what is your average yearly income (after taxes)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULLpy_WyJds

Here, it's a circle, not a box.

Not enough, obv.

I appreciate the coward’s option

apologies for not including a negative dollars option

Between $30K and $40K

just taking the opportunity to give a big THUMBS DOWN to all ilxors who make more money than me. greedy fux0rz

between $40k and $50k USD

oh i mean $30k and 40k USD (misread the bit about taxes)

are we doing individual or household income?

Simon saith: 'also we're talking individual income not "household income".'

IRS sting operation

In collaboration with the CRA.

lol ooops

xxp

its a moot point bc i make 4 billion dollars from ppl streaming pics of my ass on the net

In collaboration with the CRA.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 4:00 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the CRA actually owe me this year because of being able to write-off work from home expenses. not that i have actually bothered to mail in my taxes yet (i am locked out of my CRA account lol)

my after tax income is b/w 40-50k but i accidentally voted before tax income so ignore me 4ever bc i cant read (im a teacher)

lol

if I had gone with household income my number would not have changed

Never enough.

Hmm how do i account for the mandatory occupational pension deductions and should i ratio for US/Ireland gnp or w/e?

I clicked as seemed appropriate anyway

I can't even remember the last time I thought about my after-tax yearly income. I stopped receiving physical paystubs ages ago.

Why after taxes? That’s not how I keep score.

lol income

LOL I'm so poor. Not that I'm bothered about it tbh.

user Left obtains all goods and services through expropriation from the ruling classes

I would consider that income

I was between 30 and 40 but I just recently received the biggest raise I've gotten in decades.

(Spoiler: I am still between 30 and 40, sad lol.)

Just checked exchange rate and i undershot by a bracket €€€€€

Hours worked per week is where the euros will really clean up.

like other ppl, i didnt read that it was meant to be after tax :( :(

these errors will be noted

xxp (to myself) Hours worked per week poll

Between 40k and 50k after taxes. Yet it disappears fast

i live off the state i hate it's awesome

not really but fuck a career

high 20s but sometimes bonuses and things bump it up so I rounded up to 30-40, that's the american dream baby 😎

After a lifetime in which my household income hovered between wholly inadequate to barely adequate, I'm gobsmacked to admit our annual income has somehow jumped up to around $75,000 after taxes. If it were just up to me, I'd be giving away about 20% of that, but at least I have recently convinced my wife to give away a bit more than 10%.

It feels to me like we can live like royalty on something like $55,000 to $60,000/year, since we have no mortgage. Having money to burn feels weird. I'm used to clipping coupons, scanning ads for bargains, and wearing out clothes until they're frayed and stained.

I fucked up and voted my household income instead of my own

I am 50-60k

between my inability to remember my own salary, taxes, and pretax contributions, i have no fucking idea

Yeah, I guessed. I don’t really get why the question was for post-tax. Don’t people usually think of salaries in pre-tax terms? They do in the UK, anyway.

Post tax 40-50. Pre tax 50-60. Converted from £. Household income pre tax jumps to circa 80. If my wife worked full time it would double as we work at the same place and are on the same salary band.

My business fell off a cliff post-Brexit/this lockdown. Voted 10-20 but honestly could be less atm. Have put more back in to try and turn it around though

That sucks. I hope it works out ok.

Don’t people usually think of salaries in pre-tax terms? They do in the UK, anyway.

It's less depressing that way.

Income should probably be declared in terms of how much walkin' around money we have after are financial responsibilities are deducted. Under those terms, I'm at least a solid hundredaire.

are our, jesus christ

Every week or..

"what's your allowance?" will be next

Let's put it this way: having a savings account is a distant memory.

sorry to hear that a hoy hoy, hope things start looking up

In income terms, it's low, hovering fractionally beneath the UK tax threshold. But in asset terms, everything's fine.

oh if we are doing net worth we are very very negative

worth more dead than alive territory

let's save everyone some sanity and leave net worth out of this

Won’t the ILX CEO get suspicious if we start comparing salaries?

He's embroiled in a scandal rn iirc

Wait, Ned's embroiled in what?

He fuckin knows *what*

He is a Raggetteer

I refer all questions to my lawyer.

Before I lost my teaching job, between 35-40k USD with modest benefits

Now, if I teach the same amount at the same institution only without the full time job status or any job security at all: $14k USD/yr and 0 benefits

Grim!

jesus

beyond grim, please don't let it crush your spirit

I'm sorry, La Lechera! It really sucks to lose a university job and they're like, "Hey, you can always adjunct!" knowing full well how shitty that is. I have friends who have had the same thing happen this year, after working for years to claw their way up from adjunct status to something tenure-track.

I'm in a slightly similar position, I guess; I adjuncted for years, then switched to secondary, had one year of being paid between 60 and 70k, then a year of part-time where I was back to making about 13k/year, but hoping for better things in the future, and then surprise! I just got laid off yesterday. Normally I would automatically get a contract for next year, but the district is overstaffed in my subject, and I'm a recent hire, so I'm back to the job hunt.

Teaching is, indeed, grim.

:( my teacher people

Yeah it blows. I’ve been wondering why I’m dragging my ass getting my foot in the door at other institutions and realized it’s because at best I’m inviting them to exploit me; at worst I keep going back for more abuse from a different institution. The students are always the best part but they can’t pay me more or offer me any security — that’s up to the institution, which cannot be relied on for anything. It’s not healthy. I want a different job in spite of being demonstrably good at this one. My spirit is still recovering tbh.

<3

It's crazy to think that an academic institution literally charges someone 4x as much per year to attend as it pays one if its instructors. I can't think of a parallel absurdity in any other field.

Academic pay structures are deeply effed, but I must be missing your point because there are countless examples of extremely low-paid jobs where you produce or sell expensive commodities?

Sure, I guess there just aren't many industries where you have that kind of stark one-to-one comparison of a person paying annually vs the salary of the person teaching them. Like in a private high school, each teacher presumably makes more than the kids' families are paying in tuition. Obv all industries exploit the difference between what they pay people and what they make, but that seems like a particularly stark example if only for how transparent it is made by the comparison.

Between $30K and $40K

― John Cooper of Christian rock band Skillet (map), Tuesday, May 11, 2021 11:14 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

just taking the opportunity to give a big THUMBS DOWN to all ilxors who make more money than me. greedy fux0rz

― eisimpleir (crüt), Tuesday, May 11, 2021 11:25 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't know if this was aimed at me but if so, 1) grow the fuck up and 2), in any case, this thread makes me realize there are more ilxors in my bracket than i thought, and that in a few cases there are people dealing with clearly more fucked-up job situations than i am. it makes me feel not-alone and i wish i could actually do something more substantial than hurt six-figure-earners' feelings, like start making inroads wrt solidarity in the interest of making them pay for higher wages :).

I think crüt was joeking

That was my assumption as well.

i respectfully withdraw my ire and apologize to crut then.

need some sort of hostility-correction glasses these days or something

The fuck you say about my glasses? (thrusts shoulders at map like a hulkamaniac)

Yeah it blows. I’ve been wondering why I’m dragging my ass getting my foot in the door at other institutions and realized it’s because at best I’m inviting them to exploit me; at worst I keep going back for more abuse from a different institution. The students are always the best part but they can’t pay me more or offer me any security — that’s up to the institution, which cannot be relied on for anything. It’s not healthy. I want a different job in spite of being demonstrably good at this one. My spirit is still recovering tbh.

I'm so sorry. And the students, for the most part, have no idea how exploited most university instructors are; they tend to think you're a professor so you must have it good. (Which I think is part of the point man alive was making). I used to take a little class time at the end of the semester to tell my students I was an adjunct and explain what that meant, because otherwise they wouldn't know.

Much love and sympathy to all who've been negatively impacted by this stupid pandemic. I try to be conscious of how lucky I've been to have fallen ass-backwards into a job that I could continue to do unabated while the world shut down, as I'm definitely in the minority among the people I know (we have been a single-income household for the past year, for example). I like to think of it as some sort of karmic wheel finally turning in my favor after way too many years of selling books and plasma and living in severely precarious situations. The wheel will turn for you, too!

I try to be conscious of how lucky I've been to have fallen ass-backwards into a job that I could continue to do unabated while the world shut down

yeah this is why I volunteer as much as I can, I got incredibly lucky w my current role and there is absolutely no good reason for it

With the exception of this and my previous job, there's no other job I've had that I would've been able to do during the pandemic. And given the nature of my previous workplace, I probably would've been laid off. It's just pure damn luck that I'm working atm.

yeah same, at my previous two companies, respectively 1. they stopped paying everyone but hoped we'd stay on anyway, 2. 70+ people out of 500 were just laid off and I expect there are more to come.

Sorry I’m not down w that analogy of the karmic wheel AT ALL

obviously it sucks to lose a job, and i'm glad i can pay my bills and take a little vacation every two months right now, but i'm over feeling lucky about it tbh.

Sorry I’m not down w that analogy of the karmic wheel AT ALL

not sure I understand the nature of the offense. I live with and around people who have to worry about a bunch of shit I don't, seems silly to pretend otherwise? and karma was not invoked, by me anyway?

The bummer thing about being laid off after a year of being extremely part time (not by choice) is that I can expect to get hardly anything from unemployment.

I'm happy for everyone here who's employed and making a living wage; that's a rare enough combo these days that I'm glad some people still have it.

i'm really sorry lily and i hope things improve for you soon

Simon, La Lechera was referring to an OL post above

Sorry Simon I’m on my phone — was referring to Old Lunch’s post where he mentioned the wheels of karma.

This whole thread is asking for hurt feelings tbh — I’m really sad about my situation and it doesn’t feel good to be here.

sorry LL.

xp Thanks, map. I'm actually doing okay for now. I have an irrational Micawber-ish conviction that something will turn up, and my parents are doing fine so I have a family safety net in case of emergencies, so really I'm very lucky. But it is a bit frustrating that I am fully qualified for the job I want to do and also very good at it, and it's not even generally considered to be a good or attractive job, and yet it remains somehow just out of reach.

<3 LL & Lily. If you'll allow this bit of cliché, the system really is fucked.

I also just want to say I'm sorry if this thread concept dredges up any bad feelings for anyone, my general sense is that compensation being somewhat taboo to talk about largely just benefits bosses/companies/industries but I also get that it's loaded as hell

I'm at about $28,400 (20,232 GBP to be precise). It was a little less but I was promoted a few months ago. I usually pick up a few extra hours working one weekend a month which gives me about an extra 90 quid per month; this might push me over into the next bracket but as deems notes pension contributions more than cancel that out in terms of net pay, so I think the honest vote is 20-30K.

It sucks. I am doing OK (largely due to living in social housing & having no dependents) but I never feel very secure. Everything is getting more expensive, my bills have p much doubled this year; a fifth of my income goes toward paying off massive debts (mostly incurred when I was working a retail job and paying exorbitant private rents) which should be paid off by the time I'm 40. I have been able to work through the pandemic but it and Brexit have had an effect on my sector & there have been layoffs at my company. To be honest I think about money all the fucking time, I am constantly anxiously checking my banking app and trying to figure out ways to save. & I know this level of precarity (or much worse!) is just "normal"

I agree with simon on the whole that this sort of thing should be discussed more, though it can certainly be fraught.

i know the feeling of constantly checking my account and thinking about money all the time. or that feeling of "i don't get paid for a week so how am i going to do this." i also agree that this is an important topic.

I retrained to be a teacher 6 years ago (I'm mid-40s) and have just about reached parity with what I was earning before (working in marketing) which is mid/late $30K-ish after tax. My wife is a part-time maternity worker and we've got 2 teenaged kids and a mortgage. It's been a prick of a year; we've both been working in the thick of it, our jobs are secure and we're OK. Skint broadly, and in fear-inducing amounts of debt, but OK.

10-20k in USD, low 20k in CAD. grad skool. wish i made more but i have a good life and no dependents or health care costs and share a room with my gf

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow at the turnout.

time to redistribute the ILX wealth

Update on the teaching bullshit from earlier in the thread: not only were people in my subject area (French) laid off by the district, so were people in English, which I've been trying to get into. So any jobs that open up in English will be offered to laid-off English teachers before I can even apply for them. (Makes sense, and I'd be grateful for that if I were a recently laid off English teacher, but man does this hiring season suck.)

sorry for my glib post upthread, it was definitely a joke but i regretted it pretty much immediately after posting b/c i know this is a sensitive topic

Just short of $19,000 this year, including the $4,500 I got from unemployment. I was working pretty much through the pandemic, except for the few weeks I was on partial unemployment after changing clients after having a panic attack because of her mental and emotional abuse.

16 on over $150k, now I’m curious to see the breakdown of that. Are there any ilxors earning 1mil+?

wow buncha moneybags around here (although poll doesn't cover the important matter of bennies)

Deducting costs tbh

ILXors on over 150k, please assuage your guilt by venmo-ing 5% to Christine and LL and others upthread.

It’s the banner ads.

I suspect at least 2-3 of the 150kers misread and enterend household income, but I'm still surprised! interesting results

Still vastly overpaid for ppl who can’t read simple instructions

Lol I entered my household income instead of individual, which puts me in an even lower bracket

monetizing ILX has made a select few of us extremely wealthy

Every time someone says “tbh” “imo” “iirc” on ilx i get a nickel. Shopping for an even bigger mansion this weekend

Yeah, choosing the 'pay by the shitpost' option has been a real windfall for yrs truly

I did not vote, but I do live off the $LAND dividend

No real surprise that by and large it’s people on the lower end who are happy to divulge their income on this thread. Not saying embarrassment at being poor is less a thing than embarrassment at being rich, but it reveals itself in different contexts.

We can't all be leno, humbly reminding everybody that we don't spend the Tonight Show money.

Over $150 after taxes is pretty large. It has to be tech, or ilx has 10 anesthesiologists, posting in that moment they wait for the drugs to hit.

Or 10 people missed the 'after taxes' and 'individual' parts. Would be painful to work this out. You can't multiply your paycheck by 12 or 24 bc 'after taxes' excludes the other deductions. So, yeah, bennies.

It’s been 40-50k for years, individual and household both, although it should soon go up now that my wife is embarking on a new career, only to plummet again unless I find a long-term position in my field in the next couple of years (spoiler: I won’t). Nearly all of my friends bought a place before the local housing market went haywire and I expect we won’t be able to maybe ever. On the plus side, we’re debt-free (cheap tuition ftw) and don’t have any additional mouths to feed (for now?). I’m fine with the amount we have tbh, I just want a modicum of stability doing something I don’t hate.

I guess you need to estimate an effective tax rate for 401k contributions? If people added that $19k back as income, it isn't really 'after tax'.

I'm not even sure how to do a post-tax calculation because I'm married and we pay everything together but we're taxed at different rates because I'm self-employed, so it's kind of hard to tease out. I guess about $50k after tax at the moment. It's been both higher and lower than that at various points in the past decade. A metric I've tried to use — especially as I continue to get older — is that I like to make more than my age (in thousands of dollars). I've managed that I think every year but one since I was 26. I imagine there will be a point where it's not true anymore, but I'd prefer that to not be until I'm on Social Security.

(And for that metric I mean gross income, not net.)

I didn't vote because I didn't want to have to bother to look up my after-tax income, but it is almost certainly in the $50-60K range. My wife makes a fair bit more than that.

the question is worded awkwardly for those of us that are partly or entirely self-employed. Like if we're writing off part of our rent/mortgage, phone, internet, transportation, health insurance we pay for ourselves, etc. ... and the pre-tax retirement contributions are another good point.

I knew there'd be blind spots and there are a couple of 'em. no one in my life is self-employed so it plain old didn't occur to me :/

I'm pretty surprised at the turnout and how few ppl voted for the non-voting option tho!

no one in my life is self-employed so it plain old didn't occur to me :/

whoa!!! what a strange life you have!

no argument there

The question is weirdly worded for anybody tbh

Also i just remembered i got 15k tax "back" this year to buy a house so id need to revise again tbh

it's quite likely I overstated my income due to the tax factor

there's also employee stock purchasing programs. have to add your discount into this minus the tax you pay on income from that discount.

All these incremental adjustments are vital to calculate if you are filing your tax return. Not so much when estimating your income to the nearest $10,000 for an anonymous ilx poll.

yeah I kinda figured ppl would guesstimate

there's also employee stock purchasing programs. have to add your discount into this minus the tax you pay on income from that discount.

ESPP's are like the altered zones of stock compensation, RSUs are what's on trend now

forgot to vote.
been out of work for 3.5 years now, so no actual income, but get a small but manageable pension from BH that allowed me to decide how to live.
i decided to be a stay at home dad for the last stretch for mk2 before he buggers off to university.
no fancy car/holiday etc, but no stress either.

anyway, I assumed that the wording referred to "take home pay" and the taxes in question also included social security and medicare withholding. So, for someone who is self-employed, the take home pay is going to be higher than for an employee in some respects.

I didn't actually vote either as it's varied so much over the last few years I couldn't figure out what answer would make sense. Average is kind of meaningless when one year you make 50k+ after taxes and the next year you're unemployed.

Over $150 after taxes is pretty large. It has to be tech, or ilx has 10 anesthesiologists, posting in that moment they wait for the drugs to hit.

― If you value Vox, we have an axe (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, May 20, 2021 7:30 AM (four hours ago

uhhhh not really that large ... depending on where you live. Also you are assuming that the income is entirely from work, when plenty of people have income from other sources. ... Sorry, I've just spent the last month immersed in other people's financial documents.

Yeah, during the very brief bout of freelancing I did ages ago, I was all $_$ when I saw that first check.

It would be intersting to see how this all shakes out when other factors are taken into account. Do you live somewhere with a higher or lower standard of living? Do you have to drive for your job? Do you have dependents? Health issues? Own or rent? etc. Two incomes of the same dollar amount are likely to mean wildly different things depending.

you guys should join the Census

everyone just upload your tax docs & credit report

Over $150 after taxes is pretty large. It has to be tech, or ilx has 10 anesthesiologists, posting in that moment they wait for the drugs to hit.

― If you value Vox, we have an axe (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, May 20, 2021 7:30 AM (four hours ago

uhhhh not really that large ... depending on where you live. Also you are assuming that the income is entirely from work, when plenty of people have income from other sources. ... Sorry, I've just spent the last month immersed in other people's financial documents.

― sarahell, Thursday, May 20, 2021 3:08 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

$150k after taxes would probably put you in the 96th or 97th percentile of income, so...that's pretty large?

Sure, but sarahell and OL speak truth: an income that would be lavish for a hermit in Tulsa might be decidedly less so for a family in NY, SF, DC, etc.

I know we're talking individual net rather than household gross, but still: in my area, a family of four with a mortgage and two cars might be comfortable at $150K, but would probably fall short of sybaritic Hefnerian luxury.

Looks like about 18% of US households have pre-tax income > 150K. Post-tax for individuals, it's harder to find numbers for.

household

as an individual i live in sybaritic Hefnerian luxury, but as a household i'd say we're just comfortable

For the first time in my life, I don't actively worry (although there are times when it gets tight and I passively worry) about whether I'll be able to pay one or more of my monthly expenses. Which is huge. But I'm still generally a paycheck or two away from complete financial collapse, lol, 🤷‍♂️

if you make $12,500 per month after tax and live in a 1 million dollar house refinanced to current rates, you have $9,234 per month to pay for your non-mortgage shit. Say you pay $1,234 per month for various insurances, you still have about $2,000 per week for groceries, gardeners, transportation, palomas, etc.

Lots of peeps are "a paycheck or two away from complete financial collapse." It goes without saying that under those conditions it's very hard to have any cushion for emergencies, or any savings for future needs like college or retirement. Or for anti-zombie sprays, given the likely Mad Max-style apocalyptic hellscape that is our inevitable future

good luck ilx

i have enough money to stay afloat for six months if something *knock on wood* happens, and I have a good credit score and open credit, but I've definitely damaged my future a little taking care of my folks (not talking about what I'm doing right now, but the years of them borrowing money from me back to 1999).

but I'm in a better boat than most people I know so I just suck it up.

(that was clumsily worded - I mean I recognize that I was fortunate to be in this position and just grateful for that so I don't dwell on it too much)

i have no credit (my credit card has a $300 canadian limit), i probably wouldn't get approved for any substantial loan, and no savings. i live paycheck to paycheck. my credit card is currently maxed out and i have nothing in the bank (i get paid tomorrow).

i have no debt at least.

whenever i try to assemble savings it is slow going and then they get wiped out by taking the cat to the vet or going home to scotland on vacation

if you make $12,500 per month after tax and live in a 1 million dollar house refinanced to current rates, you have $9,234 per month to pay for your non-mortgage shit. Say you pay $1,234 per month for various insurances, you still have about $2,000 per week for groceries, gardeners, transportation, palomas, etc.

― If you value Vox, we have an axe (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, May 20, 2021 1:51 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago)

whaaaaat??? okay, first off, did you buy the house for $1 million or do you live in a state where property taxes are based on the current value of the house? (i.e. you don't live in California in a house that you've lived in for like 20 years or more). The property taxes are gonna be kinda steep. Secondly, in order to have that dope ass job (we are assuming that this hypothetical person makes this much at a job as opposed to working as a public school teacher and owning a rental house they inherited from their grandmother or working at an animal shelter while making $100k off of investment income from a trust fund) ... let's say that this person had to go to college, and grad school, and has a lot of student loan debt. ...

forgot about those property taxes. you still have $1750 per week if not saving for retirement. Student loans are difficult to estimate. If you are a doctor, they could be high, but you generally get more favorable rates, terms, or an associated benefit from employer.

Okay ... I am getting far too deeply invested in this hypothetical example ... it was way more rewarding when I was devoting this much energy to the dark gritty reboot of Leave it to Beaver with the secret Nazis and amphetamine-dealing bikers

I just want the person making $150k after taxes to feel good about it. I hate when people who are doing really well convince themselves that they've somehow lost.

xp student loans are more likely to be high for someone in a non-science field. Think lawyers or tenured humanities professors

maybe they've estranged themselves from their only daughter by working long hours. how do we assign a USD to that? there are too many variables.

seriously though -- there could be a huge difference of what the starting figure was before taxes. Years ago, I had a client that made $100k a year from tax-exempt bond interest. I had another client who published a magazine that suddenly got popular and this client also made $100k that year. Client 1 paid no taxes. Client 2 paid like $35k in taxes.

xxp i do not feel bad for lawyers making >$150k after taxes because they have large student loans. or I at least want to know what kind of law they practice before i decide to feel bad for them. a tenured humanities prof making >$150k after taxes per year would be a real all star in their field, so i'll shake their hand off and then feel about that before I worry about their student loans.

xp i don't get the point, as we are talking about having $150k 'after taxes'.

Client 2 isn't an actual person, but a composite of several clients I've had that have been self-employed, had a sudden rise in income and didn't do much in the way of "tax planning"

xp the point is that someone can have $150k after taxes and not have to work for it? The client with the $100k of tax-exempt bond interest had a very leisurely life.

Still though, I don't mean to be an apologist for people who net $150k a year, because, fuck, some of them are cops that get paid crazy overtime to kill black kids so ...

my point is having $150k after taxes is still pretty cool. and you don't have to feel bad about it just because someone's grandpa or grandma started a cardboard box company, and now they don't need to work as hard for their $150k.

Id imagine that the 150k in america, with a few kids, medical insurances, property taxes and student debt, doesnt stretch as far as a third of that amount earned by someone without kids in a first world country

that is absolutely true. but then we don't have to eat jellied eels.

Wouldnt know one if it mounted me m8

no, i won't fall for this old trick. they tell us about the jellied eels here. that's why i'll never leave.

darragh isn't bri'ish, bruv

the key phrase is "without kids" tbh

someone should start a poll for ilx parents about how much they pay/ (or paid but in current value $$) for daycare

I am not qualified but that would be interesting

mine was $1100 before she was in school
then $600 for after school care

Didn’t vote, but with just my income, gross pay - fed taxes - social security - Medicare - state taxes - dental - medical - flex dependent care/healthcare contributions - retirement contributions = about $71K a year. Wife approximately the same.

Childcare was around $4k last year. But it was a weird year that started with just paying for before/after school care, then no care from March to September, thanks pandemic, to employer subsidized nanny share when virtual school started in the fall.

No effin way am I going to post my income...it's embarrassing.

But when I read that some of y'alls are making 40G, I could have cried...shit, that was my salary sixteen years ago, and it wasn't enough.

Fuck Trump. May the goose get fat now that we've righted the ship.

I should say that 1100 & 600 was monthly

We spend about $400 a week for day care, that's a bargain (relatively speaking).

bye bye palomas

we spent about $800 per week for in home care for 2 kids during the pandemic. thankfully they've moved on to pre-school and kindergarten, so it's dropped to around $300 per week.

xp if you make $150k after taxes and need childcare you can definitely still afford some tequila blanco and some grapefruit jarritos

Alas palomas

i am in my 40s and got my first ever credit card about 18 months ago. i make good money but was always just terrified of credit card debt after seeing so many of my peers get caught in its fiendish tendrils in their 20s. i recently had my credit limit increased from 300 to 500 and it still feels INSANE to me to be able to buy something without paying for it right then & there. even though i rationally understand that i am obligated to pay for it later, my stomach still does flip-flops when i leave the store and i have this giddy feeling like "i cant believe i'm actually getting away with this"

we spent about $800 per week for in home care for 2 kids during the pandemic.

That's where the welfare state really comes into its own. I had my child in France and childcare was basically paid for by the state. There were many bureaucratic hurdles to jump, and it was very difficult to find reliable childcare, but once all that was in place, we paid 120 euros a month for 9-5 childcare and the state covered the rest. Absolutely couldn't have afforded it otherwise.

I think we spending about $700 a week on childcare. With my wife freelancing and having to chase up being paid for it, we rely on a combination of savings, credit cards and hope that we’ll not end up worse off for one of us not staying doing full-time childcare. But I feel relatively comfortable nonetheless.

come fall we'll be spending about $1100/week on childcare and that's for only 3 days

Compared with others on this thread, I’m mean. Don’t feel much more comfortable than I’ve felt previously in my life.

Xpost

I mean, not “I’m mean”! Though that too, probably.

Oh y'know, I was looking at the childcare costs all wrong because I was comparing it to my paycheck, except I get paid every two weeks so it turns out that y'all are actually paying out more than I make so I would quite literally be on welfare if I were in your shoes.

What is this world even

I mean, not “I’m mean”! Though that too, probably.

Is that the British definition of mean or the US one?

lol assuming vote is not total fuckinwitu, american politics threads make "sense"

oops i typed week not month back there.

Is that the British definition of mean or the US one?

Have to say, until this moment I thought of mean streets meaning “harsh, unforgiving streets”, even though I was aware of the shabby definition.

I don't 3 is very commonly meant in the UK. It's either used as stingy, or as unkind.

the mean streets. You know, just your average streets.

lol

Yeah, 3 feels quite archaic to me. “All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands” is what it makes me think of. Xpost

i didn't vote but i have 1000000000 pounds sterling

man's got bare coinage!

I don't 3 is very commonly meant in the UK. It's either used as stingy, or as unkind.

I think it's mostly stingy? Whereas in the US it's mostly (entirely?) unkind? So "Mean Mr. Mustard" is about a miser not a nasty person. But, yes, I suppose both are used in the UK.

When we had the boys in daycare, it was costing us something like $600/week. Then their preschool program cost something like $850/month. Putting them in pre-K and only paying for school lunch was such a relief.

Now we live in different states and I have to spend $1K to see them

I have friends whose annual expenses for day care are what other friends make in a year. (ranging from $15k - $22k)

i am in my 40s and got my first ever credit card about 18 months ago.

god I wish I were you. I'm hitting 50 next year and we have been saddled with anywhere from 5k to 65k of credit card debt since our 20's, chiseling away a bit year over year only have something else come and blow it up. Miraculously the pandemic has been pretty good to us financially and I am within a few months of paying it all off and having NONE. Even reducing it down to 10k has been such an incredible mental relief.

i have so many credit cards it's pathetic. most i'm not using but too many that i am

I had a credit card for about a year, 20 years ago, never had one since.

I have one credit card, but I never use it for any purchases I can't pay off in full on the next statement. I'll be damned if I will pay a bank one cent in fees or interest for the privilege of letting them rake their 2% profits right off the top from the businesses I buy from. Blood suckers!

I've had a credit card that I pay off in full every month since I was 18. For a few years after studying I built up a few £k debt just on living costs and took ages to repay it on entry level wages - thankfully never had to do that again. It's useful having a credit card - in the UK you get extra protection (from businesses going bust etc) if you pay for a purchase/part of it on credit card, plus you get a piddling amount of cashback too.

Was paying £900 a month for nursery 3x days a week, for 2 years before I went back on mat leave and then decided against going back to work - cost was one aspect. We're using a cheaper (and less suited to work hours) pre-school now. Once the child is 3 you get quite a bit subsidised but it can still cost a hefty chunk as the nurseries need to make up the loss from the govt funding the bare minimum.

xp yeah i only got my credit card to try and improve my credit in advance of buying a house. i had never checked my credit before, and was amazed to discover that i had a bad score, i guess due to a paucity of data. my score went up a bunch after 7 or 8 months of buying a couple records every month and paying it off immediately. it feels bizarre and deeply stupid to think that me doing that gave anyone any kind of insight into whether i'd be responsible enough to carry a 6-figure loan, but so it goes.

If I could go back and never get a credit card I would. Undiagnosed ADHD and easily accessable credit, it turns out, is a recipe for disaster. I eventually managed to rack up about £14k worth of debt on credit cards, and had a wage nowhere near high enough to pay it all off.

At the worst point I was just shifting debt from one to another card every month. The best move I made was to throw it all into a consolidated loan, close all the credit accounts completely and pay off a fixed amount every month.

In reply to the thread topic, I've managed to work up to above £40k doing data work over the last 5 years, but I've not seen the benefits yet as the lions share has been paying off the debt pit as fast as I can.

I'm bizarrely grateful for the last year of lockdown as in 2 months time I will be debt free for the first time in a veeery long time, and not being able to do anything or go anywhere has sped things up massively.

xxp - I honestly don't care if the credit card company rakes 2% profits off of such community-minded people-centered businesses like the phone company and PG&E and the corporate software manufacturers I pay in order to make my work/life more efficient.

I have two credit cards: one business and one personal. Because of the nature of my work, I have significant annual expenses in December and January and I will carry a balance for a month for cash flow reasons, but pay off the balance in full every other month. If you have a business only card in the U.S., you can actually deduct any finance charges or fees as a business expense. It's hilarious to me that my credit score is "excellent" but on paper I make like $20k a year.

I'll be damned if I will pay a bank one cent in fees or interest for the privilege of letting them rake their 2% profits right off the top from the businesses I buy from. Blood suckers!

It depends on the merchant account agreement with the business, actually. Some are paying less than 2%, others pay more. Debit card transactions are like maybe .3% less to process? Otherwise you are looking at cash -- and then those businesses have to deal with cash: tracking it, counting it accurately, depositing it, making sure people don't steal it ... like, there is actually a significant labor savings to businesses by having people pay with credit cards.

I'm mostly happy with my lot and my wage (personal, household) but do get a stab of 'what if?' when I see how much other people earn. That said, I find most of the talk of (admittedly US-centric) finances on here incomprehensible and I guess my ignorance and my wages are fairly closely related.

When I try to be objective about it, I work 50 hour weeks but get 13 weeks holiday a year, excellent sick pay and I'll have a decent pension at the end of it. This will do.

My debt is all mortgage - around £125K. Neither I nor my partner have much credit card debt (mine's about £120 at the moment). We've got fuck all savings like.

I have a good amount of savings ... that is being saved so I can get a mortgage ... LOL

Hahaha. Swings and roundabouts. I should say that the only reason we could afford a mortgage is parents. Both sets said 'well, you might as well have it while we're around'. We're lucky in that regard.

Fuck knows how you'd build an instrument to measure all this stuff.

thread is vaguely worrisome to me for some reason I understand nothing of this stuff. me with a credit card is a terrifying idea. having a house or career or kids or investments to deal with is never gonna happen which I'm extremely relieved & bitter about. my "income" is way under $10k-equivalent but I'm not even an adult according to the council which helps w rent & tax at least. in many ways I'm prob a lot more stable than many ppl w actual jobs & decent salaries (that is until the DWP decides I need to die again) which is a weird position to be in & I'm v confused about where I stand. fuck I hate this grownup financial shit its somehow boring & confusing & terrifying all at once

it's not so terrifying, i earn up to $12 in credit card points every month

I'll be damned if I will pay a bank one cent in fees or interest for the privilege of letting them rake their 2% profits right off the top from the businesses I buy from. Blood suckers!

It depends on the merchant account agreement with the business, actually. Some are paying less than 2%, others pay more. Debit card transactions are like maybe .3% less to process? Otherwise you are looking at cash -- and then those businesses have to deal with cash: tracking it, counting it accurately, depositing it, making sure people don't steal it ... like, there is actually a significant labor savings to businesses by having people pay with credit cards.

― sarahell, Friday, May 21, 2021 2:04 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Some like to say consumers collectively pay for the rewards offered by the various cards. The idea is you need to play the game and get a card yourself to take that money back. But this is a good argument against that idea. I suppose a truly small business might not pay labor for handling cash troubles. They might raise prices even though cards are convenient and offer new efficiency that could be turned into larger profit.

ha, "relieved and bitter" is coincidentally how I feel about finally, at 34, having a supposed "career" job

I'm sort of in the same fragile benefits scum category as Left, always waiting for the axe to fall on me again and pleasantly surprised when it doesn't but mostly drifting between anxiety and fuck it what's the point worrying. I still can't get it out of my system I was one number short of winning £35 mill on Tuesday night and I had that number on my other line. But then again fuck money tbh.

it's not so terrifying, i earn up to $12 in credit card points every month

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Friday, May 21, 2021 3:11 PM (one hour ago)

I sometimes reminisce about the days when I had a day job where we had to buy a bunch of supplies, and I would put them on my credit card, have the job reimburse me, and then get like $25 a month or so in cash rewards. I get $25/month with my basic personal spending. Kinda resent not being able to pay rent via credit card so I could get cash rewards.

Last year I got just over $2300 from credit card cash back, from four cards. I think that included one sign up bonus.

I only got a credit card like 3 years ago. I always found them a bit scary myself tbh

fuck I hate this grownup financial shit its somehow boring & confusing & terrifying all at once

My eyes glaze over when anything financial hoves into view tbh.

recently I read something about Big Bank call centres phoning customers, not to call in debts or inform customers their overdraft extension has been turned down.. no .. just to have a friendly chat with you.

this will not be eye-opening for anyone but I had to get a credit card because my credit score was so bad because I didn't have a credit card. I put some big purchases on it, paid most of it off, then set a direct debit so I will pay it all off before the 0% introductory offer ends, and now I have a good credit score. Fucking bullshit imo.

I already had to do this once. I couldn't get a mobile phone in 2000 because I didn't have a credit card

calzino if you remember what that was I'd like to read it

Just heard a @HalifaxBank advert where they boasted that they'd phoned 250,000 customers 'just for a natter and a catchup'. Can you imagine anything worse? Now looking at what the early repayment charges on my mortgage are so I can avoid being their next victim.

— Pete Williams (@PeteWilliams) November 19, 2020

it was just a single tweet and not much to read at all, but still horrific reading

they rang me around that time and I was quite rudely asking them to get to the point and they said you've got nothing to worry about here and I was like I'm not really worried - I just don't have much of a desire to continue this fucking conversation.

My eyes glaze over when anything financial hoves into view tbh.

there is actually a significant labor savings to businesses by having people pay with credit cards.

which is why I don't object to businesses paying a small fee when I use my debit card or credit card. as for the commercial banks who process those transactions, they set that fee high enough that they are raking in hundreds of millions in profits every quarter. it's all extremely lucrative and essentially risk free, in light of the massive interest they charge for carrying a balance and the heavy penalties they levy for struggling to meet minimum payments.

Last year I got just over $2300 from credit card cash back, from four cards. I think that included one sign up bonus.

I also got a sign up bonus on a card early last year, after I used it to buy plane tickets for my family. Then COVID happened, and my hours got cut down at work, so I took the CC points as cash. Then the plane tickets got canceled so I got the refund but my acct showed an ominous negative point balance. I canceled the card expecting to have to repay the points, likely more than I got back as cash, but was shocked when they closed it no questions asked. Would recommend this strategy

not too hard to figure out who the >150k ers are based on occupation and city of residence

as for the commercial banks who process those transactions, they set that fee high enough that they are raking in hundreds of millions in profits every quarter. it's all extremely lucrative and essentially risk free, in light of the massive interest they charge for carrying a balance and the heavy penalties they levy for struggling to meet minimum payments.

yes, this is the apex of capitalism ... if you hate it so, why do you tend to be so condescending to leftist ilxors who share this opinion?

Go fuck yourself

xp that q was loaded to ensure your own opinion is conveyed, but no self-respecting person would answer it. making it, almost, shall I say it?

Who needs to fuck themselves

what, in this economy?!

my opinion based on at least half a dozen other ilxors calling you out for the same thing?

you're asking me? I should think you'd be better informed about that.

what is happening now, who is fucking themselves and why

Aimless posts in a voice that is consistent between posts that agree or disagree with leftist ilxors.

Perhaps Aimless should be re-monikered "Pointless"

Ok, so there's some other thread then

I was hesitant at first, but I'll cop to being one of the people in the top bracket, which I'm sure some people have guessed anyway. I've only been there a few years - I didn't go to law school until 7 years after I finished college, and even after law school I didn't have high-paying jobs in the early years. I can vouch for the fact that, yeah, it makes a big difference to your quality of life and peace of mind as long as you aren't an idiot about it (i.e. don't spend all the way up to your income increases). IDK if money buys "happiness" but it can definitely buy OK-ness. A lot of life's stresses can be reduced by money, that's what I've learned, and conversely it's only more clear to me how much stress can result from not having it.

All that said, I think with a stronger safety net (eg universal healthcare) and without that particularly American sense of fear of falling, I would be fine with much less. I don't really care about nice cars (one of ours is still a 10yo scratched up honda), I don't really like to travel, I don't enjoy high-end restaurants much, I don't golf or play tennis, I'm find with the many parts of my house that are "not updated." After peace of mind, time is the biggest luxury and I'm always happier when I can be with my kids or play guitar than I am doing anything that costs money.

There was some research a while ago that said increased income was correlated with increased happiness up to about £60k a year ($85k) and after that there was no discernible link. But guessing that figure must vary across different economies. I also remember something about the biggest factor after a certain point wasn't how much you were earning but how much you were earning in comparison to what you thought your friends and neighbours were earning.

i'm not rich but let's just say my mental health improved leaps and bounds when I suddenly didn't have to worry about my bills. and the one period in 2011 where I was temporarily cash short, old, lingering anxieties came rushing back immediately.

this is why people give me shit when I worry about costs of things ("come the fuck on, Rob, you have money to do this!"), which offends me cos it's like....after my folks basically wiped themselves out and depended on me and my bro for years, how is it bad that I want to prevent that?

as it stands I am on pace to retire with as little as they have, I just plan to die in my mid-50s

#mygeneration

xxp - inherited wealth (or poverty) is a real factor that I think it's good that people are talking about more. Like, income is only part of the picture -- the other part is assets and liabilities. Do you (or the old people you stand to inherit from) have real estate valued at more than the debt owed on it? Is there money in bonds, stocks, etc. that you might get like $40 a year in "income" from, but could be liquidated for a lot more? Money in the dozen or so types of tax-deferred retirement savings accounts that exist now?

idk most of my clients are in their 20s - 40s and like, for the most part, I can tell whether their parents/families are affluent or not based on the adult child's tax documents.

, I don't golf or play tennis,

i recently started playing tennis recently its super fun also basically free if u play at public courts, recommended

There was some research a while ago that said increased income was correlated with increased happiness up to about £60k a year ($85k)

There was a follow on to this that found that happiness continues increasing (which is 100% unsurprising IMO, hopping between your ski chalet and your beach house is fun).

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118

spitballing but I'd imagine that unhappiness levels off at that lower range (where you're probably not living in fear day to day) while happiness continues increasing well into the millions

If I had several million dollars I’d definitely be at least a little bit happier

i recently started playing tennis recently its super fun also basically free if u play at public courts, recommended

And don't they have public golf courses in the US?

Oh god, dont

whenever I cut through my local tennis/cricket/bowling club it seems like a very cliquey and forbidding place and I often have some fun "you staring at me, fucker?" competitions if anyone is there. They have a sign up at the Tennis Courts: "Playing is better than spectating, give it a try!" but I'd imagine it's not as inclusive as that if you aren't somewhere on the gammony white-van driving yeomanry to outright posh motherfucker Tory spectrum. lol Theresa May held a press conference in the clubhouse during the 2017 GE campaign.

And don't they have public golf courses in the US?

Plenty of room for both over there.

Yes, they should be replaced with housing.

Slight disagree. Public courses should be kept, it's the private golf clubs that should be razed for housing first.

Any golf course within city limits is an affront, pretty much benefits the fewest people per square mile per year or whatever of any conceivable land use.

and every mini-golf course, a mini-affront

Minigolf is good

you can't host the countywide high school cross country championship at a mini-golf course, can you? can you!?

I like playing Golf Rival on my phone, but I only want to play real golf if the golf club is actually a gun and the ball is a golf-nazi.

i want a mat and one of those big nets to hit into. i don't know how to play, but that sounds relaxing. playing golf badly out in the open where everyone can see me? and paying for it? no thanks.

golf should be simulated. played within a small square in each player's garden. everybody has a garden because of the affordable housing that replaced golf courses.

Golden Tee on Twitch will replace professional irl golf

Like most sports and games, golf is way better if you don't keep score. /controp

Any golf course within city limits is an affront, pretty much benefits the fewest people per square mile per year or whatever of any conceivable land use.

― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Thursday, May 27, 2021 8:35 AM (five hours ago)

OTM ... I hate golf; I don't really want to play lacrosse either tho

should be replaced with mini lacrosse

so sick and tired of this golf/lax false dilemma way of thinking

Chuck the golf ball down the fairway with a lacrosse stick if you want to!

One of my fondest and most hilarious memories is walking with my best friend and her ancient mad scientist dad on our local municipal golf course and N’s dad kept picking up golf balls and handing them to us. Minutes later, confused golfers appeared looking for them.

I should try that

You have to make sure you’re not actually taking them from the green, but instead take the ones hit into the rough because terrible golfers are easily confused. N wound up taking up golf so as not to be excluded from career stuff by preppy decision makers who’d decide everything in the clubhouse the weekend before meetings, if you get me.

ah, yet another terrible facet of the game

I'd imagine it's not as inclusive as that if you aren't somewhere on the gammony white-van driving yeomanry to outright posh motherfucker Tory spectrum

im not on this spectrum, still like tennis, don’t really find it exclusive i just play w my friends and occasionally doubles w strangers

i played tennis as a teenager; there was a public court at the public elementary school near my house. The equipment needed isn't expensive ... like it didn't cost any more than the bowling ball with my name engraved on it ... if we want to talk about sports with opposing class alignments.

Still though, my high school team always lost to Monterey High (perhaps the most affluent school in our league). Monterey High also played matches against other schools on the Peninsula including Carmel High and some of the private schools (e.g. Robert Louis Stevenson), and would regularly lose to those two schools, which were even more affluent than Monterey High.

bowling ball with my name engraved on it ...

way to out yourself as gammony white-van driving yeomanry

oi mate!

things youd be glad to be irish about, reading back, in order:

- not having to performatively hate golf
- the price of health insurance