growing up-what was your family's financial status

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Posted by oct.2004bride

upper middle class
upper class
rolling in it big time

if you don't mind me asking how are you defining these terms...I need it to be more specific to answer

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I remember once hearing that if you can measure all of your assets to equal over 1 million dollars that you were considered upper class. If you take yourself out of the NY metro area - that is very hard to achieve. In the grand scheme of things, it is a very small % of people. I may be wrong though.

Growing up?
Upper class.

Dad was a blue collar retailer/store and property owner.

4 kids - 7 degrees - no loans. Dad worked from the time he finished serving in WW2 until he was 70 when he retired.

Now?

Working class. You never know what you have til its gone! Then again, it was never mine - it was MOM'S AND DAD'S!

We were a what you'd call your regular middle class family.. Though I grew up in an area that was mainly upper middle class and even wealthy, and while my brother and I never wanted for anything, we also weren't handed things on a silver platter the way some of my schoolmates and neighbors were

Its pretty amazing to me when I think that I presently make MORE money than my Dad did for most of those gronwing up years when we were kids...yet we still lived in a really lovely, 4 bedroom house in Westchester, and my mom didn't work at all until my brother and I were well into grade school. Today DHs and my salary combined can hardly afford anything in Westchester bigger than our co-op!

very poor but we ate (Spaghetti O's) with intermittent times of food stamp usage.

I was the kid that got free lunch at school. I am one of six.

My parents are now incredibly successful, and live an upper class lifestyle. I am so proud of them. My father built his little one man woodshop into a huge operation and is one of the most successful custom woodworkers in the business. It took 25 years of hard work, but it finally kicked in a few years ago.

I hope to live out the American Dream like he did!

OK, but there were sacrifices.

It's weird- my dad had a decent job, not great but enough to feed and clothe us and pay the mortgage and keep the cars running, etc. There wasn't really money for extras and my parents went without a lot of things so we could play Little League and do scouting, etc. However, my mother did not have to work after the birth of my youngest brother. We were able to get by.

I refer to it as weird, or ironic, or whatever because it's changed so much. Things were tight but the key thing was my mom not working. Now, even though DH and I are much more educated and make much better salaries compared to my dad (even accounting for inflation) there is no way I could stay home with our kids, when we have them. We would not be able to cover all the bills.

We were middle class, but I never would have known it..my parents were very good to us. My father was a Colonel in the army, my mom was a stay at home mom while we were younger, there were five children and we moved alot, due to my fathers job. But we had everything we needed and we were very happy. My poor mom on the other hand, never bought herself new clothes, she was always buying US new cclothes...she makes up for it now..she shops like nobody;s business!

i grew up in an extremely wealthy neighborhood however our family never really fit right in...at the time i didn't understand, but now that i am older i really appreciate all my parents have done and sacrificed for me and my sister...

now my standard of living comparatively speaking is 'horrific'. my parents say they feel sad to see the state of affairs and how difficult it is for young couples to start out and get by these days - it wasn't as hard for them they say...

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Posted by TracyInQueens

OK, but there were sacrifices.

It's weird- my dad had a decent job, not great but enough to feed and clothe us and pay the mortgage and keep the cars running, etc. There wasn't really money for extras and my parents went without a lot of things so we could play Little League and do scouting, etc. However, my mother did not have to work after the birth of my youngest brother. We were able to get by.

I refer to it as weird, or ironic, or whatever because it's changed so much. Things were tight but the key thing was my mom not working. Now, even though DH and I are much more educated and make much better salaries compared to my dad (even accounting for inflation) there is no way I could stay home with our kids, when we have them. We would not be able to cover all the bills.

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There was a study published a few years ago about this - how even taking inflation into account the dollar buys less now.

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Posted by TracyInQueens

OK, but there were sacrifices.

It's weird- my dad had a decent job, not great but enough to feed and clothe us and pay the mortgage and keep the cars running, etc. There wasn't really money for extras and my parents went without a lot of things so we could play Little League and do scouting, etc. However, my mother did not have to work after the birth of my youngest brother. We were able to get by.

I refer to it as weird, or ironic, or whatever because it's changed so much. Things were tight but the key thing was my mom not working. Now, even though DH and I are much more educated and make much better salaries compared to my dad (even accounting for inflation) there is no way I could stay home with our kids, when we have them. We would not be able to cover all the bills.

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That's exactly what I have been thinking. Growing up my situation was basically the same as yours except my mom did work on an off making basically nothing. DH and I make so much more than them, and I don't even think that we can afford a house right now, nevermind affording kids.

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Posted by The Original 2nd-time-around

Growing up, Upper class. Now is a whole other story

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same here LOL! I didn't know how good I had it!