I’m worried “paycheck to paycheck” is up to the interpretation of the person filing it the survey and how the questions are phrased. Depending on how the questions are worded, they’d possibly include me. My wife and I max our IRAs, 401ks, and HSAs each year. Anything that can be put on the credit card, is (then paid off before any interest can accrue). Like sure if you look at our monthly expenses vs income hitting the bank, we are “paycheck to paycheck”. But we could both lose a significant portion of our income and be just fine (provided we scale back retirement savings).
Unless they address that in these articles or surveys, it just sounds like they’re trying to get the poor and middle class to just agree to this shared misery while the rich keep fucking the world over.
I’m not sure that they asked that directly. It looks like they asked if people are using their credit cards to cover bills more, and whether they expect to be able to fully pay the credit card bill off by the end of the year.
This is like all those surveys saying that 70% of Americans have less than $5000 in a “savings account.”
No shit, yields on savings accounts have been pointless for about two decades. Everyone with spare money puts liquid savings into index funds in margin accounts and runs on credit cards.
If you’re making 150k and are living paycheck to paycheck you either live in a crazy expensive area or are a total fucking idiot when it comes to managing your money.
Rent in NYC where I live is insane. My partner and I recently toured a place where they broke up the basement of a building into 4 apartments, none of which had a real bedroom, and were asking for $3k each
This is a trend everywhere, I just recently moved to different apartment and I’d say 8/10 apartments I saw on Zillow and the other sites were these “open concept” or whatever 1 bedrooms and hallway kitchens. It’s depressing
Move to Ohio and you can buy a house for significantly less than your current rent.
Look at the positive side. When sea levels start rising, you’d be first to notice that!
Supply and demand.
You can always move somewhere else and have hope of one day owning property. Or you can rent forever and have nothing to pass on to your kids.
The choice is yours. I wouldn’t wait around for others to solve your problems.
Ya, people should be forced to move away from their family and friends and home by insane cost of living and instead of sympathy we should just expect them to single handedly solve an entire fucked up economic system.
🤡
I’m torn on this one. I do think people should live near their friends and family but if the living situation was totally untenable I’m sure they wouldn’t want me to struggle. At the same time, they aren’t going to help me pay the bills so how much do they really care anyway?
Entitlement. Thanks for understanding.
Douchebaggery. Thanks for your support for high income inequality and low social mobility
What are you talking about? I support spreading out so there are more developed areas that people want to live.
Passing a bunch of money around in major cities is what exacerbates the disparity in wealth. Why should city people who already have more wealth get even more before those who have less?
I really don’t think that’s how any of this works, dude
You need to invest in areas if you want them to be “developed” so people want to live in them. If you force poor people to leave places where there are more opportunities (e.g. economic, educational, occupational, etc.) for them, you’re basically dooming them and their following generations to poverty. This is why I said you support low social mobility and high income inequality.
Now just think of who the poorest people are in cities - it’s a lot of minorities, single parents, people in debt, etc. That should immediately tell you “city people” don’t have more wealth than most people elsewhere. As far as I can tell, the working class anywhere serve mainly to enrich the wealthy class.
I’ve always looked at it this way: should the people that scrub toilets in NY or SF or LA be paid enough to live in the same city? Everything I’ve seen tells me the average American answers this question with a resounding “No!” People in those areas have to make hour-long commutes to put food on the table for their family. I don’t see why we should accept essential workers being paid less than they deserve.
Try making $150k in a “reasonably priced area.” It can be done, but is not the norm. The problem is that to make a good salary, you have to be in a place that pays those wages. Obviously, this attracts more people, so real estate is more expensive.
The trick is to make $150k in some kind of sweet spot where housing does not compensate. But it’s always a moving target and is extremely difficult. Then in you lose your job? Start all over again.
I started working remotely and then left America. Now I live in a very low cost of living city and haven’t owed more than 1-2% taxes in years… It blows my mind that more people don’t do this.
If they did, it wouldn’t be a low cost of living area for long
There are many low COL areas, so yes you can do this quite a lot.
Gentrify the planet.
Most people won’t do something if they think it’s “too hard,” even if it will solve their problems.
Where did you go? And how do you not pay fed taxes working for an American company? Or is it a foreign company?
Georgia (the country) and Turkey mostly.
Qualifying for the FEIE (stay out of America for 330 days per year) means you don’t pay taxes on the first $120k you earn. Maxing out the 401k ($22,500) will reduce taxable income as well so it’s really like the first $142,500 is tax free.
I work for an American company as a W2 employee.
Thanks, looking to emigrate with a remote job, so good to know. Do you know if the FEIE is for any country or only select ones? And how hard did you find the entire transition in general?
The FEIE is only concerned about your relationship with America. It doesn’t matter what country/countries you decide to live in.
As far as the transition, I didn’t know it was happening until much later. When I left America it was to travel full time. I wasn’t specifically going to one place so saying goodbye to friends and family was like, “I’ll be around. Catch you guys later.” 2-3 years later I was thinking to myself, “Oh shit… You’re like… really gone.”
For work, I hold myself pretty strictly to working on US east coast hours so there is as little friction as possible with the employers. I moved my phone to a virtual provider and updated all banking and W4 paperwork to use a mailbox service in Florida (no state level income tax in FL).
You do get very bored with tourist stuff though. I think I would rather die than set foot in another museum or see some old building or religious site or whatever… Now 100% of the travel I still do is to see people I care about.
Good luck.
You just explained how work from home jobs will transform how people buy housing and where they buy it.
Yeah, my job went remote in 2020 and this year I moved out of the city and just bought my first house in my home state where the cost of living is almost 1/2 of my former city. I
could’vewould’ve never bought a place where I was before. I’m sure someone would have loaned me the money but that felt like a death sentence for my small amount of disposable income.I make $150k and learned to manage a very strict budget living in the city. Now I have some disposable income and my own house with a yard.
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Because in your world, mobile home trailer parks are free or even exist in urban areas. Come on. A studio apartment around here starts at $1600/mo. The average home sale price in this area in 2022 was $580k. At 10% down, 30 year fixed, at 6.5% interest, after taxes and fees, that’s a mortgage payment of about $4000/mo. Plus about $300-600/mo if you have an HOA/COA. Plus repairs as needed.
Your net take home pay at $150k, after taxes only, is about $9k, making your mortgage 45% of your income. That doesn’t include health insurance, retirement, or any other paycheck deductions.
It doesn’t include transportation: payments, gas, repairs, tolls, or insurance.
That doesn’t include utilities: gas, electric, water, trash, phone, or internet.
That doesn’t include food, supplies, clothing, or personal care.
And it sure as shit doesn’t include medical issues. God help you if you’re a diabetic.
And kids? What are you, fucking Rockefeller? Daycare, schooling (yes, even public schools cost money because of all the extras they ask you to provide like supplies, lunch, etc), and all their needs. At at least 16 years before they might be able to pay rent, that’s a long time for a free tenant sharing your resources.
Plus all of life’s extra costs.
And looking at Zillow, I can’t find any properties within 10 miles of me going for less than $600k. They got townhomes for 1.2 million just down the block. $580k for a house is gonna be hard to find, and probably not in the best condition. Doable, possibly, but not easy.
Terrible assumption
In California, a new mortgage payment is 8-15k/month. Rent on an apartment is 3-4k/month. $150k salary isn’t enough for the mortgage and will struggle to cover that cost of rent.
In California, a new mortgage payment is 8-15k/month. Rent on an apartment is 3-4k/month
Buddy of mine lives in LA and was just posting angry complaints about his rent going up to 1800/mo, so no.
I’ve got three friends in the LA area and one in the Bay and none of them pay anything close to 3k/mo rent or 8k(!!!) on their mortgages.
Those numbers are insane.
LA is cheap compared to the Bay Area. Also, I’m quoting numbers for new mortgages and new rentals. If you got your mortgage even 3 years ago, the numbers will be different.
Student loans
Household income not personal income? And gross not net, correct? After healthcare, taxes and retirement deductions my net is 50% of gross so let’s say that calculates to 6,250 a month. It is a lot of money! But for a household of 4, 2 paid off cars 3 drivers and one college student with no tuition costs, and one high schooler in a school that gives everyone lunch(so it could be much worse) here the average community monthly costs are:
2.5k mortgage with the tax & insurance in there, make that 3k if you are renting.
800/ month car insurance
600/month electric, water, internet
200/month family cell phone service
50/month streaming and donations to community radio
600/month average repair & maintenance on home and cars
Leaving 1700 for food for 4, gas, vet bills, credit card payments (because if someone is making bank now, they got there by making less for years). It’s certainly reasonable but here it’s about the least you can make household - wise and be solid, so if you are making 50k, you need three people working not two. And I can see how a family could get behind. That 2.5k plus $600 housing cost can be much more if you bought a house in the last year or so, and car loan or tuition could also blow this up, as could a medical emergency.
800/ month car insurance
The fuck? Why is your car insurance so expensive?
600/month electric, water, internet
The fuck? Why are you water and electric bills so high? I live alone, but my water bill is always <$40 and my electric bill is $70-$150 depending on if I’m running the A/C or heater.
Internet for me is only $25/month because I use my phone for Internet and have unlimited data with Visible.
200/month family cell phone service
Switch to Visible, like I said. $25/month per line and you all have unlimited data so you can cut your cable Internet.
50/month streaming and donations to community radio
Complete waste of money. You don’t get to do these and then complain you don’t have enough.
600/month average repair & maintenance on home and cars
Lol, what? Are you constantly hitting your walls with hammers? Do you do offroading in a sedan? No way you’re spending $600 per month on home/car repairs (on average) unless you’re driving a Benz or BMW.
That said, thank you for listing out your expenses. It’s a way more fruitful discussion when we talk actual numbers instead of vague “I don’t have enoughs.”
Nope. 2 cars and 3 drivers here with one of them 18 years old. Highest cost car insurance market in the nation. But without that third driver our household income wouldn’t hit the $150k.
Electric, Water, Internet. That’s mostly electricity. Electric bill is higher since I’m working from home, and everything in the house is electric (no gas bill) we don’t eat out much, cook a lot. Very high in the summer. Big windows, high ceilings, old house. Water includes garbage and is usually $100 or so. Internet about $75 FIOS so I can work from home mostly (2 cars not 3 that way).
The $200 is a legacy t mobile plan covering 8 people so if needed I could get the grown kids to cover half of it, that one is high but not per line, we just pay it because if we cut them off it would still cost us $200 for 4 lines.
House is older and cars are too. Tenting for termites has to happen every 10 years and costs 10k, we’ve had to fix plumbing, electric, replace an old porch, need blinds to help with the electrical cost, and the cars won’t last forever - I honestly think the $600 may be underestimating the cost of maintenance, not overestimating.
And of course every month something happens. Vet bills, or some medical cost, or car repair eats the 600 AND the plumbing springs a leak, or I have to work weekends and we buy restaurant food - no month is just bills.
It’s easy to go cheap for awhile, I have done that plenty. We have dry beans, rice, a garden. But things fall apart. I am putting here the cost of maintenance because if we don’t accrue this $600ish, it will end up costing even more. It’s a real cost.
Oh, and I know this isn’t poor, lol. In my 20s lived with 3 families in one house and dumpster dived to make ends meet. Then raised 4 kids with a guy who, halfway through, decided he couldn’t work. 6 people living on what I could make, we are paying that deficit now too. Even so, this is is an awesome life, I am not complaining at all. Just saying that the bills do take most of the netpay if the real cost of housing and transportation is included.
I’m driving a 26 year old car and don’t even spend $600 on maintenance in a year. $600/month ($7200/year) sounds crazy high. That’s like replacing an engine or transmission every year.
Correct, it’s mostly house. For a year, cars are about $400 in oil changes plus $300 in regular maintenance (brakes, etc.) and usually one repair or tires purchase of high cost, $600-1200. Its staying way below the cost of a new one.
The house is the real money eater.
Ah, I didn’t realize you were lumping home and vehicle maintenance together. My water heater recently died after 19 years of solid use and that was more than a $2k project. I’m dreading the day the furnace goes out. Homes aren’t cheap.
I’m buying whatever I want and putting 10% in my 401(k) and that’s exactly the same as being poor
These people lol
Or you only consider your expenses after savings and think that you are “living paycheck to paycheck” because you use up all your non-invested money by the end of the month.
I know a few programmers that are broke because they spend every penny that comes in and bought a $90k car the moment they got their jobs.
I don’t understand why people give up financial security willingly like that
100% agree
PS: porque no los dos?
Don’t let this sensational headline fool you. These are not the 1% not even close.
Famine, disease, collapse, or war. Those are historically the only ways inequality of anywhere near this level has been rectified.
Sounds like this might rectified soon, then.
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I’d love to see this as a paycheck breakdown. Unless you have a history of debt, a huge house, or like 8 kids I don’t see how it’s not possible to do at least moderately well on 150k/y
Edit: before folks reply with a comment about people being worse off, I know. I agree. This is just a scenario description.
It is very easy to be strapped with a modest sized house or apartment in the “right” zip code.
As in a 1.2mil mortgage on a 3 bedroom house that’s never been renovated since the 70s. That mortgage could be 5k / month.
150000 a year is 8.7k a month, after taxes. If you have student loans, any medical debt, kids, that remaining 3.7k is pretty critical. You aren’t swimming in liquid chocolate every night and wiping with singles.
If you own a home things can happen out of nowhere. I personally just had to replace my sewer line last month. 17k for the work and 1.5k for new concrete. Not covered by my home insurance because I didn’t opt for the rider on my account. My fault there… My finances are a bit different than the above description but if you were the 150 + paycheck to paycheck situation, you’d be in hot water.
This isn’t a “woe to the 150 crowd” comment. I’m well aware folks are way, way worse off, but when a 150 household talks about being paycheck to paycheck, it’s totally possible.
At least in CA where the property tax is 1%, last time I fed the info into one of those calculators a few months ago, a 1.2m house (exactly the type you describe) with a standard 20% down-payment would run closer to $8k/mo with good credit. That includes property tax and homeowners insurance, which is required to get a loan.
So yeah, that doesn’t leave a whole lot to live off of.
There’s also the upkeep cost for repairs and to renovate.
We’ve let our gutters stay broken for several years now because we just can’t afford to get them fixed. We had to have an emergency repair to our heat pump yesterday and that’s going to be hundreds of dollars out of pocket. We’re on a single income. My wife gets paid well (not $150,000 a year well) and our mortgage is low, but we’re barely making it.
$150k is twice what my parents made combined back in the 90s, and they lived a solid upper middle class life in an upscale suburb of a small city. Always had a nice TV and my dad and I both had PCs that we upgraded every year AND they saved up two years worth of college for me. Amazing how quickly things have changed. They bought their house for $180k and it’s now worth nearly $500k.
My career now is generally a higher valued one than theirs, but adjusting for inflation, my pay has always been lower than theirs at the same point in their careers. And that’s the story. Incomes may have doubled since the early-mid 90s, but everything else has tripled or quadrupled.
Isn’t a mortgage as high as your whole salary for 10 years unwise from the get go?
In general yes, but many many people are doing this to attempt a “normal” home the likes of which they grew up in, and that they themselves want to raise a kid in.
OR consider a household where 2 incomes of around 150 were earned when the house was purchased, but now one earner is not earning appreciably any more…maybe a stay at home parent or illness or whatever.
Again just saying some possibilities, not the normative experience.
I guess the rough reality is that some people want to live where their family lives but can’t easily afford it. I don’t know how far you need to live from SF for prices to return to reality, but I suspect it’s a 1h+ drive
Bay area
Yeah I could see 150k being poverty level there.
Such a rusty axe head
If you’re making 150k per year and “living paycheck to paycheck” you suck with money, full stop.
That’s more than double median household income
My combined household income is more than 150k per year and I have not changed my spending habits since I was in college… caveat being I own a house but my mortgage may only be twice what I was paying in rent. Also I now have healthcare.
Still living paycheck to paycheck. I guess I’d be ok if I missed one or both my wife and I missed one. Though, my marriage would start to be in jeopardy after 2 or 3 I’d guess. Not that she would leave me because I’m not making enough but the added stress would quickly become unmanageable.
Same, except I have a functional TV now lol
I think location definitely plays into this. 150k in some places is nothing.
I’m almost there.
I also live in the Bay Area. My rent is locally cheap but nationally very high. My wife has a chronic illness and an unrelated acute issue that recently required surgery. She can barely work. Until this most recent surgery I was keeping ahead, but expenses are up and income is down and that’s not true anymore.
I have good health insurance but there’s a lot more to medical costs than just doctors, and to partially manage her daily quality of life it’s not weird to cook her three different dinners and she can only stomach one. This explodes our meal budget.
We’re childfree but one of our dogs recently also got diagnosed with chronic illness. They are our kids, full stop.
Shit happens. Don’t be a dick about it.
You sound like the exception not the rule.
I think you’d be surprised how many people live in cities and have medical expenses. This dude doesn’t even have kids.
Word
Nope. If people having been living the exact same without changing many of their habits then it is absolutely fair that they would also be struggling paycheck to paycheck. They’re effected just as the rest are. We need to focus on the jackass causing us to turn on eachother. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves because there are people who consider 30k/y as living lavish and think they also shouldn’t be complaining.
If people having been living the exact same without changing many of their habits then it is absolutely fair that they would also be struggling paycheck to paycheck
If you can’t play for the future you will be poor. I owe you no sympathy
You’re one of the richest people on the planet, by default, and I think you should pay more in taxes and it should be on you to figure out your finances, because you’re fucking rich and you just don’t realize it.
The most wealthy places on earth should not be held up as the norm and most people should not live in those places. We should tax all of those people excessively and they should not have guaranteed wealth.
They use the median instead of mean here for a reason… Can you guess it?
Because mean income is a useless metric in most contexts due to it being extremely warped due to outliers (billionaires) since this country has the worst income inequality in the first world by far…? Do I get a trophy now
I think the point is, they are living paycheck to paycheck unless they choose to decrease the quality of living.
On one hand we can say these people are way better off than they deserve and laugh at their stupidity.
On the other hand, that’s not a great sign for the economy. The “every day” kind of rich person isn’t even that rich anymore. And lowering the ceiling pushes you into the floor.
If society were healthier and functioning, relative costs would be going down for everybody. But enshitification is the new big thing to earn another buck.
I think the point is, they are living paycheck to paycheck unless they choose to decrease the quality of living.
People who actually live paycheck to paycheck don’t have this option and this is ludicrously offensive to people who actually live this way.
On one hand we can say these people are way better off than they deserve and laugh at their stupidity.
It’s not about laughing at their stupidity but about the situation itself being laughable.
The “every day” kind of rich person isn’t even that rich anymore. And lowering the ceiling pushes you into the floor.
I thought lowering these gaps was the intention of Progressivism. Is it not?
I think it’s just one more side effect of “American exceptionalism” and the culture of individuality and “me me me me” here, that people don’t even see “change your lifestyle” as an option.
They were told about the American dream or whatever, but they were sold a bill of goods, and now they can’t even comprehend cutting back on expenses in any meaningful way.
Lowering the gap between 10th and 90th percentile is meaningless if the very top doesn’t change too
I mean, this depends on a lot of factors. Stop applying your own prejudice to this?
$150/y = ~$100-110k take home
The average monthly expenses (Living very much in your means, in an area with avg cost of living, not performing maintenance…etc) for a family of 4 is ~$101k/y
So you have between ~ -$80/m to +$700/m in disposable income. If you start doing the necessary maintenance & long term cost amatorization of living in the U.S. (ie. Having to buy a car eventually, if you own a home replacing the roof…etc). Suddenly you’re close to negative. Meaning that when these events happen you have to cover their cost with credit card debt or some other form of debt, which means your cost of living is over time partially covered by debt.
This also seems that you are living not surviving… Much of the US is not really living, they are simply surviving. We should not measure the bar that low for what we consider acceptable quality of living standards.
Or, if you are in a marginally higher cost of living area that $700/m evaporates.
Even for a single person, a HCOL area will eat way that income to the point where eating out is a monthly luxury.
It sounds like a lot of money but depending on where you live it can be an incredibly small amount of money.
That’s because they’re just passing a bunch of money around at the top.
All of them live in major cities and don’t own property.
Welcome to the jungle fellas. How’s that trickle down working for you now?
The only way I could reasonably see that is if those people bought houses when rates went up. I live in a high cost of living area and $150k would not be living paycheck to paycheck for my family (wife, 2 kids, and a dog). I guess I also don’t have expensive tastes.
Define high cost living area. Wife with 2 kids and a pet, I assume you’re going to need at least a 3 bedroom condo for a modest living arrangement.
Where I live, southern California, the average cost for a 3br condo is $4k per month. Mortgages at this time would be way more (standard 20% down).
Someone else estimated 150k is around 8.7k a month after taxes. So that’s already almost half your income just for a roof over your head.
Include the expense of kids, student loans, car loans, health insurance, etc. Yeah, paycheck to paycheck isn’t unrealistic.
Not everyone was lucky enough to be in the financial place in their life to buy a house 5 years ago.
I’m gonna go ahead and tell you, that’s a bit high for after tax.
I make 172/year and after tax and benefits and what not in South Carolina, I’m at 8.6 a month, which is less than the 150 estimate. So in an average tax state and making 20k less? Might be more like 7.5-8.
Edit: granted of course, 401k contribution can change things a bunch
Fair enough. I’m sure there’s a calculator to make it easy per state. But yeah, take home is deceptive, because typically someone making that kind of income is going to have health insurance contributions, retirement contributions, social security (not technically income tax, but fair enough to deduct IMO) taken directly out of their paycheck.
Without doing the estimates myself, either of your claims sound plausible, and even taking 8.7k as a generous estimate, it doesn’t look good.
and even taking 8.7k as a generous estimate, it doesn’t look good.
Big facts. Worker wages need to be adjusted for the last ${years since Reagan took office and initially screwed everything up for the common American} and then we should be okay.
I live in Seattle. Like I said, I can see this being true for people who got a mortgage at 5+%. But I don’t think a third of people got houses at that rate so it would likely be closer $3k. Here the average 3br is around $3k/month.
But you missed one large part of the headline. It’s people making $150k or more. So that includes a ton of people that make more than that. And also a ton of people not in SoCal or other HCOL areas.
To be fair, I live in a low cost of living area and having purchased a house this past January, if I dropped to 130k I might be paycheck to paycheck after a while. Which, granted is lower than the survey.
This being said, my mortgage payment is only $50 more than what my rent was about to increase to, because landlords are the devil.
I also didn’t get a big house, it was well under the national average for cost and size, very much a “starter house”. But still over 300k, because housing is a nightmare.
This is a completely unfair assessment. I make way less than that, and this is what results they get? Either they didn’t try hard enough with more taking the test, or they are THAT financially tone deaf. Soo stupid
I don’t understand your point? The article and the survey found a 3rd of people earning over $150k were living pay cheque to pay cheque, but also 36% in the bracket below and over 55% of people on $50k or less.
Living pay cheque to pay cheque is a sign of financial distress but not the only sign. People’s living costs also match their lifestyles - it’s possible for someone earning $150k to be living pay cheque to pay cheque as the cost of living, schools, transport, etc are higher. Of course people in that bracket have the “luxury” of being able to move down the quality of life ladder - move to a cheaper area, cut back on their lifestyle.
Whatever you may think about people earning that much, the message is that the cost of living crisis is affecting everyone and pulling down living standards for everyone. Not only is it hard to live your previous lifestyle but it’s impossible to aspire for more.
The only exception is the millionaires and billionaires who continue to screw the rest of us over. We have more in common with someone who earns $150k a year than someone who earns $500k or who is sitting on millions or billions in asset wealth.
The sooner the middle classes realise they’re aligned with the poor and not the rich, the better. Maybe then they will stop voting for shit right wing politicians who only benefit the truly rich.
Try living in a high CoL area on 150k. Don’t bother with the “just move” or whatever trite oversimplified solution. People live where they live. Not everyone wants to earn 75k and live in Ardmore, Oklahoma so that their money goes further. If you can find a 75k job in Ardmore, anyway.
Higher taxes, higher mortgage or rent costs, cost of commuting all add up fast.
That said, burning through $150k does seem a stretch. I lived in a major metro area on a lot less (we were definitely poor), it is possible to keep expenses low, but it sure isn’t comfortable at all.
Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn’t. 75, 000 a year is still less than what I make.
I don’t see how that’s possible unless you have a huge family, you have some sort of chronic disease that insurance doesn’t cover, or you’re wildly irresponsible. Even in a high cost-of-living area, a normal family of four could live quite comfortably on that much money and still save some of it.
(I don’t think that many high-earning people are wildly irresponsible. I suspect that this statistic isn’t right.)
It’s called living in a city. Housing is expensive as fuck in cities.
I live in a one-bedroom in midtown Manhattan. It costs me about a hundred dollars a day and I’m still saving money on my software developer salary.
That’s pretty steep for a 1 bedroom apartment, 3000ish I assume based on what you said, and I’m guessing it’s not that big. I meanwhile live in a college town in the middle of nowhere and my 3 bedroom house with a garage and basement is 2100 a month.
You’re software developer tho. So you’re a rich person anyways. You don’t understand the struggle
The OP is talking about people with software-developer salaries.
When people hear “living paycheck to paycheck” they automatically assume it means barely making enough money for essentials. It for sure can mean that, but often people living paycheck to paycheck make good money, they just don’t live within their means. It’s not hard to buy a nicer house and a nicer car than your can really afford, and run up credit card debt, and find yourself in a situation where you can’t pay your bills because you’re overextended, even with a good salary.
I continually rotate debt through 0% interest deals on credit cards, it’s how I’ve paid for a lot of my home improvements.
Paid for a new roof and awning on the house that way, currently paying for solar panels and a large electrical project.
If a credit card offers me 0% interest for a year, why WOULDN’T I do that instead of paying cash?
I have three different cards now that every time I pay them off they’re like “Heyyyy… here’s some balance transfer checks… 0% until January '25…”
