I'm glad I live in an eco-hippy college town :-)
Related posts: Working class millionaires , Banker pay , Manhattan blues , On $500k a year
Fiscal Times: ... But just how flush is a family of four with a $250,000 income? Are they really “rich”? To find the answer, The Fiscal Times asked BDO USA, a national tax accounting firm, to compute the total state, local and federal tax burden of a hypothetical two-career couple with two kids, earning $250,000. To factor in varying state and local taxes, as well as drastically different costs of living, BDO placed the couple in eight different locales around the country with top-notch public school districts, using national data on spending.
The analysis assumes that this hypothetical couple – let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Jones – are each on the payroll of companies, with professional positions. They take advantage of all tax benefits available to them, such as pretax contributions to 401(k) plans and medical, childcare and transportation flexible spending accounts. They have no credit card debt, but Mr. Jones racked up $40,208 in student loan debt in undergraduate and graduate school, and Mrs. Jones borrowed $22,650 to get her undergraduate degree (both amounts are equal to the national averages for their levels of education). They also have a car loan on one of two cars, and a mortgage for 80 percent of the value of a typical home in their communities for a family of four, which includes one toddler and one school-age child.
The bottom line: It’s not exactly easy street for our $250,000-a-year family, especially when they live in high-tax areas on either coast. Even with an additional $3,000 in investment income, they end up in the red — after taxes, saving for retirement and their children’s education, and a middle-of-the-road cost of living — in seven out of the eight communities in the analysis. The worst: Huntington, N.Y., and Glendale, Calif., followed by Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Md., Alexandria, Va., Naperville, Ill. and Pinecrest, Fla. In Plano, Texas, the couple’s balance sheet would end up positive, but only by $4,963.
... Being in the red on a $250,000 annual salary may still seem surprising. But taking responsibility for their retirement and their children’s future is costly. They are maximizing contributions to two 401(k)s--advice that's championed by almost every financial advisor in the country--and all flexible spending accounts available to them, and they are squirreling away $8,000 a year for their kids’ college educations. Their spending is conservative, based on national averages for professional couples with two kids. Not included are those hefty run-of-the-mill payouts for charitable deductions, life insurance premiums, disability insurance, legal fees – or monthly sessions at the hair colorist, or membership at a gym.
As educated professionals, they buy books, newspapers and magazines; they own computers and pay for Internet access. But the Joneses don’t take lavish vacations, don’t belong to a country club, don’t play golf, don’t drive luxury cars, don’t have a swimming pool, don’t buy designer clothes, don’t own or rent a second home, and don’t send their kids to private school. They don’t even shop for groceries at high-end markets. (They spend what the United States Department of Agriculture defines as a “moderate” amount on food for the average family of four.) In short, they’re not “wealthy,” even if they’re in the top 5 percent of earners. ...
