these articles are always like "after 401k and Roth IRA contributions and college savings plans for their kids, there's nothing left at the end of the month"
Yeah I was gonna say, I think when these people say "paycheck to paycheck" what they mean is "I don't have much liquid capital saved up so if I lost my job I'd have to liquidate some investments to make my mortgage", which would still suck mind you, but you ain't nowhere near homelessness motherfucker.
Hate to out myself but: I resemble this remark currently and consider myself "cash poor". Mind you liquidating shit like your IRA genuinely sucks and should be avoided if possible because you're essentially setting money on fire doing it....but you're definitionally NOT "paycheck to paycheck" if you actually have a relatively decent amount of money in an IRA. "Paycheck to paycheck" straight-up means that if you lose your paycheck that month you can't buy groceries, make a rent payment, or potentially both. It doesn't mean I might have to withdraw X thousand dollars from my account and pay the taxes on it plus a 10% penalty.
Yeah I was gonna say, I think when these people say "paycheck to paycheck" what they mean is "I don't have much liquid capital saved up so if I lost my job I'd have to liquidate some investments to make my mortgage", which would still suck mind you, but you ain't nowhere near homelessness motherfucker.
Hate to out myself but: I resemble this remark currently and consider myself "cash poor". Mind you liquidating shit like your IRA genuinely sucks and should be avoided if possible because you're essentially setting money on fire doing it....but you're definitionally NOT "paycheck to paycheck" if you actually have a relatively decent amount of money in an IRA. "Paycheck to paycheck" straight-up means that if you lose your paycheck that month you can't buy groceries, make a rent payment, or potentially both. It doesn't mean I might have to withdraw X thousand dollars from my account and pay the taxes on it plus a 10% penalty.
Confession, this is sort of where I am right now too. If I lost my job I'd live, but I'd have to dip into some funds I'd rather not.