What would you do with a $124,000 Annual Salary

You and your wife are selfish. You shouldn't have children if your attitude is that your wife would be unhappy spending all of her time with the children. And you shouldn't have 3 children if you are paying off large student loans. Sounds like had you waited another 3-5 years to have children and paid off the student loans, your wife could stay home and your total monthly expenses would only be $3200. So $124k is a lot of money.

Thank You. I make $50k, have 2 reliable vehicles, 3 kids and no debt. We go to the movies, take a vacation, we are not poor. When you refuse to use credit for everything, (anything) it is amazing what you can do when you keep your money instead of giving it away to banks and corporations.

Selfish Brats wrote:

You and your wife are selfish. You shouldn't have children if your attitude is that your wife would be unhappy spending all of her time with the children. And you shouldn't have 3 children if you are paying off large student loans. Sounds like had you waited another 3-5 years to have children and paid off the student loans, your wife could stay home and your total monthly expenses would only be $3200. So $124k is a lot of money.

Why do you care so much?

You sound like someone who doesn't have a clue about real life - probably because you're 18, or something.

Young_Guy wrote:

Something to strive for?

SO and I are at $160k combined, still in our mid 20's. Both of us work in tech in a lower-ish COL area. We rent and have roommates, and generally spend around $2500-3000/month total. We both own our cars outright and have no student loan debt. I paid mine down aggressively right out of school and was lucky that it was only $25k and my SO didn't have any debt. Even though we're doing well, we're maxing out Roth/401K/Brokerage Accounts/Employee Stock Plans so it doesn't feel like we have a lot of money because so little of it ends up in our savings/checking. We both have decent "rainy day" funds which is comforting.

Having a higher salary is nice, but living well below your means and aggressively investing will go a lot further than making $124k and living like you make $100k .

made close to that last 3 years . jobless wife, 3 kids, living in South CA, and I dont have a house. Going BK soon.

Seriously though, if I was making 6 figures a year I would buy a portion of this site. Fire the mods, put me in as the main mod.

You are correct; it's the big categories of spending that weigh most people down. It's not the occasional movie night or dinner out that breaks people. I tell my kids all the time that in order to get ahead of that, you do your hardest work early on in your work life, try to speed the path to higher income while trying to manage the outgo. You better have a good head of steam going for when the kids come along. I feel your pain on the daycare work vs. stay home debate. My wife left the work force both times we had kids. The later poster argues that if you didn't want to do that, why did you have them, should have posponed having them, etc. They don't understand; even though you love them, you need outside stimulation in your life and if you are educated and enjoy your work, you want to stay in the game. When a spouse leaves the workforce, they start over behind when they re-enter it. My own parents claim to have never had any money until we were out of college. My advice to anyone who will listen is work hard from the start. Make all the prgress you can early. Don't wait until you are 40+ to decide you need to step up your game and make more money. It will likeley cost you more to live than you currently think it will. When you have a family, you have 4+ hands in the money pot. Sure, maybe our kids don't really need straight teeth, or that shoulder sports injury repaired, or decent clothes, but we choose to do those things for them. Education? sure, why not leave them in debt, or tell them to do it on their own. Nope, I'd rather do that for them. Guys without a wife/kids just wouldn't understand....

Young_Guy wrote:

Something to strive for?

I'd ask for a substantial raise.

It not just SF and NYC. However, it does depend on your job. I'm from San Diego. If you are working HighTech in San Diego making less than 124k, then you must have just started out. Once you are 5-7 years into your career, you'll be make 125-200k (depending - how good are you, where you work, what you do).

Not all career paths are so well paid - even in SF or NYC. There is a huge range of salaries in big urban cities with a large high tech work force. Those other jobs still pay more than in your fly over states, but they won't make 124k.

Our daughter is a RN making 80-90k (she's married to someone in Tech so their combined is close to, if not over, 300k). Their doing fine.

Our son works in the insurance field making about the same. 80-90k. As a divorced man (no alimony or child support luckily) he can not afford a house without our help. Even then it's out in the sticks.

It takes two incomes for most people to live middle class lives in SoCal or NorCal. And that combined income needs to be at least 124k to afford a house.

Selfish Brats wrote:

You and your wife are selfish. You shouldn't have children if your attitude is that your wife would be unhappy spending all of her time with the children. And you shouldn't have 3 children if you are paying off large student loans. Sounds like had you waited another 3-5 years to have children and paid off the student loans, your wife could stay home and your total monthly expenses would only be $3200. So $124k is a lot of money.

We're doing fine chief. Thanks for your concern though. Sorry to trigger you.

Got to ask though, how do you feel about staying home with your children? Why put that all on your wife? Why not do it yourself if it is so selfish not to?

Old Hobby Jogger wrote:

I tell my kids all the time that in order to get ahead of that, you do your hardest work early on in your work life, try to speed the path to higher income while trying to manage the outgo.

Good advice. By your early 30's your either on the path to financial independence, or your not. Most of the better paying fields - finance, consulting, tech, medicine, law, etc. - required extensive education and age discriminate for entry level positions like crazy. Most are also snobs for educational pedigree, are "up or out" to some degree, and promote primarily from within, so very hard to break into once you are more than a few years out of school. It's also much easier to save as a 20-something with no dependents than as a 30 or 40-something with a family, and you have time + compound interest on your side.

The economic division between my age-group peers (I'm early 40's now) who hit the ground running in one of the above fields right out of college, and everyone else, is shocking. Two different worlds. The former group owns homes, takes international vacations, sends kids to private schools, drives late model cars, etc. while working fairly reasonable hours due to seniority in the workplace and the control over schedule that provides. No one I know well in this group carries significant debt beyond a mortgage and whatever is left of their student loans. The later group, who mostly worked odd jobs in their 20's before getting serious about careers in their 30's, is still years away from having a down payment for a home, drives old beaters, and also generally works longer, less predictable hours. Most have credit card and other debts.

The lesson is that you need to start early and play the long game.

I make like $8K less than that now. No kids (never will have any), currently single, no debt.

Planning responsibly for a Challenger Scat Pack!

I would have to force my kids to pay a big chunk of their college and take on student loan debt, trade in my wife's BMW and my Alfa Romeo for smallish cheap SUVs and extend my mortgage or downsize the house and give up the peace and tranquillity of my current home in the woods. I'd also be forced to lower my red wine and food standards from current levels and not have the option to retire early. Wife and I have been lucky to have our incomes grow over time to much more than 124k. This enables us to save for and pay for our 3 kids college, take nice vacations, not worry about month to month expenses and max out 401k plans so we can retire hopefully before the job grind wears us out.

I do. My wife took off the first 6 years and then we switched and I now stay home.

I'd purchase mail order bride.

Selfish brats wrote:

I do. My wife took off the first 6 years and then we switched and I now stay home.

Well good for you. Putting your money, so to speak, where your mouth is. Most men (and it’s almost exclusively men) who think that kids need a stay at home parent, also demand that the stay at home parent be the mom. How convenient for them, giving their wife the harder job and making them financially dependent at the same time.

My wife and I also split the time at home. My wife stayed home for a year with our oldest while finishing her doctorate, and I stayed home for ~9 months with our twins thanks to a program my employer at the time had which allowed for a six month, partially paid sabbatical after five years of service (I also took unpaid time to close the gap). It was a wonderful experience, but I was very glad to go back to work when it was over.

most men don't THINK children need a stay at home parent, they KNOW a child needs a stay at home parent. If you leave an infant or small child at home alone there is a very decent chance they could seriously hurt themselves or die.

Men who elect women for this role probably do so because Common Sense tells them that if it weren't for formula a woman would be that babies only means of nourishment and thus the most eligible candidate.

But your right couples shouldn't learn how to make sacrifices together. And women, shouldn't have to raise kids unless they're paid. Who wants to live in a world where not only do you have to pay for kids but you have to raise them too. A part of raising a child requires teaching that child, and that means you would actually have to know stuff. Screw that!

Id rather have my child raised by a purple haired teenage girl with her septum pierced who is constantly sucking on a vape pen like it's a thick milkshake, and whose own parents had her raised in a "daycare" that was operated out of the neighbors basement which consisted of a corral and television, whose own mother elected to send her there because the mother was too bored staying at home and wished to resume her job slanging lattes from a kiosk.

VAcoach wrote:

Thank You. I make $50k, have 2 reliable vehicles, 3 kids and no debt. We go to the movies, take a vacation, we are not poor. When you refuse to use credit for everything, (anything) it is amazing what you can do when you keep your money instead of giving it away to banks and corporations.

We all have our own perspective, and some are at a different stage in their life. I pay for everything outright except for our mortgage along your line of philosophy. But, I also do the same with our kids tuition. I have a line of credit set up but I have not used it. instead I am making an extra 80,000 per year on top of what I used to make. So I expanded my business and am making 140+ and I am not saving any of it. Fortunately, that hell ends in a couple of years.

Add a zero too that. That is poverty in NYC and I am sure homeless in SF.