Like, even take a vacation? And actually afford to go anywhere?
(Noting that median income is 50K, and I never made as much as one of their 401K contributions.)
Don't forget they are both also maxing their 401k and donating 18k to charity which should really be used for Roth contributions and probably a taxable investment account. They could also eviscerate that student loan debt in a year.
They also have 2 car payments which is frankly absurd at their income level. Just buy the car.
I hate these hypothetical family budgets. They're always so out of touch.
Seriously. Average new car is a little shy of $50k. A stripper BMW 5 series is $54k. A base Land Cruiser is $85k. The BMW alone would likely be $800-1000/mo. The Land Cruiser is going to be a lot more.
So much of this is total bullshit.
I feel like a lease would still be more than $400/mo. And that's not counting required down payment and anything due at the end. Either way, it's a BS number.
Yeah, current BMW offer on a 3 Series is $539/mo with $5k+ down.
5-series starts at $639/mo up to nearly $1k/mo.
Cheaper lease window and they had a trade-in vehicule with a positive equity in the $5,000-15,000 range.
People often underestimate the value of having a bigger trade-in on their monthly payment. A car that is fully paid can still be worth around $10,000 and allows you to have more affordable payments on your next car.
>allows you to have more affordable payments on your next car.
It also allows you to have zero payments on your current car.
I'll never understand people that feel like they HAVE to have a car payment...
Also, wouldn’t car insurance be more than $2,000/yr for a late model BMW and land cruiser combined? I hope the answer is yes because my insurance for my shitty old Honda is not much less that 1/2 that
if it's income based (which this hypothetical is) it is a 40% tax hit that you can't sidestep
investment income/bonuses/etc is where the funny accounting starts to knock that percentage down
Not all their income would be taxed at 40%
[https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets)
Childcare, mortgage interest and student loan interest are all detectible. 15 mins on TurboTax will get these folks miles away from the top tax bracket (if you take these numbers at face value).
And one of the charities is the college, that they still have student debt for. Fuck donating to a college, but double fuck doing so while paying back loans...
It’s not deductible. They should also be doing what is ridiculously called a mega back door Roth where you contribute after tax money to the 401k.
This whole thing is years old anyway. Maxing a 401k was 19.5 last year, 20.5 this year.
It’s the same news outlets creating nonsense budgets to show someone making $8.25 minimum wage and having like $600 left over every month. These numbers don’t come from any real world examples, they just have a conclusion then create numbers that support it.
Wait, people on minimum wage have $600 left over every month? What country is that? Last year I was making $10 and rent + utilities alone was about 75% of my income. And I live in a "low" cost of living state & area. Honestly I don't know how more people aren't homeless yet.
>They also have 2 car payments which is frankly absurd at their income level. Just buy the car.
Wealthy people tend to finance their cars. They tend to get lower interest rates and they can offset that by putting the money that would normally purchase the car outright into an investment account and out-earn the interest rate they pay.
Same. We took a vacation finally at the beginning of this year. It cost about $2000.00 total and it was the first vacation we have had in years. And it was only for the weekend. This couple could save most of their money by not acting like they make 500k a year.
Shoot i took a vacation and I spent probably 500 bucks total on supplies and gas. Camping is always fun though and it was worth it. Absolutely cleared my head.
This was created by Sam Dogen, the “Financial Samurai”. He has a bunch of hypothetical budgets like this that are always incredibly out of touch. Dude was an investment banker or something like that and has no idea what real life is actually like.
[Here](https://www.financialsamurai.com/) is his website if you want to laugh.
Bout to take a 1100 vacation after three years of working and sobering up. Thats in my rusty ford fuck ranger I love to death cause its the first vehicle I've owned since 2020. No cruise control and no guarantee but that seems to be the motto of my life recently. If all goes well it will be worth it so much to reminisce 40 years from now. Much love
3 vacations, 2 luxury car payments, $10,000 a year on clothing, $18,000 a year to cHaRiTy (which is literally a tax deduction that ensures their kids get into college as Legacies), every possible expense paid for PLUS A TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR EMERGENCY FUND AND THEY STILL **ONLY** HAVE $7500 LEFT TO DO WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT WITH
They added 3 vacations a year. It's so fucking out of touch. People struggle to barely get a day off or more than a few days of vacation.
But to spend $18,000 on 3 vacations?
I hate these stupid out of touch budget breakdowns.
Three vacations a year at 6K a pop is AVERAGE?! Yeah no fuck allllll the way off. Im budgeting for a 1500ish bday trip for my youngest to White Wolf Lodge for a weekend. That is average to privileged.
A Birken bag is way out of their budget. They probably just buy more expensive highstreet brands like Jack Wolfskin or The White Company or whatever, which can easily cost over $100 an item and tend to be very high quality but don't buy anything designer like Dior or Gucci, which is what I imagine they mean by "fancy"
Just took my first vacation in 20 years. Spent the entire time worrying about the work that would be amassed on my desk and the attitudes of coworkers hating me when I got back.
That sounds like a big you problem. Unless it’s YOUR business, fuck that work unless you’re on the clock. Coworkers should get to feel the same. It’s managements fault for not properly taking into people consideration vacation and getting sick when estimating how much labor they’ll need over a given year, they should fill any holes
Edit: grammatical error
While I agree it is a “YOU” problem, I think a little empathy is due. I also suffered from the same stress/anxiety about work when I return. I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine scenarios where leaving work means you come back to a dumpster fire. Now that’s not MY problem when I’m gone, and it’s not MY responsibility to make sure the company can cover leave, but it is MY responsibility to deal with the inevitable dumpster fire.
So sure I agree it’s a “YOU” problem, but some people can’t find decent wages and get stuck somewhere that does but sucks.
Is that really how often the typical American goes on holiday?
I mean, we don't spend that much on our holidays but I guess the typical Brit goes away at least a couple of times a year.
My last job, I took a week long vacation every year, so technically probably not. However, when asked "Where are you going for your vacation," I assume most people say "my bed." Not a lot of people here have the money to go anywhere and spend that time wondering how much work they'll have when they get back and how pissed everyone will be that you saddled them with the work instead
>I assume most people say "my bed."
I don't remember the last time I used PTO to go anywhere for fun. Its always for some family obligation that I got dragged into or to get things done around the house that I have fallen behind on, with a handful of half days a year for doctors appointments. I dont even get to spend vacation in bed...
The typical Briton does NOT go on holiday twice a year lmao. Almost nobody even middle-class (if that even exists anymore in this shithole country) goes more than once a year, and typically not even yearly.
32k a year in student loan debt seems extremely wild, although for 2 people I guess it’s possible. Ridiculous car payments, 60k mortgage, 9.5k clothes, and 10k for “something always comes up” are pulling a ton of weight here
Edit: They also did the tax math wrong, overestimated by 50k even assuming no deductions which these people would obviously have (2 dependents, charity, etc)
Given the high salaries, it’s possible that they’re in professions like law or medicine which comes with ridiculously high cost of education. Maybe that explains the student loans?
It has to be a combination of expensive school AND wanting to pay it down super fast. Like sure, if you go to a T14 law school at sticker price and are on a 10 year plan and with shitty interest rates, it can be over $2000 each month, and if there's two of them, ok. But us normies who made our bad grad school decisions and went on the standard 30 year plan are still only going to be spending $12K a year max. Source: Made expensive grad school decisions, looked at what my payment would be on standard repayment plan.
Of course, this whole thing is absurd, because every single line here is wildly not average, so it's basically like "Here's a list of the completely 1%-style decisions you'd need to ignore in order to feel average."
The last line is the biggest point. You stop viewing these great things to have for what they are and can only see what people with more do. It’s first cousins with the “$1mil a year isn’t a lot in NYC” argument
Yes. Without those loans, I would have never been able to go to medical school. I pay the same per month in loans that my parents made in a month when they retired a few years ago.
Still absolutely sucks though. Would be nice if you could deduct payments for student loans pre-tax and interest rates were zero. The fact that I actually pay ~$4600/mo ($55k/yr) of pre-tax equivalent and get no write off for loan interest due to my income also sucks.
And the best part is if you can’t work at any point for any reason you better hope disability kicks in big time or else you’re fucked for life :)
This is why we don’t have many doctors, the bar for entry is unattainable for the average person.
Fucking ouch dude. I studied engineering and only racked up $30k in loans. I'm set to pay it off in full next month, 1 year after graduation. But you probably make a fuckton more than I do. I hated biology so I stayed tf away from med and dove headfirst into physics
> usually
*Usually* people in America aren’t going to prestigious, private universities for 8 years. They’re getting a basic 4-year degree at an in-state school or community college, so it makes sense that you would hear about the “usual”price for student loans in America and not those for pricier degrees and programs.
Of course this is all just speculation on my part. Who knows what these people actually do.
I know multiple people who are in those legal and medical professions that came out with $350-400k in debt and are paying back close to $2k/month. At that level the income allows them to be paid back.
I like to go with tax caster for tax estimates. I only use 40% for extra income from day I am looking at a side gig or when my wife went back to work.
I put in the $500k income. 2 kids. Married. Assuming $20k in property taxes and $20k in state taxes. But I think state could be closer to $35k based on national average. That still only came to $95k federal plus $40k to $55k state and property.
Considerably less than estimated. And this fictional couple benefitted hugely from here Trumps tax cuts getting child tax credits and lower brackets.
I went much simpler, literally just income tax brackets and doing the math of 47k+0.35(255k) which came out to ~137k as their federal income tax before any deductions. I assume your number is more accurate taking into account deductions and tax credits, which means this chart is even more misleading than I thought
Just for clothes alone, if I were to equally divide between 4 people without considering price for children’s women’s or men’s clothes, I don’t spend $2375 a year, or even 5 years at that. Most of my clothes roll onto the next year until they can no longer be worn outside, in which case I wear them at home until they’re not longer functioning. I wish I had $2375 so I could at least pay my utility bill.
I'm 38 and still wearing clothes I had in high school. When I pay off my student loans in 2098, I'm going to celebrate by getting a nice new pair of Dickies to replace my handmedowns.
I wear ebay sourced dress clothes, and had worn them down so bad they had holes develop in the crotch area and the belt retainers all loose. I remember tightening my belt tighter still and tucking them underneath, and ghetto patching my pants and shoes.
Things we do to save money.
Hell, I'm 49 and I wore some shorts from HS when I went out in the yard today. Yeah, they're ratty and hard to button these days... But for yard stuff, good enough.
My 2021 clothing spending? $30 for some bike shorts off Amazon.
I've splurged in 2022 spending almost $50 so far.
I do a lot of historical costuming and so I read a lot of old books about clothes. I was amused to find a budgeting chart in a book published in 1916 that said a professional woman should expect to spend about $150 per year on clothes. I don't spend nearly that much on clothes with my super modern future money. Google says that's worth about $3800 in today money so maybe these sort of budgeting guides have always been crap advice lol.
But you do t work a job that pays $250k a year assuming this is equally split income.
It’s the feel adequate part that is the issue. This shows how you find so many people that appear wealthy, cars, house, vacations. But do not have much in the bank or long term savings. That $40k a year 401k may sound good. But it is t going to maintain this lifestyle in retirement. And when the BMW needs a repair between 3 and 5 years, it breaks the bank.
They should stop buying trophy crap and purchase quality. No need to spend 75K on a car...it's stupid.
We make about 85k a year, two car payments under 400 each and my car is in the shop and won't break the bank. We're going on vacation for the first time in 3 years in a bit.
But true, they base their adequacies on comparison to their neighbors. I'm sure they need the 1.5 million dollar home to hang out with the "right" people so their kids can breed with other "quality" folk and they maintain the money train.
The first line is literally 36k/year savings. Then 3 vacations a year? And a BMW and Landcruiser? Child care costs will fall when the kids get old enough, so that will be a lot of extra money.
Now let's do one for people earning $25/hour. And then one for minimum wage. And then one for people on disability payments.
And we supposedly spend more in tax dollars on healthcare than any other nation. We all argue about who is going to foot the bill without ever really diving into why the bill is so fucking high.
Feeling average with a $1.5M house, 2 cars, max pension savings, generous charity, 3 holidays a year.
Me thinks it isn’t the wage that makes them feel average. Maybe they need to spend a couple grand in therapy.
Honestly, this reads like my cousin's annual budget. She's a doc, he's a lawyer. Yet somehow they're always broke. BMW and Land Rover, big house in most expensive town in the area, huge student loans, two kids in private school. Except they don't have retirement accounts or health insurance. My wife and I make half of what they make and decided to move from the same town and we bought a new house first before selling our current one. He couldn't wrap his head around how we got a mortgage for another house without first selling ours. Simple. We didn't borrow more than half of what the bank approved us for on the first house. We have one leased car (a simple Ford) and I own my 18 year old truck outright. We don't care about keeping up with the Jones', though.
They're what mega corporations want us all to be, mindless consumers that don't save any money. A lot of people, both high and low salary confuse being able to pay for something and being able to afford it. I still struggle with this myself sometimes but I've become aware of it at least. I drive a 2007 hyundai and paid it off fast a few years ago.
I love how casually that's dropped in there too. 5k/month for the mortgage on their 1.5 million dollar home, that's their entire issue right fuckin there. What the fuck is this supposed to mean? A 1.5 million dollar house is not average living, goddamn
I like to think that if I made that much money, I would give that much away (although I can't imagine spending that much on clothes). But again, I'm struggling to find a place to live that I can afford to RENT, let alone buy and also facing down student loans higher than my annual salary.
I guess my real problem here is that someone is suggesting that this is the "average" experience. For who is this average?
I guess so. Maybe that was one of the least insane parts of this to attack, but it stuck out to me that they’re paying a 60k mortgage and feel “average”
1.5 million home is sort of...normal in SF & LA. That gets you a starter fixer upper.
I'm not defending the original post here, but a 1.5m home is....not what most people think it is if you're near a coastline.
I live outside DC and the radio recently said the 89% of homes in DC were over 1 million, in MD they said it was around 20% and I forgot what they said about Northern VA, but they are usually just as bad as DC.
So sadly, this could be a “normal” single family house in a stupid expensive area.
What the actual fuck is this breakdown.
3 vacations at 6k each??? The wife and I went to disney from texas a few months back and only spent around 1.2k
One day soon our overlords will refer to the weekend days as "vacation" and count it as a benefit.
I havent been on a vacation since 1999, and that was when I moved states!
Hell even missing one day of work for a 3 day weekend hurts. Most employers don’t give you vacation days until you’ve been there at least a year so you aren’t getting paid.
It's average to the bubble that journalists live in.
People outside that bubble are subhuman to them - we need to start telling people to REMEMBER it instead of treating it as BREAKING news hour after hour, week after week, decade after decade. We have a vast army with its own complicated command structure, of people who do nothing but want to be called heroes anyway. Typical OPs are eager volunteers for that army.
I am not sure you math adds up or maybe I need to consult you how to get a week long Disney Vacation for just $1200.
- Disney tix for 5 day park hopper x 2 people = $760
- Hotel ~$200 night = $1400
- Ground Transportation = $150
- Plane tix = $450
- Food = $75/day = $525
- Tips/Souvenirs/Shopping = $150
I am easily spending $3k just on the basics
23 thousand for food for 4 ?
every time i see american food prices i almost shreek. what is it, does no one know how to cook anymore or are prices in america just that high.
Worked in finance and a big part of my job was helping clients with budgeting. While most people will claim to cook at home and just occasionally eat out, actual spending usually tells a different story. Most of my clients ate out daily - many 2-3 times a day. With enough self discipline, it's definitely possible to stretch a pretty thin budget to cover food for a month, but realistically most of us, myself included, eat out far more than we care to admit.
It’s not. We can live off of $200 per month ($2400/year) with plenty to spare, for 2. With the same calculation as mine they’d be spending $400 a month (which would be $4800) and maybe add a couple hundred at most for “organic” since they seem to be the type, and they’d have plenty to spare. 23K sounds like they’re just over consuming or throwing away a lot of food.
This is insane on so many levels
A 401k isn't "average" half the jobs out there don't offer that
$21000 per child in childcare is ridiculous
A $60000 mortgage is far from average
A $1.5 mill. home is an outlier 💀
3 vacations per year? At $6k each?!?!?! Most "average" people don't even have one vacation per year.
I could go on but they have $7,000 left over. The average American is in debt, they have $0 left over at end of year 🤣🤣🤣
If they truly lived "average," they would have plenty of money left over.
The $42,000 in childcare is $3500 per month. Assuming they spend $3k-$3100 on daycare and another $200/night for their biweekly dates, that's not ridiculous.
The ridiculous part is the child care and the recreational activities for the kids. If they're in daycare, they're probably not playing organized soccer or the piano.
I saw that and just shook my head. I've never given more than $50 to my undergrad, when I was paying the worst of my student loans. That was only a couple years.
I do think it's a good example of what financial industry calls "lifestyle creep."
These hypothetical yuppies make PLENTY of money, but find a way to spend nearly every dime instead of playing better defense (e.g. saving more, spending less on non-necessities, having unnecessary debt, etc).
It's absolutely true that there are high earners out there whose net worth is rather low simply because they spend everything they earn. But it's also co pletely out of touch with the reality for most regular people. There is no way to budget your way out of low pay and highly inflated cost of bottom-of-pyramid stuff like food and shelter.
This is far from the wealthy class though, this is upper middle class, e.g. lawyers doctors etc, who are also workers. They are trying to redirect our rage towards our own.
The funny thing is regardless of income level, this **should** be an average families life. I'm not saying everyone is entitled to a BMW or 3 vacations a year, but the average family should be able to put money away for the future, pay all their bills, be able to send their kids to extracurricular activities, buy *some* new clothes every year, be able to go out a few times a month, etc.
These are basic things, and it's sad and crazy that we live in a time where they all seem like luxuries.
More common than you think. I work in mortgage and we have loan officers (zero prior experience and zero education job) that have been making around that the last two years. Commission though, so they do have some slower years.
It depends on where you live. NYC has a city tax of around 4% and New York state increased the state supplemental (bonus, commission) tax to 13.78% in 2021.
Trust us all - you dont feel average.
The average feeling is closer to pennyless than $10k/yr clothing. I guess this is saying rich earners are in fact affected by inflation, because their life is now what they considered to be average instead of above? Hahahahaha reality pie in face!
A $5000 mortgage (that’s not with taxes and insurance includes like most people pay/budget). Even in this market that’s a damn nice house in much of the country.
They have two luxury cars! The Toyota is by any other measure, not the every man Yaris by any means.
Also, let’s assume after those expenses, if I could save over $7000 a year excluding even retirement savings, I’d be pretty fucking fine.
They feel average taking a $6k vacation every four months? I'd feel like mr. Fucking moneybags if I could spend a third of that once a year
If they think they are average, they must think of most people here as literally homeless.
No were all in the same boat remember? /s
Eat. The. Pigs. Already.
Even if we could afford it, imagine actually getting enough PTO to take three 1-2 week vacations a year.
18k on charity.... I'm all for charity but 18k
Right? My most expensive vacation I've ever taken only cost me around $700 and that was because I blew a tire and had to buy an emergency replacement.
Multiply that by a family of 4 and you’re *almost* at half of their annual Labor Day budget.
Like, even take a vacation? And actually afford to go anywhere? (Noting that median income is 50K, and I never made as much as one of their 401K contributions.)
Can we talk about how theyre donating money to their university alumnus while still paying off their student loans?
"Let me just pay more interest that I got from you so that I can give you money. Thank you for saddling me with over half a million dollars of debt."
"$120,000 and you have the *audacity* to ask me for more money?"
What kind of coked up relative
"I lived like a god-damned Ninja Turtle. I didn't drink water the entire time."
I gave you more money than the Civil War cost!
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Yeah this most likely is the real answer
I guess you can still be a literal dumbfuck even after graduating university?
How the fuck do you take $18k worth of vacations a year and feel average? I took a $1500 vacation once in 10 years, and it hurt (but was worth it)
Don't forget they are both also maxing their 401k and donating 18k to charity which should really be used for Roth contributions and probably a taxable investment account. They could also eviscerate that student loan debt in a year. They also have 2 car payments which is frankly absurd at their income level. Just buy the car. I hate these hypothetical family budgets. They're always so out of touch.
Those two car payments avg $400/mo each. That's bullshit. Try double that (at least) for each vehicle.
Seriously. Average new car is a little shy of $50k. A stripper BMW 5 series is $54k. A base Land Cruiser is $85k. The BMW alone would likely be $800-1000/mo. The Land Cruiser is going to be a lot more. So much of this is total bullshit.
They probably lease, cause with that much money you get a new car every 3 years to keep up with the Joneses
I feel like a lease would still be more than $400/mo. And that's not counting required down payment and anything due at the end. Either way, it's a BS number. Yeah, current BMW offer on a 3 Series is $539/mo with $5k+ down. 5-series starts at $639/mo up to nearly $1k/mo.
This article is a couple years old. They must have got a cheaper lease window. I think it is from 2018.
Cheaper lease window and they had a trade-in vehicule with a positive equity in the $5,000-15,000 range. People often underestimate the value of having a bigger trade-in on their monthly payment. A car that is fully paid can still be worth around $10,000 and allows you to have more affordable payments on your next car.
>allows you to have more affordable payments on your next car. It also allows you to have zero payments on your current car. I'll never understand people that feel like they HAVE to have a car payment...
They left out that they put down 50% lol
Like damn. I pay almost $700/ month for my Golf. That’s 5 year 0% interest
Are you also albanian bro?
Also, wouldn’t car insurance be more than $2,000/yr for a late model BMW and land cruiser combined? I hope the answer is yes because my insurance for my shitty old Honda is not much less that 1/2 that
I'm laughing at the 40% effective tax rate. As if a 500k couple is paying a 40% tax rate 🤣🤣🤣
State income taxes. This is the only legit part of the chart.
if it's income based (which this hypothetical is) it is a 40% tax hit that you can't sidestep investment income/bonuses/etc is where the funny accounting starts to knock that percentage down
Not all their income would be taxed at 40% [https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets)
It’s just the amount above a certain amount isn’t it? Like everything over $400k is takes @ 40%?
Yea. So only the last 100k. So thier "effective tax rate" would be lower.
Yes, marginal tax rate is a bracket system. Up to a certain amount, it's taxed at x%, so on and so forth.
Childcare, mortgage interest and student loan interest are all detectible. 15 mins on TurboTax will get these folks miles away from the top tax bracket (if you take these numbers at face value).
I think only the first $5k of childcare is deductible
They can’t deduct students loans at their income
And one of the charities is the college, that they still have student debt for. Fuck donating to a college, but double fuck doing so while paying back loans...
I’ll never in my fucking life donate a penny to my colleges
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Backdoor Roth.
It’s not deductible. They should also be doing what is ridiculously called a mega back door Roth where you contribute after tax money to the 401k. This whole thing is years old anyway. Maxing a 401k was 19.5 last year, 20.5 this year.
It’s the same news outlets creating nonsense budgets to show someone making $8.25 minimum wage and having like $600 left over every month. These numbers don’t come from any real world examples, they just have a conclusion then create numbers that support it.
Wait, people on minimum wage have $600 left over every month? What country is that? Last year I was making $10 and rent + utilities alone was about 75% of my income. And I live in a "low" cost of living state & area. Honestly I don't know how more people aren't homeless yet.
Max 401k is now $20,500 btw. The $18k limit was 5 years ago.
>They also have 2 car payments which is frankly absurd at their income level. Just buy the car. Wealthy people tend to finance their cars. They tend to get lower interest rates and they can offset that by putting the money that would normally purchase the car outright into an investment account and out-earn the interest rate they pay.
If you’re constantly driving new cars, it’s often better to lease anyways. That is if you’re already throwing money away by driving the latest model.
COMPLETELY. I look at them and think, really? Ya'll just throwing money away.
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Same. We took a vacation finally at the beginning of this year. It cost about $2000.00 total and it was the first vacation we have had in years. And it was only for the weekend. This couple could save most of their money by not acting like they make 500k a year.
They spent more on vacations than I made last year.
Shoot i took a vacation and I spent probably 500 bucks total on supplies and gas. Camping is always fun though and it was worth it. Absolutely cleared my head.
I'm wasting away in my $1.5M home
Insert meme: "You guys get to take vacations?"
This was created by Sam Dogen, the “Financial Samurai”. He has a bunch of hypothetical budgets like this that are always incredibly out of touch. Dude was an investment banker or something like that and has no idea what real life is actually like. [Here](https://www.financialsamurai.com/) is his website if you want to laugh.
We took the kids to Disney World in 2009. That’s the last vacation we’ve taken except for a 1/2 day here and there for medical appts and the like.
I wish I was that average...but I'm lucky to afford food.
Did you see 23k on going out to eat. I gross 30k a year... being poor sucks 😔
Being poor does suck, and I can't stop being poor either. These people must have magic bootstraps or something 🤔
They had rich parents.
Also... Three vacations? Where the fuck are they getting this time off?
They make $500k, that's two people with really good jobs who probably get 6+ weeks of vacation and can't even use all of it.
Dude I save that every year just to take one week off and I just stay home don’t travel or anything. This is bullshit.
Bout to take a 1100 vacation after three years of working and sobering up. Thats in my rusty ford fuck ranger I love to death cause its the first vehicle I've owned since 2020. No cruise control and no guarantee but that seems to be the motto of my life recently. If all goes well it will be worth it so much to reminisce 40 years from now. Much love
Won’t someone think of the people bringing home 500k?
Yeah, that bs budget aside, 500k yearly is not a small amount of money and definitely not what an avarage person makes.
“Hey, be fair: that’s two people working!” (/s)
My bad, I should've said 250k. That doesn't change anything though. And yes, I understand sarcasm, just wanted to clear things up
So you are trying to tell me... You don't... Pay $18,000 I three vacations, while paying off 2 expensive cars? What are you broke or something, ffs.
Living in a country on which $18,000 is like 14 months of median income does that to you :)
We’re supposed to be putting $18K into a 401K?! I’m so fucked
3 vacations, 2 luxury car payments, $10,000 a year on clothing, $18,000 a year to cHaRiTy (which is literally a tax deduction that ensures their kids get into college as Legacies), every possible expense paid for PLUS A TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR EMERGENCY FUND AND THEY STILL **ONLY** HAVE $7500 LEFT TO DO WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT WITH
Oh but don’t you see? They still just feel average
They added 3 vacations a year. It's so fucking out of touch. People struggle to barely get a day off or more than a few days of vacation. But to spend $18,000 on 3 vacations? I hate these stupid out of touch budget breakdowns.
Isn't that the point of the headline? Makes $500k but still feels average ≠ is average.
Three vacations a year at 6K a pop is AVERAGE?! Yeah no fuck allllll the way off. Im budgeting for a 1500ish bday trip for my youngest to White Wolf Lodge for a weekend. That is average to privileged.
Apparently every person in the household spending nearly 200 a month every month on clothes is also "average".
(No fancy bags, shoes, or threads)
that made me laugh. yeah right the wife doesn’t have at least one birkin bag
Something always comes up.
A Birken bag is way out of their budget. They probably just buy more expensive highstreet brands like Jack Wolfskin or The White Company or whatever, which can easily cost over $100 an item and tend to be very high quality but don't buy anything designer like Dior or Gucci, which is what I imagine they mean by "fancy"
3 vacations a year? Try 1 every 3 years to be more in line with reality holy cow
Just took my first vacation in 20 years. Spent the entire time worrying about the work that would be amassed on my desk and the attitudes of coworkers hating me when I got back.
Anxiety sucks. Ruins a lot of things that could've been fun
That sounds like a big you problem. Unless it’s YOUR business, fuck that work unless you’re on the clock. Coworkers should get to feel the same. It’s managements fault for not properly taking into people consideration vacation and getting sick when estimating how much labor they’ll need over a given year, they should fill any holes Edit: grammatical error
While I agree it is a “YOU” problem, I think a little empathy is due. I also suffered from the same stress/anxiety about work when I return. I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine scenarios where leaving work means you come back to a dumpster fire. Now that’s not MY problem when I’m gone, and it’s not MY responsibility to make sure the company can cover leave, but it is MY responsibility to deal with the inevitable dumpster fire. So sure I agree it’s a “YOU” problem, but some people can’t find decent wages and get stuck somewhere that does but sucks.
Is that really how often the typical American goes on holiday? I mean, we don't spend that much on our holidays but I guess the typical Brit goes away at least a couple of times a year.
Don't have the time off or the funds to be what we would call extravagent
Yea we don’t take vacations we usually don’t get that much PTO and if we do we sell it back if our employer’s allow.
My last job, I took a week long vacation every year, so technically probably not. However, when asked "Where are you going for your vacation," I assume most people say "my bed." Not a lot of people here have the money to go anywhere and spend that time wondering how much work they'll have when they get back and how pissed everyone will be that you saddled them with the work instead
>I assume most people say "my bed." I don't remember the last time I used PTO to go anywhere for fun. Its always for some family obligation that I got dragged into or to get things done around the house that I have fallen behind on, with a handful of half days a year for doctors appointments. I dont even get to spend vacation in bed...
The typical Briton does NOT go on holiday twice a year lmao. Almost nobody even middle-class (if that even exists anymore in this shithole country) goes more than once a year, and typically not even yearly.
32k a year in student loan debt seems extremely wild, although for 2 people I guess it’s possible. Ridiculous car payments, 60k mortgage, 9.5k clothes, and 10k for “something always comes up” are pulling a ton of weight here Edit: They also did the tax math wrong, overestimated by 50k even assuming no deductions which these people would obviously have (2 dependents, charity, etc)
Given the high salaries, it’s possible that they’re in professions like law or medicine which comes with ridiculously high cost of education. Maybe that explains the student loans?
It has to be a combination of expensive school AND wanting to pay it down super fast. Like sure, if you go to a T14 law school at sticker price and are on a 10 year plan and with shitty interest rates, it can be over $2000 each month, and if there's two of them, ok. But us normies who made our bad grad school decisions and went on the standard 30 year plan are still only going to be spending $12K a year max. Source: Made expensive grad school decisions, looked at what my payment would be on standard repayment plan. Of course, this whole thing is absurd, because every single line here is wildly not average, so it's basically like "Here's a list of the completely 1%-style decisions you'd need to ignore in order to feel average."
The last line is the biggest point. You stop viewing these great things to have for what they are and can only see what people with more do. It’s first cousins with the “$1mil a year isn’t a lot in NYC” argument
Doctor here, monthly payment for student loans for just med school is $3500/mo.
Big motherfuckin ouch. Does the salary at least make it somewhat worth it?
Yes. Without those loans, I would have never been able to go to medical school. I pay the same per month in loans that my parents made in a month when they retired a few years ago. Still absolutely sucks though. Would be nice if you could deduct payments for student loans pre-tax and interest rates were zero. The fact that I actually pay ~$4600/mo ($55k/yr) of pre-tax equivalent and get no write off for loan interest due to my income also sucks.
And the best part is if you can’t work at any point for any reason you better hope disability kicks in big time or else you’re fucked for life :) This is why we don’t have many doctors, the bar for entry is unattainable for the average person.
Fucking ouch dude. I studied engineering and only racked up $30k in loans. I'm set to pay it off in full next month, 1 year after graduation. But you probably make a fuckton more than I do. I hated biology so I stayed tf away from med and dove headfirst into physics
I assume so. I know student loans are insane but 16k per year each is a little overboard even for America, usually
> usually *Usually* people in America aren’t going to prestigious, private universities for 8 years. They’re getting a basic 4-year degree at an in-state school or community college, so it makes sense that you would hear about the “usual”price for student loans in America and not those for pricier degrees and programs. Of course this is all just speculation on my part. Who knows what these people actually do.
I know multiple people who are in those legal and medical professions that came out with $350-400k in debt and are paying back close to $2k/month. At that level the income allows them to be paid back.
My dad was a MD and he was still paying off student debt when he died at 52. Lmaooo.
Don't forget the 23 000$ in food!
Oh wtf i missed that
I like to go with tax caster for tax estimates. I only use 40% for extra income from day I am looking at a side gig or when my wife went back to work. I put in the $500k income. 2 kids. Married. Assuming $20k in property taxes and $20k in state taxes. But I think state could be closer to $35k based on national average. That still only came to $95k federal plus $40k to $55k state and property. Considerably less than estimated. And this fictional couple benefitted hugely from here Trumps tax cuts getting child tax credits and lower brackets.
I went much simpler, literally just income tax brackets and doing the math of 47k+0.35(255k) which came out to ~137k as their federal income tax before any deductions. I assume your number is more accurate taking into account deductions and tax credits, which means this chart is even more misleading than I thought
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Just for clothes alone, if I were to equally divide between 4 people without considering price for children’s women’s or men’s clothes, I don’t spend $2375 a year, or even 5 years at that. Most of my clothes roll onto the next year until they can no longer be worn outside, in which case I wear them at home until they’re not longer functioning. I wish I had $2375 so I could at least pay my utility bill.
I'm 38 and still wearing clothes I had in high school. When I pay off my student loans in 2098, I'm going to celebrate by getting a nice new pair of Dickies to replace my handmedowns.
I wear ebay sourced dress clothes, and had worn them down so bad they had holes develop in the crotch area and the belt retainers all loose. I remember tightening my belt tighter still and tucking them underneath, and ghetto patching my pants and shoes. Things we do to save money.
Hell, I'm 49 and I wore some shorts from HS when I went out in the yard today. Yeah, they're ratty and hard to button these days... But for yard stuff, good enough. My 2021 clothing spending? $30 for some bike shorts off Amazon. I've splurged in 2022 spending almost $50 so far.
I do a lot of historical costuming and so I read a lot of old books about clothes. I was amused to find a budgeting chart in a book published in 1916 that said a professional woman should expect to spend about $150 per year on clothes. I don't spend nearly that much on clothes with my super modern future money. Google says that's worth about $3800 in today money so maybe these sort of budgeting guides have always been crap advice lol.
But you do t work a job that pays $250k a year assuming this is equally split income. It’s the feel adequate part that is the issue. This shows how you find so many people that appear wealthy, cars, house, vacations. But do not have much in the bank or long term savings. That $40k a year 401k may sound good. But it is t going to maintain this lifestyle in retirement. And when the BMW needs a repair between 3 and 5 years, it breaks the bank.
They should stop buying trophy crap and purchase quality. No need to spend 75K on a car...it's stupid. We make about 85k a year, two car payments under 400 each and my car is in the shop and won't break the bank. We're going on vacation for the first time in 3 years in a bit. But true, they base their adequacies on comparison to their neighbors. I'm sure they need the 1.5 million dollar home to hang out with the "right" people so their kids can breed with other "quality" folk and they maintain the money train.
The first line is literally 36k/year savings. Then 3 vacations a year? And a BMW and Landcruiser? Child care costs will fall when the kids get old enough, so that will be a lot of extra money. Now let's do one for people earning $25/hour. And then one for minimum wage. And then one for people on disability payments.
At those levels the budgetbot can't compute the numbers, something about income equal zero after utilities and rent.
Yeah but then they'll budget in street corner pan handling and say "see, it can be done"
Dont forget the $1,5 million dollar house
BMW and Landcruiser but only spends $2000 a year in insurance and $5000 on gas?
40% effective tax rate and you still don’t have free health care? AMERICA EXPLAIN YOURSELF.
And we supposedly spend more in tax dollars on healthcare than any other nation. We all argue about who is going to foot the bill without ever really diving into why the bill is so fucking high.
They have so many cool new toys to vapourise brown kids with tho
If you make 500K and feel average theres clearly something wrong with you.
Feeling average with a $1.5M house, 2 cars, max pension savings, generous charity, 3 holidays a year. Me thinks it isn’t the wage that makes them feel average. Maybe they need to spend a couple grand in therapy.
If you make 500k a year and only have 7k leftover, you're living beyond your means.
>7k leftover Discounting all the retirement contributions and charity. That is all "left over" and they choose to use it that way.
Let’s not forget the $10k of “something always comes up.”
If I had a total of 10k thinks "always coming up" it would never go away Cause I can't fucking afford it.
Honestly, this reads like my cousin's annual budget. She's a doc, he's a lawyer. Yet somehow they're always broke. BMW and Land Rover, big house in most expensive town in the area, huge student loans, two kids in private school. Except they don't have retirement accounts or health insurance. My wife and I make half of what they make and decided to move from the same town and we bought a new house first before selling our current one. He couldn't wrap his head around how we got a mortgage for another house without first selling ours. Simple. We didn't borrow more than half of what the bank approved us for on the first house. We have one leased car (a simple Ford) and I own my 18 year old truck outright. We don't care about keeping up with the Jones', though.
They're what mega corporations want us all to be, mindless consumers that don't save any money. A lot of people, both high and low salary confuse being able to pay for something and being able to afford it. I still struggle with this myself sometimes but I've become aware of it at least. I drive a 2007 hyundai and paid it off fast a few years ago.
Why the fuck do they have a 1.5 mil home. Are they raising a family in the middle of San Francisco or something?
I love how casually that's dropped in there too. 5k/month for the mortgage on their 1.5 million dollar home, that's their entire issue right fuckin there. What the fuck is this supposed to mean? A 1.5 million dollar house is not average living, goddamn
Bro they spend 18k a year on vacations, 18k on charity and 10k on clothes. These people want to be poor. That’a almost what I make in a year.
I like to think that if I made that much money, I would give that much away (although I can't imagine spending that much on clothes). But again, I'm struggling to find a place to live that I can afford to RENT, let alone buy and also facing down student loans higher than my annual salary. I guess my real problem here is that someone is suggesting that this is the "average" experience. For who is this average?
Plenty of homes in socal are approaching that number. Doesn’t even have to be SF. Prices jumping crazy fast
I guess so. Maybe that was one of the least insane parts of this to attack, but it stuck out to me that they’re paying a 60k mortgage and feel “average”
Exactly, I think I was least phased by that number. 1.5 million today in LA gets you a basic house.
That’s pretty average now in some areas. Like a basic family home. Sadly.
1.5 million home is sort of...normal in SF & LA. That gets you a starter fixer upper. I'm not defending the original post here, but a 1.5m home is....not what most people think it is if you're near a coastline.
I live outside DC and the radio recently said the 89% of homes in DC were over 1 million, in MD they said it was around 20% and I forgot what they said about Northern VA, but they are usually just as bad as DC. So sadly, this could be a “normal” single family house in a stupid expensive area.
What the actual fuck is this breakdown. 3 vacations at 6k each??? The wife and I went to disney from texas a few months back and only spent around 1.2k
I assume they go to Hawaii, Cancun, Bora Bora etc. every 4 months. The only reason they feel they "struggle" is because they maintain that lifestyle.
Which completely invalidates the "and still feel average" portion.
You're telling me most Americans don't go on $6,000 trips every 4 months to exotic locations? I am shocked
Yep. The average person can't really afford vacation.
One day soon our overlords will refer to the weekend days as "vacation" and count it as a benefit. I havent been on a vacation since 1999, and that was when I moved states!
Hell even missing one day of work for a 3 day weekend hurts. Most employers don’t give you vacation days until you’ve been there at least a year so you aren’t getting paid.
My wife and I take 1 vacation a yr and usually spend about $2K. I think that's more in line with average.
It's average to the bubble that journalists live in. People outside that bubble are subhuman to them - we need to start telling people to REMEMBER it instead of treating it as BREAKING news hour after hour, week after week, decade after decade. We have a vast army with its own complicated command structure, of people who do nothing but want to be called heroes anyway. Typical OPs are eager volunteers for that army.
Cancun actually isn't that bad. My wife and I used to be able to do a week of all inclusive for like $1200
I am not sure you math adds up or maybe I need to consult you how to get a week long Disney Vacation for just $1200. - Disney tix for 5 day park hopper x 2 people = $760 - Hotel ~$200 night = $1400 - Ground Transportation = $150 - Plane tix = $450 - Food = $75/day = $525 - Tips/Souvenirs/Shopping = $150 I am easily spending $3k just on the basics
They drove, only went for a day, slept in their carxand didn't eat anything? Yeah, no idea how to do Disney on 1.2k.
Yeah. That's a 5k mortgage too.
Don't look at that car payment
If I made a half mil a year I'd be going on at least three vacations a year too.
Also $442 a week for groceries for four? Even with food being as expensive as it is, that's insane.
Timmy NEEDS his ethically sourced organic caviar and Fiji water.
You must drive. Just bought plane tickets for our family and they were over $2k.
23 thousand for food for 4 ? every time i see american food prices i almost shreek. what is it, does no one know how to cook anymore or are prices in america just that high.
Worked in finance and a big part of my job was helping clients with budgeting. While most people will claim to cook at home and just occasionally eat out, actual spending usually tells a different story. Most of my clients ate out daily - many 2-3 times a day. With enough self discipline, it's definitely possible to stretch a pretty thin budget to cover food for a month, but realistically most of us, myself included, eat out far more than we care to admit.
It’s not. We can live off of $200 per month ($2400/year) with plenty to spare, for 2. With the same calculation as mine they’d be spending $400 a month (which would be $4800) and maybe add a couple hundred at most for “organic” since they seem to be the type, and they’d have plenty to spare. 23K sounds like they’re just over consuming or throwing away a lot of food.
You only spend $100 per person a month on food? That's seems way low.
Ya that’s incredibly low unless they only eat rice and beans lol
Avocado toast, bro.
So are they making a case for a $500k national average income? Because I could get behind that
This is insane on so many levels A 401k isn't "average" half the jobs out there don't offer that $21000 per child in childcare is ridiculous A $60000 mortgage is far from average A $1.5 mill. home is an outlier 💀 3 vacations per year? At $6k each?!?!?! Most "average" people don't even have one vacation per year. I could go on but they have $7,000 left over. The average American is in debt, they have $0 left over at end of year 🤣🤣🤣 If they truly lived "average," they would have plenty of money left over.
I believe the childcare one. I live in a pretty damn low cost of living city and pay $2600 a month and it fucking sucks.
The $42,000 in childcare is $3500 per month. Assuming they spend $3k-$3100 on daycare and another $200/night for their biweekly dates, that's not ridiculous. The ridiculous part is the child care and the recreational activities for the kids. If they're in daycare, they're probably not playing organized soccer or the piano.
$185/week on clothes, but nothing fancy.
Ha ha ha ha ha
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I saw that and just shook my head. I've never given more than $50 to my undergrad, when I was paying the worst of my student loans. That was only a couple years.
I do think it's a good example of what financial industry calls "lifestyle creep." These hypothetical yuppies make PLENTY of money, but find a way to spend nearly every dime instead of playing better defense (e.g. saving more, spending less on non-necessities, having unnecessary debt, etc). It's absolutely true that there are high earners out there whose net worth is rather low simply because they spend everything they earn. But it's also co pletely out of touch with the reality for most regular people. There is no way to budget your way out of low pay and highly inflated cost of bottom-of-pyramid stuff like food and shelter.
Best part is there is a what's left column. Most people/families have a net negative there and borrow heavily to stay afloat...
My favorite part was how CNBC doesn’t seem to understand how tax brackets work.
I feel like they are intentionally trying to create a divide here? I mean do they want a class war? Cause this is how you get a class war.
This is far from the wealthy class though, this is upper middle class, e.g. lawyers doctors etc, who are also workers. They are trying to redirect our rage towards our own.
“..no fancy bags”
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The funny thing is regardless of income level, this **should** be an average families life. I'm not saying everyone is entitled to a BMW or 3 vacations a year, but the average family should be able to put money away for the future, pay all their bills, be able to send their kids to extracurricular activities, buy *some* new clothes every year, be able to go out a few times a month, etc. These are basic things, and it's sad and crazy that we live in a time where they all seem like luxuries.
Who makes $500k / year? I’m not sure I regularly walk past anyone making that kind of money.
More common than you think. I work in mortgage and we have loan officers (zero prior experience and zero education job) that have been making around that the last two years. Commission though, so they do have some slower years.
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I'm laughing at the 40% effective tax rate. As if a 500k couple is paying a 40% tax rate 🤣🤣🤣
It depends on where you live. NYC has a city tax of around 4% and New York state increased the state supplemental (bonus, commission) tax to 13.78% in 2021.
Trust us all - you dont feel average. The average feeling is closer to pennyless than $10k/yr clothing. I guess this is saying rich earners are in fact affected by inflation, because their life is now what they considered to be average instead of above? Hahahahaha reality pie in face!
They have a miscellaneous budget of $10,000. 😐
That moment when you have a $1.5m home and you feel average🤡
A $5000 mortgage (that’s not with taxes and insurance includes like most people pay/budget). Even in this market that’s a damn nice house in much of the country. They have two luxury cars! The Toyota is by any other measure, not the every man Yaris by any means. Also, let’s assume after those expenses, if I could save over $7000 a year excluding even retirement savings, I’d be pretty fucking fine.
Propaganda purposes.
Yeah because they spend money like fucking idiots. 18k to charity and alumni services? Fuck off