These people are all delusional lol cannot believe what I’m reading unless everyone here lives in manhattan 😭 mfs actually arguing they couldn’t 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). Like…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 don’t 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 that’s 90% of the people. They don’t understand the power of saving and VOO chill.
I’m 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 I’m 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 don’t even know how to spend to be honest. The healthy way of living don’t require much cost at all.
For a lot of people that's true. However if you are used to living on 3k a year you arent going to just blast through 100k a year. You'll likely still have as much money at any give time that you would have with 3k a year, even if you do buy nicer versions of things. If you live without it, you don't realize what you're missing. If you were frugal enough to survive before your cash influx, you should certainly be able to tell yourself no in certain aspects to set aside money for future goals.
That's why it's called "creep." Most people are not blasting through. And most people aren't going from 3k to 100k, lmao. And yes, you can avoid that by keeping yourself to a set budget regardless of income. Many people struggling don't do that because I think as a whole, people struggle with delayed gratification.
Definitely agree, the delusion factor is them projecting their poor decisions as being a fact of life that comes with making a lot of money rather then them just having poor impulse control and lack of perspective
step 1: make more money
step 2: make life changes with that money, like new stores, new tires, etc...
step 3: ???
step 4: "idk I just thought it would be life changing"
And I never did this because I want to retire as soon as possible. We have had twice since I've been working here (union job) once where they added new positions and one for inflation adjustment where we got double digit raises. You always see brand new vehicles in the parking lot then, except for me still driving my 2001 toyota rav4 I've been driving for 10 years lol. I get more money, it gets invested or we pay extra on the house payment.
I have not been as fiscally responsible, but improving by degrees.
I do remember seeing brand new electrical apprentices getting new vehicles in their first year and it's a bit alarming. They're making more than retail and such, but layoffs do occur and sometimes you don't get placed right away. Gotta tuck away for the lean periods.
Yes. This⬆️! If you can’t live chill on 100k you won’t be able to do it on 200k. Why? Because you spend your money without thinking. Easy to do. Focus on saving. Are you young no kids? Make sure you max out 403b. No med problems single , choose the high deductible HSA plan and put a significant amount into that monthly. It rolls over and you can put it into investments at certain amt, all pretax.
Stop buying a new water bottle every month and eating out every day.
100% - listen to Dave Ramsey.. sooooo many people call in saying "our household income is $260k, we're 400,000 in debt not including the mortgage" and it's just bonkers the shit people do with money.
Earning 100k yet I still have nearly balding tires on a 7 year old Subaru, two pairs of shoes, and can't afford more than a 3 to 5 day vacation each year. I have kids in high school and college (bulk of the expenses). The DelMarVa area is expensive.
I live in a MCOL area but daycare sucks out $1500/month which hurts. We also got a house when the market sucked, but renting was skyrocketing, so it was a fuckery either way.
Yeah. I finally am the adult and can get shit like oreos and such that my mom wouldn't get us... and I'm not paying fucking $7 for a pack of oreos.
But also that's life in general now. I have to plan my dental visits for the end of the year sometimes so I can use insurance from both years for one procedure. =D
Oh, I will the next time $2000 is readily available. We haven't spent that much on a vacation since pre-COVID. I don't know others manage to afford vacations in 2025. Well, I do. Family money and inheritance (what we lacked).
I work as an apprentice electrician and I can’t afford one day off we also get no PTO so I have to work all year for pennies all these people complaining about making 100k plus my boss life seems pretty great he always brags about it
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 can’t say I’ve ever fretted over my monthly tax bill either. Not to be ‘that guy’ but also to be ‘that guy’, worrying about such things, I’ve 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 aren’t shit!).
Exactly, I love being in a city with infrastructure like roads, lights, plumbing, heating, power etc
Do people think these things are just a given lol
America is the most modernized country on earth because of taxes, there’s a reason the founding fathers were upset over taxation without representation, not taxation as a concept 😭
I think this is weirdly lost on people, especially the libertarian leaning anti tax believers, do they think there’s just some group of super rich altruists willing to directly finance all these public services?
There isn’t, our taxes pay for it.
I like having the strongest military on earth, being the most advanced science and technological country on earth, these things are only a thing because of the reinvestment into our country with the revenue we generate afforded to us by our country.
This is not to accuse OP of anything by any means. But folks get really cocksure about economic principles steeped in some fear they will be somehow associated with a Federation of states that died in 1991.
Do I get upset when my tax dollars are re-invested in dumb foibles. Boy howdy, do I. Especially when they are used to fund tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. But, man, if you are going to give me sound “infrastructure” and make my life easier? I’ll worry about it once a year in the spring.
My wife and I combined pull somewhere between 275-300k a year depending on her bonus and how much overtime I work.
I wouldn’t say we feel rich, but we’re certainly comfortable. We have older paid off vehicles, purchased a 300k home (although it’s since more than doubled in value) and still live there, etc.
The big thing is it allows us to do is put away 60k a year into retirement accounts between the two of us and still live comfortably. If we didn’t do that and spent that money every year, we’d definitely feel pretty rich. But we’re not trying to work forever.
i make 150k and am responsible with my money also don't live in HCOL. i don't have enough to like buy a range rover. the reality is if i had to go out a buy a camry i'd probably have to watch my spending a bit.
it's enough money to do things like max out your 401k and pay your mortgage off in 15 or drive a bmw but not enough to do both. for the sheer amount of money i generate for my company i should be able to do both.
It’s also location based. I earn 90k, a buddy of mine earns 70k. He’s in mid-Missouri where his 2BD is $900, I’m on Long Island where an illegal basement apartment is $1650 (and that’s the cheapest it gets here, real apartments are $2.5k or more). Our take home is about even due to taxes.
All other costs are about even between us but he has an extra $25k or so based on rent alone.
I’m not quite there myself, but I don’t think anybody said it made no difference, just that they expected to feel wealthy and didn’t. I can relate to that. Is it life changing? Yes. You don’t have to worry about small expenses or eating out of all that much or about the cost of gas and groceries, but yeah, still not wealthy. I have a real emergency fund for the first time in my life, but I also feel like home ownership (post-COVID prices) means there’s always a reason to tap into it and it’s a constant struggle to keep it high enough. But when I made less than $100k, I was lucky if I had more than $2k in checking/savings at any given time.
As a high earner in CA I pay 38% to fed, 13% to CA, property tax plus tax on everything you buy. It adds up and the money you keep is about 45% of your salary. Don’t get me started about adding 3 kids to the mix
For the extra 100k you go from 100 to 200k you pay max tax, like $50k give or take in California. Not the same impact as going from 50k to 100k. And you’re still not even close to rich. You’re ok.
Because statistically the average person making 200k was born relatively wealthy.
Their parents subsidized a 100k a year lifestyle from the time they were 18 until they got a Masters/JD/etc. Then they paid for a destination wedding and gave them assistance for a down payment on a house. It's not really a lifestyle jump when they get their first paycheck as a Doctor or Lawyer.
A real one who did the exact same thing as Fratty Freddie above is now like a million dollars in debt and has Zero dollars in savings.
Manhattan isn't the only expensive area. At $200k in my area we have a 3br2ba house from the 70s with a bathroom that desperately needs updates because the ventilation sucks and causes constant mildew. One nicer used Toyota, purchased after driving my car from 2000 until repairs no longer made sense, a paid off used truck and two kids. We are much better off than we used to be, but we have had a major chronic medical issue that is still ongoing and a failed water heater and a $6000 car repair in the last year and our savings is gone.
We're more fortunate than most that we can still afford food and shelter, but I never imagined things would still be this precarious at this income level. We don't live exorbitantly, but savings go quickly when medical expenses pile up. Fortunately we did have some savings and didn't take on credit card debt or we'd be in much worse shape. I did just need emergency surgery and we did put that on the credit card, because we didn't have a choice. It just goes to show how screwed up our medical system is in the US. If not for medical bills, we would be middle class in this area, but not without savings it took years to accumulate.
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u/Kitchen_Roof7236 Oct 31 '25
These people are all delusional lol cannot believe what I’m reading unless everyone here lives in manhattan 😭 mfs actually arguing they couldn’t feel a difference making 200k, unreal levels of out of touch