<story><title>On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class</title><url>https://www.residentcontrarian.com/p/on-being-rich-ish-lessons-i-learned</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>legitster</author><text>I can relate to a lot of this, I was pretty stinking poor growing up. Now I make good money. (I still buy used tires from shady lots tho).&lt;p&gt;But even now that I&amp;#x27;m making good money, it boggles my mind how richer everyone else still seems. Like, how do so many young people have a favorite island in Hawaii? How is everyone out there affording new cars? People actually picked a college major without thinking about cost?&lt;p&gt;One thing I have to constantly wrap my head around is that being &lt;i&gt;broke&lt;/i&gt; doesn&amp;#x27;t correlate to income. I have a family and a mortgage and savings and nothing left over for luxuries at the end of the month. But someone working as a bartender can afford a new Jeep and go to Vegas 4x a year because they have a good roommate situation and they are due to inherit their parent&amp;#x27;s second house one day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hnaccount141</author><text>&amp;gt; Like, how do so many young people have a favorite island in Hawaii? How is everyone out there affording new cars?&lt;p&gt;The reality is that oftentimes they simply can&amp;#x27;t, at least according to a responsible definition of &amp;quot;afford&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;All we see from the outside is the brand new Jeep, we don&amp;#x27;t see the fact that they&amp;#x27;re underwater on a 72 month loan with 6% interest. The average car loan term in 2019 was 69 months, that&amp;#x27;s insane. Something like 30% of trade ins have negative equity.&lt;p&gt;Even ignoring debt, I&amp;#x27;ve spoken to a surprising number of people who make great money and live lavishly but have effectively no retirement savings. The level of financial literacy in the US is abysmal.</text></comment>
<story><title>On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class</title><url>https://www.residentcontrarian.com/p/on-being-rich-ish-lessons-i-learned</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>legitster</author><text>I can relate to a lot of this, I was pretty stinking poor growing up. Now I make good money. (I still buy used tires from shady lots tho).&lt;p&gt;But even now that I&amp;#x27;m making good money, it boggles my mind how richer everyone else still seems. Like, how do so many young people have a favorite island in Hawaii? How is everyone out there affording new cars? People actually picked a college major without thinking about cost?&lt;p&gt;One thing I have to constantly wrap my head around is that being &lt;i&gt;broke&lt;/i&gt; doesn&amp;#x27;t correlate to income. I have a family and a mortgage and savings and nothing left over for luxuries at the end of the month. But someone working as a bartender can afford a new Jeep and go to Vegas 4x a year because they have a good roommate situation and they are due to inherit their parent&amp;#x27;s second house one day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>commandlinefan</author><text>I couldn&amp;#x27;t help but do the same thing when I was reading the article, in the opposite direction: &amp;quot;wait - you had a &lt;i&gt;wife&lt;/i&gt; and you were poor?&amp;quot;  When I was young and my income was low or nonexistent, it seemed like women could &lt;i&gt;smell&lt;/i&gt; the poverty on me and I couldn&amp;#x27;t even get close to them.  It was like trying to sneak up on a grazing gazelle - they&amp;#x27;d hear me coming and just sprint to a safe distance.  The more money I made, the closer I could get until I finally made enough money that they stayed close enough to talk to.&lt;p&gt;Even now, married 20 years, the author talks about the burden on his wife and kids if he went back to being poor - I&amp;#x27;m sure my wife would just leave if I was genuinely stuck in a poverty cycle with no way of getting out, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t really blame her.</text></comment>