A household earning $100-$150k per year is NOT “upper-class”.
If you have kids, a home that’s bigger than a shoebox, pay taxes, buy groceries, and have a couple of vehicles; that income will keep you comfortable. At the end of the day, you won’t be saving much either.
You also have the pleasure of watching 70% of the other people around you getting their groceries for ‘free’ at the store, while you’re PAYING for yours. (you’re actually paying for their’s too) Your kids see the same thing at school too. Most kids get ‘free’ lunches, while you have to send your kids to school with a check to pay for their lunches.(that aren’t fit for a stray dog to eat)
Agree,
I consider 100K the top edge of “Upper Poor” class.
You just described me and hubby minus the kids, they’re all grown now.
The only reason we have quite a bit of disposable income is we did things right. Bought a house we could afford and stayed in it and paid it off. We both retired early and actually planned for it. When we retired the only thing we had was a house payment. I had worked for years to pay everything else off. Now the house is paid off we are set but...we have no write offs and pay max taxes for our income.
You’re exactly right. I cannot tell you how many times we have received shocked looks when we have pulled out debit cards to pay for groceries instead of food stamp cards, simply because paying with the food stamp card is the norm nowadays.