• douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I mean, this depends on a lot of factors. Stop applying your own prejudice to this?

    $150/y = ~$100-110k take home

    The average monthly expenses (Living very much in your means, in an area with avg cost of living, not performing maintenance…etc) for a family of 4 is ~$101k/y

    So you have between ~ -$80/m to +$700/m in disposable income. If you start doing the necessary maintenance & long term cost amatorization of living in the U.S. (ie. Having to buy a car eventually, if you own a home replacing the roof…etc). Suddenly you’re close to negative. Meaning that when these events happen you have to cover their cost with credit card debt or some other form of debt, which means your cost of living is over time partially covered by debt.

    This also seems that you are living not surviving… Much of the US is not really living, they are simply surviving. We should not measure the bar that low for what we consider acceptable quality of living standards.

    Or, if you are in a marginally higher cost of living area that $700/m evaporates.

    Even for a single person, a HCOL area will eat way that income to the point where eating out is a monthly luxury.

    It sounds like a lot of money but depending on where you live it can be an incredibly small amount of money.