I guess we qualify as lower to middle middle class. My dad was a NYC bus driver, a good union job, and my mom stayed at home until my little sister started school, then she was white collar temp and then permanent. We were a family of 5 living in a 3-bedroom apartment in Queens. Vacations were driving ones, when we went anywhere, and we stayed in motels. My parents weren’t great with money and I think we lived a bit above our means and sometimes money was tight but I can’t remember wanting for anything.
Upper middle class. My dad was a Dr. in small town; he worked hard and did well, but nothing like your suburban specialists, etc. I had what I needed. (my parents divorced when I was 11, a whole nother issue) My education was paid for but I was expected to do well and become some sort of professional. I wasn’t spoiled. I worked p/t in college to make my own money, get some experience and be independent.
Working class poor until I was 8, then my dad got promoted to foreman and we moved up to lower middle class. By the time I was in university my parents had made it to middle class. Holidays were camping trips and a new pair of jeans for my birthday was a big deal. I worked 30 hours a week from the age of 15 to save for university and have some spending money. My sister is 7 years younger than I, so she skipped poor and half her childhood was middle class, we had very different experiences growing up. First decade after university was upper middle class and now I’m rich. Except for dirt poor I’ve hit for the cycle.
Upper middle class. My parents both have advanced degrees and professional jobs. We lived in Fairfield Country, CT which at the time was one of the wealthiest counties in the country (and is still no slouch). Lots of LL Bean, Polo and J Crew. Parents drive Volvos. We had laboradors growing up. Both me and my brother went to expensive private universities and business schools.
A sort of amusing list from various “You Know You’re From Fairfield County” blogs. It sort of highlights how you can grow up actually fairly wealthy compared to most people and just sort of think it’s “normal”:
•You have hiked up a golf course at least once to get to a keg party.
•You party on the beach of Long Island Sound.
•You have deer in your backyard.
•Your family owns more than one house.
•At least one parent works in New York City. They take the train.
•You have taken riding lessons at the towns Riding Club.
•In high school you drank outside, regularly.
•You still don’t understand why people say that Connecticut is the richest state.
•The diner is the only place open after midnight.
•You have at least 10 friends who drive Jeeps.
•Anybody asks, you’re from just outside of New York.
•You’ve never looked at a public bus schedule. You would also never get on one.
•You know girls and guys that have the same names.
•You think Bridgeport is the worst ghetto you’ve ever seen.
•You spend the summer on Cape Cod, in Nantucket or Marthas Vineyard.
•When you go to a real city, you sincerely feel bad for the poor/homeless people.
•The cars in your high school’s parking lot were worth more than your high school.
•You were pissed that your sixteenth birthday car was a new sedan instead of an SUV.
•You know what Okemo is (and you or a friend owns a house there).
•You grew up wondering where the old cars in the parking lot at the grocery store came from.
•You found it easy to drink college seniors under the table within the first week of college.
•You don’t have an accent.
•You know how to play Beruit, and how it differs from Beer Pong.
•You have more than one country club in your town.
•Your high school sent more than 10 kids to Boston College.
•You consider Fairfield County and the rest of Connecticut two different states.
Middle class, sorta upper and sorta lower. Dad had been a high school teacher, but by the time I was 5, he was writing projects for the school district (a major city district). He earned his Ph.D when I was 13, but never stopped moonlighting at a local junior college. Both Mom and Dad were children of the Depression, and preferred saving money to spending it, so I wore unfashionable clothes from Penney’s, and a lot of hand-me-downs (youngest of 5 kids), ate a lot of casseroles and leftovers, and didn’t ever go on vacation. They owned a house, but it was in a semi-rural spot surrounded by suburbs. Even by the standards of the truly shitty poorest-high-school-in-the-district I went to, we lived sort of poor.
On the other hand, Dad was an educated man, Mom was the daughter of a pretty famous man in Amsterdam, and we were all, in our way, raging snobs. We knew nothing about clothes, I was ignorant of leisure activities, yet we had a sense of family history, dignity, destiny, and intellectual achievement that our neighbors seemed to lack. Dad actually socked away a fair amount of savings, and we all went to college, and all got loans and gifts at major stage of our lives that made life easier, and their savings have lasted through Dad’s retirement, Mom’s years of nursing care at home, and Dad semi-supporting our not-very-successful brother. Dad is still living in the house I grew up in, and will turn 90 this year. Last Christmas, he gave each of us $5000.
Ha - yep. The “middle class” people with vacation homes I met were all from the wider NYC orbit.
Grew up poor working class. My mum and dad were 16 and unmarried when they had me, my dad was unfortunately already an alcoholic when I was born. Mum worked as a cleaner, Avon lady and out in the fields picking potatoes and apples (depending on the season).
I married into a wonderful upper middle class family. My husband and I now live in Sweden and our daughter is having a much different and altogether happier and more stable childhood than my own was.
Middle class then upper middle, I guess.
Dad was an engineer, Mom a teacher. Early it was a small 3-bedroom house and vacations were in the car. Later it was a slightly larger house, a ski-boat, and vacations pulling the camper. Parents were moderately thrifty and always employed, so we never had shortages or money worries of any kind. Not rich, but the cars were always repaired, we had steak every Saturday night, and a couple of vacations each year (camping in Nat. parks, or car-trips to Florida).
I live exactly the same way, come to think of it.
Poor. Every couple months the power would go off for a few days. Car repossession was a regular thing (I still don’t know how my mom kept getting different ones). Angry managers telling me to tell my mom that the rent was due. That kind of thing. I never went hungry for more than a day, though.
Gummint HAM? Wow, we never got any of that. Cheese, peanuts, peanut butter and powdered milk. No ham. I’m envious. 
I would say lower middle class.
My dad was a professional - an architect - but not a very good one and not a good businessman. He was in a partnership that was always on the point of going under, with the partners paying themselves virtually nothing.
My mum worked part time as a secretary and a few hours teaching typing to college kids, and in a deaf school.
We didn’t get free school meals, were never hungry or badly clothed but I could tell money was pretty tight. Presents at birthday and Christmas came but they were always a bit shit compared to my mates.
When I went off to University (the first evern in my family to go) I got the maximum grant (it being means-tested at the time - and since abolished completely!).
Sliced ham, not ham ham. More like spam.
When my brother or I needed/wanted something we were poor. When my parents wanted something it turned out we were middle class enough to afford it. Hence I wore clothes I outgrew until they were embarrassing but my dad raced custom-built 4 cylinder stock cars in 3 states as a hobby for a decade.
Started out in a lower middle class home with both parents working. My father started a computer company in the early 80s that gradually grew into a multi-million dollar business. As it grew we moved into fancier homes; first a solidly middle class fixer upper, then we started to build a retreat up in the Sierra mountains that kept growing during the blueprint phase until it was for all intents a mansion. We lived in that for a number of years.
So upper middle class I guess? I hesitate to call ourselves “upper class” cause to me it makes me think of snooty Old Money types with servants, private yachts, and caviar breakfasts.
Mom (with whom I live most of the time): Working poor.
Dad: Middle class. When my parents got divorced, my dad made sure we were taken care of, but it was still a struggle for my mom. He gave a lot more than the Friend of the Court required of him, and he bought a house and rented it to my mom well below what he could’ve gotten for it.
But the opposite is more the case. People rich enough to be in the upper class who still like NASCAR and country music. Which is their right, but they should keep it in the closet instead of exposing me to their distasteful lifestyle choices. NTTAWWT.
That said, if you’re not rich enough to afford multiple full-time servants, a mansion, and a yacht, you’re not upper class, even if you don’t choose to partake in them. You could still be upper class depending on your circle of friends and relatives. Someone with redneck tastes, who lives in one modest house in the suburbs, and who doesn’t know anyone who lives in a mansion, isn’t upper class even if they are multimillionaires.
I was going to say dirt poor but after reading some of the other responses, I’ll say upper-level poor.
We were on welfare because my mom was in college (thanks to the GI bill). After she got her 2-year degree, she got a full time job and got off welfare. We still had section 8 though, which is the only reason we could afford the nice (but in a bad neighborhood) apartment that we had.
The only new thing we ever got was the Tandy computer my mom saved for a year to be able to buy. Food was store brand or government commodity. Casseroles were common (with Veg-all - which I still use occasionally and which totally grosses out my boyfriend). It’s amazing how little meat is actually needed in a casserole that will feed a family of 4 for a week.
We shopped at thrift stores (loved the one with clothes at $2/pound), yard sales, and flea markets.
I highly doubt my mother was making over $18k a year, for a family of 4.
congodwarf’s story is remarkably similar to my story. We got food stamps, section 8 and for a short time a small welfare cash allowance while my mom was getting a 2-year degree. Government surplus foods were a staple, as were nearly-meatless casseroles, breakfast-for-dinner because eggs and pancakes were cheap (we were lucky and got real maple syrup because our cousins in the Adirondacks had a sugar bush and gave everyone syrup for Christmas every year).
When my parents were still together we were flirting with middle-class. My dad had a master’s degree, worked in various government research labs, and our standard of living was reasonable from time to time. My dad’s continual need to change jobs and move us around really cut into our ability to build up any kind of savings and was one of the factors in my parents splitting up.
Once my parents split up my dad disappeared for about 10 years and my mom, sister and I got along as best we could on my mom’s retail wages, then she went to community college and things got better until the apartment building we lived in burned down. Back to square one!
We had weeks when we weren’t sure if the food in the cupboards would last 'til the next paycheck, but with help from family (in the form of them inviting us over for meals - they were also struggling working class and this was the type of help they could give) and government assistance for a couple of years, we survived. We had a bad apartment in a good school district which enabled my sister & me to go to ivy league colleges, grad school, and make much better lives for ourselves than the rest of the family managed.
To sum up, we were working poor. Everyone else in the family described themselves as middle-class, but we were assuredly NOT.
We were probably on the lower end of middle class. Always lived in the same house. Always had food on the table. But I found out later that it was often a struggle. As the youngest of four I didn’t see most of the worst. Once I got older my mother could work part time and my father was doing better. We started to have some extras and go on inexpensive vacations.
All of the above.
“Rich” was better than the year with no Christmas, that’s for sure. Were we destitute/squalor/hand-to-mouth poor? No, but delivering 20,000 phone books in a week to make the rent wasn’t exactly easy either.