How do I adjust to a new social class?
Beware of keeping up with the Joneses. Many of your free-spending neighbors are broke. Basically, the prices of things like what you're noticing will rise as incomes in the area rise. A great example of this can be found in state capitals and college towns, where battalions of government workers or students all make just about the same amount of money and drive prices accordingly. For example, a college town tends to have a tight rental market. The prices reflect what the market will bear.  People have more money, things will likely cost more.  Think of it in terms of percentages and you can start to justify the higher housing costs. My father likes to tell me that his first mortgage cost him $75 a month, and he had no idea how he was going to pay it each month.  He also earned $3/hr at his job.  So his housing costs were 15% of his gross income.  My dear father almost passed out when he learned that my mortgage was $1000 a month, but since I earn $4000/month gross, I am really only paying 25% of my salary.  (Numbers made up) So if he complains I pay 10% more, so be it, but complaining I pay $925 more isn't worrying to me because of my increased salary. So if your complaint is the amounts, you must take ratios, percentages and relative comparisons.  However if you are baffled by people having money and wasting it on silly or foolish purchases, I am with you.  I still don't understand why people will use the closest ATM and just pay the $2 fee. Do right by yourself and don't mind what others are up to. Under what conditions did you move? My favourite method of judging prices objectively comes from concepts written in Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez. Essentially it normalizes money spent by making you figure out how much an item costs with respect to the number of hours you needed to work to afford it. I prefer that method versus comparing with others since it is objective for yourself and looks beyond just the bare prices. I live in one of the highest cost of living areas in my country.  For the cost of less than half the down payment my spouse and I have saved up for a house we could easily buy a home in most of the lower cost of living areas (and several homes in, say, Detroit). As for the rest of your question, though, we've chosen not to live that way.  Because, like all high cost of living areas, ours is near a city there are more free and inexpensive things to do than you would think at first.  While others in our area think a great time is pre-gaming drinks at a nice bar, an expensive restaurant, then some more drinks we've taught ourselves how to make great meals from scratch using sale and inexpensive ingredients from the grocery store and often do that on weekends, topped off by a movie from the redbox that we promptly return the next day.  We have chosen friends who will hang out with us over potluck dinners and board games instead of out on the town.  On weekend days we visit free museums, do hikes, wander around revitalized downtown strips, or play at the local parks.  Our groceries, as I mentioned, are sale items or use coupons and we go for less expensive meats and produce.  We visit our local farmer's market for fun, not to buy the expensive produce.  We might find ourselves wandering through the mall to window shop, but when it comes time to actually buy clothing or goods for the apartment we shop around for up to months to find a good deal. Plenty of our friends have money enough to spend, and the most debt they are usually wallowing in is a big car payment, no consumer debt.  At the same time I have trouble imagining some of them buying a house any time soon, because they simply can't be saving all that much (since I know their incomes).  They may eventually be able to afford a condo and ride rising housing prices to a townhome and then a house - it's what lots of people do around here, loosing buckets money in realtor fees and closing costs along the way.  Even with these choices, it's hard to view my friends as selfish knowing that most of them give around 10% of their income to charity. There are probably plenty of people around here swimming in debt (somebody recently asked in a Q&A with the local paper editors how she could stop going to the city's most expensive restaurants and start living within her means when she only liked expensive places), but lots of folks can stretch themselves and afford to get by while wasting a lot of money.  It's not what my spouse and I have chosen to do, because we want to be able to live very responsibly and plan for a rainy day, but the longer you live with and around the money that tends to permeate high cost of living areas, the more it will seem normal to you. Also, if it's really $1000/mo for a 2 br. apartment, your cost of living is still lower than mine is. If I were you I wouldn't try to acclimate myself to the spendy habits of your surroundings.  Instead I'd find friends who are frugal and work on maintaining your good financial habits.  If you ever want one of those $4, $5, or $6K (plus!) houses, you're going to need them. Housing, eh? Housing costs are driven by salaries and land availability. Over in the Bay Area, $1500/mo for a nice 1-bedroom apartment is a good deal... but a decent software engineer with ~4 years' experience can get $120k, easily. The standard benchmark of affordability of housing is spending a third of your income on it a year: that guy can afford about $3,333/mo on housing. (If you don't fritter away the money and can keep your cost of living down and save money, you can really clean up, especially if you move elsewhere later.) So, to stop thinking about it in terms of dollar value, first try to think of it in terms of time: 33% of someone's salary or a third of their time at work going for housing is pretty nominal. Beyond that, think about it in terms of opportunity cost: If you saved that extra $20, what exactly would you use it for, and how much of that goal does it represent? "And specifically regarding prices of housing, what factors drive prices in that regard? I mean, the houses are roughly the same... but almost 3 times as expensive. Rent, like so many things, is tied to supply and demand. On the demand side, rent is tied to income. People tend to buy as much house as they can afford, given that mortgage interest is deductible and public schools, financed through property tax, performs better in valuable neighborhoods. Raise the minimum wage and economists expect rents to go up accordingly. When employers and pensions offer COLA adjustments, it feeds into a price loop. During the past ten years, there was also some ""animal spirits"" / irrational behavior present; people feared that if they didn't buy now, home prices would outpace their growth in income. So even though it didn't make sense at the time, they bought because it would make even less sense later (if you assume prices only go up). There's also the whole California has nicer weather angle to explain why people move to SF or LA. On the supply side, it's all about housing stock. In your old town, you could find vacant lots or farmland in less than 5 minute's drive from anywhere. There's far less room for growth in say, the SF Bay area or NYC. There's also building codes that restrict the growth in housing stock. I'm told Boulder, CO is one such place. You would think that high prices would discourage people from moving or working there, but between the university and the defense contractors triangle, they seem to have an iron grip on the market. (Have you ever seen a cartoon where a character gets a huge bill at a restaurant, and their eyes shoot out of their eye sockets and they faint? Yeah... that's how I felt looking at some of the places around here...) Remember, restaurants have to cover the same rent problem you do. And they have higher minimum wages, and taxes, etc. Moreover, food has to be imported from miles away to feed the city, likely even from out of state. In California, there's also food regulations that in effect raise the prices. If people are footing those higher bills, I wouldn't be surprised if they're racking up debt in the process, and dodging the collectors calling about their Lexus, or taking out home equity loans to cover their lifestyle."
A lot of people will probably talk about appearance, body language and all the rest of the social stuff  I say..If you have evidence to prove you are competent to do the job, concentrate on that..just the facts, clearly explained  Of course, if you are incompetent..get a nicer suit, learn how to shake hands and practice brown-nosing The entire best schools progress starting with one level then onto the next and master skills in a logical order. Preferably your school ought to take after an evaluated syllabus that will guarantee that you build up a strong establishment of quality and strategy for your dancing. The essential thing is to be prepared in a pleasant environment in which you are comfortable. If you literally know almost nothing?  I suggest:  1) learn financial terms, such as going through a glossary  2) learn how to read financial statements (balance, income, and cash flow sheets)  edit:   If you mean just in terms of a job?  I have no advice other than to keep your mind open, adapt, and be proactive/enthusiastic. "There are only two ways to increase your savings: You are young, and both of these are likely to spontaneously happen - you will be promoted and get raises, and your loans will be paid off, removing the loan payment. It would seem that you need only to wait a year or so, and there will a lot more than $87 left over each month, and your savings will grow almost without any action from you. But somehow, that is not what happens in real life. As people get older they ""need"" more than they did before (larger home, more expensive ""things"", etc) and they never manage to get around to saving. So it's great that you are wondering how to do it. But you are not truly making it a priority. You mention that you also pay/spend for friends, the internet, play & joy, cloth, gifts, book, etc. And this armwavy entirely optional spending is the difference between 72.85 (such precision!) and 90% of your salary. In other words it is 17-18% or more than your rent. Think about that for a moment. Every month you spend more than your rent on friends, play, joy, books and good old etc. If you were to cut that in half, you could save 8 or 9% of your salary. Maybe after your next raise you can get that up to 10%. How can you cut that optional ""fun"" stuff in half? Well, I don't know, because I don't know what it is, and I suspect you don't either. So track it, for a month or two. Are you getting takeout food or coffee every day? Are you always the one who pays when you go out with friends? Do you eat in restaurants a lot? Do you always wear the latest fashions, buy $500 shoes, pay people to do your nails or dye your hair, buy a new phone every year, have the top end phone plan, top end cable plan, ... You have to know where that rent's-worth of money goes every month. Then you can figure out how to send some of it to savings instead.  In some ways you are in a hard generation. Your parents didn't need to save for their retirement because they had you, and they know you will send money home for them. But you probably don't expect the same from the children you don't have yet, so you have to save for yourself. This is a challenge. If you were saving the money you send your parents, you'd be fine. Yet you don't want to reduce what you send, they need it. Still, people have faced bigger challenges and overcome them. Start by understanding where your fun money is going, then look at how to send some (aim for half) of that to savings instead. You won't regret it." You're spot on. I'm coming in because he thinks nobody else is doing a good job, and he's hoping we can turn things around.   Everyone will know who I am, complete with family gossip. The existing culture will NOT be helpful.    Perhaps a softer teamwork approach would be best in this instance? Slowly work up and earn respect and assume responsibility. The best way to get what you want is to deserve it.  I like the top commenter here in how they lead off- be honest about everything. Show them you know you're new to the group and don't expect to know everything off the bat.  Start getting really involved in learning the business- read some books, ask your family a million questions, and take it seriously. The more you do at the beginning, the better off your journey will be. Make sure your English is as fluent as you can, and learn more about western cultures so you can talk about peoples home countries with them. You don't need to be an expert but just enough to get a conversation started and get people talking. A random discussion about an old American TV show called Stargate SG1 on a overnight train in Thailand resulted in the waitress selling me a lot more coffee than she would have done otherwise. I'm not familiar with this guy.  I think he's right about there being a cultural separation between the classes.  But I also think it was pretty telling that this bourgeois dude interpreted a high school graduate's sticker shock as bewilderment and awe with something beyond baloney sandwiches. "You sound like you're well educated, well spoken, and resourceful, so I'm going to assume that you are somewhere in the neighborhood of top 5% material. That means you can pretty much do anything you want to if you put enough effort into it. There are two types of people in this world: those who run the world and those who live comfortably in it (and, of course, everyone else, but they are irrelevant to the discussion). Who do you want to be? I've been around a lot of wildly successful people, and they have two consistent traits:  connections and freedom. First, everyone always told me that ""it's not what you know, it's who you know"", but I never appreciated it until after college. The world runs on connections.  The more connections you have, and the more successful they are, the more successful you will be. Second, the more freedom you have, the more opportunity you will have to take chances, which is how you become wildly successful. Freedom comes from not being in debt (first) and having money (second). Why do you think Harvard grads are the guys that end up having so much money and power? It's probably because they grew up in a rich family which provided them money (freedom) and a wide social circle of rich people (connections). So you're not rich.  What to do? Well, the easiest way to get into that group is to go to college with them. And that means you need to get into Harvard or another Ivy League. Stanford if you want to be an engineer. College will be where you will make your most intense and long-lasting friendships.  That roommate at Harvard that you went on the crazy four-day road trip with may someday be CEO of a company... and when he needs a CIO, you can be damn sure you'll be at the top of the list if you're qualified. But Harvard costs a lot of money...which means you'll be in debt, a lot, when you get out of college. You'll have lots of rich, important friends(connections), but you'll be deeply in debt (no freedom). Most of these type of people end up becoming consultants at big firms because they pay well.   You'll live a comfortable life and pay off your student loans in five or 10 years.   Then you'll continue to live comfortably,  but at that point you'll be too old to take huge chances and too comfortable to change things (or perhaps you'll have a big mortgage =  no freedom). With a heavy debt load, it's almost impossible to, say, join an early stage startup and really be able to take huge chances.  You can do it, maybe.  Or, as an alternate option, you can do what I did. Go to a cheap state school and graduate with no debt. That puts you on the other side of the fence:  freedom, but no connections.  Then, in order to be successful, you have to figure out how to get connections. Goldman Sachs won't hire you, and everyone you meet is going to automatically assume you're mediocre because of where you went to college. At this point, your only option is to take big chances. Move to New York or San Francisco, offer to work for free as an intern somewhere or something.  It can be done, and it's really not too hard, you just have to have lots of spending restraint because the little money you have has to go a long way. So what are the other options? Well, some people are recommending that you think about not going to college at all. That will certainly save you money and give you a four year head start on whatever you decide to do (freedom), but you'll forever be branded as that guy without a college degree.  Think my second option above but just two or three times worse.   You won't even get that free internship, and you'll be that weird guy at dinner parties who can""t answer the first question ""So, where did you go to college?"".  It doesn't matter if you're self-taught;  life isn't a meritocracy.  If you're very good, you'll end up getting a nice cushy job pushing ones and zeros. A nice cushy golden handcuff job. Well, you could go to community college. They're certainly cheap. You can spend very little money so you'll end up with fairly good freedom.   I might add, though, that community colleges teach trades, and not high-level things like management and complex architecture.   You'll be behind technically, but not as bad as if you didn't go at all. How about connections? Your fellow students will probably lack ambition, money, and connections. They'll be candidates for entry-level wage slave jobs at Fortune 500 companies after they graduate. If they get lucky, they'll work up to middle management. There's no alumni association, and there's certainly no ""DeVry Club"" in downtown Boston. At New York and Silicon Valley dinner parties, having a community college degree is almost as bad as having nothing at all.  Indeed, the entire value of the community college degree will be what you learn, and you'll be learning at the speed and level of your classmates. My advice? If you get into an Ivy League school, go and hope you get some grants to help you out. The debt will suck, but you'll be well positioned for the future. Otherwise, go to a cheap second-tier school where you can get a large scholarship. There are also lots of third-party scholarships that are out there on the Internet you can get. I got a couple from local organizations. Don't work during college. Focus on expanding your network instead; the future value of a minimum wage job while you're trying to go through school is practically zero." This advice is easily ignored because it's one of the more difficult to do, especially if you describe yourself as an introvert: Alumni.  If you went to a well known University - you should have a massive alumni network at your fingertips.  You need to replicate those informational interviews with dozens and dozens of alumni. One at a time of course, but reach out to them, honestly.  Call or email if you're too uncomfortable calling.  You won't get a response to every email you send or call you make, but I promise it's THE best way to get where you want to go. Especiall if you've already exhausted your own family and friends network.  Rough example email below: &gt; Example abound of rich kids who don't pan out and poor kids who make it.  This is not really very true.  Social mobility is not so common - if you're born in the poorest or riches 1% or 10% of the population, the chances are you'll spend your whole life in that demographic.  Figures are not so easy to come by on these particular margins, but it's easy to find studies that show 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults, whilst just 8 percent rise to the top fifth. [[cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States)] Yet it's really the poorest 1% and 10% we should be thinking about, and comparing them to the richest 1% and 10%, when we ask how fair our society is. They are surely less socially mobile.   Meanwhile, [UK statistics](http://www.lonegunman.co.uk/2009/12/11/statistics-on-social-mobility-and-belief-systems/):  * Pri­vately edu­cated can­di­dates account for 7 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, but occupy more than half of the top pro­fes­sional jobs. * 75 per cent of judges, 45 per cent of senior civil ser­vants, and a third of MPs are pri­vately educated. * More than 4 in 10 places and Oxford and Cam­bridge go to pri­vately edu­cated candidates. * 30 per cent of chil­dren on free school meals do not get good GCSEs. * Of stu­dents get­ting 3 As at A-Level, just 0.5 per cent were eli­gi­ble for free school meals. "Not true.  Replace ""Ivy League"" with ""target school,"" and you'll be far more accurate.  When I started my BB front-office job, I had gone to a target school but not an Ivy League.  Two other classmates attended target schools in the south, but far from Ivy league.  One of those two is now one of Goldman's youngest partners.  PS Don't count on starting in the back office and moving up - it's about as common as a blue lobster." "In most cases, if you are a member of the class the law-firm will contact you via postal mail to notify you of the class action and give you an opportunity to opt-in or opt-out of participating in any settlement that happens.  More often than not, they take the opt-out approach, meaning that if you don't say you want out of the class it is assumed that you agree with the complaints as defined in the class action and would like to receive your portion of the money if there is a settlement.  If you haven't gotten such a letter and you think you should have, it is a good idea to contact the law firm. How do you find the law firm? Usually some Googling on ""class action"" and the name of the defendant company will get you there. Also, check the legal section of the classifieds of the local newspaper, they sometimes advertise them there.  Typically they aren't hard to find because it is in the law firm's best interest to have everyone sign on to their class action for a number of reasons including: If you have a lot of people who are supposedly aggrieved, it makes the defendant look more likely to be guilty, and more participants can equate to higher settlement amounts (for which the law firm gets a percentage). That is why you see non-stop ads on daytime TV for lawyers marketing class action cases and looking for people who took this drug, or had that hip implant. Once a settlement occurs and you are a member of that class, there are a number of ways you might get your piece including: - A credit to your account. - A check in the mail. - A coupon or some other consideration for your damages (lame) - A promise that they will stop doing the bad thing and maybe some changes (in your favor) on the terms of your account. A final note: Don't get your hopes up. The lawyers are usually the only ones who make any substantial money from these things, not the class members. I've been paid settlements from lots of these things and it is rare for it to be more than $25, but the time the spoils are divided. I've gotten NUMEROUS settlements where my share was less than a dollar. There are some decent resources on ClassAction.com, but beware that although the site has some good information, it is primarily just an ad for a lawfirm. Also, note that I am not affiliated with that site nor can I vouch for any information contained there. They are not an impartial source, so understand that when reading anything on there." I wouldn't want to have a house no matter where I live. So I am more than OK with always living in an apartment. We live in a really nice place right now.  My husband is pretty up-to-date on how the country is running and he would be telling me if he were at all concerned about the state of things. Which he isn't... at least not anymore than when I first met him.  So, while I am sure that I will always be middle class... I am OK with that. And perhaps Americans do earn 20% more than Germans but they also pay a lot more for things that Germans do not pay as much for.  Edit: Also, my husband's grandfather was one of the leading historians in germany until he died in 2009. His grandparents were very well off. His parents were poor while he grew up. My husband is on his way to being a partner in an expanding business (he does programming) and his brother is a Pharmacist.  By this time in a year or so from now the amount of money my husband earns will double. "Debt cripples you, it weighs you down and keeps you from living your life the way you want.  Debt prevents you from accomplishing your goals, limits your ability to ""Do"" what you want, ""Have"" what you want, and ""Be"" who you want to be, it constricts your opportunities, and constrains your charity. As you said,  Graduated in May from school.  Student loans are coming due here in January.  Bought a new car recently. The added monthly expenses have me concerned that I am budgeting my money correctly. Awesome! Congratulations.  You need to develop a plan to repay the student loans.  Buying a (new) car before you have planned you budget may have been premature. I currently am spending around 45-50% of my monthly (net)income to cover all   my expenses and living. The left over is pretty discretionary, but things   like eating dinner outside the house and expenses that are abnormal would   come out of this.  My question is what percentage is a safe amount to be   committing to expenses on a monthly basis? Great!  Plan 40-50% for essentials, and decide to spend under 20-30% for lifestyle.  Be frugal here and you could allocate 30-40% for financial priorities. Budget - create a budget divided into three broad categories, control your spending and your life. Goals - a Goal is a dream with a plan. Organize your goals into specific items with timelines, and steps to progress to your goals. You should have three classes of goals, what you want to ""Have"", what you want to ""Do"", and who you want to ""Be""; Ask yourself, what is important to you. Then establish a timeline to achieve each goal.  You should place specific goals or steps into three time blocks, Near (under 3-6 months), medium (under 12 months), and Long (under 24 months).  It is ok to have longer term plans, but establish steps to get to those goals, and place those steps under one of these three timeframes. Example, Good advice I have heard includes keeping housing costs under 25%, keeping vehicle costs under 10%, and paying off debt quickly.  Some advise 10-20% for financial priorities, but I prefer 30-40%.  If you put 10% toward retirement (for now), save 10-20%, and pay 10-20% toward debt, you should make good progress on your student loans."