Income Needed for Family of 4 to Live Comfortably in Dallas (Fort Worth: fit in, mortgages)

[JVDZETA]

300k is a lot for a family of 4. All depends on lifestyle,debts, etc.

If your comin CB up from lower income bracket like I did to what I consider a middle income level at 75k and still living comfortable here in Dallas..yes 300K is a lot of money for a family of 4..

In my experience.

[wheelsup]

Originally Posted by jiping

What you posted above is the budget for a trust fund baby who is guaranteed to receive $300k annual payments, but definitely not for someone who works hard and earns $300K by himself. Most people I know will heavily invest to student loans, max-out 401K & backdoor Roth, stocks, houses, rental properties, gas stations, small business and medical practice, before flushing money down the toilet. I think you read too much lifestyle magazines or something.

I can't speak for others but here we put the lions share into investments. Cash, market, etc. My car is > two decades old and my wifes' is > one decade old. It's time to move, but our house cost 175k and is now valued around 250k.

When people start out in life with little, and start earning money, I've found we're all pretty similar in that we invest it because we don't want to slip back to where we came from. The less you spend, the more you can invest, and it becomes an ever larger and larger snowball. I also knew I needed a large cushion due to my job (airline, currently being destroyed day by day) and inability of my skills to transfer to another high paying profession.

If people come out of the gate earning a lot, or come from money and a strong support system, they mostly spend it. It also helps that my wife is grounded, unlike so many American women!!

[JVDZETA]

Originally Posted by wheelsup

I can't speak for others but here we put the lions share into investments. Cash, market, etc. My car is > two decades old and my wifes' is > one decade old. It's time to move, but our house cost 175k and is now valued around 250k.

When people start out in life with little, and start earning money, I've found we're all pretty similar in that we invest it because we don't want to slip back to where we came from. The less you spend, the more you can invest, and it becomes an ever larger and larger snowball. I also knew I needed a large cushion due to my job (airline, currently being destroyed day by day) and inability of my skills to transfer to another high paying profession.

If people come out of the gate earning a lot, or come from money and a strong support system, they mostly spend it. It also helps that my wife is grounded, unlike so many American women!!

Amen!

[ddavid1101]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

A brief list of the types of people who make $300K a year:
ENT docs and higher such as heart, neuro, ortho and plastic surgeons...NOT obgyns or GP docs, maybe not even internal med docs.
Executive level: CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, COOs. And that is for large companies. Those in smaller companies may not make that.
Lawyers: Typically lawyers who have made partner or have been working long enough to be on the verge of making partner. My sister in law is in Biglaw with over a decade experience and she doesnt make anywhere near $300K
Accounting/Finance: Usually the CFO or in a large company, MAYBE the VP of Finance
Those one in a million tech whizzes like Zuckerberg or others who hit the tech jackpot with the stock options.

The kind of people in the positions I just listed are NOT "middle class". Not upper middle class either. They are upper class. These are the types of people who have country club memberships. They are not middle class anything.

I think to get to 300K on a single income in Dallas is difficult. But on two income its very doable. Any director level and up within Ops/Finance/Data and especially tech (really any large corp in Plano) will make 150k on average. I'm a director in a data company and my wife is a senior financial analyst and we gross probably close to 280k or so. luckily our spending dont grow much and has hovered around 90-100k a year. We save probably 100K a year in retirement, IRA, taxable accounts etc and we also grow our investments about 100K a year.

My wife's coworkers/bosses are mostly one income families and they probably cap out around 200k at the most but have to work their butts off. Thats just not a risk we are willing to take to be on a 1 income household.

Most our friends in DFW or back in North East are two income households making more probably 400K+ with 1.5-3mil in assets. But all are not spending like as if we were upper class. Probably closer to upper middle. We drive hyundai's because they cost less than honda and has a 10yr warranty. We buy new but never spent more than 21k on a car vs the average american spending 35k on a new car. We dont buy many designer items. I did buy an IWC watch for 3k when I joined this firm 13 years ago after flipping some other watches on ebay. No LV, gucci etc. bought some Prada shoes from outlet in italy for $50-100 a pair when we were there in 2009 and we still wear them!

Point is, even when we make close or more than 300k, we are not spending it all. Savings rate is high for everyone we know with the biggest expense being housing. Rent in NYC suburbs is like 5-6k/mo for a 2br apt in NJ but their income is probably closer to 200-250k+ per person.

Maybe other households who make 300k spend it all like as if they are rich/upper class. I'm sure there are. But most people we know dont.

[Treasurevalley92]

Originally Posted by txfriend

I bought a house in Plano in 1983 for $250K with 20% down and financed $200K @ 16.5% interest. The PITI was around $3,500 per month. Today, I can get a $600K house with about the same PITI per month. The good old days were never all that good.

Man I bet whatever you could have bought in 83 in Plano for 250 was absolutely huge.

[Treasurevalley92]

Originally Posted by ddavid1101

Maybe other households who make 300k spend it all like as if they are rich/upper class. I'm sure there are. But most people we know dont.

Great for you that you are wise with your money, but 300k per year is rich, regardless of if you live like you think "Rich" people live or not.

Earlier you said 300k was very doable for 2 income and then cited director level jobs....ok yeah sure, but director level jobs are a very small % of the jobs.

The reality is most duel income houses are stretching to get anywhere near 150...half of that. Take a couple who are a Nurse and a Teacher for example....both decentish paying jobs and require educated professionals...realistically they will be making 100K-130K combined.

[Katana49]

Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92

Man I bet whatever you could have bought in 83 in Plano for 250 was absolutely huge.

Based on what my family paid at the time for our home, 3300-3800 sq ft for $250k at that time.

[Kenro911]

Fast forward to 2024 and you need 250K HH to buy median house in Frisco or other northern burbs.

[Leonard123]

Originally Posted by Kenro911

Fast forward to 2024 and you need 250K HH to buy median house in Frisco or other northern burbs.

A lot depends on how much one puts down and how you define a "median house" and which "northern burb" and neighborhood you are looking at. Frisco is an anomaly, even among northern suburbs. For myself as a single individual and my needs and desires, I calculated that $130K would be the optimal income level for the area. Unfortunately, that's well above what most individuals, including myself, earn. I can't speak for families.

[numbersguy100]

Originally Posted by Kenro911

Fast forward to 2024 and you need 250K HH to buy median house in Frisco or other northern burbs.

The median house and lifestyle (amenities, etc) in the northern burbs have improved substantially in recent years. You're no longer getting a discount for living in the middle of nowhere (as much as it kills me to admit that Frisco isn't the middle of nowhere). Between that and inflation generally, I'm not sure what else one might expect.