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My estimate is you can do it on $85k with these caveats: you will not save a dime for retirement, no rainy day fund, you will be always worrying about the next big expense (leaky roof, car repair, etc...), forget about piano lessons or any travel team sports. You get the idea I am sure. If this is the way you want to live all the power to you.
I make more than $85k and keep a very detailed cash flow analysis spreadsheet that accounts for ALL my bills and $85k doesnot cut it.
It depends on your mortgage/taxes. Big savings plus smaller monthly payments on 85k is doable.
My estimate is you can do it on $85k with these caveats: you will not save a dime for retirement, no rainy day fund, you will be always worrying about the next big expense (leaky roof, car repair, etc...), forget about piano lessons or any travel team sports. You get the idea I am sure. If this is the way you want to live all the power to you.
I make more than $85k and keep a very detailed cash flow analysis spreadsheet that accounts for ALL my bills and $85k doesnot cut it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galicia#1
It depends on your mortgage/taxes. Big savings plus smaller monthly payments on 85k is doable.
Thank you, both of you, for finally giving an intelligent response.
kmrlongisland: Obviously, my colleagues (who would have a smilar salary to me) who have kids are able to make it on Long Island. They aren't living like royalty, but they aren't exactly suffering either. They don't live in bad areas. I have no way of knowing how much money they are saving, but they obvoiusly found a way to live less expensively than you are, without suffering.
Like kmr said, a lot depends on your mortgage ... so, a lot also depends on when you bought your house. Someone who purchased mid-90s is not in the same boat as someone buying now. For starters once you are in a house more than 10 years, the amortization on mortgage changes and you start paying down a ton more principal. The first 5 years you pay mostly interest, then after that it picks up steam. We paid off a ton of our mortgage the last few years we lived on Long Island. Also, we had an ARM, and when it adjusted every year, it adjusted on the amount we currently owed, not the original loan amount, which kept our payments steady despite a HUGE increase in taxes.
I guess if you want to live on Long Island you will have no choice but to make it. That's really what it comes down to. Where there's a will, there's a way. For me, there wasn't a will.
Only you really know if you can make it. Everyone's situation is different. My husband and I both have graduate degrees and 50+ hour a week jobs. Our combined income is around $160K. But there are times when earning more means spending more. For example, when you have a household where both adults don't get home from work until after 8pm, you order takeout more than a household where one person is home at 5:30, or doesn't work at all. We pay for a cleaning service because we just don't have time to deal with it along with all the other household chores that we have. We probably spend more on certain items because we don't have much time for price comparisons. We try to make up for it by being frugal in other ways -- when we travel we cash in our credit card points for hotel gift cards so that we pay very little out of pocket. We rarely eat out without a coupon or Groupon, and because we eat healthy (or at least we did before I got pregnant) eating out costs less (no apps or desserts). I clip coupons. We bought a modest house in Merrick for less than $400K with 20% down, when lots of my friends were looking at FHA loans on $500K plus houses with lots of upgrades.
I have friends who make a lot less than we do who are getting by fine because they have more time to focus on saving money and being frugal. I have friends who make more than we do but are living paycheck to paycheck because they bought more house/leased more car than they could manage and/or have debt. Given my current situation, I can't imagine my husband and I living much more frugally than we do unless one of us was able to magically cut back on our hours at work without giving up salary. We also don't want to live lives where we work 50+ hours a week and can never go anywhere nice on vacation or eat anywhere nice or buy nice things. Call me materialistic, but someday I will be 90, and when I look back on my life, I want to see more than just bank statements.
I'm glad that I found this old thread. Everyone here tells me I won't be able to financially survive on Long Island once I have kids and need a bigger space to live in. This thread proves that you are wrong. I make a little more than 85K, my wife is still unemployed, we do not plan to have more than 2 kids, and I do have a lot of money saved. Like the OP's brother, my wife and I are financially responsible and somewhat frugal, but not near the top of the frugal meter. But, as I have said in other posts, we are not at all materialistic, which is why I still suspect everyone here says we won't be able to make it, even though I think we will.
Thank you, both of you, for finally giving an intelligent response.
kmrlongisland: Obviously, my colleagues (who would have a smilar salary to me) who have kids are able to make it on Long Island. They aren't living like royalty, but they aren't exactly suffering either. They don't live in bad areas. I have no way of knowing how much money they are saving, but they obvoiusly found a way to live less expensively than you are, without suffering.
Let's go to the numbers. All expenditures are annual and are reasonable for Nassau.
Mortgage - 20000
Property Taxes - 10000
Life Insurance - 1500
Electric - 1500
Water - 500
Gas or Oil - 2000
House, Car, Umbrella Insurance - 5000
I am at 40k before taxes, food, gas, phones, cable, birthdays, Christmas, etc... Wait until your kid needs braces.
As I said 85k can be done but you are cutting it so close the benefits of LI don't offset the aggravation of living paycheck to paycheck.
Thank you, both of you, for finally giving an intelligent response.
kmrlongisland: Obviously, my colleagues (who would have a smilar salary to me) who have kids are able to make it on Long Island. They aren't living like royalty, but they aren't exactly suffering either. They don't live in bad areas. I have no way of knowing how much money they are saving, but they obvoiusly found a way to live less expensively than you are, without suffering.
Be careful with the "If they can do it, so can I" attitude. There are so many variables - how much "help" your colleagues get from family (childcare, contributions towards down payments, etc) and you don't always know how they're living behind closed doors.
I don't like to make blanket statements, because they always **** people off, but I am of the belief that a lot of people on LI live beyond their means - and not always knowingly.
Part of me thinks that right now, we may be a tad over-extended, even with only 28% of our income dedicated to the PITI payments. However, this could be because we just bought a house and feel like we've been bleeding money since we moved in. We bought an outdated expanded cape and we were talking last night about how long it'll take us to save up to renovate the kitchen and let's just say, it seems pretty far off.
We don't have any kids and truthfully - I don't know if I want any. I don't know if my feelings on having kids changed due to finances or cost of living here or what. I feel like the property taxes and transportation expenses are really what do it for me. Imagine if you had that extra $10,000/yr or even half of it - it would be very different to live on LI. Not only that, but my biggest complaint about LI is that the cost of a monthly LIRR train ticket is about the same as a car payment. And LI is not really a pedestrian-friendly place, so when you're not commuting to work, you really need a car. Combined, the LIRR ticket and car expenses alone add up to quite a bit. Throw in property taxes and we're talking a big chunk of income getting eaten up just for living in the area that we live in.
For an area where both public transit and a vehicle are necessities, I don't really understand how we can justify taxes being so high. I know the schools are pretty good, but they're not THAT good - at least in my opinion.
I haven't looked at every post here, but I will say that it is difficult to live on $85K because Long Islanders are routinely fleeced by so many entities. In the last couple days, I have read about the interim Syosset School Superintendent, who -- in addition to his fat retirement pension from another school district -- stands to make $20,000 a month in base pay alone beginning next January. Then, there's the story about the state's second highest-paid employee: a Nassau cop who cleared over $300K last year. Oh, and the same story notes that the average pay for Amityville PD employees is almost $176K. It's insane.
It's not materialism that drives the desire for more money on Long Island. It's our need to pay off every corrupt institution and their overcompensated employees. Every year, for example, the school districts have to put so much money toward rich pay and benefits for administrators and teachers that there's a shrinking amount left for the kids. On the municipal level, our corrupt political parties -- with all their relatives and friends on the payroll -- are sucking us dry. It all has to give at some point.
Like kmr said, a lot depends on your mortgage ... so, a lot also depends on when you bought your house. Someone who purchased mid-90s is not in the same boat as someone buying now. For starters once you are in a house more than 10 years, the amortization on mortgage changes and you start paying down a ton more principal. The first 5 years you pay mostly interest, then after that it picks up steam. We paid off a ton of our mortgage the last few years we lived on Long Island. Also, we had an ARM, and when it adjusted every year, it adjusted on the amount we currently owed, not the original loan amount, which kept our payments steady despite a HUGE increase in taxes.
I guess if you want to live on Long Island you will have no choice but to make it. That's really what it comes down to. Where there's a will, there's a way. For me, there wasn't a will.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sneakyvegan
Only you really know if you can make it. Everyone's situation is different. My husband and I both have graduate degrees and 50+ hour a week jobs. Our combined income is around $160K. But there are times when earning more means spending more. For example, when you have a household where both adults don't get home from work until after 8pm, you order takeout more than a household where one person is home at 5:30, or doesn't work at all. We pay for a cleaning service because we just don't have time to deal with it along with all the other household chores that we have. We probably spend more on certain items because we don't have much time for price comparisons. We try to make up for it by being frugal in other ways -- when we travel we cash in our credit card points for hotel gift cards so that we pay very little out of pocket. We rarely eat out without a coupon or Groupon, and because we eat healthy (or at least we did before I got pregnant) eating out costs less (no apps or desserts). I clip coupons. We bought a modest house in Merrick for less than $400K with 20% down, when lots of my friends were looking at FHA loans on $500K plus houses with lots of upgrades.
I have friends who make a lot less than we do who are getting by fine because they have more time to focus on saving money and being frugal. I have friends who make more than we do but are living paycheck to paycheck because they bought more house/leased more car than they could manage and/or have debt. Given my current situation, I can't imagine my husband and I living much more frugally than we do unless one of us was able to magically cut back on our hours at work without giving up salary. We also don't want to live lives where we work 50+ hours a week and can never go anywhere nice on vacation or eat anywhere nice or buy nice things. Call me materialistic, but someday I will be 90, and when I look back on my life, I want to see more than just bank statements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmrlongisland
Let's go to the numbers. All expenditures are annual and are reasonable for Nassau.
Mortgage - 20000
Property Taxes - 10000
Life Insurance - 1500
Electric - 1500
Water - 500
Gas or Oil - 2000
House, Car, Umbrella Insurance - 5000
I am at 40k before taxes, food, gas, phones, cable, birthdays, Christmas, etc... Wait until your kid needs braces.
As I said 85k can be done but you are cutting it so close the benefits of LI don't offset the aggravation of living paycheck to paycheck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csteen85
Be careful with the "If they can do it, so can I" attitude. There are so many variables - how much "help" your colleagues get from family (childcare, contributions towards down payments, etc) and you don't always know how they're living behind closed doors.
I don't like to make blanket statements, because they always **** people off, but I am of the belief that a lot of people on LI live beyond their means - and not always knowingly.
Part of me thinks that right now, we may be a tad over-extended, even with only 28% of our income dedicated to the PITI payments. However, this could be because we just bought a house and feel like we've been bleeding money since we moved in. We bought an outdated expanded cape and we were talking last night about how long it'll take us to save up to renovate the kitchen and let's just say, it seems pretty far off.
We don't have any kids and truthfully - I don't know if I want any. I don't know if my feelings on having kids changed due to finances or cost of living here or what. I feel like the property taxes and transportation expenses are really what do it for me. Imagine if you had that extra $10,000/yr or even half of it - it would be very different to live on LI. Not only that, but my biggest complaint about LI is that the cost of a monthly LIRR train ticket is about the same as a car payment. And LI is not really a pedestrian-friendly place, so when you're not commuting to work, you really need a car. Combined, the LIRR ticket and car expenses alone add up to quite a bit. Throw in property taxes and we're talking a big chunk of income getting eaten up just for living in the area that we live in.
For an area where both public transit and a vehicle are necessities, I don't really understand how we can justify taxes being so high. I know the schools are pretty good, but they're not THAT good - at least in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by longislander2
I haven't looked at every post here, but I will say that it is difficult to live on $85K because Long Islanders are routinely fleeced by so many entities. In the last couple days, I have read about the interim Syosset School Superintendent, who -- in addition to his fat retirement pension from another school district -- stands to make $20,000 a month in base pay alone beginning next January. Then, there's the story about the state's second highest-paid employee: a Nassau cop who cleared over $300K last year. Oh, and the same story notes that the average pay for Amityville PD employees is almost $176K. It's insane.
It's not materialism that drives the desire for more money on Long Island. It's our need to pay off every corrupt institution and their overcompensated employees. Every year, for example, the school districts have to put so much money toward rich pay and benefits for administrators and teachers that there's a shrinking amount left for the kids. On the municipal level, our corrupt political parties -- with all their relatives and friends on the payroll -- are sucking us dry. It all has to give at some point.
Thank you to all of you who gave intelligent responses.
My question is (and I tried to start a new thread a few days ago on this topic, but it went nowhere): what kind of jobs do the people making much more than $85k have? Other than teachers and police officers, since we know those two. Thanks.
Thank you to all of you who gave intelligent responses.
My question is (and I tried to start a new thread a few days ago on this topic, but it went nowhere): what kind of jobs do the people making much more than $85k have? Other than teachers and police officers, since we know those two. Thanks.
Usually on LI, in a marriage where one spouse makes $85K and they expect to have 1-2 kids and own a house, not a coop or condo or rent an apt, the other spouse is not a stay at home. The other spouse also works full time. Note: I am talking about couples buying houses now at today's prices/tax rates/home insurance rates, not ones who bought 10-20 years ago when things were much cheaper and thus so were PITI/mortgages.
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