Anyone ever get a raise of more than $20,000/year? What did you do with all the extra money? How much did you change your lifestyle? How quickly did you adapt to the new lifestyle? Were you ultimately happier?
Anyone ever get a raise of more than $20,000/year? What did you do with all the extra money? How much did you change your lifestyle? How quickly did you adapt to the new lifestyle? Were you ultimately happier?
Got out of debt!
no need to flex wrote:
Anyone ever get a raise of more than $20,000/year? What did you do with all the extra money? How much did you change your lifestyle? How quickly did you adapt to the new lifestyle? Were you ultimately happier?
Yes.
It’s not that much after taxes and 401k contribution.
Subtle changes like eat out more, do a house project, take a slightly nicer vacation.
Adapt almost immediately. Suddenly your monthly expenses are close to your income.
Hard to quantify - certainly having more money reduces some stressors. So you are happier from that perspective. But stuff won’t make you happy.
2016 I got a year end bonus of $76,485.
Blew most of it in Vegas and blow, but still had enough to go to Pattaya, Thailand and bang 3 different bar girls each day for 2 weeks.
I put money aside to pay for:
1. Global warming
2. Medicare for all, including illegals
3. Free abortions
4. Free gender reassignment surgery
5. Free childcare
6. Student loan forgiveness
7. Others I can’t remember
I need to start thinking of how to contribute for universal basic income too
I got a raise of about $20,000 in my mid 20s, which was an increase in salary of more than 50% for me. It changed my life dramatically even though I didn't really change much. I did get a "new" car since mine was on its last leg anyway, which was really nice and did boost my confidence as I went from driving a beater to a nice slightly used car, and I did have a little fun by going out more, but I didn't go crazy or anything and didn't make any radical changes. I continued to live in the same simple apartment and kept having a roommate. My monthly expenditures probably only rose by $300-350/month (including my car payment), so I was saving a TON of money. I continued living like that and grew my net worth to about $120,000 in 5 years. Now I'm pulling in more than $10,000/year passively from my investments. I figure I'll keep this up another couple years until I'm pulling over $30,000/year passively from my investments, then I'll stop contributing so much (if anything). I don't really know what I'm going to do with the money then since it will mean an effective "raise" of over $40,000/year.
I know people who make significantly more money than I do yet still live paycheck to paycheck. I have no idea wtf they do with their money (burn it? throw it out the window while driving?), but it's bizarre to me given I SAVE $15,000-20,000 every year. Whatever.
When I was 40, I got a promotion to an executive level which came with a $100,000 salary raise plus a higher bonus which is usually good for another $100,000 per year. I immediately changed my payroll deductions so that most of it is dumped into my 401(k) and another similar type of account where the company matches a percentage of contributions. I really hadn’t done much to save for retirement up until then, so now I’m rapidly fixing that mistake.
Save save save wrote:
When I was 40, I got a promotion to an executive level which came with a $100,000 salary raise plus a higher bonus which is usually good for another $100,000 per year. I immediately changed my payroll deductions so that most of it is dumped into my 401(k) and another similar type of account where the company matches a percentage of contributions. I really hadn’t done much to save for retirement up until then, so now I’m rapidly fixing that mistake.
“Most”? The max you can contribute to a 401k is 19k (25k if over 50).
Minimalist guy wrote:
I got a raise of about $20,000 in my mid 20s, which was an increase in salary of more than 50% for me. It changed my life dramatically even though I didn't really change much. I did get a "new" car since mine was on its last leg anyway, which was really nice and did boost my confidence as I went from driving a beater to a nice slightly used car, and I did have a little fun by going out more, but I didn't go crazy or anything and didn't make any radical changes. I continued to live in the same simple apartment and kept having a roommate. My monthly expenditures probably only rose by $300-350/month (including my car payment), so I was saving a TON of money. I continued living like that and grew my net worth to about $120,000 in 5 years. Now I'm pulling in more than $10,000/year passively from my investments. I figure I'll keep this up another couple years until I'm pulling over $30,000/year passively from my investments, then I'll stop contributing so much (if anything). I don't really know what I'm going to do with the money then since it will mean an effective "raise" of over $40,000/year.
I know people who make significantly more money than I do yet still live paycheck to paycheck. I have no idea wtf they do with their money (burn it? throw it out the window while driving?), but it's bizarre to me given I SAVE $15,000-20,000 every year. Whatever.
I re-read this and wanted to clarify something. When I said it changed my life despite me not changing much, I mean that it changed my mental state. I no longer worried about money AT ALL, felt confident and good about myself since I was making more than all my friends at the time, even my friends who were older and had more formal academic credentials, and all but laughed at every paycheck I got because of how much it seemed like compared to what I had been making. It, along with the new job, also elevated my self-image and made me realize I am at a certain level of ability and competence, that this is what I'm worth. It felt like I was valued and appreciated, which is always a nice feeling.
So even though my spending habits didn't change much, the pay raise still changed my life for the better.
Our combined income has risen steadily over the past 11 years from 60k in 2008 to about 160k now.
We have bought two (used) cars with cash. One was $15k (2015 cmax with 30k miles) and the other was $18k, tacoma with 40k miles.
Our mortgage with insurance and taxes is about 2k per month. Groceries are about 700 per month. Eating out is rare, about 200 per month.
Point is, it was affordable on 60k a year with a few bucks saved. We havent increased our expenses, instead we took 6 months off to travel, plan to do the same thing again in about 5 years. We save and invest the rest, target retirement is around 55.
If our income were to suddenly shoot up more (I'm helping a relative start a business, so it is possible, but I'm doing that mostly just to help a relative), I won't change anything, it would just mean taking another half year travelling sooner, or retiring even earlier.
I'm happy with my middle class lifestyle. If somebody gave me 10 million today, sure, I'd probably buy a different house, but only because I want a few acres, the exact same house on property would suit me fine. Then I'd pocket the other 9 million and use it to retire now and volunteer somewhere a few days a week.
20k isnt life changing at all. most gets eaten up by taxes and the rest usually gets frittered away on "lifestyle creep"