Yahoo Article - How to earn $100k and still feel poor

[Duq508]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-person-earn-more-100-000-still-feel-151200753.html

Hilarious.  This family is totally clueless.  They don't even understand why they are so "poor". 

[Grigory]

*cue sad violin music*

I love the comment by somebody named Lynne right under the article: "i used to think i was rich making $26,000 a year. i put $6,000 in savings that year. of course i'm also one of those people who thinks a long walk around the lake, a bottle of turning leaf, a take out pizza, and a $1 movie rental while snuggling up to someone special on the couch by candle light equals an awesome day." :)

[shedinator]

1,000 on food, 300 car loan... Hey! I think I just found a way to double their savings :)
I give them props for taking $15,000 and using it to help their kids avoid student loan debt. Whether it's Ivy league is irrelevant, they should not feel bad about that. If they ditch the pricey cars and cut their food budget down to 80/week, after the kids leave (less than 4 years from now) they should have another 28k/year to save. Couple that with the 10k they're apparently saving already, and you're in pretty awesome shape. Still, I'd like to see their budget, as the numbers given in the article don't come close to adding up to 100k.

[menorman]

Quite honestly, they do seem to be more on the short end of a stick vs. just living wildly beyond their means. Without more details, I'd say they don't have a plethora of options. I'm guessing that their car note is equal to insurance due to multiple cars. Putting some of those cars out of action at least part of the time would chip into that gas bill a bit. I'm sure they can also redo food, because $250/person/month might be reduced to say $175/person/month and still get good healthy meals out of it comparable to what they eat now. Those two alone could free up almost $500/month in the budget, which they could then use to promptly knock out the car loan as quickly as possible. They may also just want to direct at least half of that extra $250/month they put on their mortgage toward the car instead to finish it off. If that $175 month includes internet, home phone, four cell phones, and cable TV (or even just three of those four), that also isn't a bad rate.

[sol]

If you live in a custom built home, drive a brand new car, and are paying for college educations for two of your children, then you are not poor.  If they feel poor because they don't have money to burn after burning so much money, then they need to recognize how they have prioritized their spending.  They are living high on a reasonably high income, and it comes out about a wash, as should be expected.

[Guitarist]

We bought a new car this past year so our son could earn money for college delivering pizzas.

Really? Used wouldn't have sufficed? Perhaps encourage your kid to get a different job that doesn't require driving. That perhaps pays better when you factor in wear and tear on the vehicle?

Nah.

He may need to borrow money for grad school.

*Sniffle* Poor guy *Sniffle*
{rollseyes}

[Reido]

Buying a new car to let your kid deliver pizza is absolutely hilarious!!

If they bought the cheapest new car available it would probably run 50cents/mile to drive it and he's probably driving up to 20 miles per hour on average...  meaning he's spending $10 per hour on gas and wear and tear on the car...

So he's probably working so that his family can actually become poorer.

And $15k/yr for 2 kids to go to community college??  My community colleges cost less than $5k/yr per person  and usually about $3Kish.  Odds are they're going to a not-so-well-known private college rather than a true community college.

If that's how you manage your money, no wonder $100K/yr doesn't feel like a lot.