'An economic divide that is widening': Almost one third of Americans earning $150,000 a year or more say they're living paycheck to paycheck and many rely on credit cards to close the gap
'An economic divide that is widening': Almost one third of Americans earning $150,000 a year or more say they're living paycheck to paycheck and many rely on credit cards to close the gap
Some say they won’t be able to pay off their credit cards by the end of the year.
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I don't see how that's possible unless you have a huge family, you have some sort of chronic disease that insurance doesn't cover, or you're wildly irresponsible. Even in a high cost-of-living area, a normal family of four could live quite comfortably on that much money and still save some of it.
(I don't think that many high-earning people are wildly irresponsible. I suspect that this statistic isn't right.)
It's called living in a city. Housing is expensive as fuck in cities.
I live in a one-bedroom in midtown Manhattan. It costs me about a hundred dollars a day and I'm still saving money on my software developer salary.
That's pretty steep for a 1 bedroom apartment, 3000ish I assume based on what you said, and I'm guessing it's not that big. I meanwhile live in a college town in the middle of nowhere and my 3 bedroom house with a garage and basement is 2100 a month.
Yeah rent in desirable cities is high. It’s the price you pay for being in a cultural mecca with a lot of career opportunities. Not for everyone obviously but a lot of people would absolutely not want to live in a college town either.
I’ve done both and enjoy cities way more and consider the rent money well spent. Making that transition to a big city was transformative for me personally and my career.
The funny thing is that despite spending all that money, I actually hate living here. It's crowded and I can't get around by driving. I used to pay $450 a month for a parking spot but I gave up on that because even though I could park near where I lived, I wasn't able to park at most of the places I needed to go. (And now they're adding tolls and I will have to pay about $20 each time I drive to my own home.)
My elderly relatives are here and I want/need to be close to them. It's not realistic for them to move, but if they could then I would immediately go with them somewhere where a cabin on a 40-acre lot costs less than my apartment. 40 acres is like having 8 Manhattan city blocks all to yourself!
You're software developer tho. So you're a rich person anyways. You don't understand the struggle
The OP is talking about people with software-developer salaries.
A lot of people live in cities and make far less than 150k, even when you add both parents income. They do just fine. Housing where you live might be expensive ,but there are more affordable houses around. Probably not in areas you would be willing to live.
When people hear "living paycheck to paycheck" they automatically assume it means barely making enough money for essentials. It for sure can mean that, but often people living paycheck to paycheck make good money, they just don't live within their means. It's not hard to buy a nicer house and a nicer car than your can really afford, and run up credit card debt, and find yourself in a situation where you can't pay your bills because you're overextended, even with a good salary.
A few additional things to consider:
- Accrued debt
- Areas with highest cost of living tend to also be areas with relatively high population density (San Francisco is usually the go-to example for this)
- Inflexibility of living in austerity
- Intuit benefits from scaring people in the lower and middle economic classes
I continually rotate debt through 0% interest deals on credit cards, it's how I've paid for a lot of my home improvements.
Paid for a new roof and awning on the house that way, currently paying for solar panels and a large electrical project.
If a credit card offers me 0% interest for a year, why WOULDN'T I do that instead of paying cash?
I have three different cards now that every time I pay them off they're like "Heyyyy... here's some balance transfer checks... 0% until January '25..."