Ok can we stop saying $300k is "rich" in DC?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If you bought your house before 2003 or went to college before 2000 shut the fuck up. Costs have gone up exponentially and you can't live the middle class lifestyle on less than 250k.

Funny. We're able to live quite nicely on 100k.

Maybe some of us just have higher standards.

And that is your biggest problem and will be your downfall

You sound unhinged. The fact that you make unfounded assumptions about a complete stranger shows that you might have bigger problems than PP. Come to think of it, I wonder if you are that crazy, old single lady who makes 100k and started a thread a while ago desperately trying to get other people to say she is rich.

You mean that woman in her 50s? She wasn't trying to get people to say that $100k is rich. As I recall, she was objecting that people - like you, I assume - kept saying that $100k was poor. Big difference.

That's the same thing, stated another way, in this thread. The only way people convince themselves that $300k is middle class is to insist someone earning $100k is poor. If they acknowledged that someone earning $100k (we are talking singe income, not a couple) is upper middle class, rather than struggling, they'd have to face the fact that they themselves are extremely affluent.

Family of 4 making $88K in Arlington qualifies for subsidized benefits, which means they are a lot closer to "poor" than to "upper middle class".

..... FAMILY OF FOUR is the magical word here. Not Dinks, not one kid, not single. Four kids.

Ding, ding, ding! That's the breakdown here. An individual earning $100,000 is upper-middle class. A family of four is going to get subsidizes.

People are mixing up individual incomes and HHI.

A family of four does not mean four kids. It means two grown ups, two kids.

DP. OK, then....a husband and wife with two kids, earning $88k, qualifies for some subsidies. An individual earning $100k is quite comfortable, even upper-middle class. End of story.

[Anonymous]

300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family with poor money management skills.

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

For a foolish family, no. For a family not composed of greedy dummies, it's a lot, seeing as half of families on DC live on less than 1/4 of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

who are these clowns who can't figure out how to live on 300k?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

who are these clowns who can't figure out how to live on 300k?

Seriously. Wtf?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

That must be one hell of a starter home. "This word 'starter home'. It does not mean what you think it means."

[Anonymous]

If you're making 300k and complaining about lack of cash, you have a spending problem. Don't go to private school, don't buy a crazy house, and don't go to insanely overpriced child care (looking at you beantree).

[Anonymous]

300k for average family with 3 kids is nothing. I max out 401k, flex spending, transit check, 529 plan each year and then I invest automatically around 20 percent of after tax money for a rainy day fund.

Soon I will have two kids in college with a third after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

That must be one hell of a starter home. "This word 'starter home'. It does not mean what you think it means."

I live in a starter home. 1,400 square feet. I do own a larger home but it is rented out and a small vacation home also rented out.

Ironically my tenants are the show-offs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k for average family with 3 kids is nothing. I max out 401k, flex spending, transit check, 529 plan each year and then I invest automatically around 20 percent of after tax money for a rainy day fund.

Soon I will have two kids in college with a third after that.

LOL. In one sentence you call it nothing, and in the next you talk about all of the various ways you hide away the hundreds of thousands of dollars you make. Humans are nothing if not self-delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

That must be one hell of a starter home. "This word 'starter home'. It does not mean what you think it means."

I live in a starter home. 1,400 square feet. I do own a larger home but it is rented out and a small vacation home also rented out.

Ironically my tenants are the show-offs.

"I own three houses. I am not a show-off."

Okey dokey.

[Anonymous]

But seriously.

So you own:

A primary residence.
Two houses that are income generating assets.
You fund retirement.
You fund college savings for three kids.
Presumably, you at fairly well at home and dine out at chain restaurants or better.

Sounds to me like your 300k is serving you very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

who are these clowns who can't figure out how to live on 300k?

Seriously. Wtf?

+3

Our HHI is $300K. We have two kids, including one with higher than average medical care needs. We are doing just fine. We max out retirement, save for college/emergencies/house repairs/the next car, invest some, have a spacious single-family home near a metro (that we bought within the last couple of years -- so no pre-bubble, low mortgage), two cars (though one was purchased used because we don't give a shit about cars as long as they get us from point A to point B reliably and comfortably), frequently eat at local restaurants, take at least one vacation a year, and buy clothes from a variety of places (have actually never set foot in a Kohls, I don't think). I don't think anyone would confuse us with the wealthy, but to suggest that $300K in the DC area is tough to live on? It's really not. We will be sending our special needs child to private school next year that costs as much as our mortgage, and even fitting that into the budget didn't require that much belt-tightening. If you can't live in DC on $300K, you need to take a money management course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k gets you a starter home and a used car. Dinners at Chain restaurants, clothes from Kolhs and occasional vacation. It is not rich at all for a family.

who are these clowns who can't figure out how to live on 300k?

Apparently they are all smart enough to be rich and too dumb to appreciate it.