5 ms·

It's a choice. Is private schooling for children worth losing out on the opportunity to eat out as a family of 4 at a good restaurant every week (that's 250 pe

It's a choice. Is private schooling for children worth losing out on the opportunity to eat out as a family of 4 at a good restaurant every week (that's 250 per meal, so $1000 a month)? Is funding your daughter's wedding (2000-10,000), worth skipping a vacation? I think being middle-class is all about making choices between giving up luxuries of the body (e.g. resturant food), for luxuries of opportunity (e.g. schooling). If you are rich, you can have both your yatcht and private school. You can go to the country club, and keep a maid at the same time. Being poor on the other hand is about making choices between necessities like "should we have water or power this week? pick one" or "should our food be nutritious or should we clean our clothes? pick one".

ansible 11y ago
(that's 250 per meal, so $1000 a month) ... your daughter's wedding (2000-10,000) Those numbers struck me as very strange. I've rarely eaten at places that are $62.5/head. But spending just $2000 on a wedding seems low. $10,000 isn't unheard of in the circles I travel in.
- brewdad 11y ago
  $250 per meal is certainly towards the higher end in most places, but my family of 3 does that, in total, almost every weekend. Figure $100 for dinner Friday night. Another $30 for breakfast Sat morning. Add in $50-$70 for lunch Sat and Sun and there you are. We rarely eat out during the week, and we don't usually eat dinner out both Fri AND Sat nights, but the above is fairly typical for us. I don't think it is too atypical for our peers either.
- ogsharkman 11y ago
  maybe it's that new vegan place down the street? /s
  - tamana 11y ago
    The vegan place at my street costs $12per adult and $6/kid. And the menu is constantly rotated seasonally.
cableshaft 11y ago
What planet are you living on where a wedding only costs $2,000, and no more than $10,000? In the US, the average wedding cost is $30,000 (http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/pf/planning-for-wedding-costs/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/pf/planning-for-wedding-cost...) now. That being said I personally think that's ridiculous and I'll do my damnedest to try to keep mine under $5k, but I know it won't be easy, and there will have to be many things sacrificed. If they're even wanting to have a modest wedding with 80-ish guests nowadays, I can't imagine paying less than $15k (which is why I'm going to try to make it less than 20 people for mine. Hell, I'd be happy with 2). That being said, I wouldn't want to eat out at a $50/person restaurant with a family of four once every week. You could take them to a bbq or pita or chinese restaurant and they'd eat well for under $15 per person. I don't really disagree with your main point, just your numbers seem to be bad estimates to me.
- MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
  > What planet are you living on where a wedding only costs $2,000, and no more than $10,000? In the US, the average wedding cost is $30,000 The idea of spending $30,000 on a wedding seems insane to me, and it reminds me of the Dave Ramsey quote “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else." > That being said I personally think that's ridiculous and I'll do my damnedest to try to keep mine under $5k, but I know it won't be easy, and there will have to be many things sacrificed. My wedding (2 years ago, in the midwest) had about 100 guests and cost us about $5000 total (doesn't include the rehearsal dinner or the bar tab, which our parents covered). There were probably some things that we could have spent even less on, but it would have required us doing more things ourselves. A few things we did that might be different than the norm: * My wife, mother, and grandmother made many of the decorations themselves * The reception venue was less expensive because we had the wedding in April, because it wasn't during "wedding season" * We had the grocery store make our cake for us * We didn't pay anything for the ceremony location (there are many beautiful public venues that you can book for free) * My wife chose a dress that was beautiful, but wasn't obscenely expensive. She also recovered about half of the cost by selling it afterwards.
- scarface74 11y ago
  Our "wedding" cost $25 at the court house and we had a reception later on for around $3000.
iainmerrick 11y ago
I think being middle-class is all about making choices between giving up luxuries of the body (e.g. resturant food), for luxuries of opportunity (e.g. schooling). Maybe so, but that definitely didn't used to be the case, which is pretty much the thrust of the article. Its other point is that the scale of the problem is hidden because people are ashamed to talk about it.
- harryh 11y ago
  Why do you think that it didn't used to be the case that people had to make choices about what luxuries they wanted to buy? I think that people have always had to make these kinds of choices.
  - iainmerrick 11y ago
    I'm thinking of the middle class of my own parents' generation. They did not have to worry too much about choosing between restaurant food and schooling. There are always going to be luxuries that you can't afford to indulge in regularly. That's what a luxury is! Colleges and restaurants didn't used to be luxuries. I didn't fully appreciate that they now are, so this article is eye-opening for me in that respect. (I'm from the UK where the college setup is different from the US, but it's moving in the same direction, a decade or two behind the curve.)
    - harryh 11y ago
      I don't know about the UK, but 30 years ago in the US 20% of the population graduated from a 4 year college. Now it's 30%. Access to higher education is becoming easier not harder. Similarly, more people are eating out in restaurants more of the time.[1] I think you have a rosy view of the past that isn't supported by evidence. 1. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/americans-spending-on-dining-out-just-overtook-grocery-sales-for-the-first-time-ever http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/americans-...
      - iainmerrick 11y ago

ansible 11y ago

(that's 250 per meal, so $1000 a month) ... your daughter's wedding (2000-10,000) Those numbers struck me as very strange. I've rarely eaten at places that are $62.5/head. But spending just $2000 on a wedding seems low. $10,000 isn't unheard of in the circles I travel in.

brewdad 11y ago
$250 per meal is certainly towards the higher end in most places, but my family of 3 does that, in total, almost every weekend. Figure $100 for dinner Friday night. Another $30 for breakfast Sat morning. Add in $50-$70 for lunch Sat and Sun and there you are. We rarely eat out during the week, and we don't usually eat dinner out both Fri AND Sat nights, but the above is fairly typical for us. I don't think it is too atypical for our peers either.
ogsharkman 11y ago
maybe it's that new vegan place down the street? /s
- tamana 11y ago
  The vegan place at my street costs $12per adult and $6/kid. And the menu is constantly rotated seasonally.

cableshaft 11y ago

What planet are you living on where a wedding only costs $2,000, and no more than $10,000? In the US, the average wedding cost is $30,000 (http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/pf/planning-for-wedding-costs/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/pf/planning-for-wedding-cost...) now. That being said I personally think that's ridiculous and I'll do my damnedest to try to keep mine under $5k, but I know it won't be easy, and there will have to be many things sacrificed. If they're even wanting to have a modest wedding with 80-ish guests nowadays, I can't imagine paying less than $15k (which is why I'm going to try to make it less than 20 people for mine. Hell, I'd be happy with 2). That being said, I wouldn't want to eat out at a $50/person restaurant with a family of four once every week. You could take them to a bbq or pita or chinese restaurant and they'd eat well for under $15 per person. I don't really disagree with your main point, just your numbers seem to be bad estimates to me.

MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
> What planet are you living on where a wedding only costs $2,000, and no more than $10,000? In the US, the average wedding cost is $30,000 The idea of spending $30,000 on a wedding seems insane to me, and it reminds me of the Dave Ramsey quote “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else." > That being said I personally think that's ridiculous and I'll do my damnedest to try to keep mine under $5k, but I know it won't be easy, and there will have to be many things sacrificed. My wedding (2 years ago, in the midwest) had about 100 guests and cost us about $5000 total (doesn't include the rehearsal dinner or the bar tab, which our parents covered). There were probably some things that we could have spent even less on, but it would have required us doing more things ourselves. A few things we did that might be different than the norm: * My wife, mother, and grandmother made many of the decorations themselves * The reception venue was less expensive because we had the wedding in April, because it wasn't during "wedding season" * We had the grocery store make our cake for us * We didn't pay anything for the ceremony location (there are many beautiful public venues that you can book for free) * My wife chose a dress that was beautiful, but wasn't obscenely expensive. She also recovered about half of the cost by selling it afterwards.
scarface74 11y ago
Our "wedding" cost $25 at the court house and we had a reception later on for around $3000.

iainmerrick 11y ago

I think being middle-class is all about making choices between giving up luxuries of the body (e.g. resturant food), for luxuries of opportunity (e.g. schooling). Maybe so, but that definitely didn't used to be the case, which is pretty much the thrust of the article. Its other point is that the scale of the problem is hidden because people are ashamed to talk about it.

harryh 11y ago
Why do you think that it didn't used to be the case that people had to make choices about what luxuries they wanted to buy? I think that people have always had to make these kinds of choices.
- iainmerrick 11y ago
  I'm thinking of the middle class of my own parents' generation. They did not have to worry too much about choosing between restaurant food and schooling. There are always going to be luxuries that you can't afford to indulge in regularly. That's what a luxury is! Colleges and restaurants didn't used to be luxuries. I didn't fully appreciate that they now are, so this article is eye-opening for me in that respect. (I'm from the UK where the college setup is different from the US, but it's moving in the same direction, a decade or two behind the curve.)
  - harryh 11y ago
    I don't know about the UK, but 30 years ago in the US 20% of the population graduated from a 4 year college. Now it's 30%. Access to higher education is becoming easier not harder. Similarly, more people are eating out in restaurants more of the time.[1] I think you have a rosy view of the past that isn't supported by evidence. 1. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/americans-spending-on-dining-out-just-overtook-grocery-sales-for-the-first-time-ever http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/americans-...
    - iainmerrick 11y ago