[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