Louisville is a city with 800k people. It's larger if you count southern indiana and the immediate areas outside of Jefferson county. So I'd say when people say '50% of people in the US live in cities' they're talking about Louisville.

Can anyone write me a sane family budget that 90k can't accomplish? I mean yeah if you wanna be a baller I can see where that won't do what you want done...

Let's be crazy and say 24k for the mortgage (easily gets you a nice 3 BR house in the reasonably nice part of town), 12k for groceries/gas, 1800 for electric/gas, 2400 for insurance (kinda high but whatever), 4k annually for cars (again assuming you're not wanting anything crazy nice), and another 10k for misc (More if our job doesn't have great health insurance obviously)... We're still saving money here. I mean we've only spent 55k and change. After taxes we're certainly taking home like 65K right? A little more? My math says ~67k take home.

Frankly it's not very hard to make 90k between two people. Run my estimate up to 105k. Happy now? What can't you do?

You are not saving for retirement, saving for the kid's university, property taxes, house maintenance, and you have no entertainment budget. Unless entrainment, clothing, furniture/electronics , hobbies, emergencies, gifts, and travel are all part of misc in which case $10k is way way too low for any reasonable quality of life.

Also in most cities i've lived in for $450k you are living in the burbs which will mean insane traffic. I accidentally got caught in traffic last week and if I had to do that daily i would kill myself. i don't understand how anyone does that and remains sane. i would rather work 18 hour days than deal with 2.5-3 hours of traffic each way so i can live in a home that is affordable.

Woops, ok.. so lets say you bring home 5k a month, after taxes and 401k or whatever (and you can put more in 401k). Lets do it that way.

1,500 mortgage. Not counting downpayment and all that. Reasonable.
300 each for a car, so 600 a month, sounds reasonable. 150 for insurance for both, so a total of 750 a month?
400 a month on groceries, thats pretty cheap, too.
300 a month in bills? Cell phones, cable, blah blah.
450 a month entertainment, including dinners. Dirt cheap.
150 a month for year vacations, so 1,800 for a vacation a year sounds reasonable.
100 a month for college savings for the kid. Hope he doesn't want to goto Harvard.

Right there, we have 3,300 a month, and I kinda cheaped up on everything. Maybe mortgage you can get cheaper and maybe one person drives a paid off car, that's fine, but you probably will go through way more than 100 a week in food with a kid, so that kinda evens out. So lets say after all that you have 1,700 a month left over.

With a generous 1,700 left over, you'd have to add in all the things like emergencies, weddings, emergency house repairs, furniture, clothes, family events, gifts, birthday parties, blah blah blah. Its really not unreasonable to say you aren't living it up by any means on 90k. Things are expensive. Emergencies are expensive. Sometimes you might have to help a family member - all this stuff actually happens. 90k sounds like a lot, but it sure goes fast.

I don;t know where you get 450k for the suburbs. If you want a pretty large house etc. You can get a 3 bedroom duplex unit/condo whatever you want to call it for 250K 10 minutes from downtow in Montreal.

Henry's figures are always very high.....take them for what theyre worth.

However saying you clear 67K on 90K gross is absurd. Not sure about tax rate in US but here on that 90K of joint income you are south of 60K NET

I agree with the BoredSocial's premise however that you can live pretty comfortably for far less than most people think.

Many people in this forum seem to act like they are all ballers, and i think few are. However the richer you are, the more you spend in general. If you can get away from that mindset you should be able to live a very happy life with fak less than most people think.

A dump. I mean home prices in Canada are not hard to check since MLS.ca is actually pretty good (not as good in QC but still fairly decent). Do a search for Under $250,000 and 3 bedrooms and you get old ****ty houses nobody would ever want to live in. Also traffic in Montreal is horrible so there is no such thing as 10 minutes from downtown during rush hour.

http://passerelle.centris.ca/Redirec...OR.CA&Langue=E

http://passerelle.centris.ca/Redirec...OR.CA&Langue=E

http://passerelle.centris.ca/Redirec...OR.CA&Langue=E

Those are the three closest to downtown under $250k with 3 bedrooms. They are all in an area that is pretty bad and they look like crack houses.

op,

just start doing stuff. find things you are interested in and start reading/learning about them. don't waste time watching TV or playing video games. at this point, the odds are stacked really highly against you but it's near impossible unless you actually develop some interests and eventually skills.

i'd also say you should go back to school at least as a backup plan. with a degree you can at least get a decent job and not worry about where your next meal is coming.

They can make much more.

much more than 100k/year?

Yes. When you factor in living allowances. An engineer that would make $90k in Toronto would make $200k in Fort McMurray 3-4 years ago. Things have slowed down now but they are going back to those levels. For a male willing work work $100k is pretty much the minimum up there. Mind you your life will suck and gambling, drugs and escorts are big drains but if you are good at poker you might even benefit from the gambling.

that sounds awesome, i actually have some family out west too.

are you canadian henry?

Unfortunately.

Why do you say that? Isn't Canada a cool place to live?

Canada is great if you are a loser or if you completely abdicate but for someone trying to be successful it is a horrible environment. It is better than places like France and some of the other European countries but the culture is not like the US. The Canadian dream is mediocrity for all.

Ahh, ok.

but the healthcare rules.

No. It actually sucks.

LOL + 1 mirrion...

Can an American learn French, move to Ottawa and get an easy public service job?

If you immigrate. You can't just move here and start working you have to be legal.

lol

sure it rules. if you make $20k a year and cant afford to pay for any healthcare at all.

my most recent experience involved an ear infection that the GP didn't bother to look at from more than 3 feet away. i was prescribed an antibiotic that was backordered at all local pharmacies. it took almost 48 hours to get a new prescription. meanwhile, i had to stab myself to drain out the pus and relieve the pressure since the doctor didn't feel like doing her job. i was also "referred" to a specialist who was supposed to contact me about an appointment, but never bothered to. canadian healthcare is ****ing awesome!

is there a lol canadian healthcare thread somewhere?

Its a pretty large derail, but a common problem is not understanding the "replacement level" or whatever you'd like to set as the substitute level of care.

Though I did think of another few industries where large money can be made. Shipping/Boating/etc are all pretty incestuous industries that pay vast sums through the good ol boy network. The initial work is relatively dangerous and hard, but it gets better as time wears on (working on a crab boat v captain of a crab boat). Getting these jobs is somewhat trickier and the time constraints can put people off.

Even poker is becoming a bad outlet to "get rich quick" unless you are willing to take huge risks on going broke. Just like everything else, the best of the best make more than anyone else or u just have to get extremely lucky. The game isn't the same as it was years ago.

poker isnt a get rich quick anything, it still requires being smart and working hard at it. it's just that relative to the potential return for time invested and learning curve it offers some of the best value depending on someones ability to excel at it

Try having fun without spending money?
It actually is possible although many may find it hard to believe.

Not really.