Anonymous wrote:I want to smack those posters. We are overextended, we feel stretched, we can't maintain our budget...all perfectly fine descriptors (and accurately portray your choices/circumstances as the issue, not your income) but don't dare use the word poor

+1

We are $160K HHI family and definitely feel like it's hard to maintain our budget when we want to eat out for every meal and go on lavish vacations but only have the funds to do one cheap vacation and eat out once a week. In no way does that mean we're poor.

I think it comes down to the fact that most people who make $300-400K have two parents working. (ourselves included).
Having two parents navigating the 9-5 slog around DC plus taking care of young children (or school aged kids which personally I have found harder with two working parents) is a never-ending grind.
There's a feeling of, "there has to be more to life than this".
I love my job (this is not a SAH vs. WOTH debate) but it's pretty crazy to plan the logistics of having both spouses working. I feel like all we do is work, commute (and we live close enough that one spouse bikes), and take care
of the kids. Lather, rinse and repeat daily.

Sometime I wish we at least had fabulous vacations or gorgeous furniture for all of our effort.

Exactly -- they're not poor, they're over extended often (but not always) and have fallen into the -- but I'm a doctor/lawyer/banker, I SHOULD live close-in; live in a mansion; send kids to private school; take 2 vacations a yr [or whatever other financial want they believe they MUST do bc as a doctor/lawyer, it's only fitting].

People, no matter what their income, tend to life the maximum lifestyle they can. Very few actually live below their means. That can produce a feeling of being "poor" but really it's more like being "pinched."

I think it's that as you move into different circles you become aware of additional things to desire/covet. Growing up, I never knew anyone with a beach house so it never occurred to me that I was missing out. But now that I know people who have them, I wonder if my kids are missing out because we don't.

Same with super-expensive sleep away camps, a boat, etc. The list of things to desire just gets bigger.

Also, we took music lessons with the little old lady around the corner growing up. But we found a serious teacher for our kid, which eventually moved to the world of expensive summer music camps, more expensive instruments, etc. That is probably the same with sports, etc. You grew up playing games in the neighborhood and now you know people who have three year olds taking private swimming lessons.

Also, I think a lot of is stems from the cut-throat competitive atmosphere. Kids who don't take private lessons don't get into the orchestra at your high school; kids who don't take private lessons don't make the baseball team; you worry that your kids can't compete with the kids who have had math tutoring beginning in first grade and you start to panic that it's not just that you're being stupid and spoiled but that your child is being actively left behind compared to the people who appear ot have unlimited resources to spend on their children.

I have no idea. Unreasonable expectations. No gratitude. It makes me feel sorry for those people.

I want to smack those posters. We are overextended, we feel stretched, we can't maintain our budget...all perfectly fine descriptors (and accurately portray your choices/circumstances as the issue, not your income) but don't dare use the word poor

They know people who have more.

I agree PP - our HHI is 145$ and we live comfortably in NWDC. I can't buy every thing I want, and we go on one simple beach vacation a year. I cook dinner every night and we don't eat out often. Our cars are 12 and 6 years old subarus with no plans for new ones in sight. My kids wear hand me downs and clothes from Target. My husband and I pack lunch for work. I am a teacher so my hours make it so we don't need aftercare or camp.

I certainly don't feel poor. I feel fortunate. If you're always looking at what you DON'T have, you won't be happy.

Anonymous wrote:I think people go to school and get advanced degrees to attain higher incomes. They measure success against their high achieving cohorts, so that then becomes a problem.

"Am I a successful doctor / lawyer if I only earn $150k?"

To the rest of us, of course $150k is doing well, but for that person who knows many people who went to the same schools and earned the same degree who earn $400k, it seems tragic.

When people imagine earning a good living, they incorrectly believe that money earns them freedom. Often times, high earners believe they should have a certain type of lifestyle, which only shackles them into longer hours and less free time.

It just seems so goddamn depressing. Earning enough money to enjoy yourself is wonderful - I know this from years where I didn't have enough for that, and years when I did. The years I did have been better.

But I just feel so sad hearing the relentless complaining about not being able to buy this or that, and the neighbor who can afford this thing and I can't get it, and blah blah blah. It just seems so goddamn grim.

I think it's that simple. Lots of people in this area are not from here and are not from any competitive market like SF or NYC or even NJ or Mass. So they think by making it to DC and making 300k, they have ARRIVED. Then they look around and realize there are people making 400k, 500k, 1 million etc. They look around at the Jones and realize that at 300k, they may have to think about private school and it's no fair that their friends making 500k have to give zero thought to whether to enroll their 3 kids in private school.

And then they look back home to Wisconsin or Arkansas or wherever and realize that it's no fair that their old high school classmates -- who weren't even class valedictorian and weren't ivy bound land are grads of the local non flagship u are making 150k in sales and living in a McMansion style house with 2 brand new cars, whereas they HAVE ARRIVED in DC but "only" have a 700k brick home from the 1960s to show for it.

I haven't seen the same insecurity from people coming from say Long Island or NJ or the Bay Area bc they are used to be around A LOT of money and are also from competitive places so they never expected that they would be "the one" in their group of peers who'd be the success.

Happiness does not come from material things. It is an emotional state and we as humans get emotional satisfaction from relationships and feeling of self-worth. This culture does not lend to deep emotional relationships. When we cannot love or care enough to put someone else above us, then we cannot help but be self-centered. All negative feelings comes from being self-centered because there will be always someone who is better off than us in something. Its like measuring how fulfilling your life is by seeing the FB posts of others.

I think people go to school and get advanced degrees to attain higher incomes. They measure success against their high achieving cohorts, so that then becomes a problem.

"Am I a successful doctor / lawyer if I only earn $150k?"

To the rest of us, of course $150k is doing well, but for that person who knows many people who went to the same schools and earned the same degree who earn $400k, it seems tragic.

When people imagine earning a good living, they incorrectly believe that money earns them freedom. Often times, high earners believe they should have a certain type of lifestyle, which only shackles them into longer hours and less free time.

I understand people can vent about anything, but complaining that one feels poor at such incomes is OFFENSIVE.

My HHI is 120K and I would never dare say that I feel poor, even though occasionally it sure feels like it. Because objectively, I am not poor, and it would be unfeeling and insensitive toward the majority of the DC-area population who earns less.

To all the bubble-living people out there, use more specific language and try to have both feet on the ground. You may be unhappy, but poor you are not.

That $300k thread was nutso enough - then someone comes on and says they're feeling poor at a $600k household income. Which is just objectively insane, I think it's fair to say.

But it got me wondering what the underlying issue is here. Because obviously that is SO MUCH MONEY. At the same time, the people posting seem so unhappy. It's like all the houses, all the cars, all the nannies and trips and clothes have left them feeling like there has to be something more, that other people have and they don't have.

I'm not a religious person. I'm not even spiritual. I'm reluctant to say it's anything like that that these people are missing in their lives, when really they think it's more money they need.

What is it? What's actually going on here? It cannot be as simple as: there are some extremely rich people in DC and those people make everyone else feel like no amount of money is enough. Or is it? Is it actually that simple?