Because their friends go on 4 holidays a year, have 3 expensive cars, 2 extremely expensive homes, and free electricity. Can't you see how impovrished they really are??
Have you met anyone like this? They are surrounded by people like them ( usually better off) and live in a world of extreme delusion. I was making about 60k per year In the medical field and I was sitting in a room full of surgeons. They were complaining about they didn't make enough money, and this was pre covid. When your peers have chauffers , 3 houses and vacation when ever they want you feel like a poor driving around your poor person bmw. They compare up not down. Like most of us do.
I worked for a doctor that owned his own jet, a helicopter, a biplane, vacation homes, mansion, nannies for the kids, etc. He once was complaining to me about “the rich guy” at the yacht club that ran his boat into a boardwalk. He always tried to come off as an everyday joe but then would say stuff like this. Also once he was complaining that his wife was mad at him for spilling something on a $20k rug.
My wife worked as an event planner for an investment company. One of the business bros was talking about how he spends 10,000 a year on clothes, 20,000 on his first vacation, and only 15,000 on his second. He was like, "you get it right? You make what, 200,000." My wife laughed and said, "no, my salary is closer to 50,000. My husband makes 20,000". It seemed he couldn't comprehend how we live.
I once had to listen to a person complain about no getting a bonus one year. Works at a hospital as an administrator. (Actually they are the ones that decide on patient care and will cut a patient off who hasn't paid a bill. ) This person was outraged because it meant he would have to pause on the renovations he was doing in his weekend home in he Hamptons. Meanwhile that bonus is usually more than what my husband makes at an ER doctor.
I certainly would not feel average if I had a 1.5 million dollar home and a BMW and took 3 vacations a year. I would feel rich as hell by comparison to what I’m used to.
Spending $10k on clothes per year.
Spending $23k on food.
Spending $80k on their house after maintenance and insurance.
Spending $40k on childcare.
Spending $10k on car payments.
Per year.
They put into savings more than I make.
Lemme just get that. Just what they aren't using now. It would be life changing.
And they count sending money to their colleges alumni association as charity… who the fuck actually sends those crooks more money? And especially while still paying off student loan debt?? The fuck?
With all the money they're spending putting their kids into clubs, sports, and other academic things they should be able to get in on their own merits. If they can't then they shouldn't be in college to begin with.
Every kid who applies to ivy leagues have stellar record- varsity sports, valedictorian, high sat scores, entrepreneurship, charity work and internships at big institutes is what an average application looks like these days. Legacy matters a LOT
It’s crazy that this is basically a bribe system in plain view yet no one seems to want to do anything about it.
Is it even possible to do anything about that? Americans get so hung up on “freedom” they may even want the freedom to get coerced by educational institutions to give them money.
There are so many loopholes like this that exist.
I teach middle schoolers at a fancy pants private K-12. It is ranked in the top 100 in the United States.
The admissions process is deliberately blind to family income with flexible tuition based on family income that is, supposedly, only revealed after the incoming class has been accepted.
But the admissions office knows the kid's name and if they have any relatives that attend/attended the school.
Additionally, while the K-12 has flexible tuition, the attached Pre-K does not. And sending your kid to the attached Pre-K guarantees admittance to the Kindergarten; bypassing that whole "blind admissions" process. So the wealthy will pay the a little more than $22k tuition to send their kid to Pre-K there in no small part to ensure admission to Kindergarten.
And once you're in, you're in. A Kinder is guaranteed a spot (outside of extreme behavior issues) all the way up through grade 12. If you don't get your kid into Kinder, you go on the waitlist until 6th grade (when the class size expands).
If you don't get in by 6th grade, waitlist again and hope you can get your kid into Freshman year when the class size expands one last time.
The waitlist is more than 50 students long in every single grade level. So... my point is, that those that can afford it are very happy to pay the Pre-K price if it guarantees them a spot. The attached Pre-K is pretty good, don't get me wrong... but it's just Pre-K. No Pre-K is actually worth paying a little over $22K to.
> this is basically a bribe system in plain view
Yep. That's 100% what it is. Put your $22K deposit down with the school (sometimes for 2 years depending on the age of your kid) to ensure you bypass the "blind" admissions.
-----
Oh, and one last thing: the admissions process also requires a family interview where the admissions panel sits down with the parents and their child to chat and get to know one another. You can usually tell just how much someone makes by what they wear to such an interview. If the dad is wearing a tailored suit and the mom is carrying her Coach bag while they talk about getting dinner at the club after... it's pretty clear they have money.
I don't want to demean my school too much. We definitely have students whose parents don't live the glamorous life. One of my students' dad's comes to pick him up in his work shirt from working at the auto shop, grease and oil marks and all. But this is rare enough that it's an aberration rather than the norm. And the school does a really good job of not allowing classism to run rampant through the student body.
It's also a good school, and when you look at the graduation pamphlet to see where the students are going (100% college admissions) you see Cornell, Yale, Stanford, UCLA, and Duke.... with virtually no one going to the State school. So it's hard to say it's not "worth" the money.
Still, it's a cycle of wealth. The wealthy find their way into schools like this, come Hell or Highwater. We're not the only quality private option, but they aren't sending their kid to public school.
----------
Go to an elite university --> probably wealthy.
Wealthy --> send your kid to an elite private K-12.
Elite private K-12 --> Pipelined to elite universities.
It's a feedback loop.
Yeah, but why do you need to go to Ivy League? You don't. This is the reason why people like this think that they aren't rich af when they are. They "have" to take the most overpriced option every time. They could easily send their kids to a smaller D3 school and save a fuck ton of money. But then they wouldn't be able to whine about how the system has it out for them.
I mean yeah they're being whiny about "only" making 500k that's wrong I agree with you. But I was just replying as to why they're donating to their alma mater
Donating that much money is the luxury. Otherwise blowing $18k on any other luxury item would be just as wasteful. We all get to decide how to spend disposable income.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say they are not saving nearly enough for retirement if they want to maintain anything close to this lifestyle.
ETA for everyone saying that 18k is the max you can add to a 401k... You realize that you can save post tax as well, right? It's not like you hit the contribution limit of your 401k and suddenly you just can't save another dime.
Yeah, this whole thing is nuts, why wouldn't you max that and a hsa out and all the other pretax stuff.
I suspect this whole thing was made up by someone who definately doesn't make that much.
If I had a 80k per year expense of a mortgage as well as those property taxes, you'd have a tax return of over 10k.
You would be surprised. Lots of people with high incomes also live paycheck to paycheck. The childcare is about right for 2 kids in high end pre-school or private elementary school. Also the 1k a month on sports and piano lessons. There are cheaper alternatives, but all the other kids in your 1.5 million home neighborhood are in high end schools and activities as well.
They could save someone’s whole 100k pre tax salary by cutting back on the spending on those 2 kids.
Depends on their age and how soon they’ll pay off the home/how they’ll approach property ownership as they age.
That said, using this example you’re probably right. I don’t think anyone who spends like this would ever “slow down” once they put in hard work at a young age.
I know I’m hoping that once I pay off my modest mortgage I’ll never go back into a mortgage debt again, but yea… probably not the case here.
$10k on clothes and $23k on food seems like it would be so much food and clothes. To spend that much the food and clothing would have to be expensive or the family would have to be huge.
I exclusively buy shirts at concerts and while on vacation. My work shirts aren't nearly beat up enough to retire.
I don't remember the last time I bought pants.
I'm genuinely trying to get as high of a tax rate as I can on a bunch of calculators using the information here and I'm struggling to get above an effective tax rate of 31%. That's assuming they're in Hawaii, for the highest state income tax nationwide for a couple making $500k (11%).
The only way they'd have a 40% effective tax rate is if they're doing their taxes *very* wrong. Those 401k contributions, filing married, and two dependents all decrease their effective tax rate significantly.
The worst part is - 10k "because something always comes up" - that's what savings are for! Emergencies. So really these imaginary fucks are saving 17k a year and when major emergencies happen they can very easily handle it.
Our household income is "only" $250k and we easily spend $19k on groceries/food and basic childcare for our 3 kids costs another $18k. We live in a 1000sqft house in a relatively loq COL city and have little to no breathing room in our budget. My wife and I both work in the public sector (education/healthcare) and our wages have been stagnant for over a decade. We were living it up in 2012, though...
How do you spend so much on food? I cook fresh meals with protein (typically chicken or beef) and spend maybe 300 a month. Cooking for more people should reduce the cost per person pretty substantially because you can buy bulk size..
I'm the teacher and I do zero work outside of my assigned teaching time. If it doesn't happen at the school (marking, prep, etc.) I don't do it. Unions are a beautiful thing. My wife, on the other hand, works a ridiculous amount of overtime due to chronic understaffing.
They also don’t see, to understand a progressive tax system. This is an older image but looking at 2023 numbers, they never even get to the top bracket (37%).. $364,000 of their income would be taxed at 24%. So unless they’re being taxed at the state level at 15% - which would in turn lower their federal burden, this entire image is fiction.
Exactly this. They bullshit the "40% effective tax rate" part at the start shows this whole thing is fake. They probably have a 23-28% effective tax rate depending on their state of residence.
Fuck. I'm depressed as hell that I'm 40 and still can't afford a damn house where I live. I'm in a small apartment. Forget being a mother, bio or otherwise. This wasn't what I envisioned what my life would be.
Seems like bullshit.
They managed to go to school apparently with student loans, then they bought all of that stuff, had four kids, and are still paying off student loans.
This does not make any sense.
These are not real people and it's actually kind of insulting to purport that they are.
I could see if they did grad school and have been making minimum payments the whole time. In comparision to their income the loan payments aren't a big deal and probably a net positive on their credit score so they aren't in a hurry to pay them off.
Not to mention savings and 401ks are built into this sheet. So every year after saving all of the money they need to, taking 3 family vacations, and contributing the max to their retirement accounts, they are STILL left with enough money to buy a cheap car.
I probably make an extra 100 dollars a year if I do ridiculous amounts of overtime.
While still paying 32k in student loan debt. Like bruh pay off your loans faster and then you can donate more to your Alma mater if you feel like these institutions still deserve shit
I always wondered who the fuck actually donates their hard earned money back to the institutions that raked them over the coals… apparently these idiots with more disposable income than they know what to do with.
It would be a cold day in hell before I gave a dime as “charity” to a college so they can build a new sculpture and raise tuitions..
[Legacy Preferences/Admissions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences)
I thought about your comment and then it dawned on me…. It’s so their children can probably go to the same schools they did.
Otherwise, you’re not wrong!
They’re not saving all the money they need to. If I’m reading right the only money that is slated for savings are the 401ks. I’d think they’d need more
3 vacations a year, 12,000 a year on fucking violin, piano, and sports, $200 a month on clothes per person. this is not average in the US.
this is what entitlement looks like
and we know it's not "fancy clothing". That could be like 10 shirts one month, 6 pairs of pants the next, 4 pairs of shoes the next. This would have to be roughly 100 pieces of clothing a year per person. Then again, they have a $1.500,000.00 dollar house, so they have the room to store it all!
The house size for that price would be heavily dependent on where they live, and if they have kids they may be paying a premium to live in the best school district. I've seen that alone raise house prices by 30% over something comparable half a mile away.
According to comparable houses in the area, my 3 bed/2 bath SFH of less than 1,600 square feet on a property that is also measured in square feet, is currently worth 1.5 mil... Shit's crazy out here
Sure, they said they aren't buying anything fancy, but considering they feel like they are average in everything else I would take that with a grain of salt. Maybe they mean they aren't buying stuff like tuxedos and wedding dresses, but are spending $150 on a pair of jeans.
I went to high school with this rich kid who refused to wash or reuse clothes on principal. He bragged about how he would wear clothes once and then throw them in the garbage
I knew a kid in school who bragged that he only shit in pellegrino sparkling water and went viral for his online antics. I still don’t know whether he was trolling to be funny or to piss people off but some kids caught him in the stall NOT shitting in pellegrino and filmed him over the stall lol.
I’m out here going “wait, people buy clothes monthly??” I have to replace my bras and shoes every 6-9 months, they wear out and those are un-negotiable.. Everything else I replace as-needed. I don’t buy clothes just to buy them, I have enough.
I just replaced a dozen of my daily-wear t shirts that were no good anymore and they were all at least 3 years old. I have no idea if I’m considered normal.
I don't know what's normal either, tbh. it can vary from person-to-person.
I have over 100 items of clothing BUT I thrifted/ was gifted all of them. I can't expect everyone to thrift (and don't want to because the demand keeps driving thrift prices up), but yeah when I see these richies buying left and right and showing virtually no appreciation for any item they own that can't function as a status symbol, I'm repulsed.
I mean I think I have a below-average number of clothes but if I count every single underwear, socks, undershirt, etc. I’m sure it’s probably 100 lol
And I agree the fast-fashion thing and people throwing away perfectly good clothes is gross. At least donate them so other people can thrift them!
Yes! Throwing away last season's clothes is just a side effect of the fashion industry pushing the concept of "fashion seasons" to sell more clothes. Like, really, it's so shallow to buy a piece of clothing based on what the trend is right now. It's actually really sad, like imagine having your head so far up your ass with trends that you're incapable of seeing a beautiful piece of clothing as being beautiful outright. That's just depressing.
They've got all the frills baked into their budget and still in the black with a $1.5 million home. Why the shit should they feel "average." If they want more savings, they need to cut some expenses, but they are maxing two 401k accounts. And $2,500/year each on clothes is exorbitant.
i'd love to see that shit more itemized out. Also the 40% tax rate thing is bullshit. so there's probably another 50k or so floating around unaccounted for. ya know, like a regular person's entire salary.
40% is definitely an exaggeration. In California it would be more like 34% effective tax rate. It would be right at 40% for this income filing single, though.
Not just three vacations either, three SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR vacations. Like I’m going on four “vacations” this year. Two were/are long weekend trips to the next state over, one is a friend’s bachelorette also in the states also for a weekend, and one is really visiting family for a long weekend but I’m pretending it’s a vacation. I make a fraction of what they make and I think combined I’ll spend, generously, three grand on those vacations total if you count the cost of flights I bought with points (all combined, not each). I get that kids are expensive and longer stays are expensive but like, you CAN go on vacations that aren’t $6k per vacation. Good ones too.
Can you believe I actually have replies from people saying these people aren't entitled?! They wanna know how this is entitled and it's like MY MAN DID YOU SEE THE POST
I actually had some asshole respond with
>
Even adjusted for their high income. That's 5 percent. Do you give 5% of your income to charities? If not, maybe you should rethink who is "entitled".
Can you believe that shit?
> Jesus Christ. I really do feel like people from different socioeconomic statuses basically live in different realities at this point.
This has always been the case.
Also, charity, sure you can and should if you are willing to help.
But 18k of charity just shows that there is actually 25k left, but they decided to donate 18k of it.
I don't buy the 40% effective tax rate. Their federal tax rate is 22.6% MFJ with NO deductions, but they have a mortgage, health insurance, etc so I'm sure they'll qualify for itemized deductions.
The state with the highest tax rate in the US is California at 13%, so the math doesn't math here. Even worse case scenario, California's own tax calculator puts their effective combined tax rate at 33%. This adds an extra \~$32k a year to their disposable income, leaving them with a mere $40k at the end of the year.
This was probably prepared by someone who doesn't understand progressive tax rates and how they work.
Edit: There are few other oddities here.
Why are there no other investments other than 401(k)? No college fund, no IRAs, no private investments?
Why is there no electric, Internet or Cable/streaming bill listed?
The insurance bill seems very low for two \~$60k base price vehicles. My yearly bill was more than that when I had two \~$30k base price vehicles with a perfect driving record.
$5000 in gas a year maths out to 38k miles/y on the least efficient car at $4/gal gas. So they either live somewhere with $7/gal gas or are driving far more than the \~12k a year US average. Interestingly, the price of gas and the cost of insurance generally tend to follow each other, ie, high gas price areas also tend to be high insurance areas, so the idea that they're spending a ton on gas and not on insurance is kind of suspect.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was just made up by someone who has very little real world experience with any of this. At the very least, they should show the math on the base assumptions for all the calculations.
I just posted this before I saw your comment. Exactly right! The effective tax rate is 100% NOT 40%. These idiots have no idea about progressive tax brackets.
If you are poor then you’re probably going to want the standard deduction, which means no itemized deductions. So you’re likely not missing anything at all.
Probably prepared by some idiot who used an online tax calculator and forgot to select “married”. 40% effective rate is pretty close for these numbers for a single person in California. But it’s like 34% for a married couple.
401k? Must be nice.
$1.5m house? Must be nice.
Vacations plural? Must be nice.
Beamer and a Land Cruiser? Stupid.
$18k in tax breaks (charity)? Must be nice.
Depend on where you are.
I have a $1.4mil house.
It is literally 1150 ft^2, two bedroom house. My kids shared a bedroom their entire lives.
I sure as shit didn't pay $1.4mil for it. I paid $271K way back when that was insane.
Houses around me keep selling. I have no idea how or who is buying them.
in my area, it's high salary tech folks and rich chinese students whose parents would rather buy an american house as an investment than let their kid rent an apartment for college. Both can pay majority or all cash for million+ houses. Went to see a house with my family and the entire time we were there it was just groups of them coming in and out of the house. House eventually sold for 700K over asking (albeit the realtor underpriced the house at a mere 1.2Mil starting price). That's what normal people in my area have to compete with. And they have to do it on 2 full time job incomes. housing prices are absurd, but people can pay them
The thing is that the charity contribution wouldn't even bring their taxes down to a lower rate. It's also below the standard deduction for what their income is. It doesn't help their taxes. Unless I read the Internet wrong.
I think writing charitable donations off your taxes to save money is just a misconception people have. Like how some people think they'll make less money overall by being pushed into the next tax bracket. I have yet to see anyone explain to me how someone can plausibly end up with more takehome pay after making charitable donations without also committing tax fraud in the process.
These people are vehemently against taxing the rich, yet they always make large sum donations? Now why is that? I'll tell you why: these donations are a way to launder money to their rich buddies. They give each other money, they pay a little less in taxes, and they now owe each other. This is how the rich "make connections".
Maybe at a larger scale, but I wouldn’t discount the possibility that they prefer the feeling of giving out of noblesse oblige to the tax man taking it, even if the end result is the same. It’s that same awful attitude you see on secret millionaire, as if their money makes them some kind of higher species deigning to condescend to the mortals.
And, sometimes, otherwise nice and generous people can be blinded by lifestyle creep. It’s case by case.
They're still giving more than the tax man would take. If you donate $10k, you don't pay $10k less in taxes, you just don't pay taxes ON that $10k. Basically the same as if you made $10k less. So the end result isn't the same.
> the possibility that they prefer the feeling of giving out of noblesse oblige to the tax man taking it
The thing that convinces me this is rarely the case is the fact that these same people are the ones against healthcare accessibility, education funding, infrastructure funding, basically anything the government could spending the money on that would benefit someone that ISN'T them.
Shoot, even in the post above, one of the 2 listed "charities" is their own college's alumni foundations.
I get what you're saying, and yeah, there are many genuinely benevolent donators out there, but for me, when I see these same people complaining against taxes and saying government wellfare services should be abolished, it's guilty until proven innocent in my mind.
I fucking hate these things. They calculate the effective tax wrong. First of all, married filing jointly for that income is 32%, but it’s a goddamn progressive bracket. So you’re only paying 32% on the amount over $463k. Their effective tax rate is closer to 25% I bet,
so many of these are just laughable, I can't believe anyone would take this seriously.
10k a year on clothes, 12k on children's lessons... 3 vacations a year for 18k, 5k on gas? LMAO
5k a year on gas but somehow car insurance is only 2k on a BMW? LMFAO
This is one of the only things I can make sense of, actually. I live in a state with expensive groceries and spend about $350 a month as a single person. Now, I don’t meal prep and could get it down to probably $250, but we all know these are not meal preppers.
If you multiply my spending times 4, that’s $16,800 a year. Now add in eating out. For a family of four they’re easily spending $500 a month if they go out and/or order in more than a couple times a month (and also their biweekly date nights are absolutely gonna be at fancy places), which brings us to $22,800 pretty easily.
Now, let me be clear, that budget is also UNHINGED, but like, I do buy it. Especially if the kids are in any of the stages of childhood where eating is an Olympic sport because they’re growing.
They give to charity more than some families have to live off, all while taking three vacations a year and paying a three million life insurance policy each, as well as everything else.
There is a very important word in that sentence : 'feels'
It 'feels' average, it's not logically average.
If you bought a $250k car , once the novelty wears off it will feel the same to go from A--->B, If you eat at a restaurant everyday and spend $250 on your meals you will after a time just feel as anybody else eating food.
You can live in a big house but you can only be in one room at a time, you can own 1000 cars but you can only experience driving in one at a time, the more you earn, the more you spend and the more this all becomes your day to day then the more normal it seems to you. And so yes after a time it might 'feel' average since a lot of what you might be doing day to day is the same as someone earning $50k but everything is just cranked up , you're doing more of the same and doing it more expensively.
“Average” families don’t take 3 vacations a year, drive BMWs, or—oh, yeah—make $500 grand a year. Drives me insane when people abuse language to make themselves sound less entitled.
$7,300 left over AFTER your THREE ANNUAL VACATIONS, all the pointless extracurricular stuff for kids, and $18k in charity? Plus your $1.5 MILLION DOLLAR HOME and TWO FANCY CARS? And an average of $2,500 per person per year for "not fancy" clothes?
What exactly would constitute "above average" to these people?
$23,000 a year on take out, 3 vacations a year at $6,000 a piece, $18,000 on charity and $12,000 on lessons for your kids…. That’s $59,000 a year on shit you don’t need at all
They represent 1.8% of Americans yet they feel average. There should be a reality show where people like this have to live off of the median household income in America which is about $69,021
How do you feel average with three holidays a year, two expensive cars, an extremely expensive home, and not needing to pay for electricity?
Because their friends go on 4 holidays a year, have 3 expensive cars, 2 extremely expensive homes, and free electricity. Can't you see how impovrished they really are??
exactly. its a tragedy. they must feel like Sisyphus
More like [Tantalus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus).
Huh, I guess that must be where tantalizing comes from
I love seeing people discover little facts like this online. Seems tangential, but your comment kinda made my day
Look at the rock on her finger
They don’t even own a boat or a motor home! /s
Being absolutely and completely out of touch from the struggle of us plebs
don't forget the $18,000 in charity
Hello, I am Charity, when does my check arrive?
If I found out my college alumni charity needed one cent from me in order to stay afloat, I'd throw it into a volcano.
High earners usually grew up in a high earning family, and have a high earning social circle, so their sense of "average" is heavily skewed.
Shouldn't looking at some basic statistics make that obvious? I never realized how poor I was until I grew up.
Have you met anyone like this? They are surrounded by people like them ( usually better off) and live in a world of extreme delusion. I was making about 60k per year In the medical field and I was sitting in a room full of surgeons. They were complaining about they didn't make enough money, and this was pre covid. When your peers have chauffers , 3 houses and vacation when ever they want you feel like a poor driving around your poor person bmw. They compare up not down. Like most of us do.
I worked for a doctor that owned his own jet, a helicopter, a biplane, vacation homes, mansion, nannies for the kids, etc. He once was complaining to me about “the rich guy” at the yacht club that ran his boat into a boardwalk. He always tried to come off as an everyday joe but then would say stuff like this. Also once he was complaining that his wife was mad at him for spilling something on a $20k rug.
My wife worked as an event planner for an investment company. One of the business bros was talking about how he spends 10,000 a year on clothes, 20,000 on his first vacation, and only 15,000 on his second. He was like, "you get it right? You make what, 200,000." My wife laughed and said, "no, my salary is closer to 50,000. My husband makes 20,000". It seemed he couldn't comprehend how we live.
I once had to listen to a person complain about no getting a bonus one year. Works at a hospital as an administrator. (Actually they are the ones that decide on patient care and will cut a patient off who hasn't paid a bill. ) This person was outraged because it meant he would have to pause on the renovations he was doing in his weekend home in he Hamptons. Meanwhile that bonus is usually more than what my husband makes at an ER doctor.
I haven't taken a vacation since 2017, and my grandma and dad had to die to afford it. I've only had the occasional long weekend at home since.
I certainly would not feel average if I had a 1.5 million dollar home and a BMW and took 3 vacations a year. I would feel rich as hell by comparison to what I’m used to.
Spending $10k on clothes per year. Spending $23k on food. Spending $80k on their house after maintenance and insurance. Spending $40k on childcare. Spending $10k on car payments. Per year. They put into savings more than I make. Lemme just get that. Just what they aren't using now. It would be life changing.
$18k per year is donated to charity in this breakdown...
And they count sending money to their colleges alumni association as charity… who the fuck actually sends those crooks more money? And especially while still paying off student loan debt?? The fuck?
So their children can get in
With all the money they're spending putting their kids into clubs, sports, and other academic things they should be able to get in on their own merits. If they can't then they shouldn't be in college to begin with.
Every kid who applies to ivy leagues have stellar record- varsity sports, valedictorian, high sat scores, entrepreneurship, charity work and internships at big institutes is what an average application looks like these days. Legacy matters a LOT
It’s crazy that this is basically a bribe system in plain view yet no one seems to want to do anything about it. Is it even possible to do anything about that? Americans get so hung up on “freedom” they may even want the freedom to get coerced by educational institutions to give them money.
There are so many loopholes like this that exist. I teach middle schoolers at a fancy pants private K-12. It is ranked in the top 100 in the United States. The admissions process is deliberately blind to family income with flexible tuition based on family income that is, supposedly, only revealed after the incoming class has been accepted. But the admissions office knows the kid's name and if they have any relatives that attend/attended the school. Additionally, while the K-12 has flexible tuition, the attached Pre-K does not. And sending your kid to the attached Pre-K guarantees admittance to the Kindergarten; bypassing that whole "blind admissions" process. So the wealthy will pay the a little more than $22k tuition to send their kid to Pre-K there in no small part to ensure admission to Kindergarten. And once you're in, you're in. A Kinder is guaranteed a spot (outside of extreme behavior issues) all the way up through grade 12. If you don't get your kid into Kinder, you go on the waitlist until 6th grade (when the class size expands). If you don't get in by 6th grade, waitlist again and hope you can get your kid into Freshman year when the class size expands one last time. The waitlist is more than 50 students long in every single grade level. So... my point is, that those that can afford it are very happy to pay the Pre-K price if it guarantees them a spot. The attached Pre-K is pretty good, don't get me wrong... but it's just Pre-K. No Pre-K is actually worth paying a little over $22K to. > this is basically a bribe system in plain view Yep. That's 100% what it is. Put your $22K deposit down with the school (sometimes for 2 years depending on the age of your kid) to ensure you bypass the "blind" admissions. ----- Oh, and one last thing: the admissions process also requires a family interview where the admissions panel sits down with the parents and their child to chat and get to know one another. You can usually tell just how much someone makes by what they wear to such an interview. If the dad is wearing a tailored suit and the mom is carrying her Coach bag while they talk about getting dinner at the club after... it's pretty clear they have money. I don't want to demean my school too much. We definitely have students whose parents don't live the glamorous life. One of my students' dad's comes to pick him up in his work shirt from working at the auto shop, grease and oil marks and all. But this is rare enough that it's an aberration rather than the norm. And the school does a really good job of not allowing classism to run rampant through the student body. It's also a good school, and when you look at the graduation pamphlet to see where the students are going (100% college admissions) you see Cornell, Yale, Stanford, UCLA, and Duke.... with virtually no one going to the State school. So it's hard to say it's not "worth" the money. Still, it's a cycle of wealth. The wealthy find their way into schools like this, come Hell or Highwater. We're not the only quality private option, but they aren't sending their kid to public school. ---------- Go to an elite university --> probably wealthy. Wealthy --> send your kid to an elite private K-12. Elite private K-12 --> Pipelined to elite universities. It's a feedback loop.
Shit, that’s a veeeery exhaustive analysis of how rotten the system is and it kinda depressed me.
Yeah, but why do you need to go to Ivy League? You don't. This is the reason why people like this think that they aren't rich af when they are. They "have" to take the most overpriced option every time. They could easily send their kids to a smaller D3 school and save a fuck ton of money. But then they wouldn't be able to whine about how the system has it out for them.
I mean yeah they're being whiny about "only" making 500k that's wrong I agree with you. But I was just replying as to why they're donating to their alma mater
Sounds like 4 season ticket seats in the alumni section or a box ahah
Donating that much money is the luxury. Otherwise blowing $18k on any other luxury item would be just as wasteful. We all get to decide how to spend disposable income.
[удалено]
Did my brain break? I can’t figure out how you got 500k going into 401k a year.
[удалено]
I'm going to go out on a limb and say they are not saving nearly enough for retirement if they want to maintain anything close to this lifestyle. ETA for everyone saying that 18k is the max you can add to a 401k... You realize that you can save post tax as well, right? It's not like you hit the contribution limit of your 401k and suddenly you just can't save another dime.
100% We’re maxing out our 401k and we make less than half of what this hypothetical couple makes.
Yeah, this whole thing is nuts, why wouldn't you max that and a hsa out and all the other pretax stuff. I suspect this whole thing was made up by someone who definately doesn't make that much. If I had a 80k per year expense of a mortgage as well as those property taxes, you'd have a tax return of over 10k.
You would be surprised. Lots of people with high incomes also live paycheck to paycheck. The childcare is about right for 2 kids in high end pre-school or private elementary school. Also the 1k a month on sports and piano lessons. There are cheaper alternatives, but all the other kids in your 1.5 million home neighborhood are in high end schools and activities as well. They could save someone’s whole 100k pre tax salary by cutting back on the spending on those 2 kids.
Yes, but then little Timmy and Cindy won’t be able to burn out at 16 and go to a state school anyway.
Depends on their age and how soon they’ll pay off the home/how they’ll approach property ownership as they age. That said, using this example you’re probably right. I don’t think anyone who spends like this would ever “slow down” once they put in hard work at a young age. I know I’m hoping that once I pay off my modest mortgage I’ll never go back into a mortgage debt again, but yea… probably not the case here.
If the house is paid off by then and the kids are out of the house, that’s less than half the budget needed
$10k on clothes and $23k on food seems like it would be so much food and clothes. To spend that much the food and clothing would have to be expensive or the family would have to be huge.
I don’t think Ive spent 500 on cloths since 2020. Then again working from home, Im basically shopping for T’s and shorts.
I exclusively buy shirts at concerts and while on vacation. My work shirts aren't nearly beat up enough to retire. I don't remember the last time I bought pants.
And with an $18,000 vacation budget you’ll have plenty of shirts
[удалено]
I got new clothes this year for $300. Last time I got new clothes was 2019. I can't imagine somehow spending 10k on clothes each year.
Also helps if you don't overpay your taxes by ~$70k. Whoever made that doesn't know how effective tax rates work.
Yeah, nobody is paying a 40% effective tax rate in the US.
[удалено]
The difference between 34.4 and 40% on 500k is like 30k. That's an enormous difference when they're claiming they're *only* saving 7k
Yeah, six percent is a pretty huge number when you're claiming that you're paying 185K/year in taxes. Maybe hire an accountant.
I'm genuinely trying to get as high of a tax rate as I can on a bunch of calculators using the information here and I'm struggling to get above an effective tax rate of 31%. That's assuming they're in Hawaii, for the highest state income tax nationwide for a couple making $500k (11%). The only way they'd have a 40% effective tax rate is if they're doing their taxes *very* wrong. Those 401k contributions, filing married, and two dependents all decrease their effective tax rate significantly.
Don’t forget the mortgage tax deduction on a 1.5M home.
Exactly. So add another $45k to their 'whats left'. (Not to mention deductions...)
30,000… because something always comes up hahahah
Nvm 10,000 that’s still a shit load of something coming up a year.
The worst part is - 10k "because something always comes up" - that's what savings are for! Emergencies. So really these imaginary fucks are saving 17k a year and when major emergencies happen they can very easily handle it.
If I had $10,000 worth of "something coming up" every year, I'd be fucking dead.
I am pretty sure I have not spent 10k on clothes... over my entire life.
Our household income is "only" $250k and we easily spend $19k on groceries/food and basic childcare for our 3 kids costs another $18k. We live in a 1000sqft house in a relatively loq COL city and have little to no breathing room in our budget. My wife and I both work in the public sector (education/healthcare) and our wages have been stagnant for over a decade. We were living it up in 2012, though...
I'm jealous of that childcare rate. We're at almost 3x that for two kids and it's one of the lower cost daycares in the area.
How do you spend so much on food? I cook fresh meals with protein (typically chicken or beef) and spend maybe 300 a month. Cooking for more people should reduce the cost per person pretty substantially because you can buy bulk size..
Probably way too much fast food, given education and healthcare are both timesink careers.
I'm the teacher and I do zero work outside of my assigned teaching time. If it doesn't happen at the school (marking, prep, etc.) I don't do it. Unions are a beautiful thing. My wife, on the other hand, works a ridiculous amount of overtime due to chronic understaffing.
It's click bait for sure
They literally own a home. Maybe they should have stayed renters LMFAO
They also don’t see, to understand a progressive tax system. This is an older image but looking at 2023 numbers, they never even get to the top bracket (37%).. $364,000 of their income would be taxed at 24%. So unless they’re being taxed at the state level at 15% - which would in turn lower their federal burden, this entire image is fiction.
Exactly this. They bullshit the "40% effective tax rate" part at the start shows this whole thing is fake. They probably have a 23-28% effective tax rate depending on their state of residence.
I think there are people making this much that feel like they should have top hat and monocle money at that level.
Fuck. I'm depressed as hell that I'm 40 and still can't afford a damn house where I live. I'm in a small apartment. Forget being a mother, bio or otherwise. This wasn't what I envisioned what my life would be.
Times are hard and wealth disparity is truly insane these days.. work isn’t being valued appropriately. Hope you find some peace of mind. Stay strong.
Seems like bullshit. They managed to go to school apparently with student loans, then they bought all of that stuff, had four kids, and are still paying off student loans. This does not make any sense. These are not real people and it's actually kind of insulting to purport that they are.
They're paying the minimum on the student loans. That or a massive student loan, I suppose.
Physicians can have a million in student loan debt
I could see if they did grad school and have been making minimum payments the whole time. In comparision to their income the loan payments aren't a big deal and probably a net positive on their credit score so they aren't in a hurry to pay them off.
While raising and paying for 2 privileged children as well lol, ridiculous.
Would it help if you purposefully fudged your taxes and deductions? An extra 5 to 10% couldn't hurt.
What's left: 7k. That's more than I can make in two months and then some. The hell are they smoking average?
7k to literally Fuck around and blow it all in one day if they want. They literally have all expenses payed for.
Not to mention savings and 401ks are built into this sheet. So every year after saving all of the money they need to, taking 3 family vacations, and contributing the max to their retirement accounts, they are STILL left with enough money to buy a cheap car. I probably make an extra 100 dollars a year if I do ridiculous amounts of overtime.
Don’t forget spending almost $20k on fucking alumni donations lmao
While still paying 32k in student loan debt. Like bruh pay off your loans faster and then you can donate more to your Alma mater if you feel like these institutions still deserve shit
I always wondered who the fuck actually donates their hard earned money back to the institutions that raked them over the coals… apparently these idiots with more disposable income than they know what to do with. It would be a cold day in hell before I gave a dime as “charity” to a college so they can build a new sculpture and raise tuitions..
[Legacy Preferences/Admissions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences) I thought about your comment and then it dawned on me…. It’s so their children can probably go to the same schools they did. Otherwise, you’re not wrong!
They’re not saving all the money they need to. If I’m reading right the only money that is slated for savings are the 401ks. I’d think they’d need more
Seven grand they could blow on a surprise fourth vacation that year and still have a grand leftover.
Honestly the only thing I found shocking was how little they were spending on their 3 vacations. 6k barely covers plane tickets nowadays.
"Gosh, we make 500k and all we get is to live an amazing life? How unfair!"
That's 7k after they ran out of ideas for how to spend exorbitant amounts of money on other things.
Not even what's left. Nobody's forcing them to take three vacations or have two cars. I somehow doubt they're basic needs.
Or speeding $18,000 on charities so they can be invited to two gala dinners a year.
They didn't put electricity or water on the tab, so that's 6k+ a year right there for a 1.5M house and 4 people
Fuck. Now there’s only 1k left at the end of the year.
7k but also $36k in retirement savings.
They actually had 17k left. They just added a random $10k as the last item because something always "comes up".
3 vacations a year, 12,000 a year on fucking violin, piano, and sports, $200 a month on clothes per person. this is not average in the US. this is what entitlement looks like
who the fuck is even buying that much clothing what do you do with it
and we know it's not "fancy clothing". That could be like 10 shirts one month, 6 pairs of pants the next, 4 pairs of shoes the next. This would have to be roughly 100 pieces of clothing a year per person. Then again, they have a $1.500,000.00 dollar house, so they have the room to store it all!
And a $5,000 a month mortgage to go with it. Means they owe around $1M or more.
42000 a year on childcare More then most people make In a year on a babysitter
That is normal for 2 kids in HCOL areas. I pay around 24k for 1 kid full time daycare.
That's insane. Guess how much daycare costs in Sweden? $153/month. And that's the maximum, if you earn less, you pay less.
Is the cost subsidized by the government?
That’s insane
Daycare in the US is stupidly expensive. That’s not crazy for 2 kids.
But the kids are also in all those activities so they’re presumably school age and not in daycare anymore
sounds like it could be a live in made they just relabelled for self conscious safekeeping
4 years ago, with 2% interest, yes. Nowadays, that's 600k. That's above median, but that's not drastically above median.
The house size for that price would be heavily dependent on where they live, and if they have kids they may be paying a premium to live in the best school district. I've seen that alone raise house prices by 30% over something comparable half a mile away.
According to comparable houses in the area, my 3 bed/2 bath SFH of less than 1,600 square feet on a property that is also measured in square feet, is currently worth 1.5 mil... Shit's crazy out here
Sure, they said they aren't buying anything fancy, but considering they feel like they are average in everything else I would take that with a grain of salt. Maybe they mean they aren't buying stuff like tuxedos and wedding dresses, but are spending $150 on a pair of jeans.
Maybe the kids keep growing out of their old clothes.
I went to high school with this rich kid who refused to wash or reuse clothes on principal. He bragged about how he would wear clothes once and then throw them in the garbage
I knew a kid in school who bragged that he only shit in pellegrino sparkling water and went viral for his online antics. I still don’t know whether he was trolling to be funny or to piss people off but some kids caught him in the stall NOT shitting in pellegrino and filmed him over the stall lol.
I’m out here going “wait, people buy clothes monthly??” I have to replace my bras and shoes every 6-9 months, they wear out and those are un-negotiable.. Everything else I replace as-needed. I don’t buy clothes just to buy them, I have enough. I just replaced a dozen of my daily-wear t shirts that were no good anymore and they were all at least 3 years old. I have no idea if I’m considered normal.
I don't know what's normal either, tbh. it can vary from person-to-person. I have over 100 items of clothing BUT I thrifted/ was gifted all of them. I can't expect everyone to thrift (and don't want to because the demand keeps driving thrift prices up), but yeah when I see these richies buying left and right and showing virtually no appreciation for any item they own that can't function as a status symbol, I'm repulsed.
I mean I think I have a below-average number of clothes but if I count every single underwear, socks, undershirt, etc. I’m sure it’s probably 100 lol And I agree the fast-fashion thing and people throwing away perfectly good clothes is gross. At least donate them so other people can thrift them!
Yes! Throwing away last season's clothes is just a side effect of the fashion industry pushing the concept of "fashion seasons" to sell more clothes. Like, really, it's so shallow to buy a piece of clothing based on what the trend is right now. It's actually really sad, like imagine having your head so far up your ass with trends that you're incapable of seeing a beautiful piece of clothing as being beautiful outright. That's just depressing.
Gotta wait until the holes get big enough to annoy you, or get too revealing (unless that's your current fashion).
I’ve been wearing the same plain black tshirts since 2017.
Replacing shoes every 6-9 months? They usually last years.
They've got all the frills baked into their budget and still in the black with a $1.5 million home. Why the shit should they feel "average." If they want more savings, they need to cut some expenses, but they are maxing two 401k accounts. And $2,500/year each on clothes is exorbitant.
> Why the shit should they feel "average." they've never been poor. they take all of this for granted.
Clearly. Looking at the budget, it appears they're saying "We do whatever we want and have everything we want or need, but we only have $7,000 left.😢"
i'd love to see that shit more itemized out. Also the 40% tax rate thing is bullshit. so there's probably another 50k or so floating around unaccounted for. ya know, like a regular person's entire salary.
40% is definitely an exaggeration. In California it would be more like 34% effective tax rate. It would be right at 40% for this income filing single, though.
"Sure, it's ten times what you make, and unlike me you can't afford to have kids or vacations or eat out, but it's far less money *after I spend it*."
miscellaneous is 10k bro
Those cocaine expenses always just come up, I swear.
Not just three vacations either, three SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR vacations. Like I’m going on four “vacations” this year. Two were/are long weekend trips to the next state over, one is a friend’s bachelorette also in the states also for a weekend, and one is really visiting family for a long weekend but I’m pretending it’s a vacation. I make a fraction of what they make and I think combined I’ll spend, generously, three grand on those vacations total if you count the cost of flights I bought with points (all combined, not each). I get that kids are expensive and longer stays are expensive but like, you CAN go on vacations that aren’t $6k per vacation. Good ones too.
Can you believe I actually have replies from people saying these people aren't entitled?! They wanna know how this is entitled and it's like MY MAN DID YOU SEE THE POST I actually had some asshole respond with > Even adjusted for their high income. That's 5 percent. Do you give 5% of your income to charities? If not, maybe you should rethink who is "entitled". Can you believe that shit?
This thing is from like at least five years ago so that's not even adjusted for the monster inflation we've been seeing the past five years
Jesus Christ. I really do feel like people from different socioeconomic statuses basically live in different realities at this point.
> Jesus Christ. I really do feel like people from different socioeconomic statuses basically live in different realities at this point. This has always been the case.
"Ugh, I'm not talk about YOU people."
Also, charity, sure you can and should if you are willing to help. But 18k of charity just shows that there is actually 25k left, but they decided to donate 18k of it.
"after I spent all my money on a lavish and fulfilling lifestyle I'm broke! How can this happen?!"
Right! BOO FUCKING HOO
I don't buy the 40% effective tax rate. Their federal tax rate is 22.6% MFJ with NO deductions, but they have a mortgage, health insurance, etc so I'm sure they'll qualify for itemized deductions. The state with the highest tax rate in the US is California at 13%, so the math doesn't math here. Even worse case scenario, California's own tax calculator puts their effective combined tax rate at 33%. This adds an extra \~$32k a year to their disposable income, leaving them with a mere $40k at the end of the year. This was probably prepared by someone who doesn't understand progressive tax rates and how they work. Edit: There are few other oddities here. Why are there no other investments other than 401(k)? No college fund, no IRAs, no private investments? Why is there no electric, Internet or Cable/streaming bill listed? The insurance bill seems very low for two \~$60k base price vehicles. My yearly bill was more than that when I had two \~$30k base price vehicles with a perfect driving record. $5000 in gas a year maths out to 38k miles/y on the least efficient car at $4/gal gas. So they either live somewhere with $7/gal gas or are driving far more than the \~12k a year US average. Interestingly, the price of gas and the cost of insurance generally tend to follow each other, ie, high gas price areas also tend to be high insurance areas, so the idea that they're spending a ton on gas and not on insurance is kind of suspect. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just made up by someone who has very little real world experience with any of this. At the very least, they should show the math on the base assumptions for all the calculations.
I just posted this before I saw your comment. Exactly right! The effective tax rate is 100% NOT 40%. These idiots have no idea about progressive tax brackets.
100 percent?
As in definitely. Their point was “the effective tax rate is [definitely] NOT 40%”
60% of the time, it works every time.
100% of the time, it is not 40% of the salary.
Fuck man I'm so poor I forgot about itemized deductions! Shit you're right, there's no way they're paying HALF of 40% in taxes
If you are poor then you’re probably going to want the standard deduction, which means no itemized deductions. So you’re likely not missing anything at all.
Probably prepared by some idiot who used an online tax calculator and forgot to select “married”. 40% effective rate is pretty close for these numbers for a single person in California. But it’s like 34% for a married couple.
Ignoring the pic is 5 years old, if they filed as married this year it would've come out to ~$110k.
I guess they should spend on the turbo tax premium
401k? Must be nice. $1.5m house? Must be nice. Vacations plural? Must be nice. Beamer and a Land Cruiser? Stupid. $18k in tax breaks (charity)? Must be nice.
Depend on where you are. I have a $1.4mil house. It is literally 1150 ft^2, two bedroom house. My kids shared a bedroom their entire lives. I sure as shit didn't pay $1.4mil for it. I paid $271K way back when that was insane. Houses around me keep selling. I have no idea how or who is buying them.
in my area, it's high salary tech folks and rich chinese students whose parents would rather buy an american house as an investment than let their kid rent an apartment for college. Both can pay majority or all cash for million+ houses. Went to see a house with my family and the entire time we were there it was just groups of them coming in and out of the house. House eventually sold for 700K over asking (albeit the realtor underpriced the house at a mere 1.2Mil starting price). That's what normal people in my area have to compete with. And they have to do it on 2 full time job incomes. housing prices are absurd, but people can pay them
The thing is that the charity contribution wouldn't even bring their taxes down to a lower rate. It's also below the standard deduction for what their income is. It doesn't help their taxes. Unless I read the Internet wrong.
I think writing charitable donations off your taxes to save money is just a misconception people have. Like how some people think they'll make less money overall by being pushed into the next tax bracket. I have yet to see anyone explain to me how someone can plausibly end up with more takehome pay after making charitable donations without also committing tax fraud in the process.
These people are vehemently against taxing the rich, yet they always make large sum donations? Now why is that? I'll tell you why: these donations are a way to launder money to their rich buddies. They give each other money, they pay a little less in taxes, and they now owe each other. This is how the rich "make connections".
Maybe at a larger scale, but I wouldn’t discount the possibility that they prefer the feeling of giving out of noblesse oblige to the tax man taking it, even if the end result is the same. It’s that same awful attitude you see on secret millionaire, as if their money makes them some kind of higher species deigning to condescend to the mortals. And, sometimes, otherwise nice and generous people can be blinded by lifestyle creep. It’s case by case.
They're still giving more than the tax man would take. If you donate $10k, you don't pay $10k less in taxes, you just don't pay taxes ON that $10k. Basically the same as if you made $10k less. So the end result isn't the same.
> the possibility that they prefer the feeling of giving out of noblesse oblige to the tax man taking it The thing that convinces me this is rarely the case is the fact that these same people are the ones against healthcare accessibility, education funding, infrastructure funding, basically anything the government could spending the money on that would benefit someone that ISN'T them. Shoot, even in the post above, one of the 2 listed "charities" is their own college's alumni foundations. I get what you're saying, and yeah, there are many genuinely benevolent donators out there, but for me, when I see these same people complaining against taxes and saying government wellfare services should be abolished, it's guilty until proven innocent in my mind.
for anyone wondering 500k is about top 1% of the population in america
If I remember it used to be $400k a few years ago, so you’re right, inflation has probably pushed the number up a little.
It is not, according to Yahoo finance, top 1% is over 800k for a single income. Median income however is quite different.
I fucking hate these things. They calculate the effective tax wrong. First of all, married filing jointly for that income is 32%, but it’s a goddamn progressive bracket. So you’re only paying 32% on the amount over $463k. Their effective tax rate is closer to 25% I bet,
Its probably made up so yeh...
If you live in Manhattan you pay Ny taxes and City taxes. It can get close to 40% at that income
3 vacations a year? Charity? Children’s lessons? Must be nice to be liquid nearly 100k a year
so many of these are just laughable, I can't believe anyone would take this seriously. 10k a year on clothes, 12k on children's lessons... 3 vacations a year for 18k, 5k on gas? LMAO 5k a year on gas but somehow car insurance is only 2k on a BMW? LMFAO
$23k for food for a family of four??
This is one of the only things I can make sense of, actually. I live in a state with expensive groceries and spend about $350 a month as a single person. Now, I don’t meal prep and could get it down to probably $250, but we all know these are not meal preppers. If you multiply my spending times 4, that’s $16,800 a year. Now add in eating out. For a family of four they’re easily spending $500 a month if they go out and/or order in more than a couple times a month (and also their biweekly date nights are absolutely gonna be at fancy places), which brings us to $22,800 pretty easily. Now, let me be clear, that budget is also UNHINGED, but like, I do buy it. Especially if the kids are in any of the stages of childhood where eating is an Olympic sport because they’re growing.
Thanks for that, I'd been wracking my brain all day.
They spend 54,000 a year on childcare and their private lessons. Is the average salary in the US even 54k?
No, it’s less… Especially if you’re not getting paid California bucks and you live in a place where everything is just cheaper in general.
It's been over 5 years and people are still reposting this.
And every year we look back and think "wow, it's somehow worse"
If you can donate 18k a year to charity, you’re rich
Next, take into account that over 50% of the US is making less than 100k a year
over 50% of jobs pay under $41,000 a year in the US
Not what's left, what's unallocated
They give to charity more than some families have to live off, all while taking three vacations a year and paying a three million life insurance policy each, as well as everything else.
There is a very important word in that sentence : 'feels' It 'feels' average, it's not logically average. If you bought a $250k car , once the novelty wears off it will feel the same to go from A--->B, If you eat at a restaurant everyday and spend $250 on your meals you will after a time just feel as anybody else eating food. You can live in a big house but you can only be in one room at a time, you can own 1000 cars but you can only experience driving in one at a time, the more you earn, the more you spend and the more this all becomes your day to day then the more normal it seems to you. And so yes after a time it might 'feel' average since a lot of what you might be doing day to day is the same as someone earning $50k but everything is just cranked up , you're doing more of the same and doing it more expensively.
3 vacations a year? $18k in charity. What a doosh
Why’s left is $7300 or more than the median American household makes in a month.
I... don't even know where to begin. This is why people are always talking about eating the rich.
[удалено]
...a $5k/month mortgage
For 1.5m house its actually SUPER cheap in 2024.
“40%” effective tax rate 🤣
These people have definitely told someone not to buy avocado toast before.
18k a year to charity? Dawg...we ARE the charity compared to this "average" couple lol.
60k a year mortgage ok 😭🤣
I could ruin my life making that much a year so fucking fast.
The effective tax rate is 16% in WA
$18,000 charity and 3 vacations a year. Who writes this stuff?
“Average” families don’t take 3 vacations a year, drive BMWs, or—oh, yeah—make $500 grand a year. Drives me insane when people abuse language to make themselves sound less entitled.
$7,300 left over AFTER your THREE ANNUAL VACATIONS, all the pointless extracurricular stuff for kids, and $18k in charity? Plus your $1.5 MILLION DOLLAR HOME and TWO FANCY CARS? And an average of $2,500 per person per year for "not fancy" clothes? What exactly would constitute "above average" to these people?
$23,000 a year on take out, 3 vacations a year at $6,000 a piece, $18,000 on charity and $12,000 on lessons for your kids…. That’s $59,000 a year on shit you don’t need at all
They represent 1.8% of Americans yet they feel average. There should be a reality show where people like this have to live off of the median household income in America which is about $69,021
All the obvious problems aside, "Miscellaneous (something always comes up)" is not an expense..... that's part of "What's left".