A massive income required to live the idealized american dream around here?

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is 315k and we have all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat recently making 7 figures, having started from humble roots. I am deeply grateful to feel secure financially, assuming I can keep my employment trajectory.

What's crazy is that it seems like you need to make this much around here to feel like you are set with the american dream:

Owning a single family home (and all the upkeep that entails)
Sending kids to college
Saving enough so we can have a (hopefully) financially secure retirement one day
Family vacations
Two cars
Making sure parents are taken care of

I think over time, we should be able to do all of the above relatively comfortably....but shouldn't most of the population? I feel we can only do all of this stuff because of a very high income. What does that say about the expected standard of living in America??

Let me guess...you want us to say

The U.S is on the decline.
Capitalism is bad
Neither party does good for the country
The U.S. is going down a path of destruction that can't be stopped
Americans need to understand their country is terrible.
Why work? You get nothing out of it anyway and it take away from really enjoying life. Just give it all up

We know (your instructions for us)--you astroturfers have been on a rampage the past 2 or 3 week everywhere on the internet with this message

^^THIS! For any of us who have been on and off this site for many years, there is a significant uptick in posts that seek to divide people by class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 90k pretax. Single parent, 1 kid. It’s not enough and it’s frustrating. I remember the days I dreamed of making this much and now it just covers necessities.

I found your problem.

A man is not a plan. Look how many women stay with their loser husbands because they can’t support themselves. That’s sad.

Statistically, married couples have far more financial stability than single people. Obviously not true if your spouse is a deadbeat or degenerate gambler, but otherwise true. The man has more stability too, not just the woman. Getting and staying married to the same person is a good long term strategy to build wealth (combined with other key moves.)

[Anonymous]

Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat recently making 7 figures, having started from humble roots. I am deeply grateful to feel secure financially, assuming I can keep my employment trajectory.

What's crazy is that it seems like you need to make this much around here to feel like you are set with the american dream:

Owning a single family home (and all the upkeep that entails)
Sending kids to college
Saving enough so we can have a (hopefully) financially secure retirement one day
Family vacations
Two cars
Making sure parents are taken care of

I think over time, we should be able to do all of the above relatively comfortably....but shouldn't most of the population? I feel we can only do all of this stuff because of a very high income. What does that say about the expected standard of living in America??

Let me guess...you want us to say

The U.S is on the decline.
Capitalism is bad
Neither party does good for the country
The U.S. is going down a path of destruction that can't be stopped
Americans need to understand their country is terrible.
Why work? You get nothing out of it anyway and it take away from really enjoying life. Just give it all up

We know (your instructions for us)--you astroturfers have been on a rampage the past 2 or 3 week everywhere on the internet with this message

^^THIS! For any of us who have been on and off this site for many years, there is a significant uptick in posts that seek to divide people by class.

Because . . . that is something reflective of what is happening in the United States. GMAFB that you seem to imply it isn't. And FTR, we would be "rich" by DCUM measurements (by ours we are comfortable but we still have to make choices how to spend our salaries/savings). The millionaires and billionaires are creating the divide themselves. And people are tired of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

There is nothing wrong with this. Not sure why you think everyone is entitled to private school and European travel simply for having a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

There is nothing wrong with this. Not sure why you think everyone is entitled to private school and European travel simply for having a job.

That’s exactly what I meant, there’s nothing wrong with that kind of life and people’s expectations have become skewed.

Besides social media only showing the lives of rich people one thing I noticed is how TV shows and movies like to portray lifestyles only attainable by the top 1-2% as “middle class”. You see tons of shows where people with regular jobs are living in houses that would cost 7 figures and require nearly a 1M income to afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash: living in the United States suuuuuucks for 99.9% of people. The US is only good for the ultra rich.

Garbage healthcare unless rich
Garbage education unless rich
Garbage infrastructure
Garbage safety
Garbage housing affordability
Garbage childcare

It's honestly shocking how bad the US is now for the middle class and why so many people in the US roll over and take it because they let the millionaire and billionaire class tell them everything is fine.

Um...ever read any Megan McArdle articles on how the middle class lives in Europe and how small their houses are? How little outside help they can afford to pay for? Sure they get a lot of things from their taxes, but the average American who makes claims like you would be giving up many square feet and any housekeeping/lawn service they pay for to get it. Plus some other things. The European social safety net costs, and it costs the middle class there as well as the rich.

1000%!

Most europeans live in way smaller homes/row homes than US people expect. They eat most of their meals at home, walk to do most things or take the train. If they have a car (even if not in a large city), they have only 1, and walk/train/bus most places. They don't live in a 2000 sq ft home, it's closer to 900-1000---their laundry room is in their kitchen and it's a washing machine ONLY (they hang everything to dry), or if really lucky, it's a washer dryer combo. But really they minimize electricity usage, because it's 3-4times the cost we pay....they use fans in the summer heat, their gas is 4x what we pay (the prices are per liter, so about 4 L equal a gallon). They don't eat out alot---they actually cook most of their meals, etc.

By and large, life is still much better in the USA when you consider apples to apples.

They also have low salaries almost everyone makes less than 100k even doctors, lawyers, engineers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

This is true, but middle class fifty years before that still used outhouses. Each generation has seen progress until the most recent one, and there was this promise of new technology and advancements, and it does feel like a bag of goods that lifestyles have stalled. Work hours, time on home chores, etc. have gone up; cost of living has increased faster than wages.

We are very fortunate with a 450K HHI in the midwest, bought our home 8 years ago, etc. We have 3 kids and enjoy a great quality of life with ample saved for college and retirement. But I feel for those just starting out. Things are getting harder instead of easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

Except even a small ugly house in a good public school district here costs over a million bucks. Closer to 2 million to get the same commute time someone 50 years ago had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

There is nothing wrong with this. Not sure why you think everyone is entitled to private school and European travel simply for having a job.

If you want a job that pays more, you have to do something to earn that job. You have to work to achieve it. But mainly, you need to learn to live within your means. If you want to be a social worker, unless you marry rich, odds are you are not traveling to Europe every year or sending your kids to private schools. So have goals in line with what you earn. If you want to earn more, then choose a career path and advance up it so you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

Except even a small ugly house in a good public school district here costs over a million bucks. Closer to 2 million to get the same commute time someone 50 years ago had.

My 1600 sq ft house in a middle to high school pyramid in FCPS that people are happy with is less than 1 million and DH and I each have less than a 30 minute commute.

Granted it took us 2 years of looking to find this house when it was merely 500K in 2011, but your definition of "good public school district" must be McLean schools, a W school, or Yorktown or the like. There are ways.

And if you don't live in the DC metro you can fix your commute problems really fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

There is nothing wrong with this. Not sure why you think everyone is entitled to private school and European travel simply for having a job.

If you want a job that pays more, you have to do something to earn that job. You have to work to achieve it. But mainly, you need to learn to live within your means. If you want to be a social worker, unless you marry rich, odds are you are not traveling to Europe every year or sending your kids to private schools. So have goals in line with what you earn. If you want to earn more, then choose a career path and advance up it so you can.

I think that misses the point, though. For example, DH and I made 110K when we had our first dc in 2012 (we were living in Vermont). I worked 80% time at a law firm, he was a resident. We each made about 55K. We had a very nice life - we paid off our student loans faster than we accrued new ones (mortgage, etc.) If we were to be in that same situation today, we'd make about 150K, and we would not have been able to afford the same things we had (a 3BR house - for 180K plus 10K cash first time homebuyer credit; a little fenced yard for the dog; 2 cars paid off (Honda/Toyota sedans); we took a lot of road trips throughout New England/Montreal; we took days off work here and there to learn to ski; our daughter was in a wonderful daycare 4 days a week with the same teacher the entire 3 years she attended.) We would still be just fine, have a nice middle class life, maybe we would rent a smaller house, or we would not have renovated our 1950s bathroom that had insulation made of wallpaper, or I would go back to work a 5th day, or we would find a home daycare. But a lot of Americans (understandably) have this feeling that things are getting worse and it's scary to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class 50 years ago was a small ugly house with road trips to the beach as a summer vacation and sending the kids to public school.

There is nothing wrong with this. Not sure why you think everyone is entitled to private school and European travel simply for having a job.

If you want a job that pays more, you have to do something to earn that job. You have to work to achieve it. But mainly, you need to learn to live within your means. If you want to be a social worker, unless you marry rich, odds are you are not traveling to Europe every year or sending your kids to private schools. So have goals in line with what you earn. If you want to earn more, then choose a career path and advance up it so you can.

I think that misses the point, though. For example, DH and I made 110K when we had our first dc in 2012 (we were living in Vermont). I worked 80% time at a law firm, he was a resident. We each made about 55K. We had a very nice life - we paid off our student loans faster than we accrued new ones (mortgage, etc.) If we were to be in that same situation today, we'd make about 150K, and we would not have been able to afford the same things we had (a 3BR house - for 180K plus 10K cash first time homebuyer credit; a little fenced yard for the dog; 2 cars paid off (Honda/Toyota sedans); we took a lot of road trips throughout New England/Montreal; we took days off work here and there to learn to ski; our daughter was in a wonderful daycare 4 days a week with the same teacher the entire 3 years she attended.) We would still be just fine, have a nice middle class life, maybe we would rent a smaller house, or we would not have renovated our 1950s bathroom that had insulation made of wallpaper, or I would go back to work a 5th day, or we would find a home daycare. But a lot of Americans (understandably) have this feeling that things are getting worse and it's scary to them.

We moved to the area in 2007 when DH graduated law school and began work in Big Law. He made $160k then. Current Big Law starting pay is $225k. We could afford to buy our same starter townhouse at today's prices with that increased salary. I only worked briefly until we had our first child and we didn't factor my income into the purchase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat recently making 7 figures, having started from humble roots. I am deeply grateful to feel secure financially, assuming I can keep my employment trajectory.

What's crazy is that it seems like you need to make this much around here to feel like you are set with the american dream:

Owning a single family home (and all the upkeep that entails)
Sending kids to college
Saving enough so we can have a (hopefully) financially secure retirement one day
Family vacations
Two cars
Making sure parents are taken care of

I think over time, we should be able to do all of the above relatively comfortably....but shouldn't most of the population? I feel we can only do all of this stuff because of a very high income. What does that say about the expected standard of living in America??

Feel free to take your incredible wealth and spread it around. Adopt a family, buy them a house give them one of your luxury cars. Stop trying to guilt trip the world because you feel guilty with your wealth.