Ask HN: How do I Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck?

36 pointsnovateg112 comments

I've started my journey as a self-taught web developer in 2008, I moved to New York City in 2012 and started working for marketing agency as a web developer with a pay of $15 per hour, which has the lowest for the position.

I managed to grow to Tech Director at the same company and my current salary is $110k per year, and yes, I'm still working from paycheck-to-paycheck.

How can I get out of the swamp?

P.S. I also need to mention that I do keep track of my budget. I have 3 kids (two of them are school-aged and one preschooler). And I have a monthly mortgage $2600.

Net Monthly Salary - $7000 - Mortgage $2600 - Electricity, gas, water $400 - Other bills (internet, phone, credit) $600 - Food $1200 - Child-care $1200 - Car expenses $600 - Shopping ~ $400

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Increase your monthly income or lower your monthly spending. Easiest is to find a new job. If you have 14 YOE as developer you should be able to find a higher paying job as long as you've continually grown your skills. Put your résumé on Hired.com and put in a desired salary of $200K to gauge companies' interest then adjust up or down as needed. Do a few practice interviews on Pramp. Read up on System Design here https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer. Watch YouTube videos on DS&A and practice coding on LeetCode.

The fastest way is to make more money. You'll probably need to switch jobs. Barring that, you need to look at your expenses. Do you have credit card debt? Start paying that off as fast as you can. Then start paying off the lower interest rates.

The fastest way to start saving money is to learn how to cook and don't eat out or buy prepared food as much. You can make fresh food that is cheaper if you know how to buy raw ingredients and make your own. If you drink alcohol, cut down on how much, or find a cheaper (not necessarily worse) option to what you drink.

> The fastest way to start saving money is to learn how to cook and don't eat out or buy prepared food as much.

Sometimes easier said than done. I cooked a lot over the pandemic, but when I switched jobs six months ago, it started mentally draining me enough that cooking after work has become a real challenge. Still managing to cook 2-3 times a week, most weeks, but not more than that right now. Used to do it 5+ times a week.

Cooking 2-3 times a week should be enough to make food for the whole week

you can still prepare the lighter meals (dinner/lunch depends on country) the same day since it has much shorter prep time

you should be cooking more than 1 meal per cooking "session". cooking every single day it not going to happen anyone who is employed in a "normal" job

If it were just up to me, I could survive on sandwiches or grilling some chicken and veggies on a grill 5x a week real quick, nbd. But I'm married, and my wife not only insists on hearty cooked meals (or takeout, which we already spend a ton of money on), but she's also not a big fan of leftovers.

Two meals for each of us per cooking "session" is our current norm (dinner, then lunch the next day), although I almost had to throw away leftovers last night because she wasn't in the mood to eat it for three days (I kind of forced it last night), but more than that and it's probably just going to be me eating it and still having to cook something else for dinner (or she spends money on takeout) anyway.

Cook once in the weekend in a big batch, and eat the leftovers during the week. Most of the effort of cooking is prep, heating up the pan, etc., and that doesn’t change much if you double a recipe.

You need to make more than you spend. Your comp is very low so you need to change jobs to get your comp closer to where it should be. Not much else to say on this. Start leetcoding and polish your resume.

Edit: Yes, $110k for a tech employee with 12 YOE in a HCOL area is very very low. You don't need to work at FAANG to make significantly more than this (see levels.fyi for many examples). The existence of poor people living on less does not change this fact or mean the OP shouldn't strive to be compensated at a level appropriate to their experience.

110k$ is very low? Wow

Edit: I understand that not much now. Living in Eastern Europe I have different perspective. BUT, I think that advice: “just earn more” shouldn’t appear when someone asks how to stop living paycheck to paycheck. No matter how much you earn you should always try your best to save some money.

In NYC for a non-entry level software job? Yeah it's pretty low.

I agree, that's closer to what an intern would make in NYC rather than a director. I'd consider changing industries, maybe engineers are not as valued in marketing agencies as they would on other more tech-heavy industries.

Where in NYC are interns making 110K and where can I apply ?

FAANG, finance companies (banks, Bloomberg etc) plus tons of mid sized tech companies (companies like Mongo, Dropbox etc). Often if salary is lower, there's a relocation bonus that puts you into six figures if you amortize it over your 3-4 months there.

For something in demand that takes decades to master that less than 1% of the population can do in one of the most expensive cost of living areas in the world, so yes.

I would probably highlight "in one of the most expensive cost of living areas in the world". Otherwise $110k is not very low

It is for New York

$110k is very low for NYC. Federal, state, city, fica taxes will eat close to 50% of that income. The remaining will end up in rent and transportation. God forbid you have some recurring expenses like healthcare or a child.

So what do the millions of households earning <$60k do? Are they going tens of thousands of dollars deeper in debt each year?

In NYC? They're living without health insurance, 8 people in a 3 bedroom, with less than $500 in savings, and credit card debt, yes.

Or they commute two hours each way from Philly.

America does not treat it's people well.

https://fortunly.com/statistics/american-savings-statistics/...

Errr. I think there’s a big disconnect here.

1) NYC is not just Manhattan. The outer boroughs are also NYC and are far cheaper. Not Nashville cheap but livable. You don’t need 8 people in 3 bedrooms. You can even live in jersey.

2) A lot of NYC has affordable housing and projects. A lot of communities making the basic minimum wage or not at all can live there.

3) 110K is a absolutely doable in NYC. It’s just not doable if you live outside your means.

> In NYC? They're living without health insurance, 8 people in a 3 bedroom, with less than $500 in savings, and credit card debt, yes.

I understand that they don't have savings and have some credit card debt, but we're talking $50,000 per year. And this is over the median household income[0]. Are the people in the 25th percentile living 16 people in a 3 bedroom?

The OP has updated to say their mortgage is only $2,600/mo., so even after housing that leaves ~70k over what median household makes before rent. (The OP also reports having three kids, which is almost certainly a large part of that $70k.)

I suspect you don't spend a lot of time with people making $30-$70k. They exist, often have housing, and many of them even eat food. It's worth examining how they manage rather than dismissing this as an impossibility.

> Or they commute two hours each way from Philly.

Nope. NYC residents. Median household income of $63,998 (2019).

[0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewy...

Bad debt is the easy option. Sometimes they work 2 jobs or live out in the exurbs and commute 4 hours a day. Sometimes they drive for uber with their child in the front seat because they can't pay for daycare. Sometimes they engage in gambling or other under the radar activities just to supplement their income.

Some of them own their homes outright. Others live with 2 other families under a single roof. Often multiple generations live in the same house whose debt was paid off by a past generation - easing the burden.

Many people making $150k and are single live with roommates until the age of 40.

It is very easy to fall off a cliff in NYC.

Whatever they do, however they live, they aren't saving money, aren't financially stable or robust (i.e. positioned to weather emergencies), and have low material qualities of life. Why dissent while others try to help OP out of a situation where he's in a similar situation and should be making more based on his experience?

It’s irrelevant what most people do. He is in an industry where he can make more.

For a software person with 12 years experience in a major US city, $110k is insanely low. I’ve known people who made more than that after a 12 week bootcamp.

For a tech leadership position in one of the most expensive cities in the world? Absolutely. I work in a mid-priced, midwest city and that would be low for tech leadership.

Welcome to the HN bubble. Over the few years I've been here the talk about salaries have been getting more and more ridiculous. It started off as "three figures" then rapidly turned into 300-400k and now 110k is very low and considered poverty.

There's something about money that causes even intelligent people to lose all sense and perspective.

For a high cost of living area such as New York, with a family to support, it is unfortunately very low - couple that with their title and years of experience, it is just factual compared to the market that they could be earning near double. At $110k a year, you are looking at a $6k monthly take home; over 1/3rd of that is going to the mortgage OP posted, and they have three children. Once you add insurance, groceries, and other obligations (such as perhaps a car + insurance), it becomes very easy to fall in to the paycheck-to-paycheck life.

Yes, $110k is a lot of money, but it quickly disappears depending on where you live - for perspective, based on cost of living, this would be equivalent of earning $41k a year in Kansas City, KS/MO, or $37k in Birmingham AL -- cost of living plays a huge factor, and not accounting for that is the actual loss of sense and perspective.

Inflation, plus the goalposts have genuinely moved, plus, again, these salaries are reported from SF and NYC. Things would be different if we were talking about Austin, or even LA.

For a tech director, 14 years experience, in one of the most expensive cities in the country, yes, $110k is incredibly underpaid. I make (and so do my friends) the same amount, remotely, as a new-grad, not at a FANNG/MAGMA/WHATEVER.

We have goof perspective. If he were a teacher, our advice would be different.

I basically did a career reset in 2008 - a little over 12 years ago. By changing jobs and working at mostly a bunch of no name companies until 2020, I switched jobs 6 times and went from $80K -$150K and was entertaining offers at other no names companies by 2/2020 as a regular old back end C# CRUD developer - in a place much cheaper than NYC.

I did a slight pivot in 2020 that’s not relevant to the discussion.

$110k for a director is low even for Europe, so this doesn't hold water IMO.

It absolutely is, especially by US standards.

As an anecdata, I'm a director of engineering and my base salary is ~205k CAD.

At my company (based in Toronto, Canada), we have budgeted between 130k-160k CAD base + bonuses for engineering roles (depending on the experience, position, etc). Yet I consider these salaries to be pretty subpar compared to our US counterparts.

Folks, demand a fair wage. When a house costs 1.3M , it's unreasonable to get paid peanuts.

He’s not in Eastern Europe. He’s in the US. Mathematically, we all know that he should be able to earn more.

Their comp is presumably higher than it was a few years ago, even adjusted for inflation. The question to be asked is why their spending has increased similarly.

Half of all households in NYC live on ~$60/yr or less (2019)[0]. What's stopping the OP from having their level of spending and saving $50k (minus taxes) a year? The answer to that is also the answer to their question. "Make more money because $110k is very low" is an absurdly out-of-touch response.

[0] https://smartasset.com/retirement/average-salary-in-nyc

OP isn’t going to fix his financial picture by skipping lattes and getting a cheaper apartment. Even if he went into hardcore miser mode he might save about $20-30k per year. Compare that with seeking market rate comp he could pretty easily double or triple his income, and be putting away $100k+/yr (and maybe a lot more than that) of additional savings with no change to his lifestyle. Seems pretty obvious where the focus should be.

The fact poor people exist doesn’t change the fact OP is likely being taken advantage of by the current employer.

Certainly, doubling or tripling their comp should be a part of OPs plan, but even if they do make tons more, they may have to adjust spending behaviour to prevent it from overtaking the higher salary eventually. Some people really do just spend every dollar they receive, no matter how much it is.

Yeah, increasing comp is a good idea, but I assume their comp has increased multiple times over the past decade and it's had zero effect on their saving.

Something's causing a growth in spending exactly equal to the growth in income. Increasing income only helps if that function is addressed.

Maybe 3 kids?

Yup, that addition explained a lot.

With the further breakdown, the $1200/mo on childcare is low enough that I suspect this is a one-income household, in which case cutting back there may be possible, but I'm guessing that also causes most of the pain to fall on their partner.

He’s a software developer in NYC. We aren’t talking about the “average” household. We are on a tech oriented site and we know what he could be making as just your standard “full stack developer”. People with 3-5 years of experience can throw their resume in the air and make more. We aren’t talking “FAANG jobs”

I don't think you're addressing what I actually wrote. Yes, they can and should earn more, but somehow their expenses are exactly tracking their income, and identifying why is key to ensuring it doesn't continue to happen as that income grows further.

Yes, he had three kids during that time. By not continuing to happen do you suggested he cuts off his ability to reproduce?

This may help, but it sounds like what has happened is spending has increased with each level of compensation increase.

My advice to OP is: You need to break whatever financial habits you have that prevent you from saving money, and build a habit of saving as much as you can. Just because you get a raise doesn't mean you have to change your lifestyle. You don't have to rent or buy a more expensive place to live, you don't have to lease a more expensive car, buy more expensive meals, take expensive trips, whatever it is. There is some thing you are spending your money on and you need to identify it and get it under control.

You can avoid living paycheck to paycheck on almost any kind of budget, but if you always let your spending expand to what you can afford it won't matter how much you earn, you will always feel broke.

A common thing I see with my friends who are kind of bad with money is they don't make a calculation of what they need versus what they want. They see stuff they want, they check if they have the money to afford it, and they buy it. It's a bad habit to be in, and you have to be able to say "I am going take the cost of that thing and put it into a savings account instead"

A big bag of flour, big bag of onions, keep your yeast growing, 4 or 5 cheeses, big pot of sambal, a salami sausage, ham, bacon, some fish, mushrooms, a variety of frozen vegitable mixes, tomato ketchup, big bottle of olive oil. Oregano, thyme, pepper.

mix the dough close to batter. Put flour on a baking tray and spread the dough onto it. Grill on highest settings for 4-6 minutes while you chop the ingredients. Remove the dough from the oven and flip it upside down. Spread a spoon of ketchup over it. Spread out 1-3 spoons of vegetable mix, move them around so that you get zones of flavours, put a tiny slice of salami on one area, make areas of ham and other meat or fish. Add some shrooms, some onion, garlic, poor some oil over it, add garlic, herbs and make zones of cheese. Have the zones overlap or stand alone. It takes a while to perfect the ratios. It should take 6 minutes to prepare the ingredients while the dough is under the grill. Keep the ingredients together in a bowl or box in the fridge to save time.

put the art work in a hot air oven but keep the grill on for speed. 6-8 min should be enough. Also enough time to clean everything up for the next pizza.

Do this ritual 2-4 times per day so that you have a structured routine that doesn't require thinking about it.

It will start out as a soggy mess because you keep putting to much of the ingredients on it. 1/2 cm of salami is enough for a zone. 1 slice of ham, 1 slice of bacon. More and the different combination of flavors each bite should have blends into one unidentifiable mess.

The spoon of vegitable mix will produce a bite with a slice of carrot on it. You are eating flour and carrots. But since it is just a single bit it adds to the adventure.

Most ingredients last a reasonable while and you use so little of them that the eventual cost is just the cheese.

I've done this for a good while on my own but you get to make 3-5 of them at a time.

Keep adjusting the ingredients and ratios for each mouth and do different versions for each.

For $150 per month you will eat like a king and get fat.

The hardest part I've found with budgeting if you have a significant other is getting both parties on board. Then even if you get them on board you need to be together on the amounts and the methods. The budgeting part is easy once you get passed that. I've tried things like YNAB in the past, but without the other person on board and/or using it, it just became useless.

there's a ton of information missing here, but my simple way is to not really stop living paycheck to paycheck, but instead hide the money from myself before i can spend it. To me this means high contributions to retirement accounts, auto transfers in to brokerage account, and auto transfers into a separate "large spending" account. That way I'm free to spend guilt free anything left in my checking account.

The automation is really the key for me, move the money before I can spend it. But NYC is also an expensive place to live, and I could easily see 110k not being enough to live there. but maybe someone else has more relevant experience

and i also have the mental block that if i have less than 1k in my checking i should be wary. and also tons of credit card alerts for large transactions going in and out

This is the exact technique I used to save up and pay for a wedding and a house. Consider your savings/investments as one of your monthly bills. Set a maximum balance for your checking account, everything in excess of that goes into investments or retirement fund.

a max balance is a cool idea, i gotta try that out!

1. Need to identify the monthly cost of your lifestyle. Housing, bills, credit card interest payments, loans (auto/boat/RV/peloton/etc), insurance, kid activities, food, etc. In other words, how much money does it take each month to run my family (or if no family, just yourself).

2. Each month you must put some amount of your earnings in to an account for savings. While the savings account grows over time the balance will eventually become multiples of the value from #1.

For each multiple you have from #2, you are then resilient for a single month. And now breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

I'm sure someone will disagree or offer different advice but this is how I see it. Another person might suggest to aggressively pay off your home or have zero debt. All are of which are noble goals.

My wife and I are planning for retirement and one of the super helpful things we started is using a budgeting app and diligently planning and then tracking every penny. I suspect you'll find a few areas you can cut back and also start putting away some amount each month.

I second this. Dont even try to blindly budget - first track your expenses for a few months.

Might find that the 2nd yacht isnt worth it.

This has helped me enormously. As a sibling comment suggests, don't budget to start with, just track what you're spendind your money on for two or three months, then you'll know what you actually spend your money on, and it will help you to identify things that you might be able to change. For all that some puritanical budgeters would say, my experience has been that it's not things like take-out coffee that are the bulk of my expenses, but things like housing. Getting a better mortgage deal / cheaper rent is going to be several orders of magnitude more effective then doing without take-out coffees.

Edit: For what it's worth, I use You Need A Budget, and have my bank accounts automatically linked so much of the categorisation is done for me. Some people don't like that a cloud service has your financial information, so YMMV depending on your views on that. I was also categorising payments manually to start with (YNAB didn't have UK bank integration for a long time) and I actually found it really helpful because it forced me to be aware of what I was spending money on. I use https://syncforynab.com/ in preference to the built-in sync because it uses my bank's API and payments come through to YNAB instantly rather than on a delay. Having a budget has made financial planning significantly easier and less stressful.

It's not difficult to do, but it is hard. Cut as many expenses as you can. Examples: cook your own meals instead of eating out; bring a lunch from home; shop for groceries more carefully - use coupons, get stuff in bulk & freeze it; build some security into your food supply - get extra cans of corn or boxes of macaroni when it is on sale - the stuff lasts forever; don't buy anything unless you absolutely need it.

At the same time, eliminate debts as quickly as possible. Start with high-interest credit cards - eliminate them one at a time, then ensure you pay of the one remaining card every month so there is no interest. If you have a car - do you need it? If you're in/around NYC you could take public transport for most things and eliminate the car payment, insurance, maintenance, etc. If you need a car sometimes then consider renting it only when you need it.

Housing - could you live a bit further away for cheaper & commute in via train? Have a roommate?

Cut back on entertainment - wait for movies to come out on TV, eat in, use the library - it's a great resource and costs nothing.

Main focus is on needs vs. wants. You NEED a 1 month cushion of cash in a savings account to cover any emergencies w/out resorting to credit cards. It's nice to have 3-6 months. So start with a few $hundred and just keep adding to it.

My wife likes the Dave Ramsey books - they seem to offer pretty solid advice. There is no reason to be living paycheck-to-paycheck, even in NYC, if you're making 6 figures. It may not be as fun or glamorous, but it is completely doable.

Firstly, you're being underpaid and living in a high COL area. Find a new position either remote or with correct market valuation for your level in NY if you don't want to move.

Secondly, you can pretty much follow the typical line of advice when it comes to personal finance. Build an emergency fund, pay off highest rates of debt first, contribute the max to your 401k/roth ira/hsa, invest the rest.

This typical advice can be found at places like reddit.com/r/personalfinance and Suze Orman’s frequent PBS specials which you can probably find on YouTube or video.pbs.org.

Try budgeting. I’m using and can recommend YNAB but really excel or sheet of paper will do just fine. Plan every dollar you spend upfront and then adjust, learn and repeat. After few months you will know much more about where your money goes and that should help you control it better. Good luck!

Either spend less or make more. Have you started interviewing yet? You can get a lot more than $110k in NYC.

Housing - could you live a bit further away for cheaper & commute in via train? Have a roommate?

Cut back on entertainment - wait for movies to come out on TV, eat in, use the library - it's a great resource and costs nothing.

Do you live in Manhattan? 110k in Manhattan is a bit tight to be honest. Also 110k seems quite low for a Tech Director. In NY the average for a Tech Director salary is 160k-240k

My first recommendations to you would be consider looking for other jobs, and see what you can make elsewhere. Just do some job interviews. I know you worked at that company for a very long time, but sometimes a switch is needed to bump the salary. Our company is hiring a Director of Engineering btw (in Boston if you can consider moving), check the job listing just in case: https://maark.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=76

My second recommendation, if you live in a high cost of area, consider moving, I know this is not for everyone, but I personally moved to upstate NY and just go to the office from time to time. My mortgage for a house I've build and is 2600 sqfeet is less than 25% my salary. Again not possible for every job, especially if you have family nearby, just throwing it there.

And last recommendation, is whatever your salary, have a solid financial plan. It doesn't mean that you can afford a Tesla and your colleague has a Tesla, that you should buy a Tesla. I personally still drive an 11 year old car, I pay Verizon prepaid instead of contract, mostly to have money available for things I truly love. Even if you make 1M$ a year, have a budget. If you have credit card debt, or any sort of debt other than Mortgage, I recommend checking out Dave Ramsey, his philosophy is a bit extreme (he is entirely against Credit Cards), but it can show you a way out if you are drowning.

$110k per year for a tech director in NY sounds ... low from what I know of the market there.

Maybe interview, 2-3x your salary and keep the same the living standards?

Yes, at the first bump up in salary most tend to bump up their spending as well and you end up where you started more or less. It’s very important to learn frugality in order to break that cycle. Yes, for OP $110k in NYC is not very much at all considering the hi COL and taxation in NYC.

There are a lot of great feedback posted already. However, I'd like to suggest looking at it differently. I've gone through job/pay upgrades many many times and lifestyle also gets upgraded as well. None of those ways truly/quickly works unless you sacrifice a lot!

The one approach that finally got me financial freedom and relaxed happiness was to take up side investment activities. The process and nuances will vary based on where you live, geo-economical opportunities and your current "valuable assets".

I'm in IT and high tech and wife is in personal finance. We saw equity on our house and both me and wife have perfect credit score. We took out equity and lines of credit and bought a demolition house project with Tier-A mortgage (bank low interest mortgage). That house already had the permits but previous owner was scared to go through the actual build. We got a B-Lender to help "new construction" costs (they give you money phases by phase as you progress through the construction) but the interest is 3-4x bank mortgage. It didn't matter to us because typically the whole loan duration is 1-1.5 years.

Important to mention we hired a professional builder (a long vetting process) to oversee the whole project as we didn't want to get involved with day to day labour and contractors ... we just managed the taste/style and money. The builder usually gets paid after the project is finished but we made a deal to pay half after the house sold.

Long story short, for every $1 out of our pocket, we got $3.25 profits before taxes and the whole thing took 20 months. We now repeat this process with 2 or 3 projects every year. NOTE: we don't put all our eggs into this basket (2008 housing meltdown anyone). We've started hedging into other investment not closely related to housing.

Eat in. Drive an older car, or bike. Work remotely. Live where rent is not astronomical. Reduce alcohol consumption, especially at bars/clubs.

There is a lot of great advice in this thread here. And as you see if parallels the same advice as dieting; do more beneficial activity and do less non-beneficial activity.

If you can start saving $100 a month, and ramp that up over time you'll see yourself become more secure and less anxious in a relative short time.

From your spending, everything is in line with a comfortable lifestyle. Of your expenses, only the food and car seem like opportunties to diet. I would suggest finding a way in to a second hand car for half you monthly cost, and trying to get your monthly food budget to around $800. Eat out less, eat less prepared meals, and ask your children to help prepare meals.

For the "exercise more" side of things, finding a higher paying job is the simplest way forward. Perhaps the most straightforward way there is to ask for a raise, but also understanding your market value by interviewing may be beneficial. When you land an increased salary, don't change your spending habits.

Personally, living in NYC myself, I don't understand why anyone here owns a car. Replace it with a bicycle and you are saving a lot (and as a bonus: saving all the rest of us from the noise, traffic, pollution, wasted space on parking, etc. too)

You don't mention a spouse, so I assume there isn't one.

It looks like you're spending roughly $800 a month on 'shopping' and 'credit'. or almost 10% of your income continually every month on those two items.

Many of us do that in an attempt to 'live a lifestyle' or 'conform to an image'. 'Image' and 5 bucks buys you a cup of coffee. Ever notice how rich people often look like they don't even have two cents to rub together?

You don't have to do it forever and a day, but stop completely any non-essential (and I mean non-essential) spending until you knock that credit card debt off your list of expenses. Eating out is one of the worst non-essential spending drains.

If you have to use a credit card for some reason, maintain a credit balance on the credit card so that the banks don't get to charge you that exorbitant interest. They hate that, but hey, it's your money not theirs.

Go straight to Bogleheads.org and other sites of the type.

It's awesome you recognize that you're living paycheck to paycheck. If you manage to cut a little bit of expenses or earn a little bit more through a side-gig, you will have money to invest.

Investing in the right places (like your company's 401k) can bring immediate returns through things like the employer match. Once you establish a foothold, just keep on keeping on. The savings pile will grow and hopefully you'll get an occasional raise to step things up.

It really works.

My family is now at the point where 1 kid is out of college and 'off the payroll', one kid is in college and one coming up. These can be expensive years, so prepare for them. (Now!)

Dave Ramsey, Bogleheads, etc. are giving you the straight story. If you live below your means and make financial gain one of your hobbies, you have a good chance of accomplishing what you want.

Good luck!

Excuse me for being direct.

Please apply to Amazon; - They are hiring like hell. - You have nice experience (as it looks from here) - They will give you a nice compensation package (RSU & amenities etc) - Work/life balance is not bad - You'll have a chance to look after yourself (improvement or slack off, your choice)

PS: You can try Meta/Facebook too...

I already did and passed the recruiter interview, waiting for the online assessment part.

This is definitely a bubble. What do you think the chances of someone who has spent 12 years at the same job could pass a coding interview at any of the tech companies without any practice?

tl:dr; Experienced people evaluated on skills other than coding too. Making coding interviews bogeyman doesn't change the fact that sufficiently experienced people can get the job without much hassle.

As a person who recently interviewed and got offers, I cannot say they don't ask coding questions, they do. But points are given to solution methods, clear and concise thinking.

People mostly making coding interviews as bogeyman here. Meanwhile experienced engineers already have required mindset to tackle problems.

For instance, I never read specific interview/algorithms books. Because, at the end of the day if you're gonna memorize these stuff for the sake of memorizing (or passing interviews) you'll forget them and not really use them.

A critique of the dieting advice, "just eat less" is that it doesn't apply to many people. On the surface a comment like that is presumptive. In 2016 when I realized I was more overweight than I ever thought I could be, I stopped eating out, stopped eating junk food, and stopped eating seconds. Eating less was the advice I needed.

Make sure that the advice you need isn't just: "buy less".

Aside from that, budgeting everything is a great place to start. There's apps that can help, but a spreadsheet could do it too. My advice is to not pay to start saving. The more granular you can be the better too. If you have some small debts then I recommend setting aside just enough for rent and food then working to pay those off immediately. There's no shortcut to building out a budget, so you'll have to itemize your spending and do the math to get your baselines -- then work from there.

The only reason why paycheck-to-paycheck happens is because you're not making enough money to support your lifestyle. So either make more money or cut something out.

None of the numbers you gave seem particularly jarring, but $110k as a tech director in NYC seems crazy under-market, so I'd vote for "make more money."

Find someone who earns half of what you do (after tax), live like them, put half in the bank before you do anything else.

I hear you, frugality is an important aspect. But putting money in the bank doesn’t really seem like the best idea, especially now that inflation is running wild. I don’t know what the answer to that really is though. Investing is an idea but also a risky business too if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The topic is "how do I stop living paycheck to paycheck", not "how do I build an empire".

If you save 30K and lose 3K to inflation that's still 27K more than not bothering at all.

Create a spreadsheet and include the following:

1. Your monthly net income (what goes into your account each month)

2. Subtract your fixed expenses from #1 above (mortgage, bills, other things you can't change like loans)

3. All of your monthly expenses categorized. Go back 6 months on your credit card bills and account statements. Download the data, put it into a spreadsheet and categorize every single expense. (Grocery, dining out, travel, sports, etc, etc)

4. Add up all the variable expenses in #3

5. Add your fixed and variable expenses together and subtract from your monthly net-income.

6. You will now see if you've saved any money historically. Now look at each category and figure out where you can trim to break even, then where you can trim even more to start saving each month. If you want to save, you need to spend less, if you don't want to spend less, you need to increase your net take home.

Echoing what others have said, start granular budgeting and work on increasing your salary.

A couple years ago I finished the year feeling like I lost money, even though all my bills were paid. I painfully dug through every transaction from the year and found that I was down about $20k from the prior year. I thought I was living modestly, but I was actually buying about 3x the stuff than I would have guessed. I started with YNAB (not affiliated with them at all) and it changed my life. For the last two years, my wife and I have been hyper diligent about budgeting, meeting every two weeks (the Monday after $dayjob pays me) and make sure we are aligned. I left 2021 net positive about $50k because of this.

I have made $25k/yr from side work for a few years and this definitely helps get ahead. My dayjob pays me about $150k in a medium TCoL area.

Best of luck!

You can be making more money. It seems like your salary is stagnant since you are working at the same company.

Start looking around for what you can possibly get and start interviewing. When you get 2-3 go to your current employer for a counter offer and then decide what you want to do

Other than that: you are paying mortgage and not rent. so you had some large sum of cash in the past (to apply for the mortgage), I'm guessing that it got spent on monthly living? you can try to talk with your bank/mortgage issuer and lower monthly returns but making the loan longer, calculate the added interest before doing this though

Looking at your expenses you don't have a lot of things you can legitimately, kids are expensive. you might be able to cut your food costs by a couple of 100's but that won't change the outcome that much

I don't think this question can be answered without knowing how your money is being spent. Some people try to force savings by depositing say 10% of pay in a brokerage account (first a 401(k) or IRA should be maxed out) and the remainder in a checking account used to pay bills.

No one is saying the obvious answer. By definition, you can only decrease your spending so much. There is no theoretical limit to how high you can increase your income.

$110K for any experienced developer anywhere in the US is extremely low - especially one with 12 years of experience.

I don't think this is a situation where you can't figure out what you need to do. If you sit down and think for 5 minutes you'll know. Maybe you're asking because you want a quick fix, when the reality is that changing bad habits always requires a sustained effort over time.

There is no swamp. There are those decisions that bring you closer to your goals and the alternative is self-sabotage.

Millions of words have been written on how to loose weight, how to eat healthier, how to start a business, and how to live within your means. There is nothing any of us can say that hasn't already been been said a thousand times before. If you want to change you'll take appropriate action and if you don't you won't.

Only one way: You must save a substantial portion of your income (e.g. $2000/mo) FIRST. Then treat everything after that as optional, and work with your family to prioritize those things that are important (mortgage would be at the top of my list).

This will be hard, and it will force you to question assumptions about what you really "need." Also, try to keep in mind that there are other families with 3 children living near you that only have $90k in income, and they manage well enough.

Edit: And as others have mentioned, keep looking for a higher paying job. This will help tremendously, as long as you learn to save first, then spend, rather than the other way around.

You need to either level up your salary, or leave NYC.

I know Dave Fecak well, he runs a resume writing service called Resume Raiders (google it). Contact him and have him spruce up your resume and professional profiles. It's super affordable and he does good work with solid results.

See if he can refer you to anyone who can give you feedback on salary given your exact background and qualifications. Check out sites like salary.com. Just know that the data there is limited and sometimes dated.

Then you have some options: (a) ask for a raise, armed with information and some good arguments around why it is justified; (b) prepare for a job search; (c) both

Apologies to ask, but with 3 kids you might have a partner's income on top of yours? (or a stay home partner). I realize the nature of the answer might be hard, still kids clearly account for part of the problem (child care specifically)

Aside from that, 110k sounds low for New York city but I could be wrong

Currently, I'm working alone. My wife used to be a teacher at school, she decided to change her job. She is learning UX Design. Once she start her new job, we will be in a better position

Business Analyst and Life Coach in training here.

Let's assume the other given advice of "just make more money" isn't helpful to you

"Treat your personal finances like a business" type advice might apply here.

Basically, if you want something to improve the first thing you need to do is measure it. Give yourself a chance to find common sense solutions by bringing all of your spending into the light.

I personally track 2 things independently and it is enough for me. Total balances, and Actual Expenses.

Total balances is a snapshot, I update the balances on all my accounts about once a month (you might want to do weekly at first) and save a copy. This is my pulse. I can look historically at how the balances are changing and make sure it is going in the right direction. This is where you will physically see yourself getting out of paycheck to paycheck when it happens.

Actual Expenses is an archive workbook with csv exports from each of my credit cards and debit cards. Leave the vendor names as they are. Copy and paste them into a new sheet and remove duplicates. Add 2* columns: Name, Category (*can add more if you want). Fill them out, create a lookup on the transaction data table to add your custom fields, and make a pivot table. See where your money is going.

Name is a simple easy to read version of the vendor because "CVS" & "Burger King", etc usually dont appear that cleanly on the bank statement.

Category is as you would guess, just a way to group related items. Personally I use 2 category columns; for example - Burger King, Fast Food, Food & Drink. theres a lot of room to go crazy here with detail, but keep in mind you have to do this for every new vendor you use so i recommend keeping it simple.

Link each card archive into a data model with Select on Date, Debit Amount, Credit Amount, Name, Category. Union the tables together

It helps to isolate bank transfers (like paying off a credit card from your checking account) so you can filter them out if you want, bc they effectively double count your transactions. The $500 debit from my checking account is $500 of transactions on the credit card - so it will look like $1000 total debits which can be confusing / misleading if you're unaware

Why wouldn’t “make more money” for a software engineer with 12 years of experience by changing jobs be his first action?

Lots of reasons why it shouldnt be the first thing you do

1) changing jobs is a slow process, with lots of communication delays likely to stretch over days / weeks. Putting your finances in order takes a couple hours from scratch. They really arent mutually exclusive options

2) you should streamline your finances before looking to switch jobs so you can better assess your needs and what you are willing to sacrifice when evaluating market nuances.

3) He doesnt actually have any guarantee of another job. He should see what it takes to get out of paycheck to paycheck living at his current wage because that is his current reality. If he wants to prioritize saving money, he needs to start now by making any sacrifices he can. Those sacrifices become a motivational tool to increase his income in order to buy back the conveniences if he still wants them.

1. There are a lot of jobs out there in corp dev and you overestimate how long the process takes at non tech companies. I’ve literally started looking for a job on Monday and had an offer that Thursday. I changed jobs 5 times from 2008-2018 (around the same years he’s been working) and it never took me more than a month. This as a regular old C# backend CRUD developer. No DS&A and only one coding interview. I’m not counting my most recent job in 2020, it was a slight pivot.

You would be surprised about how fast recruiters start spamming you once you change your LinkedIn status.

2. At $110K in NYC as a developer with three kids, he can’t be too picky about what he is willing to sacrifice.

3. As a software developer with 12 years of experience in the US in 2022, unless he is “eat the chalk” dumb - and I doubt he is - he is basically guaranteed another job paying more.

1. I did not overestimate, it still took you days. spreadsheet would be done monday night. sidenote: C# backend CRUD might be a very different market than what OP is looking at

2. this is true, but with kids there is also extra risk in changing jobs. not enough to say dont do it - but it's a consideration.

3. he is a web developer turned tech director, not a software developer. without formal education in the field. We do not know his situation, and this type of thinking is what gets people into the most trouble. that 12 years of experience might not be fully industry relevant.

Overall I do agree with you, it sounds like it is definitely worth the effort for him to find a new job. But it is a common trap to shulk responsibility for your current situation by thinking things will be different after some specific life event. that said, he posted info baout his situation after my initial post and yeah he should find a better job if he can but i dont even think hes in trouble.

TBH I think OP was either just venting or baiting for someone here to hook him up with a web-dev side gig.

Also, He is isnt even living paycheck to paycheck.. hes paying off a mortgage so he's investing in real estate around NYC, which has increased a lot over the past year alone so odds are this guy is far from debt.

> he is a web developer turned tech director, not a software developer. without formal education in the field

Even though I personally avoid the clusterf%%% of the modern front end development ecosystem like the plague, I would never say that “web development” is not “software development”.

As far as his lack of a formal education, with 12 years of experience, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not like my degree in 1996 from a no name school had anything to do with me getting a job in 2008.

> I would never say that “web development” is not “software

I had a feeling you might take this point of contention. I know I did not phrase it in the most sensitive way, but I was trying to highlight that his journey was different than a typical C# developer, for example. A minimum wage web-dev is not expected to know what an algorithm is, how anything is stored in memory, uncommon data structures, etc. And a tech director has a wide range of options but likely is more about managing other people than being a highly skilled individual contributor who can go make 200k easy at another job. Maybe all he did was update wordpress templates. Maybe in 12 years he has specialized in something worth $110k to this company but barely applicable anywhere else. We have no clue

All I know is that the OP didnt mention feeling underpaid, and the question was not about how to find a new job

Thanks for being positive! I don't think I'm in trouble either. I saw some negative comments and was disappointed. I think I am ok with managing my finances, it's just my expenses increased after buying house. I used to pay $1600 for rent now it's $2600.

I'm not trying to bait someone, or trying to get help from someone.

You're right, real estate is one of the best investments I've ever done, with the situation with covid and inflation real estate prices went up a lot since I purchased the house, and I already have about $100K in equity.

Awesome to hear about the equity! only the taxes and interest of a mortgage are expense. if those are less than 1600, youve improved on renting. hell, I do not think you will find a rental for 4-5 people for less than 2600 near NYC anyway. Maybe Flushing.

The baiting comment was because the goal of your post seemed unclear to me, but it did come off more as a vent for watching paychecks come and go

Keep an eye on the market, you might be able to increase your paycheck. alternatively, start a passion project that might be able to generate some side income. Also consider if there is more opportunity with your current employer. it is mildly annoying, but ask for more responsibility and then after you are handling it well ask for a raise. it is annoying because ideally you get the raise and responsibility at the same time, but it is very rare to see it happen that way

Spend less. Without seeing a breakdown of your expenditure it is impossible to give more specific advice. If you don't have a breakdown, make one.

Start job flipping. $110k isn't enough for your job title in NYC. You should be earning $200k or so at a minimum. Your current employer is probably taking advantage of your loyalty. Don't bother trying to negotiate salary, they might flip you another $15k or so to retain you but they won't bump you up to what you can get elsewhere.

Open a second account and move 10-20% of your salary to that account on the beginning of the month, or whenever you receive your salary. Pay yourself first, before you pay the bills.

Use at least 50% of that money to pay off any short term debt, starting with the high interest debt first. Try to avoid any new purchases which are not necessary. Do you really need that new TV right now? Could you live 1/2/3 months without a TV if the old one breaks? Everything which remains after paying off your debt should go into short term and long-term savings. Your short-term should approach at least 4-6 months of salary, to make sure you can cover any sudden expenses without going into debt. Put the remaining money into assets like index funds. Try to increase your initial share taken from salary over time. When you get a raise, make sure to adjust the amount you put aside every month.

See how to change your life do adopt to the now reduced income. Eating out less and start to cook for yourself is one thing to start. Check your monthly recurring expenses, do you really need NetFlix, Disney+, HBO AND Youtube Premium?

But whatever you do, putting money to the side as soon as you get your salary is the most important step. Maybe start with 5% and increase disproportionately on your next raise. This is what keeps the lifestyle inflation away (Just buying more because you earn more).

> Check your monthly recurring expenses, do you really need NetFlix, Disney+, HBO AND Youtube Premium?

So, I agree with checking and pruning even the little things, but the cost of all four of those combined come to 0.4% of OP's income. Whatever monthly recurring expenses are eating up $110k, it's likely more the daily $15 coffees or five-nights-a-week food deliveries for $100+ a pop, not a monthly $15 bill for Netflix.

Some things are more expensive in NYC. Netflix is the same cost everywhere.

In the end it's mainly about developing an habit to check your expenses. This can easily get to 100-150$ recouped per month. Which, when going into settling high interest debts makes a huge difference.

I’m sure you might know python. If not it’s pretty easy to learn. I think python for finances is an excellent book and you could build your inflows and outflows very easily. You could also project the future savings/expenses and their effects on your bank balances.

Edit - it’s ‘Personal Finance with Python’ Max Humber

I've set it up so there's an automatic transfer between my main account (where my pay arrives) and my savings account. This way that money is not immediately available.

What's preventing you from doing the same with say $100 a month, then gradually increasing that until some target level?

Can recommend YNAB[1].

As with debugging code, a chunk of the battle of making the state visible.

My wife plays YNAB like a video game, and we are buffered for several months now.

[1] https://www.youneedabudget.com/

$110k in NYC with kids? I think moving is the move, even if you end up making less. Obviously due dilligence is required to know for sure whether it'd make sense.

Also try to up skills to crack $150k

Come to India, you can live in luxury with the same amount.

I suggest checking out the Mr Money Mustache forums. Specifically the Case Study forum. I was in a similar place to you (though with less children), and it took about two years of changes but I now save about 70% of my salary. It has been empowering. It came from a lot of small changes (tips) that rolled to become a mindset change. The Mr Money Mustache forums are focused on retiring early but I prefer to focus on the Financial Independence. I initially thought I would sacrifice happiness, oddly I found the opposite. However everyone is different and I wasn't married when I started, which makes lifestyle changes easier.

You are remarkably underpaid (as others have noted). You could easily add $30k yearly increase (on the low end) with a job change.

What are you spending money on, and how strictly do you budget your monthly spending?

Where in New York? City? Or Herkimer? Elsewhere?

Location matters

What do your monthly expenditures look like?

Net Monthly Salary - $7000 - Mortgage $2600 - Electricity, gas, water $400 - Other bills (internet, phone, credit) $600 - Food $1200 - Child-care $1200 - Car expenses $600 - Shopping ~ $400

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