6 figure individual incomes in Southern California

[kewp]

Thats it, I’m only dating ugly asian chicks from now on.

[barnaby33]

I have yes, but its a philosophy that will save you money and helping people out is what I am all about.

Rather than let my comment drop off at some shallow level (the level it was at first intended) I’ll wax a bit philosophical. Why is it that pretty people have higher expectations? I feel its because society in the form of all the inputs from friends, family and media inject them. We pay lip service to hard work or education, but what really gets our attention is a great rack, or a nice ass.

Its not limited solely to women either. I have no doubt that being fit and handsome has helped me get jobs. I stand up straight, make eye contact and speak clearly. So what right have I too expect more out of life than others?

Josh

[PerryChase]

Very true; good-looks open many doors.

The Chinese philosophers say that you need “conditions” to achieve equilibrium. If you’re plain but want a beautiful wife, then you need to compensate with other qualities that would cause your wife to admire and respect you (good provider, wealth, smarts, faithfulness, etc.. )

That’s why middle-age professional women can’t find husbands. Those woman are demanding but have no beauty or charm to contribute to the relationship. A successful man would rather go out with a pleasant, beautiful and charming young woman, especially if he has to pay the bill.

A beautiful woman would expect her date to pay for dinner and buy her expensive gifts (tributes to her beauty). If you’re cheap then a plain Jane is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

PerryChase, very well said…

Back to the main topic, its very easy for high tech engineers to make over 100K.

I am curious of you guys that posted about this topic, what is it that you guys do? There is saying “rich hangs out with rich, poor hangs out with poor”. So if you are not rich, and use a lot of leverage, to pretend to be rich (usually white folks), most likely all your buddies are like you.

All the people I know of, makes over $100K.

As for me, I make $175K, 600K in the bank, i drive a 1995
camry and a 2000 bimmer, i have a home with lots of equity,

and i am lucky too, my (asian also) gf is not only pretty, but good saver, and always watching what we spend on

—
i bought my home in 1998. I have lots of cash on top of home equity. if you are one of the ones who outbid my offers for the 3 years, I am just laughing at you and how does it feel now to be a sucker?

[surveyor]

birds of a feather?

There was an MSNBC article awhile back about how super-earners were getting married and creating a new crew of rich people. Supposedly it was a matter of like-minded, successful people naturally congregating together.

As for me, I do not make $100k, but I do come close. For a land surveyor, that is pretty good. My wife makes over $100k as well, and she is an electrical engineer.

We don’t actually know a lot of people who make more than $100k, we are the exception in our circle of friends and family (admittedly, though, we don’t socialize much outside of that circle). In fact the only person we know who makes over $100k is a rich uncle lawyer who works up in San Francisco. All our other family members are working class and have been that way for several years.

I can’t really say that we are modest in our lifestyle, because we do eat out every week, but we have a modest home, a minivan and a station wagon (honda & saturn). Is that modest nowadays? Our one luxury is a plasma tv (our old tv was dying). Bought it on credit, but it had a one year no interest thing, so it was paid off before they charged me interest. Bwahahaha.

[ibjames]

I have to admit, the people on this site are much more wealthy than people I know, or me. I am working on changing that though 🙂

I sometimes read the stats on this site and can’t believe the cash people have.

[SD Realtor]

I work with a broad range of people. Most all of the professionals on my engineering staff and on other staffs my team works with are on par with people that post here. They are 6 figure income people, very bright, and not in much debt at all. Definitely no credit card debt or what many of us would call excess consumption debt. Many of them have paid off the homes they lived in as they doubled up on payments in the 90’s and beyond.

I also strongly agree with AN who said that even a low to mid 6 figure income is not alot after fully stuffing 401k, flex plans, and then if you have a family with kids on top of that, wowsers, no way can you (with good common sense) finance more then 4-5 hundred k.

In my real estate business however I do run across more of a broad spectrum of incomes and intelligence levels. I am amazed at how many listing appointments I have been to where the people just bought something they should have never bought. These appointments usually deteriorate to me pointing out to the seller how they need to talk to the lender as they are now under water.

Now on the other hand I also have gone to listing appointments where the sellers are quite bright, well educated and have done the proper homework, and do very well. These transactions pretty much are the most sucessful ones. The sellers didn’t pull out HELOCs and they didn’t overextend themselves when they bought, and they see that selling now and waiting what the market will do is a prudent move.

SD Realtor

[blahblahblah]

I can’t believe that people post their salaries and bank balances on an internet site. You guys better hope that no Ukranian hacker ever 0wnz the piggington log, or you’ll be the target of some serious port-scanning. Hopefully you’ve all got good firewalls or some of that money you’re so proud of may be on its way to Kiev in the near future.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Good Point Concho – For the record I have $1.95 in my savings account and make $15K.

[blahblahblah]

Hahaha, yeah maybe we should all post that we’re in financial trouble so they won’t bother with us! I spent all of my HELOC money on jet-skis and plasma TVs, I have an $800K toxic voodoo mortgage on my 1300sf clairemont home, and $3 in my wallet. I am using a public library computer to type this because my electricity has been turned off.

[barnaby33]

Ahh Concho you haven’t learned the true meaning of subtle yet. You tell people that the reason they haven’t shut off your power yet is because your dear grandmother is on a respirator at your house and thats how you skated on the bill.

Josh

[powayseller]

I suspect MEW is the source of funds for many people. This Marketwatch story explains people tap equity, then credit cards, then their 401(k)s. Maybe that’s why the prime borrowers are not yet defaulting, as they have access to more credit and that retirement savings. Soon, that will be used up too.

As Warren Buffett said, you don’t know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.

Just wait a couple years, and then we will know the true financial condition of the people around us. Then we will know who truly could afford their lifestyle vs. who was living on credit.

[masayako]

powayseller,

I usually agree with what you say, except this time. I believe the general public are quite well funded. The government statistic concerning negative saving is really statistically misleading. Gov’t don’t count investment as saving, they don’t count stock options as saving.

Well, say I have invested $50k in GE stock, that’s $50k spent; I have zero saving in their book. Say, Microsoft gave me 50000 shares of stock option of MSFT stocks at year 1995. It’s now worth $1 million dollar. You know what, that’s not saving from the government point of view too.

My point is: The credit situation of this country is not that bad. Sub-prime sector is, no doubt, but not the general financial health of the country. I don’t want to be a nay-sayer just for the sake of it.

[greekfire]

Masayako,

I would say that I have generally agreed with the majority of your posts except this one. So much so that it has actually caused me to reply to it, which I wouldn’t ordinarily do.

You mentioned that the government doesn’t count investment as savings. In response, I would venture to say that a good portion of middle-class, working Americans do have a certain amount of investing, but it is tied up in IRAs, 401ks, SEP-IRAs, or the like. These are investment vehicles that can’t be withdrawn from until they reach the age of 59.5…unless they want to incur penalties that are basically structured to keep them from withdrawing in the first place.

I also disagree with your statement that the credit situation in this country is not that bad. The majority of wealth for the majority of homeowners in this country exists on paper in the form of the value of their home or other properties they may own. This is the single biggest value that has allowed many a home owner to refinance into a lower-interest, adjustable mortgage vehicle in an effort to increase short-term cash reserves. Moreover, as the market continued to sky rocket, many homeowners used the leverage in the equity of their homes to upgrade it and further inflate it’s market price. This had, IMHO, the effect of over-inflating the already over-inflated home prices.

I am sure that there are copious other statistics out there to back up my claim, but I am too tired to hunt for them. :-). Making the statement that “The credit situation of this country is not that bad,” to me, is as bad as the real estate hacks saying that real estate prices are always going to go up.

[4plexowner]

masayako – the chief accountant for our country has acknowledged that we have $40 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities – other analysts put the number at $70 trillion – this is primarily the promises we have made to the boomers (Soc Sec, Medicaire, prescrip drugs)

debt-to-income ratios are at historic levels (bad) in all segments of our society (individuals and gov) – ie, the debt load on individuals and gov is heavier than it has ever been

central banks around the world are signalling their lack of interest in the US dollar

oil exporting countries are moving away from selling oil in US dollars

outsourcing of US jobs to other countries has been ongoing for several years now and still continues

inre investments not being counted as savings: the average 401K has $50K in it and about 33% of all 401Ks have less than $35K – ie, there isn’t a great deal of ‘hidden’ savings in retirement plans

I could go on but it gets old

[Author]

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