Study shows that 350k/year is barely scrapping by as middle class

[Anonymous]

All these folks scripting and saving to hike and camp and eat their PBJs on vacation: yes that’s the lower MC vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The article listed $7800 for 2 week long vacations and 1 stay-cation for the family of 4. Also some additional money towards weekend getaways.

No flying in those vacations.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A typical vacation not at a relatives house not camping costs about $1000/day. You could budget and get by with $3700 for a week. That’s going somewhere like Disney or cruise — MC vacation.

Maybe in your universe. If you fly, stay at expensive hotels and eat out 3 meals a day plus do only paid activities.

I can tell you haven’t been on vacation lately. I’m not talking about driving to the beach. But you do you.

DRIVING TO THE BEACH IS A MIDDLE CLASS VACATION.

Flying to a more exotic locale, and eating out for most lunches/dinners, is a UMC vacation.

Spending 1k a DAY for vacation is ridiculous. 2 summers ago we went to Switzerland for a week- we did not have miles/ CC points for the flights, so the flights for our family of 4 were 3.5k. Then we spent about another 1.5k on lodging for the week. We ate cheaply, and did mostly hiking/ outdoors type activities that did not have a high price point. We still kept total costs to under 6k. So that's under 1k a day for a European vacation to an expensive country, including airfare costs that were not offset by anything.

As a complete side-note - hiking vacation in Switzerland is on my bucket list! Where did you stay? (Stats: single mom to 1 kid, high child-care costs, HHI of 145k, can probably save for a flying vacation every other year.)

Grindelwald! It was low key and relaxing! We really didn't do much besides hang out/ hike/ picnic. Highly recommend!

thanks! honestly hiking vacations in natural beauty are the best. I'm not sure how anyone else vacations with energetic kids!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A typical vacation not at a relatives house not camping costs about $1000/day. You could budget and get by with $3700 for a week. That’s going somewhere like Disney or cruise — MC vacation.

Maybe in your universe. If you fly, stay at expensive hotels and eat out 3 meals a day plus do only paid activities.

I can tell you haven’t been on vacation lately. I’m not talking about driving to the beach. But you do you.

DRIVING TO THE BEACH IS A MIDDLE CLASS VACATION.

Flying to a more exotic locale, and eating out for most lunches/dinners, is a UMC vacation.

Spending 1k a DAY for vacation is ridiculous. 2 summers ago we went to Switzerland for a week- we did not have miles/ CC points for the flights, so the flights for our family of 4 were 3.5k. Then we spent about another 1.5k on lodging for the week. We ate cheaply, and did mostly hiking/ outdoors type activities that did not have a high price point. We still kept total costs to under 6k. So that's under 1k a day for a European vacation to an expensive country, including airfare costs that were not offset by anything.

As a complete side-note - hiking vacation in Switzerland is on my bucket list! Where did you stay? (Stats: single mom to 1 kid, high child-care costs, HHI of 145k, can probably save for a flying vacation every other year.)

Grindelwald! It was low key and relaxing! We really didn't do much besides hang out/ hike/ picnic. Highly recommend!

thanks! honestly hiking vacations in natural beauty are the best. I'm not sure how anyone else vacations with energetic kids!

There is a playground with amazing views.... google "grindelwald playground" and it will probably come up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these PPs are LOWER MC. It’s ok.

So, lower middle class makes less than about 42k a year. Taking a week long beach vacation with hiking/swimming/making most meals at home isn't something that a family of 4 making 42k a year can do. People talking about their all inclusive trips to Mexico being filled with lower middle class people are delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these folks scripting and saving to hike and camp and eat their PBJs on vacation: yes that’s the lower MC vacation.

So what’s a middle MC vacation and cost versus an upper MC vacation and cost?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A typical vacation not at a relatives house not camping costs about $1000/day. You could budget and get by with $3700 for a week. That’s going somewhere like Disney or cruise — MC vacation.

Maybe in your universe. If you fly, stay at expensive hotels and eat out 3 meals a day plus do only paid activities.

I can tell you haven’t been on vacation lately. I’m not talking about driving to the beach. But you do you.

DRIVING TO THE BEACH IS A MIDDLE CLASS VACATION.

Flying to a more exotic locale, and eating out for most lunches/dinners, is a UMC vacation.

Spending 1k a DAY for vacation is ridiculous. 2 summers ago we went to Switzerland for a week- we did not have miles/ CC points for the flights, so the flights for our family of 4 were 3.5k. Then we spent about another 1.5k on lodging for the week. We ate cheaply, and did mostly hiking/ outdoors type activities that did not have a high price point. We still kept total costs to under 6k. So that's under 1k a day for a European vacation to an expensive country, including airfare costs that were not offset by anything.

I don't think you have established what you were trying to.

First, you say that "Spending 1k a DAY for vacation is ridiculous."

OK, that's a perfectly valid viewpoint (though it's obvious that you don't ski . . . but I digress.)

But then you say you went to Switzerland for a week, and air fare and lodging were $5000. You claim to have spend less that $1000 for the entire rest of the trip - $143 each day, for a family of four, including food, activities, transportation, etc. Assuming I believe you, and I'm not sure I do, you admit that you "ate cheaply, and did mostly hiking/ outdoors type activities that did not have a high price point." Great. But it is entirely reasonable to go to Switzerland and *not* want to do it on the cheap. You were close to $1000 a day anyway - Spending an extra $150 a day gets you there. Heck, a couple of nice dinners for four get you there.

So yes, you can go to Europe for cheap. But (i) you didn't do that, and (ii) you were close to $1000/day as it is. It's not at all ridiculous.

It's actually exactly my point. Flying a family of 4 to switzerland for a week is not, in my mind (or any reasonable person's), a middle class vacation. But yet, I managed to do it on less than 1k a day, which apparently is a benchmark for a normal cost of a middle class vacation. My entire point was that 1k a day is RIDICULOUS for a MIDDLE CLASS VACATION. Obviously you can go to Switzerland and spend way more than I did and have it NOT BE A MIDDLE CLASS VACATION. The point is not "how much money do I spend on vacations?" the point is "a 1k a day vacation is not middle class spending".

And yet, that's not what you wrote.

Since this entire sub-thread is about middle class vacations, I'm not sure how you didn't understand that point from my post. "driving to the beach is a middle class vacation" "spending 1k a day on vacation is ridiculous (for a vacation to be considered middle class- implied)" "i took a european vacation with no airfare subsidies and did it for less than that (which is not by any definition a middle class vacation- implied)".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these PPs are LOWER MC. It’s ok.

You are delusional. That's ok too.

[Anonymous]

I'm so confused now. We make well over 500k/yr and take lots of middle class vacations. This summer we drove to Acadia and camped. Yes, camped. Oh the horrors of a middle class vacation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused now. We make well over 500k/yr and take lots of middle class vacations. This summer we drove to Acadia and camped. Yes, camped. Oh the horrors of a middle class vacation!

Basically you were slumming it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these PPs are LOWER MC. It’s ok.

So, lower middle class makes less than about 42k a year. Taking a week long beach vacation with hiking/swimming/making most meals at home isn't something that a family of 4 making 42k a year can do. People talking about their all inclusive trips to Mexico being filled with lower middle class people are delusional.

42k in DC is poverty. Not MC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
+1 to most of this although I don't think those daycare costs are the norm at all. We are in Silver Spring and I looked at a LOT of daycares, but the absolute lowest I found was an in-home for $250 per week (maybe it went down to $200 for a toddler, but I can't remember). That's still $10k for one kid, and in this case it was a bit sketchy and we ended up at one that cost $300/week instead (which is still pretty reasonable in this area). Where the heck is someone finding a licensed daycare for $5000 per year?

I'm the one who posted. Here are some. All are fairly close to Silver Spring, MD. You are paying a premium to live in Montgomery County. That premium comes with increased costs on everything if you want to stay local. If you are willing to branch out some (especially going to PG County), you'll find inexpensive options. Also note that for the most part, the church-based preschool/child care are cheaper than centers. It used to be that in-home based childcare was the cheapest, but I have noticed that lately many of the in-home childcares have raised their prices.

Note, that these are all under the average costs, but I know families who send their kids to both the first two and they are good facilities. The families are typical middle class families that earn between $100-150K per year and have to find reasonable cost child care.

Hyattsville: https://www.mystandrew.org/preschool/
College Park: http://www.ucnskids.org/tuition-and-fees
Beltsville: https://www.hopechristianacademy.org/apply/tuition-costs
Laurel: https://christianacademyoflaurel.org/admissions/
Laurel: https://www.care.com/b/l/kristland-family-daycare/laurel-md

All of the above are no more than $600/month and between $5K-7K per student per year. The family that had two for about $10K had their younger 2 year old only in the 3-day a week program with grandmother watching him one day a week and Mom on a 4x10 hour day schedule watching him one day a week.

This is the cheapest I found in Silver Spring ($8400/year for 1st child, $7500/year for sibling discount)
https://fcs.school/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Financial-Info-Sheet-2019.20-updated-1.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these folks scripting and saving to hike and camp and eat their PBJs on vacation: yes that’s the lower MC vacation.

So what’s a middle MC vacation and cost versus an upper MC vacation and cost?

I think UMC is $1k plus a day for 7 or more days. Total budget per year $15-20
MC vacation is 1 vacation at $3600 (like week at beach) and the total year budget $5000.

[Anonymous]

Why would you want to find the cheapest possible daycare and send you kid there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these PPs are LOWER MC. It’s ok.

You are one of the upper class (the lower end, but still the upper class) who don't really have a notion of what middle class now is.

The median salary in the DC metropolitan area is around $85K per year. Median HHI is about $98K per year. The poverty level is current $42K per year. $200K is the top 2.5% in this area (it takes about $388K to make the top 1% in this region). The Middle class is roughly $70K-150K per year. Someone making about $70-90K per year is LMC. Someone making $90-120K is pretty standard MC Someone making about $120-150 is UMC. Those making over $150 are above UMC. Those making under $70 are below LMC.

$200K is the top 2.5% of the region. They are not middle anything, especially not middle class.

My friends who are MC do take driving vacations to visit out-of-town family or the beach. They rarely taking flying vacations (I know one friend who had never been on an airplane until she took her 14 year old son on a special trip to Dallas to see the playoffs last year).