I did when I was his age. I was making $95k in today’s dollars. I bought a house with one of my college roommates. We could barely afford the 14% mortgage with increasing payments each year. Houses in Silicon Valley were expensive even back in 1984. It was 5 bedrooms so 3 roommates and first then over a decade as guys got married or went their separate ways it went down to just me before I finally sold the place. Having roommates was the difference between struggling to make the payments and being able to enjoy life and still save money.
Having roommate saves tons of money, not just in rent, but utilities, internet, TV, pet sitters, and being able to buying stuff at Costco and not worrying about it spoiling.
I don’t understand the twitter hate for the guy. He created his own business and gives a ton charity. If you cut out the charitable giving that’s a $25K/year lifestyle in a very high cost living place.
There are several locations along the coast that have the same problem. It’s not just CA. That’s why I get a little miffed when I hear about people railing against the 100k folk as if they are super rich. The cost of a studio, not even a one bedroom but a studio in LA just blows the mind.
Also, someone who’s been given a Princeton education and is making $100k at that age already has access to financial planning resources that most people do not. Would be great to see more realistic scenarios, like this:
Maria is a single mother of two, who was struggling to get by with the proceeds from her two minimum wage jobs. After her husband passed away last year, CNBC met with Maria to help her with a realistic budget and plan for the future. (Insert detailed budget and career plan) We hope this helps others that find themselves in similar circumstances.
Wells Fargo sent me something like that too. I can’t remember the exact figure but you were supposed to call some number so they could tell you to stop spending thousands of dollars, thousands, on going out to dinner and instead replace it with some expensive meal delivery plan. The number they had in there was huge… hundreds of dollars every month just eating.
It’s not that the math is wrong… it’s the idea that any “average” American can somehow solve their problems if they just stop eating out everyday which is simply not the reality of how I imagine most families live. Food is discretionary. It’s one of the first things that gets cut and why we offer what used to be a great program to help people eat because, rents gotta be paid.
Don’t forget that you should also pay down your mortgage (if you’re even able to afford one) years ahead of schedule as well as contribute 50% of your income to an IRA for that early retirement.
Re: the hate for Romney. To quote Molly Ivins on a different-but-the-same politician, he’s one of those who were born on third base but insist on acting like they’ve hit a triple.
Yeah. People seem to have forgotten how vile Bain Capital is, which Romney helped to found. They call themselves venture capitalists, but of course their main business is vulturing, not venturing.
You see those clickbait ads all of the time for “How to pay your mortgage off super-quick!”. I’ve never clicked on one, but I’ve often wondered (if they really give any advice at all, rather than just trying to sell you a debt consolidation loan at 33% interest) just what advice they offer: quit eating?
It’s as bad as the pay detail sheet the military sends service members every year. They add all your benefits like “base golf club membership” and “monthly bowling fee” plus they inflate the medical, dental, meals, and housing so an E1 Private is making the “equivalent” of $75,000 a year. Ludicrous.
Yes. They put it all under a miscellaneous benefits heading. You have to dug into the fine print to find what it entails, but it’s basically anything a service member can access on the base for free that would normally cost money on the civilian side.
Edit: I’ll clarify that this was almost 20 years ago. Maybe they got more honest about it since then?
I assume that, like with my employer, the final number has no actual consequence. They are basically trying to convince people that their ‘real’ pay is way higher than their paychecks because they (the employer) are awesome and providing you with all this free stuff.
Well there is real pay that is not on the check. Things like medical, dental, vision, meals (if offered), disablity do count, but when you start throwing in things like golf, season tickets… it’s a different kind of dishonesty.
