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100,000$ use to be some grand number growing up. It seems like making 100,000$ is slightly above average. A million doesn't even seem like a lot. To buy a brand new Nissan maxima fully loaded is 44,000$. That's just a car.. It's not even a luxury one.
It just seems everything is inflated food, taxes, gas, rent etc. etc.
I think I read somewhere that the new average income is 52,000$ a year.
As an individual? Yes it is a high income. As a family? No. Statistically, only 6% of individuals make more than $100k/year in this country.
I take offense with this sentence.. My wife and I earned just shy of $100,000 before I retired and we struggled.. We have custody of 3 small grandchildren and they need a miriad of things..
Not only that there is health care for all of us, a bigger place to live in which costs more, clothes, utilities go up with more people, etc, etc, etc....
So while you may think i am an idiot or a braggert, I am neither....
Everyone has a different situation. As long as you know your situation does not qualify you to be an idiot or braggart, I would not take offense to someone else's perception. Screw 'em! Not worth it.
I haven't read all the many pages of responses, so what I am about to say has probably already come up....
Consider that many making $100,000 are in highly-skilled positions which require significant amounts of formal education... which is expensive. There is going to be a group of people who have made it into that relatively high-earning category who still have large student loan payments. Those payments are a non-negotiable and can deeply cut into one's take-home pay.
Second, the oft-mentioned idea that if you can't live on $100,000 in your expensive area, you should move to a cheaper area often makes no sense. You're likely no longer going to be making the same salary when you move to a less-expensive area. Sure, someone could move to the ghetto or something while maintaining their nice-paying job in the same city, but that's unrealistic. Oh, and don't forget that higher incomes are taxed more. You might ask why, if you can live well on X, someone else says they're struggling on more than that? Do they ultimately make out with more money than you do? Certainly. Is it as much more as their income dollar amount suggests? Not quite.
I live in the northeast, but in a relatively low cost-of-living area of the northeast. I am currently not working and my husband makes a bit more than $100,000 in his job. We have no kids. We drive old Toyotas. We live in a very modest little house. We have fairly large student loan bills. We're paying out about $40K a year in taxes including real estate taxes. I'd be lying if I said we were "struggling" - I have an idea of what that's like from when I was making $25K out of college living in a really expensive city. We're not exactly living paycheck to paycheck, but we're not living "high on the hog," either.
I guess it comes down to what you think is "good living." Bills paid? Ability to buy necessities and some wants on a whim, without having to worry whether you have enough money? Yes, we have that. We go on vacation each year. We live a safe and relatively secure existence which is more than a lot of people can say. BUT... consider that that is the lifestyle many of our parents and grandparents had on a much, much lower income... at a time when people were still using the $100,000 mark as "rich." No one begrudged them their safe little middle-class lifestyle or considered their security a mark of being rich. $100,000 now is certainly not rich, it's a reasonably-decent middle-class living in my moderately-priced area, for two people.
Last edited by cowbell76; 12-17-2013 at 02:54 PM..
It just seems everything is inflated food, taxes, gas, rent etc. etc.
I was just in another forum and the consensus there is there is no inflation. I don't know where they live but inflation is very true. I agree with you about the $45K Nissan. Go look at a bare bones compact Toyota pickup.
I haven't read all the many pages of responses, so what I am about to say has probably already come up....
Consider that many making $100,000 are in highly-skilled positions which require significant amounts of formal education... which is expensive. There is going to be a group of people who have made it into that relatively high-earning category who still have large student loan payments. Those payments are a non-negotiable and can deeply cut into one's take-home pay.
This one is a pretty big deal. I make over six figures, but I pay Just over $1,500/mo in student loan payments right now. My minimum payment is just over $1,200/mo.
I was just in another forum and the consensus there is there is no inflation. I don't know where they live but inflation is very true. I agree with you about the $45K Nissan. Go look at a bare bones compact Toyota pickup.
See my long earlier post.
They're called brainwashed sheeple. If the government told them it was raining marshmallows they would buy chocolate and gram crackers and start fires in their yards.
Don't know about you, but I can't consider ownership of private aircraft, expensive boats and frequent buying of expensive cars and taking expensive vacations as "middle class". These are pure luxury, and I have no doubt that one would "need" an annual income of at least $200,000, probably more, to afford all this. But if one determines to live within one's means, doesn't have an ego dependent on having the latest, greatest and best, and a compulsion to compete with one's neighbors for those must haves, it's very possible to have a rich and fulfilled life on annual incomes that come nowhere near the amounts you mention.
I get where you are coming from. No problem and middle class may be determined by where you choose to live. I live smack dab between Malibu and Santa Barbara. Homes in my city now start in the $300,000 plus range for a 50+ year old home and can go up to $6 or $7 million. To live a middle class lifestyle you would need to have an income of $200,000 around here and to have an airplane or boat would be a choice you could make on that kind of money. I grew up flying that is just how life was for me. I also grew up on the coast near the Pacific Ocean. I had my own boat from the time I was 12 years old. It was not big but it did get me around the harbor. If we went somewhere we took the plane, our own plane. I started flying in a Mooney 201 when I was a kid and have flown that plane, a Piper Cherokee, Beachcraft Barron, a bunch of differant Cesnas, and one time a Convair 440 in the right seat. We were far from rich and no one on my street growing up pretended to be anything but middle class. Most of us probably thought we were lower middle class. Having aircraft to fly was more about being from Navy families in a Naval Flight town than anything else. Back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's aircraft were much cheaper to purchase. I am only siggesting to repeat the life I had today, I would need to make $200,000 a year in income because I can tell you now having $130,000 a year just does not make you anywhere near middle class in this town that I live in and have lived in most of my life. Remember we have 5 kids at home and they cost money.
They're called brainwashed sheeple. If the government told them it was raining marshmallows they would buy chocolate and gram crackers and start fires in their yards.
That sounds incredibly fun.
And there's my daily confirmation that my inner child is alive, well, and craving s'mores.
Went to Northern Illinois and have a degree in Business Administration. I work in the e-commerce field. Pretty lucrative right now.
My investment money isn't all tied up into a bunch of separate stocks. Its actually mostly in a single stock with a company I know very well and work with everyday. It is an ex employer too. I don't have cash just laying around the house, but that is so very doomsdayish that I don't know if I trust doing that right now. Especially with 5 roommates. However, I always have a full tank of gas and a mom/dad/sisters house to go to if something crazy like that ever happens.
What exactly is it that you do? Is your company hiring?
After state income and federal taxes… I should've said "the take-home pay is…"
You mean for YOU, perhaps. In YOUR state, with YOUR deductions.
Last edited by ChessieMom; 12-17-2013 at 06:18 PM..
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. It's not even a luxury one. 
