Salary

[alltimeGreg]

I was just looking around at salary for some jobs and was wondering what everybodys idea of a "Comfortable" Annual Salary was.

Would you consider between 30-50,000 good and comfortable for a single person?

[SgtSmegma]

That's a very subjective notion. It depends heavily on the types of things you consider necessary to your happiness. COL factors in heavily too, as it can vary substantially from place to place.

[Big_Guy]

single, 40 grand would be great

[jeremyc]

I was just looking around at salary for some jobs and was wondering what everybodys idea of a "Comfortable" Annual Salary was.

Would you consider between 30-50,000 good and comfortable for a single person?

There are many factors to take into consideration when answering that question. One being what "quality" of life you prefer, and another being location (among many others). Living in the East Bay, commuting to SF everyday for work and making between $45-$60k a year in salary allows me to live comfortably (cover all my bills), save and have fun.

[cuzimlefthanded]

That sounds amazing to me. But that's only because I'm an 18 year old college student, making $8.00 an hour (plus the occasional $1 tip!), living with his mother.

Now if you want to live like LC on The Hills, that's not nearly enough. But I would imagine that if you wanted to live in a modest apartment, put some away into your savings, then sure, 30-50k a year would be more than enough. My mom makes about 70k a year and she supports the entire family just fine.

[AndrewIcex]

Location.

[Kassie09]

I think for a single person in their mid twenties 35-60 k a year is common to live well. That's what I learned, anyway

[Max_123]

oh how awesome it would be to actually keep all the money you make :shrug:

[deFobbed14yrs]

in lower NY, that's nothing.

[Jake Denning]

I could life comfortably on 15K a year.

[zachff]

I'm going to assume you want to:
live in a big city, want to live in a place that is young/trendy/safe, pay taxes, and want to go out to eat or drink at least 2x a week and buy new clothes at least 2x a month, go to concerts one or two times a month, and have nice shit.

$40,000 (pretax) is probably the lowest you would want to go.

[zachff]

I could life comfortably on 15K a year.
false

[Jake Denning]

false

true, I can have a good time on that salary.

[zachff]

true, I can have a good time on that salary.
alright man.

[dartanian=gods]

Good luck finding 30-50k/yr in this economy.

[kbi the crowing]

in lower NY, that's nothing.

that's because everything in NYC is unnecessarily expensive

[deFobbed14yrs]

that's because everything in NYC is unnecessarily expensive

yes i know. hence why i said that salary is nothing. a good salary depends on where you live and in NY that is not a great salary

[kbi the crowing]

yes i know. hence why i said that salary is nothing. a good salary depends on where you live and in NY that is not a great salary

well where I live in new york that wouldn't be too bad (:

[steve-0]

true, I can have a good time on that salary.

sure dude. rent + car payment(the car your parents bought you wont last forever) + car insurance + health insurance + groceries + bills + taxes+ any extemporaneous crap you might buy =more than $15000 a year

[And Hours Pass]

Location.

This is the most important lesson anybody can learn. Location is truly most important.

false

Super false. Unbelievably false. The word "false" without any superlative like "the falsest thing you could've said" is an understatement.

[kingspud]

just to put some perspective on the situation, i know people who live in london who are rasing a family on 15 grand. they're happy.

[alltimeGreg]

I'm going to assume you want to:
live in a big city, want to live in a place that is young/trendy/safe, pay taxes, and want to go out to eat or drink at least 2x a week and buy new clothes at least 2x a month, go to concerts one or two times a month, and have nice shit.

$40,000 (pretax) is probably the lowest you would want to go.

Your assumption is correct sir

[CobraLucha]

I can live like a king in North Ohio on 12,000 a year. Gas, food, records, car insurance, running shoes. But I have no responsibilities except myself.

[kingspud]

live in a big city. hang out with young fashionable safe people. pay your taxes by all means. eat out a few times a week but nowhere poncy. buy some new underwear twice a month. jeans last forever. go to as many gigs as you like and surround yourself with "nice shit". not expensive shit, nice shit!

as if you need 40k for fucks sake!

[Moral_Orel]

false


if he lives with roommates and splits rent ... it's posible to be comfortable. in philly decent apartments cost around 1,200 - 1,500 a month so if you work out the math with bills personal experience 33-40 a person for electric 25 for cable/internet 50 for cell phone. If you were a simple guy it's possible.

[Tim Lincecum]

30 grand in the bay area is pretty tough to save, most of your money goes towards rent, car payments insurance phone internet bill beer etc really not too much money left over to save up for anything

[phil19]

im hoping for a payrise. i get about 42k/year

[deathinkosovo]

In my field, you're lucky to find a job let alone one that pays $40K a year. I'd kill to have a job paying half that right now. Jesus, you all have some high expectations for yourselves.

But I'd take like, $25K with benefits over a higher salary and no benefits whatsoever.

[xmicxcorex]

Good luck finding 30-50k/yr in this economy.

This is supremely incorrect. If you are an established person with a solid college-education that applies to the field you are looking to go into, you can find a job for 30k, even if it requires moderate relocation (within state, definitely). If you have previous experience in said field, you can find a solid 50k+ job that. The most important factors in finding a well-paying job are location, experience and college education. Without any of these three it becomes significantly more difficult from my experience.

I would think a single person in their 20's could live exceptionally easy in any number of places on 35-50k. There will be exceptions, of course.

I personally am living on around 11k and am content. I do live with my parents, but for rent I cover the water bill (normally around $125/mo) plus I pay a substantial car payment, car insurance, and still have at least $20 a week to drink on and normally around $20 to take my fiancee out for dinner. My significant change will be next year when I move up to a full-time position at work and will be making closer to $20k, and my fiancee and I will be getting an apartment together (bills split).

[iAMhollyood315]

if you live in cities like LA or NYC you cannot live on 30,000 grand, probably 45-50 but in smaller cities like where i live in Syracuse, NY you could totally live comfortably on 30,000. One of the reasons i am staying here rather than moving to Boston. however i gotta accept that the job market sucks bad here. a house worth a very nice house worth 300,000 here could be worth 750,000 in other states. shits crazy

[drawndead]

I was just looking around at salary for some jobs and was wondering what everybodys idea of a "Comfortable" Annual Salary was.

Would you consider between 30-50,000 good and comfortable for a single person?

all depends where you live. 30-50 in jersey for a single person still puts you living at home or in a shitty studio apartment in camden

[Roboman]

I personally am living on around 11k and am content. I do live with my parents, but for rent I cover the water bill (normally around $125/mo) plus I pay a substantial car payment, car insurance, and still have at least $20 a week to drink on and normally around $20 to take my fiancee out for dinner. My significant change will be next year when I move up to a full-time position at work and will be making closer to $20k, and my fiancee and I will be getting an apartment together (bills split).

Props on making it work and all, but $20 a week to drink and $20 for dinner with your fiancee? That's like a few beers (depending on the bar or if you're buying from the store) and a large pizza. I guess if it works for you, hey that's great, but still...

[xmicxcorex]

Props on making it work and all, but $20 a week to drink and $20 for dinner with your fiancee? That's like a few beers (depending on the bar or if you're buying from the store) and a large pizza. I guess if it works for you, hey that's great, but still...


that $20 a week to drink is for the one night a week that I go out, and my friends and I go in circles paying for $5 pitchers. (between 4 of us, that figures up to 16 pitchers...and figures down to 1 glass per pitchers, so 16 beers in a night is pretty damn nice I'd say)
As far as dinner, that buys us a nice dinner at Applebee's or a couple nice dinner's a local place.

You just inspired me to never move to Georgia, as your COL apparently sucks asshole.

[EndSerenading]

Old thread I know, but I ran across this looking for something else and got caught up reading it haha. There are a ton of factors that go into this. Obviously people have covered the basics like the fact that where you live has a LOT to do with how much you need to make to live comfortably. But there are other factors too. Can someone survive on $20,000 a year? $30,000 a year? Definitely. However that probably means they won't be able to put much away into liquid savings in case they have some sort of emergency or need to buy a new car etc. Also, they probably aren't putting much, if anything, into retirement accounts meaning that they will have to keep working for a longgg time since their only source of money is paycheck to paycheck income.

Back when I was in HS and even college, I thought I would be living like a king when I finished Engineering school considering I'd be making ~$70k and the most I had made previously was 11$/hr. Now, granted I live fairly comfortably, however the amount of expenses involved when you are truly on your own paying for everything is a lot more than many kids expect.

One other thing that people don't think about is that they always talk about renting when they talk about how much people can live on. I don't know how much you all have thought about this, but renting is a huge money sink because you are building $0 in equity in anything. Renting, especially with friends, is cool for awhile, but at some point you get to an age where 1) You might want to get married and have your own place with your spouse (or even just have your own place to your self if you aren't married) and 2) You want to actually start building equity and value into something as opposed to throwing money away to rent. Sure rent is cheaper, but whenever you leave, all that money spent is down the drain. With a house, you are actually investing that money (yes, make sure you invest smartly, but if you purchase right and aren't looking to re-sell in <5 years, you can make money, even in a bad economy).

The other thing that I don't think people in here are taking into account is that you also have to consider that when you see a salary of $40k that is beforetaxes. After taxes you are only looking at closer to $30k. Subtract your health insurance pre-tax from your income and you are now looking at <$30,000 that you actually see as real income. Want to actually be able to retire and not work paycheck to paycheck until you die? Well, you better be investing at least 5% of your salary into a retirement account. After all of that is said and done, someone with a listed salary of $40,000 is really only taking home about $25,000.

So the real question in that case is, can you live comfortably on $25,000? If so, you need to have a salary close to $40,000 to actually make/bring home $25,000. With my salary, after higher taxes, retirement allotment, health care for my wife and I, the actual amount I bring home is $20,000 less than my "salary."

My wife and I are fairly thrifty (huge coupon clippers, all kinds of energy saving appliances, very smart thermostats etc.) but our normal bills are still fairly expensive every month. Anyone saying it is "easy" to live on $15,000 is crazy imo. People can do it, but you are certainly sacrificing a lot to do so.

Monthly bills:
------------------
$1200 mortgage
$250 my student loans (luckily none for her as she was on scholarship)
$110 car insurance for both of our cars
$50 cable internet (notice we aren't even paying for cable TV)
$100 gas & electric bill
$15 water bill
$200 food (<$7 per day for both of us combined, so we are not spending tons on food)
$100 gasoline for our cars

$2025 a month (Or ~$25,000 a year) on only the essentials without taking into account any spending on any sort of entertainment (ie going out with friends to eat, or movies, or anything), clothes, buying anything for ourselves at home, putting any money into liquid savings, any sort of emergency or repair that comes up etc. Also, both of our cars are older and paid for so we don't have any car payments. Factor in all this stuff I just mentioned in addition to the essentials above and our bills could easily push $3000 a month (or $36,000 a year).

Now, as I said before, I have a very comfortable salary so we can afford all of our expenses, but I was just using our bills to show that even without accounting for any extravagant spending (because we live fairly simply), the essential bills you take on as an adult add up very very fast. Sure, you can split rent and utilities with your friends in an old apartment and live fairly cheap, but are you going to want to do that forever? Probably not. Now, don't get take that the wrong way, there is NOTHING wrong with that if you are comfortable or enjoy living like that. But just pointing out that some people have unrealistic visions of how much someone's salary should be to live "comfortably"

[PezMullet]

I could life comfortably on 15K a year.


That's what I spend on booze every year. haha not even kidding

[ZoSo1886]

thats a huge gap, and it all depends on your position, your location, your relationship situation, your spending habits et cetera. for example, 50k in new jersey is comfortable living solo

[spevin]

who has a SALARY? sheesh. its all about living on the edge.

commission only right here.

[Neo Cassady]

I live comfortably with my fiancee, two cats, and an overpriced apartment on $30k (pre-tax). So yes, you can do it by yourself.

[spevin]

I live comfortably with my fiancee, two cats, and an overpriced apartment on $30k (pre-tax). So yes, you can do it by yourself.

ohio doesnt count....duh

just messing. but really, you cant compare...cause 30k in one place is not 30k in another. cost of living is diferent everywhere.

[Echo Park]

I was just looking around at salary for some jobs and was wondering what everybodys idea of a "Comfortable" Annual Salary was.

Would you consider between 30-50,000 good and comfortable for a single person?
depends where you live. Manhattan NY that's poverty levels. North dakota that's living like a king levels.

[Echo Park]

That's what I spend on booze every year. haha not even kidding
you're making Canadians look good.