Re:Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living p...
by Hermitian909 on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:26PM
(#30379535)
This doesn't quite jive with my experience living in SF. I have an older but comfortable apartment close to BART and an active social life (had lol). Pre-pandemic my CoL was ~40k. I'm fortunate to be on the higher end of dev salaries so I don't need to spend this little but living a life I enjoy this is just how much I end up spending.
I have friends and colleagues whose experience matches yours, some have come to me for help with their finances. I've found it fairly easy to slash 30-40k/yr from their budgets by simply forcing them to think about which things they're spending money on actually add happiness or utility to their life.
Re:Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living p...
by dogman144 on Friday February 18, 2022 @09:28AM
(#30386063)
Do you have kids, do you have a dual income couple, and so on.
Re:Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living p...
by Hermitian909 on Friday February 18, 2022 @10:40PM
(#30394234)
No kids, no dual income. I recognize these costs are not representative if they have a child but OP didn't seem to imply those were the considerations.
Yes, it's doable for nearly everyone to stash some amount of money away, sub-$1k or whatever.
However, if you're in the zone b/t $100k/yr and say $250k/yr, it's entirely possible to have your act together financially, and not be able to save a relevant amount due to the cost of basically existing, responsible student loans and a simple social life. The amount of money you're able to save vs the general cost of living means that your small savings is basically meaningless if something happens.
A normal lifestyle can turn into being the walking dead financially. You make a lot on paper, but one wrong event knocks you out. This is why '08 was especially ugly for NYC finance types, despite being firmly upper middle class.