I imagine a lot of people making that much did exactly what I did. Over-leverage but temporarily. House poor basically.
When COVID hit I was renting in the bay area with my girlfriend. During lockdown I proposed, and after deciding we want a family, decided to take our bay area salaries elsewhere to buy a house.
We traded our 3k rent for a 2k mortgage with 1k insurance and taxes. Even.
But, leaving the bay we needed cars. My one little two seater wasn’t going to do it, we’re starting a family. So we got two larger cars, right when the market was inflated. Financed both of them.
The new big property we got has a little barn, let’s renovate that into an ADU for guests and to generate rent. Didn’t have the cash on hand so took out another loan about the same as a car to fix that up.
Now we’re strapped, basically living month to month. But those secondary loans were all 5 year loans, so in 2 more years they’re paid off, freeing up about $3k per month.
I basically don’t think any of these articles about people making that kind of salary are taking into account how weird a time covid was. Lots of people made big changes while interes rates were low, purposely over-leveraging themselves. It also gave everyone this yolo attitude as well, like fuck it all, treat yourself.
I’d be more interested to revisit this in 2027 when any 5 or 6 year car loans and secondary loans taken out during the record low rates are all paid off.
Are the cars used? Early 2000’s Buicks with the 3.8l engine are incredibly cheap even with low miles (a really mint one is 5k, a good daily driver can be had for 2.5 to 3.5k).
They’re extremely reliable and relatively safe cars. Not bad on gas, cheap to repair, and extremely cheap insurance, since you don’t need collision, only liability.
I imagine a lot of people making that much did exactly what I did. Over-leverage but temporarily. House poor basically.
When COVID hit I was renting in the bay area with my girlfriend. During lockdown I proposed, and after deciding we want a family, decided to take our bay area salaries elsewhere to buy a house.
We traded our 3k rent for a 2k mortgage with 1k insurance and taxes. Even.
But, leaving the bay we needed cars. My one little two seater wasn’t going to do it, we’re starting a family. So we got two larger cars, right when the market was inflated. Financed both of them.
The new big property we got has a little barn, let’s renovate that into an ADU for guests and to generate rent. Didn’t have the cash on hand so took out another loan about the same as a car to fix that up.
Now we’re strapped, basically living month to month. But those secondary loans were all 5 year loans, so in 2 more years they’re paid off, freeing up about $3k per month.
I basically don’t think any of these articles about people making that kind of salary are taking into account how weird a time covid was. Lots of people made big changes while interes rates were low, purposely over-leveraging themselves. It also gave everyone this yolo attitude as well, like fuck it all, treat yourself.
I’d be more interested to revisit this in 2027 when any 5 or 6 year car loans and secondary loans taken out during the record low rates are all paid off.
Are the cars used? Early 2000’s Buicks with the 3.8l engine are incredibly cheap even with low miles (a really mint one is 5k, a good daily driver can be had for 2.5 to 3.5k).
They’re extremely reliable and relatively safe cars. Not bad on gas, cheap to repair, and extremely cheap insurance, since you don’t need collision, only liability.