Tag Archives: middle class

Am I Really In The Working Class? Ruminating On The Middle And Other Social Classes

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I Just Re-categorized Myself Out of the Middle Class!

I’ve come to this conclusion because after thinking I understand what middle class is, and what it takes to be a member of it, lately I’ve changed my mind because now I’m not so sure.  Typically, my mind changes when I’m doing something mundane like mowing the lawn.  I’m behind the mower and WHAM, I think “Hey, I’m not really middle class, instead I’m more within the working class, and here’s why…“.  My mind is evil that way, continuously raining on my parade!

To backup my new reclassification, I reference Felix Dennis, who believes that I’m not even comfortable poor!  Under his definition, you need 2 to 4 million to be within the range of comfortably poor, thus meaning that I’m “uncomfortably poor“.  The more I think about it, the more his argument makes sense to me!

Why I May Not Belong To The Middle Class

  1. History!  Since we are a newer country than most, we have to look at Europe and England in particular for a more true definition of what being in the Middle Class means.  According to them, the middle class of yesteryear were rich merchants but not in the nobility class.  Some of the merchants of the middle Class were even richer than the aristocrats.  You see, to them (England in particular) the middle class isn’t the same as middle wage earners.  So in their society, the new rich are more in the middle class than the nobility that fell upon hard times.  Since I’m not rich, perhaps I’m not in this group!  I’m sure if I lived in England, I wouldn’t be considered Middle Class.
  2. I must work for money or else my family goes hungry.  Since I have to work, doesn’t that naturally put me in the “Working Class“?
  3. I don’t have one million dollars in net worth yet!  So if I were forced to live on all my assets invested in stocks or/and bonds, I would be below the poverty level for a family of four.
  4. I don’t have any power in my community.  In my town, when I talk, nobody listens or at least goes out of their way to do so.  Now if I had money to support local community goals, then people would listen, or if I created special events that benefit my local community, then people would listen.

Perhaps I Am in the Middle Class?

  1. I have a college education, and advanced training
  2. My net worth is much higher than average for even the middle class category.  This is from years of being frugal and investing.
  3. I usually go on a nice vacation (at least one or two a year).
  4. My kids are in sport and will probably go to college without paying anything or taking out a loan.
  5. I’m in a continual state of learning.
  6. I have power within my small social groups, where  my ideas are listened to and sometimes acted out.  This is true among my friends and work peers.
  7. I look middle class…

Or Am I Upper Middle Class… (not)?

Nope, I’m not even close to being in the category!  Actually, I use to fancy myself being on the line between middle and upper middle classes.  However, if examined my salary, I’m close to making an Upper Middle Class salary (according to some measures anyway).  As for education, I only have a bachelors degree, but as I mentioned before, I’m in a continual state of learning.

I’m a home owner and I’m totally debt free.  My kids have some of the finer things (my son recently got a ipod touch and soon will get a cell phone).  We go on nice trips for vacations and mini-vacations.

Even with all of the points above, I know that I fall short in this group, so I won’t waste anymore time thinking about it, perhaps in future.  Check out my financial pyramid for the way I define my progress…

So in the end, I guess it’s how I look at what I do and what I am.  One could argue that I’m a member of all of the social classes: Working Class, Middle Class and possible the Upper Middle Class (again this is stretching it).

For more great reading material on this subject, check out Roshawn’s brilliantly written article called “The Impossible Question: Just Who Is The Middle Class?” about why it’s so hard to determine who is in the middle class and not!

Thanks for ruminating with me!

MR

A Frugal Middle Class Assessment

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Once twitter I noticed that SeeJaneGetRich tweeted a link to a U.S. News article on yahoo called “How to gauge your middle class status”.  Since I love feedback and statistics, I thought I’d check it out.

It was an interesting read so I decided I’d write about how I was doing.

Income: We are very close to the middle-middle income level for a 2 parent, 4 person household.  We are a bit above that $81,000 dollar number, but still less than $100,000.

Housing: Our house is assessed at $210,000, but it’s only 2,100 square feet.  It’s a good size for my family though.

Medical Expenses: First, we are doing an HSA, so it’s kind of like it’s still our money.  But we are much lower than the $5,100…   We are more like $500…

Cars: We have 2 cars, both were bought new, but only cost about $40,000.  That period in time may be the last time we buy new cars.  Our expenses around them are less than average because I telecommute a few times a week and carpool with a buddy occasionally.

College Savings: This is one area that I am very average.  My savings rate is around $4,000 a year.  To date, I have a total of $65,000 saved for my kid’s college expenses in a 529 plan.

Vacations: We’re pretty typical here too!  Although we usually only spend about 75% of the $3,000 amount the average middle-class American spends.

Retirement: I save about 15 to 20% of my gross income in this area.  I got hit hard during the 2008 recession, but it’s coming back nicely!

Everyday Spending: This is one area we really win at (being frugal and all), but kid’s sports and other needs have had this number slowly rise over the last 5 or so years.  We have been going through a bit of a lifestyle creep for our kids.  But at least our kids are happy…  Our costs are still far less than the average though!

Number of Earners: For the past 9 years, it’s been primarily me, but since my daughter started kindergarten, my wife now works a side job for about 6 to 8 hours per week.  So this is one area that has hurt us and my financial plans. I feel a little robbed here compared to my peers.

Hours Worked: With my wife working now, we still work less than 50 hrs a week, but definitely more than 40.

Education: Both my wife and I have college bachelor degrees.  I play around with the idea of going back for an MBA, but so far, I’m too busy.

Free Time: My family has plenty of free time, I do not. Again, I’m hurting here compared to the average. But it’s okay, I’m getting used to disappointment from my entire family tree.

Retirement: Over the years I put in what I thought was a lot… At least until my 401k company provided stats for age and income level. I’m in the top 1% for my 401k balance, but only at the top 12% for amount contributed. I must be doing something right though… Probably my balance is high because I was ultra-aggressive with contributions during the 2008 recession. 

Household Net Worth: I don’t think this number is for the average 4 member middle class family…  When compared to a similar socio-economical family like ours, we are higher than average.  Hopefully, in the near future, our spread will continue to expand, since we are totally debt free (no house mortgage).

Debt: I have no debt (credit card, auto or mortgage) at this point in my life.  I’m actually surprised that the payments towards debt are only 18% of the disposable income!  I was thinking the percentage would at least be over 20%.

Well, there you have it!  My assessment for how I’m going verse the average middle class American!  Overall, I’m very happy with our progress.  In fact, I believe we are going better in every area above, at least in a positive sense (for example, our hours worked isn’t over 70 per week, and I view that as very positive).

Enjoy the weekend!

-MR

My Middle Class Lifestyle

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This is a glimpse of a typical day in my middle class life.

Phase 1) Waking up.  I wake up to my alarm clock that I’ve had since I was in high school.

The alarm clock is about the size of a small child’s shoebox, and the plastic is factory painted to look like it’s wood.  The edge of the alarm clock got to close to my goose neck desk lamp and the plastic has warped, but just to a small degree.  I know that I can buy a cheap $10 dollar one, but this ones still works, and I’m comfortable with it…

Next, I go into my master bathroom and get a quick shower, because I hate to waste water (and also to make up for the amount that other family members use).  .  I do the typical routine to get ready for work…  No magic here, not much to describe.

My house is a little over 2100 square feet, and was built in 1998,  the shower isn’t too fancy, but the room looks nice enough.  The style of the house is a colonial.

Phase 2) I walk down the stairs quietly (the dog is asleep), and pack my lunch.  Since I’m currently doing a lunch/allowance experiment, I pack the following items in my small insulated lunch bag: eggs and sometimes peanuts.  The ramen noodles that I eat are already at work in my desk drawer…  Before starting my experiment, I would typically go out for lunch at a number of different restaurants.

What types of foods do I eat?…

  • Cajun Chicken spinach salads with hot bacon dressing (yum),
  • Sushi (mostly the spicy types: spicy crab, spicy tuna, eel…),
  • Chinese food (Chicken with Cashews, Hunan Shrimp, etc),
  • Mexican food: Chicken quesadillas, etc.
  • Italian foods (sort of), in particular from Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill (both have different but great bread)
  • and Fast foods: Subway (spicy italian heated sandwich), McDonalds (Quarter pounder with cheese), Taco Bell (varies), etc…

Phase 3) After getting dress in jeans and a polo shirt (I use to have to dress more professionally at work, but now we just dress casually).  I drive my 20 minute to work listening to an audio book playing in my card CD player, the radio, or nothing – preferring to think on those nothing days.  I’m a Gen Xer, so I have an eclectic manner with respect as to what I listen to… ex.) alternative, rock, classical, rap, country and others.

What car do I drive in?  A 2003 malibu (my friends say that I drive a grandma’s car), that I bought new for $11,000 back in 2003.  This was a great price considering the sticker price was listed at $21,000.  I’ll post about how I got it so cheaply at a later time 🙂

I’m a computer technician, and my wife is a stay at home mom.

I have a BA in computer science.  Every year I think about going for a MBA (the company I work at would even provide money for it), but life for me now is busy enough…

Opps, I digress, back to my middle class lifestyle.  At work my cube is the standard type… nice comfortable chair, 2 (soon to be 3 or 4) monitors attached to a newer PC, a ibm laptop to do work at home, a blackberry, etc…

I arrive at work an hour earlier and leave an hour earlier to avoid rush hour, so I work 7 to 4 with an hour lunch in between.  Although these last few years, it seems that more and more people are changing to the same work schedule…  the roads are definitely busier this year than they use to be at those times.

Phase 4) Once at home, it’s time to rush the kids to the sports that they are playing in at the moment.  Typically Soccer, Basketball, Cheerleading, Baseball, Tee-Ball, Flag football, swimming lessons, gymnastics, etc…

Phase 5) Once I get a free moment, I use to randomly surf the net more, but lately, I’ve been reading blogs and writing in this blog.

We do have a designated movie night on Fridays, where I’ll pop in a DVD that I got at the library.  We still have an old 36 inch CRT tube TV.   We can afford a new flat screen LCD (or Plasma, or LED-LCD…) TV and in fact have the best buy gift cards in a drawer waiting for our current model to break (it’s close to doing so).  The gift cards are from the rewards point from our rewards credit cards.

Phase 6) Then at bed time, I do watch a little bit of TV in our queen size bed (King of Queens and Frazier reruns).  Our bedroom set is wooden, with an armoire, and set drawers with a fancy mirror on top…   Both cars were bought new and are both 2003 models (crazy, I won’t do that again!  Used cars is the way to go).

Next day I do the same routine again, just like the NIN song, “Every day is exactly the same”

My life = Repeat Phase 1 thru 6 😉

After I’m debt free, I’m going to alter the above routine a bit, maybe throw in a health phase, or a 2nd job phase, or a community service or coaching my kids sports coaching phase…

So what do you think? …  Tell me about your lifestyle or ask me additional questions about mine…