Americans with six-figure incomes are in 'survival mode'

A "six figure income" is such a stupidly relative term. What a useless fucking metric.

First of all, that could literally mean anything from $100,000 to $999,999 a year. Someone making nearly a million dollars a year is not "in survival mode", even in the highest cost of living areas.

Second, it depends on where you live. If you live in the middle of BFE Arizona or Minnesota, having a ~$100k salary could mean you're living like a king. Living in San Francisco or New York, you're probably living in a shoebox apartment.

I'm barely one of these "six figure" people. I make $103k per year. However, I also am the sole income for my family of 5, which means I pay for everybody's health and dental insurance premiums. These are over $1200 a month. I also live in a moderately high cost of housing city where the cheapest, bombed out, sub-900 sq ft house is going for 1/5th to a quarter of a million $ plus. My neighbor has a 973 sq ft home with non-working plumbing, a roof that has shingles coming off and leaks, single pane windows, and foundation issues. His house has an estimated value of $237k if it sold today.

After taxes, nearly half of my salary alone goes to just housing and healthcare and I do not live in a fucking McMansion. My house is around 1000 sq ft. And I still need to keep the lights on, pay for gas, pay the water bill, pay for groceries........Oh and don't forget about student loan debt to get that income. Have fun paying that at $600-700 a month. If I was renting instead of having a mortgage, I could not afford to live here.

Now I'm not "in survival mode", as this article would have you believe, but I'm also not exactly "thriving". If I lost my job, my family would be unable to live beyond.....something like 2-3 months. And with the job market cratering in the tech world (which is my career market) right now, it scares the shit out of me. Literally keeps me up at night with anxiety.

What I'm trying to say is that not even us "middle class" folks are doing super great. We're currently teetering on the edge of a knife and, with continually rising costs, will likely fall into "upper-lower class" territory in the next decade.

scares the shit out of me
this is by design. by funneling all your moneys further and further up the food chain, they both ensure you'll never take their place and keep you obedient and compliant. lest "something" happens, and you end up in an even worse situation
you and i don't exist to "thrive." we're here to generate more wealth for our owners, and to be hoodwinked into thinking this is the way it's supposed to be
You’ve nailed my family’s experience as well. I’m a sole earner, high COL area, student debt, groceries and other bills going up.
Verrrry close to my experience as well. I'm holding out hope that in maybe 5 years, when the last of my student debt is gone, we can start really climbing out of our hole, but electricity prices are skyrocketing (Ibpay about $500/mo now), and with the shutdown, our work ontract has not yet been renewed. We'll be homeless in just a couple months if my income falls apart
- Shit that sounds stressful. I hope your contact renews and things go according to plan, homie.
Unless a sentence like this uses the word “all” you should default to “some” as the implied qualifier. As in, not “all six future earners are in survival mode, but “some six figure earners are in survival mode.” Even that would have been shocking years ago, but nowadays, a family with a single earner bringing in 100,000 can very much be struggling to make ends meet in a high COL city.
I'm in Minnesota, twin cities, sounds like property is comparable. To pay less than $300k you're probably getting something you couldn't realistically fit a family of 5 or likely something that needs $100k of work to bring up to code anyway. You could get a dump for $150k and fix it up yourself, but most people are not going to do that. Not the most expensive city, but far from the cheapest.
- Yeah the only reason I'm able to afford my house is because I got it 5 years ago for $200k. If I had to buy it today, I'd be fucked.

I wish I was making even $50k. I don't really think leaders in this country care about the majority of Americans. They see what we make, they KNOW the majority of us are struggling, but they refuse to help anyone but themselves.

Oh no, they discovered right wing politics

Six figures is a huge range. Could be $100k/yr or $900k lol. I doubt the latter are in survival mode unless they just can't stop leasing jet skis or something.

Yeah, I read this title, I thought this means $100,000 households are no longer above the liviable wage line. Less catchy headline, but more believable.

Americans with six figure incomes are not the enemy. We need them on our side in the fight against the Americans with eight, nine, and higher figure incomes

Put bluntly, those who live off labour aren't the enemy. Those who live off property (aka others' labour) are.
- Yes, but that definion isn't that clear cut anymore as it was during the industrial revolution. Common people have pensions, i.e. stocks. Workers 'invest' in their home as real estate. Executive managers can be still just workers even if they make a million bucks. The analysis isn't that cut and dry if lots of people have investments on top of their wage job. Everyone not living hand to mouth is a kind of petit-bourgeoisie. The vast majority are not proletariat anymore.
  I don't want you to think I'm anti-leftist, because I definitely support significant redistribution and an end to capitalism. Just want people to think a bit further than mid-19th century definions and analysis which I think no longer hold. Alternative suggestions are welcome
- That's stupid, under that definition small business owners are the enemy. Not to mention that there's no genuine argument as to why owning property or living off it is inherently bad in any way.
  This is why I keep saying that Marxism has and well truly lived past it's usefulness. Now it's just an outdated ideology that people try to slap on to a world it wasn't made for.
- Well said
Lower 6 figures today is middle class. Or at least what middle class buying power was 40 years ago.
- You can’t afford to buy a single family home on $100k/yr in my area. So I’m not sure it really meets the classic definition of middle class anymore.
- Low 6 figure is the minimum required to have a middle class lifestyle for one person (not a family) in California. And when I say middle class lifestyle, I mean not having to worry about bills, but still not able to buy a house or a new car without decades of saving or massive debt. Maybe you can afford a vacation once a year if you haven’t had any unexpected medical problems.
- Especially when you factor in the cost of living in places where $100k jobs are to be found. “Six figures” may sound like a fortune if you’re sitting in rural Ohio but it’s little more than a decent wage in Seattle.
100k when you are salaried and working 70 hours while technically is still 100k it's not really lol.
Average that shit out and stop lying to ourselves. 500k a year? Yeah fuck those people. 100k a year? Join us. Burn it all down.
- Also, a quick reminder that it's not normal to be working 70 hours a week.
Id even be content to let the eight figure incomes slide... at least at first. Lets start with the 100-200 dudes that have a ten digit income and work our down... the tens and nines might be enough to fix things and still leave us with plenty of ultra rich to complain about.
Upper middle class, used to be poor. I've been fighting for things my whole life that would disadvantage our current comfort if they were put in place. I also just helped organize a union at work, because most of my coworkers make half what I make (I'm not in management, but with a tech salary). In contract negotiations. We are not all shitty, though many of my neighbors in a nice neighborhood are greedy trumpists, whining about the scary poors, so I could certainly understand some animosity towards people who enjoy comfort in this shitty economy. But I think many people that grow up poor and get money remember what it means to be poor.
I don't consider them my enemy. I consider them privileged. Am I supposed to weep for them that they can't buy their kids the top of the line xyz or go on vacation this year? Should I spend emotional labor because they need to move to a smaller house or stop eating out? 6 figure salary isn't rich these days I grant you but it is a comfortable amount unless they're trying to live beyond their means.
- Six figures could be anything between 100k and 999k. If they are on the lower end, they aren’t really that privileged, especially if they are living in an area that necessitates a pay that high.
  Hell, there are some places that 100k would be closer to the regions “poverty line” so to speak.
Trying to actively seek and categorize enemies is inherently problematic. A good ideology doesn't seek to eliminate enemies, but to bring about positive results.
- A long-lasting ideology recognizes enemies and how to defend against them, and sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

Overall it would be reasonable article, were it not completely fucked up by a ragebait headline. They're obviously not in 'survival mode', unless you count 'survival mode' as not being able to refresh your cars to the newest model every three years.

But, there is another way of reading the article, which is that someone on $100k is much closer to someone on $30k than they are to a billionaire. They're still in the class of people who feed their families by working salaried jobs to generate wealth for others; hating on them is the difference between righteous class warfare versus simple-minded jealousy.

someone on $100k is much closer to someone on $30k than they are to a billionaire
Technically true, but somebody making $100k and somebody making $30k still live in completely different worlds.
From a $30k POV, a person making $100k a year and whining about it is not an ally and should STFU.
- And that's exactly why so many people don't vote for tax the rich. Because some people make statements like this and 100k guy think he will be taxed even higher and then he'd go and vote for the guy who doesn't wanna tax the Rich. It's really imperative that everyone under a million or so bands together and any one above a million or so should donate the wealth away to be safe.
  Yes, 100k is much much better living then 30k, but 100k guy is not exploiting the masses, 100k guy is also being exploited. In the class war 100k is in the same bucket as 30k.

My sister, who earns several times the average income of the city she lives in:

constantly complains about taxes. She says she wants to pay, believe it or not, zero taxes, because "what is she getting in return for that money anyway? Nothing"
complains about how she "has to" work "four jobs" (she means 4 clients) then she casually drops something like "I saved up enough to buy two apartments. I want to buy and rent and quit my job". She sees herself as someone who HAS TO work multiple jobs for rent and food
she constantly complains about how poor people "pay less taxes" than her and absolutely hates anyone who works a low-income job as if they're "dirty" or something. I assume if "no taxes" is her wet dream, then "everyone pays the exact same amount regardless of their income" is something she'd be ok with
this is happening in the EU, with free healthcare and all that, so she's getting plenty out of the taxes she pays (or would, if she didn't insist on using overpriced private clinics instead and hell knows what other "rich people" alternatives)

She's not poor. She's practically a one percenter. She's just upset it's a lot of effort saving up to buy property to turn her favorite hobby of "fucking the poor" into a job by becoming a "professional landlord". I don't need Trump. I have Trump at home.

Most rich people I've met are disconnected assholes... I'm sure some are cool, and where I'm at they tend to vote liberal (but not progressive), but goddamn I have not a thing to share or discuss with them. Bless'em and may I never wait on them or paint their house or be their nurse or anything like that, cause I'm not putting up with their attitude.

Sorry if I sound like a dick. Just blowing off steam.

Your sister is a piece of shit.
- Thank you
- And a dicknosed douche-canoe.
She says she wants to pay, believe it or not, zero taxes, because "what is she getting in return for that money anyway? Nothing"
I like to tell libertarians that express such to move to a developing country for two years.
You will never sound like a dick mouthing off about rich people, because we know they all deserve it.
4 clients
who are these clients? what's her job?
- She works in IT. Her main tool is Salesforce. Some of the clients she's mentioned are universally known. Volkswagen and IKEA are two I remember.
  I don't know what she does exactly. But, to be fair, she doesn't know what I do either, cause I have a Film & TV degree and our latest argument was about her insisting that I use that degree to "become an influencer, because influencers make money". That conversation would have been hilarious if I wasn't part of it. Like listening to a tween tell you what she wants to be when she grows up...

I thought making >100,000 would be awesome but I'm just living paycheck to paycheck.

I was just telling a co-worker the other day; growing up in a family of 4 with a stay at home Mom. We didn't struggle, 4 bedroom home, 2nd 2 car garage in the back my dad built, pool in the backyard (above ground, but a pool nonetheless) and my brother and I basically got what we wanted. The most money my dad ever made in a single year was about $80k as a union pipefitter. My wife and I both work full time, I make 6 figures alone plus her salary, with a single child who's now 16. We are barely making it in our 2 bedroom duplex. Which we were only able to purchase thanks to a USDA loan with zero down.
Edit: corrected grammar
- Big keyword there is Union it helped even people not in the union. Graph union membership to avg income from 1970 onwards and its crystal clear.
It's crazy, I feel so irresponsible but it's just the economic situation we're in.
I cannot find a single place to rent that's only 1/3rd of my income and not half.
- People who have not looked for apartments or houses right now have no idea what the true cost is. We just moved and to rent a house in our old neighborhood (1700sqft, 2 car garage, nice suburb but build in the 80s, near the freeway) is $2100/month. The first apartment I rented out of college is now $1500/month and it was a 1 bedroom 650sqft. Not luxury or anything, a normal inner city apartment.
Probably because when you first formed that idea, 100k was quite a bit. But 100k today is worth what 72k was just 10 years ago
how? are you living in a mansion?
- Before my dad retired, he ran his own business. Nothing big, just him and a couple of others, but enough to afford a decent sized house, two cars, and a comfortable lifestyle.
  A few years ago, he and I were talking about how the CoL has gone crazy since the early 2000s and he looked up the apartment he rented while he was in college in the 80s. It's still there, a small studio apartment in the city near the college. In his own words, he said that the cost to rent that apartment a couple of years ago was more than he made running his own business.
- Where I live - wages have always been shitty but it was a low cost of living city (we literally had the lowest grocery prices in the nation and housing market was "depressed". You could and can always get a job of some sort here, and because costs were low a roommate or two got you through with money to go to shows on the weekend or have a car. And a cat!
  Housing and food now are average for the nation but wages are still lower here than average.
  My NET pay after taxes and benefits and 401k is not twice the average rent for a one bedroom apartment here now. And you used to be able to rent houses so cheap, there were slumlords and people who owned a couple of houses and rented one out. No more. A house costs more than my whole monthly net to rent, before electricity or water, just the rent.
  We bought a house for 5x what my old shithole of a house did cost (and there are none of those left, they get flipped or torn down for luxury housing) and even that amount would be cheap for it now, and we love it, but yeah we struggle with the cost to pay for it and maintain it. That's a choice, yes, and we know it, but in a very limited set of choices.
  All that is being built is high end expensive housing but there are not many people here earning enough for that.
So sick of this mythical number. Most of the places you can earn it, life is correspondingly more expensive. There is no universal magic number.
Same

If they're in survival mode then what the fuck are the other 80% of us in??

This was some years ago - even before the first Trump presidency - I read a perfectly reasonable sounding piece from someone about how he's struggling as a dual-income family making $400,000 a year. There's the mortgage for the house and the summer home and the vacation condo and the kids' tuitions at prestigious schools and family vacations and the 401ks and the kids' college tuition funds and how there was NOTHING LEFT after the bare necessities!

Yeah, I live more in the realm of having emptied my 401k twice after leaving different jobs because the only other option was homelessness. Have I made bad decisions in life, never intentionally.. but owning a home is being taken off the possibilities for me. At 36 it'll be years before I ever have 1000s in the bank, let alone the 20% of 400,000 or whatever a small house will cost in future. Shit they turned me down to get a car loan and buy a used Kia which left me with a broken down vehicle and losing my job because I couldn't transit 104 miles a day to the decent paying job I landed. So now I'm getting paid 1/3 to half of it on a job I found I can work from home. I'll make rent and food, but retirement is likely out of the picture.
- Yeah I'm 42 and my work is well-paid (for me) but not regular. It's been particularly bad lately. I do not even have health insurance since I got divorced this year. I long ago realized I will have to work until I die, and I think most Americans are in the same situation. This is in a low cost of living area, I travel for work as an independent contractor.

I used to make low 6 figures. Work owned me. I had to be reachable nights, weekends, holidays, vacations. 50 hour weeks were slow weeks. I finally walked away. Money is no good if you don't have time to enjoy it. I make half of what I used to make but am much happier. I actually get to spend time with my wife, hobbies, and friends.

I used to make well into six figures as a programmer. Now I drive a school bus and I'm vastly happier. I'm always surprised when I wake up on a Monday morning and realize that I'm not dreading going to work (I actually look forward to seeing my elementary school kids). I make less than one-sixth of what I used to but I have savings and already own my house outright, so it's all good.
It's going to suck when AI takes over for CDL holders, however.
- Is this... A real possibility?
I'm very happy for you!
This is what I'm thinking about daily. What change did you make?

If the "six figures" people are in survival mode then what about the other 90% of the population with 5 figures or less?

The point is that even six-figure earners are struggling.
And there's something to that. People with 6-figure incomes tend to work in more metropolitan areas where housing is very expensive. I make about 80 grand, and the only reason I'm getting by at all is because my drive to work is about 2 hours with traffic. A modest 1br apartment in the city where I work is about $3,000/month.
Cost-of-Living matters, but I think what you said is part of the point of the article.

Well. I made 35k in 1996 so apparently my salary has kept up with inflation, maybe? Google says that is like 75k today. 106.4% increase.

Together we do hit that 6 figures but

Housing cost increased by 500%

Grocery cost increased here by 500%

Electric bills by 300%

Those are the essentials, right? Other things, clothing and gas, didn't go up as much but I drive less and (except for menopause, damn you) stay pretty much the same size and bought some items that last well, so it's more discretionary.

I figure I'd have to be making closer to 200k to be making my 1996 salary with regard to essentials. Maybe more. I'm certainly NOT making that.

I think a simpler way of pointing this out is that the median US household income is $80k. A $100k household income is only 25% higher than average. It's a pretty normal income. We just have "a six figure salary" as part of our cultural memory as some huge amount.

I love not having kids. I'm happy I have a small dog.

FYI private equity has come for veterinarians. It made more sense when we confirmed the vet we took our small dog was one of those once they started recommending a lot more procedures that we knew would be requited for our dog's condition. Also familiarize yourself with the "emergency pet hospitals" in your area, those are prime locations to extract several thousand dollars on a visit. Avoid them.
- I brought my dog to the emergency vet. She died in the car on the way but I wasn't ready to accept that and carried her inside. They asked if I wanted her ressicitated, I was like yeah of course I do. They took her and came back a while later. They said we can't get her breathing, she's dead. But the drugs did get her heart beating so we have to put her down anyway. They euthanized my dead dog. Total cost? $1500.
- Yep, find one you trust and stick to them. We followed our vet when they left a Big Clinic and started their own practice and it's been completely worth it.
Pets are ridiculously expensive and definitely a luxury.
- My cat costs 100 bucks a month. And brings me the only source of joy I have.
  That's cheap and I consider not having suicidal thoughts to not be a luxury.
- What? Compared to having a kid they're extremely cheap. My small dog costs me at most about $2000 a year.
- Tell that to the tremendous number of homeless people in poverty who have pets.
- lol, I can assure you that is a very yuppie mindset. Vast majority of people with pets can't afford much beyond the food.
I also love you not having kids! Small dogs for all! ❤

I live on benefits, about $1,200 a month, and have the good fortune to only be obligated to pay for internet, fuel, some services like VPN+Email+Anti-virus, and food. For most of the past decade I was able to squirrel away about $200 to $300 a month into an ABLE account, but the last few years that has become increasingly difficult. In fact, I don't think that I saved any money at all for this year.

My game 'plan' was to just let my ABLE collect interest and use that for my annual computer after a new AMD socket has been released, buying the best endgame gear for the prior standard. I spend most of my time on my PC, so I figure a expensive computer would be my 'big ticket' item every decade. Never once I have had a vacation to see new things or do stuff beyond the house, because it felt incredibly wasteful for my situation. I would have to cut more of my food budget if I want to save up for the next PC in 2030. This assumes that things like buying new tires doesn't come up, or medical issues.

I don't feel good about the future. My circle of possibilities shrinks every year.

For what it's worth, you don't need to pay for antivirus. Everyone hates on Windows here (for good reason) but with Windows Defender and common sense you should be fine.

"Survival mode" was basically my family's first few years as new immigrants before we managed to move on from that stage. I don't think we even had "6-figures", far from it.

Now the entirety of America get to experience what is it like to be an immigrant lol.

Still remember in Brooklyn, I was in elementary school. I was in an afterschool program than ran until 6PM, I was just waiting, as the clock ticking... minute and minute goes by, other kids get picked up from school. Until there are only a few kids left, then someone enters the cafeteria where us kids were waiting, I thought is that mom?, but it was someone elses parent... this goes on and on... until I was the only one left. But my mom still hasn't come. 6:30PM. I was so afraid CPS was gonna get involved. Authorities were terrifying for me as a kid. I mean, who knows, immigration status could've been at risk. This scene repeats itself very often.

Mom had work until very late, so get picked up very late. Not always the last one, but always very late, the last few, but then there are days where I get very ublocky and end up being the last one to get picked up.

I get so anxious and scared and felt so alone, until my mother shows up.

You can guess why I eventually end up with depression.

I'm not going to give them the benefit of 'survival mode.' If you're breaking even in a million dollar home you are not the same as someone breaking even in a studio.
My siblings and I have slept in a car. We have slept for weeks in a hotel room. We have been to shelters and we have lived with grandparents while mom got on her feet. We had Christmas in the back seat of a 90s Lunima. While I don't wish it on anyone, I won't give someone that has to reduce spending an inch in terms of hardship. Even in this economy 6 figures is manageable if you live frugally.
- I understand your point and i seriously empathize with what you have been through but Every house no matter how dilapidated is around a million within 2 hours of SF, Silicon Valley, Seattle, LA ….ect. I agree with all your points except I don’t think a million dollar house is extravagant near any metro these days. A lot of families in these areas are extremely house poor and stretched thin. They are a lot closer to living in their cars than people realize.
- Hey, it sounds like we're twinsies! Right down to having 'Christmas' (if you could call it that, haha!) in the back seat of a '90s Lumina! That's a wild coincidence. I understand where you're coming from.
  I genuinely hope things are better and more stable for you all nowadays. I'm sorry for what you've been through. Internet hugs to you, if you want them. 🫂

Six figure income? I don't get that, maybe they have kids or something. They're lucky, I'd dream to have a job that even paid 60k.

Here's the thing about making more money, you tend to spend more money. If someone making $120k lived like they were only making $60k they wouldn't be in "survival mode".
- This is more or less it.
  When I made 45k and rented a room I had a lot of expendable income. I could put 6% in a 401k, pay insurance, and still go out and party on weekends.
  Making 125 with a mortgage and 2 kids feels kinda rough some months. I wouldn't call it a struggle. I have a lot of comforts and security. I just don't have any expendable income.
  I think what's different for me now is, in the past, I could get by crashing on someone's couch if things got bad. I'm low maintenance. Today, I HAVE to have that mortgage payment. If I don't cover that Pre-K payment I've failed my family. It's not a struggle per se, but it's a different kind of stress.
- Making $120k but living like they made $60k would mean they are living in survival mode.
  Don’t forget that while middle class people have some tiny wiggle room before financial collapse, they are still very vulnerable compared to the millionaire, billionaire, and now trillionaire classes.
- I spent years living with off making about 400€ monthly as a student with a part time job (most of it going to food and housing with family), and now that I have 800€ monthly I find myself immediately overextending with plans. New furniture, console, TV, actual PC instead of a budget laptop. If I didn't live in a big city I'd consider saving up for a car.
  It's easy to forget almost anything besides a roof, homemade food and healthcare is a luxury. (Or, sadly, even the last one, if you want good healthcare, or live in America)

No, they’re not.

yeah we're in for a real good time in this country when the middle class can no longer service the debts they've taken on, historically that's just a grand ol' time to be alive in a capitalist nation state built entirely on credit and debt...

That’s by design. End stage trickle up economics

More than half of six-figure earners said they would have to double their income to feel financially secure.

“People used to feel when you got to six figures or above that it was a sign of financial stability,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer and futurist at The Harris Poll.

Mr. Rodney is full of shit, whether he knows it or not. There was a study done on the psychology of earning more money than you need to live. There's an interesting phenomenon that arises; people always think they need more to feel secure. $100k feels they need $150k, $400k needs $600k, and this pattern continues all the way up to $15m, on average. I wouldn't be surprised if the peak is even higher nowadays, the study was conducted in the early 2000's I think. I will come back and edit this with more details of said study so I'm not just talking out my ass.

I thought that there was a study that showed limited returns on happiness beyond a certain threshold ($75k at the time, which is now surely well out-of-date).
- Those could both be true. People feel like they need $125k more to be secure, but when they get it, it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. They need another $25k more to feel that way.
- Honestly, I suspect limited returns come as you fill in a checklist.
  Are you and your family clothed, fed and relatively safe?
  Are you working only one job per person?
  Is your family healthy and/or getting adequate healthcare?
  Is your family at least getting an entire high school education under their belt?
  Do you have safe and marginally convenient transportation?
  Do you at least have enough money for occasional entertainment outside the house
  Do you have a second bathroom?
  Do you have at least a small line of credit?
  Do you have a retirement? Will you be able to retire?
  You don't need all that, but once you cross that line, having more money around for things doesn't make you happier.
- I think 75k was where commute time started mattering more than income
- Found it- from 2010. Today that is $111,333 if you believe the bls CPI.
  https://time.com/archive/6597645/do-we-need-75000-a-year-to-be-happy/
- I think that the idea was that there is a special point where you feel secure and nothing beyond that makes any difference. But that $75k number sounds familiar. It's probably more like $120k today.
Also, people's goals change and "secure" means something different.
When I was making half as much as I am now, I felt fairly secure. I could pay my rent, I had no credit card debt, and I had a few months' worth of savings. Money was not a day-to-day worry. Most of my peers were in debt and/or living paycheck-to-paycheck so I felt like I was living large.
Now I am objectively more secure but I feel less secure because I am thinking about retirement, childcare, college funds, and elder care. I have nowhere near enough savings to retire in the foreseeable future. I honestly don't know if I'll ever get there.
- Keep your head up bro, you'll make it. Sounds like you're already putting in the effort and thinking about the hard stuff and the costs involved, which is more than most ever do. Lotta folks just spend and spend and put their heads in the sand when the future comes up.
it's almost as if security is never actually produced by hoarding more and more resources for your personal nuclear family. Odd.

Try living on 600$ a month!

I make low six figures, definitely not in survival mode. I’m probably abnormal, as I grew up with money insecurity, and had to file bankruptcy in the early 2010s.

When my income started going up, after a certain point I just started living like it didn’t. I save 30-40% of my pay every month. I’m not cheap, but I’m frugal and willing to wait for sales on stuff if it’s not something I need right this moment.

I have well over a year of expenses in a HYSA.

I bought my last car in 2020 for 24k USD fora new previous year model that was still on the lot and paid 1/3rd cash up front with a zero interest deal financing to keep the monthly cost down.

Paid off all my debts, student loans, everything but the mortgage. And since I work remotely and am an introvert, my wife and I moved to the rurals and got a mortgage for half of what it would be in our previous city. I will likely have it paid off in 2-3 years, maybe 6-7 years into a 30 year mortgage.

Living on six figures had not been all that difficult. I don’t even really think about money anymore and it’s a weight off me. It’s living on six figures while keeping up with the Joneses, celebrity influencers, and advertisers, going into massive debt for sake of appearances and potentially invoking the envy of others to prove you’re somehow better or you’ve “made it” and “deserve it” … that’s hard.

I make just under six—because I choose to work ten months instead of all twelve. I save about the same amount every month as you mention. Phone/rent (high as most people’s mortgage tbh), groceries and insurance for bills. If I want something I buy it, but idk. I could have a bigger place but I’m not trying to impress anyone so …why bother?
- I'm with you. I'm around $120-125k depending on bonuses. I could in theory make more, but I work remotely, have plenty of PTO, the job's pretty cushy for several months the year and only rarely super busy and stressful, and I'm already saving aggressively. I haven't capped off and could make more (heck, I'm not even senior where I am), but it would likely come with work life balance issues and a side helping of misery. No thanks.
  Having enough money to live and thrive is important, but knowing when it's enough and enjoying your life outside of it is just as important.

Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.

Mortgage is $2100/ month

Homeowners insurance $400/ month

Property tax $200/month

Car insurance $185/month

Electricity $250/month (average)

Natural gas $40/month

Water+trash $200/month

Internet $90/month

Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month

Groceries $400-600/month

Gas $200/month

Toll roads $50-100/month

Cell phone $200/month

Coffee once a week $40/month

Date night food (once a week) $500/month

Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)

Roughly $6250/month give or take.

We don't have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.

That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.

My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn't get that car for that price today.

We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.

Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.

Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.

Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn't go as far as it used to.

I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.

And all these rich jerks saying if you stop paying for streaming services you'll be rich too
- Don't forget about my one $7.70 coffee per week. That's what is the issue.
I'm just impressed by the groceries. Our family spends twice that much but boys do eat a lot.
- My kids are young but yeah, that cost is going up with groceries and them growing. Its impressive how quick you can eat money.
- Dude my boys are 6 and 9 and they eat like I did when I was 16-19 and a lineman.
  Idk where it goes.
Your house is too big and you own too many cars
- The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
  I won't argue on the house, I will also say I don't really care. We aren't strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
  Its real easy to say "your house is too big' without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
- Yeah, I saw that $30k for a car and immediately dismissed everything this person said. I've never in my life paid more than $8k for a vehicle.
Why pay $200/mo for cell service when companies like Mint and Cricket exist? You could be paying under $200/yr for that alone.
- $200/mo likely includes equipment repayment plan.
  That's how they get you to justify a $1200 phone every two years...by charging you $30/mo for it and a $20/mo promo credit as long as you stay a customer with them. If you switch you gotta pay off the full balance.
  Imo that's insane. I've always considered myself a technophile and I don't replace any of my tech on that kind of a schedule, except for my phone...and that's mostly out of wear and tear and not being economically repairable.
  But I'm still out of that ERP game. Better to buy outright when there's a good deal from the OEM with a OnePlus or a Pixel. Even better if you can find a $50 eBay phone that's worth a $200-$300 trade-in credit.
- I'll have to look into it. Last I checked, att, tmo, and Xfinity were all about the same for a 2 line unlimited plan. We talked about doing google fi a few years back but they were limited on devices.
I was explaining this to my neighbor on a fixed income, that it costs over $6k a month to run my household, she looked genuinely confused for a second as she runs her life on about 1/30th that cash. What's awful is we're still going in the hole and I'm just using my 403(b) to collect my employer match so I can cash it out regularly and pay off expenses. So no savings is occurring.
- I'm sorry to hear that. I was there 3 years ago on a smaller budget. I thought we were in a decent spot financially and then we had our first kid (planned) and my partner stayed home with our baby. Our income went down by roughly a third overnight and we had a $10k delivery bill and all the other new baby stuff. We burned though our savings in about 9 months even though I was working. I almost opted to sell my car but I was very fortunate to find a new job making about 30% more and we recovered. The stress in that situation is immense and I hope you find a way out.
- Surely there's some significant expenses you can cut.
What vehicle insurance do you have that is 260 a month in insurance? I have two cars both fully insured and I am paying 800 a year TOTAL.
- Bruh, what? Mine is $2000 for two cars. Full coverage on both, and both of us have spotless driving records. Not even a single parking ticket in over 15 years (since we both started driving). My car is $1200 per year, and my wife’s is $800. Her car is 3 years older than mine.
  FWIW, my area (North Texas) is notorious for bad drivers and uninsured drivers. Even if my driving record is spotless, the rest of the idiots on the road make my premiums go up.
- My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife's old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
The mortgage usually includes the principle, property tax, and the interest (also mortgage insurance too if you have that). Why do you have them all listed separately?
- You can escrow them or pay them separately. Ours is separate. Our last house was an escrow account all lumped together.
HEB means you probably saved 40% on your grocery bill each month. If you had to shop at Publix in Florida your monthly would be $1000+/month. Your insurance might also be double on both car and home.
- HEB is significantly more than Aldi where we do most of our shopping. We do a HEB trip roughly once a month or every other month to get the stuff Aldi doesn't carry.
How suburban in Texas?
Bc for real I live in Massachusetts (suburb, but closer to Providence than Boston)...and my mortgage is the same as yours, but that is including property tax and homeowners insurance.
There's a fair bit of luck in that though...we bought in 2018, and refinanced in 2021...
Our house has increased in value, nearly double since then...so we couldn't afford to move to a similar house in the region if we wanted to. We're kinda stuck here now. Many of our neighbors in the same boat.
We could afford to take a significant downgrade in terms of neighborhood and home size. That would probably cost about the same as we have now.
- We bought our new place in June of this year. Its a proper suburb. 30-45mins to downtown. Greater Houston area. Our new house is basically the median price, under 3000sqft with a decent back yard but nothing special. Its in an older neighborhood and it needed work when we bought it.
  We purchased our first house in 2016 for 191 at 3.25% interest with 3.5% down. Homeowners insurance was like $1200/year. sold it this year for $295ish and homeowners insurance on the same house was at $4800/year. Bought our new house in June of this year for $425 at 6.7% interest and put 80k down (part of the equity we had in the old house we used for the down payment and the rest we put in our savings/emergency fund because I don't have faith in the booming economy right now).
  If I were starting out again where I was in 2016 (i.e. same salary as I made in 2016 but today), I would not be able to buy my old house. Its crazy.
  I personally feel like we are due for a reconning on all this, the house prices, insurance, and property taxes are not sustainable. The market is starting to reflect that too.
  When we were looking at houses, there were several that had been on the market for over a year because they were overpriced by 20-30%. Our old house was not worth 300k to me, it was to the market and the buyer but the people who bought and lived in that neighborhood pre covid are different than the new buyers and that isn't a good thing imo.

Survival mode?!?! What happened? They had to cancel Netflix or you just had to have the $90,000 Chevrolet Tahoe and a $90,000 Ford F-150.

Ahh, rich people problems. I don't even know what to spend all my money on and I make £26k. I guess I could just save it and then pay off the mortgage early, then only work 1 day a week?

I guess you dont have kids?
I make "six figures" and pay everything in my family. Mortgage, childs clothes, electricity, heating, groceries, everything is so friggin expensive compared to the simple times of 00's when I lived off with $500/a month in uni, and had great time. The pay for my vacancy was even better in 2010. So my predecessors were making more 15 years ago and every fucking thing cost less. Society is fucked.
But I'm not going around shouting this off rooftops. Because I got the highest compensation when considering my uni friends, and I make do. My kids get new clothes every so often, we have money for food and one vacation yearly. Things are okay, but thats me. For many, things are beyod fucked, and I feel sorry for them.
- How much more do kids cost than an adult? Could easily afford to feed an extra adult or two around the house. How much more is a child?
  Mortgage wouldn't change. Electricity usage surely wouldn't change too much as you are still heating the same house to the same temperature. Little more hot water for showers I guess. Food costs us £20 or so a week for 2 adults, so even doubling to 4 people that would be £40, probably less by benefiting more from bulk buying/cooking.
  Do agree clothing might suck, school uniforms are extortionate in the UK. Apparently the average is a few hundred, that is more than all of my clothes combined.
If you have mortgage, why not pay lump sum regularly instead of saving it first? This way cost of mortgage will come down. Unless you have a fixed rate?
- Recently fixed it for 5 years at a lower rate than it was before.

So those under this figure are ‘Walking Dead’?

Better headline: some Americans with six-figure incomes are incompetent at managing their finances.

My brother makes $200K and his wife makes $100K. Somehow they are broke. It just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. They do Uber Eats for literally every meal but that can't account for all the money, can it?
- They do Uber Eats for literally every meal
  You'd be surprised.
  I knew a rich girl in college who literally ordered $40+ of sushi 2-3 times a day.
- My in-laws are the country version of that. They make around 100k living in the sticks outside of a tiny town nobody outside of the area has heard of. The kind of place where you can live comfortably on a 30-40k family income with a bit of budgeting.
  It all gets spent. ATVs, brand new cars, a camper, a gigantic 3k sq foot house. Heck after their very reasonable and modest house burned down they spent $3k in one go just on Christmas decorations. My mother in law is constantly getting scammed and constantly buying so much shit they don't need nor really seem to want. My father in law will probably never be able to retire either due to the way she spends (she has been living on disability for quite a few years and now that that's expired she's just retired). I feel sorry for them but these are ultimately problems that they've made for themselves
💯
Outside of some very, very expensive areas (where you aren't required to live) six figures is still very adequate to live, especially if it's got a little distance from 100k exactly.

I don't know how people are getting by. Average household income in the US is like $121k/year. I would be in trouble if that was my household income and I don't know how people are affording groceries making $60.5k each.

I hear ya! I really don't know how we're 'getting by' (if you can call it that, lol,) either. You'd probably be surprised at what you can exist without when you straight-up just don't have any other choice or option but to go without it. (Healthcare, dental care, food beyond the bare minimum to stay alive, any entertainment or conveniences, etc.)
Notice I said "exist" and not "live," lol. You could say I'm 'alive,' but this ain't living! I'm just existing.
I mean, many Americans live in medium to low cost of living areas. My state’s median income is below 6 figures, and even costs within the largest city are nowhere near what it costs in NYC or San Francisco.
Edit: a word
What's your budget? It really depends on what your rent is and I guess how much health insurance your employer covers.

I'll bet a ways back there was an article about how 5 figure incomes weren't what they used to be.

True. As money in the system constantly leaks to the wealthiest and they consolidate control over prices and power, a quantity of income will go perpetually down in value; nothing that is measured by buying power or has fiscal value is what it used to be, and will continue on this trend until the ENTIRE system is FUNDAMENTALLY changed.
You ever watch that movie Office Space from like 1999? In the scene in the beginning where he's explaining to the shrink how "every day is the worst day of his life", the economy is basically like this for the cast majority of people, and will continue to be for a higher and higher percentage of the population. This is because we live in a system that is built and everybody accepts the functions and goals of consolidation of wealth and power as fundamental to life as we know it.
There are small "woke" movements that are trying to change that in various ways, but not until we have real, open, intelligent and educated discussions that involve EVERYBODY - left, right, liberal, and conservative, will anything change.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: nobody wins until we ALL win.
- I disagree about that last part. There clearly are people winning today. They are a small %, but they also have an outsized influence. So they actively work against the change. And it is easier for them to be semi organized because there are many less of them to organize.

How fucking expensive is stuff over there!?

There is some truth in the common refrain of "Americans overspend on cars, junk, etc", but the answer to your question is very fucking expensive. I moved to the french Riviera and my cost of living went way down compared to Florida. And that includes going from employer funded healthcare to paying out of pocket for all health care in France. Everything is cheaper, food, car, insurance, I even spend less on fuel because I only need to drive once per week so I only fill my car up with 7€/gallon gas every few weeks.
would love to see some numbers on where tf that salary is going
- Almost certainly its mostly going to rent.
- See my post above.

$100,000 with a child is nothing. Two or three children? You're struggling.

In a VHCOL area, $100k with one child is extremely tough/you're likely dipping into savings. Our daycare alone is over $40k/yr per kid, and only $5k ($7500 next year) is fully tax exempt.
Median 2 bedroom in my area is over $50k/yr.
$100k doesn't cut it. "Just move to a cheaper area" is IMHO not a proper response to this---anyone who works in my city should be able to afford to raise a family here, with a high quality of life/standard of living, but that's not really the case.

I know. I'm one of them.

stop fucking having children you can’t afford, god fucking dammit. there is no way two adults can’t survive off $100k anywhere in this country.

Economically mediated de facto sterilization is an extremely dystopian thing to just accept. I think it's pretty justified to be more or less outraged in this case.
- Definitely better to be egalitarian climate motivated
- you’re not wrong—that is an angle i can understand and even agree with, but while we are living in this system it isn’t smart to pretend reality is different and stubbornly breed regardless if you should.
No. Stop having children. Even if you can afford it, the other species can't afford having more humans.
You are absolutely incorrect.
- i doubt that.
Survive? Maybe, but most people want to do more than that. If you’re like 20-something you only care about surviving, but when you get older you get tired of that.

We should build more trailer parks to house these clowns once they can't afford their mcmansions anymore.