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> Well, people who make $200k tend to live in places when you spend $40-80k on rent or mortgage, $10-$20k on food and utilities, god knows how much on medical i

> Well, people who make $200k tend to live in places when you spend $40-80k on rent or mortgage, $10-$20k on food and utilities, god knows how much on medical insurance, and all after 30%-40% taxes, leaving you with about zilch to save. Or so i heard from this side of the ocean. That's only true of people who either have kids with one working parent, or are extremely irresponsible with their money. * $80k is almost $7k / month in rent, or payment on a mortgage well over $1m. * Utilities are incredibly cheap in a temperate climate like SF, unless again you have an unreasonably large house to heat/cool. The rest of the "$10k-$20k" for food could buy a person a meal out everyday on the low end, and all meals out on the high end. This is especially crazy when you consider that most $200k jobs also provide catered lunch. * Medical insurance is always included with $200k jobs. Not true with contractors, but they are probably making a lot more than $200k, if they were able to pull that salary at a regular full-time job. If you're making $200k and not saving anything, you really need to reevaluate your priorities. Just because your parents lived in a $5m house in Palo Alto and paid your way through Stanford doesn't mean you deserve to continue that lifestyle immediately after graduation.

Artlav 9y ago
Perhaps it all goes down to lifestyle inflation more than any inherent expense scaling with income opportunities. I've heard of people in SF spending $1-$2 a day on food, living in a trailer and showering at work, while making 6 figures of $. I've also heard of people complaining about $2k a month not being enough for food, and bragging about being debt free aka "mortgage doesn't count. A car doesn't either. Credit cards are temporary. Other than that, debt-free!". It's a subtle beast - just before i got latter job i had $3k equivalent fall into my hands from a lucky investment. It was a big deal, and totally worth the effort of navigating the bureaucracy of extracting it into a spendable form. A few months later i got a new job and soon looking back it felt like a waste of effort and a bad decision, since i was now making that much in a month. For a while i just went through my wishlist of equipment faster, still managing to more or less break even every month. It took the crash of 2014 to really make it sink in why saving is important.

Artlav 9y ago

Perhaps it all goes down to lifestyle inflation more than any inherent expense scaling with income opportunities. I've heard of people in SF spending $1-$2 a day on food, living in a trailer and showering at work, while making 6 figures of $. I've also heard of people complaining about $2k a month not being enough for food, and bragging about being debt free aka "mortgage doesn't count. A car doesn't either. Credit cards are temporary. Other than that, debt-free!". It's a subtle beast - just before i got latter job i had $3k equivalent fall into my hands from a lucky investment. It was a big deal, and totally worth the effort of navigating the bureaucracy of extracting it into a spendable form. A few months later i got a new job and soon looking back it felt like a waste of effort and a bad decision, since i was now making that much in a month. For a while i just went through my wishlist of equipment faster, still managing to more or less break even every month. It took the crash of 2014 to really make it sink in why saving is important.