4 people who earn six figures and still feel broke

[jacob]

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ti ... 46862.html

"To most working class families, a six-figure salary may seem like the antidote to all financial troubles. But earning more doesn’t necessarily confer superior financial management skills, and even high-earners find that it’s shockingly easy to fall into one particularly nefarious debt trap — living beyond one’s means."

[theanimal]

Initially, I thought that more financial education would fix this type of problem. But I realized that change usually happens on a personal level, not as a result of someone telling you what to do. The consumer culture has too strong a grip on most Americans. These types of stories are just going to continue to happen and I don't feel sorry for them one bit.

[lilacorchid]

" 'All of our disposable income is going toward the cost of our wedding at this point.' "

I could cry.

[jennypenny]

I shouldn't be, but I'm really shocked by the size of the student loan debt. That one woman's monthly payment on her student loan was $2500. That our entire budget for the month for five people (except for tuition).

[Seneca]

I shouldn't be, but I'm really shocked by the size of the student loan debt. That one woman's monthly payment on her student loan was $2500. That our entire budget for the month for five people (except for tuition).

Not all that uncommon anymore, fortunately for some of these people they found their hope. We were pretty close, and we sounded just like them at first. You learn to keep it to yourself, although it is fairly acceptable water cooler conversation in some places. Middle class whining about cost of living in the Bay Area is sport, like doing the same for cold in Minneapolis.

[dot_com_vet]

There's a fine line between a high savings rate and spending it all. A few bad decisions and you're stuck. They seem to have paid around $500k for that house, ouch!

[jacob]

Yeah, I must admit I don't feel a whole lot of sorriness anymore either. You'd think such struggles are due to accidents or a single dumb decision, but once they're resolved, it's straight back to creating the same kind of problem once again. Over and over. Since I refuse to believe that people deliberately create their own train wrecks---maybe I'm so so very very wrong here---maybe it's that most people just like to complain and they're comfortable with such struggling.

So who am I to tell them otherwise? After all, Morlock cat can haz Eloi burger, right?

[jennypenny]

I see the student loan debt a little differently. Not necessarily the law school debt, because she was a little older, but the others. Why are 18yo kids allowed to commit to over $100K in debt that can't ever be discharged? Are they really capable of making that decision? Plus, they have to resist every adult in the room telling them it's 'good' debt. If most adults can't resist the lure of easy money, it doesn't surprise me that kids can't in that situation.

The rest of it is just a pity party.

[Chad]

I don't have much sympathy either. I have a little...just a little for the student loan debt, but even that has had a fair amount of discussion on the 6 o'clock news. 100k or more is plenty to live debt free on, except for a house.

It also bothers me that no one ever questions anyone for having kids. It shouldn't be considered a right, as much as it should be considered a privilege. Just because you want kids doesn't mean you should have them. You have to be able to take care of them. Being one paycheck away from being destitute is not taking care of them.

[Ego]

EDIT: Moved....

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4699

[Seneca]

Yeah, I must admit I don't feel a whole lot of sorriness anymore either. You'd think such struggles are due to accidents or a single dumb decision, but once they're resolved, it's straight back to creating the same kind of problem once again. Over and over. Since I refuse to believe that people deliberately create their own train wrecks---maybe I'm so so very very wrong here---maybe it's that most people just like to complain and they're comfortable with such struggling.

So who am I to tell them otherwise? After all, Morlock cat can haz Eloi burger, right?

Actually, you are exactly the right person to tell them, but perfectly the wrong person to empathize.

You and MMM basically ERE'd on accident. This is not to say you didn't make deliberate choices to reduce consumption and pour gas on your savings rate, but you guys both got much or most of the way there on accident or in part due to other activism (environmentalism).

Ego actually touched on it and started another thread with "wealth addiction", but the middle class is no less addicted, they're just less able to make the news doing it because it is so normal. Most of us grow up immersed in that culture and with role models from it, and will only FIRE with much continued diligence to fight both our childhood conditioning and the omnipotent messaging from the whole culture. The government even pays us to go in debt to consume more for crying out loud.

[Felix]

I've started reading that Wealth Addiction book referenced in Ego's article. It states that the really wealthier people (Heavy Addicts in the book - Forbes 500 level) are actually more addicted than the middle class, which is why they are able to amass more wealth that anyone could reasonably spend, even by the highest middle class standards, ironically, even to their own detriment - being an addiction and all, sacrificing friends, family, other interests to the single-minded pursuit of the accumulation of money with the interesting additional feature of making sure other people get less.

The book notes that wealth adoration seems to have been spread in our culture as a sort of rationalization mechanism of massive addiction-fueled accumulation.