Partially correct. I tried several dating strategies and also tried the prostitutes on nights when I wasn’t getting any. It was cheap and cost-effective - my debts were accumulated over time and had little to do with this. I asked about bankruptcy because it seemed like if I could dump 30k in unsecured debt, but the damage to my credit rating cost much less than 30k, it would be a logical thing to do. The total cost was about $3500 for 10 days.
As I found out, subtle rules regarding income to debt are why people don’t do this as often as you would think, only if I lost my job and couldn’t get a comparable position for a year would bankruptcy in the form that deletes debts be even allowed.
So, yes, part of what made the experience so thrilling was I was in a good mood the whole vacation from regular sex with hard body women.
So even little stuff like the alternate outlet designs and the high ceilings and so on seemed really cool.
I thought your 25K debt was tightly linked to it. I guess sex is a lot cheaper in Eastern Europe than I thought. I’m not planning a trip but I am curious as to what the buck-to-fuck ratio was. Maybe that could replace the Big Mac Index.
I suppose I am scraping up against the lower range of upper middle class, but the above sort of misses the point.
The only reason to have money is to get what you want. I don’t want expensive cars or private jets or cocaine. I want security. I want the feeling of having more than I need, not the feeling of spending more than I want.
We don’t deny ourselves every luxury - we are going to Disney World in September, and I want to put in a new deck on the house. But having those things will not affect my peace of mind, because we budgeted for them and we can do them and the cost will not materially affect us.
I can’t have fun with things I don’t feel I can afford comfortably. That’s not necessarily a virtue; it’s a part of my personality. Yesterday I did the grocery shopping, and I got everything on the list, and still stayed $30 under budget. For me, that’s fun - I feel like I won against the universe, or got away with something. Saturday I fixed the ice maker. We could afford to call the repair guy. We have a budget line for household repairs. But we didn’t need to spend it. Found money!
I strongly suspect that, even if I won a hundred million in the lottery, I would still save the plastic bags that bread comes in to pick up dog poop when I take Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] for Nice Walks.
Spenders eat better, and savers sleep better. At my age, I’d rather sleep.
When we were in that income bracket, I bought a new car for cash every 2-3 years, had a nice motor home (cash), and my house was paid off. We paid off our credit card each month, and were able to travel whenever we had vacation time without going into debt. That doesn’t mean that we spent wildly or foolishly, just that we had the income to exceed our needs, with enough left over to build on our retirement fund.
Contrast that with the 23 years I spent in the military at from poor to barely lower-middle incomes, with four kids in the house. We managed to stay out of debt, thanks to being very frugal, and my car lasted me 13 years (purchased on financing). After scrimping and saving for all those years (also thanks to provided medical and housing), and thanks to a small inheritance from my mother, I managed to retire from the military with about $28,000 in the bank. Most people I knew who retired as enlisted had zip.
I’ll third this. UMC income means that you have all the basics covered in a practical fashion- i.e. you’re not buying used tires for your car, you get your AC serviced annually, and you have enough cash on hand or credit* to immediately and competently remedy most any major appliance/home system that might encounter serious problems, including your car. And if you are working on that stuff, it’s because you enjoy it, not because you’re compelled to by financial considerations.
And there’s also a disposable income component- once you have all the above housekeeping covered, UMC households typically have enough spending cash to do what they want to a greater or lesser degree. They may not be able to do all the things they want to the degree they want (e.g. travel first class, stay in 5 star hotels in foreign countries), but they can definitely do foreign travel, for example.
For the hard bodied women, the amounts varied between about $75 to $250. That is, professional prostitutes were cheaper but I also found a girl who went out on a date with me and then made an indecent proposal.
Naturally, the woman who I ‘honestly’ dated all week in the day time started having sex with me for ‘free’, but the cost of all the previous dates and gifts made her bang/buck ratio more expensive than hookers.
I always have tentatively planned to find a ‘good but hot’ Eastern European woman to marry, but the ironic thing is I am pretty sure the bang/buck ratio is unfavorable for marriage. Sure it can appear cheaper but you have to figure a huge percent of my income would go to her needs and then if everything works as expected she would produce offspring and that’s where it really gets expensive…
I am married and we have two children, aged 4 and 11 months. Our combined household income is just shy of $300K. We live in the midwest and our city’s cost of living index is below the US average. I consider ourselves middle class to upper middle class. We are not wealthy or “the rich” but we recognize we earn more money than a large percentage of the population. What does this mean for us? Some examples:
[ul]
[li]We both fully fund our 401K annually to the maximum allowed amounts for our age. My wife is 10 years younger than I and on-target for her retirement savings goals. I am behind the recommended amount needed for retirement, mostly due to past economic set-backs and dumb/bad decisions made decades ago that I’ve never been able to catch-up from.[/li][li]We have a large victorian home in a historic district that we paid $240K for and have invested about $150K in renovations. Most homes in our area are now selling for over $500K. This combined investment results in (in my opinion) a fairly high mortgage payment each month. As it is a 130+ year old home, our maintenance costs are probably higher than the average. And of course heating/cooling 3 floors and 4600 square feet is not cheap.[/li][li]With our current income and home, our daughters are growing up in a home that is much nicer, bigger, and more unique than either my wife or I had as children.[/li][li]We are able to send our children to one of the best daycares in the city but there is also a high cost for that care. We pay almost as much each month for daycare as we pay for our mortgage. Combined these two expenses consume a large amount of our take-home pay.[/li][li]We are looking at private schools for our children. We cannot afford the more expensive schools in our city ($25-40K per year) but we are looking at 2nd tier private schools. Note: The reason we are looking at private schools is because we live within the city school district and our city’s public schools are some of the worst in the state of Ohio. If we lived in the suburbs with the associated higher property taxes and above average public schools we would send our kids to public. The public schools in our area are the worst-of-the-worst and since we do have the means we will send our girls elsewhere.[/li][li]When I go grocery shopping, I don’t worry about buying off-brand versions of products to save money. On some products we do in fact buy off-brand but it isn’t necessary because we are concerned about money.[/li][li]My wife owns a 2009 vehicle that is paid off. A year ago, I bought a 2 year old “luxury” vehicle and have a monthly car payment. Prior to buying this vehicle I had owned a Mazda for 16 years and had over 180K miles on it. When my vehicle is paid off, my wife will buy a new(er) car, most likely used and less than 3 years old.[/li][li]We have employer provided health and dental insurance (high deductible plans) so we are able to maintain regular doctor and dentist appointments, etc. When we have had major events (childbirth, a couple surgeries, etc.) the out-of-pocket to cover our deductible has been painful but we had the money or could easily meet payment plan commitments.[/li][li]We do annual vacations to a cabin my in-laws own on Lake Huron so that doesn’t costs us anything other than gas, food, and beer money. We have done a few bigger trips over the last 6 years (since getting married and starting a family) including our honeymoon in the DR, a trip to Cancun to celebrate a brother-in-law’s birthday, and last year we went to Italy with another couple. Prior to getting married and having kids, we did ski trips annually for about 3 years in a row.[/li][li]Both my wife and I carry too much personal debt. For both of us, we have too high of a debt on credit cards. I also still have a large amount of student loan debt. My wife had a much lower amount to start and has paid hers off. Due to our mortgage, childcare costs, etc., it is very difficult for me to make a dent in my personal debt. It is my largest financial concern.[/li][li]With planning we can spend more extravegantly on gifts for each other for events like anniversaries, birthdays, etc. But neither of us have received a Lexus with a red ribbon for Christmas. Haha![/li][/ul]
Again, I realize we are more fortunate than others and we do
Despite our differences in other forums, this makes me think IRL we could almost be friends. This is pretty much exactly how I approach money and budgeting.
I think that the vast majority of posters in here would actually get along famously in real life. The differences of opinion we all have are amplified and somewhat distorted by the nature of online discourse and of course we pay far more attention to the contrary positions.
Quoting the full thing because it bears repeating. I used basically this philosophy all my life, and now I’m retired with enough money to last us until we’re 100. And still have money to leave to our kids, who won’t need it.
I’ll pay more for something if it is really worth it. Though I can easily afford new ones I buy jigsaw puzzles at thrift stores because I can buy five for the price of one new one, and there is often a more interesting selection. Plus the money goes to a good cause. Then I donate them back so they get to sell the puzzle again.
My prediction is that you are going to have a stress-free retirement. Which you will deserve.
I’m really not supposed to discuss this at all, but I’ll let you all know that we have a secret club and we’ve arranged preferential service in all sorts of ways. I can’t say more but you can guess what I’m talking about.
If the people who promise a second marshmallow if you wait are Eastern European women, I suggest you grab the first one. Deferring reward is not always the optimal strategy.
As humans we’re hard wired to accumulate resources but we’re not equally hard-wired to know when to stop and enjoy what we’ve acquired. The former aids survival, the latter doesn’t. So the hard wiring never occurs.
Upper middle class is technically a “comfortable” position to be in financially, but it’s possible to outspend yourself out of any comfort.
I consider myself upper middle class, but I doubt many would agree.
I live alone. I don’t hire help, I don’t go on trips - I don’t travel at all. I don’t own a house. I don’t have pets. My regular monthly costs are under two grand - that’s rent, utilities, food, staple goods.
However-
I buy pretty much any damn thing I want. I have several moderately expensive hobbies - I regularly spend $300-$800 a month on purely frivolous expenses, with $1000-$1500+ splurges every year or so. I buy things new, not used, because I prefer new. I am awash with entertainments - even if I didn’t have to work I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day for the silly things I waste my time on.
And I do this while putting $1500 more into savings every four weeks. Oh, and I have no debt of any kind.
I don’t make a ton of money, but I make enough to comfortably waste a ton of money. By my reckoning that makes me upper middle class.
The kids who waited were mostly kids who had experienced people keeping promises to them. The kids whose lives were full of broken promises didn’t trust the researcher, either.
This is a good one. Or paying your kid’s way through a high-tier college without loans. Having personally doubled over in pain at seeing what mere pre-school costs are in my area, I never feel like I’m infringing on the upper-middle class boundary. I think upper-middle is the zone where one starts to separate themselves from the public rabble with gated communities, private clubs, private schools, etc.
This is true to a certain extent, but at the same time, if you can afford a home in San Francisco, Honolulu or Manhattan, you’re well off. There’s comparative wealth and then there’s just wealth. You might be middle of the pack compared to your neighbors, but compared to almost anyone else on Earth, if you can afford to live in a high-cost area, you’re wealthy. No matter your lifestyle.
I think you underestimate how much the lack of “grinding worry about money” impacts personal happiness. Most people would be significantly, noticeably happier if they knew that an unforeseen layoff or car or medical problem wouldn’t put them at real risk of homelessness, bankruptcy or begging.