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Even households earning $150,000 a year are struggling with credit card and car payments
(www.cbsnews.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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Lifestyle inflation.
People are really, really good at spending all their money, then living paycheck to paycheck with their BMW and too-many-sqft house payment.
Nah, it's just regular inflation and companies not paying anyone what they deserve. Even people making 200k aren't getting paid what they deserve, which sounds insane to most people, but it's true. 150k doesn't even buy you what used to be a medium quality of life in the 90s, and especially not any earlier than that. Reminder that 200k household income does not put someone in the 1%, it puts them more in the top 15-10%. It's the top 1% that can be accused of lifestyle inflation, everyone else is just trying to reclaim a decent quality of life in exchange for their lifetime of soul-crushing labor. 150k sounds like a ton: It really isn't. Even 200k sounds like a ton: it really isn't.
Do you know a lot of people making $150-200k a year?
I do. 3,500sqft+ home, $80-100k truck(too many with a pristine bed) and luxury SUV or 2x luxury SUV on lease, often a boat or camper, some with vacation property, most with maid service, lots of door dash and rideshare, 2-3 kids, 1-2 foreign vacations a year(usually Mexico with a Europe trip every 5 years), etc.
Income creep is a huge financial problem. If they lived like they made half that, they would be so much better off. They like to live their lives keeping up with the Joneses on Insta and it is dumb as fuck.
I do know a lot of people making over 150k, three of them live in 800 square foot apartments (not luxury apartments), one of them splits a 2200 sqft house with four other people, one couple lives in a mediocre 1900 sqft house with one 12 year old car and 1 new car. None of them have any children, all of them go on 1-2 foreign vacations a year. None of them own cars over 40k MSRP. All of them wish they could save more for retirement, all of them are afraid of medical costs in old age. None of them are posting their glamour on Instagram and none of them care much about social media in the first place.
All these people are certainly living better than my friends who make less money, I won't deny that! But my point is that they're not rich and it's pretty upsetting that just because most people are super super super underpaid they get resentful towards people who are merely underpaid and attribute their financial struggles to irresponsibility. It's the same icky narrative that the actual wealthy people have pushed for decades to get people to look down upon poor people. You're right, my 150k+ income friends could live with greater financial comfort if they changed their lifestyle to match my 50k income friends, but it wouldn't be enough extra that they could retire before 60 anyways, it wouldn't be enough extra that they could not have to worry about medical bills when they're older, it wouldn't be enough to let them afford the houses they actually want, or fix things around the house when they break, etc etc etc. So that's why people "irresponsibly" go on vacations or buy themselves nice things, discretional spending coming out to probably 10-20k per year. That isn't enough to make a bigger better difference in their lives if put somewhere else.
I just don't like to see condescension and judgement directed at the financial habits of anyone making under, like, 400k. Of course, there are people at ALL income levels who spend their money on stupid junk, I know plenty of people like that too. But most people are not like that, and the narrative that they are is a harmful one that turns the bottom 99% on each other.
P.S: Yes, I live somewhere with a fairly high cost of living. But as I mentioned in another comment, this doesn't disqualify the relevance of what I'm saying, because most people making over 150k are living in a HCOL area.
It's not condescending to consider what works and doesn't work when your means are constrained.
Unless they're paying child support or making a deliberate lifestyle choice, there's no compelling reason for someone earning $150k-plus to be house-sharing.
You're judging people without knowing their plight
When I made a 160k a year now where it went! Medical bills, rent and food
Now fuck off of with the judgemental shit
No you don't lol.
That's highly dependent on your location.
Yeah, that's a true and good point. But at the same time, I bet most households making over 150k are households in locations where it's not a lot (That's why their salaries are what they are). Like, out of the households making 150-300k, how many of them are in NYC and the Bay Area alone? Probably a shockingly large percentage.