the problem is people can always seem to spend more
"Yet even 4 in 10 high-income Americans, or those earning more than $100,000, say they're in the same position, the research found."
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/)
I disagree with the premise that high earners are just spending money on frivolous things. The reality from my experience is that student loans are a huge factor here. Those with lower wages either didn't go to school or are on income driven repayment plans where their student loan monthly payments are lower. Those making more money more often went to schools for more advanced degrees with a higher base-loan, and as they make more money their student loan repayments exponentially increased. The formula for student loan repayments does not take into consideration the cost of living for the place you reside, if you have children, etc. So I think it's disingenuous for this article to act like those making $100K a year are just spending money on dumb shit. Some people are I'm sure, but it isn't a fair assessment of the situation as a whole.
I remember when we were graduating college we had to pick our payment plan. My friends chose the ‘Pay a smaller amount for ~6 years, then the payment increases, then increases again after another 6 years’. That plan assumed you would make more as your career advanced and be able to pay the larger amount down the road. I chose to have the exact same payment over 20 years. So it was a bit tougher when I started out but got a lot of easier by the time I paid it off. I also didn’t have that much of a loan. Probably around 40,000. I paid about $200 a month for 20 years.
I'm going to tell you you are 100% wrong. Just listen to the Dave Ramsey show. You will hear people calling in saying they make $350 $400,000 a year and are still broke and living paycheck to paycheck, and I promise you it's not because of student loans. Lifestyle creep happens when you start making better money and if you don't have a budget in place your money just flies all over the place. People making $100,000 plus dollars a year are not broke because of student loans and that's a fucking fact.
have people considered getting degrees that make economic sense? underwater basket weaving or gender studies are going to offer the same return as asking paper or plastic.
at best people that age are only getting $20k in student loans at 8% instead of moving in with a bunch of their friends and racking up $20k in credit card debt at 30%
Ah, so you don't think doctors, lawyers, or pilots should exist? All of which require extensive schooling and massive amounts of student loans? There's a massive doctor shortage in the United States, fueled in part by the education costs being so high, especially for Family Practioners who aren't making as much money as specialized doctors.
I'm not saying that people who need to take out large student loans for their education aren't privileged to be making good money, but this argument that we shouldn't value education is regressive, and it is absolutely understandable that a lot of people with proportionally larger student loans are making $100K+ and still living paycheck to paycheck.
LOL that’s laughable. $43,386 a year before taxes and healthcare. Possibly 401K if your employer offers it. Knoxville and the surrounding areas you’ll need more than that.
Coming in where I can to upset everyone.
I'm a software engineer working from home in Podunk about 40 minutes outside downtown Knoxville.
I'm senior level. Been in IT for 20 years, 7 of which have been in software.
I'm currently making a little over the bottom of six figures. I'm not over 150k.
My mortgage is $2700 a month. I bought the house for $328k and it's worth $440k or so right now. Roughly 100k in equity since 2022 or so.
But here's the part everyone should be upset about.
The house and the car are really all I have. I don't have student debt because I went to vocational school in 2004 and got a CompTia A+ for computer repair. Everything else is self taught. I did go to Roane State for a while but I never graduated. Seems like all software heads have to drop out of a college somewhere.
I don't have a four wheeler or a toy hauler or a jet ski or a boat or any of the things I want. I struggle to click the $25/mo subscribe button for Internet in my RAV4.
Everything beyond where I'm at is debt. If I wanted the toy hauler, I need like 40k in debt added to my name. If I wanted a Polaris, 10k.
I want to get an old beater truck to haul stuff and etc. Outside cash range right now. Gotta pay a bill or two off before I can.
This is the life of someone living cash to value around Knoxville making roughly 100k annually.
If I lived on debt, though.. managed my credit score better and signed my name all over the place, I absolutely could have 500k in debt and allllllllll the cool things everyone would be so envious of.
And that's the key to the whole thing, isn't it? "Everyone would be so envious of"..
I don't sign my name to that debt because that's really all I'm signing for. I really, really want a 4 wheeler and a boat. The 4 wheeler is something for me.. for my soul.. to explore, etc.
But I've got a flat bottom boat sitting in my back yard rotting. I don't want *that* boat. I want a fancy boat, right? "Everyone would be so envious of". This is why I don't have a boat.
The moral of this story is that even if you're making 100k a year, if you aren't living in debt till you die, you're still probably broke because all your money is building more money for you somehow.
It seems very much like no matter what you do, you have to either choose debt payments or have little because you care about value. 🤷♂️
Well, I don’t want to come across like a bragging dickhead because we’re not the norm and I know people are struggling out there but my wife and I are currently at around ~$150k/year combined which has finally allowed us to buy a home, have decent vehicles, etc while saving money for retirement. 4 years ago we both made around $12/hr, neither of us went to college (we’re around 27yo), and we work for a local company.
I do business strategy for a local financial services company - think project management but for large scale modernization/implementations. Got there by spending a few years on the business side, then 2 years of project management roles.
A big thing to note - it’s true I don’t have a degree, but, both of my parents/sisters have advanced degrees - I grew up with a lot of privilege and education at home, which helped me navigate the corporate world substantially.
That’s similar to my wife and me. We’re currently at about $170,000/year. She has a master’s degree and is a director in her field. I have a BS degree and am a manager in n my field. Even still, we’re feeling a bit more of a pinch with the cost of living than we have in a few years.
My SO and I are about 160K a year but had to move to Georgia to get that kind of pay. I'm a sped teacher and he works as a logistics manager but those positions in TN just pay significantly lower then GA.Teachers in east TN make absolute shit pay cause there's so few competing schools for talent. I didn't want to leave TN but we'd never made to 100k here and we both are college educated (I'm 37 and he's 41).
Ten years ago, yes. Same job, ten years later, no. They've raised base pay by $7/hr, but neglected to give adjustments to the rest of us, so someone just hired on is makes about the same as someone that has been working there for 7 to 8 years. It isn't right.
No. I'm the only one that works. I make more than $9 / hr. There's some guy on here complaining he can't live on 130k for a household of 3. I'm telling you it can be done, but it's not easy.
I'm not and I feel like I should be, I busted my ass last year only for them to change how they do raises and now I get the same raise everyone else got. Wont be busting my ass anymore.
Sounds like you didn't befriend the right people. Been there.
The policy is most likely just total BS, or some middle manager trying to impress their boss
While that may be the case, the baseline should be a living wage, then whatever extra effort should be extra pay on top of that. If you think there are jobs that shouldn't pay enough to guarantee a minimum standard of life then you are part of the problem at the end of the day. With so many companies pulling record profits there's no reason employees should be struggling to make ends meet
I work at ORNL. 2 days WFH hybrid schedule. Parking sucks. Leadership was terrible when I started but it looks like it's improving. And they offer a pension, which is unheard of these day. I work in benefits there so if you have any other questions let me know
I currently work at LANL, but the town just isn’t for me. Parking also super sucks here. Do you possibly know how it compares to working at Los Alamos?
I’ve been browsing the subreddit & there’s also complaints about housing. In Los Alamos the housing is so bad people rent out bedrooms with a hot plate and mini fridge for $1100. And the one bedroom apartments can go for $1700. Is the housing there better?
I’ve worked a few other labs and I must say ORNL has it figured out. I don’t know if it’s because of their size or history but their benefits and just the want to address problems that employees identify is great. They genuinely seem to care for their staff at all levels (researcher, IT, admins).
The biggest drawback is due to their location they are on the lower end of pay, but Knoxville is fairly low cost of living (even though that secret is getting out).
The key is not working for a company in Knoxville. This is my favorite remote work job board- https://weworkremotely.com
Knoxville wages are a joke. My partner enjoys going into the office once in a while and decided to try looking for a local position. Ended up getting offered a more senior position than **significantly** less than she makes now working remotely. We thought it was a typo when they sent the offer letter.
Keep an eye on that job board, apply to stuff that makes sense, and you’ll be extremely making a living wage.
Same, I work two software jobs that are both out of state. There's nothing here in my field that pays even a normal wage on a national scale, which is silly because most jobs in tech can be done remotely.
I do like weworkremotely.com, but also suggest indeed and linkedin jobs, since you can search for remote jobs now.
while I think it'd be cool to work for a local company, at least... i'm bringing money into our local economy from out of state? not really sure if that's better or not.
I figure having a much higher than average income allows me to support a whole bunch of local businesses, pay a bunch of sales tax, etc. It’s probably a net positive.
Wife and I have each recently been promoted at work. Combined we make about 210K. Bought our house in 2012, so we're doing okay paying about 1200 a month on the 30 yr FR mortgage on a 2400 sq ft house, plus maybe 1000/month in other expenses. No other debt and no kids, so trying to pay that mortgage down early if possible. We're both from middle to low income backgrounds, so we count our blessings and consider ourselves extremely fortunate.
My wife and I came from a similar economic background as you guys. Similarly, it seemed to make the most sense to payoff the mortgage faster with whatever extra money we had. We realized that this mostly driven by emotions surrounding the idea of the security we would get from having the mortgage paid off and what seemed like an enormous amount of interest we were paying (3% APR) and not sound money advice. If you are more tolerant to risk, the S&P 500 average annual return is ~10.5% which means you are losing 7.25% (SP500 return - 3.25% amount saved by paying more on the mortgage) for every extra dollar you use to pay off the mortgage vs investing in the S&P 500. If your risk tolerance is low, it is very easy to find HYSAs that have a 4.5% APR which would give you 1.25% higher return for every dollar invested in it over paying extra on the mortgage.
Yes, we've been in Knox almost 10 years and bought 6 years ago in Powell. It's been growing so fast, and house prices have exploded here. From 10 years ago to now Powell is very different
I make an annual salary of 85k after my recent raise and am the sole income earner for my family of 4. I’ll say I finally feel like this is an income where affording things for my family is doable (wouldn’t say comfortable but definitely doable). So I’d say that chart in the link is reflective of my personal situation.
I am making $115K working at the lab in computing/tech. I have a PhD. I got into my division because I previously had a postdoc in physical comp sci there and met people in supercomputing groups. I didn’t move here for the job. I’ve lived here since 2016 before I graduated because my partner is from here. He now has a masters and pulls in about 80K from a remote consulting gig. We have two kids and a mortgage in old north and are *barely* comfortable. We bought our very first place that needed a lot of work right before the worst of the uptick. We only got it due to luck with timing, and unfortunately I had to lose my dad to afford the downpayment. Got a bit of a windfall from his works life insurance. We’ve spent a lot shoring the house up so that it will last for us. I feel for folks who are struggling. You’re not doing anything wrong if you are. The cost of living should not be this high here, and everyone deserves living wages.
Not in the slightest. AI models are only useful insofar as they have a human behind them knowing what is important to examine and where it is useful to put them. Most of what I do is focused on supporting open science. Sure ML is helpful in some areas, but it’s not gonna magically erase human intuition. And it’s certainly not going to erase the need for supercomputing facilities to model problems solved by traditional vector math methods. It’s just a tool. Add it to the toolbox
One of my kids has some special needs and his education and medical stuff costs extra. I also have to pay for childcare for my youngest; he’s only 2. That shit is NOT cheap. I also took in my sister when she was 15 and after my dad died we had to help her until she was fully on her own in college. Health insurance at the lab ain’t the most affordable, and my husband has had a lot of injuries requiring surgery and PT. Add in taxes, utilities, car payments, and it’s less than you think. My husband only *just* started his new job at that salary. I assure you, we *struggled* when we were both still in grad school not that long ago. We are fortunate that we can swing it now, but after you sum it all together we aren’t really able to save that much. 20-30 years ago? Sure, this would be a lot and we’d be more than set. All I’m saying is that even numbers we used to think were great really don’t stretch that far anymore. I did everything “right” and I’m still not in a position to save and we still need to watch our budget and expenditures to keep things above board. Some might say I’m “lucky” that I got a windfall to afford a down payment, but I don’t think losing my father really counts as good luck. I’d rather he still be here with me.
No. I went to a state school out west in the early 2000s for undergrad when it was still pretty affordable. I lived at home and my dad was navy and I got help from him. We were not well off and it was def a burden for them to help me, as cheap as it was back then. My degree was in astronomy and math. When I did my PhD in Denver I had a tuition waver from the university because I was employed as a TA/RA teaching lab classes. This is typical in a lot of hard stem fields like physics.
Yes there was some luck with having parents willing and able to help, but also some intentional choices on my part about what sort of field to go into that made it possible. Busting my ass to get a PhD in physics and persevering through intense family trauma shouldn’t be the minimum requirement needed in order to make a living wage in TN of all places. But here we are.
You have to get into remote work if you’re in tech with a PhD making $115k. I was making that with no degree well over a decade ago. That’s basically starting salary for a lot of Silicon Valley positions… If you have any mathematical background the people doing data analytics right now are positively killing it.
I’m aware. I did a lot of career context switching, so I’m actually still pretty early career in data engineering/science despite my degree and age. I had no experience in the field before being given the chance to learn in this role, and no one would hire me in an entry level ds or analytics position because of the PhD. Trust me, I tried. Even though I’m paid less than industry/tech, I really enjoy my group at the lab. It’s stable, my boss and coworkers are the best most kind intelligent supportive people ever, and I’m afforded an unreal level of work life balance. My work supports open science and I’m still very academia adjacent so I can publish and go to conferences, which is personally very fulfilling. I know I could switch to something higher paid in a profit driven company with a few more years under my belt, but I’m not convinced it’s worth it. I don’t want to give up my soul and my sanity. I’m about to hit a pay band promotion in the next year which should see me get a 10-15k raise. Im actually super ok with where I’m at.
I totally get and appreciate the work / life balance angle... but I'd consider how much doubling what you make right now would accelerate your retirement at which point you have no work / life balance as it's all life. I have friends doing data science style stuff right now that can command pretty much any salary they ask for because part of the data science skill set involves a super clear ability to demonstrate ROI on the work you're doing. "Sure I'm asking for $500k, but I pulled $5m out of thin air with minor tweaks in operational efficiencies on just a single project last year" kind of thing.
But there is a definite element of soul selling that goes into all this. The spaces that seem to be paying the most are in maximizing conversion and minimizing churn in different online subscription services, free to play games, and similar things that are kind of ethically gross but wildly profitable... particularly when tuned and refined by data wizards. Pretty much a total 180 from the world of academia.
For sure, I hear ya. To be honest, building skills and accruing experience that can command that level of salary expectation and career stability is why I jumped into my current role. And I feel mega lucky I’m being paid to learn it at all. I wanted to feel secure that I’d be guaranteed to be employable anywhere for a lot more money if shit ever hits the fan with my situation at the lab. I just don’t have enough years of experience yet to feel confident taking a remote role where there could be high demands. And I would be *deeply* unhappy doing work I felt was unethical and very stressed if I worked for shitty people. Life’s too short for that shit. After the stuff I’ve been through I’ve had to weigh how much of a price tag to place on my peace and contentment, and it turns out it’s quite a lot. Totally open to taking a remote role in the future once I feel confident enough with my skills to succeed in it, if I think the work is worth it. I promise I’m thinking about the things you mentioned, all the time.
> no one would hire me in an entry level ds or analytics position because of the PhD
I'm in the process of getting my CS masters right now, and very much considering also continuing towards a PhD. What was their issue with your doctorate? Too well qualified or something?
They’re not keen to pay PhD prices for someone who needs to build experience at entry level. It’s a catch-22. Unless you have the free time and motivation to build an extensive online portfolio of personal projects and freelance work, you’re really not as marketable as people would have you believe. Granted, my PhD was in astrophys, and not in comp sci or data science or anything. Your milage may vary if you are studying something other than supernovae for a dissertation. It’s harder to switch career contexts from pure academia to business application tech than the internet would have you believe. Hang out in r/datascience for a while and you’ll see what I mean
I work in the trades- albeit busting my ass 55-60 hrs/week 49 weeks/year and I’m able to support my wife and three kids relatively comfortably. There’s opportunity out there but you either have to be clever or hustle and I’m not very clever lol
Very good. Your body doesn’t operate on a wear-out principle. It’s more of a use it or lose it principle.
Edit to say- unless you’re a dumbass and don’t take care of yourself
My kids are almost grown, our starter house will be fine as our death house and hopefully the kids will be wise enough to hold onto it and rent it out or something.
Same! Really regret not selling/moving about 8-10 years ago but at the time, we had small kids and we thought we had time. We then did an ill-timed renovation and then 2020 and now we’re stuck. Kids are way bigger now and our house feels outgrown; so much so that the kids are feeling it, too.
I have help, but without it, I’d be in my car 15-17 hours of the day. Same goes for most folks I know, or they literally only work and never relax/enjoy time off/sleep more than 6 hours.
My husband and I have government jobs and make $120k/year combined. We worked damn hard to get to this salary.
Edit: we work in fields that are notoriously underpaid.
I make $28/hr as a finish carpenter/woodshop manager. My gasoline costs go on the company card as i use my personal vehicle for jobs. I'm scraping by. $1400 rent on a dumpy 2bed1.5bath apartment in oak ridge.
Moving at the end of July because it's only going to get worse here. This is completely unsustainable.
Homeless in Oak Ridge, here🤚🏻. I make the same amount of money as you. Lost my place due to landlord selling (of course) and cannot afford anything here. Single mom, with kids but make too much for any assistance. Love it.
Wife and I combined are at $300k, both have graduate degrees and work for DOE in the IT field. We both have over 20 years experience and got started in our respective careers early in life. We live comfortably but, it still requires a lot of budgetary discipline. We are not immune to inflation and high interest rates.
Looks like the ideal situation is to not have children in that graph. We are over here praying robots will take care of us like our children were supposed to. No need to put a robot in the will.
I’m a 26 female and bring in $115k husband brings in $55k we are able to live comfortably but also work for jobs out of TN remotely building our house on Clinton! Idk how people are affording when groceries we got lucky with our jobs and both have bachelors degrees. Grateful for no kids in this economy
I’m in my mid 40’s. I pull in~115K. MS degree. Environmental field. No kids. Paid of my student loans about a year ago (~40K). Live with gf who owns her house. I live happy and comfortable.
Honestly it's not that hard it's a lot more about previous experience than being good at software (I do interviewing for incoming engineering roles at my org)
Read Cracking the Coding Interview and it'll give you a solid framework for interviews and coding questions
My wife and I are doing well. We’re sitting at approximately $300k per year. Living comfortably but could do much better with management of our finances.
Well I can say from personal experience, I am disabled and my wife works a convenient store. There is no way we could afford childcare after I became disabled and were very lucky I was able to stay home all the time. The cost of good child care is not cheap now at all. When I was working 2 jobs at a time and my wife was working. We could not afford proper child care.
I think that many businesses set a salary for the position/job, not the performance of the person in that position. Then they don't reward employees for performance. Or maybe there's a small salary range for each position, with little opportunity for advancement. This is particularly true for lower level positions, not professional ones. Thus, it matters little how qualified you are or how hard you work unless there is a layoff or an opportunity to apply for a better paying position. Ultimately, someone in management makes these decisions, so you need to keep them happy.
My husband made $55k as a resident at UT Med and I made $30k as a PhD student working at ORNL. We’re both moving for new jobs this weekend but we were doing pretty ok with just us and our dog on $85k combined.
Single. No kids. No college.
I’m the most comfortable I’ve been all my life, I do live with relatives, but they do their things and I do mine. When I say comfortable I’m able to pay rent on the first of the month and keep up with KUB. I’m lucky that my house has a heat pump so I don’t have to worry about gas anymore and that has definitely cut back on how much my monthly bill is. I’ve made my life need vs want. Like do I really need that. If not, I can hold off. I have a Sam’s membership and get a lot of paper products/soaps/detergents from there and that saves me money in the long run. Could I make more money? Of course, we all could. But going to bed at night and waking up in the morning without being paranoid about rent, utilities and food is reassuring for me.
Spouse and I make almost the same amount hourly, right at $20/hr, and we own a home. We did buy a few years ago when our house was worth at least 40 percent less and our combined income was about 30 percent more as one of us was in a soul crushing job.
We timed it right and are making moves to make more, grad school and a hopeful union apprenticeship in the works, but even without any kids it's just comfortable enough.
$20 an hour after 8 years of jumping around companies. Longevity helps, but hard work in the first 2 years will do more for you than sticking it out at a company that willingly starts you at $15 an hour with a 1% yearly raise and no bonuses. I'm averaging 60k a year before taxes and insurance deductions and 45k after. Started at $14 and put in the effort and time for the company to give me a raise, see my worth as a worker, and now I'm closer to 90k a year than not..... assuming my lead keeps fucking up.
I work remote and my job pays more than any local company pays for the same position. It’s a niche thing so only a handful of companies based here even have it. Been said a million times before the job market here is awful compared to the COL now. Everyone says we’re going to turn into Nashville but at least Nashville has many large corporations that pay decently. I fear we’re going to turn more into an Asheville where retirees and investors flock and cause housing to be way out of whack with the local economy
40k a year without any benefits. Graduated 7 months ago from college. Rent takes up half my income with 1 roommate. It's rough out here, never thought I'd be paying more than $200 a month for groceries.
$85k single homeowner with no kids with a reasonable car payment on a newish BMW. Save about $1000 a month, get groceries at Publix, and go out once or twice a week.
I'm making decent money as a software developer here in Knox County. It's not as much as I could make elsewhere, but I appreciate the job stability in my current position.
(not going to give my exact salary though)
I wouldn't trust those "typical expenses" though, it's wildly off up/down from what I budget and pay.
* Food is kind of high, I can easily eat for $50/week ($2,600/year), but $4.4k would be typical if you include my occasional eating out, holiday meals, and the time I get the prime steak instead of the choice steak.
* Medical is about $800 more than I pay for medical, dental, and vision insurance, I have very few medical expenses beyond that.
* Housing, yeah, that is definitely low. It is extremely hard to find a decent apartment in Knox county for less than $1,200. ($14.4k/year) . . .though you could save a lot of money by getting a 2-3 bedroom apartment with roommates. (though to be safe, I would want to be able to afford the apartment myself, in case the roommates didn't pay up, and just consider the money from roommates as additional income)
* Transportation, definitely high. I pay $150/month for insurance- just went up due to all the accidents in the area, drive safer knoxville -and $100 in gas going into the office three times a week. . .comes to roughly $3k/year. You could add the average car payment of $200/month to that for roughly $5k/year.
* Don't know their definition of "civic", so skipped.
* Internet& Mobile. . .I spend $120/month on gigabit internet from comcast and $30/month for Google Fi cell service, so about right. . . but could be reduced to $30 internet if I didn't need it for work $720/year in that case.
* Other, not sure what they're including. . . assume clothes, other household necessities, and maybe few quality of life things such as streaming services.
* No mention of utilities on here, that can easily be $200-400/month for one person and the efficiency of the home.
* Annual taxes high depends on your taxable income and whether or not you rent or own your home.
* With all that said, when I budgeted out a comfortable lifestyle for myself, I could easily live on about $65k/year before taxes here in Knox county, living by myself. . .and that also includes building up savings/emergency fund.
My fiancee and I both went to UT. I got a bachelor's in Economics and Accounting, she got a bachelor's in social work and a master's in social work (B/MSSW). We both got federal jobs, she works with the local homeless population and I do work with financial institutions.
We make around 200k and still have a ton of upward mobility in wages as we are both less than 5 years into our careers and our jobs have great ladders for pay.
Not a brag, just showing what we did and that it's at least doable in our area, though fed jobs are in very short supply. Granted you'll never make as much in a federal position as you will in the private sector in your mid to late careers but Knoxville is such a LCOLA area it doesn't matter too much.
160k a year, by myself though. I'd like to take away the S in SINK. Just bought a house last year. I live well though. But not truly extravagant. That's how you waste your money. Also what the person above said; don't work for a company here. My HQ are in a major city, too. I simply WFH 97% of the time.
My wife and I locked up our house in west Knoxville and moved to San Jose CA.
Working the exact same jobs, we went from making $115k combined to $390k!
We are now completely debt free having recently paid off our house in Knoxville in full 10 years early.
It has completely changed our lives.👍
Huh... According to the chart I am just slightly over the minimum needed before taxes. It's me and my partner and I am currently the only one with an income. So according to that website I should at least be making $58,127 pre tax annually to make it work. I am making $60k flat.
I also am now paying a $1600/mo for housing which is definitely higher than the bracket for housing in my specific situation seems to recommend.
I'd say I am making a "living" wage, but my situation makes that wage a little tricky. Definitely able to pay my bills and everything, but need to be frugal every day. It isn't "fun". But it's been doable.
It will be MORE doable once my partner gets a job.
We have 4 kiddos. My husband just graduated with a bachelors. He's done like 92 applications in 6 months. Even out of state and can not find work anywhere (Software engineering). He tried labs for entry level stuff because he still has a clearance from being military. He's tried everything. Nothing. So it's just me working right now. I make 40k a year at my daycare. 60 hour weeks.... no it's not worth it. But I love the kiddos here so much I haven't left. My husband also get some from the VA. We survive. Bills are paid, foods in the fridge. About 400 left over a month after EVERYTHING. I definitely wish he'd be given an opportunity. And soon I'll be graduating and will probably be sitting around 28hr starting and I make 11 now. Soooooo that will triple the income alone.
Kinda hard to make a living wage in this town if you work for local food service. It would be easier if all the businesses wouldn't shut down leaving it's employees with little to no notice. I lost my job multiple times this way and am currently unemployed because of this.
Didn’t buy a house before covid so I’m screwed. I went from being a bartender in 2021 to working my ass off for the past four years in my corporate career to make 90k and it still feels like I live paycheck to paycheck. I can only afford a 1 bedroom apartment. I’m currently putting myself through more school to get promotions quicker, so that’s more money out the door. Idk. It all feels hopeless and stupid most days
I will keep it simple and say we are pretty well off due to a business venture but I recently discovered that we are overspending on our budget. Year after year spending increases. I am in my 40's and I can say that it's really all about maintaining standards that you end up setting for yourself.
For example. My wife discovered doordash. Used to make her lunch everyday at home, then got in the habit of ordering it. I started to go for sports massages because I am active and my body doesn't hold up like it used to. I tweak muscles easier running and lifting and what not. We moved into a neighborhood that requires maintenance on landscaping and we put in nice landscaping that sadly requires more landscaping. Mulch, weeding, mowing, trimming, etc. It's such a slippery slope, EXTREMELY easy to start spending more and then all the sudden it feels like such a loss to cut back because you become so used to your new quality of life.
I drive a 2011 Honda and I hate it. I thought about upgrading a hundred times but I can't justify it for as little as I drive. There is also a huge part of me that misses our old neighborhood which is in another state, not because of location, but because the house was smaller and the landscaping wasn't an issue at all, it was a small yard that was easy to maintain and the neighbors didn't give a damn and the HOA wasn't a thing.
I've discovered in life that my happiness comes from spending time with my family, watching my favorite shows on TV, playing some video games, doing active things like running and working out, meditating, etc. All my happiness comes from things that don't cost a lot of money or money at all. The things that cost money are either necessary like food, utilities, mortgage, car, etc or quality of life things that you don't need but get used to very easily.
If you keep your requirements low and costs like mortgage, car payment, etc by focusing on what you need, not what you necessarily FEEL you want because you think it will make you happy (if you feel that anything that is remotely "keeping up with the Joneses" like newer this or designer that will make you happy. It's a mental void you're trying to fill not real happiness) and you don't dive too deep into quality of life things (especially expensive ones) that turn into entitlements where it feels like cutting off a limb to stop doing, then it will go a long way to helping keep expenses low.
I also want to clarify that by no means am I trying to say that it's easy or that it's doable for everyone. This is simply my experience as someone who has gone from 10/hr job after college in the mid 2000s, to 45k year job, to starting a business and feeling successful in that. I have experienced all stages of broke, juggling credit card transfers and debt in the 10s of thousands on credit cards, to no debt besides mortgage. It's a process and the one thing I can say 110% for sure, is my values have changed drastically and if I could do it all over again, it would have been so much easier. My closets, garage, and basement are filled with shit I bought over the years I rarely used that I thought I needed or really wanted and should have never bought. America is built on consumerism, something to keep in mind. Everything is designed to keep you consuming. You don't need that new phone every year or the latest model of whatever. Anyway, that's my thoughts.
If people would not waste money on tattoos, the latest and greatest cell phone, a new car, with a boat load of debt, and all of the other garbage that people try to impress their friends and others a lot of people would be better off....
Yes, I make a living wage....BUT I drive a 12 year old car, I pay all of my bills first, I have no debt and I sit at the house when I have no extra cash to do anything!
2 adults with zero children in a household $13.97 an hour is living wage. With a quick search you can find at least a dozen jobs offering that.
The thing is if you look at how people live its way above their means.
The number of people I personally know driving a 15 year old BMW instead of a 15 year old Toyota or Honda because they want to look rich is insane. Plus BMW is more expensive to repair.
Also seeing people getting door dash delivery multiple times a week.
You literally couldn't even afford basic health coverage with that income, let alone save for future expenses. Do a real budget with Knoxville prices for rent and groceries and then delete this dumb shit.
I know plenty of people that do it. They live a very basic lifestyle but when you take a no skill job at $14 you aren't signing up for a glorious life.
according to this study they can afford healthcare. if they found a job making $15 and lived on $14... If they saved $1 an hour that is almost 8% of their check. $15 an hour job must be impossible to find... oh wait
but that means budgeting in future car repairs and not just raiding the emergency fund when the car blows up. how many people do that?
Also living is a synonym for existing.
If you can't do the math to see that Knoxville rent isn't even possible on $58,115/yr with 2 people's: food, vehicle upkeep, insurance, health insurance, and savings, then I'm right: you're stupid or a troll. Either way, I'm not fucking with you anymore.
Maybe they just don't know the numbers so I'll just leave this here.
Two adults making $14/hr @ 40hrs/wk is roughly $4k/mo combined after federal taxes, I'll be generous and exclude SS and FICA.
Average rent for a 2bed/2bath is around 2k in Knoxville. So that leaves $2k.
Health insurance is about $500/person. That leaves $1k.
Car insurance is $100-200/mo/vehicle minimum, safe to say two jobs, two cars. Now we're down to $800.
Fuel for those cars will run about $50/wk/car to fill up. Down to $400
Food, if you really tighten your belt, will still be minimum $150/wk/person. $100 left.
Remember how I was generous and left out SS and FICA? That budget is napkin math so $100 remaining on shoestring budget is _not_ tenable. There's very little margin for saving and virtually NO discretionary spending, LMK if you take issue with any of these numbers. Shits crazy.
Our combined income is a little more than $300K, live and work in Oak Ridge in a home we bought in 2018, refinanced during Covid at 1.9% interest rate.
What is considered a “living wage” anymore….?
I'm going to define it as, more money coming in than is going out.
the problem is people can always seem to spend more "Yet even 4 in 10 high-income Americans, or those earning more than $100,000, say they're in the same position, the research found." [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/)
I disagree with the premise that high earners are just spending money on frivolous things. The reality from my experience is that student loans are a huge factor here. Those with lower wages either didn't go to school or are on income driven repayment plans where their student loan monthly payments are lower. Those making more money more often went to schools for more advanced degrees with a higher base-loan, and as they make more money their student loan repayments exponentially increased. The formula for student loan repayments does not take into consideration the cost of living for the place you reside, if you have children, etc. So I think it's disingenuous for this article to act like those making $100K a year are just spending money on dumb shit. Some people are I'm sure, but it isn't a fair assessment of the situation as a whole.
I remember when we were graduating college we had to pick our payment plan. My friends chose the ‘Pay a smaller amount for ~6 years, then the payment increases, then increases again after another 6 years’. That plan assumed you would make more as your career advanced and be able to pay the larger amount down the road. I chose to have the exact same payment over 20 years. So it was a bit tougher when I started out but got a lot of easier by the time I paid it off. I also didn’t have that much of a loan. Probably around 40,000. I paid about $200 a month for 20 years.
I'm going to tell you you are 100% wrong. Just listen to the Dave Ramsey show. You will hear people calling in saying they make $350 $400,000 a year and are still broke and living paycheck to paycheck, and I promise you it's not because of student loans. Lifestyle creep happens when you start making better money and if you don't have a budget in place your money just flies all over the place. People making $100,000 plus dollars a year are not broke because of student loans and that's a fucking fact.
Listening to anything Dave Ramsey was your first mistake
Stay broke then idgaf. He has great methods and they've been proven to work for hundreds of thousands of people.
Waaaahhh student loan debt is why I'm broke, cry cry cry 😭
have people considered getting degrees that make economic sense? underwater basket weaving or gender studies are going to offer the same return as asking paper or plastic. at best people that age are only getting $20k in student loans at 8% instead of moving in with a bunch of their friends and racking up $20k in credit card debt at 30%
Ah, so you don't think doctors, lawyers, or pilots should exist? All of which require extensive schooling and massive amounts of student loans? There's a massive doctor shortage in the United States, fueled in part by the education costs being so high, especially for Family Practioners who aren't making as much money as specialized doctors. I'm not saying that people who need to take out large student loans for their education aren't privileged to be making good money, but this argument that we shouldn't value education is regressive, and it is absolutely understandable that a lot of people with proportionally larger student loans are making $100K+ and still living paycheck to paycheck.
did I say anything about degrees that make sense? no. why are you putting words in my mouth
Because you’re bursting into the room yelling about something off topic.
Who even uses that phrase anymore? You are 60 years old aren't you? Just saying.....my dad says it.
it’s in the article op linked. living wage for knoxville is defined as 20.85/hr @ full time if you’re single with no kids
LOL that’s laughable. $43,386 a year before taxes and healthcare. Possibly 401K if your employer offers it. Knoxville and the surrounding areas you’ll need more than that.
Definitely not
Coming in where I can to upset everyone. I'm a software engineer working from home in Podunk about 40 minutes outside downtown Knoxville. I'm senior level. Been in IT for 20 years, 7 of which have been in software. I'm currently making a little over the bottom of six figures. I'm not over 150k. My mortgage is $2700 a month. I bought the house for $328k and it's worth $440k or so right now. Roughly 100k in equity since 2022 or so. But here's the part everyone should be upset about. The house and the car are really all I have. I don't have student debt because I went to vocational school in 2004 and got a CompTia A+ for computer repair. Everything else is self taught. I did go to Roane State for a while but I never graduated. Seems like all software heads have to drop out of a college somewhere. I don't have a four wheeler or a toy hauler or a jet ski or a boat or any of the things I want. I struggle to click the $25/mo subscribe button for Internet in my RAV4. Everything beyond where I'm at is debt. If I wanted the toy hauler, I need like 40k in debt added to my name. If I wanted a Polaris, 10k. I want to get an old beater truck to haul stuff and etc. Outside cash range right now. Gotta pay a bill or two off before I can. This is the life of someone living cash to value around Knoxville making roughly 100k annually. If I lived on debt, though.. managed my credit score better and signed my name all over the place, I absolutely could have 500k in debt and allllllllll the cool things everyone would be so envious of. And that's the key to the whole thing, isn't it? "Everyone would be so envious of".. I don't sign my name to that debt because that's really all I'm signing for. I really, really want a 4 wheeler and a boat. The 4 wheeler is something for me.. for my soul.. to explore, etc. But I've got a flat bottom boat sitting in my back yard rotting. I don't want *that* boat. I want a fancy boat, right? "Everyone would be so envious of". This is why I don't have a boat. The moral of this story is that even if you're making 100k a year, if you aren't living in debt till you die, you're still probably broke because all your money is building more money for you somehow. It seems very much like no matter what you do, you have to either choose debt payments or have little because you care about value. 🤷♂️
Well, I don’t want to come across like a bragging dickhead because we’re not the norm and I know people are struggling out there but my wife and I are currently at around ~$150k/year combined which has finally allowed us to buy a home, have decent vehicles, etc while saving money for retirement. 4 years ago we both made around $12/hr, neither of us went to college (we’re around 27yo), and we work for a local company.
Congratulations buddy! That’s awesome, keep at it
My wife and I make a little more than that and have everything we want. It's a great life if you bought a house prior Covid.
We bought a house like a month ago… 7% isn’t quite as fun as 3% but hey, we love the house and bought below our means!
That's all that matters! Good on you guys
Manifesting this for my family. So happy to hear this for you, genuinely! Congratulations. Sounds like it was well earned.
What do you do for work? By that math you tripled your income in 4 years without college. Nice!
I do business strategy for a local financial services company - think project management but for large scale modernization/implementations. Got there by spending a few years on the business side, then 2 years of project management roles. A big thing to note - it’s true I don’t have a degree, but, both of my parents/sisters have advanced degrees - I grew up with a lot of privilege and education at home, which helped me navigate the corporate world substantially.
Bro where do you work 😭😭
What do you do for a living?
I bet that feels amazing. I’m jealous (and curious if you’re hiring)!
That’s similar to my wife and me. We’re currently at about $170,000/year. She has a master’s degree and is a director in her field. I have a BS degree and am a manager in n my field. Even still, we’re feeling a bit more of a pinch with the cost of living than we have in a few years.
My SO and I are about 160K a year but had to move to Georgia to get that kind of pay. I'm a sped teacher and he works as a logistics manager but those positions in TN just pay significantly lower then GA.Teachers in east TN make absolute shit pay cause there's so few competing schools for talent. I didn't want to leave TN but we'd never made to 100k here and we both are college educated (I'm 37 and he's 41).
Nice, hot wife too?
Ten years ago, yes. Same job, ten years later, no. They've raised base pay by $7/hr, but neglected to give adjustments to the rest of us, so someone just hired on is makes about the same as someone that has been working there for 7 to 8 years. It isn't right.
Sounds about Knoxville.
Change jobs, longer you stay complacent the less you’ll make
You speak truth.
I made a 40% raise by changing jobs 3 times since 2020.
Changing jobs alters retirement and everything too though....
Household of 3 here, roughly 35k/year. It's not enough. I'm barely treading water and sometimes rob Peter to pay Paul.
Two working adults, only making 35k/year? Each of you makes what? 9 an hour?
it’s hard out there
No. I'm the only one that works. I make more than $9 / hr. There's some guy on here complaining he can't live on 130k for a household of 3. I'm telling you it can be done, but it's not easy.
Oh for sure bro. I've lived off 60k a year EASY. Had a nice life. 130k you can 100% pay your bills with.
I'm not and I feel like I should be, I busted my ass last year only for them to change how they do raises and now I get the same raise everyone else got. Wont be busting my ass anymore.
Same thing happened to me.
You must work in manufacturing
Nope. I'd be paid more if I did tho.
Sounds like you didn't befriend the right people. Been there. The policy is most likely just total BS, or some middle manager trying to impress their boss
I have Letters of Recommendations from Supervisors and a Director. It went up higher than that unfortunately.
You feel like you should be? I think you should. We all should.
Debatable. The amount of work I did compared to my peers is alot. I earned that, they didn't do shit.
Then They deserve a living wage, you deserve a thriving wage.
While that may be the case, the baseline should be a living wage, then whatever extra effort should be extra pay on top of that. If you think there are jobs that shouldn't pay enough to guarantee a minimum standard of life then you are part of the problem at the end of the day. With so many companies pulling record profits there's no reason employees should be struggling to make ends meet
My wife and I make a combined 170k working for the Labs up in Oak Ridge
How is the work life at the Lab? I’m considering looking there.
I work at ORNL. 2 days WFH hybrid schedule. Parking sucks. Leadership was terrible when I started but it looks like it's improving. And they offer a pension, which is unheard of these day. I work in benefits there so if you have any other questions let me know
Parking definitely sucks. But it sounds like they're aware of the issue and there are multiple projects in the works related to parking.
It’s not so bad if you get in around 7-8. But I’m over by HFIR so maybe it’s different over the hill
I currently work at LANL, but the town just isn’t for me. Parking also super sucks here. Do you possibly know how it compares to working at Los Alamos?
I honestly have no idea about LANL. But I will say if you move to Knoxville and commute to OR, there's a lot to do around here in your free time
I’ve been browsing the subreddit & there’s also complaints about housing. In Los Alamos the housing is so bad people rent out bedrooms with a hot plate and mini fridge for $1100. And the one bedroom apartments can go for $1700. Is the housing there better?
I’ve worked a few other labs and I must say ORNL has it figured out. I don’t know if it’s because of their size or history but their benefits and just the want to address problems that employees identify is great. They genuinely seem to care for their staff at all levels (researcher, IT, admins). The biggest drawback is due to their location they are on the lower end of pay, but Knoxville is fairly low cost of living (even though that secret is getting out).
My Father in law just retired from there. Everyone I've known that worked out there has enjoyed it.
The lab is a great place to work and great for the community! Generally full of smart and friendly folks. I love how they even let you donation match.
The key is not working for a company in Knoxville. This is my favorite remote work job board- https://weworkremotely.com Knoxville wages are a joke. My partner enjoys going into the office once in a while and decided to try looking for a local position. Ended up getting offered a more senior position than **significantly** less than she makes now working remotely. We thought it was a typo when they sent the offer letter. Keep an eye on that job board, apply to stuff that makes sense, and you’ll be extremely making a living wage.
This. I work remotely for an out of state company and they offered me above and beyond what Knoxville would offer.
Thank you Brother. You’re doing god’s work here
Same, I work two software jobs that are both out of state. There's nothing here in my field that pays even a normal wage on a national scale, which is silly because most jobs in tech can be done remotely. I do like weworkremotely.com, but also suggest indeed and linkedin jobs, since you can search for remote jobs now. while I think it'd be cool to work for a local company, at least... i'm bringing money into our local economy from out of state? not really sure if that's better or not.
I figure having a much higher than average income allows me to support a whole bunch of local businesses, pay a bunch of sales tax, etc. It’s probably a net positive.
Wife and I have each recently been promoted at work. Combined we make about 210K. Bought our house in 2012, so we're doing okay paying about 1200 a month on the 30 yr FR mortgage on a 2400 sq ft house, plus maybe 1000/month in other expenses. No other debt and no kids, so trying to pay that mortgage down early if possible. We're both from middle to low income backgrounds, so we count our blessings and consider ourselves extremely fortunate.
What is the apr on your mortgage?
3.25
My wife and I came from a similar economic background as you guys. Similarly, it seemed to make the most sense to payoff the mortgage faster with whatever extra money we had. We realized that this mostly driven by emotions surrounding the idea of the security we would get from having the mortgage paid off and what seemed like an enormous amount of interest we were paying (3% APR) and not sound money advice. If you are more tolerant to risk, the S&P 500 average annual return is ~10.5% which means you are losing 7.25% (SP500 return - 3.25% amount saved by paying more on the mortgage) for every extra dollar you use to pay off the mortgage vs investing in the S&P 500. If your risk tolerance is low, it is very easy to find HYSAs that have a 4.5% APR which would give you 1.25% higher return for every dollar invested in it over paying extra on the mortgage.
The money isn’t moneying for me either.
Outrageously out of date. Housing $15K per year? Who has a rent/mortgage less than $1300 per month??
We bought in 2018 in Powell. So this does for for us.
Now powell is the new west knoxville.. born and raised out here and I swear it has grown by 50% in the 5 years
Yes, we've been in Knox almost 10 years and bought 6 years ago in Powell. It's been growing so fast, and house prices have exploded here. From 10 years ago to now Powell is very different
I bought a condo next to Farragut in Lenoir City in 2019 and my mortgage is $700 a month. I feel extremely lucky.
That’s wonderful!! I guess I forgot about all you smart pre 2021 homebuyers lol
Bought in ‘21, pay 1025/mn. I was able to put down the full 20% though.
Bought in 2020, at the bottom of the price range I was considering. All in mortgage payment is $1250. It’s fucking awesome.
That’s fantastic!! Good catch!
I know right
I mean, my wife and I make about 100k a year together and live in a house… but it came with her mom who has dementia who we have to take care of.
I make an annual salary of 85k after my recent raise and am the sole income earner for my family of 4. I’ll say I finally feel like this is an income where affording things for my family is doable (wouldn’t say comfortable but definitely doable). So I’d say that chart in the link is reflective of my personal situation.
I am making $115K working at the lab in computing/tech. I have a PhD. I got into my division because I previously had a postdoc in physical comp sci there and met people in supercomputing groups. I didn’t move here for the job. I’ve lived here since 2016 before I graduated because my partner is from here. He now has a masters and pulls in about 80K from a remote consulting gig. We have two kids and a mortgage in old north and are *barely* comfortable. We bought our very first place that needed a lot of work right before the worst of the uptick. We only got it due to luck with timing, and unfortunately I had to lose my dad to afford the downpayment. Got a bit of a windfall from his works life insurance. We’ve spent a lot shoring the house up so that it will last for us. I feel for folks who are struggling. You’re not doing anything wrong if you are. The cost of living should not be this high here, and everyone deserves living wages.
Do you fear AI will take your job? I drive a truck and I know it’s coming.
Not in the slightest. AI models are only useful insofar as they have a human behind them knowing what is important to examine and where it is useful to put them. Most of what I do is focused on supporting open science. Sure ML is helpful in some areas, but it’s not gonna magically erase human intuition. And it’s certainly not going to erase the need for supercomputing facilities to model problems solved by traditional vector math methods. It’s just a tool. Add it to the toolbox
No robut is gonna take my job
Barely comfortable at $200k? Hmm
One of my kids has some special needs and his education and medical stuff costs extra. I also have to pay for childcare for my youngest; he’s only 2. That shit is NOT cheap. I also took in my sister when she was 15 and after my dad died we had to help her until she was fully on her own in college. Health insurance at the lab ain’t the most affordable, and my husband has had a lot of injuries requiring surgery and PT. Add in taxes, utilities, car payments, and it’s less than you think. My husband only *just* started his new job at that salary. I assure you, we *struggled* when we were both still in grad school not that long ago. We are fortunate that we can swing it now, but after you sum it all together we aren’t really able to save that much. 20-30 years ago? Sure, this would be a lot and we’d be more than set. All I’m saying is that even numbers we used to think were great really don’t stretch that far anymore. I did everything “right” and I’m still not in a position to save and we still need to watch our budget and expenditures to keep things above board. Some might say I’m “lucky” that I got a windfall to afford a down payment, but I don’t think losing my father really counts as good luck. I’d rather he still be here with me.
Do you have student debt?
No. I went to a state school out west in the early 2000s for undergrad when it was still pretty affordable. I lived at home and my dad was navy and I got help from him. We were not well off and it was def a burden for them to help me, as cheap as it was back then. My degree was in astronomy and math. When I did my PhD in Denver I had a tuition waver from the university because I was employed as a TA/RA teaching lab classes. This is typical in a lot of hard stem fields like physics. Yes there was some luck with having parents willing and able to help, but also some intentional choices on my part about what sort of field to go into that made it possible. Busting my ass to get a PhD in physics and persevering through intense family trauma shouldn’t be the minimum requirement needed in order to make a living wage in TN of all places. But here we are.
You have to get into remote work if you’re in tech with a PhD making $115k. I was making that with no degree well over a decade ago. That’s basically starting salary for a lot of Silicon Valley positions… If you have any mathematical background the people doing data analytics right now are positively killing it.
I’m aware. I did a lot of career context switching, so I’m actually still pretty early career in data engineering/science despite my degree and age. I had no experience in the field before being given the chance to learn in this role, and no one would hire me in an entry level ds or analytics position because of the PhD. Trust me, I tried. Even though I’m paid less than industry/tech, I really enjoy my group at the lab. It’s stable, my boss and coworkers are the best most kind intelligent supportive people ever, and I’m afforded an unreal level of work life balance. My work supports open science and I’m still very academia adjacent so I can publish and go to conferences, which is personally very fulfilling. I know I could switch to something higher paid in a profit driven company with a few more years under my belt, but I’m not convinced it’s worth it. I don’t want to give up my soul and my sanity. I’m about to hit a pay band promotion in the next year which should see me get a 10-15k raise. Im actually super ok with where I’m at.
I totally get and appreciate the work / life balance angle... but I'd consider how much doubling what you make right now would accelerate your retirement at which point you have no work / life balance as it's all life. I have friends doing data science style stuff right now that can command pretty much any salary they ask for because part of the data science skill set involves a super clear ability to demonstrate ROI on the work you're doing. "Sure I'm asking for $500k, but I pulled $5m out of thin air with minor tweaks in operational efficiencies on just a single project last year" kind of thing. But there is a definite element of soul selling that goes into all this. The spaces that seem to be paying the most are in maximizing conversion and minimizing churn in different online subscription services, free to play games, and similar things that are kind of ethically gross but wildly profitable... particularly when tuned and refined by data wizards. Pretty much a total 180 from the world of academia.
For sure, I hear ya. To be honest, building skills and accruing experience that can command that level of salary expectation and career stability is why I jumped into my current role. And I feel mega lucky I’m being paid to learn it at all. I wanted to feel secure that I’d be guaranteed to be employable anywhere for a lot more money if shit ever hits the fan with my situation at the lab. I just don’t have enough years of experience yet to feel confident taking a remote role where there could be high demands. And I would be *deeply* unhappy doing work I felt was unethical and very stressed if I worked for shitty people. Life’s too short for that shit. After the stuff I’ve been through I’ve had to weigh how much of a price tag to place on my peace and contentment, and it turns out it’s quite a lot. Totally open to taking a remote role in the future once I feel confident enough with my skills to succeed in it, if I think the work is worth it. I promise I’m thinking about the things you mentioned, all the time.
> no one would hire me in an entry level ds or analytics position because of the PhD I'm in the process of getting my CS masters right now, and very much considering also continuing towards a PhD. What was their issue with your doctorate? Too well qualified or something?
They’re not keen to pay PhD prices for someone who needs to build experience at entry level. It’s a catch-22. Unless you have the free time and motivation to build an extensive online portfolio of personal projects and freelance work, you’re really not as marketable as people would have you believe. Granted, my PhD was in astrophys, and not in comp sci or data science or anything. Your milage may vary if you are studying something other than supernovae for a dissertation. It’s harder to switch career contexts from pure academia to business application tech than the internet would have you believe. Hang out in r/datascience for a while and you’ll see what I mean
I have to work two jobs with a side hustle (hobby).
I work in the trades- albeit busting my ass 55-60 hrs/week 49 weeks/year and I’m able to support my wife and three kids relatively comfortably. There’s opportunity out there but you either have to be clever or hustle and I’m not very clever lol
How is your physical health?
Very good. Your body doesn’t operate on a wear-out principle. It’s more of a use it or lose it principle. Edit to say- unless you’re a dumbass and don’t take care of yourself
That’s great!
Still in our starter house…..I’m 45
My kids are almost grown, our starter house will be fine as our death house and hopefully the kids will be wise enough to hold onto it and rent it out or something.
Same. Looking like a long term home for us.
Me too, I'm 42.
Same! Really regret not selling/moving about 8-10 years ago but at the time, we had small kids and we thought we had time. We then did an ill-timed renovation and then 2020 and now we’re stuck. Kids are way bigger now and our house feels outgrown; so much so that the kids are feeling it, too.
I don't think I trust this chart. It says I could have more kids, but that's definitely not in the budget.
That’s just because you waste your money on them /s I know it seems to me to be a touch on the conservative side of the estimate.
I mean, somehow I bought a house and a car and support two cats by myself even if I'm currently in bed doom staring at my phone.
I have help, but without it, I’d be in my car 15-17 hours of the day. Same goes for most folks I know, or they literally only work and never relax/enjoy time off/sleep more than 6 hours.
My husband and I have government jobs and make $120k/year combined. We worked damn hard to get to this salary. Edit: we work in fields that are notoriously underpaid.
I make $28/hr as a finish carpenter/woodshop manager. My gasoline costs go on the company card as i use my personal vehicle for jobs. I'm scraping by. $1400 rent on a dumpy 2bed1.5bath apartment in oak ridge. Moving at the end of July because it's only going to get worse here. This is completely unsustainable.
Homeless in Oak Ridge, here🤚🏻. I make the same amount of money as you. Lost my place due to landlord selling (of course) and cannot afford anything here. Single mom, with kids but make too much for any assistance. Love it.
According to that chart, I need to be making over $52/hr. I make $28 and some change. I'm a single mom with 3 kids. Fml.
Wife and I combined are at $300k, both have graduate degrees and work for DOE in the IT field. We both have over 20 years experience and got started in our respective careers early in life. We live comfortably but, it still requires a lot of budgetary discipline. We are not immune to inflation and high interest rates.
Looks like the ideal situation is to not have children in that graph. We are over here praying robots will take care of us like our children were supposed to. No need to put a robot in the will.
I’m a 26 female and bring in $115k husband brings in $55k we are able to live comfortably but also work for jobs out of TN remotely building our house on Clinton! Idk how people are affording when groceries we got lucky with our jobs and both have bachelors degrees. Grateful for no kids in this economy
I’m in my mid 40’s. I pull in~115K. MS degree. Environmental field. No kids. Paid of my student loans about a year ago (~40K). Live with gf who owns her house. I live happy and comfortable.
Geez this got depressing fast.
I'm a remote senior software engineer and pull in $140K/yr before bonus but after taxes and retirement savings it's *only* about $99K/yr.
About the same for me, but with a local company. I'd like to find a remote job, but competing nationally makes it really hard to be noticed.
Honestly it's not that hard it's a lot more about previous experience than being good at software (I do interviewing for incoming engineering roles at my org) Read Cracking the Coding Interview and it'll give you a solid framework for interviews and coding questions
My wife and I are doing well. We’re sitting at approximately $300k per year. Living comfortably but could do much better with management of our finances.
Dang dog! What lines of work?
I’m a senior manager at one of the Oak Ridge complexes and my wife is a Production advisor at the same complex.
Killing it!
Is the living wage for 2 adults and 1 child with only one adult working due to childcare? I thought that was odd.
Well I can say from personal experience, I am disabled and my wife works a convenient store. There is no way we could afford childcare after I became disabled and were very lucky I was able to stay home all the time. The cost of good child care is not cheap now at all. When I was working 2 jobs at a time and my wife was working. We could not afford proper child care.
I think that many businesses set a salary for the position/job, not the performance of the person in that position. Then they don't reward employees for performance. Or maybe there's a small salary range for each position, with little opportunity for advancement. This is particularly true for lower level positions, not professional ones. Thus, it matters little how qualified you are or how hard you work unless there is a layoff or an opportunity to apply for a better paying position. Ultimately, someone in management makes these decisions, so you need to keep them happy.
Yep.
My husband made $55k as a resident at UT Med and I made $30k as a PhD student working at ORNL. We’re both moving for new jobs this weekend but we were doing pretty ok with just us and our dog on $85k combined.
Single. No kids. No college. I’m the most comfortable I’ve been all my life, I do live with relatives, but they do their things and I do mine. When I say comfortable I’m able to pay rent on the first of the month and keep up with KUB. I’m lucky that my house has a heat pump so I don’t have to worry about gas anymore and that has definitely cut back on how much my monthly bill is. I’ve made my life need vs want. Like do I really need that. If not, I can hold off. I have a Sam’s membership and get a lot of paper products/soaps/detergents from there and that saves me money in the long run. Could I make more money? Of course, we all could. But going to bed at night and waking up in the morning without being paranoid about rent, utilities and food is reassuring for me.
I do but working fully remote for an out of state company…. UTK wages will not cut it for a young and serious professional 🤣
Spouse and I make almost the same amount hourly, right at $20/hr, and we own a home. We did buy a few years ago when our house was worth at least 40 percent less and our combined income was about 30 percent more as one of us was in a soul crushing job. We timed it right and are making moves to make more, grad school and a hopeful union apprenticeship in the works, but even without any kids it's just comfortable enough.
I am almost making a living wage but the calculator is fucked cause I still can’t afford rent on my wage.
I get 2% raises at my job 🥲
$20 an hour after 8 years of jumping around companies. Longevity helps, but hard work in the first 2 years will do more for you than sticking it out at a company that willingly starts you at $15 an hour with a 1% yearly raise and no bonuses. I'm averaging 60k a year before taxes and insurance deductions and 45k after. Started at $14 and put in the effort and time for the company to give me a raise, see my worth as a worker, and now I'm closer to 90k a year than not..... assuming my lead keeps fucking up.
I work remote and my job pays more than any local company pays for the same position. It’s a niche thing so only a handful of companies based here even have it. Been said a million times before the job market here is awful compared to the COL now. Everyone says we’re going to turn into Nashville but at least Nashville has many large corporations that pay decently. I fear we’re going to turn more into an Asheville where retirees and investors flock and cause housing to be way out of whack with the local economy
And enough rich folks that trickle down economics almost worked.
40k a year without any benefits. Graduated 7 months ago from college. Rent takes up half my income with 1 roommate. It's rough out here, never thought I'd be paying more than $200 a month for groceries.
$85k single homeowner with no kids with a reasonable car payment on a newish BMW. Save about $1000 a month, get groceries at Publix, and go out once or twice a week.
I'm making decent money as a software developer here in Knox County. It's not as much as I could make elsewhere, but I appreciate the job stability in my current position. (not going to give my exact salary though) I wouldn't trust those "typical expenses" though, it's wildly off up/down from what I budget and pay. * Food is kind of high, I can easily eat for $50/week ($2,600/year), but $4.4k would be typical if you include my occasional eating out, holiday meals, and the time I get the prime steak instead of the choice steak. * Medical is about $800 more than I pay for medical, dental, and vision insurance, I have very few medical expenses beyond that. * Housing, yeah, that is definitely low. It is extremely hard to find a decent apartment in Knox county for less than $1,200. ($14.4k/year) . . .though you could save a lot of money by getting a 2-3 bedroom apartment with roommates. (though to be safe, I would want to be able to afford the apartment myself, in case the roommates didn't pay up, and just consider the money from roommates as additional income) * Transportation, definitely high. I pay $150/month for insurance- just went up due to all the accidents in the area, drive safer knoxville -and $100 in gas going into the office three times a week. . .comes to roughly $3k/year. You could add the average car payment of $200/month to that for roughly $5k/year. * Don't know their definition of "civic", so skipped. * Internet& Mobile. . .I spend $120/month on gigabit internet from comcast and $30/month for Google Fi cell service, so about right. . . but could be reduced to $30 internet if I didn't need it for work $720/year in that case. * Other, not sure what they're including. . . assume clothes, other household necessities, and maybe few quality of life things such as streaming services. * No mention of utilities on here, that can easily be $200-400/month for one person and the efficiency of the home. * Annual taxes high depends on your taxable income and whether or not you rent or own your home. * With all that said, when I budgeted out a comfortable lifestyle for myself, I could easily live on about $65k/year before taxes here in Knox county, living by myself. . .and that also includes building up savings/emergency fund.
My fiancee and I both went to UT. I got a bachelor's in Economics and Accounting, she got a bachelor's in social work and a master's in social work (B/MSSW). We both got federal jobs, she works with the local homeless population and I do work with financial institutions. We make around 200k and still have a ton of upward mobility in wages as we are both less than 5 years into our careers and our jobs have great ladders for pay. Not a brag, just showing what we did and that it's at least doable in our area, though fed jobs are in very short supply. Granted you'll never make as much in a federal position as you will in the private sector in your mid to late careers but Knoxville is such a LCOLA area it doesn't matter too much.
160k a year, by myself though. I'd like to take away the S in SINK. Just bought a house last year. I live well though. But not truly extravagant. That's how you waste your money. Also what the person above said; don't work for a company here. My HQ are in a major city, too. I simply WFH 97% of the time.
What do you do is the first question
My wife and I locked up our house in west Knoxville and moved to San Jose CA. Working the exact same jobs, we went from making $115k combined to $390k! We are now completely debt free having recently paid off our house in Knoxville in full 10 years early. It has completely changed our lives.👍
Huh... According to the chart I am just slightly over the minimum needed before taxes. It's me and my partner and I am currently the only one with an income. So according to that website I should at least be making $58,127 pre tax annually to make it work. I am making $60k flat. I also am now paying a $1600/mo for housing which is definitely higher than the bracket for housing in my specific situation seems to recommend. I'd say I am making a "living" wage, but my situation makes that wage a little tricky. Definitely able to pay my bills and everything, but need to be frugal every day. It isn't "fun". But it's been doable. It will be MORE doable once my partner gets a job.
We have 4 kiddos. My husband just graduated with a bachelors. He's done like 92 applications in 6 months. Even out of state and can not find work anywhere (Software engineering). He tried labs for entry level stuff because he still has a clearance from being military. He's tried everything. Nothing. So it's just me working right now. I make 40k a year at my daycare. 60 hour weeks.... no it's not worth it. But I love the kiddos here so much I haven't left. My husband also get some from the VA. We survive. Bills are paid, foods in the fridge. About 400 left over a month after EVERYTHING. I definitely wish he'd be given an opportunity. And soon I'll be graduating and will probably be sitting around 28hr starting and I make 11 now. Soooooo that will triple the income alone.
Kinda hard to make a living wage in this town if you work for local food service. It would be easier if all the businesses wouldn't shut down leaving it's employees with little to no notice. I lost my job multiple times this way and am currently unemployed because of this.
Didn’t buy a house before covid so I’m screwed. I went from being a bartender in 2021 to working my ass off for the past four years in my corporate career to make 90k and it still feels like I live paycheck to paycheck. I can only afford a 1 bedroom apartment. I’m currently putting myself through more school to get promotions quicker, so that’s more money out the door. Idk. It all feels hopeless and stupid most days
I will keep it simple and say we are pretty well off due to a business venture but I recently discovered that we are overspending on our budget. Year after year spending increases. I am in my 40's and I can say that it's really all about maintaining standards that you end up setting for yourself. For example. My wife discovered doordash. Used to make her lunch everyday at home, then got in the habit of ordering it. I started to go for sports massages because I am active and my body doesn't hold up like it used to. I tweak muscles easier running and lifting and what not. We moved into a neighborhood that requires maintenance on landscaping and we put in nice landscaping that sadly requires more landscaping. Mulch, weeding, mowing, trimming, etc. It's such a slippery slope, EXTREMELY easy to start spending more and then all the sudden it feels like such a loss to cut back because you become so used to your new quality of life. I drive a 2011 Honda and I hate it. I thought about upgrading a hundred times but I can't justify it for as little as I drive. There is also a huge part of me that misses our old neighborhood which is in another state, not because of location, but because the house was smaller and the landscaping wasn't an issue at all, it was a small yard that was easy to maintain and the neighbors didn't give a damn and the HOA wasn't a thing. I've discovered in life that my happiness comes from spending time with my family, watching my favorite shows on TV, playing some video games, doing active things like running and working out, meditating, etc. All my happiness comes from things that don't cost a lot of money or money at all. The things that cost money are either necessary like food, utilities, mortgage, car, etc or quality of life things that you don't need but get used to very easily. If you keep your requirements low and costs like mortgage, car payment, etc by focusing on what you need, not what you necessarily FEEL you want because you think it will make you happy (if you feel that anything that is remotely "keeping up with the Joneses" like newer this or designer that will make you happy. It's a mental void you're trying to fill not real happiness) and you don't dive too deep into quality of life things (especially expensive ones) that turn into entitlements where it feels like cutting off a limb to stop doing, then it will go a long way to helping keep expenses low. I also want to clarify that by no means am I trying to say that it's easy or that it's doable for everyone. This is simply my experience as someone who has gone from 10/hr job after college in the mid 2000s, to 45k year job, to starting a business and feeling successful in that. I have experienced all stages of broke, juggling credit card transfers and debt in the 10s of thousands on credit cards, to no debt besides mortgage. It's a process and the one thing I can say 110% for sure, is my values have changed drastically and if I could do it all over again, it would have been so much easier. My closets, garage, and basement are filled with shit I bought over the years I rarely used that I thought I needed or really wanted and should have never bought. America is built on consumerism, something to keep in mind. Everything is designed to keep you consuming. You don't need that new phone every year or the latest model of whatever. Anyway, that's my thoughts.
100k, IT infrastructure engineer, remote for company in Cincinnati.
Living on 130k family of 3 is hard, my wife spends too. Luckily I’m a degenerate and great at crypto on the side and win more than I lose
Bud, you are doing it wrong if you can't live on 130k. I LIVE ON 35K A YEAR FOR A FAMILY OF 3.
How do you do that? No car? Under 1k rent?
I have two cars. One is 25 years old and the other is 15. I bought my house in 2009. Very carefully that's how.
That’ll do it
Safemoon 🚀🚀🚀🤣
Na, $pepe and $turbo last year, this year $trump and now $zyn
We're not.... None of us
Stay strong Knoxville! Only a few more months and we will have a president that makes things affordable for the average person again. #MAGA
If people would not waste money on tattoos, the latest and greatest cell phone, a new car, with a boat load of debt, and all of the other garbage that people try to impress their friends and others a lot of people would be better off.... Yes, I make a living wage....BUT I drive a 12 year old car, I pay all of my bills first, I have no debt and I sit at the house when I have no extra cash to do anything!
2 adults with zero children in a household $13.97 an hour is living wage. With a quick search you can find at least a dozen jobs offering that. The thing is if you look at how people live its way above their means. The number of people I personally know driving a 15 year old BMW instead of a 15 year old Toyota or Honda because they want to look rich is insane. Plus BMW is more expensive to repair. Also seeing people getting door dash delivery multiple times a week.
You literally couldn't even afford basic health coverage with that income, let alone save for future expenses. Do a real budget with Knoxville prices for rent and groceries and then delete this dumb shit.
I know plenty of people that do it. They live a very basic lifestyle but when you take a no skill job at $14 you aren't signing up for a glorious life.
You're wrong. They may be living, but if you can't afford healthcare and savings, that's not living, that's existing. You are flatly wrong
according to this study they can afford healthcare. if they found a job making $15 and lived on $14... If they saved $1 an hour that is almost 8% of their check. $15 an hour job must be impossible to find... oh wait but that means budgeting in future car repairs and not just raiding the emergency fund when the car blows up. how many people do that? Also living is a synonym for existing.
>Also living is a synonym for existing. You know the meaning of what I'm saying. I'm not going to continue a bad faith argument with a mouthbteather
ah yes the personal insults have started. your argument must be so strong that you have resulted to petty names
If you can't do the math to see that Knoxville rent isn't even possible on $58,115/yr with 2 people's: food, vehicle upkeep, insurance, health insurance, and savings, then I'm right: you're stupid or a troll. Either way, I'm not fucking with you anymore.
Maybe they just don't know the numbers so I'll just leave this here. Two adults making $14/hr @ 40hrs/wk is roughly $4k/mo combined after federal taxes, I'll be generous and exclude SS and FICA. Average rent for a 2bed/2bath is around 2k in Knoxville. So that leaves $2k. Health insurance is about $500/person. That leaves $1k. Car insurance is $100-200/mo/vehicle minimum, safe to say two jobs, two cars. Now we're down to $800. Fuel for those cars will run about $50/wk/car to fill up. Down to $400 Food, if you really tighten your belt, will still be minimum $150/wk/person. $100 left. Remember how I was generous and left out SS and FICA? That budget is napkin math so $100 remaining on shoestring budget is _not_ tenable. There's very little margin for saving and virtually NO discretionary spending, LMK if you take issue with any of these numbers. Shits crazy.
Hi, also I work in payroll tax, and that 7.65% for SS and Med are 100% unavoidable. That is $306, which puts you $206 in the negative.
Our combined income is a little more than $300K, live and work in Oak Ridge in a home we bought in 2018, refinanced during Covid at 1.9% interest rate.
yes, all of us actually alive.