I’d love to see this as a paycheck breakdown.
Unless you have a history of debt, a huge house, or like 8 kids I don’t see how it’s not possible to do at least moderately well on 150k/y
At least in CA where the property tax is 1%, last time I fed the info into one of those calculators a few months ago, a 1.2m house (exactly the type you describe) with a standard 20% down-payment would run closer to $8k/mo with good credit. That includes property tax and homeowners insurance, which is required to get a loan.
So yeah, that doesn’t leave a whole lot to live off of.
We’ve let our gutters stay broken for several years now because we just can’t afford to get them fixed. We had to have an emergency repair to our heat pump yesterday and that’s going to be hundreds of dollars out of pocket. We’re on a single income. My wife gets paid well (not $150,000 a year well) and our mortgage is low, but we’re barely making it.
$150k is twice what my parents made combined back in the 90s, and they lived a solid upper middle class life in an upscale suburb of a small city. Always had a nice TV and my dad and I both had PCs that we upgraded every year AND they saved up two years worth of college for me. Amazing how quickly things have changed. They bought their house for $180k and it’s now worth nearly $500k.
My career now is generally a higher valued one than theirs, but adjusting for inflation, my pay has always been lower than theirs at the same point in their careers. And that’s the story. Incomes may have doubled since the early-mid 90s, but everything else has tripled or quadrupled.
I guess the rough reality is that some people want to live where their family lives but can’t easily afford it. I don’t know how far you need to live from SF for prices to return to reality, but I suspect it’s a 1h+ drive
I’d love to see this as a paycheck breakdown. Unless you have a history of debt, a huge house, or like 8 kids I don’t see how it’s not possible to do at least moderately well on 150k/y
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At least in CA where the property tax is 1%, last time I fed the info into one of those calculators a few months ago, a 1.2m house (exactly the type you describe) with a standard 20% down-payment would run closer to $8k/mo with good credit. That includes property tax and homeowners insurance, which is required to get a loan.
So yeah, that doesn’t leave a whole lot to live off of.
There’s also the upkeep cost for repairs and to renovate.
We’ve let our gutters stay broken for several years now because we just can’t afford to get them fixed. We had to have an emergency repair to our heat pump yesterday and that’s going to be hundreds of dollars out of pocket. We’re on a single income. My wife gets paid well (not $150,000 a year well) and our mortgage is low, but we’re barely making it.
$150k is twice what my parents made combined back in the 90s, and they lived a solid upper middle class life in an upscale suburb of a small city. Always had a nice TV and my dad and I both had PCs that we upgraded every year AND they saved up two years worth of college for me. Amazing how quickly things have changed. They bought their house for $180k and it’s now worth nearly $500k.
My career now is generally a higher valued one than theirs, but adjusting for inflation, my pay has always been lower than theirs at the same point in their careers. And that’s the story. Incomes may have doubled since the early-mid 90s, but everything else has tripled or quadrupled.
Inflation has doubled since 1999 so I’m not sure what your point is
Isn’t a mortgage as high as your whole salary for 10 years unwise from the get go?
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I guess the rough reality is that some people want to live where their family lives but can’t easily afford it. I don’t know how far you need to live from SF for prices to return to reality, but I suspect it’s a 1h+ drive
Bay area
Yeah I could see 150k being poverty level there.
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