Over half of Americans say they're not even close to financial freedom

Now consider the majority of people who do not have 6 figure incomes.

It's basically a similar experience except you live in harsher conditions.

I don't see a considerable difference between poverty line me and six figures me. I have a slightly nicer place (but in debt to the bank instead of renting) and I can buy games on Steam rather than waiting for a sale.
- This is so infuriatingly disingenuous that I’m having trouble putting into words an intelligent response.
  
  I would need to triple my income to approach 6 figures. Making that much money may not fundamentally change the way I live my life but it would almost entirely remove my primary stressors. I could afford actual healthcare, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not my landlord is going to raise my rent to a point where I can no longer afford my home. I could actually save money so that if/when something happens to me I’m not completely fucked over night
  
  I get it because I've been there too. Recently, actually.
  
  When your financial needs are not being met it feels like you're drowning and the stress of that can be debilitating. When you're not sure whether you'll survive another month it can feel like everything is about to fall apart.
  
  What I'm talking about is the difference between once you reach that stage of no longer feeling desperate (let's say, the low-income cutoff) and reaching higher salaries ($60k, 70k, 80k, etc).
  
  In my personal experience, once I reached a state of of no longer being desperate about money $60k, the income increases I've made since then have not in any way significantly changed my life or my happiness or my sense of financial freedom. I still feel tied to a desk, enslaved to my debt repayments, obliged to continue working 5 days a week, every week, until I die.
  
  Is it nice to no longer live in a state of stress and poverty? Of course. Is it vastly different from how I'm living now? Not really. I could lose my job and be back there in a few months. I could become disabled and be back there. So I do feel some gratitude that, for now, it's a bit better than what it could be or has been.
  
  One other important thing to note: I'm not American, so I don't have stress about health care. If I get sick, everything's going to be peachy.
  
  I get what you’re saying. The money from $60k to $100k just goes into the things you should be able to afford at $60k.
  
  At $100k you can afford to contribute to your 401k, start a small contribution towards your children’s college fund, pay random bills, afford a Toyota Camry instead of a Corolla, moderate vacations, etc.
  
  I had the same experience and it was humbling. But you also slowly forget exactly how tough it was looking at your bank account and knowing there was a bill not getting paid that month.
  
  You'd only be able to afford it for a little while until literally every industry raised prices overnight, jacking up inflation to the degree that normal people once again would struggle to put food on the table.
  
  We need price control laws and high minimum wage laws to boost up the common man's buying power so that can't happen.
  
  I could afford actual healthcare,
  
  Bad news about that, 100k will still not be enough. Maybe 175k.
- As someone who had a lot of money, spent time homeless, got fucked by COVID, and am now back in a comfortable place making 6 figures - your comment is way out of touch man.
- @NathanielThomas @tider06
  
  No it's not similar in any way, shape or form. Good try tho.
  
  It's a completely similar experience, mainly because your status as a wage slave basically doesn't change as your income increases. Your discretionary income changes your purchasing power but you tend to incur more debt and go on more vacations and consume more, but your financial security doesn't change significantly.
  
  I've been at the bottom of the barrel economically, and now somewhere around $140k (before taxes, so really more like $80-90k) and the main differences are negligible. I can be more flexible with my diet, can afford to vacation, I can put some money into savings, and I can outright purchase larger consumer items without saving.
  
  But at the end of the day this financial advantage is only marginal; I'm dependent on my employment continuing. With rising costs for everything, my debt-to-savings ratio is still not where I'd like it to be. I'm nowhere near ready for retirement despite being 49 already. I still feel overall trapped within the system of capitalist wage slavery and do not have the freedom to pursue interests or activities that I would with true "financial freedom."
  
  I can be more flexible with my diet, can afford to vacation, I can put some money into savings, and I can outright purchase larger consumer items without saving.
  
  These things are not negligible. I understand what you're saying, "more money, more problems", but being able to put money into a savings account and take a vacation are things that a large portion of people will never be able to do.
  
  Which is why slavery is a spectrum, not a binary condition.
  
  We're both part of the same struggle but my income allows me to suffer a little bit less than some others.
  
  "suffering a bit less". Wow. Just unimaginable.
  
  Climb down off your cross and read about class warfare.
  
  @NathanielThomas
  
  I have worked since I was 12 yrs old, went to both college and university, and have never once made over $100k per year.
  
  Currently I'm on a fixed income, have limited job opportunities and recently had to downsize to a rooming house as I couldn't afford my bachelor apartment anymore.
  
  Do not equate your hardships with those of us who are facing living on the streets with one missed cheque.
  
  I will equate my hardships with yours because I've been there. I know exactly what it's like. And that's why I know what it feels like to get a little breathing room from that situation.
  
  But I also can't pretend that six figures is some kind of luxury experience. It's still largely hand-to-mouth, you can still live relatively insecure and underhoused (especially with this market), and with the cost of living even a person earning six figures is very vulnerable if you've set up a lifestyle that can't weather unemployment. If my income is $6,000 a month and my outgoing expenses are $5,600 and I lose my job, I'm maybe 3 months from calamity.
  
  Lastly, I'll say that six figures isn't what it used to be. It's a fairly common salary in 2023 to meet the basic needs and costs of the modern world.
  
  @NathanielThomas
  
  You do you I guess.
  
  Do not equate your poor planning to a universal hardship
  
  The sheer audacity of saying you're a wage slave at 6 figures almost made me upvote because it was so funny.
  
  If you have to work for a living because without that income you'd die, you're a slave.
  
  If you're unable to pursue your interests and passions at any moment of the day, you're a slave.
  
  If others dictate or control your destiny because they have power over your employment and therefore your ability to sustain yourself, you're a slave.
  
  Just because I make more money than you do doesn't mean we're not in the same struggle.
  
  This is class warfare. The billionaires want you to envy me. We're not at war. We're at war with the billionaires who pit us against one another.
  
  This isn't class warfare, this is obscene ignorance about slavery born of your immense wealth and privilege.
  
  Also I make 6 figures.
  
  It's hilarious for you to call me wealthy or privileged. In 2018 my income was about $17,000 and I was completely dependent on my partner.
  
  I've worked for $6.85 an hour, I've been a dishwasher and a janitor and I've been unemployed and on welfare for long stretches, living off $600 a month.
  
  I know where I am and where I've been. And it doesn't change the basic framework of the capitalist meatgrinder.
  
  I once made $9k in a year, and yet I am still wealthy now with my current 6 figure income.
  
  You're not wealthy but maybe you live in an area that makes such an income very useful.

I knew we were fucked when the same happened to me and I still can't afford a home.

I have a house that was bought back when I made around 35K in 2006 and they where giving out loans to everyone, so nothing great by any means. Had someone come by and ask to buy it earlier this year now that I've gotten to a decent career class job and I had to tell them no. Like, have you looked at the price of things lately? My payment is less than most single bedroom appartments these days, no way I'm giving that up to someone. It's an ugly mess, but at least it's my ugly mess.

I tell those companies I'll accept their offer if I have 3x the home's value in my pocket at the end of the process.

They don't call back.
This is essentially where I’m at, too, except bought in 2013 so probably slightly less good price.

I can’t afford to do the fix up work on it properly, so it’s slowly crumbling, but I can’t really afford to move either because this place was on the low end when I bought it and hasn’t improved 😜. I literally can’t find housing for myself and 3 cats for the $550/mth I pay now. Even with my place being worth 3x what I paid for it, I’d end up in a worse or (at best) equivalent place for the same price. May as well just stick with the skeletons I know.

Honestly, you need to make 6 figures to just not be “poor” these days. Very annoying, considering how quickly things changed over the last decade.

Yep, pulling in 110k this year after bonus at my job and I’m having to DoorDash to get just a bit of breathing room.

$3350 mortgage eats more than half my take home. The rest goes to debt (took out a loan to fix a couple things on the house last year, and student loans coming back now), caring for my aging dog, food, bills, maxed 401k that I’m considering dropping for a while, and a little bit for free spending so I can go on a date or two or out with friends. Even with this mortgage payment this would have been easy on just my salary even 3 years ago (it was easy af with dual income at the time). But the way costs have increased are making me feel broke in a way I haven’t felt in a long-ass time. I always thought that if I could make it to six figures I’d be properly wealthy, but I’m not. I’m barely comfortable.

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- I’m just breaking even on the house. I bought at peak like a genius.
  
  There’s also no way I could possibly buy again if I let this place go, not to mention it’s a starter home already, there’s nothing in my area that would ne cheaper short of going back to renting. I’d rather feel the squeeze and keep the investment.
  
  Re lifestyle, that’s the number one thing I’ve been working on and have clawed back probably a grand a month there since breaking up with my wife and going down to single income. I drove a 10 year old car that I own outright (managed to get my wife to take the newer car that still had payments which she luckily can afford), shop Winco for nearly everything except a few staples that Costco saves me money on and coupon anywhere else, and have one streaming service.
  
  I still let myself go out to with friends occasionally and engage in my long standing hobby, though to a much lesser degree, but I’m getting better and better at saying no to superfluous stuff. After a decade of being pretty comfortable it’s an adjustment to make that I’m giving myself some grace on, though I recognize that my ability to even do that is privilege. My #1 financial goal right now is to start spending under my budget rather than up to it, and I’ve got some units that are proving hard to break, namely having food in the house that I can make and eat even on those days where my executive dysfunction is making everything impossible.
- 1,000 square feet is 200 smaller than my 2-bedroom condo so I doubt downsizing on a starter home makes any sense
  
  A house that costs over half a million dollars is not a starter home by any definition.
  
  Actually, such a home where I live would be impossible to purchase at half a million dollars. In Seattle, a half million dollar home is a steal, a bargain, a robbery, a theft.
  
  Where I live, across the border, a half million dollars gets you a one-bedroom condo at about 600-800 square feet. A million gets you a townhouse. $2-3 million gets you a house, in the suburbs.
  
  Everett WA is 40 min from Seattle
  
  https://www.zillow.com/everett-wa/under-250000/
  
  Solved your problem.
  
  "In Seattle" is not 40 minutes from Seattle, is it?
  
  I don't have enough money to live on the moon, so I don't live on the moon.
  
  Shocking.
  
  I don't even know what point you're trying to make. The person purchased a starter house at a pricepoint they were approved for. Maybe they don't want a 40 minute commute to Seattle. Why are so up in arms about somebody buying a house? They used to hand them out practically for free in the 1940s and 50s.
  
  I'm not up in arms about him buying a house. I'm providing him info that suggests he make better financial choices since he is claiming he is nearly underwater.
  
  A $300k cash injection and significantly lower mortgage would most assuredly help with that.
Where the fuck do you live with a $3350 mortgage? I pay 1/3 of that for rent and I think that's too high.
- Puget Sound area, a bit north of Seattle.
  
  For a home purchased in the last 3 years, I got a pretty good deal. The floor on rent for a shitty one bed apartment in my city is $1200/month.
  
  It’s also worth noting that the $3350 is my PITI. My strict mortgage is $2875, the rest is property tax to escrow and mortgage insurance.
  
  Ah got it
- I pay less than 1/3 of that for my mortgage on a bigger house with a large yard. But we did close on it at a much better time last decade, and it's about twice as valuable now. I would never consider something so ridiculously expensive that the mortgage could be 3k/mo.
  
  Fortunately for my wallet, I don't like big city life and the rural real estate is much cheaper.
- He lives in a $600,000 house. Probably more.
  
  Edit: he says it's a $560k house lol
Jeez. I can't fathom what kind of home you must be in to be paying $3350 in a mortgage. Genuine question, have you ever been like, actually poor? I do find it hard to believe anyone willing or even able to pay a mortgage like that could possibly live a life anyone would call barely comfortable.
- 1000 sq ft starter home rambler in the seattle region. It’s nothing special and it was downright cheap at $560k. Was still dual income and mostly comfortable when we bought the house. We broke up and I had the income to keep the house, so I am. The equity isn’t there yet so I’m making a play to keep it for 10-15 years before I sell and we split the sale based on an agreement we signed when we broke up (very amicable breakup).
  
  Yea, I grew up dirt poor with many dinners being noodles with butter, I never once had to pay for lunch at school because assistance programs, I never did extra curriculars because we couldn’t afford the materials, every Christmas was nothing or donations, I lived in houses where I could literally see outside through gaps in the walls, and the only reason I experienced a vacation before I was 30 was because my step-dad was negligently killed by a rich guy and we got a settlement that my mom blew on a 6 week vacation to Orlando when I was 14 and then put some money down on a house when she could have bought it outright instead. But I clawed my way out by going to college and getting pretty lucky along the way. 10 years ago I got my first job out of college making $13.75/hour, and have doubled my income twice since then, largely by the luck of knowing some good people, and my current job by the luck of being found on LinkedIn due to having a weird confluence of experience.
  
  A big part of how I got into the house is that my ex-wife has rich family and they gifted us a pretty big chunk of change that got us to our downpayment. Still had to take $520k out on the mortgage, and another $20k to make some needed repairs once we were in (debt I’m taking on too).
  
  I couldn tighten the belt in a few areas, namely my free spending which I limit to $400/month. But that already goes fast if I want to actually do anything and keep myself from falling into a pit by never leaving the house. I also use that money for helping my partner out. Otherwise I’ve cancelled all my streaming services save for Disney plus which is still a good deal, I’ve dumped my insurance to the lowest I can go, I pay $15/month for my cellphone, I’ve stopped buying name brand for nearly everything, and I’ve had to stop any real charitable giving. There is some saving that goes on in there like putting $50/month aside for my car expenses, so as long as nothing major comes up I’m covered, and $100/month toward ‘medical’ which really just pays for my therapy.
  
  None of this is to garner pity, I know I’m in a better position than most people, not to mention much better off than I ever dreamed I could achieve as a kid growing up, and I’m extremely grateful for that. i don’t have any bills I have to choose between, and I never have to wonder if I have food to eat tonight. And I have enough saved (from my bonus) that I’ve got a few months to figure things out if I lost my job today or if a big repair comes up (like my water main breaking back in January), but not enough to replace my fence that fell down last winter. I just always thought that making it to six figures would mean a lot more than it does. I make ends meet and anything extra I make from here is gravy.
  
  (very amicable breakup)
  
  This is huge win
  
  Unbelievably huge win. We’re still close friends and I expect that to stay that way. We didn’t break up due to lack of love, but due to incompatibility after we changed dramatically since marrying. We still love each other, but the Beatles were wrong, it’s not all you need.
- It all depends on where you live, but the prices are insane everywhere now. I bought my house 5 years ago and the estimates indicate that is now worth double what I paid for it. DOUBLE. And it's not because I live in some super hot area, the prices have gone up like that almost everywhere in the entire area in and around the city. I could not have afforded this house If I were buying today, and that is with a significantly higher income than when I bought it.
- My mortgage is around that for Austin, TX (barely in the city for a tiny home) and that is when the rates were good. So, they probably just live somewhere that's a bit popular.
  
  25-90 minutes north of Seattle depending on traffic. So yea, it’s an expensive area to live in.
  
  OH, that COL is wayyyy higher than my area. Hopefully you got a good deal on it then!
  
  Yep. But this area is home, so as long as I can make it work, I will.
- Trailers are 300k here in Colorado, at least where I'm at with jobs. If you want an actual house it's 450-600k
  
  My childhood home with 3 bedrooms and a finished basement was like 130k and that was purchases in the 2000s
  
  @SeducingCamel @A_Toasty_Strudel
  
  In the early 2000's a mobile home in oil sands territory (Alberta) was $450k.
  
  Canada's been working a long time on our housing bubble ... which is about to crash.
- This comment highlights your ignorance not their privilege.
  
  @huginn @A_Toasty_Strudel
  
  Not really but you do you I guess.
I doubt your maxing your 401k. I assume you mean the amount needed to get maximum match from your employer?
- Pre-tax 401k contribution limit is $22,500 in 2023. Plenty of people are able to contribute up to that limit.
  
  Must be nice. I maxed ira in the past but this is beyond me barring winning the lottery. Of course then I would likely not have a 401k.

Same here. Feels like I'm making the same, but my mortgage is huge now. Sucks.

My partner and I make over $300k, and we're struggling to buy a 4-bedroom house on the outskirts of Orlando, FL.

As someone who lives in Florida I've got to ask, how? When thinking about finances and investments I often feel like I'm in my own bubble and I don't understand other peoples' situations, motivations, etc. So I'm genuinely curious. 4-bedroom houses near Orlando can be found in the mid 300s. With your income you should be able to pay in cash after saving for just one or two years (depending on how much savings you're starting out with). Even if you wanted something more expensive, are mortgages that difficult to get approved even for someone with such a high income?
- holy crap. 300k for 4 bedrooms. no wonder people risk the storms.
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You probably don’t want to buy a house there, anyway, what with all the insurance companies pulling out of the state.

Your rates are going to be sky high, assuming you can even get insured, which isn’t remotely a guarantee anymore.
Sell your house and move slightly further out of Orlando.

Or don't have a family size of 7+ and try to live in a city while expecting every kid to have their own room.

Its nice to see someone else mention the doubling. There are news things about gas being expensive but its cheap relative to everything else. People better be ready for eight bucks a gallone once it rights itself. Inflation would suggest 30% odd increase but for what you have to buy its 100% over 2020 prices.

Don't worry urban planners are making driving more difficult instead of mass transit easier. That way when gas prices double the entire lowest tier of the workforce won't be able to afford to work. "No one wants to work anymore"