Yeah I was gonna say, I think when these people say "paycheck to paycheck" what they mean is "I don't have much liquid capital saved up so if I lost my job I'd have to liquidate some investments to make my mortgage", which would still suck mind you, but you ain't nowhere near homelessness motherfucker.

Literally this, my manager is a petite bourgeoisie hack who constantly bemoans about his tennis club fees going up ten dollars.

Meanwhile he's enthusiastically slashed my wages down to the bone, so hard im living hand and mouth and having to beg to mutual aid and food banks.

I am probably one (maybe two) bad paychecks away from being houseless.

My dad made the upper end of five figures most of his life, so not even half what these people do, and he just retired sitting quite pretty. Granted he's an accountant so very good with money, but the dude hasn't been living like a hermit either, he's got a condo 10 minutes from the beach and goes to happy hour almost every night. Honestly the main thing is he didn't spend his money on dumb shit, no sports cars or boats or Rolex's.

So I find is so bizarre these people are "struggling", cuz like my dad is pretty treated up on much less of a budget. You really don't have to live a meager lifestyle, you could totally live it up on $250k and be financially stable, you just have to have some reasonable budgeting skills.

MSM be like "wah my treats make it hard to accrue capital!!!"

i know somebody like this. technically only >$200k, but in a LCOL area. if they had any brain whatsoever, their home they bought 15+ years would be paid off, but they are an idiot. they probably started accessing a HELOC as soon as they got a letter in the mail inviting them to do so. these are the people that the financial services sector was born to screw.

they have 1 kid who is in their mid 20s and requires some assistance, but if its more than a few K a month, i would be shocked. they carry credit card debt, bafflingly. they buy new cars. they buy top of the line, state of the art, lifetime warranty equipment and gear for the hobbies they never do. a garage full of absolutely primo shit that has been used once. they buy expensive clothes. they purchase all Apple products and can barely check their email without someone telling them what to click/tap on. it's all status purchases to affect the appearance of an metropolitan sophisticate.

they are not my friend. they are a former boss of mine. if they got laid off with a month's notice, they would be in bankruptcy court inside of 90 days having to be told by a judge that they need to sell things, downsize their spending, and that they need to make early withdrawals from their retirement account and accept the tax penalties before they can file for bankruptcy.

their only hope is to make it to retirement age, because their retirement account has got to be massive at this point. and this has made them the most cowardly company man i have ever known, because they are just trying to get to the end, and accept all decrees from above like a total snake.

also, the contradiction of them just "treading water" at >$200K while being upset that the lowest paid & most essential full time employees negotiated a concession for a salary floor of $30K [because housing here is fucked].... is infuriating.

Dudes making $250,000 like "my tenants are barely covering my mortgages! Waaaah!"

Assuming it's not total BS like many of these articles ultimately are, the 1/3 (1/10) being talked about are probably people in San Fran or Boston with a high paying job but absurd housing costs, and some edge cases with self-employed people or people laundering drug proceeds and shit.

And this is why they give that avocado toast advice. Thats the advice they know helps them when expenses stack up. They simply have no concept of what paycheck to paycheck means for most people

Honestly they must be splurging on some insane shit cuz I don't make nearly that much yet I manage to put avocado on my toast pretty regularly.

I think most of these people are just house poor because they bought too fancy of a piece of real estate.

No kidding, what a hollow existence.

Wealth is wasted on the wealthy.

Still waiting on that "trickle down"

Car people are unironically cucked by their vehicles. My mom in a constant cycle of paying off debts on a shitty SUV she swaps every couple years.

250k in the USA is a little less than 170k after taxes. The various health insurances for a lot folks at that level is gonna take another 10k. With the cost of food and rent, you can't afford to buy a house with that kind of money in a single year!

Yeah, even assuming "lifestyle creep" of like 50% of my current expenses, I'd be saving over $100k/yr. Rent in SF looks to be about double what I pay currently, so knock off another $18k... still saving $80k/yr.

The most expensive thing I own is a $900 bicycle.

How old are you?

I make less than a fifth of what these people make and I still take vacations overseas and have a comfy apartment.

Now try taking care of a household with all their education and healthcare needs.

In the US, this issue is deeply rooted in cultural norms that equate living on credit with normalcy. Success and social standing are gauged by material possessions, leading people to compare themselves to their peers who also live beyond their means. As a result, there's immense pressure to maintain appearances and avoid being perceived as inferior, perpetuating an endless cycle of debt-fueled consumption and the illusion of success.

Exactly, all the people who sell their labour for a living have a common class interest.

That's not necessarily true. Global north labour aristocrats get paid higher, and in this example significantly higher, than global south proletariats because of the global system of exploitation.

Through various mechanisms of global value transfer, labour aristocrats functionality exploit the proletariat proper.

Labour aristocrats are not necessarily being robbed of their labour so much as they are part of the process of robbing others of theirs; and upset that they aren't robbing quite as much as they would like because someone else, the bourgeois proper, is more effective at the robbing.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck doesn’t necessarily mean hardship, and LendingClub makes the distinction between those can pay their bills easily and those who can’t. Only a fraction of high earners -- roughly one in ten -- reported issues covering all their household expenses in April, according to the survey.

Assuming this is remotely truthful, they may be ‘robbed’ of their labor but they’re living pretty comfortably. I don’t know how the survey was worded or whether or not these people consider themselves living “paycheck to paycheck,” but it’s pretty clear their ‘struggle’ is wildly different than that of the average wagie.

Anyone would be screwed if they lost their jobs, but if you can easily pay your bills and live a lifestyle you find comfortable and enjoyable, chances are you’ll survive temporary unemployment at a much better rate than someone who has to decide whether he should eat or skip the meal and let his dog eat.

They aren't owners with their wealth growing passively.

The article doesn’t go into detail about the specifics if their income, but you don’t need to be an owner to benefit from passive investments. You just gave to have the money to invest in the first place