>I was absolutely not broke at 70k.

I'm genuinely glad that you weren't. Your experience is not everyone else's. I know people who have made around that salary who, for various reasons, were essentially broke.

Much of the rest of your comment just sounds... braggadocious.

If you're broke at 70k you are simply bad with your finances. There are no excuses, unless you have a super rare medical condition. You can't blame anybody but yourself.

An absolute that has been shown to be untrue for a litany of reasons time and again, but OK. For many people, yes, you're right, but I would wager you'd be surprised at the number of people trying to claw themselves out of varying circumstances while making that much.

And this isn't a judgement towards those in those situations, it's empathy from my end - I feel the need to clarify after another user's flippant comments elsewhere in this thread.

Not wanting to argue, just want to say my point of view: Excepting for rare medical conditions, we all as humans have the same needs and "cost" of existing and living our lives. And therefore I don't think it can be very dependant on circumstances or subjective as to what is "making ends meet".

I can't really emphasise with people who are wealthy or high income (which 70k is), who say they are struggling with monetary matters. They've made some choices and prioritizations. People who own multiple properties say that they "can't afford" some basic consumer good, or indignant that they have to work a lot of overtime to make ends meet. Yes, you chose a high cost life style.

I try to set aside a disproportionately large part of my income for high risk investments. Everybody I know says they can not afford to make any investments, and especially not risky investments. How can they not afford it when they are wealthier than me and have larger incomes than me? Because they prioritised something else. And that's cool, but why can't people cut the bullshit. And I don't ask others about their finances or bring up the topic.

So I'm going to double down and say that there are exactly 0 cases – outside of rare medical disorders – where somebody has to struggle to live on 70K.

I don't know how to have a conversation with someone so willingly burying their head in the sand. I respect that you have that view. Have a nice weekend! :)

Edit:

>And I don't ask others about their finances or bring up the topic.

Not that it's necessarily couth to bring this subject up socially, but I do get the vibe that you could benefit from hearing from others regarding their situations.

> I don't know how to have a conversation with someone so willingly burying their head in the sand. I respect that you have that view.

Thank you! Have a nice weekend also.

> Not that it's necessarily couth to bring this subject up socially, but I do get the vibe that you could benefit from hearing from others regarding their situations.

I think I'll first want to make 70K myself, before I seek out somebody to complain about how hard their life is with only 70K. Likewise, I'd like to own multiple properties myself before I have to listen more to people with multiple properties complain about their life.

Likewise, I don't think anybody working minimum wage or living in a rented trailer would like to hear me complain about my money woes, wouldn't you agree?

Add in college debt payments, maybe a car payment, maybe you just graduated and need to furnish at least part of an apartment (even with roommates), maybe having to help pay down parents medical bills or whatever because you're the first to break out of very low income employment...

$70k isn't a magical feel-good-be-happy number for everyone, especially in HCOL+ areas.

I don't think this was your intent, but your comment comes across as really dismissive to a wide range of financial situations.

>... especially in HCOL+ areas.

Right? NYC and the Bay Area would like a word...

Yeah, and add in when you have to buy the new BMW, and have to go on international vacations every year, and that salary looks even smaller!

Or you could buy a used Honda instead, go somewhere cheaper for vacation, and not live in the most expensive area in the country. All those are voluntary consumption.

This response is a strawman and unhelpful to the conversation here.

I don't know a single engineer in the last decade that I've worked with or known that wants to live in SFBay. Hell, Google literally opened an office on 2nd and congress in Austin because people wanted to live in Austin and not SFbay. I was there on its opening day!

$70k is completely fine in Houston, Dallas, Austin. I made around that in each one. Almost everyone I know here in Denver makes 70k-100k max and I'm in the most trendy neighborhood downtown and these are (actual, like structural) engineers, lawyers, etc. My hair stylist makes 50k and has a nice 1br. Personally my rent is $4k which is absolutely common for a 2bdr in sfbay but mine is very nice, probably much newer than would be in SF. I made 90k living in Chicago. 40-60k living in Tampa. I always had a new car new a twin turbo z4, mazda 3, crv, sometimes I had 2 cars (sports/daily), always had my own place, etc. Zero debt. Went out ALL the time.

Everything isn't NYC or SFBay. I didn't start my career making 40k and go "OK great, now I'm off to San Francisco/NYC!!" I moved more west as my income grew.

The privilege.. I promise you that there are service industry people making 30-45k in SF/NYC who are absolutely content or happy with their lives whether it's living in a 10x10 shoebox or an attic in a loft with a roomate. I'm not doing that, but I have a lot of industry friends from a past life that do. The average hourly for a nyc bartender is something like $16-18. I used to do it on the side.

We're privileged beyond belief.

>Everything isn't NYC or SFBay.

Never said it was, I just pointed to two areas where $70k doesn't go very far. Simple as that.

Edit: Your comment is very "I"-centric. Nobody cares about how many cars you have owned, because your life experience cannot be copy/pasted to everyone else. It's like you've missed the point.

Jesus. The point was that people are, and can be content on living in SF and NYC on under $100k. It's offensive that you think that every single person who makes 70k or whatever range is living in a box filled with rats or whatever you think it is.

Who do you think cooks, cleans, and serves drinks to people in SF/NYC? Sorry they aren't up to your standards living wise.

I never said they're not content. I said that people making $70k in those areas might not be able to afford the same things you can, up to and including Spotify.

That's. All. I never said that that's how everyone lived, I just said that not everybody making 70k lives comfortably. That could be one person, it could be a handful.

I never blanket generalized, you did by saying everyone making $70k should live just fine. All I said was, "That's not always the case", and now you're trying to say that I think everyone living in those areas making $70k are scum.

You need to relax.

I definitely didn't mean to infer equitable life style, that'd be kind of goofy to think. I'm single and kid-free. I'm not saying the parent of 2 kids could or should drive a new car, or go out all the time, live downtown, etc. especially on that income. I'm sure a LOT of people live in Vallejo and work in SF for instance. Mortgages, Medical problems, alimony, blahblah. Millions of differences. I just meant that there ARE people happily living off of salaries in that range, less so in SF for sure. That's why I never moved, never felt like I could afford it, had the option to live in Los Gatos and around San Mateo (san jose for sure probably).

I was curious so looked it up, 75th % salary in SFbay is $76k. 25th % $113k. These are salaries from the ziprecruiter database- I put in Bartender - $34k, Teacher - $47k, Police - $60k (I know this is wildly off not including their overtime, they make like $150-250k in sf).

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/-in-San-Francisco,CA#Y...

This newer article says the amount of people in that bracket drpoped 10% 2019-2022. Wonder if that's people moving out, layoffs / biz shuttering, or maybe the covid checks ending lowering peoples income across the board. Those didn't affect the $100k+ market (limit was 80k i think?) which grew 10% regardless. That sucks if it's not them leaving I can only think of negative reasons aside from that or getting raises.

https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2023/09/18/median-...

Sorry, I'm just on a tangent now. Didn't mean to come off rude in general, though.