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These articles are always clickbait. Their budget includes things like maxing out 401ks and 529s, spending almost $10K on vacations per year, $4K to charity, $
by PragmaticPulp 5y ago
These articles are always clickbait.
Their budget includes things like maxing out 401ks and 529s, spending almost $10K on vacations per year, $4K to charity, $2 million home, and it explicitly says things like “Old Navy instead of Gucci” for the clothing item to demonstrate that they’re being
frugal. Even if you subtract out the housing cost, this lifestyle is really stretching the definition of “middle class”.
Their example of a couple who makes this much money is a pair of Bay Area Rapid Transit employees who have a combined income of over $500K. Their professions? Janitor and elevator technician. They clearly went out of their way to find the most controversially high paid public employees they could find in order to feed the clickbait fire.
- johncessna 5y ago> But this family buys disposable (not washable) diapers, tons of baby-proofing material, lots of educational toys, the best car seats and two strollers. > Date night can easily cost $200 per outing for two once you include tickets to a ball game or an Off-Broadway show and transportation. This really highlights priorities. Not everyone gets to make these decisions. I agree the definition of middle class is getting stretched. This isn't the budget of someone with breathing room who gets to enjoy something nice from time to time.
- HWR_14 5y agoI think their budget including a reasonable percentage of income to 401ks and charity is actually a fine thing. Sure, call out the vacation if you like, but saying "people should be putting 5% away for retirement (most companies max match) and donating 2% to charity at the middle class level" is a perfectly reasonable statement. Well, feel free to argue about tweaking the percentages.