Anonymous wrote:My grandmother went from being unbelievably wealthy/powerful to being middle/upper-middle class. She had never cooked or turned on a stove before in her entire life (always had maids), never cleaned anything, never drove (always had a driver), never went outside the gates of her home without bodyguards, never had to push her own childrens' strollers(round-the-clock live-in nannies), never paid bills (always had a personal assistant), to having to do those things. It was a really hard transition.

Anonymous wrote:This is happening to my DH, born and raised in the DC area, both his parents were surgeons and invested their money very very well. They bought up real estate in now exceptional areas back when it was cheap, invested in hotels, and got in on some big IPOs. Private school all the way, first class travel for multiple vacations, very high end designer clothes, 2 homes in London, villa in Dubai, Upper East Side penthouse, housekeepers, 6 figure donations to charities, and sports cars. Due to some shady deals a relative got the parents involved in, their net worth has come down to about 7 million total.

Luckily, he is a doctor himself and with the assistance his parents provided prior to their downfall, we live debt and mortgage free so we are able to send our kids to private school and with dual incomes, we live a nice UMC lifestyle, but nowhere near how he grew up. His father used to fly him to London to buy his clothes and now he buys all his clothes from outlet malls. He's totally fine with all of this, in fact he finds it quite amusing. We're a happy little family that understands money doesn't buy happiness, but to me as a person who grew with next to nothing, this is all very interesting. I can say that I don't think I would be as well adjusted and normal as him, but I guess women process differently than men.

Anonymous wrote:
This is an interesting question. I grew up UMC, in this area. Now, DH and I have jobs that, while not different in education level or social status, pay less than my parents' fields. We make about 170k HHI, my parents probably made the equivalent of 200k or 225k at our ages. While that doesn't sound like that big a difference, I worry that combined with the rising cost of living around here, and much higher cost of college tuition, we won't be able to provide everything to our kids that my parents provided to me.


We're in the same boat. Growing up I think my parents made around 250k, we are similarly educated and make around 120k hhi now, will probably max out about same HHI as you. We just bought a "starter" house for double what my parents paid.

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother went from being unbelievably wealthy/powerful to being middle/upper-middle class. She had never cooked or turned on a stove before in her entire life (always had maids), never cleaned anything, never drove (always had a driver), never went outside the gates of her home without bodyguards, never had to push her own childrens' strollers(round-the-clock live-in nannies), never paid bills (always had a personal assistant), to having to do those things. It was a really hard transition.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the Minneapolis suburbs, where you can live a really nice quality of life (beautiful new home, great vacations, etc) without a huge income.

Now that I live in DC, I see so many friends who grew up UMC (with their dad working as a federal government attorney and their mom as a SAHM!) Now, it takes two incomes to get something even approaching the lifestyle they had growing up.

DC is so expensive! I like living here (and we have good HHI), but it does make me cringe to see so many people eeking by, when they could be living large elsewhere. There are a lot of other good places to live in the US.

Anonymous wrote:Parents came from wealthy families and we grew up upper middle class. Sister and I went to good colleges and my brother decided to drop out and become a boat mechanic. Later when he had problems with high blood pressure, he had to quit working on boats (too hot) but he went on to nursing school and was a nurse for several years.

I always thought he was a smart guy who was doing what he wanted to do and respected him for it. In fact, my parents weren't too good at the career thing themselves (too much dabbling in different fields and relying on inherited money) and so when my brother went to diesel mechanic school and then graduated and got a job doing that, I really looked at that as an inspiration when I myself was struggling in graduate school. And when he couldn't be a mechanic anymore, he reinvented himself and became a nurse! Really impressive.

But....I think he always regretted not finishing college when he was young and he felt that he had not lived up to his potential. But that may have been a factor of his alcoholism that killed him at a fairly young age. It also was a factor in two divorces and him giving up parental rights to his children (huge mistake). So it's hard to separate that devastating impact of alcoholism on his sense of self from the fact that he didn't take a traditional upper middle class path.

But the alcoholism thing wasn't related to the class issues as far as I can tell. We have lots of alcoholics in the family of all class backgrounds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the Minneapolis suburbs, where you can live a really nice quality of life (beautiful new home, great vacations, etc) without a huge income.

Now that I live in DC, I see so many friends who grew up UMC (with their dad working as a federal government attorney and their mom as a SAHM!) Now, it takes two incomes to get something even approaching the lifestyle they had growing up.

DC is so expensive! I like living here (and we have good HHI), but it does make me cringe to see so many people eeking by, when they could be living large elsewhere. There are a lot of other good places to live in the US.

I love the way people are always like, "Just move! You could be living so much better elsewhere!" without regard for the fact that a lot of people live in DC, not because they love the high COLA, but because their industry is based here and moving would require switching industries, passing another bar, getting re-licensed, etc. My job exists around major urban centers - there is no market for what I do in Minneapolis (nor do I want to freeze my tail off, if I did, I'd have moved to Canada long ago). Nearly everyone I know in my field who's moved away from DC, NY, Chicago, etc. has gone somewhere that there were one to three employers in the field, and when they got laid off, finding another job, even one not as lucrative, was very difficult. At least two are now doing remote consulting work for DC-based companies - for decent pay, but having to pay your own taxes and benefits.

And it's eking (from eke, not eek). Eek what the fainthearted say when they see a rodent.

Fair enough. But I do believe that several studies have shown that DC residents pay a larger share of their income for housing than do people in other cities. It's just a bummer, and people are missing out on having a nice house. My DH and I are also kind of "stuck" in DC, but I will encourage my kids to take into account, when choosing a career, how mobile that career might be. (For example, my brother is a doctor, and like most people in health care, can choose where to live.)