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Car dependency is definitely not bankrupting people… The wealth Gap and wage Gap and unrestrained capitalism are bankrupting people. But sure car dependencies definitely a part of that
You missing a $150 monthly expense for weed. Other than that I can tell you’re overspending on your car, $70 on car insurance is cheap lol as a 26 yo.
$1500 isn’t nearly enough for a vacation.
Not the point of the post, i know, but who spends 70$ a month on on “gym”? I bought weights and a pullup bar for a one-time payment of like 50$, and i jog outside for free
Yeah, for that price, they should be getting the whole James.
Planet Fitness for $15/month
I think my next door neighbors are not going to be thrilled to have 220kg+ deadlifts dropped above them.
Having said that, I don’t spend 70 a month for the gym, and I currently have two memberships.
*$70 and *$50. Congratulations, you look like an idiot.
Lol what?
They’re being ridiculous about it, but the dollar sign is placed before the number.
Aah right, the currency symbol is after the number where I’m from so I did the same here out of habit
I mean life is just expensive, yeah some of these items are a bit high but honestlyly overall it’s pretty realistic if you aren’t actively saving money and trying to live on the cheap.
There’s $700/month of savings hidden in the drop from $85k gross to $66k net.
I’d say it’s fairly accurate. I think the electric cost should be double though.
And cars are this expensive after we’ve made almost all roads completely free to drive on.
WTF $70 for internet? Is it that normal?
I pay 21€ for mine.
In the US, yes. It’s stupid expensive because we gave the telecoms a lot of money to upgrade the infrastructure and they didn’t, so we gave them a bunch more but they still didn’t. So now we pay off our debt to telecoms by paying too much for internet. Freedom.
I was thinking, WTF $70 for internet? I pay almost $200.
It also have $100/month of attending weddings. Those are rare enough they get rolled into vacation expenses normally.
Also parking is in hangouts instead of cars lol.
1750 for a suicide apartment
It’s troll post
Wasn’t even optional at my last place, just added on as a fee so they could say rent was lower, base rent was like $800, ended up costing more like $1100 after non optional fees.
I have a degree and I have never made 85k in my life. I never get a yearly vacation either, I hate to break it to whoever this person is but this is not “middle class” in 2026. This is upper middle class at least.
sounds more like you’re not middle class if you don’t have income for discretionary spending
that’s, like, the definition of middle class
By the classic definition I am middle class by virtue of having a degree and not being in a blue collar job.
We understand the usage and meaning of the term middle class VERY differently
You are going to need to take that up with Wikipedia:
Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation’s income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%.
That doesn’t say anything about blue collar or having a degree.
The trades are blue collar and can make more than a lot of lower paying white collar jobs. Hell, I just had a union blue collar job back in the day and had to be picky about which tech career path I took out of that because it paid as well as the lower end jobs I had been eyeing.
The classic definition of middle class was, as far as I learned it, making enough money that you could afford to pay for your family’s expenses without needing your wife to also work.
This came out of the poor working conditions in factories in the 1800s, where people often were hurt, maimed, or even killed (compared to today, this was quite common). If you made enough money that only one family member had to suffer (at this time it was always the husband), that was the bare minimum to be considered middle class. This was regardless of income, it was more about what you could afford.
Prior to this, I’m not sure middle class was really much of a concept. Most groups were separated by trade and upbringing, and pretty much overall separating the low class from artisans, merchants, nobility, and royalty, with no real middle class afaik. It was, for example, quite common for artisan families to all work together
Edit: i feel compelled to share that i studied history for my degree, and i am sharing one of the definitions i was taught.
Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation’s income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%.
From Wikipedia.
I thought we were talking classical definitions, not the definition/s currently considered common according to Wikipedia.
I had no intention of declaring your personal financial situation. I was trying to provide historical context for the term (as far as I know).
No we were talking about your understanding of what middle class means but if you are going to to be pedantic:
The modern usage of the term “middle-class”, however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General’s report, in which the statistician T. H. C. Stevensonidentified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class.[15] The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle-class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world.
I’m not sure where the combativeness is coming from. I came in to share my understanding of the origin of the concept of middle class. I was not intending on being pedantic.
There’s no need to aggressively copy and paste a few Wikipedia articles and pretend to be an expert
You’ve just been lied to, or so beaten down that your expectarions for middle class have declined.
The OP’s math should be middle class.
I have degrees, make $110k before taxes and overtime. Our household makes over $200k before taxes, with 2 kids. We are upper middle class, i think. $85k, single person household is firmly middle class.
We do 1-2 large vacations with a dozen camp trips yearly. Our vehicles average age is also 20 years old and our house is way below what we could afford, so that may be part of our financial freedom.
My spouse and I have three degrees between the two of us and neither of us has ever made that much. At this point we will likely be too old for kids before we can afford them.
I got lucky and ended up at a job with almost infinite growth. Masters in mechE and I do controls, scada, and inventory management stuff. My wife is a high paid dental assistant.
My job is imposter syndrome defined. I enter a factory and I’m the most important person in the building, but I feel like I barely understand what I’m doing. Wish I could give career advice besides ‘be the expert in the room’. Which I know cant be everyone.
There is no middle class.
You either work to live or you own the means.
Bro, YOU’RE being robbed. If you spent less time trying to act like this is some pie-in-the-sky dream you’d have more energy to fight for yourself and others.
It’s wild how much these numbers vary across the Atlantic. Those car costs are tiny compared to living in the Netherlands or the UK for example. Fuel is much more expensive, as is parking.
Phone and internet access on the other hand… you poor bastards are getting robbed. You can get a good mobile plan here for £10/mo for example. I have fibre to my home for £32/mo.
Also, $60/mo for clothing? How often are you people buying new clothes?
Are they classifying areas by the “crime rate”?
Also, aren’t maintenance and insurance costs too low?
That maintenance is high for a new car. I didn’t spend anything in the first 3 years I had my new car, and even after that it was more like $500 a year, not $150 a month.
The car is not the issue here. There is so much wrong with how much this person has spent a lot of items/services.
I have been essentially carless for almost three years. I own a car, but it’s “on loan” to my mom because she lives where a car is an essential and I don’t, and she’s too poverty-stricken to buy one.
That said, I bought a Segway Max G3 in June and it’s awesome for getting around if you only need to operate within a 5-6 mile radius. The mileage is way higher if you stick to 10mph, but I’m a speed demon. I actually save a lot of money on energy costs because it takes way less electric to charge the battery than would be consumed if I were at home using my devices, appliances, and running heat or A/C.
Just make sure to shop for a deal and don’t buy the first one you see. I saved $400 on the one I bought. It was a floor model from a retailer in LA that only had 4 miles on the odometer.
I am fortunate enough that I could buy an apartment last year (south Germany) my mortgage+refinancing is about the same as your rent.
I have not own a car since 2017 and I don’t think I would have been able to afford to buy an apartment if I did have a car this whole time.
