Am I alone here?

[lola_granola]

Not to belabor the point, but this came up in my Hungarian class today. Somebody referred to a family making $250,000 as middle class. I objected that $250k = very rich. One other person in my class thought that would make you upper middle class, and one other person agreed with me and said you could buy anything you wanted with $250k. (Well, I

Comments

[the_mad_laugher]

Well... in looking at your list, I'd say I do several of those things at my under-$50K a year salary. Like, I started a retirement fund about six or seven years ago when I was making far less than I do now. I'd pay good money at Ann Taylor Loft for a pair of pants that fit right; going cheap on that means I'd never be able to wear any pair of pants (although I must say that Kohl's seems to have some excellent selections for petite pants at under $30). I have my nails done every three weeks, and pedicures every six weeks or so (if I didn't have my nails done, I'd bite them to the quick. It's a necessity). I don't have a personal trainer, but I do have a gym membership. I also own my own home and have almost finished paying off my student loans on time and without ever deferring or defaulting. And, I have to say that I DO pay for the better meat and fish, mainly because I care about quality; that said, I only do it every so often, due to the fact that I probably eat vegetarian at home more than I do a meal with meat in it

[lola_granola]

Well, I think maybe you DO qualify as rich, since you make that much money and don't have a family yet. I'm setting $100,000 a year as my definition of rich for a family of four or five people. If you were married with two kids and had a total household income of $50k, you definitely wouldn't be rich, but when you're just supporting yourself, maybe you are.
I'm going to do another post about what I mean by rich.

Boats

[yanigisawa]

We may need to differentiate on boats... fishing boats shouldn't qualify as making one rich. Jen's dad has several fishing boats, yet I wouldn't consider them rich, definitely comfortable, but not rich.

Perhaps a better metric may be to say if one owns a second home (not that they have paid off either house, merely that they own a second one) and can still afford all of the above?

Re: Boats

[lola_granola]

Well, obviously, owning a single speedboat that you take to Beaver Lake doesn't make you rich. When you say they own several fishing boats, do you mean that they're small business owners, and that's their source of income? I don't count business-related ownership toward being rich, you know? If they own several boats just for their own enjoyment, though, that might make them rich. (I don't see why one family would need to own multiple fishing boats for recreation, though.)

[ext_130630]

Way cool of you to take Hungarian! I have two stories that reflect my own perspective on being rich. One involves a Hungarian

[lola_granola]

I enjoyed reading this response. And I agree that relative to many, many people in this world, I am fabulously wealthy. Going to Senegal for those few weeks did make me realize how nice it is to be able to assume that any house I enter will have a toilet that actually flushes.
Incidentally, I also understand that it's easier for me since I'm not supporting a child on my salary!
One of my fellow students is from China, and for the first two years here, her husband was unemployed (and not allowed to find work for visa reasons), so her TA salary had to support her, her husband, and their young son (he's 8 or 9 now). Her husband is now finishing up a master's degree, which hasn't actually increased their income (he only got enough support for a tuition waiver, and he doesn't even have that for his last semester), but, in her words, "At least he has something to do besides sit at home and complain."
Anyway, things are worse for her than for me.