Anonymous wrote:It’s still possible but not in DC. Like it or not, we pay a premium to live here. You just have to be upfront with yourself about that and own your choices. It was the same when I lived in Manhattan in the early 2000s.

This. I am from a dumpy town in PA. If I moved back there, even with the inevitable pay cut, I'd live like a king. This is the price you pay to be here.

This is so confusing to me. I make 100k, my husband makes a smidge more, we can afford anything we need and most things we want. Mortgage is our only debt. What are people spending these huge amounts of money on? We have 3 kids, a nice house in a great neighborhood, newish cars, happy lives. I can't imagine what we would do with more money tbh.

Anonymous wrote:I love how working parents expect childcare to work at subhuman salaries

People aren't expecting subhuman salaries but there is a limit on how much people can pay for childcare before it's not feasible for working parents.

At least I like my job OP and won’t waste the best years of my life doing mind numbing work. To each his own. It’s important to me to spend my time doing something I value. I make 140k which is more than my siblings in different parts of the country. We are a 2 income household and that works for us because neither of us would have been a great stay at home parent. So we are well off and plenty comfortable.

Oh and we’ve had some spectacular vacations including a month long road trip out west and some abroad. Not every year, but I feel pretty lucky to have been able to go on them.

We live somewhere you’d probably sneer at but we love our neighbors and it’s a convenient location. And our house might not meet your standards, at 2400 sq ft, but it seems big enough to me.

Good that you’re happy where you ended up but I don’t understand the need to tell others their life doesn’t measure up by comparison.

It’s still possible but not in DC. Like it or not, we pay a premium to live here. You just have to be upfront with yourself about that and own your choices. It was the same when I lived in Manhattan in the early 2000s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many people here are such snobs. My neighbor came over to our house and made a comment like "I can't imagine living with this kitchen." WTH? There is absolutely nothing wrong with our kitchen. The cabinets are old and the appliances don't match but everything works well. My teenage son asked me what she meant after she left. Teach your kids what is important. To me, that is my family and their health and happiness. Everything else is a bonus.

Oh please, people make this comment touring most $1.5mil houses in DC. Lots of old poorly maintained shacks where even buying the third cheapest Home Depot oven sets your house apart from the rest.

Wow. You can’t see how rude it is to make such a comment to the owner of the kitchen who is not selling the house but is a neighbor?

Or are YOU the neighbor who made such a trashy comment?

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is right and PP is right about housing costs. For those of you disagreeing, you clearly aren’t trying to buy a house NOW. And Mr. Boomer, yes going camping without my cell phone would make me happier - for like 2 days - but then I’d have to come back to the reality that I’m renting an expensive condo for God knows how long because I cannot afford to buy a house.

Lol I’m not a boomer, I’m gen x but maybe that’s worse these days?. I did buy a sub 500k small house in an exurb before the pandemic, and that was lucky.

But Look, everyone thinks they want to live in Bethesda and that’s fine but it will make you feel poor just like it does to live in Manhattan. You need to own that and recognize how it’s really a mirage.

I actually choose to work half time so we can reasonably manage our three kids. Our combined income is 250 but obviously it could be higher. It’s not really about income for us it’s about time/priorities. My friends who live in Bethesda with an only child chose to do private school, so they work many hours to afford that lifestyle, that works for them. Other friends opted for a townhouse in Rockville to afford two kids. That is how they choose to use their time and money.

Op implies no one has a choice. It’s not true. Op thinks his choices are the only way he can be happy but he’s clearly not that happy. He likely doesn’t know what he really wants because he could easily find it in this day and age. In most important ways Umc has more options than previous generations, not less. People who don’t see this are just fooling themselves. Bethesda was a rural suburb to our parents. Same with Rockville. Everyone made trade offs.

Just coming here to note that according to most calculators, for the DC area, the middle range of income is between 70K and 150K for a family of 4.


But I sympathize with what appears to be OP's real gripe - the fact that some people are richer than others, after making certain choices that not young adults understand will close or open certain financial doors.

The truth is that a lot of people in service-oriented professions do not seek out money as a first priority. Some STEM degrees never lead to wealth. Publicly-funded research, the one working on your cancer and your diabetes, is one of them. And some Humanities degrees can be parlayed into higher paying careers. It's a matter of luck, social networking skills, interest...

So for me, the important thing is to avoid disparaging other people's choices. There are highly intelligent, highly able people in all walks of life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how working parents expect childcare to work at subhuman salaries

They also expected schoolteachers to go back to the classroom by fall 2020 while they still refuse to return to the office so at least there’s consistency in their bizarre views.

True.

Anonymous wrote:Or we had the American dream stolen from us. One household earner and nice lifestyle with college and vacations attainable.

Wtf. Most Americans have never experienced that dream.

Anonymous wrote:I love how working parents expect childcare to work at subhuman salaries

They also expected schoolteachers to go back to the classroom by fall 2020 while they still refuse to return to the office so at least there’s consistency in their bizarre views.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks I am not in DC but it's because of where you live, it's the housing costs, and the overpriced everything. Move someplace not in a VHCOL area and you can have a really nice house, private school, college and vacations on that salary. Lots of places you can move that still have good schools: Research Triangle, Gainesville, Columbus, St. Louis suburbs, nicer Detroit suburbs (they exist), New England just not Boston, parts of Connecticut, Main Line Philadelphia, Cincinnati, parts of Dallas, Rochester NY, Charlottesville VA, the list goes on. These places are still affordable (for now anyway) and are set to massively appreciate.

Do you think we're in the DC area because we LIKE it?

I do like it.

I like it too.

I love how working parents expect childcare to work at subhuman salaries

My wife quit work in 2002 for good when second born as no point working as commute, daycare, dry cleaning and lunches ate up whole salary. When third born would have been negative of still working

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks I am not in DC but it's because of where you live, it's the housing costs, and the overpriced everything. Move someplace not in a VHCOL area and you can have a really nice house, private school, college and vacations on that salary. Lots of places you can move that still have good schools: Research Triangle, Gainesville, Columbus, St. Louis suburbs, nicer Detroit suburbs (they exist), New England just not Boston, parts of Connecticut, Main Line Philadelphia, Cincinnati, parts of Dallas, Rochester NY, Charlottesville VA, the list goes on. These places are still affordable (for now anyway) and are set to massively appreciate.

Do you think we're in the DC area because we LIKE it?

I do like it.