[elicksaur]

Yes cost of living does matter.

But I’ve also never met or heard of a $200k household that I wouldn’t consider “well off”. Typically, stories about these “not well off” yet “over double the median income” households are budgeting issues.

People don’t like to admit that because most people blame external forces instead of evaluating their own choices.

[FloorEgg]

Multiple kids + unexpected chronic health issues can quickly change this equation. And before you go judging someone for having multiple kids, consider that a) demographic collapse is probably very bad and we don't want our society to make having kids exceptionally hard, rather than the default norm and b) people may decide to have kids without expecting significant and rapid changes to inflation and cost of living.

[CaliforniaKarl]

This is one of the reasons why—although university admissions and financial aid has lots of paperwork—there is still a major human element.

This is explicitly mentioned on the FAFSA's web site: https://studentaid.gov/help/reporting-special-financial-circ...

[almosthere]

The vast majority of people at 200k+ and "not doing well" are suffering from self inflicted budget issues.

[FloorEgg]

How do you know?

[Der_Einzige]

Often those "chronic health issues" (obviously not you specifically) are related to poor health choices that are easily fixable. In a world with easy access to Ozempic/Wegovy/Zepbound, many have no excuses in the 200K+ club for not fixing that.

Basically, budgeting issues for the body.

[aprilthird2021]

Kids don't cost that much tbh. It's not as if having 2 kids vs 4 kids makes $100k vs $200k the same

[FloorEgg]

Do you have four kids and live in a city?

[closeparen]

You would need to set aside $10-15k a year for 18 years, depending on the interest rate, to accumulate $320,000 in cash for 4 years at an $80k school at full freight.

A family making $200k in California takes home about $130k, so call it about 10% of their net income over the child's lifetime. That's some pretty significant budgeting!

[hedgehog]

It depends on location. In San Francisco a mortgage on a median house might be over $80k/year and child care for a young kid $20k-$30k/year. Then $50k in taxes, assume two kids, that's maybe $180k and we haven't even bought groceries yet. Or healthcare.

[zeroonetwothree]

It seems unlikely you are spending $30k on child at the same time as you are sending kids to college. Not many families have such an age gap.

Getting a mortgage that is 40% of your income is fairly irresponsible (I’m sure it does happen though). You also didn’t count property tax which is probably like $20k

[hedgehog]

The comment I replied to implies that all $200k income families are "well off". I think this is a reasonable counterexample, and in SF tuition assistance for childcare includes families up to a little more than $200k so the city government appears to agree.

[closeparen]

Yes, it would be extremely irresponsible for a family making $200k to buy even a very bad house in the Bay Area. The bottom rung of the home-owning middle class is much higher than that.

[wombatpm]

Divorce and remarriage create lots of nonsensical situations.

[aprilthird2021]

Okay but renting a normal sized place would be $60k. Then child care for a young kid. Then taxes. If both kids are in childcare, fine, but childcare costs go away after they go to school.

It's very doable with money left over