3 ms·

Being in this bracket, I can see how easy it can be to live paycheck-to-paycheck at this income in a VHCOL with kids. $1M+ house (and not a fancy house either),

by nunez 4y ago

Being in this bracket, I can see how easy it can be to live paycheck-to-paycheck at this income in a VHCOL with kids. $1M+ house (and not a fancy house either), $3k/mo on daycare, $800/mo car payment, $1000/mo student loans...it goes quickly. That said, lifestyle inflation is the worst! There are folks making way more than this that are ALSO living check-to-check. As someone said on here, there are spenders, and there are savers! FWIW, the folks that have plenty of money saved up at lower incomes are mostly homebodies and don't do much, which is fine, but that's not how everyone wants to live (myself included). Can't take it with you and all that.

rdegges 4y ago
One of the things I did early in my career was live as frugally as possible and dump all extra $$$ I could into quickly getting rid of my student loans, car payments, etc. Talking to a lot of peers over the years, I've realized that most people carry around insanely high levels of debt and grow accustomed to spending multiple thousands of dollars per month on debt servicing. It's crazy how much of a difference it can make to get rid of those and free up all that cashflow. Obviously, this isn't doable without an income buffer, but if you are able to cut down expenses for a while and aggressively pay down debt: it was one of the best decisions I made early in life.
- nunez 4y ago
  I agree! That's what I did to get my student loans paid off. Not as aggressive as you, since my impulse control isn't as good as yours (if it were up to me, I'd eat out daily at around $200-300/week), but I definitely spent much less than I could have. I paid my $200k student loans in ten years and paid off my (consolidated) credit card debt two years after that. I carry revolving credit card debt, but it's almost always paid off by month's end. Feels great!

by nunez 4y ago

rdegges 4y ago

One of the things I did early in my career was live as frugally as possible and dump all extra $$$ I could into quickly getting rid of my student loans, car payments, etc. Talking to a lot of peers over the years, I've realized that most people carry around insanely high levels of debt and grow accustomed to spending multiple thousands of dollars per month on debt servicing. It's crazy how much of a difference it can make to get rid of those and free up all that cashflow. Obviously, this isn't doable without an income buffer, but if you are able to cut down expenses for a while and aggressively pay down debt: it was one of the best decisions I made early in life.

nunez 4y ago
I agree! That's what I did to get my student loans paid off. Not as aggressive as you, since my impulse control isn't as good as yours (if it were up to me, I'd eat out daily at around $200-300/week), but I definitely spent much less than I could have. I paid my $200k student loans in ten years and paid off my (consolidated) credit card debt two years after that. I carry revolving credit card debt, but it's almost always paid off by month's end. Feels great!