do your friends elsewhere live as financially conservative as you find people in DC do?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There are some weird assumptions in this post. We don't live in DC yet we still save 100k for retirement, 45k for college, 1000 a month on kids activities, 4K on kids summer camp, 30-40k on travel. I'm not sure why you think this lifestyle is particular to DC or NY.

Uh, maybe because that describes a very high HHI? That's not the norm anywhere.

Isn't it what the OP and PPs are talking about?

No, OP is describing middle class people who live in much lower cost of living towns.

She mentioned herself - saving enough for investments to spit off 250k a year in interest for 30 years as well as saving for college and living well - as emblematic of DC couples. I and other PPs are saying there are plenty of affluent communities around the country where this is so as well. It's not unique to some supposed ideal of DC frugality at all.

Well, OP should come back and explain, but it sounded to me that she did not mean affluent families. Plus, DC has a huge over-concentration of affluent families. HHIs of 300K are not common in most places the way they are here.

I agree with you. OP should clarify, but I interpreted this to be a comparison btw DC and "real America", not a comparison btw DC and NYC, SF, etc. The question raised in the OP was whether others agreed with the premise that lower-income "Real America" folks save less (retirement, kids' college, etc.) than do higher-income yuppie folks.

I am the first PP quoted here and I am living in an area you would call "real America." Not a big city. Still, there are affluent and rich people here as well. You can find them anywhere.

Of course you can find them everywhere, but they are not evenly distributed around all parts of the country. They are in higher concentration around large metro areas.