...and my hopes for a series of ornate, wooden thrones for dining room chairs, and my office desk that doubles as an aquarium for sharks. These are all things that, if I had just an insane, inordinate amount of money, I would like to partake in. I read an article on Bloomberg the other day titles "Why Rich People Feel Poor". When I started reading, I laughed to myself. The hypothetical couple had two children! (Every Chinese person knows you should cap at one, max. It's just more efficient that way.) They lived in New York! (You can't live there. C'mon... unless you're on a consultant stipend...just don't bother.) And the hypothetical couple makes $450K a year! I know, I know, by New York standards you're living in a one bedroom above a really good shwarma place, if you're lucky. The inside me mocked at the poor choices this couple had made, and the fact that they made so much money and still "felt poor".
Then I found out that for a hypothetical couple to have two children and, I don't know, send them to college, they would need to save $2 MILLION DOLLARS. And have next to no emergency fund.
How can this be?! Well, they rely less on social security than lower income households, they get Medicare but have to cover the gaps that Medicare leaves, they have to pay for college, they get taxed to death (effective tax rate is close to 50%) and they have to pay for long term care to prepare for their old age. Absolutely insane.
As I look into the future and think about how I'm going to live in San Francisco soon, arguably one of the most expensive cities to live in the country, I'm suddenly very nervous about my financial future. Ramen it is then.
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