But I don't think it's due to a comfortable six figure salary/income entirely. I think the benefits help relieve quite a lot of stress that other families at a similar income level may still have if they don't have similar benefits.
I think the other thing is how financial choices feel. So for us, nothing is every *THAT* critical because we have savings/credit/equity/assets/etc., but when we spend more than our budget or something feels out of reach we do get stressed. But it's not the same as literally NOT having the money for things. So if our credit card bill is higher than we like one month and we still pay it off each month, that feels stressful. Or if our dog needs $2k in surgery and we're like, fuuuuuuck - it feels stressful - but it's not the same as literally not being able to afford it.
We also budget and stuff, which it seems like there are some other things at play with the people in the article, but on the flip side, it's also easier to budget when you don't have constant crises/expenses coming up related to health care, for example. I know our life would look a lot different if we had had different health insurance over the past 2.5 years. I've had about $60k in medical expenses, most of which was covered by our insurance. We've spent about $5-6k I think between co-pays and stuff that wasn't covered. I'd guess too that most people mentioned haven't been making $100k for a decade either, which means years of lesser income are still impacting their current situation.
the Hawaii and expensive cars/giant houses thing seems a bit much. Who is making 100k and taking regular Hawaii trips, putting their kids through private school, paying a giant mortgage and a fancy car payment? These aren't really 100k/year things I don't think unless it's a super LCOL area maybe?
of course you have to make choices, at almost all income levels.
I think even putting your kids through private school seems like a luxury that would surely not be possible for a family on 100k HHI but then again, my HCOL area is probably skewing things for me. It's 30k/year for the private schools near me so even a family with only one child really could not send them to private school since your take home pay would be more like 60k so you are then living on 30k/year after paying tuition? I doubt 100k income would be low enough for private school financial aid
I live MCOL. West coast, so Hawaii is a big vacation destination and one that is very common in my friend group. Private school ranges from $6k to $30k a year. I would guess on average my friends pay around 700/month in car payments and their houses are worth about 30% more than ours. We all have about the same HHI, but we feel differently about it.
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I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
Well said.
I was just venting to H this morning that it feels like we will never be able to buy a house. We finally have a healthy savings account. But with daycare now starting, the amount we can save each month is going to plummet. It's not the payment that's the issue but the down payment. I just added up that our rent, student loans, and daycare costs total $54,688 per year, so yes, saving for a down payment is difficult. And I'm not really sure how we would afford daycare for a second - to be really honest, we would probably have to temporarily stop our retirement contributions.
Nevertheless, we are exactly as you describe. We absolutely have to budget. We can't spend whatever we want whenever we want. I meal plan like a mofo. H suggests we buy something, and I (as the one who maintains the budget) often say, "Do we really need it?" or "Can we wait two months because we have XYZ items to buy this month?" We have taken some fun vacations, but we don't take big vacations every year. I've flown business class like twice in my life. But we don't have to worry about how to pay our rent or buy our groceries or pay for medicine or get new tires on our car. And we have a significant support network - we have family and friends that we can lean on for support. Heck, this very board helped us out when H was in the hospital. So I am frustrated that my parents were able to buy a house earlier in their lives than we are, but it's hard to really look at our lifestyle and feel sorry for myself.
Maybe I'm weak, but $30,000 in debt is a real stresser to my family. Our debt WAS the result of poor financial decisions early in our relationship and we take full responsibility for it. But that doesn't mean is isn't a burden.
Our HHI is just over $100K. We make ends meet, but we haven't been able to save in a long time and having savings would have been really helpful back in February when I had emergency appendectomy surgery. I have great insurance coverage, but it's not going to cover 100% and my OOP cost was close to $10K. Unless you're Warren Buffet, $10,000 is a fucking lot of money, especially when you add it to your existing debt burden. Silver lining, I guess, is that my deductible is met and now all my medical expenses would be covered at 100%. Too bad I've run out of superfluous organs.
My point is that the people in this article don't need or necessarily deserve your sympathy, but what they're experiencing is a reality for many people. Sure, their situation could be worse. Sure, they could be dealing with $100K in debt, or more. But they're all in a precarious spot. An income amount that was once thought to be the level at which you could live the good life, is not so secure, especially when much of it is tied up in owing creditors and lenders.
By the way, what's the magic income number that would illicit some sympathy from this board? I don't think there is one, because as much as we like to mock the boot straps mentality, we're still pretty firmly entrenched in it.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
I have to agree with this. My family really struggled when I was a kid, and I now have a household income of right around $100k, in a fairly high COL area in the Philly suburbs. Compared to my childhood, I feel rich. We can buy clothes and shoes (on sale, at places like Penny's and Target and Kohls) when we need them. We regularly get take out for dinner, just because I don't feel like cooking. My kids are not in expensive activities, but the fact that they can each choose an activity each season feels like a luxury. We go on vacations, even if it means maximizing the use of credit card points or piggy backing off friends vacations. We have two cars.
None of these things were true for me growing up. Yes, we have to make choices and save up for larger expenses, and yes, we are surrounded by people who can afford much more than we can. But overall, I feel fortunate on the income we have.
We make $100K combined and live in an area that is becoming HCOL. We are both teachers. We have a total of $70K in student loan debt. We don't make *poor* choices, but we definitely buy and spend in ways that we "shouldn't." We do struggle, but we struggle because of choices that make us happy, so we are okay with it for the most part.
The part that sucks though is we are never going to change this without some kind of giant risky career change.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
Well said.
I was just venting to H this morning that it feels like we will never be able to buy a house. We finally have a healthy savings account. But with daycare now starting, the amount we can save each month is going to plummet. It's not the payment that's the issue but the down payment. I just added up that our rent, student loans, and daycare costs total $54,688 per year, so yes, saving for a down payment is difficult. And I'm not really sure how we would afford daycare for a second - to be really honest, we would probably have to temporarily stop our retirement contributions.
Nevertheless, we are exactly as you describe. We absolutely have to budget. We can't spend whatever we want whenever we want. I meal plan like a mofo. H suggests we buy something, and I (as the one who maintains the budget) often say, "Do we really need it?" or "Can we wait two months because we have XYZ items to buy this month?" We have taken some fun vacations, but we don't take big vacations every year. I've flown business class like twice in my life. But we don't have to worry about how to pay our rent or buy our groceries or pay for medicine or get new tires on our car. And we have a significant support network - we have family and friends that we can lean on for support. Heck, this very board helped us out when H was in the hospital. So I am frustrated that my parents were able to buy a house earlier in their lives than we are, but it's hard to really look at our lifestyle and feel sorry for myself.
Which is sorta the other wrinkle here, right? Like, the middle class IS shrinking. Wages have stagnated. Student loan increases and retirement expenses and medical expenses HAVE ballooned. So there is some complaint to be made even by those who are comfortable, because once upon a time retirement expenses weren't a thing we had to worry about because you'd have a pension, and the house downpayment was like, half a year's salary not 2 years salary put together.
I do wonder if the perception of the American dream by and large actually has shifted to be something extravagant too though (like media influence, consumer culture, etc etc), which makes the reality of wage stagnation/cost increases sting even more
At least once a day, I say or think, "Fuck Boomers." They have zero grasp on the financial reality most people deal with. My dad recently shared a story about how he worked part-time at Stroh's in the seventies and made SEVEN DOLLARS AT HOUR. In the seventies! When my parents sold their first house they made a 50% profit and were ablke to put a huge downpayment on the house they live in now. My dad has "worked hard" but with an equivalent education level, I am the only one of his kids that owns a house and makes more than he did in the eighties and nineties (and that's without adjusting for inflation). The lack of perception or willingness to consider alternative narratives is astounding.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
I've never thought about the American dream being able to afford anything you want, but I do find your examples of "making it" interesting. A kid needing new shoes or an unexpected car repair are not unusual expenses. Upthread someone said she had a luxurious life and cited having a house, 2 cars, health insurance and clothing for her children. So I guess the American dream is having enough money to afford the basic necessities of life? I think this article is an illustration of the fact that our society simply doesn't value the stability and well being of our citizens, not the poor, not the middle class and not the high earners because we're okay with almost everyone in our country being a few easy steps away from financial disaster.
I was just venting to H this morning that it feels like we will never be able to buy a house. We finally have a healthy savings account. But with daycare now starting, the amount we can save each month is going to plummet. It's not the payment that's the issue but the down payment. I just added up that our rent, student loans, and daycare costs total $54,688 per year, so yes, saving for a down payment is difficult. And I'm not really sure how we would afford daycare for a second - to be really honest, we would probably have to temporarily stop our retirement contributions.
Nevertheless, we are exactly as you describe. We absolutely have to budget. We can't spend whatever we want whenever we want. I meal plan like a mofo. H suggests we buy something, and I (as the one who maintains the budget) often say, "Do we really need it?" or "Can we wait two months because we have XYZ items to buy this month?" We have taken some fun vacations, but we don't take big vacations every year. I've flown business class like twice in my life. But we don't have to worry about how to pay our rent or buy our groceries or pay for medicine or get new tires on our car. And we have a significant support network - we have family and friends that we can lean on for support. Heck, this very board helped us out when H was in the hospital. So I am frustrated that my parents were able to buy a house earlier in their lives than we are, but it's hard to really look at our lifestyle and feel sorry for myself.
Which is sorta the other wrinkle here, right? Like, the middle class IS shrinking. Wages have stagnated. Student loan increases and retirement expenses and medical expenses HAVE ballooned. So there is some complaint to be made even by those who are comfortable, because once upon a time retirement expenses weren't a thing we had to worry about because you'd have a pension, and the house downpayment was like, half a year's salary not 2 years salary put together.
I do wonder if the perception of the American dream by and large actually has shifted to be something extravagant too though (like media influence, consumer culture, etc etc), which makes the reality of wage stagnation/cost increases sting even more
Ditto on wages vs costs.
I think this NPR piece illustrates to the Boomers more than anyone that salaries don't go as far and have been stagnated (along with increased percentage of benefits and no pensions/smaller company retirement contributions). It's the combination of increased costs of schooling, increased cost of benefits contributions, increased cost of housing, etc. that along with the stagnated salaries makes 100k not a threshold anymore.
I was joking with my parents that right now at the height of our careers, DH and I make about the same as my parents make per month in retirement. It's true - they were both school teachers in the same district for 30+ years, so they worked hard, but with their pensions, social security payments, and investment income, they are making over $100k/year easily. Granted their medical costs are going up for insurance right now, but it's reasonable right now.
Maybe I'm weak, but $30,000 in debt is a real stresser to my family. Our debt WAS the result of poor financial decisions early in our relationship and we take full responsibility for it. But that doesn't mean is isn't a burden.
Our HHI is just over $100K. We make ends meet, but we haven't been able to save in a long time and having savings would have been really helpful back in February when I had emergency appendectomy surgery. I have great insurance coverage, but it's not going to cover 100% and my OOP cost was close to $10K. Unless you're Warren Buffet, $10,000 is a fucking lot of money, especially when you add it to your existing debt burden. Silver lining, I guess, is that my deductible is met and now all my medical expenses would be covered at 100%. Too bad I've run out of superfluous organs.
My point is that the people in this article don't need or necessarily deserve your sympathy, but what they're experiencing is a reality for many people. Sure, their situation could be worse. Sure, they could be dealing with $100K in debt, or more. But they're all in a precarious spot. An income amount that was once thought to be the level at which you could live the good life, is not so secure, especially when much of it is tied up in owing creditors and lenders.
By the way, what's the magic income number that would illicit some sympathy from this board? I don't think there is one, because as much as we like to mock the boot straps mentality, we're still pretty firmly entrenched in it.
I’m sorry about your surgery and the financial burden.
This post is spot-on. Yes, we have a lot more in SL debt too but that doesn’t make $30k a drop in the bucket. And until someone with $100k says they have it worse than someone at the median income level, then I’m going to feel some sympathy for them, because there are plenty of people at that income level who aren’t paying for lavish vacations and shit. They’re trying to make ends meet too because of high healthcare costs, SL debt, childcare/elder care, rising utility payments, etc. You can be grateful for what you have and still feel frustrated. This thread has been annoying me.
I think the point of the article is literally just to show what 100k means to different people in different locations. The article starts out talking about the tax bill etc so I think the article wasn't trying to elicit sympathy for these people, per se, but it was more trying to show "100k isn't rolling in it for many people for a variety of factors" so when we talk about tax increases for those making 100k, 200k, 500k - what are those income levels really like? It doesn't mean someone making 500k is "struggling" but I think it can be helpful to have an understanding of what different income levels mean realistically. Its not unlike the HCOL budget posts or high income budget posts that used to be regularly posted on MM.
I think the other thing is how financial choices feel. So for us, nothing is every *THAT* critical because we have savings/credit/equity/assets/etc., but when we spend more than our budget or something feels out of reach we do get stressed. But it's not the same as literally NOT having the money for things. So if our credit card bill is higher than we like one month and we still pay it off each month, that feels stressful. Or if our dog needs $2k in surgery and we're like, fuuuuuuck - it feels stressful - but it's not the same as literally not being able to afford it.
Agreed. Like, my husband's 7 month old car (which we have a payment on - so I'm hoping my car holds on a few more years - and which replaced an 18 year old station wagon) was hit and totaled on Thanksgiving. We would have been stranded 100+ miles from home if we didn't have the ability to use money to solve the problem. Yeah, it sucks to deal with insurance. It sucks to have to pay $135/day for a rental car on a holiday weekend. But we seriously looked at each other that day and said, "well, we're lucky we CAN do this." We constantly say that we're lucky to be able to make those choices. To pay vet bills, to make unexpected car or house repairs, to pay an insurance deductible - even when money feels tight. It's never THAT tight. It's tight in the sense that I wish we were saving more for retirement, or I wish I didn't have to dip into one of several savings accounts when something comes up, or I wish I could save more in said multiple savings accounts in the first place, or that I have to actually budget dinners out every month.
Oh, and since my in-laws are ALSO upper middle class, they had an "extra" 2017 civic they let us borrow until Christmas so we don't even need to pay to rent a car. That's another way wealth and class help from generation to generation and how those who make $100k now might not have the same financial cushion as others, depending on how they grew up.
As 1/2 of a couple making just over $100k now, I can tell you exactly why we have so little money. Because when we were making under $100k, we ended up drowning in debt because of surprise twins that cost over $30k/year for just childcare and couldn’t make ends meet. Now we are over $100k and are digging out of that hole. There’s not much you can do when you plan for one and end up with two. One parent staying at home wasn’t a good option either because of our other bills. We had two lousy choices and took the one where we both worked.
We made bad choices, but we aren’t exactly taking vacations and living the high life. We ended up with another $15k in debt because everything in our house broke at once!
In summary: $100k isn’t going far enough for us right now because shit happened.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
I've never thought about the American dream being able to afford anything you want, but I do find your examples of "making it" interesting. A kid needing new shoes or an unexpected car repair are not unusual expenses. Upthread someone said she had a luxurious life and cited having a house, 2 cars, health insurance and clothing for her children. So I guess the American dream is having enough money to afford the basic necessities of life? I think this article is an illustration of the fact that our society simply doesn't value the stability and well being of our citizens, not the poor, not the middle class and not the high earners because we're okay with almost everyone in our country being a few easy steps away from financial disaster.
I guess I just...I mean, we ARE pretty much all *thisclose* to financial disaster. All but the really really rich are one non-covered medical catastrophe away from total financial ruin, right.
So we're (almost) all in that part of it together. I didn't find any of the stories in the OP to be surprising or like, worthy of ridicule. Of course that's what life is like. I also didn't find any of them to be like...heartbreaking? because yeah, it sucks to want to renovate your kitchen and not be able to afford it, but you're still ok. You're not making decisions about which bills to pay on a normal month, you're making decisions about which discretionary expenses to avoid. That's still not fun, but it's not terrible.
I just don't know what to make of this article or this discussion. These people seem like they're doing what they need to do to get by, of course it doesn't feel like enough to cover everything without difficult decisions and a shitton of luck because we suck as a country so retirement and healthcare and childcare and higher education are enormous expenses. So...like, are these people people I'm supposed to feel bad for? I don't feel bad for them. They seem ok in life. I also don't think they're doing anything wrong. That's just...how it is. Like, "yup, that's what it's like to make that much money. You can afford the stuff you need to afford, but you have to budget closely for everything else. Unless shit goes tits up, and then...well, that sucks family in gburg with the big medical expenses. also gburg is expensive as fuck."
Maybe that's the point of this article? that our social safety nets are SO FUCKING WEAK that even people making 100k a year are still stressed more than they ought to be because they know that if shit hits the fan they're totally screwed and they can't save much because health insurance and so forth is eating more than it should? I dunno. I have strong feelings about that fact, I just don't have strong feelings about any of the people in this article. They all seem like totally normal people who are getting by ok. Maybe I missed something.
Post by blueberry10 on Dec 5, 2017 12:02:02 GMT -5
Our HHI is a little over the 100k mark, in an area that's somewhere between M-HCOL. We are able to meet our expenses, pay for two in daycare/school, save some for retirement (though probably not enough), and not worry too much about unexpected expenses, and for that I feel fortunate.
But I also feel like there's a background anxiety not mentioned in the article that exists now that maybe wasn't as much of a factor in the past, that contributes to the feeling of a having a shaky foundation. A job loss or a major medical problem could send everything crashing down pretty quickly for a lot of people in this income range. As you see Congress trying to chip away at safety nets and health insurance access, and see employers treating employees as expendable, it's hard to not feel like you might be vulnerable if you fell into trouble and that the so-called "American dream" could end pretty quickly.
I'll quit rambling now but it's something that's been on my mind recently, as I've been trying to figure out why I sometimes feel anxious about our financial situation when in reality we are very lucky to not have serious concerns at the moment.
ETA: Basically everything wawa said while I was typing out this post.
I never understood "the american dream" to be being able to do anything you please without having to budget and make financial choices. I'm confused by that characterization of it. Since when is that the case? Is that really what people mean??
I do think most people who are truly at median HHI look at 100k as where you'd "have it made" to an extent in that you have some breathing room. If your kid outgrows his shoes faster than you anticipated you can just go BUY MORE. A car repair doesn't mean going into the red that month. etc. And for all but those with something like a crippling amount of medical debt or student loans, that probably IS the case. And these stories seem to bear that out? I don't totally understand the point of this NPR piece.
I've never thought about the American dream being able to afford anything you want, but I do find your examples of "making it" interesting. A kid needing new shoes or an unexpected car repair are not unusual expenses. Upthread someone said she had a luxurious life and cited having a house, 2 cars, health insurance and clothing for her children. So I guess the American dream is having enough money to afford the basic necessities of life? I think this article is an illustration of the fact that our society simply doesn't value the stability and well being of our citizens, not the poor, not the middle class and not the high earners because we're okay with almost everyone in our country being a few easy steps away from financial disaster.
ITA with your last sentiment. You can’t beat the irony of this article coming out with Congress currently in the process of creating a massive tax cut for the super rich, cuz the poor dears certainly need it. This country. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves but I’m pretty sure they don’t even know what that word means. SMDH.
Maybe that's the point of this article? that our social safety nets are SO FUCKING WEAK that even people making 100k a year are still stressed more than they ought to be because they know that if shit hits the fan they're totally screwed and they can't save much because health insurance and so forth is eating more than it should? I dunno. I have strong feelings about that fact, I just don't have strong feelings about any of the people in this article. They all seem like totally normal people who are getting by ok. Maybe I missed something.
This is exactly what I took from it. I don't feel bad for these specific people. I don't know that we are supposed to feel bad for them based on the way the article is written.