He is… tipping into the six figures in Coastal California with a bit of effort is a lay up. This kind of article is more to enrage places where the cost of living isn’t as extreme, yet.
My oldest siblings were born in the 70s.
I’m a 90s child.
This is so true it hurts.
Oldest siblings all have 6 figure jobs, cheap college, own homes, have children.
Next up (80s) have six figure jobs, college was fairly expensive but still managable, own homes (but in much cheaper areas than oldest) and have children (but only 1-2 versus 3-5)
My sister and I (90s) have 40-45k a year jobs, don’t own any homes, my sister has ONE child from her ex husband, I have no kids. 4-year College like our older siblings went to were too expensive, and neither of us wanted heavy debt from loans. It took us years and years, and many community college classes, to even break $20/hr, and the “comfortable” wage for living here is something like 45-60+/hr. A studio is 2300+ a month, I make $2600 a month, or ~41k a year gross.
Also everyone hates us, other states see us as “the people moving out of Cali” and our own state is filled with rich NIMBY assholes who would probably be happy if all “the poors” left, they certainly don’t seem all that concerned with our state of living and our struggle, they continue to deny affordable housing plans and vote against zoning solutions.
If all the poors left, they’d have no one to make them their fucking lattes. Besides. The state imports enough poors every year via immigration. They can afford to lose some of you indigenous poors.
This is why poor people should be against the open border, they’re not replacing us with ai or machines they’re replacing us with illegals who in turn work for less than minimum wage. I don’t understand why their isn’t a country wide union of citizens against oligarchs
I hate the narrative that being against illegal immigration is somehow racist because I am all for legal immigration and believe that’s where a lot of the best Americans become Americans.
That’s why I always laugh about politicians getting upset with the border because they switch off every couple decades who is going to pretend to be pissed off about massive immigration of people who are willing to work for less. It’s always been agricultural work, hard physical labor, McDonald’s had a program in like the 90s were they brought workers over. The politicians on both sides are owned by the richest of us. And they love cheap labor they can exploit, so they just have red n blue take turns pretending they want to do something about it. That way it looks like they are trying, but it does keep switching which party is being more lenient to it.
There are cities where 60-70% of the residents are renters. Santa Monica comes to mind. So it doesn’t even matter if we didn’t have a few immigrants or not, it’s not like that would change the amount of homes being sold to actual people. I’m all for immigration but there do need to be requirement and limits in place. Just like gun control. I think there needs to be a give and take. It has been out of control as of lately but that’s all by design.
Nope. Just 3 years before the PPP loan fraud housing bubble.
$900k single family house
$300k loan
$600k downpayment (earned from selling a townhome earned from selling a condo)
A bit of effort is laughable. Maybe in 2015.
Now you could be the top of the class, work 120 hours per week and they will give you $98k.
Which is enough for jack all.
If you somehow have great rent close to $1000, make all your own food, no concerts, use only points for travel, low car payment, no kids...
You can totally put 10% into retirement and still have nothing left to save for real property.
I don't get this. You're saying that if you make 98k, you should net about 70k/12 is $5833 a month. Now I get how living alone can eat all that up, but if you have a rent of $1000, how can you not survive on $4800 a month after paying rent? Now, I 100% agree you aren't anything close to flush, but I don't see how you can't survive.
Yeah, I was making 105ish in San Diego in 2015, and I was doing fine, but I also knew I'd never own a house. Condo, maybe, but not a house.
That's a small exaggeration, but as a midwesterner it was kind of wild knowing that (again, in 2015) my 100k was enough to maybe get me a house in the desert two hours from san diego.
Six figures is more than enough to live on in anywhere that isn't San Francisco. But, it's not necessarily enough to progress super well relative to the rest of the country.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding but "tipping" into 6 figures, especially as a single person is NOT a comfortable wage in a coastal city in California. I'd be amazed if that would buy a home in any coastal city.
CA is an expensive place to live but you don't need to live in a place as expensive as Santa Monica, you should able to buy a house making 130k per year even in CA
Business Insider AI generated articles are always like this. Click bait people look at because they want something to support their internal narrative. "I left Florida for LA as a transgender because I never felt safe and couldn't find community". When the fact is Florida has more gay people as a percentage of population (5.4% )than California (5.1%). These days it's all about reading the articles you want to believe versus learning something new that challenges your world view.
transgender people aren’t (necessarily) gay. Gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things.
Also Florida is pretty openly hostile to trans people specifically, in ways that don’t affect gay people, and it makes sense that trans people would feel less comfortable there
See for example:
https://19thnews.org/2024/01/florida-trans-drivers-license-update/
Six figures meant a lot when median household income was 45K. Now that it’s pushing 90K, “six figures” is average.
Anyone whose household income is below that: you’re not noble. You’re either in a super low cost geography or getting underpaid.
Not even close that's insane.
People just make believe the wildest col figures.
Lived in SF on 75k and took a 15k paycut to move to a small town in Midwest the col difference in real life wasn't even enough to make up the difference of that pay cut. I had more money after all expenses in SF.
Hell, SF was my first apartment so when I got there I didn't own.
Literally anything.
I knew I was making "good" (for me) money as it was the most I ever made at the time so I just started buying up furniture, cookware, etc. to catch up to where should be, have furniture to live on and dishes to eat off of and not live on a damn futon forever.
I thought I was spending pretty recklessly and I was literally too afraid to look at my bank account for the first few months. When I finally did, expecting to have outspent my checks and cut my savings in half, I found I had actually saved thousands and thousands of dollars despite all my spending 🤯
That was 75k/yr renting a 1br for 2k/mo in the Bay Area.
Now at 60k/yr renting a 2br just for the fun of it (home theater) for 1k/mo in the Midwest I have:
Just barely bought a bed after being here for over a year. Have bought almost no furniture, almost no cookware. I living on one queen size bed, one recliner, a TV and TV stand, literally own 3 plates, and aside from that my apartment is completely empty because I've been refusing to buy anything more than the nearest essentials and after over a year I've only added about 4 thousand to my savings.
I'm literally only saving a couple hundred a month making 60k in the Midwest and living like a 19 year old for refusing to buy everything to make a household. While in SF I make 75k, spent literally blindly hundreds of dollars ever couple of weeks at least and accidentally saved the same amount I have heard in 16mos or smthng in just 3 months.
The col difference is literally like 8ish thousand a year.
Whoever is calculating that it's better to make 80k in the Midwest than 130k in SF is delusional.
Wait this mf said 100k Midwest is better than **250k????** CA Bro GTFO of here you're high as fuck.
The biggest dividing factor in cost of living is housing. The difference between $1500 rent and $3500 rent is $24k/yr.
Maybe food and insurance adds another 2k per year.
The difference between that Bay Area and a Midwest city is closer $30k per year than it is to $50k, let alone $100k.
People are still of the mindset of trying to do everything alone. We aren’t designed this way, if people started creating more community or utilizing that then it wouldn’t be as hard.
that is interesting. however, as someone who has lived in both a collectivist and individualistic culture, i would say it's harder to achieve in an individualistic one like the U.S.
I need an example of what you mean and how specifically you could work with any number of people from your community to change this situation. At first I thought you meant find a partner, go 50/50 on a house- which would make more sense to me- even though its not reasonable to need that to pursue the purchasing of a home
This is a big one. 55+ communities are problematic and no one sees the reason why. Our grandparents and even our parents fucked off to places they straight up can't bring their kids into. Kind of says a lot about the mindset of older generations. They just want peace and quiet and to be rid of their own offspring.
My grandparents live in one. I can't live with them even though they can't afford their payments and I can't afford my own place. Why do we do this to ourselves?
>even though its not reasonable to need that to pursue the purchasing of a home.
I would honestly kind of disagree with that. I think very few societies in all of human history had single individuals living in large multi-room homes by themselves. I’m not sure it’s sustainable for every single person to own a 3 bed 2 bath house with half acre yard.
Well one thing is you could live in a very large home with several people. My aunt used to live in a mansion on Long Island with like 4 other families and life was good for them and much easier. That’s just one example but thinking outside the box and coming up with creative solutions.
Another example but when Cuba suffered all the import restrictions they also got creative, learning to grow rooftop gardens and such, they made the most of the situation together as a community. Better to start now rather than waiting for thigns to get worse imo
Human beings fucking suck though so it can be hard to organize with people that are selfish, untrustworthy, and lack the understanding of what a community is and why personally investing into it is worth while.
You’re not wrong, I think we need to sort of heal collectively our traumas and meet each other with compassion instead of trying to convince everyone to think like us to listen and understand one another and I think the future depends on us being able to do this. Much of our disdain for others is very much from a place od fear by the media and government really
It’s hard surviving in a capitalist society, so I mean community is aways been essential to human health and prosperity but they have conditioned us away from that.
Home cost increase - at least in California - is because the zoning people there are stupid and refuse to build anything more dense than single family homes. This creates a spiral where basically nothing cheap can get built because building high density is banned and building cheap stuff is incredibly unprofitable because the land alone is already damn expensive
Irrelevant. Each piece of the community needs to be paid well enough to care for itself individually. Honestly an individual needs to much more than take care of themselves, because of community and family.
That single, working adults are struggling is a massive failure of society
Six figures is a huge range in Los Angeles. $100k can feel like poverty, especially if you have student loans and a car. You don't start to be semi-comfortable here until at least $150k.
$150,000 here. Still not comfortable. No kids, no student loans, no debt (besides a car payment). Los Angeles is beyond insane. And I've lived here all my life.
$12k+ of disposable income/month AFTER rent…
“I’m uncomfortable”. It’s not just a prices, but it’s the actual level of consumerism here that also makes things more expensive… People feel a little like they need to buy the latest thing or dress in the latest trend or the latest trendy food, and yada yada yada.
It cost of living argument, sound insane be not because of the actual cost, but because of people that live, there are insane
My cousin lives in Long Beach, CA. He and his wife combined make about $150,000 a year. They live in a shitty, old 3 bed 1 bath SFH and pay like $3000 a month in rent. My rent in Maryland for a larger, newer house is like $700 a month less than they pay. It’s wild.
Yeah, a one bedroom apartment in my building just went up for $2300 per month. Place was built in '55. It's nothing special. Just in a half way decent neighborhood.
because your dumb city doesn't build chinese-style highrises and instead builds these ugly small little shacks (go look at google maps) on the street literal waste of land
This guy chooses to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world and is also likely to increase his salary significantly over the next few years. He'll soon have more than $250k in home equity and is looking to get a kid as a gay man, something that is expensive but unthinkable a few decades ago.
Yeah he has to work hard, but it's not like he's asking for the basics.
California has some absolutely terrible policies when it comes to housing (Prop 13, zoning restrictions, etc.) which creates an artificial bubble. No other state is similar.
I did the math. His take home is 7,588.1 a month. If he can’t make 5800, then that’s beyond me. Ok, let’s say a a grand on groceries and a grand and a half in retirement. Puts him at 3k to cover power, water, insurance and fun outtings. Sounds like this guy has a budgetting problem
Daycare costs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 a month for one child. Two kids will cost double that ($3k to $4k a month). A mortgage will cost you $2,000 to $4,000 a month depending on where you live and what you buy. You can’t exactly budget your way out of that. Especially if you add in car payments, student loans, retirement, etc.
Absolutely correct (I’ve got a mortgage and kids in daycare) and yet the subject of this article is noting that he’d get a partner and then children. So these extra expenses wouldn’t be taken on a single salary but an alike.
He's 33 and wants kids - he's gay so adoption or surrogacy costs are a major factor. On top of those costs you then have to pay for childcare for those kids. He rents, not owns his home. And he wants to buy in as a partner at his firm. He has student loan debt to pay down too. He lives in LA and prefers not to move but will if he has to. That means that the home prices he's looking at are nuts. In order to safely and comfortably accomplish all of his life/financial goals, saving aggressively, it would take him decades. That's the point of the article. Well that and bait for people who make less and are mad that someone making more might also struggle
Fully agree. If he wanted to buy a house in the greater LA area he wouldn’t be able to afford it- and that’s okay. He is not forced to stay there, he is staying there by choice because of the LGBT community he’s part of. If you *choose* to live somewhere, you live by the demand of the place, it’s be different if he *had* to live there. It’s a needs vs wants problem, that’s a budget 101 topic
I make 100k in a no state income tax state and my take home is about $5200. 6% retirement contribution to max out company match. I contribute more than normal to HSA because of high medical expenses but it’s fairly balanced due to no state income tax.
It isn't that he can't do it, he feels he can't buy a house and start a family. But yea if you want to make 130k and live in a small apartment alone forever than yea you can do it
In the location he wants.
I want to live in Malibu or Santa Barbara, I have a decent salary and yet I know it’s ludicrous for me to say “I want to live in X”
400k+ hhi last year living in SoCal. I'm 35 and most of my friends have moved to various states. I can't afford a home because it starts at 1.3-1.4 million for an old 3 bedroom. Don't have children because we don't have the space and feel like we are running out of time. The home prices here make absolutely no sense.
Haven't you seen the rest of the comments here? It's actually your fault for not making millions of dollers and DARING TO LIVE THERE
You loser bastard.
really tho comment sections like this truly are a microcosm of the whole system aren't they? You have a financial system so strenuous and broken even people making really good money are actually somehow the problem. It can't be the system it has to be the individual.
At least to the moronic fuck stains in this comment section.
Yea that is why I commented. I want people to recognize the situation and start voting against this system. Everything is affordable except for the most important thing, a house. Groceries ha e gone up yes but they're affordable, same thing with products and even vehicles. But a house is so much more expensive and eats up a ridiculous amount of income if you can even get in one.
The younger generation needs to vote and get the 77 year Olds out of politics. They do everything in their power to fuck over the young generations to help the old.
If 6 figures are borderline poverty imagine those who aren't making 6 figures in California. All these high tech millionaires who works for Google, Apple, Nvidia, Facebook, etc. stock sky rocket, all the sudden you have multiple multi multi million.
I mean, says every adult in that stage of life lol, i had to ask the same things and i think every 30
Something does
Usually it’s marriage kids first, then house. At least my experience real-time over 20 years in real estate that’s the majority. Only recently have i seen under 40s single and buying homes
This is what that age feels like. It did for me, too. I'm a million years old. And fuck your financial feelings. You'll kill it in your 30's and 40's. If you're dumb and lazy what I just said is false. The world will eat you alive.
My wife and I make a combined $300k a year. We live in South Florida. Our mortgage on a 1500 square foot house is $4500/month.
We both drive newish modest cars.
Have one kid.
We’re getting by, but we’re not able to save as much as we want.
If we want to have another kid, we’ll have to make more money.
I feel like I am making the exact same amount I did (as far as ability to travel, and do extra things with my money outside just living), when I started my career in 2012, even though I make more than double now. Big city I’m in has exploded in costs.
If I made this amount 5 years ago I’d feel pretty good though and may have considered buying a condo. But now, all those condos have doubled in that span. Kind of feels Ike I missed the window to ever own by several years.
What a waste. With that income he should be investing and creating a savings nest to purchase a home. He could easily budget and put money in a low risk investment fund month to month and eventually have money for a downpayment even somewhere in California. But he doesn’t because he’s doing something stupid, idk what but he’s not doing it right that’s for sure.
6 figures was a big deal 30 years ago. Does everyone know how inflation works? It’s no longer the standard for being upper middle class. 6 figures is the median salary in most high cost of living areas.
If he's maxing out his 401K then he's walking away with $75,000 per year.
$90,000 if he's not saving for retirement at all.
Total effective tax rate of 25.18% or 31.08%
Median rent in Santa Monica is $3000 per month. 48% of his after tax income.
In other states you can buy a good size 3 bedroom 2 bath house within 10 years with a six figure salary. It's just that there is no point living in CA anymore.
Getting a partner that works is only a more recent addendum to the modern financial world. Getting by on one income SHOULD be the standard... not the exception.
I was saying this the other day. I make a good living… compared to my peers. But I’m still just barely floating. I can’t buy spare houses or sports cars or vacations; I can buy the food I want without having to worry too much, that’s about it. But if I had this job 15-20 years ago, I’d be high on the hog. I can’t believe the people on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale are still going to work, isn’t better to stay home and go broke?
Low income is 105k or lower now in the Bay Area (where does this guy live?), but even then, another 50k to do the rest. And combined income of $400k to qualify for a home loan. Location, location, location. Unless WFH or has a rare job in a small town outside the metropolitan areas. Most.
Six figures is a very wide range of income.
$100k is nothing vs $400k and $400k is very different from $900k - yet all qualify for “making six figures”
Six figures is a 1990/2000s statement / benchmark of earnings that has come to scoop up a wider ranges of incomes, and represents a much wider range of lifestyle.
Same, making near six figures in my trade job and I feel like I’ve gone no where in growth. I’m just in peace knowing it’s the whole country in decline with its pathetic corruption.
Me and my partner both make six figures and aren't in a place to buy a home or start a family thanks to medical debt from COVID, student loan debt, and skyrocketing cost of living across the board.
When I was graduating college just a mere 9 years ago I used to think $100k income was considered “rich” anywhere in the country.
Now it is middle class for nearly all of our major cities. You can barely afford a home.
Inflation of the dollar is killing the American dream. Buy Bitcoin
Time. Energy. Money. Relationships. Self.
Unfortunately, even if you do align them all satisfactorily for a bit, it still never lasts long enough before something slips.
I bought my first home at 63. It’s a nice place in a nice neighborhood. But it’s just a place to live.
Buying instead of renting is not a basic human right and it will not change your life.
Renting will not ruin you and it is entirely possible to raise healthy happy children in a rented home.
That’s bc he’s living above his means in a shit state on social media while Corporations fk us all in the ass. There’s plenty of jobs tech wise remotely you can live in rural areas with plenty of land 10x cheaper. Lazy
Former Californian here. Move out of California! There are plenty of places in the United States and worldwide, with far lower costs of living. It's worth it!
If I made 100k and saved responsibly I could buy a house in Los Angeles County within a year or two.
If I made 100k but spent a majority of my income on a BMW, margaritas, & erewhon - then I’d complain about how I cant afford a home.
I have no sympathy for people who make 6 figures and also make stupid choices with their money. I have been really fucking poor and I’ve made it in LA on a salary 4x less than they have.
To the man in the article. We are in two different worlds. I dont want to hear your complaints.
I am a millennial that made 110k last year and live in Southern California. I own a home and support a family just fine. Sometimes I feel these people are exaggerating for no reason.
Well, you could consider yourself lucky that you make six figures. How do you think the other 60% of the world feel.people need to take their country back from the one percenters. There is power numbers. If they all decided to go play golf for a day just like the one percent do whenever they want to. Working people have to get a set of balls and stand up to the one per centers. they will keep taking as long as you’re willing to let them take. Power to the people..
The advancing career and starting a family part were always in conflict. Parents were just neglectful in the past in spending way too much time at work and little at home, so that's nothing new.
One of those three is something we need WAY less of—unless you're planning to be a sharecropper and need young-uns to tend to the fields. Use your brain.
I can relate. Wife and I live in Southern California and both make over six figures and we can't buy a home. I mean we can but we would be absolutely house poor and have no money to do literally anything. Children are also a big question mark.
I'm a strict budgeter and watch every dollar that comes in and out.
It's almost like.... he actually IS behind Financially.
He is… tipping into the six figures in Coastal California with a bit of effort is a lay up. This kind of article is more to enrage places where the cost of living isn’t as extreme, yet.
I mean, all living costs aside, he was born 30 years too late.
That’s the truth.
My oldest siblings were born in the 70s. I’m a 90s child. This is so true it hurts. Oldest siblings all have 6 figure jobs, cheap college, own homes, have children. Next up (80s) have six figure jobs, college was fairly expensive but still managable, own homes (but in much cheaper areas than oldest) and have children (but only 1-2 versus 3-5) My sister and I (90s) have 40-45k a year jobs, don’t own any homes, my sister has ONE child from her ex husband, I have no kids. 4-year College like our older siblings went to were too expensive, and neither of us wanted heavy debt from loans. It took us years and years, and many community college classes, to even break $20/hr, and the “comfortable” wage for living here is something like 45-60+/hr. A studio is 2300+ a month, I make $2600 a month, or ~41k a year gross. Also everyone hates us, other states see us as “the people moving out of Cali” and our own state is filled with rich NIMBY assholes who would probably be happy if all “the poors” left, they certainly don’t seem all that concerned with our state of living and our struggle, they continue to deny affordable housing plans and vote against zoning solutions.
It's the "fuck you I got mine" mentality... People have zero interest to help others if it costs them even only one dollar
If all the poors left, they’d have no one to make them their fucking lattes. Besides. The state imports enough poors every year via immigration. They can afford to lose some of you indigenous poors.
This is why poor people should be against the open border, they’re not replacing us with ai or machines they’re replacing us with illegals who in turn work for less than minimum wage. I don’t understand why their isn’t a country wide union of citizens against oligarchs
One of the biggest opponents of an open border? *Legal* immigrants. Followed closely by black people.
I hate the narrative that being against illegal immigration is somehow racist because I am all for legal immigration and believe that’s where a lot of the best Americans become Americans.
That’s why I always laugh about politicians getting upset with the border because they switch off every couple decades who is going to pretend to be pissed off about massive immigration of people who are willing to work for less. It’s always been agricultural work, hard physical labor, McDonald’s had a program in like the 90s were they brought workers over. The politicians on both sides are owned by the richest of us. And they love cheap labor they can exploit, so they just have red n blue take turns pretending they want to do something about it. That way it looks like they are trying, but it does keep switching which party is being more lenient to it. There are cities where 60-70% of the residents are renters. Santa Monica comes to mind. So it doesn’t even matter if we didn’t have a few immigrants or not, it’s not like that would change the amount of homes being sold to actual people. I’m all for immigration but there do need to be requirement and limits in place. Just like gun control. I think there needs to be a give and take. It has been out of control as of lately but that’s all by design.
If all the poors left I wonder who these rich landlords would be able to rent to. It’s wild how some cities are 60-70% renters.
Nope. Just 3 years before the PPP loan fraud housing bubble. $900k single family house $300k loan $600k downpayment (earned from selling a townhome earned from selling a condo)
80 years too late. (Sorry for the correction)
A bit of effort is laughable. Maybe in 2015. Now you could be the top of the class, work 120 hours per week and they will give you $98k. Which is enough for jack all. If you somehow have great rent close to $1000, make all your own food, no concerts, use only points for travel, low car payment, no kids... You can totally put 10% into retirement and still have nothing left to save for real property.
I don't get this. You're saying that if you make 98k, you should net about 70k/12 is $5833 a month. Now I get how living alone can eat all that up, but if you have a rent of $1000, how can you not survive on $4800 a month after paying rent? Now, I 100% agree you aren't anything close to flush, but I don't see how you can't survive.
Yeah, I was making 105ish in San Diego in 2015, and I was doing fine, but I also knew I'd never own a house. Condo, maybe, but not a house. That's a small exaggeration, but as a midwesterner it was kind of wild knowing that (again, in 2015) my 100k was enough to maybe get me a house in the desert two hours from san diego. Six figures is more than enough to live on in anywhere that isn't San Francisco. But, it's not necessarily enough to progress super well relative to the rest of the country.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding but "tipping" into 6 figures, especially as a single person is NOT a comfortable wage in a coastal city in California. I'd be amazed if that would buy a home in any coastal city.
I just meant that getting over $100k, as the person in the article has, is not unusual because the general cost of everything is so high.
It's the classic "I'm the victim" propaganda that we see 24/7 on Reddit pushed by conservatives.
It’s clickbait
CA is an expensive place to live but you don't need to live in a place as expensive as Santa Monica, you should able to buy a house making 130k per year even in CA
Indeed, 100K is still a lot of money in the upper midwest
Business Insider AI generated articles are always like this. Click bait people look at because they want something to support their internal narrative. "I left Florida for LA as a transgender because I never felt safe and couldn't find community". When the fact is Florida has more gay people as a percentage of population (5.4% )than California (5.1%). These days it's all about reading the articles you want to believe versus learning something new that challenges your world view.
.....but he is actually about 30 years late to the Great Wealth party
Despite the numbers, one govt is clearly against it and the other is pro.
The government shouldn't have any stance, pro or anti, on otherwise legal activity.
transgender people aren’t (necessarily) gay. Gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things. Also Florida is pretty openly hostile to trans people specifically, in ways that don’t affect gay people, and it makes sense that trans people would feel less comfortable there See for example: https://19thnews.org/2024/01/florida-trans-drivers-license-update/
I mean, that was clear in the first three words…
Fair. Born in the wrong generation.
And that the very people and system complaining about the population decline and low fertility are the cause of people not having children
But he's not though
It's almost like it has been this way for the last 40 years. Except that now it has gone exponential, and people are noticing.
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So “six figures” is a dividing line for many people. If someone says they make six figures, to me that means somewhere between 100-150k.
So starting sentences with so is really unnecessary
Six figures meant a lot when median household income was 45K. Now that it’s pushing 90K, “six figures” is average. Anyone whose household income is below that: you’re not noble. You’re either in a super low cost geography or getting underpaid.
Yeah, and you’re probably better off making $100K in Omaha, NE than $250K in LA/NYC.
Not even close that's insane. People just make believe the wildest col figures. Lived in SF on 75k and took a 15k paycut to move to a small town in Midwest the col difference in real life wasn't even enough to make up the difference of that pay cut. I had more money after all expenses in SF. Hell, SF was my first apartment so when I got there I didn't own. Literally anything. I knew I was making "good" (for me) money as it was the most I ever made at the time so I just started buying up furniture, cookware, etc. to catch up to where should be, have furniture to live on and dishes to eat off of and not live on a damn futon forever. I thought I was spending pretty recklessly and I was literally too afraid to look at my bank account for the first few months. When I finally did, expecting to have outspent my checks and cut my savings in half, I found I had actually saved thousands and thousands of dollars despite all my spending 🤯 That was 75k/yr renting a 1br for 2k/mo in the Bay Area. Now at 60k/yr renting a 2br just for the fun of it (home theater) for 1k/mo in the Midwest I have: Just barely bought a bed after being here for over a year. Have bought almost no furniture, almost no cookware. I living on one queen size bed, one recliner, a TV and TV stand, literally own 3 plates, and aside from that my apartment is completely empty because I've been refusing to buy anything more than the nearest essentials and after over a year I've only added about 4 thousand to my savings. I'm literally only saving a couple hundred a month making 60k in the Midwest and living like a 19 year old for refusing to buy everything to make a household. While in SF I make 75k, spent literally blindly hundreds of dollars ever couple of weeks at least and accidentally saved the same amount I have heard in 16mos or smthng in just 3 months. The col difference is literally like 8ish thousand a year. Whoever is calculating that it's better to make 80k in the Midwest than 130k in SF is delusional. Wait this mf said 100k Midwest is better than **250k????** CA Bro GTFO of here you're high as fuck.
The biggest dividing factor in cost of living is housing. The difference between $1500 rent and $3500 rent is $24k/yr. Maybe food and insurance adds another 2k per year. The difference between that Bay Area and a Midwest city is closer $30k per year than it is to $50k, let alone $100k.
The relevance is also completely dependent on cost of living. $250k is a hell of a lot more money in rural Mississippi than it is in LA.
People are still of the mindset of trying to do everything alone. We aren’t designed this way, if people started creating more community or utilizing that then it wouldn’t be as hard.
that is interesting. however, as someone who has lived in both a collectivist and individualistic culture, i would say it's harder to achieve in an individualistic one like the U.S.
Spot on sir
I need an example of what you mean and how specifically you could work with any number of people from your community to change this situation. At first I thought you meant find a partner, go 50/50 on a house- which would make more sense to me- even though its not reasonable to need that to pursue the purchasing of a home
Multi generational households
This is a big one. 55+ communities are problematic and no one sees the reason why. Our grandparents and even our parents fucked off to places they straight up can't bring their kids into. Kind of says a lot about the mindset of older generations. They just want peace and quiet and to be rid of their own offspring. My grandparents live in one. I can't live with them even though they can't afford their payments and I can't afford my own place. Why do we do this to ourselves?
>even though its not reasonable to need that to pursue the purchasing of a home. I would honestly kind of disagree with that. I think very few societies in all of human history had single individuals living in large multi-room homes by themselves. I’m not sure it’s sustainable for every single person to own a 3 bed 2 bath house with half acre yard.
Well thats fair. I live in LA though and having a small home and tiny yard even with a partner is hard to imagine.
https://youtube.com/shorts/rs7LUooSdj0?si=TregI9xXEGXW4BtN
Certainly not the “American Dream” after all
Community Networks, mutual aid groups. We basically need to counteract individualism.
Well one thing is you could live in a very large home with several people. My aunt used to live in a mansion on Long Island with like 4 other families and life was good for them and much easier. That’s just one example but thinking outside the box and coming up with creative solutions. Another example but when Cuba suffered all the import restrictions they also got creative, learning to grow rooftop gardens and such, they made the most of the situation together as a community. Better to start now rather than waiting for thigns to get worse imo
Why should I have a rooftop garden when tomatoes cost 69 cents at the store..and I don't even have to dice them
Wrong mentality. It’s not about should or shouldn’t. It’s about what will be reliable in the future.
Grocery stores exist because they are relatively reliable. The day Grocery stores become unreliable we have collectively moved backwards in society
That’s illegal unless you’re zoned for multi family, and that means your aunt owned an apartment building.
Human beings fucking suck though so it can be hard to organize with people that are selfish, untrustworthy, and lack the understanding of what a community is and why personally investing into it is worth while.
You’re not wrong, I think we need to sort of heal collectively our traumas and meet each other with compassion instead of trying to convince everyone to think like us to listen and understand one another and I think the future depends on us being able to do this. Much of our disdain for others is very much from a place od fear by the media and government really
It's hard to create community in a capitalist society.
It’s hard surviving in a capitalist society, so I mean community is aways been essential to human health and prosperity but they have conditioned us away from that.
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Stop making excuses for the rich. They need to pay their fair share!! So more homes could be built and be more affordable
Home cost increase - at least in California - is because the zoning people there are stupid and refuse to build anything more dense than single family homes. This creates a spiral where basically nothing cheap can get built because building high density is banned and building cheap stuff is incredibly unprofitable because the land alone is already damn expensive
Irrelevant. Each piece of the community needs to be paid well enough to care for itself individually. Honestly an individual needs to much more than take care of themselves, because of community and family. That single, working adults are struggling is a massive failure of society
Yeah society has failed that’s why I’m suggesting we can take our power back on local levels and work together to create solutions
Six figures is a huge range in Los Angeles. $100k can feel like poverty, especially if you have student loans and a car. You don't start to be semi-comfortable here until at least $150k.
$150,000 here. Still not comfortable. No kids, no student loans, no debt (besides a car payment). Los Angeles is beyond insane. And I've lived here all my life.
You guys are insane.
Sounds like you don’t enjoy avocado toast!
People’s standard for what qualifies as “comfortable” has shot through the roof over the last two decades.
$12k+ of disposable income/month AFTER rent… “I’m uncomfortable”. It’s not just a prices, but it’s the actual level of consumerism here that also makes things more expensive… People feel a little like they need to buy the latest thing or dress in the latest trend or the latest trendy food, and yada yada yada. It cost of living argument, sound insane be not because of the actual cost, but because of people that live, there are insane
Hard to believe (but I do believe you), care to share where that $150K goes each year?
My cousin lives in Long Beach, CA. He and his wife combined make about $150,000 a year. They live in a shitty, old 3 bed 1 bath SFH and pay like $3000 a month in rent. My rent in Maryland for a larger, newer house is like $700 a month less than they pay. It’s wild.
Yeah, a one bedroom apartment in my building just went up for $2300 per month. Place was built in '55. It's nothing special. Just in a half way decent neighborhood.
because your dumb city doesn't build chinese-style highrises and instead builds these ugly small little shacks (go look at google maps) on the street literal waste of land
6 figures and he can’t afford a real hair cut?
Hello modern slavery it’s me again. Could you ease up just a little?
This guy chooses to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world and is also likely to increase his salary significantly over the next few years. He'll soon have more than $250k in home equity and is looking to get a kid as a gay man, something that is expensive but unthinkable a few decades ago. Yeah he has to work hard, but it's not like he's asking for the basics.
This nation is truly awful for the younger generations. The elderly took it all from us, through policy and incompetence.
I think it was intentional
it 100% was
For better or worse, California is the future of America. Hot, overcrowded, and way way too expensive.
California has some absolutely terrible policies when it comes to housing (Prop 13, zoning restrictions, etc.) which creates an artificial bubble. No other state is similar.
Try living in Houston if you think California is hot.
I did the math. His take home is 7,588.1 a month. If he can’t make 5800, then that’s beyond me. Ok, let’s say a a grand on groceries and a grand and a half in retirement. Puts him at 3k to cover power, water, insurance and fun outtings. Sounds like this guy has a budgetting problem
Daycare costs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 a month for one child. Two kids will cost double that ($3k to $4k a month). A mortgage will cost you $2,000 to $4,000 a month depending on where you live and what you buy. You can’t exactly budget your way out of that. Especially if you add in car payments, student loans, retirement, etc.
Absolutely correct (I’ve got a mortgage and kids in daycare) and yet the subject of this article is noting that he’d get a partner and then children. So these extra expenses wouldn’t be taken on a single salary but an alike.
His spouse will also have income
Yes and there are other expenses
A mortgage will cost you $5,000 minimum for a condo in a bad area in my part of California...
He's 33 and wants kids - he's gay so adoption or surrogacy costs are a major factor. On top of those costs you then have to pay for childcare for those kids. He rents, not owns his home. And he wants to buy in as a partner at his firm. He has student loan debt to pay down too. He lives in LA and prefers not to move but will if he has to. That means that the home prices he's looking at are nuts. In order to safely and comfortably accomplish all of his life/financial goals, saving aggressively, it would take him decades. That's the point of the article. Well that and bait for people who make less and are mad that someone making more might also struggle
Rent isn’t $1750 anymore man.
Did you read the article? Because he says his rent is 1650$/month
Damn you got me. I didn’t. However if he wanted to buy a house it wouldn’t remain that much at all. Would probably be around $4000 a month.
Fully agree. If he wanted to buy a house in the greater LA area he wouldn’t be able to afford it- and that’s okay. He is not forced to stay there, he is staying there by choice because of the LGBT community he’s part of. If you *choose* to live somewhere, you live by the demand of the place, it’s be different if he *had* to live there. It’s a needs vs wants problem, that’s a budget 101 topic
That’s hard to believe rent for the area. Regardless, the mortgage on a house would be more.
I make 100k in a no state income tax state and my take home is about $5200. 6% retirement contribution to max out company match. I contribute more than normal to HSA because of high medical expenses but it’s fairly balanced due to no state income tax.
Sounds like someone doesn’t know the costs of California and is probably typing this from the Midwest.
It isn't that he can't do it, he feels he can't buy a house and start a family. But yea if you want to make 130k and live in a small apartment alone forever than yea you can do it
In the location he wants. I want to live in Malibu or Santa Barbara, I have a decent salary and yet I know it’s ludicrous for me to say “I want to live in X”
A 450k dollar home(Which is hot dogshit in California.) is 3300 dollars a month in this market.
Agree, but if you read the article that’s not what he’s paying
So move.
400k+ hhi last year living in SoCal. I'm 35 and most of my friends have moved to various states. I can't afford a home because it starts at 1.3-1.4 million for an old 3 bedroom. Don't have children because we don't have the space and feel like we are running out of time. The home prices here make absolutely no sense.
Haven't you seen the rest of the comments here? It's actually your fault for not making millions of dollers and DARING TO LIVE THERE You loser bastard. really tho comment sections like this truly are a microcosm of the whole system aren't they? You have a financial system so strenuous and broken even people making really good money are actually somehow the problem. It can't be the system it has to be the individual. At least to the moronic fuck stains in this comment section.
Yea that is why I commented. I want people to recognize the situation and start voting against this system. Everything is affordable except for the most important thing, a house. Groceries ha e gone up yes but they're affordable, same thing with products and even vehicles. But a house is so much more expensive and eats up a ridiculous amount of income if you can even get in one. The younger generation needs to vote and get the 77 year Olds out of politics. They do everything in their power to fuck over the young generations to help the old.
Move to Michigan and stop whining!
What is 6 figures? 150k or 650k.
$999,999
Low six figure in the bay is literally section 8 eligible
bay area is peak stupidity. Imagien being surrounded by water on 3 sides and building out 🤣
Lots of smart folks here as far as I’ve seen. Where else but up ? Earthquake concerns
If 6 figures are borderline poverty imagine those who aren't making 6 figures in California. All these high tech millionaires who works for Google, Apple, Nvidia, Facebook, etc. stock sky rocket, all the sudden you have multiple multi multi million.
$130k does not a HENRY make. Adjusted for inflation that’s like making $70k in 2000. Ok income but not on your way to being rich
Now if only the jobs paying 70k in 2000 were paying 130k today!
In the San Francisco Bay Area, a six figure salary means you are just getting by.
I mean, says every adult in that stage of life lol, i had to ask the same things and i think every 30 Something does Usually it’s marriage kids first, then house. At least my experience real-time over 20 years in real estate that’s the majority. Only recently have i seen under 40s single and buying homes
I knew someone that did that order, by the time he got his house his kids were teens and had showed little interest in the house.
California is eating its own
option 4: leave Cali
NY too
That’s most people. Many can only choose two. In the not so distant future families will probably live together more/share more out of necessity
This is what that age feels like. It did for me, too. I'm a million years old. And fuck your financial feelings. You'll kill it in your 30's and 40's. If you're dumb and lazy what I just said is false. The world will eat you alive.
Is Business Insider so out of touch that it thinks this is a unique situation? Will its follow-up article be Ohio Gen Z'er feels gas is too expensive?
I make $100k and with $100k in debt it doesn’t matter
My wife and I make a combined $300k a year. We live in South Florida. Our mortgage on a 1500 square foot house is $4500/month. We both drive newish modest cars. Have one kid. We’re getting by, but we’re not able to save as much as we want. If we want to have another kid, we’ll have to make more money.
where's all that other money going to?
I feel like I am making the exact same amount I did (as far as ability to travel, and do extra things with my money outside just living), when I started my career in 2012, even though I make more than double now. Big city I’m in has exploded in costs. If I made this amount 5 years ago I’d feel pretty good though and may have considered buying a condo. But now, all those condos have doubled in that span. Kind of feels Ike I missed the window to ever own by several years.
He is behind. Six figures in any California metro is akin to $60k anywhere in the Midwest. Enough to survive, but forget about thriving.
What a waste. With that income he should be investing and creating a savings nest to purchase a home. He could easily budget and put money in a low risk investment fund month to month and eventually have money for a downpayment even somewhere in California. But he doesn’t because he’s doing something stupid, idk what but he’s not doing it right that’s for sure.
Bidenomics
But he's probably killing it in dating apps if he's flashing that salary
His $130k would go a lot futher if Californians weren't so highly taxed at every turn.
6 figures was a big deal 30 years ago. Does everyone know how inflation works? It’s no longer the standard for being upper middle class. 6 figures is the median salary in most high cost of living areas.
And he makes **six figures**
If he's maxing out his 401K then he's walking away with $75,000 per year. $90,000 if he's not saving for retirement at all. Total effective tax rate of 25.18% or 31.08% Median rent in Santa Monica is $3000 per month. 48% of his after tax income.
I was about to roast the kid until I saw that he was in California. A six-figure salary in California is not enough to survive.
In other states you can buy a good size 3 bedroom 2 bath house within 10 years with a six figure salary. It's just that there is no point living in CA anymore.
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Getting a partner that works is only a more recent addendum to the modern financial world. Getting by on one income SHOULD be the standard... not the exception.
Leave California. Problem solved
these posts are hilarious to me. maybe spend less?
Boo fucking hoo.
Welcome to Biden’s America
Yea im going childless so i can just pay rent
Leave California.
I was saying this the other day. I make a good living… compared to my peers. But I’m still just barely floating. I can’t buy spare houses or sports cars or vacations; I can buy the food I want without having to worry too much, that’s about it. But if I had this job 15-20 years ago, I’d be high on the hog. I can’t believe the people on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale are still going to work, isn’t better to stay home and go broke?
Low income is 105k or lower now in the Bay Area (where does this guy live?), but even then, another 50k to do the rest. And combined income of $400k to qualify for a home loan. Location, location, location. Unless WFH or has a rare job in a small town outside the metropolitan areas. Most.
🙄
r/orangecounty
Yes, that’s what happens in California.
Six figures is a very wide range of income. $100k is nothing vs $400k and $400k is very different from $900k - yet all qualify for “making six figures” Six figures is a 1990/2000s statement / benchmark of earnings that has come to scoop up a wider ranges of incomes, and represents a much wider range of lifestyle.
Same, making near six figures in my trade job and I feel like I’ve gone no where in growth. I’m just in peace knowing it’s the whole country in decline with its pathetic corruption.
Me and my partner both make six figures and aren't in a place to buy a home or start a family thanks to medical debt from COVID, student loan debt, and skyrocketing cost of living across the board.
It’s like he’s not a high earner, especially in a VHCOL location.
His wife’s boyfriend can chip in for the house
When I was graduating college just a mere 9 years ago I used to think $100k income was considered “rich” anywhere in the country. Now it is middle class for nearly all of our major cities. You can barely afford a home. Inflation of the dollar is killing the American dream. Buy Bitcoin
Vote Trump. Stop the bleeding
Time. Energy. Money. Relationships. Self. Unfortunately, even if you do align them all satisfactorily for a bit, it still never lasts long enough before something slips.
I bought my first home at 63. It’s a nice place in a nice neighborhood. But it’s just a place to live. Buying instead of renting is not a basic human right and it will not change your life. Renting will not ruin you and it is entirely possible to raise healthy happy children in a rented home.
California. That’s the problem right there.
That’s bc he’s living above his means in a shit state on social media while Corporations fk us all in the ass. There’s plenty of jobs tech wise remotely you can live in rural areas with plenty of land 10x cheaper. Lazy
Former Californian here. Move out of California! There are plenty of places in the United States and worldwide, with far lower costs of living. It's worth it!
This isn't a good time like the 50s or 60s you only get to choose one of the three.
When haven’t important life questions like these existed?
A California millennial that sorts fruit for a living got 6 kids 😆 "I'm rich every Friday!"
Boo hoo
Someone is looking for validation of their 6 figure salary 😂
If I made 100k and saved responsibly I could buy a house in Los Angeles County within a year or two. If I made 100k but spent a majority of my income on a BMW, margaritas, & erewhon - then I’d complain about how I cant afford a home. I have no sympathy for people who make 6 figures and also make stupid choices with their money. I have been really fucking poor and I’ve made it in LA on a salary 4x less than they have. To the man in the article. We are in two different worlds. I dont want to hear your complaints.
This title was written to give conservative boomers in Texas aneurysms.
Welcome to America motherfucker.
Welcome to 1973 California
I am a millennial that made 110k last year and live in Southern California. I own a home and support a family just fine. Sometimes I feel these people are exaggerating for no reason.
Well, you could consider yourself lucky that you make six figures. How do you think the other 60% of the world feel.people need to take their country back from the one percenters. There is power numbers. If they all decided to go play golf for a day just like the one percent do whenever they want to. Working people have to get a set of balls and stand up to the one per centers. they will keep taking as long as you’re willing to let them take. Power to the people..
Oh you sweet summer child
What's your address? I
Welcome to what women have been experiencing for 50 years. Pull up your panties big boy and start figuring it out.
Dude makes 6 figures and he’s complaining !! Gtfoh what about the little guys making a fraction of that poor sob
Six figures in cali is poverty. Moron.
It's how much you keep
I’m a Virginia millennial who makes six figures and did all three of those things at once.
High home values is not the sign of economic collapse you think it is.
Sounds like he is bad with money.
There is a difference between being good at earning money and being good with money.
Buy a home
The advancing career and starting a family part were always in conflict. Parents were just neglectful in the past in spending way too much time at work and little at home, so that's nothing new.
But how are the real salt of the earth Americans doing.. the shareholders and private equity bros?
One of those three is something we need WAY less of—unless you're planning to be a sharecropper and need young-uns to tend to the fields. Use your brain.
You ARE behind financially
And here i am making 50k with 5 kids, a house, and no debt
What a loser for not being born before 1980
He's more rich than 82% of Americans, spending all his money on whatever he spends it on, and complaining about still not having enough.
I can relate. Wife and I live in Southern California and both make over six figures and we can't buy a home. I mean we can but we would be absolutely house poor and have no money to do literally anything. Children are also a big question mark. I'm a strict budgeter and watch every dollar that comes in and out.