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I live in the area, and I actually have calculated how much an upper middle class existence would cost for a family of 3. $90k or so. Upper middle class mortgag

I live in the area, and I actually have calculated how much an upper middle class existence would cost for a family of 3. $90k or so. Upper middle class mortgage from 2012, taxes, one midrange car loan, medical insurance, utilities, food, other insurance, one decent vacation a year. Pretty good lifestyle, all in all. As a family of 3 you don’t even have to work that hard to earn this amount in Seattle area. So I have a fairly limited amount of compassion towards the dwellers of tent cities etc.

erentz 9y ago
Wait, seriously? Can you provide the data? I think you have a seriously huge hole in your model if you're basing your housing costs on a mortgage on a 2012 priced house. Try nearly doubling that part.
seattle_spring 9y ago
A mortgage on a $90k income would responsibly top out under $300k, and that's after putting down 20%. Average house in Seattle today runs just about $800k. It was closer to $400k in 2012. Unless you come back and specify that you meant Kent or Renton, $90k unquestionably and unarguably would not provide an upper middle class lifestyle in Seattle. Not in 2012, and definitely not today.
vanilla_nut 9y ago
Interesting. Would you mind posting some of your calculations/data here? I live in NYC myself -- probably a bit more expensive than Seattle -- but even as a single, young, healthy person, $90k wouldn't feel very comfortable here. I make a lot more than that because I work in tech, but I'm still concerned about retirement plans (is $18k/year in my 401k really enough? What if market returns start to stagnate?). I'm really curious where you got your numbers from though, because on 90k salary, your (twice-monthly) paycheck should end up around $2800, before subtracting things like social security/etc. So you probably take home a little less than $5k/month at the end of it all. Of note in your calculations: - upper middle class mortgage from 2012. According to zillow [1], median home price in 2012 was $353k. Today it's $800k, over twice that -- 2012 was the worst year in a long time for Seattle housing. Probably 2k/month, right? At 90k, that's going to be about 50% of your salary after tax -- not abysmal, but certainly not close to the 1/3 rule I've always been told. Then again, it's owning rather than renting, so maybe it's justifiable. Biggest problem I see here is that there aren't that many folks who managed to buy their house at the best possible time to do so, and anybody who's moved to Seattle since 2012 is going to pay closer to $4k/month for that same home. --one midrange car loan: I don't think just one car would be very comfortable for a family of three living in the suburbs of Seattle. Again, doable -- maybe only one parent works, and the child is young, so you could carpool to school/one job/other job, but it sounds like a lot of commuting for whoever has to drop off the others. In Seattle traffic, that could easily end up being 2 hours of driving just to get to and from work, every morning and every evening. Doesn't leave much room for flexibility though. According to Experian Automotive, the average American monthly car payment is $500 [2]. -medical insurance: assuming this isn't provided by your employer, I could easily see this eating the rest of your income after tax. I pray that anybody in this situation has insurance through work. Apparently the average American family is spending between $10k-$20k on insurance, including deductibles [3], so... $1k-$2k/month. So if nobody gets sick in this family, you've still got $1k/month for food and luxuries like eating out, going to concerts, or activities outside of work. -one decent vacation a year: I never vacationed growing up (family was relatively poor), but I'd guess that for a family of three any real vacation is going to end up in the thousands (my guess would be around $3-5k, though I have little idea). So maybe if you just spend $400-500/month on food, you could put away whatever's left (maybe $500, tops?) to take a vacation every year. So I suppose $90k is livable, based on what I see here. But it doesn't sound great, and doesn't leave much room for things like serious medical issues, buffer room if you get fired, or even the ability to pay for something like a summer program for your kid. And what about gifts for birthdays, or if your car breaks down, or you get robbed, etc. etc.? Sounds like you're working hard every day but never getting ahead. Oh, and now that I remember... what about saving for retirement, and saving for college (because you're making $90k, so the government isn't going to give your kid much financial assistance)? Well, I guess we'll just work forever, and the kid will take on $50k of debt to go to a cheaper state school. And then when she graduates and tries to live on $90k in Seattle, we'll have to take into account even worse housing prices AND her student loan payments... [1] https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-values/ [2] https://www.experian.com/assets/automotive/white-papers/experian-auto-2015-q2.pdf?WT.srch=Auto_Q12015FinanceTrends_PDF https://www.experian.com/assets/automotive/white-papers/expe... (warning: pdf) [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/heres-how-much-the-average-american-spends-on-health-care.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/heres-how-much-the-average-a...
- Rebelgecko 9y ago
  I think the implication of 1 car loan is that the purchases will be staggered, so you're only in debt for one car at a time. It's definitely possible for a family to spend $3-5k on a vacation, but it's also possible to spent waaaayyyy less than that (mostly by not flying somewhere)
  - vanilla_nut 9y ago
    That certainly makes more sense. But I suppose we then need to factor in maintenance/inspection costs (probably at least a couple thousand a year) + gas costs if we want to be really thorough :)
- throwaway84742 9y ago
  That’s not “salary before tax”, that’s $90k _net_, as in, living off the savings or $90k in post tax income. But it also has fairly generous budgets for groceries ($2k/mo) and one $7k vacation a year, and real estate taxes as of 2018, with house value more than doubled. I calculated this just to see whether I have to work. Turns out I don’t, but I work anyway.
  - vanilla_nut 9y ago
    Oh my gosh I'm terribly sorry, I totally misinterpreted what you meant. 90k post-tax before saving for college/retirement sounds, sadly, very right for Seattle today-- since your model uses 2012 housing prices, I'm not sure I even want to think about what it would be using 2018 housing prices. However, the exercise of calculating those numbers out was still very interesting -- particularly the fact that I pay close to 2x the taxes of a Seattle-ite as a New Yorker. Holy cow, state and local taxes take a huge chunk out of my pay. I really wonder what NYS/NYC do with those taxes... but perhaps more importantly, how does Seattle get by without state/local taxes? Who pays for public transit subsidies? I guess it must come from property taxes? Boy I wish NYC charged more property taxes, especially since metropolis properties are largely owned by the very, very rich and even with a respectable tech salary I'll likely never own property in the city ever.
candiodari 9y ago
This means a basic average lifestyle in Seattle now only takes 150% of the average wage in the state, or about 120% of the average income in Seattle, the city. https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/washingtons-average-wage-nears-59-000-in-2016 https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/washingtons-average-wage-nears-5... Meanwhile lots of people complain about getting forced out ... I'd say those complaints are probably justified. Also keep in mind that "average wage" is among those who work. Since the participation rate in the US is about 60% ... the remaining 40% doesn't even usually have average wage.
bsenftner 9y ago
You do realize earning $90K a year in Seattle is a take home paycheck of $67,500. Plus your assumptions are whack.

erentz 9y ago

Wait, seriously? Can you provide the data? I think you have a seriously huge hole in your model if you're basing your housing costs on a mortgage on a 2012 priced house. Try nearly doubling that part.

seattle_spring 9y ago

A mortgage on a $90k income would responsibly top out under $300k, and that's after putting down 20%. Average house in Seattle today runs just about $800k. It was closer to $400k in 2012. Unless you come back and specify that you meant Kent or Renton, $90k unquestionably and unarguably would not provide an upper middle class lifestyle in Seattle. Not in 2012, and definitely not today.

vanilla_nut 9y ago

Interesting. Would you mind posting some of your calculations/data here? I live in NYC myself -- probably a bit more expensive than Seattle -- but even as a single, young, healthy person, $90k wouldn't feel very comfortable here. I make a lot more than that because I work in tech, but I'm still concerned about retirement plans (is $18k/year in my 401k really enough? What if market returns start to stagnate?). I'm really curious where you got your numbers from though, because on 90k salary, your (twice-monthly) paycheck should end up around $2800, before subtracting things like social security/etc. So you probably take home a little less than $5k/month at the end of it all. Of note in your calculations: - upper middle class mortgage from 2012. According to zillow [1], median home price in 2012 was $353k. Today it's $800k, over twice that -- 2012 was the worst year in a long time for Seattle housing. Probably 2k/month, right? At 90k, that's going to be about 50% of your salary after tax -- not abysmal, but certainly not close to the 1/3 rule I've always been told. Then again, it's owning rather than renting, so maybe it's justifiable. Biggest problem I see here is that there aren't that many folks who managed to buy their house at the best possible time to do so, and anybody who's moved to Seattle since 2012 is going to pay closer to $4k/month for that same home. --one midrange car loan: I don't think just one car would be very comfortable for a family of three living in the suburbs of Seattle. Again, doable -- maybe only one parent works, and the child is young, so you could carpool to school/one job/other job, but it sounds like a lot of commuting for whoever has to drop off the others. In Seattle traffic, that could easily end up being 2 hours of driving just to get to and from work, every morning and every evening. Doesn't leave much room for flexibility though. According to Experian Automotive, the average American monthly car payment is $500 [2]. -medical insurance: assuming this isn't provided by your employer, I could easily see this eating the rest of your income after tax. I pray that anybody in this situation has insurance through work. Apparently the average American family is spending between $10k-$20k on insurance, including deductibles [3], so... $1k-$2k/month. So if nobody gets sick in this family, you've still got $1k/month for food and luxuries like eating out, going to concerts, or activities outside of work. -one decent vacation a year: I never vacationed growing up (family was relatively poor), but I'd guess that for a family of three any real vacation is going to end up in the thousands (my guess would be around $3-5k, though I have little idea). So maybe if you just spend $400-500/month on food, you could put away whatever's left (maybe $500, tops?) to take a vacation every year. So I suppose $90k is livable, based on what I see here. But it doesn't sound great, and doesn't leave much room for things like serious medical issues, buffer room if you get fired, or even the ability to pay for something like a summer program for your kid. And what about gifts for birthdays, or if your car breaks down, or you get robbed, etc. etc.? Sounds like you're working hard every day but never getting ahead. Oh, and now that I remember... what about saving for retirement, and saving for college (because you're making $90k, so the government isn't going to give your kid much financial assistance)? Well, I guess we'll just work forever, and the kid will take on $50k of debt to go to a cheaper state school. And then when she graduates and tries to live on $90k in Seattle, we'll have to take into account even worse housing prices AND her student loan payments... [1] https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-values/ [2] https://www.experian.com/assets/automotive/white-papers/experian-auto-2015-q2.pdf?WT.srch=Auto_Q12015FinanceTrends_PDF https://www.experian.com/assets/automotive/white-papers/expe... (warning: pdf) [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/heres-how-much-the-average-american-spends-on-health-care.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/heres-how-much-the-average-a...

Rebelgecko 9y ago
I think the implication of 1 car loan is that the purchases will be staggered, so you're only in debt for one car at a time. It's definitely possible for a family to spend $3-5k on a vacation, but it's also possible to spent waaaayyyy less than that (mostly by not flying somewhere)
- vanilla_nut 9y ago
  That certainly makes more sense. But I suppose we then need to factor in maintenance/inspection costs (probably at least a couple thousand a year) + gas costs if we want to be really thorough :)
throwaway84742 9y ago
That’s not “salary before tax”, that’s $90k _net_, as in, living off the savings or $90k in post tax income. But it also has fairly generous budgets for groceries ($2k/mo) and one $7k vacation a year, and real estate taxes as of 2018, with house value more than doubled. I calculated this just to see whether I have to work. Turns out I don’t, but I work anyway.
- vanilla_nut 9y ago
  Oh my gosh I'm terribly sorry, I totally misinterpreted what you meant. 90k post-tax before saving for college/retirement sounds, sadly, very right for Seattle today-- since your model uses 2012 housing prices, I'm not sure I even want to think about what it would be using 2018 housing prices. However, the exercise of calculating those numbers out was still very interesting -- particularly the fact that I pay close to 2x the taxes of a Seattle-ite as a New Yorker. Holy cow, state and local taxes take a huge chunk out of my pay. I really wonder what NYS/NYC do with those taxes... but perhaps more importantly, how does Seattle get by without state/local taxes? Who pays for public transit subsidies? I guess it must come from property taxes? Boy I wish NYC charged more property taxes, especially since metropolis properties are largely owned by the very, very rich and even with a respectable tech salary I'll likely never own property in the city ever.

candiodari 9y ago

This means a basic average lifestyle in Seattle now only takes 150% of the average wage in the state, or about 120% of the average income in Seattle, the city. https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/washingtons-average-wage-nears-59-000-in-2016 https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/washingtons-average-wage-nears-5... Meanwhile lots of people complain about getting forced out ... I'd say those complaints are probably justified. Also keep in mind that "average wage" is among those who work. Since the participation rate in the US is about 60% ... the remaining 40% doesn't even usually have average wage.

bsenftner 9y ago

You do realize earning $90K a year in Seattle is a take home paycheck of $67,500. Plus your assumptions are whack.