At what HHI did you stop feeling middle class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are overthinking this. Do you use the top of your fridge as extra storage? You’re middle class. Is your fridge cabinet depth? You rich.

Is this your DCUM stand-up routine?

[Anonymous]

For me it is more about net worth than income, and I feel comfortable now at $1m in investable assets (not including home equity). I’ve never felt middle class because though my parents never even started college, they owned a successful business and paid for all of my education, so I started in big law with no debt. I’ve never felt wealthy either because I have friends with so much more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are overthinking this. Do you use the top of your fridge as extra storage? You’re middle class. Is your fridge cabinet depth? You rich.

Lol! In my ski condo we use the fridge as extra storage for sure. In my primary home it's the same wood and depth as the cabinets. I'm squarely middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are overthinking this. Do you use the top of your fridge as extra storage? You’re middle class. Is your fridge cabinet depth? You rich.

Huh? They make fridges that are half-depth?

[Anonymous]

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are overthinking this. Do you use the top of your fridge as extra storage? You’re middle class. Is your fridge cabinet depth? You rich.

Lol! In my ski condo we use the fridge as extra storage for sure. In my primary home it's the same wood and depth as the cabinets. I'm squarely middle class.

Surely this is a joke. When you're referring to a ski condo vs primary home, you're certainly not "squarely middle class." Welcome to the UMC.

[Anonymous]

I felt middle class in 1999 when our HHI was 180K and we bought our first house. Once our HHI reached $300K we were clearly not middle class. Educationally speaking we were not middle class even at 180K because we both had graduate degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like it is multiple years at 500k +. That way you are actually able to save a lot and have less worries in life. That is the part that actually makes us feel out of middle class.

We've only earned more than $500K in one year, 2020, but my husband retired this year with a $60K a year pension. I still work, make about $250K. We are definitely not middle class, as we have no debt and only one kid left in college, and the money for those expenses is all in the 529 plan. The real key is if multiple years at $500K translates into higher NW. To me, once our net worth hit $3 million, we were good and no longer middle class regardless of income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:125. You all are scary wealthy and not middle class.

I definitely felt middle class when we made $110k.

Expenses:

Taxes: $12k
Insurance: $5k
Retirement: $12k
Rent: $12k
Utilities (including cell phones): $5k
Student loans: $5k
Childcare for 2 kids: $25k
Cars: $6k
Vacation: $2k
Charity: $2k
Food: $8k
Gas: $8k

Total: $104,000

That meant that we had about $500/month for the four of us for everything else we needed to buy from band-aids and baby bottles to car and home repairs to furniture and clothes. I'm not saying that we were dirt poor or anything. We were saving for retirement. Our kids were in a good daycare, and we had everything we needed. We had lived in Appalachia prior to that and had friends who were truly poor.

But we were definitely still middle class.

Ridiculous. Giving 2k a year to charity on that low of an income while barely scraping by? 8 thousand a year on gas? What is making you put 20k+ miles a year on each car and probably driving some horribly inefficient vehicle?

[Anonymous]

Few years ago when we started making around 300-350
We are not in DC area
Right now we are making 400k+ and I would say very comfortable, have a nice renovated home, not big, second home( condo in the mountains), one brand new car and one decent used one.
We buy whatever we want, I even buy luxury goods, but on the lower lever( got Hermes bracelet for $650 and didn’t wink).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two observations:

1) Many people here seem to be basing their beliefs on this on their past experience as a "middle class" person. I know many people like this in my life. They grew up UMC but don't seem to realize it, either because their parents basically lied to them their whole lives or because of some artificial or temporary circumstances that made them feel like their family was struggling even though it wasn't. For instance, I know a lot of doctors' kids like this. They may remember some years when they were young when their doctor parent was a resident and things were tight. But by the time they were in high school, their family was firmly UMC and their parents could pay for things like private school for multiple kids, college without loans, grad degrees, assist with down payments on houses, pay for large weddings, etc. People like this live with a myth about their upbringing and it makes them overlook the many, many unusual advantages they have. So as adults, they don't "feel" well off until they have a nicer lifestyle than their parents. They don't understand their parents were, and are, very well off.

2) As an actual middle class person (125k HHI) who also grew up actually middle class (parent HHI was between 50k and 80k as I grew up) I would argue that the experience of being middle class has not actually changed that much. The amount of money it takes to pay for the same stuff has changed, but the lifestyle is similar. You can afford to own a home, but it will be small, or far out, or not updated, or potentially all three. You can have kids but the burden of additional kids is huge, largely because of the skyrocketing costs of college. Your kids go to public schools, and the schools are ok but problematic in pretty much all middle class neighborhoods. You might be able to move into a better school, but you will need to make serious sacrifices -- renting an apartment in an ancient building, for instance. You are unlikely to be able to buy in at this point, even if you are willing to buy the crappiest house or a tiny condo. You can take vacations but it's mostly via car (it's hard to afford airfare except maybe once every few years). You rarely stay in hotels and when you do they are budget. You don't eat out a lot. Most of your disposable income goes to stuff that richer people view as necessities (activities for kids, for instance). And so on. This is how I grew up, it's how I live now. The biggest difference is that we have school debt (neither of my parents had to take out loans to attend their public colleges) and we are terrified of how much college will cost for our one child. We stopped at one in large part for this reason, and even then, this is the largest source of financial stress, especially because our kid has turned out to be a smart, academic kid who will definitely want/need college to pursue an appropriate career, but is not some kind of superstar (and we can't afford to make them look like one the way rich people can). The cost of higher education is one of the central concerns on which I will vote moving forward because as things currently stand, our kid will either need to take out enormous loans or forgo college at even a state university. Maybe community college would be an option, but even there the ROI seems bad.

NP bumping to say thank you to those who contributed to this thread, and especially PP in the above quote.

I seriously have been wondering what’s wrong with me that changes in my HHI income over the years have resulted in so few changes to my lifestyle or class identification, and this thread made me realize it’s because I’m in PP’s Group 1.

My parents did indeed fund private school (boarding, no less), college, graduate school, wedding, and down payments. We also traveled extensively both internationally and domestically. Because they did this while clipping coupons, shopping at off-price retailers, and flying economy, I actually grew up thinking and feeling we were middle class.

By the time I left home for undergrad, I understood our family was at minimum upper middle class and I felt that way as well. That UMC feeling hasn’t changed since, despite significant fluctuations in income, including multiple years at zero!

As for lifestyle, not much has changed either - I do tend to fly first now rather than economy, but that’s only because DH plays the points game like a pro. We’re giving DC the same advantages my parents gave me, and also trying to instill a similarly frugal mindset.

This thread truly has helped me recognize my immense privilege. Thank you again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two observations:

1) Many people here seem to be basing their beliefs on this on their past experience as a "middle class" person. I know many people like this in my life. They grew up UMC but don't seem to realize it, either because their parents basically lied to them their whole lives or because of some artificial or temporary circumstances that made them feel like their family was struggling even though it wasn't. For instance, I know a lot of doctors' kids like this. They may remember some years when they were young when their doctor parent was a resident and things were tight. But by the time they were in high school, their family was firmly UMC and their parents could pay for things like private school for multiple kids, college without loans, grad degrees, assist with down payments on houses, pay for large weddings, etc. People like this live with a myth about their upbringing and it makes them overlook the many, many unusual advantages they have. So as adults, they don't "feel" well off until they have a nicer lifestyle than their parents. They don't understand their parents were, and are, very well off.

2) As an actual middle class person (125k HHI) who also grew up actually middle class (parent HHI was between 50k and 80k as I grew up) I would argue that the experience of being middle class has not actually changed that much. The amount of money it takes to pay for the same stuff has changed, but the lifestyle is similar. You can afford to own a home, but it will be small, or far out, or not updated, or potentially all three. You can have kids but the burden of additional kids is huge, largely because of the skyrocketing costs of college. Your kids go to public schools, and the schools are ok but problematic in pretty much all middle class neighborhoods. You might be able to move into a better school, but you will need to make serious sacrifices -- renting an apartment in an ancient building, for instance. You are unlikely to be able to buy in at this point, even if you are willing to buy the crappiest house or a tiny condo. You can take vacations but it's mostly via car (it's hard to afford airfare except maybe once every few years). You rarely stay in hotels and when you do they are budget. You don't eat out a lot. Most of your disposable income goes to stuff that richer people view as necessities (activities for kids, for instance). And so on. This is how I grew up, it's how I live now. The biggest difference is that we have school debt (neither of my parents had to take out loans to attend their public colleges) and we are terrified of how much college will cost for our one child. We stopped at one in large part for this reason, and even then, this is the largest source of financial stress, especially because our kid has turned out to be a smart, academic kid who will definitely want/need college to pursue an appropriate career, but is not some kind of superstar (and we can't afford to make them look like one the way rich people can). The cost of higher education is one of the central concerns on which I will vote moving forward because as things currently stand, our kid will either need to take out enormous loans or forgo college at even a state university. Maybe community college would be an option, but even there the ROI seems bad.

NP bumping to say thank you to those who contributed to this thread, and especially PP in the above quote.

I seriously have been wondering what’s wrong with me that changes in my HHI income over the years have resulted in so few changes to my lifestyle or class identification, and this thread made me realize it’s because I’m in PP’s Group 1.

My parents did indeed fund private school (boarding, no less), college, graduate school, wedding, and down payments. We also traveled extensively both internationally and domestically. Because they did this while clipping coupons, shopping at off-price retailers, and flying economy, I actually grew up thinking and feeling we were middle class.

By the time I left home for undergrad, I understood our family was at minimum upper middle class and I felt that way as well. That UMC feeling hasn’t changed since, despite significant fluctuations in income, including multiple years at zero!

As for lifestyle, not much has changed either - I do tend to fly first now rather than economy, but that’s only because DH plays the points game like a pro. We’re giving DC the same advantages my parents gave me, and also trying to instill a similarly frugal mindset.

This thread truly has helped me recognize my immense privilege. Thank you again.

*HHI, not “HHI income” which of course is redundant!

[Anonymous]

At what HHI did you stop feeling middle class?

After it dropped from $90k to $42k about 5 years ago and we lost company benefits. I quit feeling middle class that month when we navigated the bureaucracy to get the family onto Medicaid and had to pull about $10k out of my retirement plan (ouch).
It got better but we never got that money back into the retirement account and still not quite feeling back to middle class status.

[Anonymous]

400K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are overthinking this. Do you use the top of your fridge as extra storage? You’re middle class. Is your fridge cabinet depth? You rich.

What if both are true?