I feel wealthy. I’m surprised to see that by local standards I’m middle class. It probably helps my feeling wealthy that we’ve paid off the house. Like… We have some wealth, in addition to income.
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If you’ve paid off the house then you probably have significantly more disposable income than a person with your identical household income and makeup plus a hefty mortgage payment would have.
If you’re paying $2K a month towards principle & interest that’s $24,000 a year of after-tax income which is more than $24,000 a year of pre-tax income. That’s a lot. 
i’m not wealthy but i’m not wanting either. guess i’m in “the middle”
“stuck in the middle with you”
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Still paying on the house but it is a pittance compared to many. Of course it is also a tiny house. Not literally but comparatively. Most people’s retirement “downsized” house is larger than my house. So that’s probably part of why I don’t feel wealthy.
We also have a lot of medical bills and since Covid I finally got a GOOD therapist but he is not on our insurance. This is paying off and upon reflection I feel privileged to be able to do this. Also paying cash for a not super extravagant wedding this year.
You know what, I do feel wealthy.
Upper class currently, upper middle class if we have a child. Solid middle class if one of us stops working to take care of the child.
I love this thought. Cheers!!!
The best thing my wife and I ever did for our family’s quality of life was buy a big house. We all have plenty of space and storage and my kids friends can spend the night anytime without getting in our way. It is just a really nice luxury.
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Yes I wish I had been less conservative when house shopping. We really didn’t expect this to be our forever house. Then again a family moved in down the street when our kids were small and they were the absolute best. Instant friends for our kids, someone to trade babysitting with, etc. You just can’t put a price on good neighbors.
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Our neighbors where we lived before just set in their driveway drinking beer all the time so you had to talk to them every time you went out. They also had this large black dog that would jump on me and get slobber all over me when I came out and it was outside. It also peed on the tires of my car all the time. Maybe getting away from them was what made our move nice LOL!
I agree though, impossible to put a price on the good relationships in life. Hard to imagine never meeting some of the people who we are really close with and how different our life would be.
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Flyover Po-ville. above the line in all measures. Baller alert!
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We won’t squeak our way out of the middle class by the two non-FPL versions until the last kid leaves, which may be never 
.
For the FPL version, we wouldn’t fall in that one unless all the kids moved back in, and then their income (instead of just my salary and spouse’s disability) would push us back out.
Same. The bar is pretty low here in LFK.
The comments about the big houses are funny to me. Having had both a McMansion and now a tiny 100 year old house, I really prefer the smaller one and wouldn’t go back. Less space, yeah, but also less to clean! Different strokes.
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Yeah, I’ve moved around a bunch… homes have ranged from 1,300 sq ft to 5,500 sq ft. In fact I went straight from 5,500 to 1,300.
The 1,300 sq ft home was my favorite, for sure. That said, I lived there alone. I’d need more space with a family, but that was the exact right size for just me. 5,500 sq ft was way way way too big unless you have a litter of kids.
I’ve basically decided that 3,500 sq ft is a hard upper limit for house size. I don’t want to go bigger than that again, and I’d prefer to keep it under 3,000.
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I’m at 2500 with 3 kids, and it is plenty big. 5 bedrooms, so one gets to be a “play room”. A separate office that can’t be counted as a bedroom. 0.25 acre lot in a nice neighborhood. I can’t imagine needing anything more.
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In the U.S., you are not considered middle class.
In New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA, you are not considered middle class.
I’m calling bullshit on this. I need a separate category for people who live in Manhattan below harlem.
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I don’t live in the po and somehow I’m not middle class, which I call BS on anyway. There is no way I’m above middle class for where I live.
Whatever rich girl.
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looks around my teeny tiny studio apartment which is the only thing I can afford hmmmmmm 
Come join us on the dark side of the river then