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Living on $100k a Year

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Re: Living on $100k a Year

#11

Post by mberning »

xor1 wrote: post #8
mberning wrote: post #6

I really cannot sympathize. My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak. Yes we struggled at times. Public school. Knock off sneakers. Cheap cost cutter food and small simple meals. Crap car. Etc. When I started working in software I made way more money right out of school than my family ever made. And I developed a lot of bad spending habits as a result. After a few years I got my head on straight. Pa…

>My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak If you're in the US, how are your parents faring for retirement? Are you and your siblings helping out?

My dad retired and had a modest 401k. He also gets social security now. My mom works part time in the kitchen for the local school district. They are doing ok! I imagine they will come live with my wife and I when they are ready. I won’t put them in a home.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#12

Post by xt00 »

ben_jones wrote: post #2

I'm kind of disappointed by this article. As someone who makes a little over six figures (before combined comp.) in the Bay Area I expected to relate a lot to the individuals described in this article. Instead is just had 4 testimonials from individuals who weren't happy on a six-figure income, it failed to list any of the root causes either then a small jab at the tax code.

Yea I can agree that 100k is very much not what it used to be 10-15 years ago.. the main difference is that a “cheap house” in many areas that are doing economically well on the West Coast like Seattle, Portland, Bay Area, LA, are much more expensive than they were even before the 2008 crash.. so if you make 100k/year you end up with maybe 6k take home each month and if you mortgage is 3k/month, then spend saying 2k on fixed expenses per month then you realize you have very little leeway especially if you are trying to pay off student loans as well.. I think the combination of cities trying to get people to live closer by reducing investment in roads and focusing on density and local rail and bus systems has made it that it’s way more painful to live far outside the city.. so housing effectively is higher. Then the much increased cost of student loans compared to the past, you have a much greater set of fixed costs compared to people 20 years ago..

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#13

Post by Retra »

ben_jones wrote: post #2

I'm kind of disappointed by this article. As someone who makes a little over six figures (before combined comp.) in the Bay Area I expected to relate a lot to the individuals described in this article. Instead is just had 4 testimonials from individuals who weren't happy on a six-figure income, it failed to list any of the root causes either then a small jab at the tax code.

Yeah, it's a lot of "100K seems good until the debt piles up", and I'm wondering where the debt came from and why they're letting it pile up. And why people making half that wouldn't have the same debt with even less ability to manage it.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#14

Post by pishpash »

xor1 wrote: post #8
mberning wrote: post #6

I really cannot sympathize. My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak. Yes we struggled at times. Public school. Knock off sneakers. Cheap cost cutter food and small simple meals. Crap car. Etc. When I started working in software I made way more money right out of school than my family ever made. And I developed a lot of bad spending habits as a result. After a few years I got my head on straight. Pa…

>My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak If you're in the US, how are your parents faring for retirement? Are you and your siblings helping out?

If he did that then he had government support out the wazoo and free meals in the school as a child and all sorts of benefits.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#15

Post by jorblumesea »

The middle class has been unfairly burdened with paying for the expenses of the entire country. The poor, unable to, the rich, unwilling to.

Tax breaks are at best a very short term proposition, and if the numbers are to be believed, the current tax plan only serves to widen the gap over time.

Unfortunately, many Americans have been convinced to vote against their best interests since in many places, D means Devil. Having a strong stance on hot button issues like abortion is more important than whether you will gut a union or make a fair tax code.

If it's an indication about how bad things are, a probable child molester has an actual shot of being reelected, simply because of the R next to his name. We are not selecting for the best candidates.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#16

Post by [deleted] »

mberning wrote: post #11
xor1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak If you're in the US, how are your parents faring for retirement? Are you and your siblings helping out?

My dad retired and had a modest 401k. He also gets social security now. My mom works part time in the kitchen for the local school district. They are doing ok! I imagine they will come live with my wife and I when they are ready. I won’t put them in a home.

[deleted]

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#17

Post by pjc50 »

Without any kind of breakdown, this is really uninformative.

Is this due to housing cost? Student debt? Medical debt? Bad decisions? Good decisions that were invalidated by events? Who knows?

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#18

Post by mberning »

pishpash wrote: post #14
xor1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak If you're in the US, how are your parents faring for retirement? Are you and your siblings helping out?

If he did that then he had government support out the wazoo and free meals in the school as a child and all sorts of benefits.

Yes we were on food stamps and WIC for several years when my two youngest siblings were born. Never on welfare. We got reduced lunch at school. It was about $0.50 if I remember correctly.

What’s the point though? If anything there are more benefit programs today than were available then. At $100k/yr you really should not be eligible for much benefit when you consider how much better you are doing than average.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#19

Post by newfoundglory »

pishpash wrote: post #14
xor1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak If you're in the US, how are your parents faring for retirement? Are you and your siblings helping out?

If he did that then he had government support out the wazoo and free meals in the school as a child and all sorts of benefits.

Is that meant as a response to the questions about how his parents are doing in retirement? Free meals as a child don't usually help with that.

Re: Living on $100k a Year

#20

Post by CamelCaseName »

Retra wrote: post #13
ben_jones wrote: post #2

I'm kind of disappointed by this article. As someone who makes a little over six figures (before combined comp.) in the Bay Area I expected to relate a lot to the individuals described in this article. Instead is just had 4 testimonials from individuals who weren't happy on a six-figure income, it failed to list any of the root causes either then a small jab at the tax code.

Yeah, it's a lot of "100K seems good until the debt piles up", and I'm wondering where the debt came from and why they're letting it pile up. And why people making half that wouldn't have the same debt with even less ability to manage it.

Student loans to earn that 100K a year.

Housing to live near a job that pays 100K a year.

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