Great aticle on how middle class is struggling and not saving enough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't seriously be this naïve at 27. Having no money means not buying $1,000 shoes (!)

I totally get where she is coming from. Don't judge we all have to overcome parts of our upbringings.
It's a hard lessons to have had and it takes years to overcome or not feel like a fish out of water.
I take pride in my style and manners. I also have gotten lucky breaks because of my privileged upbringing.
I shared a rent controlled apartment with a nice lady on the upper east side in NYC. She just liked me. Can't get luckier than that!
Not all is lost

[Anonymous]

How dare you people not understand my upper crust poor self that deserves to be rich.

Just when you think you've read it all, here comes a new one.

Someone on here made fun of me a while back, called me boring and uncultured because I don't have a credit card and had $30,000 in my emergency fund. The updated boring uncultured amount is now $47,000. Not counting 401k, 2 IRAs, a few side investments.

One thing I know for sure, I won't be like the writer in this piece. Nor will I be like Miss Shell Shocked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't seriously be this naïve at 27. Having no money means not buying $1,000 shoes (!)

I totally get where she is coming from. Don't judge we all have to overcome parts of our upbringings.
It's a hard lessons to have had and it takes years to overcome or not feel like a fish out of water.
I take pride in my style and manners. I also have gotten lucky breaks because of my privileged upbringing.
I shared a rent controlled apartment with a nice lady on the upper east side in NYC. She just liked me. Can't get luckier than that!
Not all is lost

By any chance did you recently buy a BMW with a $494 monthly payment that you won't give up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we paid for our own wedding with our own savings. Don't empty your parents 401k for your wedding, these daughters will have to take care of their parents. He unwittingly burdened himself and his wife on them. Not being open with his own wife about finances was also annoying.

couldn't have been much in the account if it would pay only for a wedding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't seriously be this naïve at 27. Having no money means not buying $1,000 shoes (!)

I totally get where she is coming from. Don't judge we all have to overcome parts of our upbringings.
It's a hard lessons to have had and it takes years to overcome or not feel like a fish out of water.
I take pride in my style and manners. I also have gotten lucky breaks because of my privileged upbringing.
I shared a rent controlled apartment with a nice lady on the upper east side in NYC. She just liked me. Can't get luckier than that!
Not all is lost

By any chance did you recently buy a BMW with a $494 monthly payment that you won't give up?

Nope, not me. I moved on and have been living frugal for a couple years. DH is on the waiting list for a Tesla 3!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't seriously be this naïve at 27. Having no money means not buying $1,000 shoes (!)

I totally get where she is coming from. Don't judge we all have to overcome parts of our upbringings.
It's a hard lessons to have had and it takes years to overcome or not feel like a fish out of water.
I take pride in my style and manners. I also have gotten lucky breaks because of my privileged upbringing.
I shared a rent controlled apartment with a nice lady on the upper east side in NYC. She just liked me. Can't get luckier than that!
Not all is lost

this is illegal. and immoral, but I guess you don't care either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh. I'm really not surprised that a seemingly rational and sane person puts himself in a precarious financial state keeping up with the Joneses. This is very similar to my family's story. My dad was a high ranking government official and because of whom we grew up and mingled with the world elite. The government perks made it so we were able to keep up with the Joneses and the prestige his title afforded us more than made up for our lack of actual funds. We wined and dined like the rich and lived like rich even though we had no savings no college funds no home. Ultimately dad retired and his pension isn't enough to keep us afloat. My younger siblings work part time in retail and attend NOVA. I have developed very elite tastes and find it hard to live a "normal" MC life. My parents have no retirement savings and no home. Its awful.

+ 1 I struggle with the same. It's a form of child abuse in my opinion to grow up with pictures that just don't represent the real world in any way.
Good luck to you, don't let the anger eat you up. Jump over your pride. I dug myself out slowly but still feel like a fish out of water.

But what are you all doing as adults? OK, there are reasons to resent parents, but you, yourselves what are you doing to achieve the lifestyle that you want to have?

Well, I do not resent my parents. My parents went broke trying to provide for us the best of everything they had access to-at their own expense. Today they don't even have a home. I am forever grateful to them for introducing me to that world. Even now, people mistake me for an upper class person due to how I naturally carry myself and dress myself. I like to joke about how I am a kind of a white elephant. I relate more to the rich but cannot afford their life. I had to majorly downgrade my lifestyle upon my dad's retirement 5 years ago.

Part of being from that world was...I didn't go to college to earn a living. I studied Literature and am today a very poorly paid admin at a non profit in the area. My parents encouraged me to study what I wanted and to cultivate my mind and tastes and I had no idea that the rug would be pulled out of my feet upon graduation. I have tried to hold on to my old life by attempting to marry rich. HAHA. That did not pan out as my dh, although raised in a similar UC life growing up, also now has to fend for himself because his MC parents went broke financing his very expensive private education and vacations in France. We are both kind of confused, earning a MC living but living among and around the truly rich. I'd go back to school and earn a profitable degree but I have no money and do not want to get into debt. Its really quite a sick joke.

How are you living around the truly rich? surely you can't afford rent/mortgage in an UC neighborhood from what you described about yourself and your spouse. You can do a doctorate in literature as PhD programs offer assistanships and research scholarships for some well qualified doctoral students. With that you could teach or do something else other than non-profit admin.

To be honest, what you describe sounds a bit imaginary. How do you think people mistake you for UC? I can't imagine a conversation amongst a group of educated professionals in DC going something like "Wow, you certainly do seem and sound like you belong to the upper class". "you're an admin assistant, why, I never! I was sure you're from the upper crust, not like the rest of us". It just doesn't happen.

HAHAHA. No no. It doesn't quite go like that. It goes more along the lines of, me having never taken the DC metro or any public transportation until 5 years ago, complaining about how god awful the metro is and everyone else chastising me for thinking its not a safe or clean mode of transportation. Or how I apparently do not have a sense of prices or how expensive something is. Or how I hate going to dingy dive bars. I'm known as the "classy" friend.

I am sure they call you something else when you're not around.
If you're living on your own for the past 5 years, receiving an admin salaryand taking the metro, how do you not know how much things cost?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh. I'm really not surprised that a seemingly rational and sane person puts himself in a precarious financial state keeping up with the Joneses. This is very similar to my family's story. My dad was a high ranking government official and because of whom we grew up and mingled with the world elite. The government perks made it so we were able to keep up with the Joneses and the prestige his title afforded us more than made up for our lack of actual funds. We wined and dined like the rich and lived like rich even though we had no savings no college funds no home. Ultimately dad retired and his pension isn't enough to keep us afloat. My younger siblings work part time in retail and attend NOVA. I have developed very elite tastes and find it hard to live a "normal" MC life. My parents have no retirement savings and no home. Its awful.

Where do your parent's live?
It's said that one shouldn't wander over to the luxurious side of life or it's hard to go back!!
Good luck to you.

Don't want to say for privacy reasons. It is really quite miserable. We all feel pretty shell shocked. I'm grateful I still managed to get my college paid for. My younger siblings are working retail and going to NOVA.

This is fascinating, Sounds like a modern day House of Mirth.

[Anonymous]

I would be horrified, purely horrified, to have a wedding that my parents paid for by cashing out their 401(k). I hope that daughter has paid them back, in full, and with interest. Though he should have said "sorry sweetie, we can't afford more than a courthouse and a nice 10 person meal out afterwards". And the wife not working?! WTF?! Get ANY job! Work at Starbucks! Get a job!

It's really very simple: spend less than you make. Every year. Every month. Every day. If the balance gets thrown out of whack, you ADJUST so that you are still spending LESS than you MAKE. If you don't adjust, you end up like this guy. If you adjust, you might have some lean years, but in the end you will be fine.

I twitch thinking about not having a savings account. Who can live like that?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why his wife never went back to work. Even if in a different field or part time. I know he said he kept her in the dark about their finances but I have a hard time believing she was totally unaware. Especially since he also mentioned how they didn't go on vacations like ever or really buy anything.

Why should she have to work if she doesn't want to? The crime here is that he was paid a stagnating wage his whole career to write magazine articles. He should have been paid more money so that he could live a nice life. Someone like him SHOULD be living in a brownstone with a SAH wife, two kids at Ivies, and a house in the Hamptons. Not all those horrible Wall Street people who ROBBED the American public.

This is sarcasm, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm tickled by the idea that these spoiled kids think it's "like child abuse" that they were exposed to some of the nicer things in life but no one ever sat them down and dropped the bomb that getting those things would take money and money doesn't fall out of the sky. There's not a single middle class, lower middle class, or poor person who wouldn't like to "come from money." You're not a special snowflake, you're just an idiot.

Piece of advice: next time you get the bright idea to compare being raised by parents who exposed you to too nice of a lifestyle to child abuse, consider jumping off a cliff instead.

Perhaps it's not child abuse but it's hardly responsible parenting to never tell your children about your financial situation and what they can expect moving forward. It's even worse to cultivate in your children the expectation that this is what their life will be in future, and that's the only thing they should prepare for. I think it is silly to expect a 15- or 16-year old to figure out, without help, that the family really IS poor and therefore he or she needs to chart a different course in life. That's not an age-appropriate expectation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm tickled by the idea that these spoiled kids think it's "like child abuse" that they were exposed to some of the nicer things in life but no one ever sat them down and dropped the bomb that getting those things would take money and money doesn't fall out of the sky. There's not a single middle class, lower middle class, or poor person who wouldn't like to "come from money." You're not a special snowflake, you're just an idiot.

Piece of advice: next time you get the bright idea to compare being raised by parents who exposed you to too nice of a lifestyle to child abuse, consider jumping off a cliff instead.

Perhaps it's not child abuse but it's hardly responsible parenting to never tell your children about your financial situation and what they can expect moving forward. It's even worse to cultivate in your children the expectation that this is what their life will be in future, and that's the only thing they should prepare for. I think it is silly to expect a 15- or 16-year old to figure out, without help, that the family really IS poor and therefore he or she needs to chart a different course in life. That's not an age-appropriate expectation.

This person has come back and said that money was constantly discussed in her house, and her parents told her that they didn't have any and couldn't afford these "finer things" without her dad's job. She's just an idiot who thought that meant she couldn't have $1000 shoes. I'm sorry but if you honestly feel sorry for this person, who was so downtrodden as to be given a nice childhood and free college, but not unlimited money forever, and then even her attempts to marry rich didn't come to fruition because she didn't know her husband would need to be rich for that to work, then you need to be exposed to someone with real problems. She's either a troll or a fool; most likely both.

[Anonymous]

Clearly the writer made poor decisions and is fully responsible for his poor choices and circumstances. That said, the reason he lives in the Hamptons is because of his job, not delusions of Wall Street grandeur. If you google him, he is a writing professor in South Hampton, which is a very solid job for a writer. The dumb move was buying a new home while the other had not sold. But living in the Hamptons is not itself a poor decision. Hopefully he has tenure and can keep working. Maybe coming out like this can lead to better decisionmaking.

His wife can choose to work or not, it might help their bottom line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh. I'm really not surprised that a seemingly rational and sane person puts himself in a precarious financial state keeping up with the Joneses. This is very similar to my family's story. My dad was a high ranking government official and because of whom we grew up and mingled with the world elite. The government perks made it so we were able to keep up with the Joneses and the prestige his title afforded us more than made up for our lack of actual funds. We wined and dined like the rich and lived like rich even though we had no savings no college funds no home. Ultimately dad retired and his pension isn't enough to keep us afloat. My younger siblings work part time in retail and attend NOVA. I have developed very elite tastes and find it hard to live a "normal" MC life. My parents have no retirement savings and no home. Its awful.

Where do your parent's live?
It's said that one shouldn't wander over to the luxurious side of life or it's hard to go back!!
Good luck to you.

Don't want to say for privacy reasons. It is really quite miserable. We all feel pretty shell shocked. I'm grateful I still managed to get my college paid for. My younger siblings are working retail and going to NOVA.

Ok, actually I didn't mean where as in location, I meant where do they live if they don't have a home - do you mean they are renting? Or at a homeless shelter? Hope they are adjusting, must be harder for them than it is for you because of their age I would think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm tickled by the idea that these spoiled kids think it's "like child abuse" that they were exposed to some of the nicer things in life but no one ever sat them down and dropped the bomb that getting those things would take money and money doesn't fall out of the sky. There's not a single middle class, lower middle class, or poor person who wouldn't like to "come from money." You're not a special snowflake, you're just an idiot.

Piece of advice: next time you get the bright idea to compare being raised by parents who exposed you to too nice of a lifestyle to child abuse, consider jumping off a cliff instead.

Perhaps it's not child abuse but it's hardly responsible parenting to never tell your children about your financial situation and what they can expect moving forward. It's even worse to cultivate in your children the expectation that this is what their life will be in future, and that's the only thing they should prepare for. I think it is silly to expect a 15- or 16-year old to figure out, without help, that the family really IS poor and therefore he or she needs to chart a different course in life. That's not an age-appropriate expectation.

This person has come back and said that money was constantly discussed in her house, and her parents told her that they didn't have any and couldn't afford these "finer things" without her dad's job. She's just an idiot who thought that meant she couldn't have $1000 shoes. I'm sorry but if you honestly feel sorry for this person, who was so downtrodden as to be given a nice childhood and free college, but not unlimited money forever, and then even her attempts to marry rich didn't come to fruition because she didn't know her husband would need to be rich for that to work, then you need to be exposed to someone with real problems. She's either a troll or a fool; most likely both.

I left my comment before I read her additional input. It's not about being sorry, honestly, it's more about realizing the value of solid education in finance and budgeting from your parents, and likewise the value of solid career advice based on frank realities of life...and the handicap that comes with not having any. My situation is not too close to her but I understand the shock that comes from having to recalibrate. I immigrated here in my late twenties and made some silly financial decisions between 28-32 years of age. I had to restructure the way I saw money and really change my attitude to personal finance. I am 42 now and very secure financially, but if my parents were born here and educated me in financial realities of life in the U.S. at 18 (rather than me learning by myself at 30), I would have been much better off now. I am not complaining - we are still better off than 75% of the U.S. - just telling you that I understand the value of knowledge when it's given in good time.