If you're making $500,000 a year, you're among the top 1 percent of earners in America. But that doesn't guarantee you'll feel wealthy. For many families, especially those in the priciest regions in America, $500,000 a year doesn't even guarantee you'll be able to save, or save enough. As financial adviser Lori Atwood, who sees 400 clients in the affluent Northwest Washington, D.C., region, tells The Washington Post, some families earning $500,000 a year still end up with little to no savings. "It is true but ridiculous," she says. And it's mostly thanks to one phenomenon: lifestyle inflation. Most of Atwood's clients are overspending on fixed costs, specifically, housing, she says: "They don't have to have the house they own. There are times I have said, 'You have to move.'" Lifestyle creep exists beyond D.C., too.