Reply to What's your family size and how much do you spend each month total?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "What's your family size and how much do you spend each month total?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree with the PP.  I'm a single mom to one school aged child.  I make around $50K per year and I feel well off.  We have enough to eat, we live in a safe home, my son goes to a great public school, I have enough to pay all of my bills.  Yet someone else would say someone earning $50K can't possibly live well in this area.  We can and we do.[/quote]

To me, living well is going on vacation, buying new clothes, having money to go out to dinner and shows, and contributing to charitable causes important to us.[/quote]

You can still do all of those things on a smaller HHI when you're not paying 5-10k in childcare and SL costs or paying 3k for a mortgage (let's not get on private school). I've been to 3 countries so far in 2014 and the West Coast, have paid tuition costs for a child in a developing country for the 2013-14 school year, and eat out regularly. I don't make anywhere near 100k. If I lost my job, I could wait tables in the meantime and cover my bills. I totally get why taking home 10-15K feels necessary to some. We're upper middle class when we live abroad and there's definitely a different cost for everything once you're in that bubble. We "had" to do private, dance lessons were more than we'd pay in the US but they were essential, we needed a driver/nanny/housekeeper, we were too busy to shop for deals on produce so it was easier to shop in expat friendly locations, etc.

In truth, your average DCUMer moved to the DC area as an adult and bought into the belief that one can only live in Upper NW/Bethesda/McLean/Cap Hiil or its unsafe, that private schools are a must, etc. Some of us are just pointing out that some of you made lifestyle choices that make it necessary to take home such a high HHI. It's NOT simply living in DC, because the average family in DC is working with considerably less. Do you really think that DC restaurants are full of the wealthiest 1%? There are so many shows and events here that you can experience for free or very little.[/quote]

+1000![/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics