Anyone feel like they're not "keeping up with the Jonses"?

[disneychrista]

We recently started maxing out the contribution limits, and, yes, it's over 50% of our income. We fortunately do not have any debt and have been able to make some changes (downsized to a much smaller home, etc) to be able to do this.

That is great that you can do that.

Since you are saying "we" I assume there are two incomes. If I had a partner who made the same/similar income as to what I do, that might be possible. I make ends meet (barely) but have had to sacrifice & make a lot changes over the last couple years.

 

[LSUmiss]

That is great that you can do that.

Since you are saying "we" I assume there are two incomes. If I had a partner who made the same/similar income as to what I do, that might be possible. I make ends meet (barely) but have had to sacrifice & make a lot changes over the last couple years.

I think this is a lot of ppl!

 

[RamblingMad]

We recently started maxing out the contribution limits, and, yes, it's over 50% of our income. We fortunately do not have any debt and have been able to make some changes (downsized to a much smaller home, etc) to be able to do this.

I save about a third to half, which I still think is crazy. My friends abroad don’t have to do this.

 

[RamblingMad]

Yep! I agree. Only works out for a select few here.

A bunch of smart people convinced everyone else that the game of Monopoly was the way to play the game. Then they got their ideas into elementary school textbooks. Blows my mind.

 

[tzolkin]

That is great that you can do that.

Since you are saying "we" I assume there are two incomes. If I had a partner who made the same/similar income as to what I do, that might be possible. I make ends meet (barely) but have had to sacrifice & make a lot changes over the last couple years.

I know it's difficult to read tone over the internet, but it seems like you were annoyed or offended by my post (that I was bragging or implying that everyone can save 50+% of their income). I was actually agreeing with you about it being difficult.

We just started being able to do this (after we added the second income) and even with the two incomes we still had to make very drastic lifestyle changes in order to be able to save that amount.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

I find it interesting that any parent of an adult child would think that their adult children are to be responsible for taking care of them in their old age. Blows my mind.

At any rate I think its tough to compare what our parents did to what we are doing. My folks, both deceased, had a totally different life than my dh and I. My dad worked, my mom stayed home. They paid 25k for their 3 bedroom, brick ranch in a nice neighborhood in 1971. I remember when my parents paid that house off. I was born in 1971 and I was a teenager when they paid it off. My dad was working class - truck driver. They had no where near the stupid crap to pay for that my dh and I do. 2 cars, car insurnace that is INSANE in MI, cable, cell phones, camper payments, etc. I work and my dh works and we make a decent wage. We both put in for our retirement - mine I really just started within the last 2 years because I always paid the healthcare out of my paycheck. I am 48. I know I won't retire when i am 62. I will continue to work past then. My dh has been with the postoffice as a electronics tech for 30 years. He could retire in 3 years at 55 but there is no way. That's too young and we still have a long ways to go. We save. Could it be more? Yep. We aren't keeping up with 1 of our friends who've done it right all these 30 years but they drank water and we drank coke. Thats the difference.

 

[disneychrista]

I know it's difficult to read tone over the internet, but it seems like you were annoyed or offended by my post

No not all. I really do think it is great. It is difficult but not impossible to save, even when you are lower income.

I lived below my means when I was making more, which then allowed me to be able to survive off making much less. But knowing that I want to save (for retirement and "fun" things too) I have had to make even more sacrifices.

 

[lifesavacation]

That is great that you can do that.

Since you are saying "we" I assume there are two incomes. If I had a partner who made the same/similar income as to what I do, that might be possible. I make ends meet (barely) but have had to sacrifice & make a lot changes over the last couple years.

Yes, having 2 incomes makes a huge difference.

 

[lifesavacation]

I find it interesting that any parent of an adult child would think that their adult children are to be responsible for taking care of them in their old age. Blows my mind.

It's bizarre to me too. When my grandmother overspent in retirement while refusing to sell assets, her daughter actually went to all the grandchildren and asked for a monthly stipend to help her. Blows my mind.

 

[StacyStrong]

It's bizarre to me too. When my grandmother overspent in retirement while refusing to sell assets, her daughter actually went to all the grandchildren and asked for a monthly stipend to help her. Blows my mind.

Expecting (and spending because you expect it) and asking for it is one thing, but I also can’t imagine letting a family member suffer when I can help.

I currently pay my grandmothers cell phone bill and have made the decision to temporarily live with in-laws in order to assist with their low incomes. It won’t be permanent, but I’m trying to help now while I can (I’m young).

 

[skyblue17]

It's hard for me to believe that retirement is even going to function like it does today in 30+ years when I am ready to retire. That alone makes it hard to prioritize saving a ton of money when I can enjoy life now. I do have a 401K, and I have the max contribution that my company matches, but that's about the extent of it for now.

I am lightly starting to consider opening a small savings account that auto-deposits a small amount each week that is set aside for expenses I may need to help my parents with as time goes on. Not even big stuff, necessarily, like longterm care, just little stuff that might pop up. They are both still healthy and still working now but who knows how things will go once they retire.

 

[RamblingMad]

It's hard for me to believe that retirement is even going to function like it does today in 30+ years when I am ready to retire. That alone makes it hard to prioritize saving a ton of money when I can enjoy life now. I do have a 401K, and I have the max contribution that my company matches, but that's about the extent of it for now.

I am lightly starting to consider opening a small savings account that auto-deposits a small amount each week that is set aside for expenses I may need to help my parents with as time goes on. Not even big stuff, necessarily, like longterm care, just little stuff that might pop up. They are both still healthy and still working now but who knows how things will go once they retire.

I thought the same thing. All that really happened was the minimum age for retirement went up and payroll taxes went up too. You only have to watch the West Wing to see how slowly things change. That show us almost 20 years old, and we have a lot of the same problems that are talked about on it including social security. Mind blown.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I find it interesting that any parent of an adult child would think that their adult children are to be responsible for taking care of them in their old age. Blows my mind.

At any rate I think its tough to compare what our parents did to what we are doing. My folks, both deceased, had a totally different life than my dh and I. My dad worked, my mom stayed home. They paid 25k for their 3 bedroom, brick ranch in a nice neighborhood in 1971. I remember when my parents paid that house off. I was born in 1971 and I was a teenager when they paid it off. My dad was working class - truck driver. They had no where near the stupid crap to pay for that my dh and I do. 2 cars, car insurnace that is INSANE in MI, cable, cell phones, camper payments, etc. I work and my dh works and we make a decent wage. We both put in for our retirement - mine I really just started within the last 2 years because I always paid the healthcare out of my paycheck. I am 48. I know I won't retire when i am 62. I will continue to work past then. My dh has been with the postoffice as a electronics tech for 30 years. He could retire in 3 years at 55 but there is no way. That's too young and we still have a long ways to go. We save. Could it be more? Yep. We aren't keeping up with 1 of our friends who've done it right all these 30 years but they drank water and we drank coke. Thats the difference.

For some it's cultural differences, the reverse of the feeling that you should give thousands of dollars to adult children to get married, join in family vacations, etc.
My feeling is I came into this world alone and that's how I'm leaving.

My older sister and I helped our mother in her later years because we knew there was some things she didn't have in her 80s and up because she had done her best providing for her children. It was difficult at times to get her to accept but with time we learned a few tricks. "It's a loan" that became a gift was a favorite underhanded manner .

The one friend I have who believed her children would care for her is now dealing with the sudden death of her oldest child ( a bizarre and incurable disease) and facing the reality of the inability of her youngest son to pick up the slack. She's spent the last 4 New Year's Eves praying that G-d (she's deeply religious) will change her circumstances. I used to tell her that G-d takes care of those who take care for themselves but no use in pulling out that old saying now since the chicks have already hatched.
All I can do now is listen and give advice on the best way to stretch her $700 odd monthly SS payment; don't go far in NYC.

There's truth in what you say about amt of bills. In today's world I'd cut off internet services in a hot minute if needed since the mantra I grew up with was a roof over your head was most important. No one needs more than two pairs of shoes or even coats; they covet more. Broke your eyeglasses? Get the glue or electric tape. Food costs high? Cook from scratch at home. We were fortunate to live in an area where no car was needed.
Don't worry/obsess about retiring at 62; that's an economic fool's game that falls right into the keeping up with the Jones mindset. Stay at least until 65 and 72 is even better since less restrictions and need to pay taxes fall into place. The way the system is set up now this makes the most sense.

 

[disykat]

I think the concept of "enjoying your money" is a pretty new one. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and airplane travel was for rich people, families shared one car, etc. etc. We weren't rich, so we didn't expect rich people things. I wasn't an adult, but from my viewpoint there wasn't a "but I deserve to have a daily cup of fancy coffee" equivalent.

I didn't work for 10 years when my kids were young. I was lucky to have the means to do so. I admit I enjoyed when I went back to work and we got cable tv, paid for some activities for the kids, took our first airplane vacation as a family, I got my first cell phone (back when you could still function without one,) we bought a second tv, etc. We didn't have those things on one income, but we did have retirement savings and an emergency fund. We weren't hurting financially, we just didn't have the "extras" and didn't expect them because we were making a choice. When our earnings went up, our choices could change.

I remember trying to explain to my kids why we couldn't afford a video game system. They said "x has one and they're on free lunch." (Kids used to know those things.) We explained that people make choices about how they spend what they have. A very hard concept - and one that is very key.

It was a shock to me when I went back to my college campus and there were coffee stands etc. all over. Back in my day, there was one coffee shop and basically only professors ate there because we all had the food plan cafeteria and didn't want to pay extra.

Life is organized differently now - but it's organized in a way that makes it easy to start to feel like extras are necessities. Thinking about it, it seems like we used to have 3 "classes" - poor, who couldn't afford necessities, middle class - who could afford necessities and sometimes extras, rich - who could afford whatever they wanted. Now we have another class of people who are just plain living beyond what they can afford -and those come from all three of the original classes. I'm not suggesting we all go back to a classest, "know your place" mentality - but if we don't understand the basic live within your means message, things get really screwy.

The other big thing that has changed is that the idea of investing and growing money used to be something only rich people did. Now, without pensions, most of us need to be investing - something we haven't had the mentality for and have failed miserably at. It used to be the poor spent money the minute they had it so it didn't disappear, the middle class used their money to live, and the rich used their money to grow money. Now all of a sudden all of us are supposed to be growing money and we don't know how to make that mentality change.

 

[LSUmiss]

I thought the same thing. All that really happened was the minimum age for retirement went up and payroll taxes went up too. You only have to watch the West Wing to see how slowly things change. That show us almost 20 years old, and we have a lot of the same problems that are talked about on it including social security. Mind blown.

Right but I’d the minimum age goes up then that’s longer that you have to save

 

[Disneybuckeye]

I don't worry about what others have and we don't. I am happy with our life and comfortable with what we spend and what we save. I also could not imagine asking/taking money from my children.

I know lots of people are dying to retire early. I am in my mid fifties and DH is in his early sixties. He is planning on working until 70 and I plan on working until at least 65. We both actually enjoy working. We go on 3-4 week long nice vacations a year (Disney World, Disneyland, Europe, skiing in Colorado, Siesta Key, Hilton Head, New York City are in our normal rotation), we have a lake home where we spend most weekends 7 months out of the year, and we have season football and basketball tickets for Ohio State. These activities keep us plenty busy and we don't feel like we are missing anything by not being retired.

Now I realize life can change in a heart beat, and we are at the point where we could retire now if we actually had to, but as long as we are happy and healthy we both keep working and saving more money. Plus, the thought of having to pay for health care sends the frugal part of me into a tizzy.

 

[LSUmiss]

I think the concept of "enjoying your money" is a pretty new one. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and airplane travel was for rich people, families shared one car, etc. etc. We weren't rich, so we didn't expect rich people things. I wasn't an adult, but from my viewpoint there wasn't a "but I deserve to have a daily cup of fancy coffee" equivalent.

I didn't work for 10 years when my kids were young. I was lucky to have the means to do so. I admit I enjoyed when I went back to work and we got cable tv, paid for some activities for the kids, took our first airplane vacation as a family, I got my first cell phone (back when you could still function without one,) we bought a second tv, etc. We didn't have those things on one income, but we did have retirement savings and an emergency fund. We weren't hurting financially, we just didn't have the "extras" and didn't expect them because we were making a choice. When our earnings went up, our choices could change.

I remember trying to explain to my kids why we couldn't afford a video game system. They said "x has one and they're on free lunch." (Kids used to know those things.) We explained that people make choices about how they spend what they have. A very hard concept - and one that is very key.

It was a shock to me when I went back to my college campus and there were coffee stands etc. all over. Back in my day, there was one coffee shop and basically only professors ate there because we all had the food plan cafeteria and didn't want to pay extra.

Life is organized differently now - but it's organized in a way that makes it easy to start to feel like extras are necessities. Thinking about it, it seems like we used to have 3 "classes" - poor, who couldn't afford necessities, middle class - who could afford necessities and sometimes extras, rich - who could afford whatever they wanted. Now we have another class of people who are just plain living beyond what they can afford -and those come from all three of the original classes. I'm not suggesting we all go back to a classest, "know your place" mentality - but if we don't understand the basic live within your means message, things get really screwy.

The other big thing that has changed is that the idea of investing and growing money used to be something only rich people did. Now, without pensions, most of us need to be investing - something we haven't had the mentality for and have failed miserably at. It used to be the poor spent money the minute they had it so it didn't disappear, the middle class used their money to live, and the rich used their money to grow money. Now all of a sudden all of us are supposed to be growing money and we don't know how to make that mentality change.

I think the changes on college campuses are mostly b/c parents are paying their kids’ way through school more than they did when I went to college and before that.

 

[RamblingMad]

I think the changes on college campuses are mostly b/c parents are paying their kids’ way through school more than they did when I went to college and before that.

The cost of college has grown faster than wages. That’s a problem.

 

[disykat]

I think the changes on college campuses are mostly b/c parents are paying their kids’ way through school more than they did when I went to college and before that.

I can see that. Though my parents paid for my college and that's a big part of WHY I was so frugal. I had grown up knowing every dime mattered and I carried that into college. I think my kids were the same because we always talked budgets.

 

[disykat]

The cost of college has grown faster than wages. That’s a problem.

Absolutely, in terms of tuition. However college "costs" have also gone up for many students due to lifestyle expectations. My kids didn't have those costs because they knew my "if you can afford a car and vacations you don't need my money for tuition" belief system would cost them big if they did! We expected frugal, so they were frugal.