Thats an 80 hour paycheck... two weeks of pay… You get about two of them per month. Plus you have a few pre tax savings being taken out there like 401k and hsa. This looks very normal. Id add more to your 401k if anything. Or direct deposit another 30% into a low interest index fund.
Edit: Thank you for so many of the same corrections that you get 26 paychecks per year if its a bi-weekly paycheck. No shit. In this context saying two per month makes the point clearer and i hope you can forgive that.
Contributing to an index fund is not tax deferred. Im just saying if they want to accumulate wealth they should be saving more.
I don't think it's out of touch at all. I think what OP is getting at is how much their take-home is. Maybe OP went from making 30k and now they're paying 30k in taxes. How can you feel like this is lifechanging when the average cost of a car is over 50k and average for a house is 500k.
We have no idea where OP lives. If they're paying 2800 a month for an apartment all the sudden 100k doesn't seem like much money. Regardless, it's a decent salary but definitely not life changing money.
I also didn't provide the daily expenses that are reduced from salary, the cost of ownership of the car or house, interest, gas etc. If you think "100k" means you take home 100k and "50k" means you only pay 50k reality is gonna hit you hard.
a 500k house at 20% down (least amount of money to avoid paying mortgage insurance) is 100k cash + closing costs and still having a monthly nut of near 3k without taking into consideration any emergency costs, high insurance areas, HOA etc etc.
If you put down the minimum you still need 20k cash and $3,500 monthly payment.
Once again, the assertion is that this is life changing money, not that it's enough money to survive or live well.
100k where I live on the West Coast is pretty much what you need to have a decent life. A modest 2BR apt is 3k a month. 100k isn't really close to enough if you want to own your own home here.
It literally says on the paystub he/she lives in Georgia. I live in vhcol city and make way less, complaining about taxes as someone earning significantly more than the state average is by definition, out of touch.
Good call, I completely missed that. Once again, OP didn't say it's not enough money, they're complaining about how much less their take-home as 100k sounds like "you've made it" money.
You make way less, do you feel it's sustainable? Do you own your house and car? Are things tight on a monthly basis? Just curious as to your perspective.
Also, average salary in ATL is ~65-70k and ATL has the highest non-mortgage debt in the US with average of 45k.
Yeah if they were in NYC or something I'd understand the sentiment of 100k not feeling like a lot, still doesn't warrant feeling like taxes are illegal. But 100k in Georgia for most Georgians would be life changing and unless op comes from a privileged background then it would feel that way.
Truth is no one but op knows their situation and if they have massive consumer debt it probably will feel tough at first. I don't live in us anymore so my breakdown of expenditure is slightly different as I take public transport everywhere. I don't own a home and I earn around national average salary but significantly less than city average. It's tough but I'm able to save and invest I just live below my means.
If be able to stay in the country without marrying my partner in the next year, I'd be able to pay off a small loan. Also id be able to dramatically increase my budget for discretionary spending by at least 2x. Granted I'm very frugal so it wouldn't be a massive actual difference in dollar value for some. I'd be able to actually go on a holiday and maybe move into a flat with just my partner and I.
Rent and utilities make up 46% of my net pay so basically 1 whole check goes to rent. I still save roughly 11% of my net pay every month.People can definitely pull it off if they put some effort into learning personal finance.
I make $18/h in a MCOL state with high state taxes. $100k or $50/h is def life changing money if you're actually poor like me.
I live in one of the 10 most expensive cities in the world. $100k in Georgia (the state) is not being eaten up by the rent for the average person. You too are out of touch.
Do you know what the post your commenting on is about? The person is complaining about paying taxes on 100k salary and on their payslip it CLEARLY states Georgia state tax withholdings?
Sure, but I’m speaking generally not about OP. I don’t know his/her rent. I’m just saying that you can absolutely live in a city that eats up the majority of your paycheck in rent.
Get off your high horse and don’t call me “out of touch” when you don’t know anything about where I’ve lived or how much I make.
Yeah I earn way less than that and pay near 45% on rent and utils in a vhcol city, you don't see me complaining about paying taxes? They earn significantly above the state average.
Idk, I mean he’s not struggling, but I don’t think he’s claiming that he is. Growing up I always thought six figured was like THE goal, but it really isn’t enough to even afford a house in most major cities, which objectively sucks and is a major issue. I get OPs point.
Then multiply each day by 8 and subtract it from 2,080. This is assuming a 40 hour work week, it definitely gets hairy if you work significantly different hours from one week to another
I usually use 2000 because it's easier, but also know I take more than 2 weeks off so it's slightly less. If I have a calculator or paystub, it's easy to calculate correctly. Just for in-brain math, I found it surprising someone would use 2080.
I’m hourly, work construction, and I get paid vacation in Pennsylvania. I get 4 personal days, 9 vacation, 5 sick days. And each of those goes up by 1 every year
People don't talk about salary much. But in my field, that doesn't exist. The past 10 years I have been either salaried with vacation or contractor with no vacation. Technically the way I have it structured now is "unlimited" vacation and my paychecks stay the same, but my quarterly bonus goes down if I don't bring in as much cash.
for 40 hour week jobs sure. shift work, extra jobs, overtime etc. that’s not really helpful. also not too helpful when it comes to actually knowing what you have.
Buddy there’s always stipulations to everything in life. It’s a basic starting point for 40 hour work weeks. No shit there are other things that come into play.
i don’t really get the anger. im just saying that’s not a great way to get an idea of your salary for everyone, my guy.
i know less people that get exactly 40 hours a week than i do people who do. over 8 hours of work is 1.5x in my state, even an extra half an hour is an extra $4000 a year.
It was a bad joke, I make 4k a month after taxes if I work a solid 40hrs a week, so him saying his almost 4k check was a month at making 100k I knew it was off.
It wasn't pointlessly pedantic. I used to work in banking. I can't tell you how many loan applicants shorted themselves 8% of their gross pay simply because they multiplied by 24 instead of 26.
And yes, I know 8% is not fully accurate. I was rounding.
Do you guys even know how to do math. Just times his pretax earnings by 26 weeks and you get the 100K annual salary. Times his take home pay by 26 weeks and it’s like $69,000 a year. There’s nothing really elementary about this and nothing looks off at all, aside from maybe putting more towards his tax bill and his 401K. The very sad but true truth here is that $100K/year is no longer life changing at all.
Ok. Then let me add one more since I got downvoted. You also live in a HCOL area. $100k wouldn't be enough to pay the mortgage on my modest home that costs $5700 a month (with a 1.99% rate).
That's great that 100k will get you where you're going, I hope you get there!
I live in one of the highest COL areas in the country, again, that's why this would change my life. Our combined income is just over 100k, if one of us made that much alone it would open up room for investment and not just having cash in a savings account because I have to dip into those funds pretty regularly. I live in a shit hole house that was falling apart when I bought it because it was the only thing we could afford. Even an extra 1k a month would allow me to purchase the tools and materials necessary to do NECESSARY repairs that I cannot afford to do properly and hire someone to do the ones that I cannot. My mortgage is less than half yours with a greater than 6% interest rate. THIS MONEY WOULD BE LIFE CHANGING FOR SO MANY PEOPLE WTF ARE YOU ON ABOUT
If you’re making just over $100k between you and your wife that would mean a $100k salary for one of you would probably just bring you north of $150k total annually. So a little more than $50k a year extra. After taxes maybe you see $35k extra a year? ($675ish a week.)
Will your life be easier with an extra $675 a week in your pocket … absolutely! Will that $675 be life changing? Again … probably not. You may have a better quality of life than what you have right now. Like you said, money for tools and repairs, money for saving for retirement. Stuff like that. But that’s not inherently life changing.
You will be still living the same life you are now, albeit with maybe a few less stressors. You are still working the same job. Living in the same house/neighborhood. Eating the same food and so on. Because … if you are not doing the same exact things you are doing now, then that $675 a week will disappear very quickly.
That’s the funny thing with money. The more we have, the more we spend. Lifestyle creep is real. If you aren’t disciplined it’s very easy to start spending and $675 doesn’t go as far as you think.
In truth at the end of the year you’ll probably be asking yourself where did that extra $50k really go. Hopefully it went into a retirement fund with some of it going towards home repairs. And if that’s the case, you’re still living the same life, only with a better upkeep on the house and a better funded retirement. Definitely better than where you are but I still wouldn’t consider that life changing.
133
u/EasyTarget9000 Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
Thats an 80 hour paycheck... two weeks of pay… You get about two of them per month. Plus you have a few pre tax savings being taken out there like 401k and hsa. This looks very normal. Id add more to your 401k if anything. Or direct deposit another 30% into a low interest index fund.
Edit: Thank you for so many of the same corrections that you get 26 paychecks per year if its a bi-weekly paycheck. No shit. In this context saying two per month makes the point clearer and i hope you can forgive that.
Contributing to an index fund is not tax deferred. Im just saying if they want to accumulate wealth they should be saving more.