Just checked some numbers and if we go back to just the COVID trough of last March, I’m down about 1/3 myself.
Still hate reading. Still getting angry.
My wife earns $500K a year, but drops $1,500 when she goes to the mall. She is jeopardizing our retirement
Lol $1,500 at the mall is a catastrophe but 16 years of private schools for two kids is not up for discussion. Imagine being married to someone like that, JFC
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Malls are still a thing?
That whole “letter” sounds made-up. “She had no idea how to handle money - you should have seen her 401K allocation!!”
They definitely need an independent advisor to give them advice on budgeting and saving/investing. It’ll wreck their marriage to argue about it among themselves, but if they have someone independent review the implications of saving more / spending less it’ll feel less like a personal attack. This guy is never going to win this argument. The more he pushes it the more likely she takes her $500k income and finds a 27 year old fitness instructor to hang out with instead.
Someone like that who operates a business so irrelevant that he describes it as a fucking tax shelter… But still has the nerve to complain to you about shopping when you’re where literally all the money comes from.
I think the issue is 100% the guy. Despite making less money he still wants to be in charge of their finances. We have no clue that she’s actually bad with money - she could be saving tons a year and on track to retire in her 50s, even with her huge mall spending.
As mentioned the 401k comment is ridiculous. Assuming a standard 401k with limited options, unless she had it all in cash when they started dating, there is pretty much no bad way to do it, even it her allocation wasn’t ideal. I bet he did something super minor like rebalance putting more into international equity or doing some life-path funds.
Financial advisor still probably a good idea, but he needs to accept that he doesn’t get to control her spending.
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Maybe she’s “spending money at the mall” while stashing money away for when she leaves him
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“Allocation” is a bit of an industry term of art, I was thinking that Mr. Money Genius really meant the amount she was saving not the investment mix.
In any event, yeah if she is making that much money hand wringing about 401k matches or something is probably not priority number 1. For people making 120k getting your 401k match is make or break. For people making 500k the bigger question is how to manage taxes on savings that can’t be tax sheltered.
Against my better judgement, I’m gonna kind of defend this dude.
I think we need to figure out how often she is actually dropping $1500 at the mall. Unless I missed something, “Almost as often as I spend $150 at the grocery store”. That seems like it could very easily be a weekly spend. So if she is doing nearly $1500/wk, I do think that is a problem if she wants to retire at 50.
As above depends on how often she’s dropping $1500. Also, it really depends on their other school options, kids specific needs, cost of school etc. Just not enough info to judge, imo.
I think if it was the other way around and the dude was making $500k and you were going on about how his wife had the nerve to question his spending when he is where all the money came from, everyone would think you were a massive sexist.
Anyway, flame on.
6k a month (max) is not going to dent your retirement options at 500k a year. I would absolutely be saying the same thing if the genders were reversed.
Depends on if you want to keep spending 6k a week on shopping in retirement obviously, but it’s your retirement date you’re messing with. Your consequences your choice imo.
Also I’m pretty sympathetic to people’s need to spend money on luxuries to motivate themselves to go do another 50 hour week at a stressful job.
She makes 6k a week post tax realistically. She can afford this if she wants. He should be trying to figure out how to buy her a similar amount of dopamine for less money not nagging her about her coping mechanism and guilting her about retirement.
His tone is lol wtf terrible too.
I don’t know man. 72K a year for many years invested will make a big difference come retirement time. That is more than the vast majority of Americans put away for retirement. Surely it will make a dent at the very least.
I would like to know how much of that $1500 a week goes to the clothes and shoes she is expected to wear at her $500k/year job.
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Yeah this is a very important point as well.
I’ll defer to anyone else’s expertise on this one.
What do we think is a reasonable annual clothing budget for a 500k/yr job like the one that is described? Whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s a good bit lower than 70K/yr.
I don’t have the slightest idea.
This is what 5 seconds of googling designer pant’s suits got me:
At those prices $1500 might not even get you one outfit.
To be clear, I don’t think his wife is spending the whole $78k on work clothes but every dollar she does spend on them makes the husband’s complaints even more ridiculous. “The mall” is also very broad and vague. It can be almost anything: make-up, perfume, iphone, footbath, bottle of wine, handbag, artisan cheese etc.
I’m obviously way out of my depth here, but I’m sure we could find equally expensive men’s suits. And I’m quite sure no guy “needs” a suit that expensive for most any 500k/yr job. It’s probably different for women though. I just don’t know how different.
Also even if some of that spending is justified, it doesn’t negate his observation. If ~1500/wk is spent, it will affect their retirement. It doesn’t matter what it is spent on, if they’re not saving it, then it will have an effect.
Yes, if she doesn’t spend it, maybe she gets fired for dressing like a hobo. But it doesn’t change the fact that if it wasn’t spent, it would make a significant difference in what their retirement looks like.
Didn’t know the internet existed in 1975.
If she’s in corporate sales, you’re expected to look the part and that may well make such spending somewhat reasonable if she’s pulling a half Milly.