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Crisp - your idea of middle class and anothers are very different. My idea of a middle class family is a couple own a modest home have a couple of kids and at least one car, can take vacations once a year and still manage to have a bit of savings for their kids college fund. Have your kids in some outside activity, etc. You can not do this and live whe "ideal comfortable life" in NYC on less than 100K or 200K for that matter. No we don't need the SUV, but isn't that what separates someone from being middle class versus poor??? I'm afraid to ask what you are making as it makes you so upset to hear ones salary and then you go into like attack mode about how you can't hear people say that they are not middle class. I don't know how long you have lived in NYC, but while I wouldn't classify 2M as middle class, I can certainly understand that the money doesn't stretch as far as people may think. If you have to do with out every luxury mentionable then I don't think that you are or would be considered middle class. As the other post said Middle Class is different for different people. But I would think(?) that when most people get a picture of middle class in their head, it isn't someone who is budgeting every penny so they can go out with their friends once a month because they are not sure if they will make the rent or be able to buy food. I don't know what do you think
I think what he/she is talking about is how we take our quality of life for granted in the U.S. I've heard that the poorest of the poor here are about the equivalent of the middle class in some third world countries.
I think people are natural worriers. If they're not worried about where their next meal is coming from or whether their life is in danger, then they start finding other things to worry about. Like money.
I do think you could make it work for 50 K, but you will be in an outer borough, not in the most prestigious neighborhood, and you will be carefully budgetting.
You probably aren't saying that the outer boroughs are on a lower scale of living, but I'd like to point out that for many New Yorkers, living in an outer borough is a significant enhancement in their well being and quality of life. Likewise, for many, living in Manhattan may not be the right place to be. Thus being in an outer borough may be a plus or a minus - depending on the particular individual.
New York City and Hawaii are quite similar, not in terms of culture, because they are both groups of islands with a high cost of living. People all over the world fantasize about living there (for very different reasons) and this desirability drives up the price. They both have a lot of the very rich and the very poor; those in the middle feel increasingly squeezed.
It occurs to me that, living in such places, one experiences a "class-lifestyle-shift." Whatever class-lifestyle one could expect to have in most of the country, given a certain income, you have to shift down one class-lifestyle in New York City. Thus people earning a middle-class salary, a school teacher for example, often live a comparatively working-class lifestyle in New York. This goes all the way up the income ladder. My boss makes nearly $2M. In most any other part of the country he would be considered wealthy. However he has four kids, all of whom are in private school, and is paying for a 5-bedroom co-op in central Manhattan, etc. He is certainly comfortable and upper-middle class, but far from rich. To continue the analogy from earlier posts: he can afford to eat at Per Se on occasion, be he can't afford to live in the Time Warner Building (at least not if he wants 5 bedrooms).
Going back to cost-benefit analysis, to be happy here there has to be something else, let's call it the "NY-factor," that compensates for the class-lifestyle-shift. Your NY-factor is your passion for subways, cultural amenities, restaurants, career possibilities, energy, diversity of people, etc. If your NY-factor is high, it will balance out the downward pull of the class-lifestyle-shift. However, if your personal NY-factor is low to moderate, downward pull of the class-lifestyle-shift will ultimately leave you unsatisfied.
He's not rich? Ten years at that salary is almost 20 million dollars, if that ain't considered rich, I don't know what is. Sure he can spend every dime he makes and not have much in the bank. Look at Mike Tyson, made somewhere around half a BILLION dollars and don't have nothing to show for it.
But your boss making 2 million a year, he's in the top 1% of wage earners in the USA.
Fair enough, but we are not speaking about a 3rd world country, we are talking about you and living here on 50K. All I want you to think about is that what may be considered middle class in Arkansas, may be very different here. If you are used to living a modest life to begin with, then maybe the extras that I was referring to are just not things that you are looking for that is all fine and then you will certainly be fine. I just thought that you should know that you probably won't live on that money and be able to buy a pair of prada shoes - LOL - but you will live. I wish you luck!
Actually, I don't miss the point at all. I think your post was great and I just wanted to attack the American idea that class is about what your money buys rather than how you earn your money and how much money you earn. Your point about many people having to adjust their expectations is spot-on; I was just using your post as a segue.
Many Americans have completely unreaslistic expectations about what money can buy (consumption), and they are brought more to worldly reality when moving to NYC. However, living to NYC gets to many people's heads and distorts the reality of how much an average salary or household income is (earnings). There are many people who can't see beyond the 3,000 square foot home cookie-cutter communities of Atlanta just as there are many people who can't see beyond the seven figure salary world of NYC finance. Being able to step away from it all and see things at a national and global level really puts things into perspective... then it is clear how ridiculous some of these people's beliefs are when compared to reality. Some people who move to NYC (**not referring to the OP here!**) want to have their cake and eat it too, and that just isn't happening with their inflated expectations. The "I am middle class and therefore I deserve a large home, two SUV's, plenty of land, and a big screen TV" bubble needs to be popped, and moving to NYC is pretty effective at doing that.
I think I'm good at managing money, I came from a lower class family, so I'm completely comfortable with budgeting. When I first moved to Little Rock, I only made $25K and I stuck to a budget of $100 a month for groceries, I didn't have cable or internet, and my apartment didn't have a washer or dryer. I lived there for a year, then I started getting raises, so I didn't worry as much after that. I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment
What really interests me about NYC is all the culture and diversity. Somebody else mentioned the NY-factor. That appeals to me.
I'd say that you would be able to make it in NYC. And, you started out with your other thread asking about affordable places in Brooklyn, so you're doing the right thing. And, I'd not say that you were lower class no matter how much money from which you came, since you are obviously doing something right in that you're able to make what you want to do affordable.
To my mind, you have demonstrated a good value system and have a good head on your shoulders, and are seeking to understand the culture of NYC and its varied expenses that can be vastly different before making a decision. So many people move to the city and want Manhattan at all costs, then designer clothing, and dining out all the time, but the reality is that they cannot afford it, even on twice your projected starting income.
So they either go into staggering amounts of debt or rely on parents to do it all for them, and bemoan how poor they are all the time when they could very well take matters in hand and still live in NYC on their own. To me, that's lower class, since they, and anyone who will listen, are held hostage by the illusion of a lifestyle. These are people who live in $6k/mo apartments, wear $500 sunglasses, but cannot come up with $100 for lunch. Whereas someone who works hard for what they have and accomplishes things in smaller steps on their own is someone whom I would regard with a great deal of esteem, no matter their income level, because they set about to make things happen, and do so at their own dignified pace.
You never know, you could end up loving NYC as many who come to the city do. For me, I have often wondered what it would be like to relocate to NYC, but since I am a native and have grown up with its sights and sounds, it's difficult to envision the enthusiasm. And, in some respects, I do envy that of contributing transplants to the city, since what we take for granted is met with a little bit of awe, at least the first 100 times.
Show me ANY major metro area in the country that a married couple (I know he's talking single) is going to live a nice middle-class lifestyle on less than 100 grand a year. I'm not saying it can't be done, but there will be some coupon-cutting going on. People talk about how they can do it on so much less all the time. But then when you look closely at them, you see they have NO savings, credit card debt, and they live 'literally' paycheck-to-paycheck. And everytime some little problem comes ups that they have to spend money on, it ends up turning into a 'crisis' with them.
that is what I'm sayin man - I'm not talking about going out to buy gucci and Louis - I just want the basic stuff that the average middle class american can get anywhere else. YES - I know no where else is NYC, but AGAIN, if you can't afford to enjoy those things because you are broke from paying rent, isn't that just like living in um atlanta without the amenities????
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Ten years at that salary is almost 20 million dollars, if that ain't considered rich, I don't know what is. Sure he can spend every dime he makes and not have much in the bank. Look at Mike Tyson, made somewhere around half a BILLION dollars and don't have nothing to show for it.
