68% say they spend too much on eating out.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Close to one in three households earning more than $75,000 per annum live paycheck-to-paycheck at least some of the time, according to asurvey released by SunTrust Bank. More than one in four households earning more than $100,000 a year reported the same.
However, of those who said they weren’t saving as much as they could, 44 percent said it was because they were spending too much money on leisure. For millennials, that jumped up to 71 percent. 68 percent of respondents said they spent too much on going out to eat, 37 percent said they did too much shopping, and 35 percent said they overspent on entertainment.
It could be a sign that people let their spending grow at a faster pace than their paychecks over the years, Beverly Ladley, an executive with SunTrust, told The Washington Post. “It can sound like a lot of money, but when they really understand what their expenses are, what they have left over is not very much.”
The study didn’t factor in family size or health care needs or other factors like student loans that could make it legitimately difficult to live on $75,000 a year, noted the Post. Wages have been nearly flat for several years, making it harder to keep up with rising living expenses, health care costs and tuition costs.
Consumers should get in the habit of boosting their savings every time they get a boost in pay, Ladley advised. She proposed a 3 percent raise as an example — boosting retirement contributions by one point would still leave a 2 percent surplus for extra spending and other savings goals.