If you live in a HCOL area do you live paycheck to paycheck?

[AnnieW625]

We do. Right now have no liquid assets we can grab on to if we need them ASAP unless we raided my DD1's savings account which I won't do. We live paycheck to paycheck each month in what I would classify as a high col area (but it still isn't the highest col area we could live in, but for our income it is pretty darn high). We do have a few months of contributions in our FSA and DCA accounts so I need to request that. Other than our mortgages and my car payment we pay cash and or pay off our credit cards monthly so we have no debt. Between the two of us we save about $400 a month for dca, $150 for FSA, $200 extra for state and federal taxes (we owed a little last year), and we save between the two of us $1400 for retirement (for non matching 401k, 457b, and we each have a pension; our 401k/457s are worth $68,777) but it is rather frustrating that we go through the entire $8800 a month we take home from our job. We are just starting to work with a broker to reduce our home loans as for the first time in almost 6 yrs. we have equity and I am honestly afraid that the broker is going to laugh at us when he looks at our financial statements.

Oh and fwiw we pay our property taxes from the DCA account which covers 85% to 90% of that but we know that after next August our DCA will decrease as DD2 will no longer be in full time daycare (so that should save us about $4k a year). We also know that when we refi we will be impounding because we don't have 20% equity. Unless we really screwed up we should also get a federal tax refund since my paycheck deduction is $150 since I filled out my W4 wrong and forgot to put my withholding at M-2 when I put in for the Feds to take out extra money of my paycheck so I am at M-0.

Is anyone else in the same boat?