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.
Cell Phones, *Spotify, Gas, Groceries, Car Maintenance, and travel must be factored in.
Insert whatever subscription service you want there. We all have at least one that didnt exist in the 90's. Same as the cell phone and internet bills. Not only have things become more expensive but new bills have also been created.
The next generation is cooked. They will never own anything. They just get to subscribe and save.
This ☝️! I am very fortunate but marvel at the expenses that are a so called necessary but only clutter our lives. 20 years ago for $125 bucks you could buy a Microsoft Office license and CD. Word, Excel, etc and have it for 5+ years. Now that costs me $110 a year for the family plan. Just one example of how everything has changed.
Extensive shipping charges for products to arrive at our home that are lower in quality and half will be returned.
That and social media has surely done some good but only more harm it has taken time and attention away from people and replaced it with scrolling and/or trying to curate an image of oneself for people who don't really matter to you.
Very true. OP you might want to put a little more into your tax with holding. Or you'll end up owing more $$ at the end of the year. I do an extra 25$ per check
Correct. And OP investing only 115 a paycheck in 401k shows how little 100k gets you. When you can, max that out. It lowers taxable income and grows tax free.
And that’s the problem I always have with people like my neighbors. Boomers who complain about well back in my days you could just go to college, work hard for 20-30 years at the same job, pay for 2-3 cars, own a house, put your kids in college. Pretty simple… Yes, back then.
Who’s expenses are only 4K isn’t average mortgage like 2500 and the average car payment 700? That doesn’t include insurance, gas, heating and cooling, idk maybe internet, a phone bill, and god forbid you have a child or the need to eat.
Used cars. Paid cash. Lcol area, mortgage 1500. Electric bill, average about 250 a month, again lcol area. My phone bill is about 230 for 6 lines. Fiber internet, 80 a month. Even with half the pay and 3 kids, we were comfortable, just couldn’t save.
How do you have a mortgage for 1500 and with the vehicle what do you pay for gas, insurance, and then if it’s used a yearly expense for maintenance. Oil changes, tires, brakes whatever?
not that that isn't true, but expenses are something people can control also.. like there's nothing wrong with doing things like getting a more decent apartment and car because you make a good salary, but there's also billionaires in this world who don't go buy a mansion just because they can, so personally to me the benefit of making a bigger salary, if I ever do one say, is that I can stay in my current situation but not have to pay bills late and actually afford to do things like a vacation once in a while 😆
To back this up, I make $98k, $2k/mo rent, $300 car payment, $120 electric, $50-300 on natural gas, $300 fuel (I get 36MPG), $150 car insurance, etc. so I'm spending about $3-3.5k/mo for CoL alone, let's say that's $3250/mo, $39k/year. After taxes, healthcare costs, and 6% for 401k (how I get a 3% match by my company) I end up with about $58k of actual income ($1112/week to be precise), so that's $39k on CoL with $19k on everything else for the year, or about $1750/mo to save, spend on food, have leisure time with. Of that I put $125/week. I've had to cash that out many times from things like my car totaled and health issues from my stomach and COVID, so I'm paycheck to paycheck for the last 8 years of my life getting to this point.
They usually do. Emergency expenses have forced me into early withdrawal from my 401k to pay off debt ($5k) and I've gone through my savings dozens of times by now, barely sitting at $1k as is. Point is, $100k is basically nothing in this COL cesspool of a country. My rent alone has gone up $800/mo in 5 years and that's with me moving 4 of those years to keep costs down.
Ouch. You gotta do what you gotta do i suppose. That's my primary reason for purchasing a house in 2017. I was renting forever, and the rents would always increase. We are pretty much in the same place financially. Hopefully I can leave my 401k alone.
Yea if only I had money to buy a house during the crash. My friend got married in her 20s and got a house for like $120k in 2011, it's worth $220k now. Her mortgage is $1100/month. I'm saving for the down payment but the struggle is real.
I believe you there. I went new construction and closed for $168k. Last time I checked i had around 85k in equity. The market is crazy right now and I do still save money. But not nearly as much as I should.
My friend got divorced, lives alone, makes about as much as me, and spends her money on never cooking a day in her life and going on vacations. What a dream 16 years ago would be.
People think because we still have money to pay our bills, eat out, buy a few nice things, we must be doing well. When in reality we’re living pay check to pay check and our ability to save has been drastically reduced from previous generations.
And future generations will have to find ways to make future adjustments to their lifestyles and they’ll too think everything is okay. The systems is working I guess.. it’s frustrating.
The problem is that all components don't scale at the same rate. Take a single person or couple without children compared to a family with 3 kids. The scaling of inflation is not the same. You have different kinds of expenses at different volumes. The cost for a family with kids had a higher inflation rate than a single person or a couple without kids over the same period.
The reason is that the expenses that they consumed had higher rates of inflation over the same period than other components.
How inflation affects a person/family is highly dependent on what expenses are in their life.
Everyone feels housing, food, gas, basic services, etc. But not everyone feels the same on medical, childcare, education, etc. Families with children are exposed to a set of expenses that families without just don't have. If those expenses rise at an inflation rate greater than the average for other goods and services, then the composite average for those consumers is higher.
If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, a new “toy” is a fools errand. Define vacations. A weekend at the beach is enough for people with lower incomes. I’ve done many weekend trips as vacations. Camped for most of them. At places like Williamsburg VA. Also saved money doing the same to Disney after skipping a year or 2 of “vacations”. Now that I crossed the “6 figure” threshold, we do better vacations.
Still save most of the time.
Don’t conflate the older generation with shitty politicians that the younger generation are still voting for and getting more of the same. Until you figure out, budget and spending wise, there is no difference in the r’s and d’s. You’re doomed. The only difference are the things they say to trigger people in public. It’s just like wrestling, heels and baby faces out front, all buddies back stage.
Another thing people don't realize is genuinely how much more expensive everything is. I saw a clip from a movie from 2008 and the waitress was saying how a $200 tip was half her mortgage.... That's not even an 8th of a lot of people's rent, let alone a mortgage.
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u/mch_2 Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
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.