More than half of Americans earning more than $100,000 a year say they're living paycheck to paycheck, according to a report from PYMNTS and LendingClub. This may be a result of a sneaky behavioral phenomenon called lifestyle creep, which is when a person's spending habits expand as their income rises. The rise in the cost of living complicates matters, as incomes have not kept up with inflation. Watch the video above to learn more about why Americans struggle to keep money in their pockets.
Is there a non video answer for those of us who prefer text?
Anyway. I remember talking about lifestyle inflation with a coworker a couple years ago. I said I could probably squeak by on $50k/year*. We were both guys living alone at the time.
He was like “how?? Like, you need at least $1000/month for food alone.”
I said, what? How are you spending that much? I budgeted for $300 but I’d likely hit half that with some effort.
He was like “Well you go out to dinner, you buy drinks for your friends, it adds up”
“You don’t go out for dinner that much when you’re on a budget”, I said. “Or buy rounds of drinks.”
“Oh,” he said. “I guess not, huh.”
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I did have to make a rule in relationships to not discuss finances because it would cause me pain. Like one person in particular was a great person, but they never made a budget and were always in debt. And they’d be like “I’m going to go to California to visit friends for a week”. Killing me. You don’t have the money for that. Every dollar you spend on this enterprise is more like 2 because it’s carried on credit card debt. But I learned to keep it to myself because no one wants unsolicited advice, and it is cruel for our system to deny people fundamentals like seeing friends and family while others have mega yachts.
* This is heavily predicated on me not having any outstanding debt, which is unusual I think. I never carried credit card debt, but my student loans were only a few hundred a month and I’m old enough they’re paid off now. If I had $500/mo in debt I think $60k could squeeze by. It’s possible I messed up my math, though.
My wife and I have been together for almost 20 years and we almost never talk about finances. She has her own bank account, and her own money, and I have my own bank account and my own money. We have a joint account that we both have auto transfers into on paydays to cover our joint household bills. I make more than her, so I contribute more to the bills, so that we have about the same amount of money after everything is paid. Then that’s it! She doesn’t need to ask me or talk to me before buying something she wants, and visa-versa. I even bought a car once and didn’t talk to her about it. She was excited when I brought it home. I highly suggest this accounting method for couples. I’ve been in a relationship before where we had all our money as a single household pool, and it fucking sucked! We were always arguing about things we each wanted. Anyways, the point is that it’s not only not impossible to be in a committed relationship without talking about money, it’s probably actually the preferred method (at least it is for us).
I agree with this, it seems like the best solution to me.
I think where this gets tricky is with kids and retirement.
How would you address that? If you’ve got more saved for retirement does that mean you would retire early while she is still working? How does the household budget work when she isn’t working because she just had a kid? I guess you’d just contribute the full budget?
She always worked, so I never had to answer the kid question. That does get tricky. As far as retirement goes, that’s also something we haven’t had to think about yet. We both max out our retirement contributions, and save some extra money on the side. I’m older, so I probably will retire a few years earlier, assuming either of us are ever even able to retire. Social Security retirement age will probably be raised to 100 by the time we’re retirement age. It’s a conversation we’ve had a couple of times, but never very seriously. I know we’re both treating it seriously though, so there’s that.
Is there a non video answer for those of us who prefer text?
Anyway. I remember talking about lifestyle inflation with a coworker a couple years ago. I said I could probably squeak by on $50k/year*. We were both guys living alone at the time.
He was like “how?? Like, you need at least $1000/month for food alone.”
I said, what? How are you spending that much? I budgeted for $300 but I’d likely hit half that with some effort.
He was like “Well you go out to dinner, you buy drinks for your friends, it adds up”
“You don’t go out for dinner that much when you’re on a budget”, I said. “Or buy rounds of drinks.”
“Oh,” he said. “I guess not, huh.”
–
I did have to make a rule in relationships to not discuss finances because it would cause me pain. Like one person in particular was a great person, but they never made a budget and were always in debt. And they’d be like “I’m going to go to California to visit friends for a week”. Killing me. You don’t have the money for that. Every dollar you spend on this enterprise is more like 2 because it’s carried on credit card debt. But I learned to keep it to myself because no one wants unsolicited advice, and it is cruel for our system to deny people fundamentals like seeing friends and family while others have mega yachts.
*This is heavily predicated on me not having any outstanding debt, which is unusual I think. I never carried credit card debt, but my student loans were only a few hundred a month and I’m old enough they’re paid off now. If I had $500/mo in debt I think $60k could squeeze by. It’s possible I messed up my math, though.it’s impossible to be in a relationship and not discuss finance unless you just straight up do not intend to be in any committed relationships.
the easier way is to not be in relationships that you’re not financially compatible.
My wife and I have been together for almost 20 years and we almost never talk about finances. She has her own bank account, and her own money, and I have my own bank account and my own money. We have a joint account that we both have auto transfers into on paydays to cover our joint household bills. I make more than her, so I contribute more to the bills, so that we have about the same amount of money after everything is paid. Then that’s it! She doesn’t need to ask me or talk to me before buying something she wants, and visa-versa. I even bought a car once and didn’t talk to her about it. She was excited when I brought it home. I highly suggest this accounting method for couples. I’ve been in a relationship before where we had all our money as a single household pool, and it fucking sucked! We were always arguing about things we each wanted. Anyways, the point is that it’s not only not impossible to be in a committed relationship without talking about money, it’s probably actually the preferred method (at least it is for us).
I agree with this, it seems like the best solution to me.
I think where this gets tricky is with kids and retirement.
How would you address that? If you’ve got more saved for retirement does that mean you would retire early while she is still working? How does the household budget work when she isn’t working because she just had a kid? I guess you’d just contribute the full budget?
She always worked, so I never had to answer the kid question. That does get tricky. As far as retirement goes, that’s also something we haven’t had to think about yet. We both max out our retirement contributions, and save some extra money on the side. I’m older, so I probably will retire a few years earlier, assuming either of us are ever even able to retire. Social Security retirement age will probably be raised to 100 by the time we’re retirement age. It’s a conversation we’ve had a couple of times, but never very seriously. I know we’re both treating it seriously though, so there’s that.