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Americans with six-figure incomes are in 'survival mode'
(www.usatoday.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don't have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn't get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn't go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
And all these rich jerks saying if you stop paying for streaming services you'll be rich too
Don't forget about my one $7.70 coffee per week. That's what is the issue.
What vehicle insurance do you have that is 260 a month in insurance? I have two cars both fully insured and I am paying 800 a year TOTAL.
My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife's old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
AH, 3 cars would do it. I saw you mentioned the WRX which I know is a "risky" car. But I was like, dang I haven't had those prices since I was a 19 year old with an accident on record.
Yeah, clean record for 8+ years I am older than 35. Its gotta partially be the area. We got a homeowners insurance quote on one of the houses we looked at, regular house, $400k price, they wanted $16k per year in homeowners insurance... Not in a flood zone, no historical damage, no extra risk factors.
I was explaining this to my neighbor on a fixed income, that it costs over $6k a month to run my household, she looked genuinely confused for a second as she runs her life on about 1/30th that cash. What's awful is we're still going in the hole and I'm just using my 403(b) to collect my employer match so I can cash it out regularly and pay off expenses. So no savings is occurring.
Your house is too big and you own too many cars
The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
I won't argue on the house, I will also say I don't really care. We aren't strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
Its real easy to say "your house is too big' without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
Yeah, I saw that $30k for a car and immediately dismissed everything this person said. I've never in my life paid more than $8k for a vehicle.
I'm just impressed by the groceries. Our family spends twice that much but boys do eat a lot.
Dude my boys are 6 and 9 and they eat like I did when I was 16-19 and a lineman.
Idk where it goes.
My kids are young but yeah, that cost is going up with groceries and them growing. Its impressive how quick you can eat money.