The point is not to chill and just burn through the savings and not work. How would having that much money saved, change the way you look for jobs?
The point is not to chill and just burn through the savings and not work. How would having that much money saved, change the way you look for jobs?
Or maybe they have a family with kids, they live in an expensive part of town, but moving is not an option due to job constraints, or maybe the kids are going to school there and moving would be disruptive. Maybe that area didn’t use to be so expensive 10 years ago. They need cars, not 80k cars, but large enough to haul said family around, cause maybe public transportation sucks where they live (ahem*LA*cough). Heck, maybe they bought those cars in cash, no payments, but gas, insurance & maintenance (maybe they’re old cars) are killing them. Car prices are too expensive to get a new car, so they keep spending 1000s in repairs instead. Maybe a hurricane, strong winds or just normal wear and tear made their house roof leak, thats $20k right there, ask me how I know.
Also, a 600k house is cheap and almost impossible to find in California, for example. No, moving to Texas is not an option, thanks.
Edit: the example above is hypothetical, not my current situation, but based on my experience.
Those are all things you can scale back on. People who make less certainly are forced to. Not that they’re not entitled to live there, my point is I don’t feel bad at all that they’re claiming to live paycheck to paycheck, because they have the option to not be.
There is no definition of being wealthy that does not include people that make $120k/year.
You are richer than 80% of the country at that point. Lots of people have families in high COL cities and live on significantly less money than that.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles
I literally spent $24k on home repairs this summer, and I just pay it in payments, and I make 6 figures. No normal person pays this in cash, outright.
My roof replacement a few years back was $8k covered by home insurance.