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It's just me and my husband, no kids. Our household income is about $82k after taxes in an area with a relatively low cost of living ($50k in household earnings for a family of four is considered to be good, if not more than good). We also underbought with our house, big-time, and don't have a mortgage payment.
I'm also a very frugal person by nature. For me, it's fun to try to save money whenever possible. I love shopping at cheap grocery stores like Aldi. I love when I'm able to find a really good deal on things like clothes (As an example, I wear camis under my clothes every day, and I found out that Wal-Mart sells them for $1.68 a piece! I bought a ton, and out of like 20 of them, only one has started disraveling a tiny bit after over a year of everyday wear but is definitely still wearable under clothes...great value, IMO! I would NEVER pay $10+ for a cami again as long as this is an option. I also wear a lot of leggings, which can be had for $3-8 at Walmart, depending on the style...)
I don't mean this in a snotty way, but sometimes I think about the fact that we make a lot more than your "average" two-person (or even four-person+) household -- at least around here -- and I wonder how others make it. I honestly do. I'm not looking at others in a "judgey" type of way, but I'm genuinely curious.
I drive a 2013 Hyundai Elantra with a small monthly payment, and my husband has a paid-for 2002 truck. Like I said, I'm frugal on so many things. We don't have the newest and nicest stuff in our house, by far...we mostly have stuff we've accumulated over the past eight years. We have a 32" TV, not a huge big screen. My husband has a $29 phone. My phone was almost $600 because I need it for work (well, don't necessarily need it but am way better off with it), but I've had it for over two years now and am not even thinking about upgrading it.
I know it seems like a lot of rambling about nothing, but my point is...something is up. Even though we splurge on some things, my husband and I are frugal in soooo many ways, and we bring in more than your average couple (again, around here). And yet, I still find myself worrying about money sometimes...even without a mortgage, we still have home maintenance and repairs, car maintenance, utilities, etc. I feel like every time I turn around, there is something that requires hundreds of dollars...
And then I see couples who I know bring in less than half of what we bring in, and they have two expensive vehicles -- usually a truck and an SUV or two SUV's -- that carry $500 car payments each and that guzzle gas like it's nothing, PLUS the huge cost of tires for those huge things. They live in wayyyy bigger and better houses than we do. They are "too good" to shop at Wal-Mart and Aldi and Dollar General like I do, so they go to Target and Harris Teeter and the mall for everything. Starbucks constantly. Namebrand everything....chicks who haven't hit a gym in years are spending big bucks on yoga pants from Lululemon vs just buying a pair from Wal-Mart or Target or something.
And I just wonder how in the hell they are paying for it all. I'm so careful with our money and still feel like we really never have enough. What is considered a "normal" day for some of my girlfriends (who are SAHM's with HVAC or contractor husbands who bring home like $800 a week) is a major "splurge" day for me...something I'll do maybe once a month, max, but...
I'm not someone who is trying to "hoard" money or anything...I just know that if we spent at the rate that some of these people spend, we'd be "broke" in a couple of years...yet, we bring in more money and have fewer people in our household?
So....what is it? Are they skipping out on the important stuff (maintenance on the things you own, health and dental care for themselves, etc) and blowing it on stupid crap? Are they just in debt to their eyeballs? Please help me understand lol....
our incomes from working were never very high and we live in a high cost of living area .
but i always made sure i had money to invest , was successful at it and by later years what came in via our investments was greater than our salaries .
why worry what everyone else has when you can't possibly know what goes on behind the scene , and the jobs you see them have may only be one source of income . ..
Last edited by mathjak107; 06-03-2017 at 03:52 AM..
our incomes from working were never very high and we live in a high cost of living area .
but i always made sure i had money to invest , was successful at it and by later years what came in via our investments was greater than our salaries .
why worry what everyone else has when you can't possibly know what goes on behind the scene , and the jobs you see them have may only be one source of income . ..
While what you say is true, it really doesn't seem to add up in society. Sure, people could have passive income coming in, or maybe got an inheritance, or maybe they paid all cash for no mortgagebut I often ask the very same question. Last time I checked, if you make more than 50k that puts you in the top 25 percent of wage earners. My wife and I both make more far than that individually in the Midwest. Don't get me wrong, we live upper middle class and save, but I see people who live far better than us as far as taking vacations or having multiple kids and a stay at home parent. I genuinely do not understand how it's possible. I'm not worried or jealous really. It's a genuine interest to understand HOW.
But then again, the average personal retirement savings and the consumer debt trends tell me all I need to know. People consume ever larger chunks of their present at the cost of their future. It's no magic.
no one really knows what anyone has since the only actual way we were all tracked was before they stopped the financial questions with the census . the random sampling now is pretty thinly done .
many folks have income sources off the books and won't report it any way .
far to much time is spent trying to poke our noses in to supposedly how poorly everyone else is doing and not enough time devoted to learning how to improve our own situations .
in the mean time 69k here in nyc stil qualifies for a low income nyc housing project .
quite frankly i have enough to do keeping our own plans on track without poking my nose in to how others are fairing . bad news sells , true or not and folks love to read all these how poorly we are all doing articles you see daily ..
many just have un-reported income sources and are doing quite well in the real world ..
when i was working i couldn't believe how many people told us they wanted 20 bucks an hour or more because that is what their unemployment insurance and working the local bodega or pizza place off the books gave them .
there is a whole under ground economy supporting quite a few
Last edited by mathjak107; 06-03-2017 at 05:27 AM..
Sad to say a lot of people are living a highly leveraged lifestyle.
Do the research and you will find the average credit card debt is roughly 16,000 dollars. The average auto debt is 27,000 dollars. The average mortgage debt is around 165,000 dollars.
Unless you know someone very, very well it is often impossible to guess the real story that is going on behind closed doors.
Yes, those other people may be up to their eye-balls in debt but they may also have other sources of income that you know nothing about. Or, they may have started with some very lucky breaks such as their parents paid for their college educations so they did not start out with thousands and thousands of dollars of college loans that needed to paid back or they inherited their house or something similar.
I know a young family that goes to Disneyworld & other Orlando theme parks every year for a week. Mom, Dad, their three young children plus Grandma. I bet that their neighbors & co-workers may wonder how they can possible afford it, as neither parent has a great job. But, Grandma told me that she pays for everything,absolutely everything, including giving extra money to the grandkids for souvenirs and buying everyone new outfits for the trip. Grandma loves Disneyworld & the other theme parks, loves spending time with her family and can afford it. And, because the young family didn't/doesn't need to spend money on their main family vacation each year, it allows them to use the money that they did not spend on vacations to do other things. Win for everyone.
BTW, Grandma, who loves to shop sales, recently mentioned that she waits until she has a 30% off coupon at Kohl's AND they have their special $10 in Kohl's cash for each $50 spent THEN she searches the end of season sales racks. Grandma says that she buys the grandkids clothing for the next year and then saves it to give to them then. She will occasionally do something similar at other higher priced mall stores. Grandma told me that usually ends up saving 90%, or even more, off the original price so the grandkids have new, good quality clothes for less than used clothes bought at Goodwill or new clothes bought at Walmart.
Last edited by germaine2626; 06-03-2017 at 06:21 AM..
So....what is it? Are they skipping out on the important stuff (maintenance on the things you own, health and dental care for themselves, etc) and blowing it on stupid crap? Are they just in debt to their eyeballs? Please help me understand lol....
They might have a lot of home equity and are taking out home equity loans or lines of credit to finance their expenses. People often use their homes like ATM machines.
Also, what mathjak said. You just don't know where people are getting their money. Most people don't fully disclose such information even to friends. And yes, people of course have different priorities about what they spend their money on.
It's just me and my husband, no kids. Our household income is about $82k after taxes in an area with a relatively low cost of living ($50k in household earnings for a family of four is considered to be good, if not more than good). We also underbought with our house, big-time, and don't have a mortgage payment.
I'm also a very frugal person by nature. For me, it's fun to try to save money whenever possible. I love shopping at cheap grocery stores like Aldi. I love when I'm able to find a really good deal on things like clothes (As an example, I wear camis under my clothes every day, and I found out that Wal-Mart sells them for $1.68 a piece! I bought a ton, and out of like 20 of them, only one has started disraveling a tiny bit after over a year of everyday wear but is definitely still wearable under clothes...great value, IMO! I would NEVER pay $10+ for a cami again as long as this is an option. I also wear a lot of leggings, which can be had for $3-8 at Walmart, depending on the style...)
I don't mean this in a snotty way, but sometimes I think about the fact that we make a lot more than your "average" two-person (or even four-person+) household -- at least around here -- and I wonder how others make it. I honestly do. I'm not looking at others in a "judgey" type of way, but I'm genuinely curious.
I drive a 2013 Hyundai Elantra with a small monthly payment, and my husband has a paid-for 2002 truck. Like I said, I'm frugal on so many things. We don't have the newest and nicest stuff in our house, by far...we mostly have stuff we've accumulated over the past eight years. We have a 32" TV, not a huge big screen. My husband has a $29 phone. My phone was almost $600 because I need it for work (well, don't necessarily need it but am way better off with it), but I've had it for over two years now and am not even thinking about upgrading it.
I know it seems like a lot of rambling about nothing, but my point is...something is up. Even though we splurge on some things, my husband and I are frugal in soooo many ways, and we bring in more than your average couple (again, around here). And yet, I still find myself worrying about money sometimes...even without a mortgage, we still have home maintenance and repairs, car maintenance, utilities, etc. I feel like every time I turn around, there is something that requires hundreds of dollars...
And then I see couples who I know bring in less than half of what we bring in, and they have two expensive vehicles -- usually a truck and an SUV or two SUV's -- that carry $500 car payments each and that guzzle gas like it's nothing, PLUS the huge cost of tires for those huge things. They live in wayyyy bigger and better houses than we do. They are "too good" to shop at Wal-Mart and Aldi and Dollar General like I do, so they go to Target and Harris Teeter and the mall for everything. Starbucks constantly. Namebrand everything....chicks who haven't hit a gym in years are spending big bucks on yoga pants from Lululemon vs just buying a pair from Wal-Mart or Target or something.
And I just wonder how in the hell they are paying for it all. I'm so careful with our money and still feel like we really never have enough. What is considered a "normal" day for some of my girlfriends (who are SAHM's with HVAC or contractor husbands who bring home like $800 a week) is a major "splurge" day for me...something I'll do maybe once a month, max, but...
I'm not someone who is trying to "hoard" money or anything...I just know that if we spent at the rate that some of these people spend, we'd be "broke" in a couple of years...yet, we bring in more money and have fewer people in our household?
So....what is it? Are they skipping out on the important stuff (maintenance on the things you own, health and dental care for themselves, etc) and blowing it on stupid crap? Are they just in debt to their eyeballs? Please help me understand lol....
Great post, because this is the way I live also. Many people do it differently. I live in a small house and drive a paid off car. No interest in keeping up with the Joneses. I'd rather put the $$ in the bank. Because life can turn on you in an instant. It's nice having a cushion. If I got laid off I could probably not work for 5 years.
no one really knows what anyone has since the only actual way we were all tracked was before they stopped the financial questions with the census . the random sampling now is pretty thinly done .
many folks have income sources off the books and won't report it any way .
far to much time is spent trying to poke our noses in to supposedly how poorly everyone else is doing and not enough time devoted to learning how to improve our own situations .
in the mean time 69k here in nyc stil qualifies for a low income nyc housing project .
quite frankly i have enough to do keeping our own plans on track without poking my nose in to how others are fairing . bad news sells , true or not and folks love to read all these how poorly we are all doing articles you see daily ..
many just have un-reported income sources and are doing quite well in the real world ..
when i was working i couldn't believe how many people told us they wanted 20 bucks an hour or more because that is what their unemployment insurance and working the local bodega or pizza place off the books gave them .
there is a whole under ground economy supporting quite a few
Two potential reasons that you provided are felony income tax evasion by hiding income or living off government subsidy. So I would say as someone who gets eaten alive with taxes it may be somewhat of a concern lol...several months of my life each year get shaved off the top to pay for others to do things like that.
The rest of the responses in this thread have basically been non government subsidy from family members via inheritances or giving them money for vacations. Debt is another obvious answer. In other words, non of it adds up in a reasonable way to say that theyre independently doing it in many cases. Which is what the op was trying to understand.
They might have a lot of home equity and are taking out home equity loans or lines of credit to finance their expenses. People often use their homes like ATM machines.
Also, what mathjak said. You just don't know where people are getting their money. Most people don't fully disclose such information even to friends. And yes, people of course have different priorities about what they spend their money on.
Lots and lots of people are living off of other people. You don't have to be a minor to be a Subsidy Kid.
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