I am that nosy relative

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you genuinely curious and want people to explain? There are a lot of ways this can happen.
Wedding is paid for by parents or grandparents. I paid for my own wedding, but most people where I grew up (middle class, white, semi-rural Midwest) assumed my parents paid and as such my mom played “hostess” all weekend.
I married into a wealthier family and their kids all have graduate degrees and no student loans. That’s a huge leg up to start saving and investing your 20s.
My in-laws gave us a modest, but new car. Some people I know received 20% of their house cost for a down payment.
If grandparents are local and retired, they may provide childcare. In the DC area, that’s worth $24-40k a year.
Family may have a 2nd home or pay for vacations.
The mortgage on a $1M house is $3500-4000/mo. If one partner earns $80-100k, that pays for the house and utilities.

Some people live way beyond their means with leased cars and vacations and furniture racking up credit card debt. They make enough to pay minimums and keep afloat, but they are living paycheck to paycheck. I live in an affluent area and we live below our means. I was surprised to hear a woman at Pilates class say she had to hold off getting all of her sons’ school supplies until her husband got paid. I don’t know what exact day I get paid - I have enough of a cushion in my account I don’t think about it. It was a wake up call to me that a woman who drove a big black shiny SUV and takes $$$ Pilates classes was that close to the edge. Skipping a few classes would have paid for the supplies.

I literally had to pick my jaw up off the floor after the Pilates story.

Me too. The crazy part was that she said it like it was totally normal and everyone lives like that.

NP I'm on a facebook page for a kid's clothing company VIP page (just people talking about the clothes, not the company's page) and so many are "waiting until payday", "begging dh for money to buy more", or working a 2nd job solely to buy more clothes. It's insane. Some are spending $400 a month on the clothes and clearly can't afford it. It's eye opening.

[Anonymous]

DH and I both have nice, UMC jobs (125k) and make about 250k HHI. Zero inheritance or money from our parents other than my college was paid for.

The stock market has been SO good these past 5 years or so. I have one account that made 100k just last year. A lot of people I know are really swimming in money from investments right now. We also bought our home for 350k, sold it 3 years later for 800k and rolled that into our new home. Our mortgage is only about $1000 a month, so we have a lot of play money now. I think a lot of people are in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Reasonably high income. Decent house (by non-DCUM standards). Looking at the possibility of private school for multiple children.

Also, we do a lot of shopping at Aldi, Dollar Tree, Lotte, and Goodwill. Seldom do we go to restaurants, and even less frequently we travel -- and if we do travel, all six of us are crammed into the cheapest hotel room in the area.

To get to the point where we're looking at private school for those kids, we've been living way below our means, and private school is going to start burning through that accumulated stash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you genuinely curious and want people to explain? There are a lot of ways this can happen.
Wedding is paid for by parents or grandparents. I paid for my own wedding, but most people where I grew up (middle class, white, semi-rural Midwest) assumed my parents paid and as such my mom played “hostess” all weekend.
I married into a wealthier family and their kids all have graduate degrees and no student loans. That’s a huge leg up to start saving and investing your 20s.
My in-laws gave us a modest, but new car. Some people I know received 20% of their house cost for a down payment.
If grandparents are local and retired, they may provide childcare. In the DC area, that’s worth $24-40k a year.
Family may have a 2nd home or pay for vacations.
The mortgage on a $1M house is $3500-4000/mo. If one partner earns $80-100k, that pays for the house and utilities.

Some people live way beyond their means with leased cars and vacations and furniture racking up credit card debt. They make enough to pay minimums and keep afloat, but they are living paycheck to paycheck. I live in an affluent area and we live below our means. I was surprised to hear a woman at Pilates class say she had to hold off getting all of her sons’ school supplies until her husband got paid. I don’t know what exact day I get paid - I have enough of a cushion in my account I don’t think about it. It was a wake up call to me that a woman who drove a big black shiny SUV and takes $$$ Pilates classes was that close to the edge. Skipping a few classes would have paid for the supplies.

I literally had to pick my jaw up off the floor after the Pilates story.

Me too. The crazy part was that she said it like it was totally normal and everyone lives like that.

I know people like this. Buy their kids iPhone 12’s and Uggs by then later mention they had to finance their new fridge.

[Anonymous]

Ok, well...let me help you. I was not born into wealth. I went to state school for undergrad, no student loans, summer internships, studied the heck out of my LSAT, got into a good law school. Big law firm, became a partner, had kids in late 30s. Husband from the same background. We worked hard to get where we are. We didn't have a lavish wedding, it was a destination wedding but with 25 of our closest and dearest people.