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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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I know this is going to go against the "everything is terrible" narrative. But unpopular opinion - these people are just dumb. If you are making 150k per year and struggling to pay your bills, then that is your own fault. Live somewhere cheaper. Buy a cheaper car and learn to do your own repairs and maintenance. Cook your own food. Dont rack up credit card debt. And dont have kids if you can't afford them.
I'm sure some people in the comments will all be like "no, no, you dont understand - it's impossible to save money even at $150k incomes!" Bullshit! There are people who manage to get by on minimum wage. Or on $50k per year. Or hell, on $100k per year. I managed to retire at 31 and never broke the six figure mark. Now, I'm a cheap bastard and basically dedicated my life for 8 years to giving my cubical the middle finger - but if it is possible for me to do that, then yes, it is completely possible for people making $150k to not go deep into debt. It is absurd that I have to not only say this, but defend it against delusional doomers who just want to say that literally everything is hopeless and no one can ever get ahead.
Yeah, no. You know all the brand spanking new lifted pavement-princess pickups you see everywhere? Those were bought on credit. You know how DoorDash and McDonalds continue being profitable despite being absurdly expensive these days? They can do that because people keep paying them! Or the shopping malls that continue churning out shit fast fashion clothing that will disintegrate in 6 hours? Lots of them are packed on the weekends!
Straight up: outside of some very unusual circumstances, if you are bringing in $150k and still can't keep up with your bills, You. Are. A. Dumbass.
@blarghly @miss_demeanour This kind of animosity within the working classes (including the relatively privileged middle class) is exactly what the oligarchs want. If you're busy casting aspersions at couples earning $75k each in New York City who probably don't own a car much less a pavement princess and are struggling to
keep up with the bills their parents were easily able to afford, you're looking away from how a handful of billionaires are dismantling the country and trashing the planet.
I don't think the oligarchs even think about us that much.
Anyway, you are doing the thing where you make up a sympathetic scenario to excuse people for being terrible at personal finance. I'm not saying outliers don't exist. And I'm not saying that increased income inequality and the diminishment of the middle class isn't a problem. I'm just saying, jesus fucking christ, admit when people could improve their circumstances by just making better choices.
You say you spent 8 years sub six figures to retire at 31. Can you list your savings rate and what you live on now? Did you just directly build a large nest egg or did you get lucky with investments?
Id like to give your advice its due, but if you were able to randomly retire because you gambled and bought $1k of bitcoin in 2012 and held it till 2020, it may not be that correlated to most peoples lived experience.