Dan Slagle (00:00):

This is a hard conversation to have. The amount of money that we just said, 300,000 to a lot of people, that would change their lives.

Natalie Slagle (00:09):

Yes. Life changing.

Dan Slagle (00:12):

This is a difficult conversation to have without having some prejudices built up.

Natalie Slagle (00:18):

And I think that's maybe why people don't have this conversation with each other because they're like, "Do we have the right to even say these things?"

[Music Playing]

Natalie Slagle (00:33):

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a certified financial planner. Say hi, Dan.

Dan Slagle (00:48):

Hello.

Natalie Slagle (00:49):

In each episode we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you, and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So, grab your drink, get comfortable, and join us for our Money Dates.

Natalie Slagle (01:04):

Hi Dan.

Dan Slagle (01:06):

Hello, sweetheart.

Natalie Slagle (01:08):

Oh, what jacket is that?

Dan Slagle (01:10):

It is a Paris Saint-Germain jacket. It is a French soccer team. I am wearing this because I bought it a few years ago. I thought it looked nice. I have some reluctancy to share that I'm wearing a PSG jacket just because this is not the main team I support, so let's move on.

Natalie Slagle (01:31):

Okay. So, wait, I thought it was a basketball jacket, it's a soccer jacket?

Dan Slagle (01:37):

No, so it can be both, great observation. So, I don't know if we can go into brand affiliation and things like that on a podcast, but it is one of the most famous basketball players, most people view him as the G.O.A.T, the Greatest of All Time. He is a sponsor of this soccer team.

Natalie Slagle (01:58):

Oh, oh, MJ.

Dan Slagle (02:00):

Yeah, let's leave it at that. Let's leave it at that until we know we can say these things.

Natalie Slagle (02:06):

Today, we're going to just talk about numbers. We're going to talk about how much money we make; we're going to talk about what we do with it and we're going to talk about … like I know you pulled up some cool stats because let's just put it out there.

Natalie Slagle (02:22):

The numbers we talk about today, we know we are privileged, we know the clients that we work with are not like most people. So, most of our households make above $300,000 and that's what we're going to talk about today is how, why is it when you're a household making over $300,000, it can still feel tight. Like why? Dan, do you want to first address that question?

Dan Slagle (02:54):

It's just the world we live in. I don't know how to explain it. This is a hard conversation to have because to your point, the amount of money that we just said, 300,000, to a lot of people, that would change their lives.

Natalie Slagle (03:08):

Yes. Life changing.

Dan Slagle (03:11):

This is a difficult conversation to have without having some prejudices built up.

Natalie Slagle (03:17):

And I think that's maybe why people don't have this conversation with each other because they're like, "Do we have the right to even say these things?" I think what motivated, well, first our clients, like our clients are like, "I make all this money, I got this huge raise, I get all these RSUs, and yet I'm still feeling like I can't shop at the places I want to shop at or go on the vacations I want to go," whatever.

Natalie Slagle (03:48):

And then there was an article, and I don't know if you ever found that, but there was some article out there at one point that was like, "Why people making over, I think it was around 300, still feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck."

Dan Slagle (04:02):

You sent me this article, if you recall, and the … a blurb from it is that like a family of four would need a combined income of $300,000 a year to live comfortably, middle class life in big coastal cities.

Dan Slagle (04:21):

Caveat big coastal cities like New York, San Francisco, Miami, this includes saving for retirement and owning a home. This was sourced from Sam, I'm going to butcher his name, Sam Dogen. He is the Financial Samurai, side tangent, how cool of a name is that. I want that name. That is amazing.

Natalie Slagle (04:47):

That is amazing.

Dan Slagle (04:48):

That is amazing. So, he's a blogger, so the article came from the Daily Mail, which I think is a British tabloid, so I'm not going to give too much into that. But I don't know, British tabloids, they know wealth with like the prince and princess and king and queen so maybe there's some validation here.

Dan Slagle (05:11):

But I think to in all seriousness, go back to your point. Obviously, there are many high cost of living areas in the U.S. and even when you hit a certain income threshold, like what we said, 300,000, it feels like all your money is going somewhere.

Dan Slagle (05:30):

And I think also we tend to focus a lot on the expenses, we're just assuming everything is spent. However, from our client's perspectives, not everything is always being spent, that's why we always like to look at things like someone's pay statement and say, "How much are they contributing to retirement? What are they paying for premiums? For medical, dental, vision? Are they taking advantage of like HSAs, FSAs? What's being withheld from taxes?"

Dan Slagle (05:56):

So, money before it even hits your bank account is going somewhere and it's not just all disappearing but it can feel that way. It can feel that way.

Natalie Slagle (06:04):

Like when our clients will get a $30,000 raise and where you're like, "Wow, $30,000." And then it's like, "Oh, but that means you're getting an extra $700 a month." I just kind of made that up but it's crazy when you filter it through a paycheck, how much goes to all those things and a lot of those things are very important.

Natalie Slagle (06:28):

You got to save for retirement or no one else is going to save for your retirement except for you, so that's important. You got to tax it, it's important things but they're big things. So, I want to go back to the thing you were talking about with the coastal cities and like you need $300,000 to be middle class and did you look this up and if you didn't, I would still like your thoughts on this, what is middle class?

Dan Slagle (06:58):

I don't know offhand. It feels like how I grew up, which 300,000 with my lifestyle growing up, seems over the top.

Natalie Slagle (07:06):

Meaning you think 300,000 in today's dollars is more than the household income you grew up in in those dollars back then?

Dan Slagle (07:17):

Yeah. Maybe I would have to take out my calculator and find out, but I'm not going to do that right now. I think there was a report of distribution of U.S. income that came out in, it came out in 2024, but it was reflecting 2023. And it was this really nice pie chart of income distribution and what percentage of households in the U.S. fall under different income amounts, you following?

Natalie Slagle (07:45):

Yes.

Dan Slagle (07:47):

So, income that we're referring to 300,000, household income of $200,000 or more represented 14.5% of households in the U.S.

Natalie Slagle (07:59):

So, 14.5% of households in the U.S. made over $200,000?

Dan Slagle (08:05):

Yeah.

Natalie Slagle (08:06):

And so, 86% made less than 200,000.

Dan Slagle (08:11):

Yeah. But it's like even, I mean the scale gets even more tipped when you start looking at 75,000 or lower. It was like a high 40s and it breaks it out into still income brackets but in summary, high 40 percentile of household income was less than 75,000.

Dan Slagle (08:35):

So, I think that's what makes having this conversation difficult is knowing that we're coming from a place of privilege relative to at least from the numbers standpoint right of how the distribution works.

Natalie Slagle (08:50):

Relative to the people that we live in this city with. I'm going to go on the side tangent, we'll see if it makes the cut. But today I was dropping Jay, our daughter off at daycare and I love her teacher, she's so great.

Natalie Slagle (09:08):

And she was talking to me about gardening and these tips; she had gardening tips for me. And she said once a week her husband sits outside and he digs out the coffee of all of their Keurig coffee cups because they do the Keurigs, just the individual. They waste less coffee by doing the individual Keurigs and they dig out the coffee grounds and they use that for their garden. They also use their banana peels.

Natalie Slagle (09:37):

So, she was like, "Hey, make sure you're keeping your coffee grounds and make sure you do your banana peels and put it in the garden." And we just, you and I dan have a garden now this year. So, you know what I did this morning, remember, I was like, "Hey, I've this banana peel, don't throw it away."

Dan Slagle (09:53):

Yeah. And you were like, "Hey, I'm going to leave it at the top of the stairs," and I'm like, go-

Natalie Slagle (09:57):

Well, I was eating it upstairs.

Dan Slagle (09:58):

You were eating it upstairs and you're going to just leave it on the banister right by the railing to go downstairs. I'm like, "Just bring the dang banana peel to the kitchen." Anyways, go back to your story.

Natalie Slagle (10:10):

So, it was just really important. I was like, "I want to put my banana peel in the ground," and so I did that.

Dan Slagle (10:18):

I feel like that's the sound, sorry, I don't mean to be rude, I feel like that's-

Natalie Slagle (10:23):

I want to tell this story.

Dan Slagle (10:24):

I know, but I feel like if I could-

Natalie Slagle (10:26):

Was that in Donkey Kong?

Dan Slagle (10:27):

It was some Mario Kart music.

Natalie Slagle (10:30):

Okay. Anyways, anyways, so I'm putting this banana peel pa pa pa in the ground and I'm like, "This is cool." I just ate a banana and usually I would throw it in our compost bin and I'm still composting it, but directly like we're going to benefit from this one banana peel. And I was just like, “I did it and I felt really good about it.”

Natalie Slagle (10:53):

And I was thinking that Jay's teacher, she probably has all these really cool things like saving her banana peels or digging her coffee grounds out of the Keurig cups to be so resourceful so she doesn't have to spend extra money.

Natalie Slagle (11:12):

And I'm like, do you get to a point where you're making over let's … in your example over 75,000 or something that you just tend to rely on the fact that you make money that you can just go spend it, that thought just came to me. I'm like, "Wow, Jay's teacher is so resourceful. I don't know if I'm as resourceful as she is and I wonder if it's because of our income discrepancies.”

Dan Slagle (11:37):

Yeah, but you don't know that. You don't know that for sure. You don't know her situation.

Natalie Slagle (11:42):

I don't. And we know that in the position we're in professionally, that you may think you know someone's financial situation and you have no idea, one way or the other. I appreciate that.

Dan Slagle (11:54):

You have no idea. Yeah, you have no idea what she makes. Now, to go back to the resourcefulness, maybe she's just more resourceful and maybe she is more sustainable.

Natalie Slagle (12:02):

I bet she is. I bet she is all those things.

Dan Slagle (12:05):

And maybe she's learned through experience. Like this is one of your first times actually having a garden from seed and maybe she does it every year and maybe she's been doing it for the last 30 years and has learned.

Natalie Slagle (12:17):

And learned the best way to do it is to use your own coffee grounds and stick banana peels in the garden. We will see, we will see what — I mean, our garden is already rocking and rolling, I'm proud of that.

Dan Slagle (12:27):

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Natalie Slagle (12:28):

Anyways, let's get back to the topic.

Dan Slagle (12:29):

Side tangent. I'm the side tangent police right now, that was good side tangent, but I feel like we need to get back to the grist of the conversation.

Natalie Slagle (12:40):

Grist, I like this. Did you make that word up or is that a word?

Dan Slagle (12:42):

No, it's real. It's real.

Natalie Slagle (12:44):

Okay. It's a real word. Great. Great. Do you want to take us back?

Dan Slagle (12:48):

Yeah, let's tie it back to what you were just talking about. So, I feel like there's a point when regardless … okay, so we already talked about before money even hits your bank account, it's going places potentially set up for savings, taxes, premiums, things like that.

Dan Slagle (13:03):

So, your money is being allocated elsewhere, and I think what happens when you start to have a higher income, if you don't have more purpose with your money or intentionality with your money, you're going to spend it. You're going to spend it.

Dan Slagle (13:17):

So, then what we’ll help clients with is like, okay, let's identify a few areas that are important to you, reflects your values, prioritize importance level from a financial standpoint like building up your bank savings, investing, paying for education, whatever it may be, that or saving for a future home, whatever it may be.

Dan Slagle (13:39):

And then we start putting parameters in place of like, hey, so and so or even for us, if we have a goal to buy a home next year and we have some extra cash laying around because we have a higher income, I'm using this as a hypothetical of course, let's direct $500 to 1000 every month there's automated to go to your brokerage account or your bank saving your high yield savings account.

Dan Slagle (14:05):

Even if you do that, it feels like your money is not there because it's going to all these different avenues. And I think there's some mental hurdle or load of, “Now my money is being redirected in other places and I know it's a good thing to do, but I'm not spending it,” and from a day-to-day perspective, things feel tight.

Natalie Slagle (14:26):

I see what you're saying. It's like you do all these great things to benefit your finances and we kind of talked about this in our last episode. Like we have these different accounts and different allocations, and we try to make it so that we have our spending parameter and everything else has its purpose and it's going to the brokerage accounts, going to the travel account, whatever it may be. But with having all that, those parameters and those side shoots, it's like it can feel limiting.

Dan Slagle (14:57):

Yeah, for sure. And I was thinking about this last year, at this time last year, our daughter was not born and we were able to get some things for — to get ready for her, furnish a place, start working on her room, all these, everything diaper, that's what we spent money on basically.

Dan Slagle (15:20):

But it still felt like we had additional income outside of what we were automatically saving to go spend and still be comfortable. And then I fast forward a year and I'm like, "Oh, things kind of feel tight, but professionally things are better than where they were last year."

Natalie Slagle (15:36):

Personally, I feel like I don't spend as much money, but then I think about it, and I look at our budget, cashflow worksheet and daycare is not cheap. It was a little over $2,100 a month for us for five days a week, that's a lot of money that could have been used for spending or saving. But I don't regret it at all because I have some independence back and I think it's a really good opportunity for our daughter to meet friends and experience the world and her teachers are amazing.

Dan Slagle (16:10):

The average daycare cost in the U.S. is kind of crazy from like we could go all the way up from a monthly standpoint.

Dan Slagle (16:18):

So, there was a report done by I think it was Care.com in 2025, so earlier this year and it talked about how the average weekly nanny cost per month is like $3,300 a month average weekly daycare or monthly daycare cost is like a little under $1,400 a month. And it goes down and down of family care center, babysitter. The costs are like the babysitter, average weekly babysitter costs is like $180. Our babysitter asked us for like $10 an hour the other night, I'm like, "Heck, yeah."

Natalie Slagle (16:51):

Well, and we told her, we were like, "We are paying you more than $10 an hour, " that makes me nervous to pay someone only $10 an hour to watch my pure joy of life. So, if average daycare is $1,400 a month, you said that's like a … is that in-home or facility or did it break that out?

Dan Slagle (17:13):

I'm assuming that's a facility.

Natalie Slagle (17:16):

So, that's like 16, 17 grand a year and then if the average household or one of the household figures we were talking about making 75,000, didn't you say that, like a large portion of the US makes 75,000, that's 22%.

Natalie Slagle (17:36):

I was just doing the math over here, that's 22% of your household income. We spend $2,150, we spend 8% of our gross household income that I feel like we spend so much money, like from a dollar perspective, what is that, 2,150 whoop times 12 is, I'm laughing because my calculator's being mad at me, $25,800 net, net-

Dan Slagle (18:08):

Wait, I'm so sorry. You need to repeat that because I got distracted by your calculator is laughing at you which I had just like-

Natalie Slagle (18:15):

It literally gave me a message like, "You cannot do that." I never have gotten a message from a computer calculator that talked to me, and it literally had a message across the number screen that said like, "You can't do that." Anyways, so we spend $2,150 net so we have to make more than that to net $2,150 a month so that we spend $25,800 a year on childcare and that feels like-

Dan Slagle (18:46):

That's like when we do a college education analysis for clients, we use the average in-state, like our programs, average in-state tuition calculator and I think in present day it's like almost 29,000, it's like a $4,000 difference, that's crazy.

Natalie Slagle (19:03):

We could just send Jay to college right now, we could afford to pay which at the same time we're spending all this money on daycare, you and I are also putting money in her 529 plan.

Dan Slagle (19:16):

Yeah, for sure. I would just love to see her in college right now, she'd do so great.

Natalie Slagle (19:21):

Oh my gosh, she would be crazy, crazy, crazy girl in the best way. No, I was thinking about that. I had this weird frustration the other day of like, man, we're working really hard, our business is doing great, we're making more money but as you know, we give ourselves this spending parameter, it's outside of our bills, so outside of daycare and stuff like that, but our spending when it comes to groceries, clothes, restaurants, all of those things and it's like that parameter has not changed for three years.

Dan Slagle (19:56):

Like you haven't given yourself even a cost-of-living adjustment to your spending.

Natalie Slagle (20:02):

Well, we did a little, like a tiny bit, anyways, but I'm like, "Oh, you know where it's going now that we didn't have before is daycare." And I bet we have to make 33 to 35,000 gross for daycare to pay for daycare. And so, someone who's at the $75,000 income, their tax brackets are lower, blah, blah blah so their answer is different, we're in a higher tax bracket.

Natalie Slagle (20:35):

I mean, none of this matters, what matters is daycare is really expensive. And then just like with most things, when you make more money, life is kind of presented in a way of like everyone's kind of at an even spot and that's not true. And I know there's subsidies or additional help that you can get if you need it for daycare.

Natalie Slagle (20:58):

I guess my point is daycare's really expensive but it's only 8% of our gross pay compared to others where it's 30% or 20%, it's just wild. So, let's go back to the whole discussion of households making 300,000 or more and it still feels tight. Obviously, daycare is really near and dear to our heart, which is why we talk about that because that was a new expense starting January of this year for us. Another big expense is housing; housing is so expensive.

Dan Slagle (21:39):

Well, it's so expensive. I mean just the housing market in general with interest rates like there's the whole idea or concept of like when you and I bought our first home in whenever 2016, our monthly mortgage was $1,500. And I look at that, I'm like you’re kidding-

Natalie Slagle (21:58):

Why didn't you get rid of that?

Dan Slagle (21:58):

You can't even get a studio for that anymore, which is insane. It was like a three bedroom, two bath home, it was a great, great starter home.

Natalie Slagle (22:09):

It was a good starter home.

Dan Slagle (22:11):

And could you imagine right now if your mortgage was $1,500 and if you somewhat liked your house, why would you leave?

Natalie Slagle (22:20):

I mean now it's easy to look back and see that figure and I think this happens with a lot of our clients. A lot of our clients are shifting from that first-time home purchase because our clients are in their 30s and 40s, they're making over 300,000, they're just ready to upgrade. And a lot of people are like, "Wow, I missed that 2.75% interest rate or the houses are so much more expensive and the interest rates are more and it's hefty."

Dan Slagle (22:53):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean they could, for us, we've been talking about our tangents with daycare and daycare was a huge shock to us to our monthly spend. And it's no different than even if you didn't have a child and you were to switch into a new home or your mortgage was, let's say two grand and now it's five grand a month, that's an additional 3,000 and monthly spend, it's a huge shock to the system.

Dan Slagle (23:20):

And then it's just like I think you become a little more aware of what's going on from a day-to-day standpoint and then kind of focus, like things just feel tight, things just feel tight. And I don't know how to avoid that because life happens. Expenses come up, we don't have family where we are, so what are we going to do? There's no other alternative to daycare.

Natalie Slagle (23:48):

No. Yeah. And sometimes I'm not convinced that it's daycare that makes things feel tight for us because I look at some of our clients who don't have kids and things feel tight for them too. You find reason. So, I'm looking at our numbers here and we have, we save about 14%, at least this year we'll save about 14% of our income. 10% to retirement, 4% to our brokerage. Do you feel good about that?

Dan Slagle (24:21):

I don't feel bad about it.

Natalie Slagle (24:22):

Great.

Dan Slagle (24:23):

I mean, the other thing is being we're in the camp of being self-employed, so even if there's additional money or resources available, I think it comes down to do we benefit from it personally or do we put it back into the business so I think that's a harder question to ask me.

Dan Slagle (24:44):

It's something that I personally struggle with. So, to go back to your original question, do I think that's good? Yeah, I do think that's good. I do. What do we tell clients? Like 15 to 20% is kind of the target if possible.

Natalie Slagle (25:00):

Well, I always say 10% is the minimum. You got to save 10% of your income. 15% is really good. 20% is, whoa, you're like, are you trying to retire early? What's going on? You're doing amazing. That's kind of my spiel on it. Obviously, it depends on where you're at from the starting point.

Dan Slagle (25:20):

So, we throw out all these metrics for clients and if we find ourselves personally in one of the bands of you're doing great, then yeah, we should also reward ourselves.

Natalie Slagle (25:30):

You're kind of hitting on the whole me not giving us credit where we should. What else? What else do you want to talk about with this?

Dan Slagle (25:42):

I don't know if I have takeaways could be — oh, not every episode needs to have takeaways. It doesn't need to be a thing. But give yourself some grace. Life is not cheap right now regardless of the income level you sit at. Your spend kind of creeps up or might inch up to match income closely, but give yourself some grace. I think now is just a difficult time in general with just a lot of change going on, a lot of unknowns, uncertainty.

Dan Slagle (26:16):

So, and we tell our clients this all the time, when you're in your 30s and 40s, you're going through a lot of major life events, a lot of major life transitions, whether it's buying a home, selling your home, buying a new home, added new mortgage payment or having a kid and it's like added daycare payment, moving across the country, changing jobs.

Dan Slagle (26:35):

So, there's so many of these big things that are happening and just know if you're covering your basis, if you're doing the minimum amount of saving, if you're at least managing your spend to be somewhat consistent, you're doing a good job. There's still so much time left if you're in your 30s and 40s for the rest of your, maybe the next 70 years, potentially if not longer.

Dan Slagle (26:57):

I don't know what science is going to look like in the future, but there's still a lot of time to adapt and income will continue to rise and hope for us, going back to the daycare reference, it's like Jay's in daycare until five so then we don't have another child, which I don't know if we will or not, but it's like then that comes back into your pocket and then you can make decisions then with what to do with it if you were feeling behind for the last five years.

Natalie Slagle (27:24):

I appreciate that. We're just in a really expensive time in our life and I'm saying we are as in like me and you Dan, we have a child in daycare, and we might — I mean maybe we need to chat about this, like are we having more kids or not but like that's-

Dan Slagle (27:41):

We should do that live on a podcast episode. Just kidding. No.

Natalie Slagle (27:45):

On of the decision if we're not going to … oh, I was like, "I'm totally game. Let's do that." Okay, fine. Well, you know what, I wanted to have a safe space for us and then for others of, I know you make a lot of money and it's okay that things can still feel tight. Things can still feel tight. Alright, see you next time.

[Music Playing]

Dan Slagle (28:06):

Alright, thanks.

Voiceover (28:08):

Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below. Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website at www.fyoozfinancial.com.

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