[Kylekramer]

Paycheck to paycheck surveys are just vibes, last time these companies ran this survey 36% of people making over $250k said they were living paycheck to paycheck: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/03/wealthier-americans-live-pay...

It is cool for young people to doom over money and spend all day looking at much richer people on on social media. Main character syndrome.

[mancerayder]

You can make 250K a year and spend half of your take-home pay on rent, in fact that's pretty normal in HCOL areas. With the leftovers you have life, including Uber, groceries, dinner, etc. People love cities, but dense cities are massively expensive for doing day to day normal things.

Sure, you could live one hour away from work to save money, you can stop drinking, you can only cook at home, you could ride a bike, you could buy used clothing, etc etc. But life is short if that stuff annoys you.

[slily]

I cannot understand how someone can make that much money and be so irresponsible with it. Even in NYC with high income taxes, on a $250k salary you'd have to be spending well over $5000 on rent for it to constitute 50% of your take-home pay. And spend at least that much on top of that on other unnecessary luxuries every month to be "living paycheck to paycheck". That's beyond disconnected, and implying it's normal in HCOL areas... Maybe normal in circles of trust fund kids. Reading HN comments makes me feel like I'm poor when I'm making 6 figures, or 2-3x the median household income.

[mancerayder]

In NYC the median rent is like 4200. MetroCard, gas, electric, internet take you to 4600, that's before you've eaten anything. Cocktails cost 15 bucks, beers 9, appetizers 20 dollars and entrees 30-40. Coffee costs 6-7 plus tip, taxis anywhere cost a fortune now and Ubers as well. 250k with fed, state, city tax, 401k and health deductions leave you with 5500-5600 every two weeks.(edited)

But god forbid you do anything in life but eat and pay rent. Most people buy clothes, furniture and go on vacation.

I'm sorry you feel poor. There's recent Bloomberg article titled, why 300k feels like 100k, outlining the insane cost of living of cities like NY and SF.

No need for 'trust fund kid' attacks, which by the way are based on incorrect information. Do you live in NYC?

[slily]

The median rent for 1 bedroom in NYC is $3600: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny

I lived there until last year, paid $1600 for rent in an unattractive area, coffee around the block cost maybe $2.50 but I mostly brewed my own, and I ate out for maybe $30-40 per meal on average, when I ate out. I did plenty with less than half of that money and saved about half of my take-home during that period.

I didn't mean to label you specifically as a "trust fund kid", but I truly cannot believe that anyone who doesn't come from money (and thus hasn't developed a sense of financial responsibility as a child) would be capable of wasting that much money, even in NYC. In what world is it normal to spend hundreds of dollars a week eating out every single day?

[mancerayder]

Not everyone is willing to ride the subway for 45 minutes to an hr to get back and forth to work .. The median rent was for Manhattan, fair enough, but near-Manhattan Brooklyn neighborhoods like Downtown BK and Greenpoint are the same price.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/homes/manhattan-rentals-march...

Also your lifestyle depends on your age and relationship status. A 25 yr-old who eats out once a week and lives in Bushwick or the Bronx is a different category than a middle aged person who's in a relationship and works long hours.

[red-iron-pine]

Why the hell are you tipping for coffee?

[maxerickson]

Does it really take a 1 hour commute to avoid $6,000 rent?

There's of course lots of room to argue about what the likely take home pay on $250k is, but many of the arguments involve choices that sort of undermine the claim that someone is living paycheck to paycheck.

[HDThoreaun]

No one has to live paycheck to paycheck on 250k. Many do, but only because they choose to. I guarantee they are living amongst people making 20% as much who are doing fine.

[saiya-jin]

Well you are completely right, but now we moved from 'people have little income to survive or have a normal life' to typical spoiled 1st world kids problems 'I want latest Tesla just like that tiktoker and I am too poor for that'. Its damn hard to have much sympathies there, and 0 reasons to even try.

Basically there is no end in how much you can expect others will ease your life if you keep paying them to do stuff for you. And sorry but paying half of your net income just to rent some space is pretty big financial mistake, in Switzerland they wouldn't even consider you to rent such a place (normal limit is cca 1/3rd but if you wan to save a lot its better to keep it in 15-20% category and no it doesn't come with 1+ hour of commute).

Back in the real world, so something around 99% of mankind, real financial problems look very different.

[antisthenes]

I'm not sure what we're supposed to be taking away from your post.

There's been an insane lifestyle inflation amongst Millenials and Gen Zs. If people model their day-to-day after some social media influencers and that causes them to be financially irresponsible, then why is this news?

Financial literacy isn't hard if you are actually inclined to learn it. All the information and budgeting apps is out there, free, just a few keystrokes away.

250K is higher than average (and median) income in every single area of this country, including places like LA/SV and Manhattan. It's ok to not feel sorry for these people. They'll do just fine, regardless of what they answer in some survey.

[prottog]

Even in a state with high state income taxes, you're taking home north of $12k a month with a $250k/year salary. There's maybe one city in the country where a young adult (someone with no dependents) is paying half of that, $6k/month, in rent.

No single person making that much money is living paycheck-to-paycheck unless they're doing something really wrong in terms of personal finances.

[andrewprock]

If you have take home pay of $120k per year, half of that going to rent would be $5k. Spending that much on rent would only be normal in SF if you were renting a 5 bedroom. Normally people renting a 5 bedroom would be housing a family of four - or more.

I posit that it is not normal for a young adult in SF to have a family of four.

[mfer]

You can make 250k a year, eat out every day, buy a starbucks coffee every morning, regularly have new clothes, etc. This is all expensive.

Consider the cost different with cooking your own meals and eating out for every meal. Lifestyle choices make a big difference in living paycheck to paycheck for many (not all).

[2c2c2c]

you can live like this in SF on 150k

[spywaregorilla]

That doesn't make sense to me. 125k salary with no rent. or maybe ~80k after tax with no rent sounds like you should still be doing just fine.

[2c2c2c]

is it pretty normal to spend 5k/mo on rent?

[mrguyorama]

In the places where a young adult makes $250k a year? In NYC $3600 a month gets you a small room. If you want to have the luxury of a dedicated, doored off bedroom, you will be paying significantly more than that. Sure hope your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend is also a FAANG superstar so you can afford to live together.

[HDThoreaun]

Literally millions of people live in the luxury of a dedicated, doored off bedroom in NYC for a third of that.

[mrguyorama]

Where can you get a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC for $1300 a month without locking in a rate controlled apartment 25 years ago?

[HDThoreaun]

They're available in the bronx and staten. Most new yorkers have roommates though. It is not difficult to find a 2 bed (2 people get the luxury of a dedicated, doored off bedroom) for $2400 in any of the boroughs, although many neighborhoods are certainly out.

[2c2c2c]

would love to know more about you and your background. I always drill into these threads because I find peoples' perspectives on basic living necessities fascinating

do you live in a major city, or have any experience living in one?

it took me about five seconds to find a $2300 2bedroom apartment for rent in brooklyn. it's more optimal to rent this and roomate with a friend for split rent, but if you absolutely have to live alone you can probably get down to $1800 for a studio.

[nickthegreek]

$1,700 would be normal for the average american. \

https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/

[lbotos]

Someone could be Making 250k and absolutely be living paycheck to paycheck.

Yes, I agree with your sentiment that its "different" than being "poor" but that's the media for ya.

[hellotomyrars]

I understand the point though. Living paycheck to paycheck making 250K is either a gross mismanagement of finances, or a dishonest view of them.

The guy making 250K a year isn’t worried about not being able to put food on the table. But maybe he has a monthly car payment that is more than the person making 28k a year pays per month in rent.

[darth_avocado]

250k in NYC or SF Bay Area is really 150k after taxes. After insurance and other usual expenses, 10k/month. Rents in these cities can be expensive and if you have dependents then 10k suddenly is not a lot of money. Its not paycheck to paycheck always, but can totally be.

[red-iron-pine]

Enough space for a family means something like $5k-7k/month rent. Even with 10k/mo the income rapidly vanishes. Housing and income reform is deeply needed nationwide.

[cj]

If it’s just a survey, I would answer “yes” to living paycheck to paycheck.

But that’s only because I’m automatically investing 70% of my paycheck so I never have more than a few weeks of expenses in cash.

I can imagine getting very biased results depending on how to survey is worded.

In my case, an unexpected expense just means I take a short term margin loan against my portfolio (at an insane interest rate) until my next paycheck.

[maxerickson]

Having resources you can draw on (an asset you can take a margin loan against is a resource you can draw on) is exactly what "paycheck to paycheck" doesn't mean.

[cj]

I agree.

The point of my comment was that wording of survey questions can result in biased results.

[mikestew]

"I have so much excess income that I invest most of it".

I don't think you're grokking the common definition of "paycheck-to-paycheck", or are willfully ignoring it to make a point (and doing so poorly).

[cj]

> to make a point (and doing so poorly).

The point I’m trying to make is bias in surveys

[michaelt]

If that's true of 36% of them then the definition of "paycheck to paycheck" is so broad as to be meaningless.

Woe is me, after paying for my eight children's horse riding lessons, getting an opera house named after me, and paying for the handmade rigging that my yacht's crew say urgently needs to be replaced, I'm barely making ends meet! Why won't Biden do something about the outrageous increases in the cost of helicopter fuel?

Am I living paycheck to paycheck?

[lbotos]

People making 250k are not getting opera houses named after them :D

[michaelt]

Not with helicopter fuel as expensive as it is, you're right.

[kitsunesoba]

And are very likely living in high CoL areas where a large chunk of that is swallowed by housing, transportation, etc. It's functionally similar to a much lower salary in a lower CoL area.

That said even if someone in a low CoL area is pulling 250k, it's not "horseriding lessons eight kids and a yacht" money, not unless the individual/couple in question is drowning in debt.

Don't get me wrong, $250k isn't a "struggling" salary anywhere but it's also not past the threshold where one can stop being responsible with money and blow it on wealthy people things on the regular, especially if that's joint income from a couple with kids.

[endisneigh]

the fact that this post is downvoted shows how much of a bubble HN is, lol.

[rmorey]

Only like 4% of Americans are making that much anyway - median income for 25-34 year olds is ~70-80k

[Jtsummers]

> median income for 25-34 year olds is ~70-80k

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-average-salary-by-age-in...

No, it's not $70-80k. Median in that age range is $52k (numbers are from 2022 Q3).

[rmorey]

My bad, I was looking at 2021 numbers. Makes my point all the more

[Jtsummers]

I think we may be finding different numbers. Yours might be the household earnings, mine was individual earner numbers.