6 ms·

My guess is that it would be almost impossible to save 1K/month if your take home pay is only $2K/month. There are minimum requirements for food, shelter, trans

My guess is that it would be almost impossible to save 1K/month if your take home pay is only $2K/month. There are minimum requirements for food, shelter, transportation, etc. A pre-tax yearly salary living wage to cover the minimum in the US would be $45K - $68K depending on location. Let's look at a low end, low cost of living state. $45K pre-tax translates to about $3K per month take home pay. Which means that if you had $3K per month take home, you would just be covering the basics for a family. If you are trying to get by on $2K per month, you're already making some difficult trade-offs to survive. So, I don't think it's realistic to say someone with $2K per month take home pay can save $1K per month.

zulln 7y ago
What is the monthly budget of the average student? I would certainly guess under $2k.
- hultner 7y ago
  That's my thought, but maybe students in the US struggle to keep a $2k budget?
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I really doubt it. $2k was my monthly budget after I graduated and got a job. I wasn't really making any attempt to control my spending. I bought nice alcohol and ordered dinner and/or bought lunch every day. most US students are trying to spend a lot less. if they work 10-20 hrs a week they're probably not even making $1k before taxes.
hultner 7y ago
$3K net after taxes monthly is certainly high income in Sweden (almost second bracket of extra high income state tax). Most engineers here make around $3k pretax out of school. Your living wage example would be high income middle class in Sweden. I ran the numbers quickly for $ 68k/year you'd be in the top 3% earners all ages in the entire country enough to put you well beyond the public pension roof, on the edge to put you into the highest ultra high earner tax bracket (70k). So I guess a poor person in the US would be part of the ultra rich in Sweden and I'd be poor beyond salvation in your country, living on ~1.5k/mo while bootstrapping my company.

zulln 7y ago

What is the monthly budget of the average student? I would certainly guess under $2k.

hultner 7y ago
That's my thought, but maybe students in the US struggle to keep a $2k budget?
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I really doubt it. $2k was my monthly budget after I graduated and got a job. I wasn't really making any attempt to control my spending. I bought nice alcohol and ordered dinner and/or bought lunch every day. most US students are trying to spend a lot less. if they work 10-20 hrs a week they're probably not even making $1k before taxes.

hultner 7y ago

$3K net after taxes monthly is certainly high income in Sweden (almost second bracket of extra high income state tax). Most engineers here make around $3k pretax out of school. Your living wage example would be high income middle class in Sweden. I ran the numbers quickly for $ 68k/year you'd be in the top 3% earners all ages in the entire country enough to put you well beyond the public pension roof, on the edge to put you into the highest ultra high earner tax bracket (70k). So I guess a poor person in the US would be part of the ultra rich in Sweden and I'd be poor beyond salvation in your country, living on ~1.5k/mo while bootstrapping my company.