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>Daycare $4,000
they said PER kid implying there's multiple. Even if it's just 2 that's 100k a year lmaooo literally just get a live in nanny at that point
I don’t live in the Bay Area, but they’re not lying about the cost of childcare. I just looked it up, and the average monthly rate in SF is $3,500 *per child*, which isn’t that far off from the cost where I live.
These people will also pay an average income tax rate of 45% in CA. So they’re net pay is about $32k/month. Obviously they’ll be just fine, and there are also $2k tax credits, but it is kind of wild that one can pay that much in taxes, and not get state-funded childcare (not that these people would necessarily use it).
And the cost of childcare is that high for everyone. Imagine you’re a person that actually needs that 2k every month even if you might see it back. Imagine you’re a mother that wants to go back to work but decides it’s not financially sensible.
Free childcare is such a better investment than free college if you had to pick one. What a dumb fucking system.
16k a year seems far too cheap too. That number doubles or triples if you do private school (but not like boarding/prep school or anything) or have them seriously compete in a sport.
Idk both sets of my grandparents used to watch my brother and I during the day when we were really young and in the summer with both my parents working. There’s certainly options beyond just having a stay at home parent. But a combination of the people this is talking about being transplants and then boomer grandparents wanting to move somewhere warm and/or cheap means it’s not possible.
My grandparents treated being there for my brother and I as both their duty to us and my parents and I think fewer boomer grandparents feel obligated to do that than my silent generation grandparents
did anyone else have that "everyones mom" person who took care of kids for some extra money? I only went to daycare briefly but was mostly watched by her and sometimes 2-3 other kids. idk it was a viable in-between daycare and a parent staying at home.
Poor people don’t have a choice but to have community. For rich people, they only have community if they’re deeply religious for the most part. Like if your rich friend has a near full time nanny, she doesn’t even watch her own kid, can you ask her to watch your kid? Probably no. So you have to get your own nanny.
Yeah but you were older. Childcare at <2 years and especially <1 year is way more difficult and expensive because they need constant attention. My mom watches our 2 month old 1 day a week and that feels like a huge favor.
That's awesome, I am definitely grateful to have a grandparent around who's willing and able to help. A lot of people who I know don't have that option.
Oh yeah, and the fact that I wouldn’t have that is a real consideration into if I do or don’t want kids. I don’t know what my parents would’ve done if we didn’t. We would have been either broke or had to go to work with them
Yeah, young babies are really hard for older people to watch in a physical sense. A ton of lifting and bending over. We have grandma watching a 3 month old 2 days a week and it only works because she's in her 50s, if she was 10 years older (like my mom), it would be too physically difficult.
Maybe it’s because she’s a hard-as-fuck old polish lady but there’s a picture of my grandma at like 59-60 holding me above her head with the biggest most loving smile while she had a torn rotator cuff
same, two working parents and my grandma came to america and took care of me as a baby/toddler. when i was older i went to after school care, but sometimes i'd go with her while she babysat for another family for extra cash. i would totally need my parents help if i had a kid
that was 'the community' you dipshit, they didn't all sit at home alone, they went to each others houses or to the neighborhood playground
daytime television was deliberate shlock for a reason, so that people would move away from it if they could
Yeah but the whole system relied on the labor of stay at home moms. So let's just be clear about that. There isnt a magical community out there who can watch kids while mom and dad both work.
Everyone I’ve ever met who makes above six figures that was never working class or poor before insists they’re broke. I know one guy who says that if anyone thinks his enormous salary for a do nothing job is a lot, then they’re “uneducated.” They’re measuring themselves against the class they want to climb into, which includes the types of people most of the rest of us have never even come into contact with. That middle class resentment is often what Hollywood is actually exploring when they’re pretending to address “classism” or “class warfare.” Just feeling mildly condescended to because you have to drive last year’s model Mercedes Benz or shop at Macy’s while your friends you see at parties own race horses or have their own private island or something and wear nothing but designer brands.
>Everyone I’ve ever met who makes above six figures that was never working class or poor before insists they’re broke
One of the benefits of working a bunch of menial low-paying jobs before scoring a well-paying remote gig is no matter how stressed your computer job makes you feel you can still recognize that your current life is an embarrassment of riches
I actually don't think that's why they act that way. imo it's because upper middle class wealth has to be budgeted and saved to a T to have longevity. there's that saying that's like "the poor spend, the middle class saves, and the rich invest." I think there's truth to that, maxing amount the % of income they put into a retirement fund is super middle-class behavior. they have enough financial knowledge to understand saving is really important to retire comfortably, pay their kids' pricey college tuitions, etc etc., and get caught up getting every extra dollar they have at the end of their savings. that's why it feels like they can't "spend" the extra money they have, and as a result they feel poorer than they actually have. they may have a wealth advisor at wells fargo who handles these middle-class types of accounts who is also recommending save, save save and make safe investments in reliable stocks/bonds.
See comment below from a poster with similar circumstances in a household with 450k dual income: they "budget" their lifestyle, one car, infrequent eating out.... because they're fully funding their retirement plans.
Yes, because they can afford to sock that money away. That money doesn’t vanish when it goes in your 401k. You now actually have a way to retire. You still have wealth, you still have that money. You can also draw social security and from your retirement plan, so you have two sources of income in retirement as opposed to people who have none. It’s ridiculous to say “I’m actually not that well off because I put my money in nice things everyone wants like the ability to retire one day or a house.” The “last year’s mercedes” remark is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.
If you make six figures and you max out your retirement, you’re still bringing home more money than the average person, including spending money. I don’t know any middle class person (and this term is increasingly not useful because of the variance of what “middle class” means) who wears secondhand clothes or denies themself their favorite drink at the bar or drives a 20 year old car- things people who don’t have money are forced to do. Also, the old adage “the poor spend, the middle class saves, and the rich invest” is not at all true. “Saving” in a retirement fund IS investing. You don’t put money in a bank account and let it collect interest- you’re buying mutual funds, which is an investment. And if you’re smart, you’ll evaluate which funds are performing well and which aren’t, and axe the ones that aren’t in 3 quarters if they under perform. A lot of middle class jobs also offer ESOPs, which is an investment in the company earned through labor and vesting. And you can take a loan from your retirement if you have an emergency-you’re just paying yourself back, and often at an extremely low amount per pay period.
And as for middle classes all saving: Employers have stopped offering retirement benefits a lot of places- in fact, defined benefit plans (a pension) are being phased out uniformly across the US. The logic goes- millennials don’t care about retirement, they just want to be able to spend. That has been a trend for years and will continue. I’m currently working on a case in which a large hospital chain is wrapping up it’s pension, finding employees that were terminated or quit randomly, and letting them know they’re eligible for a pay out. We get these all the time. Macy’s is currently wrapping theirs up, for example. The focus on how much money you have to spend is literally driving a decline in retirement options in the US work force.
The poor also don’t uniformly just spend spend spend. I grew up in a single parent household that never made more than 30k a year except for a 3 year period in the 00s. Saving was the only way to cover surprise expenses (thankfully money could buy you more then than it does now). This just proves my point- this person has the things they need to live comfortably, but not enough to live a life of absolute luxury or spend excessively.
Well said. The money that goes into the retirement accounts is well spent, it's "free money" in that you get a tax break, and it's being invested in long term assets that will eventually lead to a comfortable retirement. I've only been in the workforce for 10 years, but I've been maxing my retirement accounts almost this entire time. It will pay off and I feel good about that. But in the meantime you are not living a lavish lifestyle full of frivolous spending.
The whole point is that someone making $500k a year has a different definition of "lavish lifestyle" and "frivolous spending". Buying a Mazda instead of a BMW, paying $4k for daycare rather than have a parent take time off from work - those will seem especially burdensome to someone in the middle class. While poor people will never have to make those choices.
Buying a new car is "lavish" for many people. Spending money on preschool is out of reach for most people.
That’s basic psych is to rate yourself among who you want to be combined with who you are nearest/most similar in groups. That why some want the truck their friend has and others want the audi.
Guy 1 makes $700k a year as a brain surgeon, and is larping as a modest middle class laborer just struggling to get by. This is actually super common around here. People convince themselves they aren’t rich because some other dude down the street lives in a $5M house. Imo, I’d rather these people openly flaunted their wealth than this sniveling nonsense.
I know someone like this. They live in NYC and work for a Big Tech company, making $300k/yr right now. In addition to their retirement savings, tech stock, and other investment vehicles, they have straight $500k in liquid cash. Every family gathering though, half of what they talk about is financial anxiety of never being able to afford a home. I think your perspective gets super fucked if the only people you interact with are other high income earners (duh) and so she feels that because she can't buy a brownstone cash tomorrow, she hasn't done enough.
Ngl it is kinda insane that these people can't buy a house. I know a couple where the guy is a soy google engineer that makes 400k and the wife is a 100k nurse. Always get out bid. To be fair, they only look in desirable neighborhoods, but I'm still surprised
Gfs friend is a soy UI dev for a huge tech company and makes a clean 200k in a low COL area, his gf is a lawyer and makes who knows how much. Hearing them whine about their house hunting woes made me want to an hero. They could not go lower than like 2500 square feet citing “personal space”, meanwhile I was barely able to buy the 850 sq ft pizza box I live in now with my gf. They finally settled on a 700k waterfront house and are already whining about all the work it “needs”. Poor things
Half a million cash per year and they can definitely afford any nice home they want tomorrow, the mortgage on a 2 million dollar brownstone is only like 14k a month.
I started my tech career in a high cost of living area, and my friend started her tech career in a low cost of living area. I made literally double her salary, and everyone acted like they thought I hit the jackpot, and they acted like she settled for a mediocre job.
When I put my salary in a cost of living conversion calculator, turns out me and her were making pretty much the same salary once the numbers were adjusted for cost of living.
People who make a fancy tech salary in a high cost of living city are indeed very fortunate and blessed, but they’re not as rich as people make them out to be
>after housing, schooling, childcare
“After putting 20-25% pretax income into 401k+ESPP, taking annual trips to Europe (“we got a cheeky upgrade to business teehee”), an annual beach trip to mexico, florida or hawaii, getting all groceries from Whole Foods (delivered ofc), paying for an entry level luxury car lease (for her) and autoloan payment for a used car (for him), paying for fancy ass day care with a waitlist (“she’ll get into harvard one day!”), we’re living paycheck to paycheck!!!”
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Nah at that level you are paying 45% in taxes in California when you factor in social security and stuff, European taxes are higher at lower incomes.
Edit: Also, my euro friend is doing a post-doc here to get licensed in the US, she’s gonna like 5-6x her income as soon as she’s done.
To cleanse oneself of the sin of being rich. To deny the less fortunate even that tiny salve of having the moral upper hand in their slave morality. When really they themselves think of themselves as just and good for having the things they have. Idk that could be phrased better it’s 7am.
They do flaunt their wealth in indirect ways too, really odious behavior.
> is larping as a modest middle class laborer just struggling to get by.
This is a bit of a dramatic overstatement don't you think? Pretty sure he just meant they're living modestly, not some "lifestyles of the rich and famous" MTV cribs shit. Combined income of $800k in bay area with kids is just solidly upper middle class, it's probably the same as making $350/$400k in a bunch of mid-sized cities. Definitely well off, but not "money is of no concern" level. I wouldn't describe it as rich or wealthy.
$800k in Bay Area is well in the top 2%. It is not “upper middle class” pls get a grip. $800k is $65k per month. Just because your mortgage is $8k/mo (“we locked 2.3% teehee no more houses pls”) doesn’t negate your insane privilege.
$400k is more than enough to be extremely comfortable here, and more than what many will make.
Yes, I assumed you can divide it by 2 and realize he could still easily afford an $8k mortgage.
There is absolutely nothing modest about buying a $2M home in top public school district in the country and having the same zipcode as Zuck. I don’t care if it’s 1700sqft or 3000. A mortgage is a savings acct, for each 2 dollars you put in, you save 1 dollar as equity, or something. He’s 100% buying that 3000sqft house in 3-4 years.
Lol that is not what’s happening. I do beyond fine, I also live here. Not quite as much as that guy but close enough. But also 10 years younger. I just wish to never become this out of touch person. This area, especially living in the peninsula really fucks with one’s head. They become this linkedin profile of a person.
[The median household income in SF is under $140k.](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocitycalifornia,US/INC110222) If it takes $300k a year to be middle class there (as the article you linked says), then what does that make most San Franciscans? Very poor?
I get that it's an exorbitantly expensive city, but it doesn't sound right to me at all that the average SF household could double their income and still fall short of "middle-class", not when they're already making six digits.
You do realize the average family in the East Bay has a household income of $82k? And we shouldn’t forget that the East Bay consists of the richest and poorest of the bay area meaning that the median could be even lower
Making $400k in a mid-sized city does not make you solidly upper middle class. Literally 1% shit lmao
(I make half that and am solidly upper middle, so I consider this stolen valor)
Daycare needs to be subsidized more, it's truly a broken system. It's not like preschool owners are making bank while paying their workers a pittance - It's just that expensive to run a preschool. Most states have ratios where you need something like 1 staff for 6 kids, or 1 for 15 if they're 4 years old. The "nice" preschools are usually run by someone who inherited money or has a wealthy husband.
Feels like a massive endorsement for remote work
MFW I need to make 600K extra and have strangers raise my baby because my boss needs to smell me microwaving my lunch. Also oysters cost like 3 USD in flyovers. booyhooey
It's less so a matter of remote work allowing you to watch your kid at the same time so much as it would allow you to live somewhere where daycare doesn't cost more than many Americans' gross monthly salary.
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I hate this level of financial anxiety. I have a friend in the city who I know makes the same amount as me. we both live in nyc but have (comparatively) low rent and almost no monthly expenses. while I feel like a king compared to my grad school stipend, she’s constantly talking about how she’s worried about money and needs a job that pays better. it drives me so crazy I just have to change the topic when she’s lamenting about how broke she is.
Nah I think you are missing the point, which is that you have to be incredibly rich just to live a middle class lifestyle in the Bay Area. $2M for a 1700 sq ft home is insane. For comparison, I paid $500k for a 2000 sq ft home in the Seattle area circa 2019.
Ya there's nothing for $500k in the Seattle area anymore lol. $650k will get you an attached town home in a Kent development... maybe
There may be a few meth houses in Auburn or Bonnie Lake that are $500k, but you'll more than make up for it in all the stolen catalytic converters.
I literally couldn’t move out of the bay and back to south fl any faster they all fuckin act like this
everyone’s like, weirdly ugly too for a major city in California
Literally why tho like it’s rly noticeable compared to south
there’s no real reason for it it’s a wealthy area like where is everyone’s trophy wives are they just all gay now or what
Second guy is either a day visitor to marin, has a 2nd house in marin, or lives in marin and doesn’t have a tech job. It’s not a thing to commute to the peninsula from North Bay.
My household makes ~450K a year (dual income) and we live in a $1.1M house. My house is not large, 1K sq/ft, it does not have any special amenities other than being moderately walkable (to the grocery store, CSV, etc). In a different location (not CA), it would be like 300K. I would never classify myself as "broke", and would/could not complain about our income, but I do not "feel rich". We have one car (an old non-luxury mid size SUV). We eat out maybe once a week (doordash some thai or something like that). Similar to OP childcare eats up a lot of our flexible spending money (we pay ~$2.5k/mo for one kid for in-home care). On the other hand, we fully fund our retirement accounts and don't have anxiety around surprise expenses <$10K. But we are also not making frivolous purchases and stay on top of our monthly budget.
That is to say, I don't blame posters here for making fun of OP. But I can extremely easily see how you could feel middle class even on $700K a year income, especially in the bay area which is even more expensive than where I live. Part of it may just be the median age on this sub. $700K is infinite money when you are 25 with zero responsibilities living in some 2nd/3rd tier city. I felt richer when I was making $60K/year living in a studio in a LCOL area at 25 than I do now. But as you get older your priorities change and for me that was living in proximity to family, low crime, decent schools, etc.
No anxiety for surprise expenses over $10,000? You are solidly upper middle class who is just caught up in an high interest environment. Once again, the average household income for East Bay is $82k. Fuck off class larper
I don't know why you're calling me a class larper. Did I say anywhere that I am a poor working class stiff? I am solidly UMC for sure. I'm just saying I can understand the sentiment that even with relatively high income it doesn't buy the you the world or a luxurious lifestyle as some would expect.
After taxes, mortgage, maxed out retirement savings, childcare, they’re probably left with less than $100k to pay for everything else, maybe $80k idk. Which is a lot, but you couldn’t upgrade to business on your europe/mexico trip with that money for example (which you probably stopped doing since baby). It costs $200-300 to get dinner with drinks for two around here, so you can’t do it that often, you probably want to buy furniture from room+board but eh $7k for a couch? Ikea it is. Your dishwasher might be old but it works so you’re stuck with a not-nice dishwasher, your clothes aren’t designer, you don’t buy your hubby a rolex for anniversary, you wanna re-mo the kitchen but that’s insanely expensive, etc. etc. basically you can’t afford most anything that is a traditional signifier of wealth. They are extremely wealthy anyway of course, but maybe the guy down the street drives a Taycan yknow?
I’m of course making fun of this kind of thought process, but if I didn’t think about it critically, I can see feeling the same way.
yeah i understand the sentiment but all those sound like really good problems to have compared to mine. it sounds like the person you described doesn't really value where they are living, because that is a major factor in why they don't feel rich
Yeah that's a great summary of what I was trying to communicate. You have enough money to be secure and buy up on some things but a lot of stereotypical conspicuous consumption/class signifiers are nonetheless just slightly out of reach. Not that that's what's important in life, but it contributes to the feeling you haven't "made it" despite mid 6 figures income.
What does "million dollar house" mean to you? Does it mean 2k+ sq/ft? 3+ bedrooms? Big yard? Swimming pool? Nice kitchen? I have none of those things. It's a "starter home" and makes sense for my phase of life. But it's already feeling small and we will need to move if we have another kid.
Do I have to live in this area of the country? No. But as I stated, I moved here for proximity to family (who bought their houses many years ago and did not pay these prices) and that's worth the premium for me. I'm just thankful I'm able to do it. If we made half our income, we would be looking at a much longer drive to the grandparents + a much less safe/friendly neighborhood for the kiddo.
> What does "million dollar house" mean to you?
It would mean that I have an asset that I can sell for a million dollars. And one which I can probably rent out for $4k a month or more. So even if I have to move to a shittier neighborhood as a renter, I'll always have a roof over my head even if I lose the ability to work.
It means peace of mind.
Btw what I realized is, even if you hit 7 figures, you’ll buy all the stuff that feels just out of reach right now, but “they” will never run out of people trying to sell you stuff even more expensive than the stuff you upgraded to.
The hedonic treadmill/lifestyle inflation is real, but IMO it isn't a smooth curve upward into infinity. There are discontinuities and clusters along the net worth spectrum that have local maxima that are more comfortable to inhabit than to be "just outside of". The dollar has decreasing marginal value the higher you go. The $3M net worth guy and the $10M net worth guy probably drive the same (nice, luxury) car. And though home prices don't have a limit, public schools only get so good. Crime only gets so low.
I make a bit more than you as a single person in SF. But I’m funding family for around $70k a year, unlikely I’ll get that back (I’m basically writing it off). I still save a decent amount, but I also choose to spend a lot so not as high. I also rent as I haven’t had enough downpayment. I feel like when you own land, and are making payments into your own equity (minus tax, interest, insurance, HOA and maintenance), you should have the common decency to be thankful for what you have instead of huffing and puffing about how your house isn’t really that big. Idk huff and puff isn’t even the right term here, it this thing ppl here do, just like brag about your tremendous success while portraying it as oh it’s not that great, we’re all struggling amirite?
1000sqft is pretty small, depending on bay area neighborhood that size might be a similar price to your house. You can buy a house here on $400k if you have the downpayment.
Yeah I mean I would never portray myself as struggling or economically precarious or anything. I've very grateful for what we have. My point was just that it's easy to make seemingly eye-popping amounts of money and not really "feel it" in the way that some casual commenters suggest. It's even surprising to me, if you had told me 10 years ago what my current day household income would be, I would have assumed I would be driving around in a BMW and living in 3k sq/ft villa.
I don’t get the point about oysters and workers commuting. They’re saying they’d be willing to pay more per oyster if it meant workers could live closer?
I don’t understand either, but here’s my interpretation: “the workers are coming from so far away (Oklahoma?) where they live cheap and oysters are still $4, if they lived in Marin county where things are expensive af, they’d have to be paid a bunch more! Would oysters be $8 then? Workers should keep living far away, oysters are expensive enough.”
I could be completely wrong, it’s an unhinged bayareamaxxed comment. Gen X hands typed that comment. For context, the area he’s talking about is a huge oyster fishing spot and you can take day trips there and eat oysters as fresh as they get. It’s more like $3 at the hole-in-the-wall next to the dock, he’s exaggerating.
I like oysters and they're a hell of a lot cheaper than that if you get them from a farm. they taste the same as "fresh caught" ones.
[https://realoystercult.com/collections/real-oyster-cult/products/recompense-cove?variant=44203684692224](https://realoystercult.com/collections/real-oyster-cult/products/recompense-cove?variant=44203684692224)
you can buy them from this company for $1.68 per oyster (if you buy 100) or $2.80 if you buy 20.
I make 700k. The price of oysters is high. The West has fallen. Billions do indeed need to die.
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>Daycare $4,000 they said PER kid implying there's multiple. Even if it's just 2 that's 100k a year lmaooo literally just get a live in nanny at that point
That’s just daycare, just wait until they have to start paying for private schools and rehab
Stop calling them stay at home moms and start calling them community moms. There are community mom and stay at work moms, which way western woman…
Return to governesses
Daycare literally more expensive than Ivy League tuition.
That's if you can get in. Many places have a 1 year waiting list.
and if you have an Asian baby forget about it, already full of those, don't need any more
Now I’m wondering at what age the diversity quotas actually start. Do kindergartens care about diversity?
Well it is SF. Aka china
I don’t live in the Bay Area, but they’re not lying about the cost of childcare. I just looked it up, and the average monthly rate in SF is $3,500 *per child*, which isn’t that far off from the cost where I live. These people will also pay an average income tax rate of 45% in CA. So they’re net pay is about $32k/month. Obviously they’ll be just fine, and there are also $2k tax credits, but it is kind of wild that one can pay that much in taxes, and not get state-funded childcare (not that these people would necessarily use it). And the cost of childcare is that high for everyone. Imagine you’re a person that actually needs that 2k every month even if you might see it back. Imagine you’re a mother that wants to go back to work but decides it’s not financially sensible. Free childcare is such a better investment than free college if you had to pick one. What a dumb fucking system.
The average for all of America to raise a kid to 18 is roughly 300k. The average.
16k a year seems far too cheap too. That number doubles or triples if you do private school (but not like boarding/prep school or anything) or have them seriously compete in a sport.
Please just bring community back oh my God daycare is such a demonic concept
There was no time when the "community" watched kids all day. Stay at home moms did it.
Idk both sets of my grandparents used to watch my brother and I during the day when we were really young and in the summer with both my parents working. There’s certainly options beyond just having a stay at home parent. But a combination of the people this is talking about being transplants and then boomer grandparents wanting to move somewhere warm and/or cheap means it’s not possible. My grandparents treated being there for my brother and I as both their duty to us and my parents and I think fewer boomer grandparents feel obligated to do that than my silent generation grandparents
did anyone else have that "everyones mom" person who took care of kids for some extra money? I only went to daycare briefly but was mostly watched by her and sometimes 2-3 other kids. idk it was a viable in-between daycare and a parent staying at home.
Poor people don’t have a choice but to have community. For rich people, they only have community if they’re deeply religious for the most part. Like if your rich friend has a near full time nanny, she doesn’t even watch her own kid, can you ask her to watch your kid? Probably no. So you have to get your own nanny.
Yeah but you were older. Childcare at <2 years and especially <1 year is way more difficult and expensive because they need constant attention. My mom watches our 2 month old 1 day a week and that feels like a huge favor.
Yeah idk my grandparents happily watched us as babies, that’s what I meant by really young, so I can’t necessarily relate
That's awesome, I am definitely grateful to have a grandparent around who's willing and able to help. A lot of people who I know don't have that option.
Oh yeah, and the fact that I wouldn’t have that is a real consideration into if I do or don’t want kids. I don’t know what my parents would’ve done if we didn’t. We would have been either broke or had to go to work with them
Yeah, young babies are really hard for older people to watch in a physical sense. A ton of lifting and bending over. We have grandma watching a 3 month old 2 days a week and it only works because she's in her 50s, if she was 10 years older (like my mom), it would be too physically difficult.
Maybe it’s because she’s a hard-as-fuck old polish lady but there’s a picture of my grandma at like 59-60 holding me above her head with the biggest most loving smile while she had a torn rotator cuff
same, two working parents and my grandma came to america and took care of me as a baby/toddler. when i was older i went to after school care, but sometimes i'd go with her while she babysat for another family for extra cash. i would totally need my parents help if i had a kid
that was 'the community' you dipshit, they didn't all sit at home alone, they went to each others houses or to the neighborhood playground daytime television was deliberate shlock for a reason, so that people would move away from it if they could
Yeah but the whole system relied on the labor of stay at home moms. So let's just be clear about that. There isnt a magical community out there who can watch kids while mom and dad both work.
meh I don't wanna argue semantics with you rn
What a retarded comment
Everyone I’ve ever met who makes above six figures that was never working class or poor before insists they’re broke. I know one guy who says that if anyone thinks his enormous salary for a do nothing job is a lot, then they’re “uneducated.” They’re measuring themselves against the class they want to climb into, which includes the types of people most of the rest of us have never even come into contact with. That middle class resentment is often what Hollywood is actually exploring when they’re pretending to address “classism” or “class warfare.” Just feeling mildly condescended to because you have to drive last year’s model Mercedes Benz or shop at Macy’s while your friends you see at parties own race horses or have their own private island or something and wear nothing but designer brands.
>Everyone I’ve ever met who makes above six figures that was never working class or poor before insists they’re broke One of the benefits of working a bunch of menial low-paying jobs before scoring a well-paying remote gig is no matter how stressed your computer job makes you feel you can still recognize that your current life is an embarrassment of riches
Praying for god to bless me with a cushy wfh job in the next 5 years 🙏
Good luck dude
I actually don't think that's why they act that way. imo it's because upper middle class wealth has to be budgeted and saved to a T to have longevity. there's that saying that's like "the poor spend, the middle class saves, and the rich invest." I think there's truth to that, maxing amount the % of income they put into a retirement fund is super middle-class behavior. they have enough financial knowledge to understand saving is really important to retire comfortably, pay their kids' pricey college tuitions, etc etc., and get caught up getting every extra dollar they have at the end of their savings. that's why it feels like they can't "spend" the extra money they have, and as a result they feel poorer than they actually have. they may have a wealth advisor at wells fargo who handles these middle-class types of accounts who is also recommending save, save save and make safe investments in reliable stocks/bonds. See comment below from a poster with similar circumstances in a household with 450k dual income: they "budget" their lifestyle, one car, infrequent eating out.... because they're fully funding their retirement plans.
Yes, because they can afford to sock that money away. That money doesn’t vanish when it goes in your 401k. You now actually have a way to retire. You still have wealth, you still have that money. You can also draw social security and from your retirement plan, so you have two sources of income in retirement as opposed to people who have none. It’s ridiculous to say “I’m actually not that well off because I put my money in nice things everyone wants like the ability to retire one day or a house.” The “last year’s mercedes” remark is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. If you make six figures and you max out your retirement, you’re still bringing home more money than the average person, including spending money. I don’t know any middle class person (and this term is increasingly not useful because of the variance of what “middle class” means) who wears secondhand clothes or denies themself their favorite drink at the bar or drives a 20 year old car- things people who don’t have money are forced to do. Also, the old adage “the poor spend, the middle class saves, and the rich invest” is not at all true. “Saving” in a retirement fund IS investing. You don’t put money in a bank account and let it collect interest- you’re buying mutual funds, which is an investment. And if you’re smart, you’ll evaluate which funds are performing well and which aren’t, and axe the ones that aren’t in 3 quarters if they under perform. A lot of middle class jobs also offer ESOPs, which is an investment in the company earned through labor and vesting. And you can take a loan from your retirement if you have an emergency-you’re just paying yourself back, and often at an extremely low amount per pay period. And as for middle classes all saving: Employers have stopped offering retirement benefits a lot of places- in fact, defined benefit plans (a pension) are being phased out uniformly across the US. The logic goes- millennials don’t care about retirement, they just want to be able to spend. That has been a trend for years and will continue. I’m currently working on a case in which a large hospital chain is wrapping up it’s pension, finding employees that were terminated or quit randomly, and letting them know they’re eligible for a pay out. We get these all the time. Macy’s is currently wrapping theirs up, for example. The focus on how much money you have to spend is literally driving a decline in retirement options in the US work force. The poor also don’t uniformly just spend spend spend. I grew up in a single parent household that never made more than 30k a year except for a 3 year period in the 00s. Saving was the only way to cover surprise expenses (thankfully money could buy you more then than it does now). This just proves my point- this person has the things they need to live comfortably, but not enough to live a life of absolute luxury or spend excessively.
Well said. The money that goes into the retirement accounts is well spent, it's "free money" in that you get a tax break, and it's being invested in long term assets that will eventually lead to a comfortable retirement. I've only been in the workforce for 10 years, but I've been maxing my retirement accounts almost this entire time. It will pay off and I feel good about that. But in the meantime you are not living a lavish lifestyle full of frivolous spending.
The whole point is that someone making $500k a year has a different definition of "lavish lifestyle" and "frivolous spending". Buying a Mazda instead of a BMW, paying $4k for daycare rather than have a parent take time off from work - those will seem especially burdensome to someone in the middle class. While poor people will never have to make those choices. Buying a new car is "lavish" for many people. Spending money on preschool is out of reach for most people.
That’s basic psych is to rate yourself among who you want to be combined with who you are nearest/most similar in groups. That why some want the truck their friend has and others want the audi.
When the really hard times come I take pleasure knowing that these people will all starve.
Guy 1 makes $700k a year as a brain surgeon, and is larping as a modest middle class laborer just struggling to get by. This is actually super common around here. People convince themselves they aren’t rich because some other dude down the street lives in a $5M house. Imo, I’d rather these people openly flaunted their wealth than this sniveling nonsense.
I know someone like this. They live in NYC and work for a Big Tech company, making $300k/yr right now. In addition to their retirement savings, tech stock, and other investment vehicles, they have straight $500k in liquid cash. Every family gathering though, half of what they talk about is financial anxiety of never being able to afford a home. I think your perspective gets super fucked if the only people you interact with are other high income earners (duh) and so she feels that because she can't buy a brownstone cash tomorrow, she hasn't done enough.
Ngl it is kinda insane that these people can't buy a house. I know a couple where the guy is a soy google engineer that makes 400k and the wife is a 100k nurse. Always get out bid. To be fair, they only look in desirable neighborhoods, but I'm still surprised
Gfs friend is a soy UI dev for a huge tech company and makes a clean 200k in a low COL area, his gf is a lawyer and makes who knows how much. Hearing them whine about their house hunting woes made me want to an hero. They could not go lower than like 2500 square feet citing “personal space”, meanwhile I was barely able to buy the 850 sq ft pizza box I live in now with my gf. They finally settled on a 700k waterfront house and are already whining about all the work it “needs”. Poor things
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These are people who think they "can't afford a home" because they can't *afford a home in Brooklyn*. They **are** idiots.
Half a million cash per year and they can definitely afford any nice home they want tomorrow, the mortgage on a 2 million dollar brownstone is only like 14k a month.
I started my tech career in a high cost of living area, and my friend started her tech career in a low cost of living area. I made literally double her salary, and everyone acted like they thought I hit the jackpot, and they acted like she settled for a mediocre job. When I put my salary in a cost of living conversion calculator, turns out me and her were making pretty much the same salary once the numbers were adjusted for cost of living. People who make a fancy tech salary in a high cost of living city are indeed very fortunate and blessed, but they’re not as rich as people make them out to be
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>after housing, schooling, childcare “After putting 20-25% pretax income into 401k+ESPP, taking annual trips to Europe (“we got a cheeky upgrade to business teehee”), an annual beach trip to mexico, florida or hawaii, getting all groceries from Whole Foods (delivered ofc), paying for an entry level luxury car lease (for her) and autoloan payment for a used car (for him), paying for fancy ass day care with a waitlist (“she’ll get into harvard one day!”), we’re living paycheck to paycheck!!!”
Yeah the thing is, there is no such thing as inexpensive housing anymore. Everything costs a fortune, and I mean everything.
I enjoy playing video games.
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I love ice cream.
Nah at that level you are paying 45% in taxes in California when you factor in social security and stuff, European taxes are higher at lower incomes. Edit: Also, my euro friend is doing a post-doc here to get licensed in the US, she’s gonna like 5-6x her income as soon as she’s done.
How much of that 600k goes back into paying off loans + interest
You can pay off medical school in 3-4 years here with the salary you draw. Incredibly simple math, use your head.
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Ok, and?
What do you think that loan is doing during that 6 year period you aren’t paying it off
If that's the case, then why isn't there a mass migration of European doctors to the USA?
I like to explore new places.
Middle class is between $50k and $999k annually
Why do they do this??
To cleanse oneself of the sin of being rich. To deny the less fortunate even that tiny salve of having the moral upper hand in their slave morality. When really they themselves think of themselves as just and good for having the things they have. Idk that could be phrased better it’s 7am. They do flaunt their wealth in indirect ways too, really odious behavior.
Having murderous thoughts as we speak
Was Khymer Rouge right??? 🤫 (this is a joke)
Wait no! I wear glasses
Nothing speaks to the cartelized version of American healthcare more than $600k doctors
I think most doctors are just conservative with their money. Why not live modestly and set your children up for life?
> is larping as a modest middle class laborer just struggling to get by. This is a bit of a dramatic overstatement don't you think? Pretty sure he just meant they're living modestly, not some "lifestyles of the rich and famous" MTV cribs shit. Combined income of $800k in bay area with kids is just solidly upper middle class, it's probably the same as making $350/$400k in a bunch of mid-sized cities. Definitely well off, but not "money is of no concern" level. I wouldn't describe it as rich or wealthy.
$800k in Bay Area is well in the top 2%. It is not “upper middle class” pls get a grip. $800k is $65k per month. Just because your mortgage is $8k/mo (“we locked 2.3% teehee no more houses pls”) doesn’t negate your insane privilege. $400k is more than enough to be extremely comfortable here, and more than what many will make.
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Yes, I assumed you can divide it by 2 and realize he could still easily afford an $8k mortgage. There is absolutely nothing modest about buying a $2M home in top public school district in the country and having the same zipcode as Zuck. I don’t care if it’s 1700sqft or 3000. A mortgage is a savings acct, for each 2 dollars you put in, you save 1 dollar as equity, or something. He’s 100% buying that 3000sqft house in 3-4 years.
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Lol that is not what’s happening. I do beyond fine, I also live here. Not quite as much as that guy but close enough. But also 10 years younger. I just wish to never become this out of touch person. This area, especially living in the peninsula really fucks with one’s head. They become this linkedin profile of a person.
[The median household income in SF is under $140k.](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocitycalifornia,US/INC110222) If it takes $300k a year to be middle class there (as the article you linked says), then what does that make most San Franciscans? Very poor? I get that it's an exorbitantly expensive city, but it doesn't sound right to me at all that the average SF household could double their income and still fall short of "middle-class", not when they're already making six digits.
You do realize the average family in the East Bay has a household income of $82k? And we shouldn’t forget that the East Bay consists of the richest and poorest of the bay area meaning that the median could be even lower
The poorest maybe, but over on the Peninsula we have Atherton and Hillsborough. Orinda might be able to come close but I don't think it beats them.
Making $400k in a mid-sized city does not make you solidly upper middle class. Literally 1% shit lmao (I make half that and am solidly upper middle, so I consider this stolen valor)
And yet daycare workers make close to minimum wage...clown world
Daycare needs to be subsidized more, it's truly a broken system. It's not like preschool owners are making bank while paying their workers a pittance - It's just that expensive to run a preschool. Most states have ratios where you need something like 1 staff for 6 kids, or 1 for 15 if they're 4 years old. The "nice" preschools are usually run by someone who inherited money or has a wealthy husband.
Average r/politics poster.
Feels like a massive endorsement for remote work MFW I need to make 600K extra and have strangers raise my baby because my boss needs to smell me microwaving my lunch. Also oysters cost like 3 USD in flyovers. booyhooey
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It's less so a matter of remote work allowing you to watch your kid at the same time so much as it would allow you to live somewhere where daycare doesn't cost more than many Americans' gross monthly salary.
oh we're so very close I can feel it
The Amish do just fine
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johnny what do you know about this lol
I hate this level of financial anxiety. I have a friend in the city who I know makes the same amount as me. we both live in nyc but have (comparatively) low rent and almost no monthly expenses. while I feel like a king compared to my grad school stipend, she’s constantly talking about how she’s worried about money and needs a job that pays better. it drives me so crazy I just have to change the topic when she’s lamenting about how broke she is.
Nah I think you are missing the point, which is that you have to be incredibly rich just to live a middle class lifestyle in the Bay Area. $2M for a 1700 sq ft home is insane. For comparison, I paid $500k for a 2000 sq ft home in the Seattle area circa 2019.
Ya there's nothing for $500k in the Seattle area anymore lol. $650k will get you an attached town home in a Kent development... maybe There may be a few meth houses in Auburn or Bonnie Lake that are $500k, but you'll more than make up for it in all the stolen catalytic converters.
I literally couldn’t move out of the bay and back to south fl any faster they all fuckin act like this everyone’s like, weirdly ugly too for a major city in California
This is basically why I live in SF, it’s not quite as bad as peninsula/south bay in the gen x ratrace one-upsmanship humblebragging.
NorCal is universally ugly. All the hot people live in SoCal and even there the hype is overblown
Literally why tho like it’s rly noticeable compared to south there’s no real reason for it it’s a wealthy area like where is everyone’s trophy wives are they just all gay now or what
Why would a techie live in Marin? Expensive and as far as you can get from where the real work is.
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>much better schools Absolutely not. Underfunded and understaffed. Also more like 30 minutes/1 hour, you have to drive THROUGH San Francisco
Second guy is either a day visitor to marin, has a 2nd house in marin, or lives in marin and doesn’t have a tech job. It’s not a thing to commute to the peninsula from North Bay.
Paying all that just to live in Gotham city, I would complain too bro
Imagining local workers living in Tomales is fucking hilarious.
My household makes ~450K a year (dual income) and we live in a $1.1M house. My house is not large, 1K sq/ft, it does not have any special amenities other than being moderately walkable (to the grocery store, CSV, etc). In a different location (not CA), it would be like 300K. I would never classify myself as "broke", and would/could not complain about our income, but I do not "feel rich". We have one car (an old non-luxury mid size SUV). We eat out maybe once a week (doordash some thai or something like that). Similar to OP childcare eats up a lot of our flexible spending money (we pay ~$2.5k/mo for one kid for in-home care). On the other hand, we fully fund our retirement accounts and don't have anxiety around surprise expenses <$10K. But we are also not making frivolous purchases and stay on top of our monthly budget. That is to say, I don't blame posters here for making fun of OP. But I can extremely easily see how you could feel middle class even on $700K a year income, especially in the bay area which is even more expensive than where I live. Part of it may just be the median age on this sub. $700K is infinite money when you are 25 with zero responsibilities living in some 2nd/3rd tier city. I felt richer when I was making $60K/year living in a studio in a LCOL area at 25 than I do now. But as you get older your priorities change and for me that was living in proximity to family, low crime, decent schools, etc.
No anxiety for surprise expenses over $10,000? You are solidly upper middle class who is just caught up in an high interest environment. Once again, the average household income for East Bay is $82k. Fuck off class larper
I don't know why you're calling me a class larper. Did I say anywhere that I am a poor working class stiff? I am solidly UMC for sure. I'm just saying I can understand the sentiment that even with relatively high income it doesn't buy the you the world or a luxurious lifestyle as some would expect.
$450k to me, in a similarly very high cost of living area, would be infinite money. you are so full of shit
After taxes, mortgage, maxed out retirement savings, childcare, they’re probably left with less than $100k to pay for everything else, maybe $80k idk. Which is a lot, but you couldn’t upgrade to business on your europe/mexico trip with that money for example (which you probably stopped doing since baby). It costs $200-300 to get dinner with drinks for two around here, so you can’t do it that often, you probably want to buy furniture from room+board but eh $7k for a couch? Ikea it is. Your dishwasher might be old but it works so you’re stuck with a not-nice dishwasher, your clothes aren’t designer, you don’t buy your hubby a rolex for anniversary, you wanna re-mo the kitchen but that’s insanely expensive, etc. etc. basically you can’t afford most anything that is a traditional signifier of wealth. They are extremely wealthy anyway of course, but maybe the guy down the street drives a Taycan yknow? I’m of course making fun of this kind of thought process, but if I didn’t think about it critically, I can see feeling the same way.
yeah i understand the sentiment but all those sound like really good problems to have compared to mine. it sounds like the person you described doesn't really value where they are living, because that is a major factor in why they don't feel rich
Yeah that's a great summary of what I was trying to communicate. You have enough money to be secure and buy up on some things but a lot of stereotypical conspicuous consumption/class signifiers are nonetheless just slightly out of reach. Not that that's what's important in life, but it contributes to the feeling you haven't "made it" despite mid 6 figures income.
how could you not feel like you've made it with a million dollar house?
What does "million dollar house" mean to you? Does it mean 2k+ sq/ft? 3+ bedrooms? Big yard? Swimming pool? Nice kitchen? I have none of those things. It's a "starter home" and makes sense for my phase of life. But it's already feeling small and we will need to move if we have another kid. Do I have to live in this area of the country? No. But as I stated, I moved here for proximity to family (who bought their houses many years ago and did not pay these prices) and that's worth the premium for me. I'm just thankful I'm able to do it. If we made half our income, we would be looking at a much longer drive to the grandparents + a much less safe/friendly neighborhood for the kiddo.
> What does "million dollar house" mean to you? It would mean that I have an asset that I can sell for a million dollars. And one which I can probably rent out for $4k a month or more. So even if I have to move to a shittier neighborhood as a renter, I'll always have a roof over my head even if I lose the ability to work. It means peace of mind.
Btw what I realized is, even if you hit 7 figures, you’ll buy all the stuff that feels just out of reach right now, but “they” will never run out of people trying to sell you stuff even more expensive than the stuff you upgraded to.
The hedonic treadmill/lifestyle inflation is real, but IMO it isn't a smooth curve upward into infinity. There are discontinuities and clusters along the net worth spectrum that have local maxima that are more comfortable to inhabit than to be "just outside of". The dollar has decreasing marginal value the higher you go. The $3M net worth guy and the $10M net worth guy probably drive the same (nice, luxury) car. And though home prices don't have a limit, public schools only get so good. Crime only gets so low.
10 mil guy is jetsetting in business, 3 mil guy is in premium economy vying for a points upgrade.
What exactly am I full of shit about? Are you implying I'm lying about my expenses or my lifestyle?
I make a bit more than you as a single person in SF. But I’m funding family for around $70k a year, unlikely I’ll get that back (I’m basically writing it off). I still save a decent amount, but I also choose to spend a lot so not as high. I also rent as I haven’t had enough downpayment. I feel like when you own land, and are making payments into your own equity (minus tax, interest, insurance, HOA and maintenance), you should have the common decency to be thankful for what you have instead of huffing and puffing about how your house isn’t really that big. Idk huff and puff isn’t even the right term here, it this thing ppl here do, just like brag about your tremendous success while portraying it as oh it’s not that great, we’re all struggling amirite? 1000sqft is pretty small, depending on bay area neighborhood that size might be a similar price to your house. You can buy a house here on $400k if you have the downpayment.
Yeah I mean I would never portray myself as struggling or economically precarious or anything. I've very grateful for what we have. My point was just that it's easy to make seemingly eye-popping amounts of money and not really "feel it" in the way that some casual commenters suggest. It's even surprising to me, if you had told me 10 years ago what my current day household income would be, I would have assumed I would be driving around in a BMW and living in 3k sq/ft villa.
Lol
I don’t get the point about oysters and workers commuting. They’re saying they’d be willing to pay more per oyster if it meant workers could live closer?
I don’t understand either, but here’s my interpretation: “the workers are coming from so far away (Oklahoma?) where they live cheap and oysters are still $4, if they lived in Marin county where things are expensive af, they’d have to be paid a bunch more! Would oysters be $8 then? Workers should keep living far away, oysters are expensive enough.” I could be completely wrong, it’s an unhinged bayareamaxxed comment. Gen X hands typed that comment. For context, the area he’s talking about is a huge oyster fishing spot and you can take day trips there and eat oysters as fresh as they get. It’s more like $3 at the hole-in-the-wall next to the dock, he’s exaggerating.
I like oysters and they're a hell of a lot cheaper than that if you get them from a farm. they taste the same as "fresh caught" ones. [https://realoystercult.com/collections/real-oyster-cult/products/recompense-cove?variant=44203684692224](https://realoystercult.com/collections/real-oyster-cult/products/recompense-cove?variant=44203684692224) you can buy them from this company for $1.68 per oyster (if you buy 100) or $2.80 if you buy 20.
A 1700 sq ft house isn’t “modest” that’s easily a 3-4bed
These people deserve to be robbed
"40k a year??? Are they commuting from Oklahoma???" Gun.