gdm wrote:
if you can afford to employ a nanny, you're upper class.
Our Nanny for our 7 month old is the same cost as the daycare for our 3 year old.
You would be incorrect with this statement in many locales.
gdm wrote:
if you can afford to employ a nanny, you're upper class.
Our Nanny for our 7 month old is the same cost as the daycare for our 3 year old.
You would be incorrect with this statement in many locales.
If you can afford to pay for daycare, you're upper class.
Longjohn wrote:
nuts of dough wrote:
There is a vast difference between upper class and upper-middle class. $500k is upper-middle class. Upper class means not having to work to maintain a life of privilege and luxury.
Kind of how I would define it as well.
Ok, so I did 25 in USAF. I get a nice pension. I have had a second career since my late 40's. I make a decent living, with another chunk of $$ added on from my pension. Am I wealthy? Or am I just someone who served their country while the rich stayed behind?
I mean, I could stop working now. I have no interest in the country club life. I caddied as a kid, and I saw what those guys were really like, when no one was looking. They cheated in golf like crazy. Bragged about cheating on their wives.
I'll take my life any day. I can say that I served my country. And, I'm glad I did!
Upper class and the true rich are those who don’t have to work for their money
You people should study Mr Money Mustache..."Financial Freedom through Badassity".
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
This man retired at 30 on $600k, and is definitely middle class on an income of $25k per year.
it's been said before but wealth and class are two separate things.
he's not really retired he has this blog.
All the good adult runners I’ve met are either independently wealthy or sleeping on someone’s couch so they can spend more time training.
There are shades of "class". It's how you live, not how much you have. If you spend $50k+ on a car, you have an upper class car. If you send your kids to private school, you are giving them an upper class education. If you have a membership to a country club, you have an upper class social circle. If you live in a house that is in the top 25% in value for your area, you have an upper class house. If you routinely go out to restaurants that cost ~$100 a plate, you're eating at upper class restaurants.
That being said, you can live an upper class lifestyle and be dead broke and in massive debt. My sister is a classic example of this. She has $100k in credit card debt, but has designer luggage, goes on extravagant vacations frequently, and drives a brand new Mercedes SUV.
I'm probably the opposite. I don't have any upper class parts of my life, except the occasional $100 a plate dinner on special occasions, but I could afford almost all of them if they were important to me.
highhoppingworm wrote:
gdm wrote:
if you can afford to employ a nanny, you're upper class.
Our Nanny for our 7 month old is the same cost as the daycare for our 3 year old.
You would be incorrect with this statement in many locales.
Wow, a nanny and daycare. Must be nice to have that kind of cash!
Not sure how this is relevant. You do understand you don't get like some family package at daycare where the second child comes free.
I suppose we could leave my 3 year old with the nanny every day but then the expense of the nanny would go up and we wouldn't be sending my son to school.
macdaddy og wrote:
Wow, a nanny and daycare. Must be nice to have that kind of cash!
I'm sure you're just trolling to get a rise out of people, but in case, deep down you're hung up on the 'nanny' as if it implies luxury. It's just someone watching your kids, at your house.
I have twin 15mo. It would be $2500/mo to put them in daycare here, though there are no daycare spots available. Thus, I pay $1800-2000mo for a 24yo to watch them at my house. Not some luxury, just a reality.
And for those of you making $200-500k claiming you're middle class - just remember that your mortgage, 401k, HSA, 529, car loan, vacations, orthodontics and private school/sports/activities "costs" are your choice, not a mandate. A middle class household making $80k/year doesn't get to make those choices and are thus middle class. Just because you only have $1000 of your $10,0000 net monthly left in your checking after your monthly "expenses"doesn't mean you're scraping by, it means your choosing to invest in your modern lifestyle and keep up with the jonses.
I think that the upper class are those who make at least 250k per year, like businessmen, entrepreneurs, etc.
Voters with household incomes of less than $50,000 in 2019 broke for Biden by 55 to 43 percent — a 12 point margin, compared to 8 four years ago. This helped overcome Trump’s gains among households with incomes above $100,000 — from 45 percent in 2016 to just over half in 2020.
The least productive members of our society are D E M O C R A T S
Ha, some of you guys are hilarious and/or have no perspective. I too and in my mid-late 30s, live in the Boston suburbs and make low-mid 6 figures (I think we had ~$350k/year combined income this year, which was highest in awhile). 2 kids, elementary aged. Probably about $1.5M in retirement accounts + taxable brokerage + 529s. We have about $375k remaining on a mortgage on a small single family home in a great school district (now worth ~$1M) + $20k in student loan debt + $10k auto loan on a newish Subaru. Own a ski condo in the mountains.
I feel like we are totally kicking a**! Not barely getting by. Not "middle class". Very lucky/privileged! Probably "upper class", at least in terms of income and maybe net worth. We aren't reckless with spending and save a substantial amount (max out retirement accounts; fund 529s with about $5k/kid/yr; a few k in taxable investments/yr), but we also don't really budget tightly and if I want some kind of toy that costs less than a couple hundred bucks I generally just get it. Basically I'm not really stressed about money, which is not how most folks who are actually "middle class" likely feel.
True that child care was super expensive before kids were both in school, and when we were paying for that we saved relatively less. Never really felt all that pinched though -- just was not saving as much as we would have wanted and do now. Also made a considered choice to buy a small house in a good school district instead of a big house in same district that would have been a big financial stretch or a big house in a bad school district that would have made us think hard about about private school.
So I am not at all sympathetic to the "$500k/yr is barely middle class" argument. Take half a second to recognize how privileged you are. I think $500k income is probably close to top 1% income in the US, and just because there a probably a lot of other top-1%s in the Boston area and even a few top-0.01%s) doesn't mean you are poor.