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[quote=Anonymous]I'll bite. I grew up in a very unstable financial environment - we went from being very wealthy to barely hanging on - home ownership and scholarships kept us from poverty. Got a scholarship to a top tier college, and was so poor in college I got zero money from home for anything - had to work 4 jobs until I figured out emergency student loans and dropped from 4 jobs to 2. Freshman year before I got the jobs I couldn't even afford shampoo and would wash my hair with hand soap from the dorm bathroom. Hid from my friends how poor I was by working so many jobs.

Came to DC and ended up in a decent but not well paying job, worked super hard and ended up capitalizing on my technical skills to do consulting and a number of jobs. Now, my income is around $220k.  The big change in income came when I married my husband, who had saved $150k over his lifetime, and inherited $150k.  Now with my husbands salary is $120k, and I feel rich, but we live upper middle class lives because we saved so much and have about 10k a year in dividend income on our investments of 1 million.  We are so so lucky. Childcare costs, which I committed to spending because I never want to let my career go after starting at such a low point, have been very very expensive- probably about 45k for the past 7 years. But the investment in childcare has kept me working through multiple pregnancies, surgeries, family challenges- its literally the price we pay for two working parents.

That being said, I'm worried about the Fed devaluing money and the stock market being insanely overvalued. Plus, we have friends in this area who have dropped us because we won't join their country club or go to Aspen to ski. I actually think they are fine people, its just that they want their friendships to be easy to maintain, when you're busy that makes sense.  But it made us ask the question of ourselves, are we rich? We concluded no, until kids college is paid for we aren't rich. When COVID hit, I realized that while our choices aren't endless, we are very very lucky to have food on the table, not worry about food costs, have a large enough house that we are comfortable, have some bandwidth in case one of us lost our job, have good health insurance.  So we are definitely upper middle class, but it is 100% because I insist on staying in the workforce, even though with my health issues and small children, that can be really really hard- so hard some days. Sometimes I'm jealous of people who've made other choices, but hey, if my kid can afford to buy shampoo in college, I will have accomplished a better standard of living for them.  I just need them to know that they will need to work really hard.

Very impressed with the acumen of the people who have made lots of money on this board. Feel bad for the people who are making good money and let the grass is greener mindset start detracting from their many blessings. Life is hard, but we are lucky to be living in America. [/quote]

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