Shadowing Practice: Why Even High Earners Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck - Learn English Speaking with Video
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120 sentences
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For many Americans, work can feel like a hamster wheel.
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No matter how hard they run, it never feels like enough.
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Americans, on average, say they would need $520,000 a year to feel rich. And the more people earn, the more they say they need to feel comfortable.
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Americans making under $50,000 felt they needed $157,000 a year to feel comfortable. Those making $100,000 or more said they would need $246,000.
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When I was in middle school, a song came out called "Mo Money Mo Problems," and I think that that's true.
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Your problems scale.
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You still are dealing with a finite number every month.
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Your worries, your anxiety, your budget scales to that.
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You still are dealing with a ceiling.
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About 14% of all U.S.
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households make $200,000 or more every year.
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But many of them, dubbed HENRYs or "High Earners, Not Rich Yet," still don't feel rich.
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62% of people with salaries over $300,000 a year struggle with credit card debt.
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Earning doesn't actually make you feel rich, spending it does.
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If most people spent 99% of their paycheck, they'd feel quite rich.
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And it's the paradox here: when we're in accumulation mode, it's very difficult to feel rich.
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It can be pretty easy for someone to feel like, "I'm making really good money, but I don't have a lot of discretionary income." Earning more and feeling like you're still on a hamster wheel is what a lot of HENRYs experience.
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And that's because they're not living within their means.
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They may have been living above their means when they weren't nearly making as much money, and now they're just continuing to add more and more and more.
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I earn $300,000 and I live in New York City.
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I definitely don't feel rich. I feel very lucky.
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I feel privileged, but I do not feel rich.
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I could not stop working right now.
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I have more money anxiety almost now than I ever did in my 20s.
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I am on a hamster wheel and there's no question about it.
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HENRYs often don't feel rich compared to others.
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Many HENRYs are cash-rich and asset-poor.
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So they're typically people under 40, they don't have childcare hours available, they're first-time homebuyers in the housing market, they're paying off student loans early, hopefully.
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And their income usually hasn't hit a career peak, so they're very much in that "not rich yet" bucket, but they very well could be in the future.
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Oh, I 100% feel like a HENRY.
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Marie Incontrera was a professional composer, bandleader and pianist who started her virtual assistant business in 2016.
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That year, I started to grow slowly, and I was suddenly earning more money than I had ever earned in my life, and I think the number was something like $35,000 by the end of the year. And I went, "Wow, this is really great.
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I can grow this." She then expanded into a digital marketing consulting agency during the pandemic.
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For the calendar year of 2025, we're just on track to make $1.4 million. We're hoping to get to $1.5 million or possibly even $1.6 million. I'm anticipating my owner's draw to be anywhere between $300,000 and $400,000.
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I had a pretty successful career as a musician through most of my 20s.
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The thing they don't tell you about having a career as a musician in music school is that you can be playing Carnegie Hall, which I was, and I was making $15,000 a year, and I didn't realize how much freedom money affords you.
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Now that I see the kind of freedom that somebody who earns what I do or even more has, that's my goal.
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That is absolutely what gets me out of bed in the morning.
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A lot of the "High Earners, Not Rich Yet," they're first generation wealth. So they still take their wealth into perspective against their family members or others in their community, and they realize how well they're doing, so they don't take it for granted.
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But I think what makes them feel not rich is we were told, "Once you make six figures, all your problems will go away.
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You'll just have so much excess." And I think we know that narrative is not true anymore.
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I would have thought back then that the amount of money that I have in the bank right now, I would be rich.
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I would have just thought, "Oh, yeah, she's made it." And I don't feel that way.
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I know that I am on a hamster wheel with my business.
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I actually really love the hamster wheel, because I love what I do, but I also realize that I can't stop.
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So, HENRYs often don't feel rich compared to others.
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They work very hard for their money, but they also spend a lot more than the average person.
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In a lot of ways, HENRYs may be victims of their zip codes.
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$100,000 in LA is definitely very different than $100,000 in Iowa.
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Someone makes $200,000 a year in LA.
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They're going to probably take home $140,000ish.
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Rent for a one-bedroom is going to be at least $3,000.
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Their car payment is going to be $700.
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Car insurance is going to be maybe $200 a month.
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Gas is going to be $200 a month.
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If you were to annualize that, that's $50,000 right there.
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The remainder is for all the other things.
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We haven't eaten yet, we haven't purchased groceries, we haven't paid for subscriptions to Amazon and Netflix, we haven't gone on vacation yet, we haven't purchased clothes yet.
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It can whittle away your discretionary income if you're living in an area that has a high cost of living.
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When my business started to grow, one of the first things that I started spending more money on right away was food, because I don't have time to cook.
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I had more money than time and so I started eating Grubhub three meals a day most days. After that, it became rent because I hit $1 million a year in revenue and I said, "That's it. I'm moving to Manhattan." And so, my rent doubled and I suddenly was paying $4,000 in rent.
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What is very worth it to me is to live where I want to live.
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I was proud that I could live here.
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For about a year, I would walk outside my apartment and just like, look around and just be like, "Oh my gosh, here I am." So that was lifestyle creep for me.
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Lifestyle creep is the common phenomenon of spending a little more money as you earn more.
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It can happen to anyone at any income.
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Lifestyle creep can really sneak up on you.
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You start earning more and then you decide, "Well, I can buy more things. I need a second car.
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I need a bigger home. I need to go on this European vacation.
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I deserve this European vacation because I work hard for my money." The problem is, if you're not continuing to increase your savings at the same time, you are putting your financial future in jeopardy.
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That shift happens everywhere in our lives, from the small purchases to the really big ones: cars, houses, vacation.
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And most of these expenses are fixed.
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Lifestyle creep impacts almost all tax brackets, but it can take different forms.
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One 2024 study found that when low and middle-income households were given an additional $1,000, no strings attached every month, their spending increased primarily on basic necessities such as food, transportation, and rent.
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However, when higher income households were given the same $1,000, they increased spending on both necessities as well as discretionary expenses: like Marie did.
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I spend more on my hair, I spend more on makeup, I get my lashes done, I get my nails done.
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I think it's just something that comes with the territory.
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Birds of a feather tend to flock together and their spending tends to be more aligned. If you make about $85,000, your friends probably also make about $85,000, so you're doing similar activities in the same economic bracket.
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Once you have friends that are making $200,000 or $300,000 a year, your activities will change.
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The restaurants that you will eat at will differ and change.
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They're going to probably be a little bit more elevated.
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Your vacations are going to be more elevated.
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Your clothing is going to be more elevated.
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It's not necessarily spending irresponsibly, but they're spending aligned with their friend group and their community. That's why a lot of them oftentimes don't feel rich because they're spending along with their friends.
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Emotions are tied so tightly to what we do with our money.
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It happens to everyone.
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You get a raise, you're feeling great.
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You deserve to go out to dinner and, in fact, you deserve to book that cruise.
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But the reality is that money was supposed to be earmarked for a bump-up in your retirement savings, or money that you were going to put toward your child's education.
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Or maybe you don't have an emergency fund, or at least not an adequate one, and the money should have gone there. When we allow ourselves to let our emotions overtake what we're doing with our money, we lose sight sometimes of what our goals are and how we have planned to meet them.
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A HENRY will sometimes look to the mega-millionaires or the billionaires and wish that they had more, but it's really just that upwards comparison for more that keeps them stuck. More will never be enough at a certain point, and you have to decide what you have is ultimately enough and start appreciating all that you do have instead of fixating on all that you don't.
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Experts say the best way for HENRYs to start to feel rich and to get off the hamster wheel is by budgeting and planning for the future.
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You can't really figure out if you're rich yet, unless you know where you stand right now and where you want to go.
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You need to know your net worth.
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Doesn't matter how much money you have, it's not just for rich people. You have a net worth.
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What you own, minus what you owe, is your net worth.
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Everyone has one.
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Yours may be negative at this point, but you have to figure out how to turn that around.
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Once you know your net worth, then you can start to build on what are your goals, what do I want to have in terms of my retirement savings, in terms of savings for college, if you have children, in terms of emergency savings, in case anything happens, how secure will I be?
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Once you have significant emergency savings, enough to cover, say, six months of your expenses or more, you're going to start to feel rich. Surveys have shown that financial well-being is tied closely to emergency savings.
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And so, if you know that you're not going to have to whip out a credit card, that you're going to be able to pay for the roof that needs to be fixed or the car that breaks down, you're going to feel rich.
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I think wealth is often an emotional feeling.
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It's a mindset to feel truly secure and not to have to worry about finances at all. Feeling rich, it can feel much more about the bottom line and the dollar amount.
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So, one is more about the tangible number in your bank account and the other more is a feeling.
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Most people aspire to reach a level of wealth where they don't have to stress or worry about their finances, or even about the future generations to know that there's a cushion there.
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One of the things I focus on with my clients is a budget should be a representation of your values.
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The issue is you can't value everything.
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You have to prioritize it.
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And when people see the hard numbers of what they're spending on a monthly or annualized basis and they see, "Oh my gosh, I'm spending $5,000 a year eating out." I will ask the question, "Are you enjoying those meals at $5,000?
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Is it bringing you that much excitement and that much joy?" And most people will say, "No, Kamila, it's not. The food is okay.
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I'm doing it to be social." Well, we'll talk about other ways that you can be social without spending $5,000 a year eating out.
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You can't buy clothes consistently, travel consistently, eat out consistently.
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You have to pick maybe one or two things where you're going to focus your discretionary spending and then take that extra and reroute that to savings so you can start feeling rich.
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Spending gives this immediate dopamine fix, and seeing wealth in an account with numbers and commas often can be far more satisfying, though we don't realize it in the moment. It's almost like the difference between an exciting yet very toxic relationship versus a secure and stable long-term partner. I think the feeling of safety and the feeling that you can weather this long-term financial storm is far more satisfying, and we have to train ourselves to value that safety over the quick fix of a fancy car or a shiny new watch.
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My advice for somebody who's on the hamster wheel is understanding the trade-off. I could get off the hamster wheel at any time, and I know that. And I know that my circumstances may change.
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For right now, this is the answer for me.
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My advice to somebody who is feeling that anxiety is understand that this is a choice.
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There are trade-offs.
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What I have learned is that I have been very burned out and exhausted as a person who doesn't earn a lot of money, and I have been burned out and exhausted as a person who does earn a lot of money, and I would take being a person who's burned out and exhausted and has money any day of the week.
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I would rather do that than be burned out and tired and also worrying about my bills.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Even High Earners Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: rich, spending, Henry, feeling. This video has 120 sentences and 2329 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:11. The speaker talks fast, about 191 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hamster noun | /ˈhæm(p)stɚ/ | Any of various Old World rodent species belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae. |
| discretionary adjective | /dɪsˈkɹɛʃəˌnɛɹi/ | Available at one's discretion; able to be used as one chooses; left to or regulated by one's own discretion or judgment. |
| creep verb | /kɹiːp/ | To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground. |
| elevate verb | /ˈɛləveɪt/ | To raise (something) to a higher position. |
| exhaust verb | /ɪɡˈzɔst/ | To draw or let out wholly; to drain completely. |
| align verb | /əˈlaɪn/ | To form a line; to fall into line. |
| bracket noun | /ˈbɹækɪt/ | A fixture attached to a wall to hold up a shelf. |
| gosh | /ɡɑːʃ/ | A mild expression of surprise or enthusiasm. |
| necessity noun | /nɪˈsɛsəti/ | The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite. |
| satisfy verb | /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ | To be enough (for) |
| musician noun | /mjuˈzɪʃən/ | A composer, conductor, or performer of music; specifically, a person who sings and/or plays a musical instrument as a hobby, occupation, or profession. |
| cloth noun | /klɒθ/ | A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes… |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| annualize verb | American and Oxford British spelling of annualise. | |
| annualized adjective | Arranged or written in an annual |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| burn out verb | To destroy by fire. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| look around verb | To inspect a building or area. | |
| pay off verb | To bribe, especially to deter oversight. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I definitely don't feel rich.
- You get a raise, you're feeling great.
- The issue is you can't value everything.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were told · are fixed · were given |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | hasn't hit · haven't eaten · have planned |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | somebody who earns · somebody who is · person who doesn |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 66 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: cloth /klɒθ/, feather /ˈfɛðə/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: discretionary /dɪsˈkɹɛʃəˌnɛɹi/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, cushion /ˈkʊʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: discretionary /dɪsˈkɹɛʃəˌnɛɹi/, necessity /nɪˈsɛsəti/, irresponsibly /ˌɪ.ɹɪˈspɑːn.sə.bli/, prioritize /pɹaɪˈɒɹ.ə.taɪz/, accumulation /əˌkjuːm.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like hamster, discretionary, creep.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.