You are exaggerating NYC income taxes. At $200k, your effective income tax rate if you file single, including FICA, is 33%, not 40% [0].

Heck, your marginal tax rate isn't even 40%, and all those numbers are without taking a 401k tax deduction.

People get this crazy idea that $200k isn't rich in NYC or SF. It is very, very rich, even for the area. COL adjustment for rent and groceries shaves off $15-30k, but it doesn't keep scaling up from there.

[0] https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculator

> Heck, your marginal tax rate isn't even 40%

That's wrong. The marginal tax for even a $50,000/year earner in NYC is over 42%.

Source: http://arjun-menon.github.io/taxes-in-nyc/?income=50,000

There's actually no contradiction. Marginal tax rates go down 6.2% at 118,500 when social security cuts out, and they only go up about 3% from there to 200k.

It's kind of outrageous, marginal tax rates going down for high earners, but there we are.

But thanks for pointing out that I had the wrong zip code, so I missed NYC income tax, which is 3.65% marginal, bringing average tax rates at 200k to 36%, not 33% (albeit with zero deductions and exemptions, which obviously isn't reasonable, you'll deduct state income tax at the very least and shave off 1.4% immediately).

Your link is in error, it treats Social Security tax as continuing past $118k.

> Your link is in error, it treats Social Security tax as continuing past $118k.

Actually, the tool does stop adding Social Security after the income limit: http://arjun-menon.github.io/taxes-in-nyc/?income=200,000

> you'll deduct state income tax at the very least

The tool also factors in state income tax deductions. You'll see it deducted in the link above

The tool reports the marginal tax rate for a $200,000 earner as ~36%.

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But yea, you're right, it sucks that $50k earners are taxed even more % than $200k earners. The employer pays payroll taxes of 7.65% (6.2% + 1.45%), so actual marginal taxes are ~50% from an employer cost perspective. It's truly insane.

7k is about right. My average savings rate over the past 3 years has been $6k and it's increased as my salary has.

You're forgetting to include investment gains. With them, I can go on regular vacations and still reach $1m within 10 years.

Also, since someone else mentioned it, my model conservatively assumes a 4% inflation rate. Over the 3 years I've been tracking, my model has consistently underestimated the growth in my savings.

$1k for other 'expenses' is huge. You can drive that down at least by half with wiser spending.

It's not huge. That's bills together with all of your everyday spending. It's certainly possible to get that down to less than $1000 a month but you can easily spend $1000 a month without doing anything extravagant.

Food, insurance, gas, water, electricity, student debt, etc. At least by half? Come on. Let's be real.

You might want to save, but there's no need to be a total miser on any >100k salary.