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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Semantics, people.

Fine, you're not rich with $300k/year if that makes you happy to say it.

You are, however, upper class.  If you define class by where on the spectrum of income you fall.  And $300k/year even in DC puts you well above the $75 median income.  $300k is not middle.  It's not even upper middle.

I grew up what I consider to be a middle class life. I always had hand-me-downs, and we only went on 4 vacations my entire childhood before I turned 18.  We kept cars for years and they weren't fancy.  I shared a room with my 2 sisters. We had 2 bathroom in our house, had no central air. Going out to dinner was a huge treat.  I paid for college with a combination of scholarship, Pell grants, loans, and work study, and just a little bit from my parents for living expenses.  We weren't poor, we were middle class and solidly so.  We never went hungry, even if my parents sometimes worried about paying the bills.

Now my HHI is $250, we have a beautiful house with 3 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms, go on vacation every year, I buy organic food, we have close to a million socked away in retirement accounts, are paying off a 15 year mortgage (so the monthly payment is higher than a 30 year), are paying into our kids' college funds every month, have a huge stash of liquid cash for emergencies, can go out to dinner if we choose, and can buy things here or there without having to think, will this bust my budget? I feel extremely well-to-do, and definitely am better off than my parents.

Here's the thing:  my house is actually a bit smaller than my parents's house (despite the extra bathroom and bedroom - but we have no front hall, the rooms are smaller, etc), and our plot of land is a lot smaller.  But for me, that's to be expected:  In any popular urban area, people trade square feet for the luxury of living in that area.  I grew up in mid-America and remember moving to NY and realizing that rich people lived in brownstones with no land. That was quite a shock for me, having grown up in a neighborhood with half-acre plots. But it's the same in Paris, or London, or Tokyo.  You can't expect to have the fantastic houses that are affordable in areas that people aren't clamoring to live in when you choose to live in a place that's in demand like DC or NY or Paris.  Most people live in condos in most big cities, not SFHs.

So again, fine if you want to call yourself not rich with $300k HHI.  Just don't call yourself middle class because you're not.[/quote]

You are 100% right - I think people on this board, perhaps also in real life, just have this weird idea that if they aren't eating gold-encrusted steak for every meal that means they're struggling.[/quote]

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