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What everyone in this comment section calling out "10k isn't much" are failing to understand is that over 60% of the USA live paycheck to paycheck and don't have any savings to speak of. Extend that to the world and you would go pale.
Check your privilege and get educated.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/
https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/paycheck-to-paycheck-survey/
...everyone's point isn't "wow you suck for having only 10k in savings". Everyone calling out the OP is saying "in my country/area cost of living is very high and with 10K in savings I would be in a bit of a panic".
Also telling people to "get educated" while they react to the US cost of living being out of control just makes you sound like a dick.
There are people earning 10k/month who are living paycheck to paycheck, so for them 10k saving is just one month
Yes, exactly this
Bruh these people absolutely have the option to scale back, don't feel bad for them. They live paycheck to paycheck after their $80k car payments and $600k house mortgage. That's not the same.
Or maybe they have a family with kids, they live in an expensive part of town, but moving is not an option due to job constraints, or maybe the kids are going to school there and moving would be disruptive. Maybe that area didn't use to be so expensive 10 years ago. They need cars, not 80k cars, but large enough to haul said family around, cause maybe public transportation sucks where they live (ahem*LA*cough). Heck, maybe they bought those cars in cash, no payments, but gas, insurance & maintenance (maybe they're old cars) are killing them. Car prices are too expensive to get a new car, so they keep spending 1000s in repairs instead. Maybe a hurricane, strong winds or just normal wear and tear made their house roof leak, thats $20k right there, ask me how I know.
Also, a 600k house is cheap and almost impossible to find in California, for example. No, moving to Texas is not an option, thanks.
Edit: the example above is hypothetical, not my current situation, but based on my experience.
There is no definition of being wealthy that does not include people that make $120k/year.
You are richer than 80% of the country at that point. Lots of people have families in high COL cities and live on significantly less money than that.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles
I literally spent $24k on home repairs this summer, and I just pay it in payments, and I make 6 figures. No normal person pays this in cash, outright.
My roof replacement a few years back was $8k covered by home insurance.
There is no set amount of USD that defines the line between "wealthy" and "poor". Your $120k figure would go a lot further in Mississippi or Texas that it would go in California or Massachusetts, where that would be barely enough for a large family.
There's definitely a place (or two) in the US where a family struggles with $120k/yr. Sure, just move to Mississippi, I guess ...
They would be considered "poor" there, or at least not wealthy.
Well good for you, I guess.
I guess I'm not normal.
Good for you, that would get you half a roof here, and insurance won't cover if it's considered normal wear and tear.
No you are definitely not normal and that is the entire duscussion
Those are all things you can scale back on. People who make less certainly are forced to. Not that they're not entitled to live there, my point is I don't feel bad at all that they're claiming to live paycheck to paycheck, because they have the option to not be.
For some of us, that mortgage is the cheap option. My payment is well under rent for a 2br in my town, plus I have an outstanding interest rate
Check out the crabs in the bucket
It's not bringing people down, it's not having pity for them. Maybe you misread the comment.
Ideally you want 3 months of living your life with 0 cuts to be "safe" so 10k is not enough to fundamentally change how most job searches would go.
You can link all the articles you want, but I challenge you to check apartments near you and try to find the cheapest one.
Bruh, I live in Seattle. The cheapest ones are still in the $1000s for minimal sq/footage. My place is $1700/m w/parking at 640 ft.
Average people who work in service or labor can't afford to live here if they have a family. Commuting on 90 or I-5 or 99 is always a slog, so living outside of the city incurs massive time and effort, which aren't sunk costs. Gas is $5-6/gal here. Public transit is better than most places, but still bad. And we haven't even brought up the homeless dilemma, rampant drug use, and property crime.
Most cities are like this now. Dallas/Ft Worth are cess pools. Miami is a mess. Tampa, SFO, LA, NYC, and so on... If people don't see it, it's because they're ignoring it or are in a bubble.
I know your pain very well lol, that's why I moved from Washington. Seattle is pretty ghetto too, so I didn't want to live in the city. I wanted more Bellevue/Redmond/Issaquah/North Bend area, but the cheapest places there were like $1200+ and that was considered dirt cheap that went really fast. Now I'm stuck in a shitty red state in a medium-sized town for the time being. I was so optimistic when I was growing up in WA like 15 years ago and wanting to stay there my whole life. Now it's overcrowded as hell, expensive, and all the other things you mentioned!
Your point is valid, but LendingClub’s numbers are bullshit. People keep quoting that press release like it’s science.
LendingClub’s business is in person to person loans (they act as a middle man between the investors and borrowers). Person to person loans are risky because the kind of people taking them out tend to be desperate and have no money, so unless everything goes right, they end up defaulting on the loan.
LendingClub puts out this bullshit article inflating the number of people “living check to check” to try and make it seem like their person to person loans are less risky. They want you to think you’re lending money to people with a 6 figure income could just sell one of their Teslas to pay you back, not people who took out the loan because their 1991 Chevy Corsica needed repairs and without it they can’t get to their job at Burger King.
They're not the only source. If you want to equivocate, cool, but your experience isn't everyone else's.
Sorry, LendingTree and LendingClub are two companies in the same business selling the same narrative. Their names are as similar as their business models, so it’s easy to get them confused.
I don’t think if somebody posted links to articles from McDonalds and Burger King talking about the health benefits of eating more French fries, you’d consider them more credible for having two different sources.