Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:18k to a 401k isn't a sign of being rich? That's more than many people earn in an entire year. It's amazing how oblivious rich people are to their own wealth. Just getting by is an insult to anyone who truly is just getting by.

rich

+1 That's what I was trying to say upthread. What is "rich"? Above is rich to me, and I grew up middle/lower class. We make about $200K in DC area. We are well off, comfortable, but not "rich".

Anonymous wrote:18k to a 401k isn't a sign of being rich? That's more than many people earn in an entire year. It's amazing how oblivious rich people are to their own wealth. Just getting by is an insult to anyone who truly is just getting by.

rich

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Just Getting By" is a BIG stretch to describe this budget. I don't think anyone will argue that high COL areas take a huge chunk of change out of one's salary, but this budget shows a sizable amount for vacations and $2k for charities and $5k for children's lessons. That is HARDLY "barely scraping by." True, it's not the budget of a truly wealthy person, but it is orders of magnitude more comfortable and full of little luxuries than everyone making...say...LESS than $200k. This is about our HHI and while we sure don't feel rich, we are able to save quite a bit and have a nice middle-class life. We've had to start paying attention to our budget, for sure, but we have no debt, which is huge.

The fallacy of this article, and overall mindset around here, is that things like being able to save for retirement and give your kids nice lessons and even TAKE vacations (let alone nice ones) ARE ALL LUXURIES! Not entitlements!

most people would define that the minimum lifestyle for the middle class

Nice lessons and vacations (plural) are not part of the middle-class lifestyle.

Anonymous wrote:"Just Getting By" is a BIG stretch to describe this budget. I don't think anyone will argue that high COL areas take a huge chunk of change out of one's salary, but this budget shows a sizable amount for vacations and $2k for charities and $5k for children's lessons. That is HARDLY "barely scraping by." True, it's not the budget of a truly wealthy person, but it is orders of magnitude more comfortable and full of little luxuries than everyone making...say...LESS than $200k. This is about our HHI and while we sure don't feel rich, we are able to save quite a bit and have a nice middle-class life. We've had to start paying attention to our budget, for sure, but we have no debt, which is huge.

The fallacy of this article, and overall mindset around here, is that things like being able to save for retirement and give your kids nice lessons and even TAKE vacations (let alone nice ones) ARE ALL LUXURIES! Not entitlements!

most people would define that the minimum lifestyle for the middle class

If you live in a true hcol city (sf, by, dc) then you shouldn't need a car, especially one with a car payment and that much money spent on gas. So that frees up over 15k right there.

Weird, we make a little more than this and have a 5k a month house payment and still have more money left over than these people.

18k to a 401k isn't a sign of being rich? That's more than many people earn in an entire year. It's amazing how oblivious rich people are to their own wealth. Just getting by is an insult to anyone who truly is just getting by.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House poor does not equal middle class if you are choosing to live in a $700K+ house.

In SF area, 700K is considered "poor" or just "middle class". It's certainly not rich or even well off. I used to live there.

So a city gets so expensive that no one but the rich can afford to live there, and then the rich people who live there claim they are not rich because they spend all their money living there. Hmmm.

"Rich" is relative term. If you make $60K a year, by global standards, you are rich. If you make $250K a year in SF, by those standards, you are not "rich".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House poor does not equal middle class if you are choosing to live in a $700K+ house.

In SF area, 700K is considered "poor" or just "middle class". It's certainly not rich or even well off. I used to live there.

So the poor in SF (those making below the poverty line) live in 700k houses???

Look at the graph. Bayview is a crappy, low income area. April 2015 median home price there was $630K. This area is kind of scary, and no way would I live there. The other two areas aren't the most expensive areas of SF. They are probably considered the middle/upper area. Median price in april 2015 for those areas was above $1.3 mil.

so yea, in SF, $700K is where the "poors" live. Now you see what this article is trying to show for people who live in SF?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House poor does not equal middle class if you are choosing to live in a $700K+ house.

In SF area, 700K is considered "poor" or just "middle class". It's certainly not rich or even well off. I used to live there.

So a city gets so expensive that no one but the rich can afford to live there, and then the rich people who live there claim they are not rich because they spend all their money living there. Hmmm.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House poor does not equal middle class if you are choosing to live in a $700K+ house.

In SF area, 700K is considered "poor" or just "middle class". It's certainly not rich or even well off. I used to live there.

So the poor in SF (those making below the poverty line) live in 700k houses???

Anonymous wrote:House poor does not equal middle class if you are choosing to live in a $700K+ house.

In SF area, 700K is considered "poor" or just "middle class". It's certainly not rich or even well off. I used to live there.

"Just Getting By" is a BIG stretch to describe this budget. I don't think anyone will argue that high COL areas take a huge chunk of change out of one's salary, but this budget shows a sizable amount for vacations and $2k for charities and $5k for children's lessons. That is HARDLY "barely scraping by." True, it's not the budget of a truly wealthy person, but it is orders of magnitude more comfortable and full of little luxuries than everyone making...say...LESS than $200k. This is about our HHI and while we sure don't feel rich, we are able to save quite a bit and have a nice middle-class life. We've had to start paying attention to our budget, for sure, but we have no debt, which is huge.

The fallacy of this article, and overall mindset around here, is that things like being able to save for retirement and give your kids nice lessons and even TAKE vacations (let alone nice ones) ARE ALL LUXURIES! Not entitlements!

You had better put every penny of that into a college fund for your $250,000 per kid undergrad degree. No money left over for emergency or health crisis. Believe me I know. I have breast cancer and a good job and United Health Care has broken us.

Anonymous wrote:For starters, do not get a 3K mortgage (that is 36K/12 months).

You can save money on food simply by digital/paper coupons.

Who has time to mess around with coupons? Seriously.