Income vs. M3.

[captainaudio]

Originally Posted by LarThaL

1. No way in hell I would live in NYC at that income. Even at my current income, there is no way in hell I would live there. IMO, you really can't have any kind of real material quality of life in NYC unless you make at least $2M per year. Even then, you are pissing money away to live there.

2. ROFL. We have a combined mortgage of $4300/mo for our primary 6 bedroom, 5.5 bath, 5700 sq ft home, AND our 2400 sq ft 4 bedroom vacation home in Maine.

3. You pay to park?

Seriously.....I live 90 minutes from Boston, 2.5 hours from NYC, 2 hours to the coast and 90 minutes to skiing. There is no crime, no traffic, great schools, great restaurants, clean air. There is plenty of culture, diversity, etc etc. I am 20 minutes to a very easy access airport. This is not Wyoming where pizza is considered ethnic food. I visit NYC a few times a year. It is fun. NO WAY IN HELL I would ever live there.

Of course in Wyoming, what I have would cost about half !!!

I feel the same way. Who would live in such a place?

CA

[LarThaL]

Originally Posted by Ohh_5H1T

lol this thread is so pointless cuz of all the dicks on this forum

We are BMW owners. Of course we are dicks.

[kscarrol]

Originally Posted by Ohh_5H1T

lol this thread is so pointless cuz of all the dicks on this forum

Yes, welcome aboard!

[Wendall]

Originally Posted by LarThaL

We are BMW owners. Of course we are dicks.

[roastbeef]

i'm quite surprised how little most of the people on here make. i thought i was the poor guy... maybe i'm just a little more financially conservative.

[Talk2meg00se]

Originally Posted by LarThaL

1. No way in hell I would live in NYC at that income. Even at my current income, there is no way in hell I would live there. IMO, you really can't have any kind of real material quality of life in NYC unless you make at least $2M per year. Even then, you are pissing money away to live there.

2. ROFL. We have a combined mortgage of $4300/mo for our primary 6 bedroom, 5.5 bath, 5700 sq ft home, AND our 2400 sq ft 4 bedroom vacation home in Maine.

3. You pay to park?

Seriously.....I live 90 minutes from Boston, 2.5 hours from NYC, 2 hours to the coast and 90 minutes to skiing. There is no crime, no traffic, great schools, great restaurants, clean air. There is plenty of culture, diversity, etc etc. I am 20 minutes to a very easy access airport. This is not Wyoming where pizza is considered ethnic food. I visit NYC a few times a year. It is fun. NO WAY IN HELL I would ever live there.

Of course in Wyoming, what I have would cost about half !!!

The bolded / underlined above made me cringe a little bit, given that was I paying EXACTLY 4300 in base rent / parking fees in NYC. Don't get me wrong, the one bedroom was nice - had 40th floor views over Columbus Circle, etc. - but it was rent, not mortgage on a mansion / vacation home combination! I also agree with the sentiment that the cost of living in NYC has a way of creeping up on you, and though I was able to assemble some savings, it wasn't what you'd think relative to my salary.

Granted, cost of living is merely a snapshot of what is a much broader picture, and I suppose I'm a good living example of that. I left NYC in Dec. 2011 for the "greener" pastures of CA - the firm I joined in LA went belly up within 7 mos. and I've been out on my ass ever since. I suppose that I lost track of how bad things really are in CA work-wise during my time on the east coast. I suspect that I would have been picked up long ago had I remained in NYC . . .

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

i'm quite surprised how little most of the people on here make. i thought i was the poor guy... maybe i'm just a little more financially conservative.

A lot if it has to do with where you live. Cost of living in rural areas is far lower than in urban areas, and as a general rule, the west coast is more expensive than just about anywhere. I live in South Florida. You can buy a nice house on the barrier island (walking distance to the beach) here for $500k.

So someone making $100k a year here will have a lot more disposable income than someone making $100k in Los Angeles or the Bay Area (just examples).

[roastbeef]

i'm sure that has something to do with it.

[bradleyland]

Meh, I suppose that's one perspective, but it's kind of cynical. I'm not really expecting anyone to be impressed with my salary on M3post though. I'm just kind of assuming that there's going to be a significant population that have a much higher income than I do. However, that makes this forum an even better place to have conversations about this topic. You're always going to have the e-penis contest, but if you filter out the noise, you can usually find some really good advice.

[kscarrol]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

...while my dad tells me that I waste too much money.

Does dad know about your career choice?

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

I don't know if I'd go to a car forum for financial advice, I think your accountant or financial planner will know better. There are just too many variables, different circumstances, life-style, etc... For example, my friends ask me why I don't buy a super-car, while my dad tells me that I waste too much money.

Eh. I've had a really hard time finding an accountant or "financial planner" that I trust. Not in the sense that I think they'll rip me off, but in the sense that their opinions are too affected by the business they're in. It's the same reason I don't like self-help books. I don't want to take life advice from a guy who has built a business out of selling life advice. It's recursive.

I'd rather seek out peers (fiscally and career wise). Interestingly, talking money with people I'm close to seems tacky, but on here, I don't know any of you guys, so I'm less averse to approaching the topic. I would never openly state my income amongst friends, regardless of the amount. It's just tacky. It's still tacky here, but I don't expect I'll ever meet any of you, haha. Sorry for foisting my tackiness upon you

As far as who I listen to, I'd be more likely to listen to someone like you than some douche nozzle who brags about his income. It's not like I need someone to tell me "it's ok to buy the car", but rather I'm interested in the experiences of people who live a life similar to mine. The internet is a big place, so it's easier to find peers in that way.

[Giggs]

Originally Posted by bradleyland

Eh. I've had a really hard time finding an accountant or "financial planner" that I trust. Not in the sense that I think they'll rip me off, but in the sense that their opinions are too affected by the business they're in. It's the same reason I don't like self-help books. I don't want to take life advice from a guy who has built a business out of selling life advice. It's recursive.

I'd rather seek out peers (fiscally and career wise). Interestingly, talking money with people I'm close to seems tacky, but on here, I don't know any of you guys, so I'm less averse to approaching the topic. I would never openly state my income amongst friends, regardless of the amount. It's just tacky. It's still tacky here, but I don't expect I'll ever meet any of you, haha. Sorry for foisting my tackiness upon you

As far as who I listen to, I'd be more likely to listen to someone like you than some douche nozzle who brags about his income. It's not like I need someone to tell me "it's ok to buy the car", but rather I'm interested in the experiences of people who live a life similar to mine. The internet is a big place, so it's easier to find peers in that way.

Be your own financial planner. Spend some free time studying investment strategies and pick a type of investment you are interested in, i.e. stocks, real estate, etc. Become an expert at it in your free time, and then pursue it full speed ahead on the side. You don't need to have a 4 year college education in a specific investment field to get good at it. It sounds like a huge task but think about how much time you spend wasting time, and how if a fraction of that wasted time could be spent learning about investing in a specific field you could make enough to one day quit your job and be financially independent. And if you apply this learning over a long period of time a little at a time, then eventually you will start investing and making money and feel confident about your knowledge and future investments. Don't feel like you need to make it happen overnight either, and frankly that's why most people give up. It takes time to get good at something and it takes time to build wealth.

[j2m]

^^^Holy Infomercial

[Yugo]

One thing I wonder about is how so many people that make so much money on here have so much free time to spend on car forums?

[Giggs]

Originally Posted by Yugo

One thing I wonder about is how so many people that make so much money on here have so much free time to spend on car forums?

Self employed

[j2m]

Originally Posted by Yugo

One thing I wonder about is how so many people that make so much money on here have so much free time to spend on car forums?

Multitasking my friend, all about multitasking.
For instance, right now I am typing and also surfing Tumblr EX GF porn on my iphone. It's taken me quite some time to master but I can do many things at one time

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by Yugo

One thing I wonder about is how so many people that make so much money on here have so much free time to spend on car forums?

Well, your first mistake is conflating time spent and money earned. I build software. Once it's built, the users of the software pay me continuously to use it. I can decide the pace at which I want to update it based on competition in the market. My particular industry is "enterprise", so the pace of advancement is slooooooow.

[Ohh_5H1T]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

I'm the resident troll-dick. In all seriousness, the problem with these threads and polls are that eventually folks come on here telling other people they either can't afford the car, or brag about how much money they have, and how clever they are investing it. I couldn't care less if folks buy their M3 and go broke, or buy it to enter a demolition derby.

People who know me know what I do for a living (fluffer), and probably roughly how much money I make, but I don't need to share that on a public forum.

[j2m]

Originally Posted by Ohh_5H1T

Fluffer is a very prestigious line of work, and absolutely necessary

[Chriskm3]

This poll does not apply to business owners as it does to employees. There are several differences in income and taxation

[Yugo]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

Not really, in the end I have a gross income that is taxable. The company is totally separate unless you have a pass-through-entity like an LLC, but even then you file two separate returns in the US.

With gross income being taxable to you means you are self employed (sole proprietorship), but you state above earlier you are a partner in a "company", unless you meant gross income as in dividends in which case you wouldn't be a partner, but a part owner/stock holder and that income would be reported net to you (corporation would be taking any deductions).

In case of an LLC filing as a partnership in the US (pass through), entity pays no tax, passes it all to the owners/partners.

[j2m]

Originally Posted by Yugo

With gross income being taxable to you means you are self employed (sole proprietorship), but you state above earlier you are a partner in a "company", unless you meant gross income as in dividends in which case you wouldn't be a partner, but a part owner/stock holder and that income would be reported net to you (corporation would be taking any deductions).

In case of an LLC filing as a partnership in the US (pass through), entity pays no tax, passes it all to the owners/partners.

Wow, an investigator, attorney and an accountant?