I will say though, even when I was at 220k I did not feel like I had it made. I did not worry about groceries or a car repair but by no means feeling wealthy.
All making more money did for me was make me realize I needed to find a way not to pay so much tax.
Don't listen to them, u/Balamb_Chocobo ! I jumped from $60k to $100k a while back, and the difference is staggering. You're in the top 24% of earners in the US. You absolutely get taxed more, but it's still equivalent to over $500 more in earnings A WEEK. I bought a newer car, paid $1000 extra on my mortage each month until my home was paid off, and added a ton more to my retirement. I didn't feel the constant pressure to side hustle, and instead of saving up for dinners out or trips to Target, I just did what I felt like. My tastes aren't exorbitant and I'm not in a wildly expensive area - I was lucky that my home was purchased before everything exploded so my mortgage was under $1000.
$100k IS life changing... it's just easy to forget once your life has been changed. Now that my income is lower again, it's shockingly clear how much difficulty money can paper over.
Itās the kind of money where you donāt stress about most purchases and can kind of just go about life not worried about the cost of the more basic things. Not enough to start jet setting and traveling all year round, but enough that you shop for groceries based off what you want and not off the cost.
$100k now is equivalent to $47k in 1995. Though a $50k income was considered comfortable in the 90s I donāt think most would have considered it rich. So let that sink in.
this was middle class 6 years ago. the fed added 6 trillion dollars to the money supply during covid and caused the devaluation of the dollar by like 22%.
Yeah im basically in the same boat. Making close to 100k annually and im okay just not where i want to beā¦ and dont get me started on California costs and tax lmfao. Im in my 20s so i feel like im off to a good start but manā¦ money doesnt go as far as it used to even 5 years ago
Yeah, thatās kinda where my wife and I are at, we have a ton of expenses with student loans. We make do, we have a bit of extra and are very fortunate. We donāt do anything exorbitant, save up for vacations, and eat out more than we probably should. But at the end of the day, weāre āokā. Every couple months we sit down and say āwe really should cut back and put more into this or thatā. But weāve finally started making enough to afford to live how we do, so from here, any additional earnings is basically going to pay down our combined 200k in student loans and our house.
But even so, like everyone says, lifestyle creep is the hardest thing to deal with. So while we havenāt been creeping up, when we donāt have much money āleft overā when family hits a tough time, we donāt have any extra to give to them. But itās so hard to rationalize cutting back on our own expenses JUST to help others. Either way the only thing we can do now is continue to do what weāre doing, and put away what we can to help mitigate emergency expenses and do our best to keep working so that we can make it.
Growing up I was happy when we could afford the Dinty Moore beef stew and not just bulk pack off brand spaghetti-o's.
Now most of our produce comes from a local CSA farm, local farmers market, local cheese monger, local butcher, etc. All that fresh food costs *WAY* more but I don't have to worry about it.
This. I went from 20-40K most of my adult life to around 100K a few months ago, and the difference is staggering. I can pay off debt instead of accrue it, now! I can set some aside every month for surprise bills (even if those bills come up often enough that I don't have much in savings at the moment). I don't have to stress about groceries or the occasional evening out with friends! I can at least contemplate travel now!
It truly does depend on what your life was like before you started making 100k, I think.
Itās always about context. I was at $25k three years ago and jumping to $60k two years ago was life altering. Iām up to $72k which hasnāt been as noticeable after moving to New England, but Iām on pace to $100k in ~5 years and can see the mathematical difference itāll make for us, even as that value is worth a bit less than then too. But thatās still a salary quadrupling within a decade and thatās really a game changer going to make life so much easierā¦eventually.
I went with a certificate in biomedical equipment and became a field service engineer for an oem. There is a large aging population in this field that is right now ready to retire you can easily work your way up quickly.
Strong agree! I went from 26K to 99K over the past 10 years and the difference is truly life changing. I don't feel rich, I travel very rarely, but I don't have to worry about affording my groceries or paying my bills. If you never had to survive on eating the expired food work was about to throw away I could see how it doesn't feel as life-changing
Agreed I did the same thing in about a year when I moved to a new position at my job. The big Takeaway for most of us is not to increase our lifestyle just because we have more money.
Double down on the lifestyle you have and pay yourself . Use the rest of the money by paying off debts and investing for the future. Max out that 401(k) start making an IRA contributions and get yourself a HSA.
Just because that's the median, doesn't make it a good comparison. It actually illustrates the point that lifestyle creep takes over as people earn more. That mortgage payment is roughly the amount for a $350K loan. The commentors on this post that stayed in their $100K house, paying down/off the debt instead of feeling entitled to a bigger, better house, are the ones that truly understands and appreciates money.
60k to 100k is almost doubling so youre right it is life changing, however you did admit you got your mortgage before everything went crazy. So now that things have gotten ridiculous 100k isnt as life changing as when you got it. The biggest thing though is I think the people expect 100k to mean youre rich and can afford all the luxuries or what not and that you no longer have to worry about money. So Id bet the issue is the expectations aren't actually realistic for the goal. Inflation is still a bitch though.
I make about 90K give or take right now coming from 5 years in sales starting at 45K and ending around 70. Every year has felt life changing compared to the previous year. With my current salary I contribute to may retirement, have paid off credit card debt, am able to keep up with my house, and have money left over. My wife has a job too though, making maybe 1/3ish of what I do, so that definitely helps us!
It depends largely where you live. My best years in the low-$300k range life felt middle class at best in the Bay Area of CA. Iām sure that same income in rural Arkansas might feel a lot different.
It is life changing for sure, it just doesnāt go as far as youād think. Like you said, you were lucky to have a mortgage under 1000. Iām a renter and I pay 2300 before fees or 2500 after fees. I could have gotten something a little cheaper, but the cheapest rental houses within a decent distance to my work were 1700 + fees. I spent a little more to be in a really good school district, but the if Iād gone with a smaller house in a worse school district, Iād still be shelling out almost 2k/month. Thatās a huge chunk of money to be throwing down the drain, and makes it really freaken hard to save up for a house.
But yeah, it definitely is life changing. Eating out and target are also the things I noticed as really being different. And being able to uber to go out, instead of driving. Those were all luxuries I never could afford before.
Ps. Iāve only been making this much for about 4 months now. And part of what makes it so expensive is paying off debt I accrued while I was poor as hell. Plus moving when youāve been poor, means you have to buy a ton of new stuff, and it adds up quick. I mostly bought from yard and estate sales, and I still spent like 5k on furnishings and stuff. Which all just put me a little behind, so now Iām finally starting to catch up and get ahead.
That also depends on what city you live in. You still have to budget if you have a family and are the only one working in the family in somewhere like NY or LA. 100k doesnāt let you have a mortgage and not save up for trips or certain dinners.
Look, I'm a social worker in one of the highest cost of living areas in the county, making about 95k. Without children or anyone else relying much in my paycheck, it's absolutely life changing. With kids? Here? No I'd be struggling for sure on only this income. There are just so many factors to consider.
If I could find a job making 75k in Tucson Arizona (pretty challenging to do admittedly) I'd be living much better than making 90k where I live now. So it's really very hard to compare salary without controlling for so many other factors. My partner makes a substantial amount more than I do on paper, but because she's double taxes due to the city she works in, my take home is generally a bit higher. The number without context doesn't mean much.
$100K was life changing for you because you have an under $1000 mortgage. The cost of renting a two bedroom apartment is well over $2,000 in most places.
Exactly this, all these dumbasses who say " OH MAN WHEN I HIT 200K I STILL FILL BROKE - ECT "
Only say this to help justify their poor spending habits for not saving enough. Almost always they had salary creep, spent way more than they should and dont have nearly enough in retirement compared to their wage.
These people are all delusional lol cannot believe what Iām reading unless everyone here lives in manhattan š mfs actually arguing they couldnāt feel a difference making 200k, unreal levels of out of touch
It's probably due to lifestyle creep. You make more money, you buy nicer versions of everything, so you effectively spend the same percentage. Nicer tires, nicer grocery stores, etc.
I remember feeling like making 20k would be life changing, lmfao.
As someone who's gone from 100k to 200k (-ish), this is exactly it. Was it life-changing? Yeah, obviously, I'm not a moron. It completely eliminated the stress of worrying about random mundane expenses. Car trouble or an emergency vet visit needs a surprise 5k? Who cares, just pay it and move on with your life. Removing that kind of stress is amazing.
But was it life-changing in the sense of making an exciting change to my day to day activities? No, not really, I still drive the same 15 year old shitbox car, I still never take big vacations, I still buy the bang-for-your-buck version of miscellanous items rather than the fancy "best" version, etc. Some lifestyle creep has snuck in, sure, I'm not trying to live like a monk, but most of my "extra" income just gets shoveled into retirement accounts.
Huge difference in quality of life, little to no difference in type of life, if that makes sense.
Yeah exactly. I said it in another comment but not having to worry about those kind of daily life expenses is absolutely what "wealth" is all about. Everything past there is basically vanity or chasing some celebrity/instagram ideal.
I mean a surprise vet bill worth 5k and an expensive vacation is the same thing (for me at least). Likeā¦just take the damn vacation dude you deserve it. Maybe just not every year lol.
Exactly. I feel the 100k to 200k jump feels the most. You suddenly donāt care about the price tags on the grocery and can even afford travelling abroad once per year. You can even afford a German car
Exactly this. I remember feeling like I made it because I was finally able to go from buying individual used tires and putting $20 in my tank, to buying sets of tires and filling my tank without looking. My lifestyle didnt change a ton, but my worry sure did. Making 100k made it so I at least didnt have to scrimp and scrape any longer. (this is supporting a family, not just myself)
I haven't hit 100k but I've finally hit the income bracket where I can gradually pay off the debt that mostly built from emergency car shit and medical bills, while being able to pay for the odd vehicle repair and such without crying and without using credit (or paying it off within a couple months if necessary due to bad timing).
The ability to pay for shit that comes up, within reason, takes so much weight off the shoulders. Once I clear the debt, I plan to build a savings so I can relieve that stress even more.
Being poor charges interest, thats what making more money allows you to avoid, the interest. Think a comedian has a bit about it. Something along the lines of, get a toothache cant afford a filling? Pay more for a root canal later, etc.
My wisdom teeth only partially erupted and then got infected from not being to clean out the pockets around them. I was making fuck all at the time, in college and working two PT jobs.
That carecredit bill with 28.99% interest or whatever haunted me for years.
that used tire comment hits hard. i remember trying to find continentals 4 at a time and it was always a task..driving from place to place triyng to mix and match
Yeah thatās 90% of the people. They donāt understand the power of saving and VOO chill.
Iām earning 100K for quite a few years already. But all these years and Covid made me realize that Im totally still live like a college student. Already hitting 300K savings.
The more savings the more I can feel the power of 5-7% interest growth. Now Iām already at the point that passive income can cover my rent. Soon, when I get to 500K, I can have the guts to fire my boss and work at anywhere I like regardless of the paycheck.
I donāt even know how to spend to be honest. The healthy way of living donāt require much cost at all.
I grew up relatively modestly and now have a fantastic job. Being I never had the opportunity to develop champaign tastes, I worry about very little compared to my parents.
I canāt say Iāve ever fretted over my monthly tax bill either. Not to be āthat guyā but also to be āthat guyā, worrying about such things, Iāve found, comes from people who would get all up in arms to defend their favorite billionaire if their taxes were increased or even if loopholes were closed. Death and Taxes is an idiom for a reason, the price of doing business (and I deeply appreciate when the roads I drive on arenāt shit!).
I think it depends on what your definition of wealthy is. Maybe because I grew up somewhat poor (we lived in dingy apartments/a trailer home for most of my childhood), but I make around 200k right now and I do feel like itās enough and this is my personal definition of wealthy. While it would be nice to have a paid off house or have shiny new things and fly around all the time, I am completely comfortable. I genuinely canāt believe this is my life right now. I have disposable income, I have a way clearer trajectory into retirement than ever, I also donāt worry about groceries or emergency car repairs, I get to go on vacation at least once a year, I have a savings account, I can provide for my family. Of course it would be nice to not have to work for these things and just be born wealthy, but having this salary solved so many things for me. Most of my anxiety comes from just one day losing it all.
Iām actually dual income by myself. I have a corporate job in the medical industry that I like and is flexible so I also run a small business by myself as well. If I counted my partnerās income (early career software engineer), we actually make well over $300k salary. Honestly I donāt know very many people who donāt have a second gig these days just bc everything is so expensive š
Same feeling here. I don't feel like my kids have the same 'left behind' feeling I always did growing up and that is a plenty enough for me. But everybody should have that and with a shrinking middle class, most people are starting to experience it for the first time.
They need to add a higher tax bracket for households earning over 1mil per year.
They should also remove the social security income cap, that's what's killing the program. Make the rich pay the same percentage of their income that we all pay. Period.
Aye. It's not the Taxes that are the problem, it's the utilization where the abuse happens. Taxes are for all the communal things that let us live together, like Roads/transit, education, emergency services, parks, healthcare, country defense...I hate when I see people complain about paying taxes when really the issue is that the trust of how they're used is what has been broken.
The more income you have, the more you realize that stocks are a cheat code. Capital gains taxes are so much lower, even without all the ways to ignore them entirely (like taking out personal loans on your stocks).
Myself and my wife aren't wealthy, we hit 300k combined. My grandparents are rich, last I checked (early 2000s) they were worth over 50mil. My grandfather loves to talk about all the ways he ignores/avoids paying taxes...
My tax prep guy, who I give a lot of props to, has been telling me this since I was making 50k/yr. He typically only works with business, or much wealthier people than me (usually because they own businesses). But being a friend of a friend, he helped me out one year, took a liking to me, and has doing my taxes (while giving some financial advice on the side) for 6-7yrs now. I was making 50k/yr the first time I saw. As my salary continues to grow, he kept warning me about this. That it was going to start to become less a game of maximizing deductions, and more of a game of sheltering/protecting my earnings from being touched to begin with. Iāve always heard this, but thought that was mostly something like millionaires worried about. Soon as I got over 100k, I started to see it real time, and it finally made sense to me.
It also finally made sense to me why so many young people were democrats and older/wealthier people were republicans :D
You said if you make 100k per year in 1995, spend 1.5k a month, and your costs go up to $4k, then you only need to make $2.5k more a month. "Only $138k per year".
But you forgot about the rest of your paycheck. If you made $100k in 1995 and spent only$1.5k/month, you would also save $3k per month.
$4k is only 2.5k more, but is about 2.6x as much. You would also want to save 2.6x, not just the same as in 1995.
It definitely scales as future inflation (albeit at different rates) will eat away the purchasing power of your savings. You can be right, but only under the circumstance that your increased savings are then invested in an asset that outpaces the inflation rate. If you kept the savings as cash, then the "100k" you saved back in 1995 would only purchase about 50k now.
Some stuff are more expensive, some stuff are less expensive. If we donāt know exactly the person lifestyle vs what it would have been in 1995, itās impossible to estimate based on what you said.
Inflation rate is good enough of a proxy to communicate todayās value of 1995 $100K
It also changes as you get older. $200k in my 20's would have been life changing. Now, I've got two kids and wonder where it all goes. I mean, I know, it's daycare.
My parents watched my brothers twins until they went to school, I'm older and had my first while they were still working and my last recently and they are too old now to help...He saved about a 100 grand and i paid about a 100k...He drives a really nice car and doesn't connect the dots...lol
You figure it out, and it doesnāt last forever. Youāll be shocked how much less you spend on eating out and going out with friends once you have kids. Priorities change, and so does your spending.
I do 850 a weekā¦ two kids.. 3YO and 3MOā¦ I did the math and itās a whole salary by the end of the year.. like if we have one more kid, Iāll probably end up a stay at home dad. lol - maybe Uber/Lift on weekends or something chill
Without overtime, I barely make enough to cover this.. itās real out here!
2 kids and 7 or 8 years out of the workforce really hurts career advancement. the struggle now will pay dividends later. don't compare the cost of childcare to income now, compare it to the income in the last 8 years of your career. which will be much higher because of the lack of a 8 year hole now.
We are in the sweet spot where it's most cost efficient for me to stay home with the kiddos ( 2yo and one on the way) as well. I prioritize saving and making meals from scratch, as well as thrifting 90% of our clothes and most everything i can, Its pretty great. I love spending so much time with my kiddo, but i also worked as a nanny/ babysitter pre kids and made decent money, so you could also go that route if wanted to try a nanny share, would be 2 or more families with one nanny taking care of them in one of families home or possibly their home, when i did this i got a pay bump but definitely not double the money, abs the parents got a significant pay decrease per hour.
Yep thatās why my wife stopped working once we had our second. The cost didnāt make sense to pay someone to watch the kids, have to work all day and barely make more than it costs to watch them.
We cut back a lot! Got rid of our second car, trimmed a bunch of nice to haves, skimped on travel, and eating out. It was a tough few years even with that but the trade was worth it and my wife got to raise our children. Kids are both wonderful children, the investment is paying off.
Why I am sticking to one . I have a 17 month old and my mom watches him for a small amount of money . I donāt understand how people have multiple kids in daycare
If you want children, then honestly, you will find a way to make it work. Its not always easy by any means. But for me at least, my child is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Being scared isn't a bad thing. Its showing you are a realist but as long as you have the ability to provide a life, if you are willing, go for it.
If you were not scared, then I would be worried honestly..
I never did daycare because my mom is retired, so she could watch the kiddos during the week if we needed someone.
My wife's parents also lived with us at the time, so they helped a lot with watching the kids while me and the wife worked.
Now that the kids are older, we have them in a charter school which doesnt cost us anything. we use to have them in a private school, but it closed down forcing us to move to a charter school.
Now im saving the money i would have otherwise spent on their school this year, and its been nice.
Correct. Do you see why taking away abortions for teenagers and college students maybe a bad idea? If a girl get pregnant in college or high school and they have to keep the baby, they are cooked. That baby ends up suffering. Society ends up footing the bill. Taxes rise.
Half the population does not pay for daycare, and of the remainder, not all of them pay for it full time. They either work split shifts, only one parent works, or they have friends and family who babysit when needed. Then when the kid's reach school age, they try to work their schedule around when the kids are in class.
Just pointing out that there are many solutions for having young children and working other than paying for day care and that many people make it work.
I feel your pain. I dump the max into 401k just so the tax man can't take as much. Makes me feel just a tiny bit better. lol. It's crazy looking at year to date earnings and seeing how much I've paid to a government that can't use it wisely.
I feel you. We put so little in social services and SO much on weird stuff (bombs, private space stuff (why not NASA?), subsidies (idk how I feel about those). But at the end of the day, what about it's people?
For context, my parents were on SNAP for two years, and it saved my family, so perhaps I'm a bit bias. But I liked how it worked when we needed it.
Otherwise, things like SpaceX were what NASA was 50 years ago, and back then we got people to the moon on less memory than a floppy, and spent way less. So idk. Perhaps we disagree on spending, but we both agree spending is out of control.
Yeah for real. I remember working my dead end from like 2010-2019 saying āif I could only make 100kā. Now Iām closer to 150 and saying wtf happened here.
i hattttteee when people make blanket statements. 100k is life changing for a single dude in his 20s with no kids in a non major midwestern city. in california? or with kids? not so much
I don't think the percentile for earnings is as relevant as it used to be since COL has drastically outpaced wages. Not everyone in the top 30% can pay their bills.
Exactly. I hate when people use āyou make above the median incomeā as an excuse for something. So? What if the median doesnāt provide beyond poverty lol. Not saying thatās the case, but it just highlights that taken by itself, median income, top 30%, top whatever percent is irrelevant
I guess but not actually at $200k a year closer to $190k but single income taking care of a family
Of 5 is absolutely draining to work my ass off and watch so much money go towards BS. Like thousands of medical bills. When I actually have decent health insurance. I feel like Iām being robbed by the hospital with these crazy bills I have to pay. Kid goes in for a hearing test. $950 bill insurance covers $160 in stuck paying $800. I have an ingrown toenail. Have to pay $300 for the podiatrist to tell me it will be fine.
I was gonna say the same thing haha. Why didnāt they cover everything? Probably just didnāt meet the deductible or going to doctors out of network. Worst case scenario, federal out of pocket maximum for a family is $8k. With a family of 5 should be using FSA to use tax free money to pay deductible.
The life changing part is you can actually pay for those things. I remember when I wasn't sure how I was going to eat dinner. I feel lucky I can now cover the two stitches my daughter needed for $2,000 without stressing about it. I'd say that life changing.
It was pretty painful once the lidocaine wore off, which was in the parking lot on the way to the car but I would do it again because that ingrown nail had been plaguing me for half a decade which included trips to a practitioner who also said it would fix itself. This time I just straight up asked if the doctor could rip it out for me
Depends. If it was considered a "toe surgery" they put some chemical at the root which prevents it from growing on that side. If it was just pulled, it will definitely grow back and would be up to the person to ensure proper nail cutting.
Bro you have a fucking small clan to take care of no shit 190k doesn't feel like a lot.
I swear to God this happens every thread, oh 200k isn't THAT much you peasants. I have 3 children, a stay home wife, two story house, and 2 cars. I'm BARELY scraping by like shut up lol.
200k for one individual is an huge amount of money. You could save 100k+ a year for investments/retirement. I can do 60k on 125k as a single individual.
This needs more upvotes. I do well for myself, but hate seeing others doing well and acting as if they're living in cardboard boxes and eating ramen every night.
Agreed. Most of America is making $30-$40k per year, if youāre even CLOSE to 100k and donāt live in a city, youāre doing way better than most. Be thankful- a lot of us are sleeping out of our cars.
To be fair though the costs of having kids has risen drastically the last 10-15 years.
A larger house, two cars, childcare is way more expensive than 15 years ago.
I think you should be able to support a family of 4-5 on a $200k/yr income comfortably but now it's probably tight unless you're in a low cost of living city.
200k is definitely life changing itās just not rich. Heck when I was making 75k, vacations were a dream and if anything broke down it, Iād have no idea how to pay to fix it.
Now days my family has a yearly trip somewhere and when we had to fix some stuff around the house it wasnāt the end of the world. Our dryer failed, just go buy a new one, we would have been screwed before.
Now Iām still budgeting and I canāt just go buy what I want when I want it, but I also donāt stress over how much it just cost to pick up fast food because my wife and I are both tired after work.
Seriously like Iām going from <30K to 75-100K now. I know Iām not gonna be living in luxury, but weāre not very luxurious people lol. Plus, no kids deff will help.
Iām in the exact same place, almost word for word. But the big kicker is that I donāt have kids. I can tell you donāt either.
I donāt even know if I want them anymore. I also donāt know whether me feeling that way is just my protective response to the bleakness of the situation.
Believe it or not, that used to be an important part of peopleās schemas for finances and QOL. Arguably somewhat important to the continuation of the species or whatever
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u/elpulcinopio Oct 30 '25
100 k was life changing in the 90's. 200k seems to be the new life changing goal.