What do you do, where do you live in, and how much is your annual income?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’m an RN in Same Day Surgery, very part time (I work maybe 16 hours/week). I am a per diem employee, so the only benny I have now is my 401k (and SDS does not make the salary scale that a specialty unit does). I contribute about 7%, down from 10%. My employer kicks in 3%.

I used to make about $41,000/year as a PT (24 hrs/week) staff nurse in ICU/stepdown (specialty areas usually pay better) + bennys. Not bad, except that I worked 12 hour shifts (often with no break), every other weekend (with 3 kids and their games/recitals/parties etc), and every other holiday. It got old.

Now, I only make about $29,000, but I’m home more with the kids. Thing is, we went on my husband’s insurance (since I lost ours when I changed status) and it’s more expensive. Really, financially, it was a stupid move to make, but I was almost at nervous breakdown headed for complete mental/emotional entropy, so I had to change.

I live in a southern suburb of Chicago, a nice, stable and diverse community.

I will also say that my car is a 1998 Volvo station wagon with 90,000 miles on it.
We have some considerable credit card debt due to my husband foray into self-employment a few years ago (he only made $3K that year and I wasn’t working–had had a baby), but we are almost done with paying it off.

We have a daughter headed to BU this fall–she got a merit scholarship and she has a trust fund (long story–all the kids do. The funds make it possible for her to have a car and have options like BU. Otherwise, we are very, very middle class with all its worries and coupon cutting etc).

62

Crap. This thread is very depressing.

I am approaching 40 and don’t have anywhere near that kind of savings. Choosing to build a career in the performing arts field (on the administrative side) does not seem like such a good idea, but I’m kind of stuck with it now.

I just aspire one day to be able to afford an apartment with two rooms that isn’t located in crack-whore central.

63

Meh, don’t let it bother you. I’m even worse at saving than just about everyone here. I’ll figure something out when I’m older, or drive off a cliff…one of the two.

For me:

36 year old government SME in Modeling and Simulation. I live in the Tidewater Area of Virginia.

Salary is somewhere around $90K. Wife makes around $40K. I’m not sure exactly what her new salary is, and I don’t really know what I got for my last raise, so that’s an approximation.

Bills that I know of off the top of my head:

Mortgage: We just bought and renovated an older house in a great neighborhood that I spent time in when I was a child. So for our 3000 sq. ft. house we owe around$400K. We pay twice monthly to get that extra payment in each year. I think it’s around $2400 each month.

Cars: I have a 06 Tiburon that we pay about $370 each month. Wife has 07 Elantra that’s $311 or so.

Electric: Since the whole house is electric, this is a larger bill. I think it averages around $250 a month.

Water: Community Well, so only $75 every 6 months.

Daycare: $850 per month. This is actually paid to my mother-in-law who lives with us. This will be increasing to cover her health insurance in a couple of months.

Insurance: No idea. I know we pay about $400 every 3 months for my wife’s supplemental life insurance. But I have no idea about car insurance.

Same with food. No clue how much we spend each month. Although probably a lot.

Credit card: a lot. I think we’re at around $20K or so. Of course well over half of that is debt we took from my mom when she was having financial difficulties. Very slowly going down.

Savings: We put $100 per child per month aside for education. But that’s it. Everything else gets spent.

Forgot to add that I think it’s fascinating to see the range of career’s we have here. Some really cool jobs. Which makes me have hope that my kids will be able to do what they want to do in life, and not just what they have to do in order to make ends meet. .mil

64

27 year old factory worker in southern Minnesota. I make about $28k a year. Last year I got just barely over 30k, due to a whole heap of overtime. I am single and live alone. (I may eventually get a cat - if I do, there will of course be pics in MPSIMS.)

I bought a 1360 sq ft house last October for $63,000. Monthly payment (tax / insurance included) is $450, but I’ve been paying $500. It’s on a 15-year mortgage.

Other costs:
Cell phone: $10 (on a plan with others in family, and I rarely use it except as an alarm clock)
Water / sewer: $35 or so
Garbage: $18
Internet: $60 (no cable or other TV service)
Gas: $50, sometimes less
Electric and (gas) heat: Varies greatly. The past couple months these combined have been in the $70 - $80 range. When winter rolls around, heating costs push this total upwards of $150.
Food: Around $250. I could easily cut it down, but I have a habit, at the end of the month, of thinking, “Hey, there’s money left over in the food budget - pizza party!!!”

Entertainment costs:
Netflix: About $20 a month
Audible.com: About $15 a month
Occassionally, a movie at the theatre or a new book.

I drive a 1994 Nissan Sentra that has been begging for death for some time now. My next major purchase will be a car. I have been saving up for this, and plan to use my economic stimulus check as well as the “extra” third paycheck I get in August towards this goal. Sadly, it seems the used vehicle market around here is currently glutted with bargain-priced gas-guzzling SUVs. Finding a small, reliable, fuel efficient car that I can afford will be an interesting challenge.

Other than my mortgage, I have no debt. My savings took a beating for the downpayment on my house, but are starting back up slowly. I have $100 from each check automatically put into my savings account; the rest goes into checking. I have about $3000 in a Health Savings Account that I have never used. knock wood My 401(K) has about $14,000 in it.

65

Age, Sex, Location, Occupation, and Income

63, female, rural Iowa, semi-retired, 26K in Social Security, pensions, and part-time jobs – husband $15K in Social Security and part-time job

Car
1999 Camry, bought new, paid for

Rent and Utilities
$375 for home equity loan used to pay off credit cards and put a new roof on the garage
$150 month for propane for heat & hot water
$90 month for electricity, sewer, garbage
$60 for phone and internet
$70 for satellite TV
$160 year for life/accident insurance
$120 month for homeowners and car insurance
$800 year for property taxes

My kids want me to move back to Seattle if my husband dies before me. I just laugh. Seattle on $26K?

66

39-yr-old male, Kansas City, Missouri. I am a consulting wireless design engineer for a medical information systems company, so I travel. I make $104k/yr, and will be getting a $8k raise this September. Take home is $2600.00 every two weeks.

I have a 2000 Dodge Ram Quad-cab pickup, with 67k miles on it, and it’s paid for.
2100 sq. ft., 4 BR/2.5BA home, 30yr mortgage, paid $156k (built in 1977, bought by me in 2005), payments are $1100/mo.
Woodworking shop with cabinet saw, drill press, router station, band saw, radial-arm saw, and too many routers, hand saws, chisels, clamps, etc. to number (total value of building and equipment/tools - approx. $30k)
$4k in savings account, $48k in a 401(k)
3 kids under college age
Groceries - $750/mo
Utilities - $300-350/mo
Non-employer life insurance - $90/mo.
Auto insurance (collision) - $65/mo.
Revolving (credit card) debt - $28k (left over from closing a business 3 years ago).

67

This is all Dutch, so it doesn’t really compare to USA-standards. My WAG is that overall, Dutch incomes are lower, but the standard of living is comparable to USA, because more bills are taken care of by the government, like (medical) insurances.

(European currency, the euro, is worth about a dollar, only the exchange rate is now more favourable to the euro.)

Age, Sex, Location, Occupation, and Income
40 year old female, married, local government policy maker in the Netherlands. Income 30.000 euro’s a year for a 32 hour workweek, so 1800 a month.
My husband makes about the same, also for a 32 hour workweek.

Car
2005 Toyota Prius, lease car from my husbands company. Costs us 200 euro’s a month including gas. I don’t need a car: my job, stores etc are all within a ten-minutes range on my bike.

Rent and Utilities
Mortgage for our 180 K (2006) 3 bedroom, 120 square meter city apartment with garden: 750 euro’s a month, from which we get 300 back in taxes.
Utilities (heating, electricity, tv & internet, water, city taxes etc) about 600 a month.

**Food **- we rarely eat out, so it’s all grocery bills. Every time we go grocery shopping and buy food for two days, I guess we spend about 25 euro’s.

68

Early 30s male, military officer currently living in Anchorage, AK…take home about $70k…
Mortgage of $2000, but collect total rent of $1900 from roommate and from the other half of the duplex, my split of utilities is around $200, another $300 or so in gas and food, with an additional $70 for cell phone. $200 car payment on a Toyota pickup, $300/mo in student loans, and currently spending lotsof free cash continuing my pilot training…no other debt currently…

69

30, attorney, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I make $65K (I’m due for a raise in 2 months, probably to the low to mid $70’s - depressing when you consider I heard that our 3 partners each take home $100K/month).

I rent a studio in a nice neighborhood for $985.00. I lease a Honda Civic for $250.00/month (I’m getting ready to turn it in, and I’ll be buying my next car).

Most of my other bills are automatic deductions, and I am horrible about paying attention to them. So, truth be told, I don’t know how much electric, cable, internet, phone, etc. cost. I also automatically send about $4K/year (divided monthly) into a Roth IRA, and I automatically put a couple hundred bucks a month into a savings account.

The good news, though, is that I don’t carry any credit card debt. My only debt, basically, is my student loans (about $30K), which I pay off slowly each month (I think I pay $150 per month).

70

43, female, married. Greater Victoria, BC. I am a secretary for a real estate/property management firm.

My annual income is $29,000 or so Canadian dollars annually from that job, and I pick up anywhere from $50-250 a year from writing erotica. I don’t write full-time, and produce stories slowly, so it’s about fun, not money. I pay zero for health insurance (company covered) and there is partial dental coverage. I will have to look into vision. Prescription drugs are very inexpensive under the medical coverage, and my husband is on my medical as he’s self-employed.

I drive a 2007 or 2006 (I don’t know, it’s a car) Chevrolet… Um, Cobalt. It’s not paid for, and my car payment is $348 or so a month.

Gas is about $80-100 per month (I use my car for work and get reimbursed for mileage, which makes it hurt a little less.)

Insurance for the car is about $600 a year.

House insurance was $666 this year. (I remembered that figure!)

We live in a double-wide and don’t have a conventional mortgage, but a straight up loan to complete the purchase and do improvements. Pad fee is $509 per month, and the house loan is either $200 or $300 monthly. I pay the pad fee; my husband pays the loan and rent on his business premises.

I don’t think we have a hope in hell of buying a house here in Victoria; in the last ten years the average price went from $250,000 to something like $600-700,000. We bought our place for $53,000 four years ago. I didn’t want to keep renting and we couldn’t afford to buy a house. (We’re still kinda renters, though…)

Cel phone bill is $96 per month (phone has web access), Hydro (electricity) varies from $70-150 per month depending on the season.

Home heating oil (actually stove oil) kills us in the winter. It’s probably $1500 total, purchased September through to May. Ouch.

Cable/internet is $100.06 or something per month. It just went up to $100 and change.

Property taxes are $319 this year.

Water, sewer, garbage/recycling are in the pad fee.

Credit card debit: $11,000. This is NOT making me happy and my goal is to eliminate it.

Savings: a little less than $10,000 (in ING where I have my RRSP too).

I really, really, really wished I started saving money much, much, much earlier in life, but I didn’t.

71

I’m translating GBP into USD here, so whilst the income numbers might look big, remember that London is Really Bloody Expensive.

Female (gay, if it’s relevant), London, freelance graphic designer (i.e. self-employed), 38, earn roughly $130,000 p.a. (minus about 25% tax).

Monthly outgoings:

  • rent $2200 for a tiny one bed flat in a smart-ish area.
  • bills roughly $400 per month
  • debts c. $800 per month (long story - never buy an expensive house ($850k), do it up ($50k), buy a house in Italy ($180k) then break-up with your partner)
  • car c.$400 per month inc. tax and fuel.
  • holidays (about 4-5 per year), no idea, a lot.

Partner (non-cohabiting) earns c. $250,000 p.a. as a Marketing Director, which helps soften the blow.

72

Actually, one Euro is worth about $1.50 these days.

73

IT Manager/PM, Cincinnati, OH, Married, Male, 29.9167 years old.

My wife’s on disability.

Last year, we were pretty firmly in the 25% bracket. 3/4 of it was my income, and the rest was from her disability payments.

House: Currently living with my MIL to clear debt and save up for a down payment.

Vehicles: '01 Corolla, paid cash a few years ago. My wife tools around on a new scooter she paid cash for a couple of months ago.

Monthly expenses:
CC Debt: ~ $800 minimum, + whatever
Rent + utilities for my MIL: $500
Student loans: $370
Gas: ~ $250
Lunches: ~ $100
Car + Bike insurance: $75
Phone + DSL: $90
Netflix: $10

My situation may be changing very shortly, depending on how things go. Let’s just say none of that CC debt is mine.

74

Correct, but that is the exchange rate, which changes constantly, and more importantly is most relevant in international trade and travel. If you look at both euro’s and dollars in the everyday lives of people who get paid and spend their money in their own countries, I’d say they are still roughly equal. A loaf of bread costing 2 USD in the USA will cost 2 euro’s in Europe, is what I’m saying.

75

OK, that’s probably true, but it seems to me that to compare your income and expenses to someone’s in the US, you’d have to multiply everything by 1.5. After all, not everything is equal, since your stronger euro would benefit you when it comes to imports.

76

Heh. I live in Oakland, California. I have a babysitting job which pays ostensibly $300 a month but in reality works out to more like $200 a month. That’s for 120 hours.

Then I have a side job which pays $20 an hour for three hours a week. So I make more in 3 hours cleaning a house than in 30 hours caring for a 3-year-old. Weird.

However, the little girl’s grandfather is a longtime friend and has an extra room, so I don’t have rent.

I have many skills and sometimes it feels strange to be doing simple tasks; then again, the little girl is like family & her nurturing and enrichment is very important to me. If I weren’t doing this, I don’t know what her mother would do – she can’t afford conventional childcare.

So, $5520 annually. Bills probably exceed that considerably, but I manage.

77

Im 22 and live in maisonette in the town centre of a major city in Scotland. I share with my best friend so split the cost of all the bills.

My share for the rent is about £200 a month.
The parking spare is about £10 a month.
Electricity is about £100 every 3 months.
Sky, Internet and Phone - £25 per month.
Mobile is about £20 a month.
Car payments inc petrol and insurance is £270 per month. I drive a Renault Clio (2004)
Contents insurance - £13.56 per month.

My income last year was £9,100. Im currently a full time law student and have a part time job as a car rental operator. I have credit card debit (around £500) and student debts over £10,000. sigh I cant waiting til I’m earning big bucks!

78

I’m twenty one,male,a string of mansions worldwide including London,Monaco and St.Moritz,
international rock star and multi billionaire.
Er some of my details may carry factual innacuracies…

79

Female, single, 50-ish.

Live on: the streets.

Occupation: self employed magazine salesperson. When I run out of *The Big Issue * I’ll sell anything I can find, most customers don’t bother to look anyway. They just take the piece of paper I offer them, give me some change and get away from me as fast as they can.

Income: depends – people tend to ignore me on rainy days or when local footy team lost. In nice weather it’s different – sometimes they even look me in the face and say something.

Real estate: cardboard box underneath a bridge (I’m not telling you which bridge – you’re after my box aren’t you!) I also have a winter residence which has a bed and a roof. I meet a lot of my colleagues there. The rent is 3 euros a night including a meal.

Mode of transport (besides feet): supermarket trolley – paid for in cash (bl**dy thing cost me 50 eurocents, can’t get the freakin’ coin out of the slot).

Like KlondikeGeoff on here, I also can’t seem to get life insurance. Or any insurance whatsoever.

This is not meant to mock the homeless. Far from it.

80

Is it meant to be a truthful first-person account? Or a representation of something?