patrick.net

Anyone who flies commercial (first class or animal farm) is in the middle class.

There are CEOs of $1bn companies that fly commercial. Didn't Roger Sibone fly commercial even though he ranked as one of the top 100 wealthiest in the Valley for a while?

PS -

I know you care, you know you care...

I know you can't stand to be thought of as an elitist,
but on the other hand, I know you're not one of "the people".

According to your budget and your definition of "wealth", your $120,000 year number places such a family in the "upper middle class".

So I guess you're saying you know nobody below the Upper Middle Class,

or for that matter, you know nobody who really does live "frugally" as Astrid noted earlier.

Please do not keep trying to maintain how tough it is to get by when you have 25% of your discretionary earnings to spend or save, even after your rather high rent payments are factored in.

Need I mention the people in the income bracket you mention who bought houses say, 10 years ago, quite possibly have mortgage payments nowhere near to the rental expenses you quoted.

Are they not "wealthy", if their mortgages clock in at 1500 to 2000 per month? This is not that unlikely -

http://tinyurl.com/k4n2p

There are CEOs of $1bn companies that fly commercial. Didn’t Roger Sibone fly commercial even though he ranked as one of the top 100 wealthiest in the Valley for a while?

The point is that Roger Sibone could Conservatively Afford â„¢ private aircrafts. The fact that he chose not to is less important. :)

fly where, Reno or Kathmandu?

Anywhere.

RE: animal farm reference...

We overheard flight attendants using that term...

Peter P,

That's a relief, thank god I'm not one of the mob!

ps,

Now that we have the definitions cleared out. I'll just restate my original sentence.

If you're a newcomer to BA without substantial savings, you have to be in the upper 20% income to give your kids a good education. All cleared? :)

One problem with the BA is that it attracts so many overachievers who are enslave themselves to their employers in return for "equity" in a $1M plus POS. They could double their living standards easily by moving to almost any other tech center.

PS-

No shit you are the shit, man.

ps,

(forgive me for sounding a bit GC right here)

I do wonder about the all sacrificing parents. I think of kids as sort of the ultimate in consumable goods. There's almost zero change, especially in the middle and upper middle classes, that kids will return any investment to the parents, yet they cost a tremendous amount in time and money.

So my first question would be - are parents all brainwashed?

And my second question would be - is parenthood really be so rewarding that it's worth forgoing 20 years of nice restaurant, frequent sex, chance to ditch spouse for better model, living in an urban environment, financial security, etc etc?

:) How much do you value your child?

ps is pretty awesome, isn't he. He even knows who Frank Kingdon Ward is!

change = chance

(maybe I need drugs, pronto!)