$400K is now middle class
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Right? My brother has almost this entire list in the suburbs of a major metro and he makes around $140k. His wife has worked in the past, but hasn't for a few years now. I'm single, have only ever made over $100k the past three years, and have two houses, two paid off cars, and certainly don't feel anywhere close to a poor person. We didn't start off with some trust fund endowment either, my parents were literally bankrupt when I graduated high school and didn't contribute a dime to either of our educations.
I've got a mid-20s friend too looking at buying a house with his wife and kid, and he makes right under $70k. It's a bit of a stretch for him, but he will probably be fine as he is generally okay not spending money to be seen as rich.
The biggest hurdle to the house, car and wife+kids lifestyle tends to be the wife from my experience. If she wants a new house in the nicest suburb in the city, with a brand new SUV and the nicest everything then you're fucked. That's $400k/yr right there. If your wife is perfectly okay with nothing then almost any guy can make it work.
Especially with regards to the unwillingness to stick it out and work up a bit. They have to have everything when they are a young 20-something and in reality all the end up doing is pissing all their money away to banks for interest on things they couldn't afford.
What they tend to piss away isn't necessarily their money but their opportunity for the husband + kids lifestyle. That's because a lot of women refuse to settle for 1 man in their early 20s since they can instead benefit from many men. Instead of 1 overseas vacations every 5 years if she stayed with 1 man, she can get 2 per year if she has "fun" with a couple different men each year who all take her on 1 trip each. And the good looking women are in fact doing this while they're young because they see it as their birth right for being good looking young women. The problem is that by the time they're ready to settle-down for the modest 3-bedroom house, car and kids lifestyle the successful men don't want her anymore. Worst of all though, her previous experiences have heightened her expectations such that she comes off entitled and overvaluing herself. When she realizes she can't get her overblown expectations met, she becomes jaded and starts to hate men.
If a vicious cycle. If women, when they were young and hot, simply picked 1 successful and quality man then supported this man, they could easily have the 90s middle-class lifestyle. For the most part, women don't want this lifestyle and by the time they decide they do, it's already too late for them.
So true. Almost all of my friends and family are the middle-class families, and guess what, almost all of them were already on that path in their early 20s.