High Earners Anxious About Money Strategy
These individuals, despite having substantial income and savings, express anxiety and uncertainty about how to best manage their money. They grapple with prioritizing investments, planning for future life changes (like starting a business), and questioning whether they're making the 'right' financial decisions, often in high cost-of-living environments. The core pain is a lack of confidence and a desire for clarity in their financial strategy.
SOURCES (60)
“Expenses are so low. If the hobbies you value can be improved by more spending, do so. Like for learning languages, maybe hire a dialect coach to sound more native(?). You have a big nest egg to make the most of whatever you choose to…”
“Hi all! I am currently debating how much to invest for retirement. FIRE does not really interest me, as hopefully I will be working a job soon that I enjoy. Current stats: HYSA: $10K Checking: Balance fluctuates between $4k-7k Company 401k: $56k Roth IRA: $7.5k Brokerage: $39k I currently live in HCOL and make $102k a year. Expenses: Rent + Utilities and Misc.: $2000 Variable Spending: $1500 I am usually left with around ~$1000 based off what I do in the month. I am trying to build up my E-Fund”
“I'm 24M, making $57,500/year and take home about $1,750 biweekly. I have about $15,100 left on my car loan at 8.2%. The required payment is $268.78/month, and I'm currently paying an additional $25/week toward principal. I currently invest $260 every two weeks into my Roth IRA (60% VTI, 20% VXUS, 20% QQQM), so roughly $563/month. I also have an emergency fund and no credit card debt. I'm wondering if there's a reasonable middle ground. For example, investing ~$280/month while put”
“I’m 25M, single, no debt, and my main job pays about $97k/year. I also have a side job that brings in around $2k/month ($24k/year), so total gross income is roughly $121k/year. My monthly expenses are roughly: $2,400 rent (It's actually around $4800 but I have a roommate so its halved) $300-400 food ~$200 electricity Plus normal smaller expenses I had around $100k sitting in a HYSA because I didn’t really understand investing, but I have now made the changes. Here’s what I did: 401(k): I hav”
“What will "rating your setup" accomplish? If you're just looking to optimize, follow this: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/w/commontopics . Use a retirement calculator to see what your outcome looks like based on your current savings plus contribution rate.”
“60yo married 550k current income 3.8 taxable 3.8 retirement 2.0 house (no mortgage) 1.0 farm ( no mortgage) 1.7 beach condo (rental with 1.2 mortgage) 0.3 start up Kids out of college Quit next month? Sell condo or keep?… it cash flows currently submitted by /u/Top_Amphibian2907 [link] [comments]”
“Married with 2 kids in VHCOL. Assets: $7.6M * $5.2M taxable * $1.3M Roth * $1.1M Trad $4M house (w/ $1.5M mortgage) $750k 529s Spending $225k plus healthcare and taxes. My journey: * I was passionate about tech since early school days and had no doubt in my mind to keep working on computers so choosing majors and career was easy. * Extremely lucky that the tech career became such high demand. * Learned about Mr Money Mustache. The blog post “The shockingly simple math behind early retirement” ho”
“I’m sorry, I’m 42, would like to retire by 62 I work a full time job, I make like 200 a year I have saved only 85k in 401k Mortgage is 70k remaining”
“While filing separately will obviously increase your taxes (possibly significantly) if you only have 90 more PSLF qualifying payments, it's probably worth it to do so for the next 5 years. You have to model it though. MFS is intentionally punitive, and nukes most tax credits and some above the line deductions. An obvious one being that MFS cannot take the interest deduction on a student loan for example. This sub can take a swing at it, but you need to give us real numbers, income, whether y”
“Some context, since that matters a lot. We were bolstering our savings due to unknowns with my job (I am main breadwinner) but I did just receive a 6mo extension which gives us a bit of breathing room. All of our debt has been accumulated from some unfortunate timing on house issues and medical issues. We have had it in a 0% transfer account but it’s about to kick in to regular CC interest at the end of October. Would it make sense to dump a lot of our savings into the debt now that we have a bi”
“Hi everyone. I am a 41yo male in the US. I made terrible financial decisions earlier in life. I currently have about $42,000 in student loan debt remaining, all other debts paid off, zero in savings or retirement, and no assets. I also have zero expenses. I am about to start a job which will allow me to live on the road and save/invest $90-100k a year for retirement. I was thinking that I should pay off my $42,000 debt first, of course, and then begin investing the $90-100k a year into a broad-m”
“Looking for some realistic checkpoints, next steps, what would u do, plan ahead I Live in SoCal I 27M, my partner 24F(SAHM), my kid almost 2 Income after tax 100k ~ Rough numbers on expenses Monthly rent 2300$ 500$ bills gas cars insurance 250$ eating out (weekends) We eat at home during the week 250 miscellaneous = Total~ 3300$ monthly expenses My truck is paid off. Though I’ve been wanting to upgrade her/our family car, but didn’t want to be sporadic on a purchase when I wasn’t quite 100% wher”
“Sharing to celebrate with you all! Table below contains details about my journey here with income, net worth, and commentary by year. I graduated in 2019 so I'll start with my first day of work that July, income from the trailing twelve months, and net worth snapshot at that point. Date TTM Net Income Net Worth Comments 07/2019 <$10k -$16,990 graduated with $17k in student loans and had $9.88 in my bank account when my first paycheck hit 07/2020 $63,085 $27,921 first job was in strategy c”
“Thanks. Seems like we are in very similar boat. I can pay my necessary bills fine. I think I'm going to relax just a bit and focus on the business for a year and taking care of my real estate (Which feels like a part time job compared to what I've been doing for a decade plus). If I cant get the business right, Ill look for a job in a year or so in a more meaningful field.”
We did the same and at 56 and 58 we quit our jobs and do whatever we want.
“23, 82,000 in HYSA 5% interest (savings for a house deposit) 32k super (host plus) 1500-2000 (after tax) a week income depending on overtime Salary sacrificing 5% of gross pay every week Started investing 500-1000 a week (started this week) into stake investment account. Wanting to maximise my money, should I keep all of the 82,000 in HYSA, or keep some and invest the rest? I won't be able to buy a house for at least a year until my rental agreement is finished. Currently renting, 250 a week”
“Let me start with a huge thank you to the Boglehead community and to all who have taught us the way! My wife and I are lucky to be in a position where we have both been high earners for over a decade, have maxed out retirement accounts and focued on saving vs increasing our lifestyle. Now we have 2 small kids, a 1300sqft house on a 15 year sub-3% mortgage with 8 years remaining, $160k in equity and are hoping to move into a bigger home in the next year. I've always thought taking money for a”
“house which I pay and additional principal each month to cut some time and interest. Rate is at 4.5%. Balance of 220k. Payment is like 2k a month. Illinois taxes…. Car which has 4K left but that will be paid off shortly. I make $350 payments every two weeks. No other bills I can think of. No CC debt. No college debt.”
“I’m a single male and have been working in my specialty for about 1.6 years. Between my primary job and my side hustle, I’m currently making around $215k/year. I’ve been fortunate to pay off most of my student loans and have about $100k invested. However, I’m starting to feel a bit burned out, even though I know I’m still relatively early in my career. I also have a side business that I’m actively working on, and I’m wondering if it would make sense to drop my primary job down to 0.8 FTE. The sc”
“I’ve been between 2.7% and 3.6% the last few years. I don’t specifically keep a number in mind, I just keep a rough plan in mind and recalibrate at the end of the year, and if we were above spending expectations, which we haven’t been yet, we’d make a change. As for rebalancing, yea just do that at the end of the year. As for checking the markets, I do it more frequently when things are going well but when we’ve been way down I oddly handle it very well and just stop looking. You get used to swi”
“Consider whether or not to tell my spouse. He had a much more liberal spend philosophy than I. He's be planning expensive travel. I would want to use it to supplement our household income for the next 7 years until I retire. On a monthly basis it wouldn't add much but it's just enough to allow us to pay bills and contribute to kids college without feeling too much of a squeeze. We do that now, but it's very tight.”
“You essentially have to be making 2x the interest for it to work out like that. If you have 100k debt at 5% and a 100k savings account at 6% you are only netting 1%. Vs paying off that debt you essentially net 5%. Not to speak on the value of a big safety net, but I feel like people think that as long as they earn more interest than they pay, then that’s some saavy infinite money glitch”
“It would go into enrollment for Japanese school. 35k is my current goal but 100k doubles that and then some”
“€5K per month? So €60K per year on expenses? You can cover more 2/3 of that from your savings alone. €1M * 4% = €40K a year.”
“That is the purpose of keeping some shorter term cds. Between that and the emergency fund I hope to be covered”
“That's something only you can answer. I think maxing retirement is far more valuable than paying back a loan at 4%. There's a good chance it could be decades before you get a chance to have that rate again (even though it was lower for a decade, that was the aberration). Unless you have enough money to pay cash for a house you'd probably end up with a mortgage at a higher rate. 4% is nearly a wash with interest even on the safest investments, far below what the market usually provide”
“31 M, single, No kids. I started with 140k student loans. After refinancing a couple times, I am now at 94k with a 4.05% interest rate. I make $230K/year, and I have $225k between RSUs and my taxable brokerage. This does not include my roth ira, 401k or my 20k emergency fund. My student loan monthly payment is $682 / month. Do i just sell some of my RSUs to pay this off in one go or keep paying the minimum and invest? I am leaning towards to just keep paying the minimum and invest the rest becau”
“Been lurking here a while. Would like some outside eyes before I make a decision I can’t easily reverse. The numbers: • Expat in the Gulf — no income tax, but also no pension, no social security, no state safety net, and residency is tied to my job • Portfolio: $330k VWRA, all in a taxable brokerage (IBKR) • No bonds, no cash buffer beyond 6 months of expenses, no property • Contributing \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\~$7k/month, but lumpy — I let cash pile up locally and transfer every 2–3 months • Income is s”
“I also have ~20k in a retirement account and pay into a pension that I will get in 20 years. I currently pay ~420 a month in car loans, ~400 a month toward CC debt, ~750 in rent and utilities. I would like to get a mortgage and buy a small cabin, condo, or house <= 200k in the next three years. What do I do with this 66k windfall? My current thinking is to immediately pay of the credit card debt, then put 16k into a dedicated account to draw down for car payments over the four year loan term”
“Determining a budget during retirement is key. It's not just writing down the big items; you have to account for everything you may spend money on. If you want to live like you do today, go through your bank statements for the last few months and categorize everything (into a spreadsheet or using a tool). Then add medicare gap ( I went on the the health exchange website and received estimates), travel budget if you plan to travel, a hobbies bucket, etc. I have a dollar amount for "must”
“For those earning $1M+ annually, what changed about how you manage your finances? For those who’ve made the jump from ~$500k to $1M+ (or even $2M+), what financial strategies or considerations became important that weren’t really on your radar before? Things like tax planning, estate planning, asset protection, equity compensation, charitable giving, investing, etc. For example, I recently heard about people setting up additional supplemental tax withholding on equity vesting to avoid a large ta”
“32M currently at about 280k net worth with only mortgage debt and 6k in student loans at 2.5%. My mortgage is 295k at 5.25 purchase in 2025 refi in 26 from 6.25. income (130k-200k) bare bones expenses: 3K Currently: 50k taxable brokerage (highly speculative, spacex nvidia, palintir, some etfs as well) 85k in cash in hys 100k in 401ks 7k in roth IRA-( just started last year) 40k in home equity I am planning on moving everything outside of 50k (16 m emergency fund) in cash to a wealthfront account”
“I’ve actually just sold one of my last rentals and moving everything into stock market at the moment. I’ve had great returns the last couple of decades. I don’t see the growth there. Also, rents have stagnated or even retreated a bit in my area. Plus, the whole Covid thing soured me. Who would have thought that the government would take your property and say that people could live rent free in it for a year while you’re expected to pay mortgages and keep up on repairs, maintenance and taxes!!!!”
“27M finally paid off my student debts (15k) and have about 65k saved up. 15k of it is in employee matched 401k and the rest is in a HYSA and checking. Monthly expenses are around $2200 and my income has been 65-75k for past 3 years. Don’t really expect it to change in the coming future. Any good tips or brokerages to start for a newbie? Trying to get to 100k NW in a year or so. submitted by /u/Genjiguy-1999 [link] [comments]”
Pay off the credit cards and use the IRAs for the shortfall.
“I’m 27y/o I have about 17,000$ cash 10,000$ is invested, 7,000$ in my checking account. I own 20,000$ in my vehicle, owe another 25k, and owe 20k for school loans. I don’t have a retirement through work, my 10,000$ account is my “retirement”. I make about 2,200$ a week after tax but this changes every 3-9 months since I am a contractor (typically 1800-2200 after tax weekly), but living expenses just in bills is around 3,500$ a month. I’m pretty bad with spending but it’s mostly on ordering food”
“Personally, assuming your cash flow is sufficient to continue paying down your mortgage at a good rate, I would lean towards prioritizing investment and building an emergency fund (maybe via a HYSA), but the PF Wiki's section about the "Prime Directive", shown here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/?screen_view_count=1 may help to brainstorm. That said, paying down the mortgage early (unless fine print details mention some kind of penalty for early repayme”
“Fellow sales professionals, I’ve finally hit the target amount for my HYSA, my emergency fund that I set out earlier this year. Now that I’ve hit that amount. Other than putting in money for my fun savings account. I really want to put as much as I can into my retirement/investments. What are you guys doing? How are you dividing your money, both salary and commission checks? I was putting 70% of my commission check into my HYSA to get to that target. Now that I’ve hit the target I need to find o”
“Long time since I budget by paycheck. But my approach now matched by approach today. I budgeted savings. So first thing I pay is savings to myself. Then I can spend the rest.”
“I try to automate percentages. X amount goes to fun, X% goes to savings, everything else to bills.”
“Yes, and this month's checks cover next month's expenses. That way my month's of spending is planned out the first of the month every month.”
“- Mid 30s - Current NW $2.9M ( $2.6M stocks, $100K 401K, $150k cash) - Total annual spending $110K - Income $400k-$500k, maxing $401k - Single, no kids, VHCOL (USA) - FIRE target: $6M by mid 40s. - Mortgage $500K in Canada (rental property) - All values in USD I really like cars. I’ve been wanting something sporty for a long time, but every time I was about to get one, I backed out at the last minute, thinking it’d not a good financial decision. Last year I finally pulled the trigger and ordered”
“- Mid 30s - Current NW $2.9M ( $2.6M stocks, $100K 401K, $150k cash) - Total annual spending $110K - Income $400k-$500k, maxing $401k - Single, no kids, VHCOL (USA) - FIRE target: $6M by mid 40s. - Mortgage $500K in Canada (rental property) - All values in USD I really like cars. I’ve been wanting something sporty for a long time, but every time I was about to get one, I backed out at the last minute, thinking it’d not a good financial decision. Last year I finally pulled the trigger and ordered”
“You only need to pull $12000 annual to hit $10k/month. A 4% withdrawal is $32000 annual or $2666/month. Should be fine. But no reason to be leaving that much cash in a hysa. It’s never too late to change that but in market investments you’d be well over a million now, most likely.”
“Yes easily. Also 10k a month is a lot in retirement. You could easily downsize that if you want. You also didn't discuss if you own your own home - are you renting?”
“You have close to $10K a month coming in before even touching your savings. You guys are going to be okay. How much longer is left on the mortgage?”
“Your number is almost certainly more than a million. Using just the 4% rule on your $35k of spend says the minimum is $875k. However, you’re still in your 20’s with a long life, hence I’d model to a 3-3.5% SWR, that takes you to 1.1-1.2M. If I were in your shoes, I’d want a cushion on top of this - so $1.5M in today’s $s. To some of the comments from others re: marriage and kids, don’t think you should waste your time thinking too much about this because the distribution of outcomes is so wide.”
“Hi, The data: Age 35 Income 160k (new as of last year. Prev a lot less) 100k in 401k ~100k in ETFs 159k CDs, MM, liquid Monthly bills ~1500 (living with parent) High healthcare expenses 22K student loan debt left (was in forebearance, kicks in again soon) Parent is poor and older, with sub-optimal life "game plan" that makes me anxious It's been a rough road. My income and remote work give me some options. But I'm not sure about how to prioritize. The traditional advice is '”
“Hello Personal Finance ! I am starting a new job in September and I wanted to get your opinions on how to allocate my new income. (130K pre tax, NYC, Single , 33M) -rent is $1600 ( including all utilities) -phone bill+ insurance for all my electronics $120 - food is $300 month - my daily average cash spend is $18including travel My main confusion is on how to handle my CC debt and how much to put in 401K. I have 3 CC with total of 11K debt. (4k-4k-3k) At the moment I have almost no 401K and comp”
“Posting this partially as a reality check and partially to get advice from people with more life/career experience. I’m the first person in my family to be in this kind of position so I don’t really have anyone to ask. I’m 25, a first generation immigrant to Canada, and grew up pretty poor. I graduated last year with a 3-year advanced diploma in business administration with a concentration in marketing from a community college. I didn’t go to university for a bunch of reasons but career wise I’v”
“Rough stats 43 y/o, married, no kids (but other family dependents), VHCOL Just lost 1M/yr job, getting 1 year severance Monthly spend roughly 20k 6M NW - 3.5M 401k, 2.5M taxable - 80% VTI, 20% bonds/cash NW excludes 800k equity in primary residence, with 800k remaining on a 3% mortgage All I can say is thank f'ing god for FIRE, talk therapy, and SSRIs. Thrilled to have a mega-sized safety net and the ability to take as much time as I want to look around for my next role. All of your stories”
“37yo, recently single, 190k/yr. I was unemployed for 2-3 years living in a HCOL area (software eng) and have landed a job last year in another HCOL area. I've lost all of my savings and 401k during that period so I'm essentially starting from scratch (insane amounts of anxiety from this). Over the course of the past year, I've paid off all of my debts and have accumulated about 19k in savings (7k buffer in checking). My living expenses are around 6k/mo (things like car issues, relati”
“Hence, do the math. Pay what’s makes the math works. But hold back a bit for an emergency, regardless.”