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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So many of these comments are about using consumer goods/experiences as class signifiers. I think you are missing some obvious errors with this.

Middle class families, by definition, have some wiggle room. Meaning they can make some choices that might enable them to afford things that you normally associate with UMC or rich people. So you can't always ascertain someone's class status just looking at consumer goods or something like vacations, because you don't understand HOW they afforded that. If you don't know what they gave up in order to get it, or whether it was bought with cash or on credit, or whether it was new or used, or whether it was purchased or gifted, then consumer goods/vacations are actually not a great signifier for class status.

A lot of the stuff people on this thread are saying are "out of reach" for MC, I know a lot of MC how have them. But in most cases they are compromising elsewhere in a way that's harder to see. [/quote]

I think you’re missing a nuance as well. A middle class person can go on say, a Bahamas vacation on credit. But they cannot *afford* it. Thus the debt. [/quote]

Oh, I'm not missing that. My point is that you can not, as an outsider, look at that person and say "Well they went to the Bahamas last year, so they can't be middle class!" Which is the mistake a lot of people seem to make. Or conversely "Well my middle class sibling went to the Bahamas last year, so all middle class people can afford the Bahamas."

But also, a middle class person might be able to actually afford the Bahamas. Not every year, but as a for instance: I decided I wanted to celebrate my 45th birthday with a family trip to an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean. I shifted some of my savings into a ladder CD to keep it fairly liquid but earn a little better interest, and also instituted a couple other cost savings (doing really cheap lunches, asking DH to forgo birthday gifts for me so we could put the money toward the trip, bought no new clothes for two years) to build that fund up. And then we took a nice vacation to a resort we would never have normally gone too. It was so worth it! And paid for in cash without changing retirement or college savings practices.

The point is: you can't look at someone's consumer activity and assume you know whether they are middle class. The peopel on here saying that a middle class family simply CANNOT go to Europe are just not thinking very creatively. Of course they can. It just takes diligence, sacrifice, and a little luck (MC people always have to worry about a job loss or health emergency derailing them financially).[/quote]

Wait what is your HHI and PITI? Because what you describe actually doesn’t sound very MC to me. It sounds more like a UMC person pretending. Or someone with unusually low housing costs. [/quote]

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about -- you just can't believe that someone could simply save up for a splurge as a middle class person. Why is this so hard for people to understand.

Anyway, Our HHI is 180k now but it was around 140k around the time I was doing this. Our mortgage payment back then was $2800 (we were actually house poor back then, so the opposite of having low housing costs -- have since sold that place and moved further out so now have a much lower PITI). So yes, absolutely MC. If we'd had any kind of emergency, even like our dog getting sick or a major appliance breaking, we would not have been able to do it. But we got lucky and it worked out.[/quote]

Please understand that that’s a very low PITI for the DC area today. And with inflation your income was probably more than you think in today’s dollars.

SO actually, yes, this is EXACTLY what I’M talking about. People who are wealthier than they are admitting to themselves crediting stupid stuff like “cheap lunches” for the fact they can afford stuff that they should of course be able to afford because they have a high income. And in your case, YES very LOW housing costs. [/quote]

Is it a low PITI for a 2 bedroom condo in a neighborhood with high crime and poor schools? Because that's what it paid for. And we only moved last year, so actually I know exactly how much housing in the DC area costs "in today's dollars."

You can twist yourself in knots to convince yourself that I must be UMC (on 140k, with a kid, in DC!) because I went on one nice vacation. If you want to say I'm "faking" becaus I spent 6 days at a resort, wait until you hear about some of the MC people I know who go to Disney every.single.year (no, I do not know how they do it, but these people are not rich -- I suspect some grandparent help coupled with credit card debt I'd not be comfortable with). You cannot ascertain someone's income or class based on their consumer choices. You just can't. You don't know how they are affording whatever it is -- vacation, house, private school, dinners out, designer clothes. You don't know what you don't know.[/quote]

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