Investing General Discussion

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Kithani

Kithani

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Arden said:
What makes someone middle class?
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I mean according to you it sounds like if you drive a Honda instead of a Lexus, that's the definition? Lol

I think if the overwhelming bulk of your income is reported via W-2, you be middle class at best, regardless if you make 80k or 800k.
 
Zog

Zog

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Owning a home and a newer vehicle is usually the requirements for middle class. If both are in the payments phase I would consider being able to pay them off without issue being "good enough" to be middle class. The real power comes from having those 2 paid off though. You have decent income with less expenses than the average lower class citizen, putting you a step above the masses.

Those 2 things require you at least having your shit together both professionally and personally.

This definition scales with inflation.
 
OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

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Burnem Wizfyre said:
I’m curious what y’all think where I’m at. I own 2 vehicles, zero payments both 2019 a Ram 1500 Warlock and a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I have zero credit card debt, my mortgage is $1627. I have zero debt other than my mortgage which was 200k for a 3 bed room 2 bath 1600 sq foot house. My only expenses are utilities, insurance, quick quack subscription to wash our vehicles, gym membership. Wife is stay at home mom that does nothing but raise our kid, keep our house clean and sucks my dick like it holds the answers to all of life’s mysteries. I have maxed out 401k contributions, Roth, little over 30k in the bank and just under 40k in cash in my gun safe. It’s been 14 months into my mortgage and I owe 160k of the 200k. I’d have more but I recently went on vacation for a week to Montana and have wrapped up my Christmas shopping which ate up an entire check preventing me from saving. I can literally get by one just half my checks. I vacation 3-4 times a year.

Below are pics of my ADP YTD, checking account balance, credit score showing 0% usage (doesn’t show I have 30k in available credit via credit cards) cash I laid out on my bed that I took out of my gun safe, pic of my house, couple of pics of my truck.

Flame me, call me a faggot, but am I poor, middle class, rich.
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You earn 3x the national average for a family of 4. That coupled with your money management puts you in the upper class.
 
Arden

Arden

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Kithani said:
I mean according to you it sounds like if you drive a Honda instead of a Lexus, that's the definition? Lol

I think if the overwhelming bulk of your income is reported via W-2, you be middle class at best, regardless if you make 80k or 800k.
Click to expand...

Plenty of people who are middle class drive a Lexus. Some people who are upper class drive Hondas. What someone drives, in and of itself, doesn't tell you much about a person at all. What I think you can say though, is that if you walk through a middle class neighborhood in America, you'll probably see more cars that retail in the 30k-50k range (new) than the 70k-120k range. That's not overly controversial.

Defining middle class, or any class, is tough. And things get really fucking complicated when you try and add factors like "values" into the equation instead of just focusing on assets. A big part of what constitutes "middle class" or "poor" is going to heavily depend on your own personal lens, which is largely shaped by your background and personal experiences. If you take a random citizen from Aleppo and drop them in a Detroit suburb, they are going to think everyone there is rich. If you do the same thing with a native of Beverly Hills, they probably would refuse to get out of their Tesla. Which one is right? Neither. Both. It's subjective.

If you dropped 100 random Americans from middle class neighborhoods in my neighborhood, I'd be willing to bet that 80ish of them would agree that it is a middle class neighborhood, despite the fact that the average house is valued at 1.2m. Is that a guess? OFC.

Maybe I'm wrong. But look at the pic I posted, because that's what my neighborhood looks like, and that's a 1.25m house. If you think that looks upper class instead of middle class- cool! Neither of us is right and neither wrong because this stuff is all really, really subjective.
 
Zog

Zog

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Arden said:
Maybe I'm wrong. But look at the pic I posted, because that's what my neighborhood looks like, and that's a 1.25m house. If you think that looks upper class instead of middle class- cool! Neither of us is right and neither wrong because this stuff is all really, really subjective.
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60k/yr for 20.8 years if you never spent a dime, you could afford that house. The average wage slave is actually eating on a daily basis and usually has to wear clothes and shoes.

1250/wk is a decent wage and they would never be able to buy that house without a massive shift in income that simply changing careers wont easily be done to get top pay.

Housing prices are fucked. Everyone knows this. The time to pay off at these prices is creeping to 60+ years, which... was never a good thing.
1701050791541.png


Yet theres so much fucking money sloshing around, the entire market is floating on it.
 
C

Captain Suave

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Zog said:
60k/yr for 20.8 years if you never spent a dime, you could afford that house.
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Median income in LA is ~$70k. "Middle class" is loosely considered $50-140k. Median house sold this year is ~$950k. Median house listed is ~$1.2M.

Arden said:
What someone drives, in and of itself, doesn't tell you much about a person at all.
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When I lived in Atlanta, probably half the population of the ghetto drove Escaldes. Last I read, the prototypical millionaire drove a paid-off 4 year old Toyotal/Honda/Ford. If anything luxury car consumption is an inverted signal to stable wealth.
 
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Arden

Arden

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Zog said:
60k/yr for 20.8 years if you never spent a dime, you could afford that house. The average wage slave is actually eating on a daily basis and usually has to wear clothes and shoes.

1250/wk is a decent wage and they would never be able to buy that house without a massive shift in income that simply changing careers wont easily be done to get top pay.

Housing prices are fucked. Everyone knows this. The time to pay off at these prices is creeping to 60+ years, which... was never a good thing.
View attachment 502055

Yet theres so much fucking money sloshing around, the entire market is floating on it.
Click to expand...

Couple things to keep in mind.:

Where I live an18 year old cashier with a GED can START around about 45k a year at McDonalds. Most people make much more than 60k/year, especially those who own homes. But (again) everything costs way, way more here than it does in most places- especially homes.

More importantly, most people who bought in this neighborhood did so when prices were far lower.

Like you said, your calculations are more an indicator of how fucked housing prices are than how middle class the neighborhood is.
 
Lambourne

Lambourne

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Burnem Wizfyre said:
Thanks I’m a bit retarded, I didn’t post what I did as a brag I’m legitimately curious where others think i stand.
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Why are you keeping that much cash in the house? I could understand a little for emergency use or stacking silver/gold if you don't trust the banks, but wads of cash do nothing but lose value and are a theft/fire risk. Not up to date on what the US savings account rate is but assuming 4% you're missing out on $1600 interest per year.

For me, wealth isn't really about what you own, it's being financially independent. How long can you maintain your current lifestyle if you stop working? Weeks, months, years, decades?
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
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Burnem Wizfyre said:
I’m curious what y’all think where I’m at. I own 2 vehicles, zero payments both 2019 a Ram 1500 Warlock and a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I have zero credit card debt, my mortgage is $1627. I have zero debt other than my mortgage which was 200k for a 3 bed room 2 bath 1600 sq foot house. My only expenses are utilities, insurance, quick quack subscription to wash our vehicles, gym membership. Wife is stay at home mom that does nothing but raise our kid, keep our house clean and sucks my dick like it holds the answers to all of life’s mysteries. I have maxed out 401k contributions, Roth, little over 30k in the bank and just under 40k in cash in my gun safe. It’s been 14 months into my mortgage and I owe 160k of the 200k. I’d have more but I recently went on vacation for a week to Montana and have wrapped up my Christmas shopping which ate up an entire check preventing me from saving. I can literally get by one just half my checks. I vacation 3-4 times a year.

Below are pics of my ADP YTD, checking account balance, credit score showing 0% usage (doesn’t show I have 30k in available credit via credit cards) cash I laid out on my bed that I took out of my gun safe, pic of my house, couple of pics of my truck.

Flame me, call me a faggot, but am I poor, middle class, rich.
Click to expand...
What I suggest is to track your net worth each year. Add up your total assets, subtract all your liabilities and see what the number is. Hopefully it's positive.

Each year so the same and compare the movement year over year. It's a good exercise to give you a view of all the moving parts of your financial health.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Any guesses on CRM earnings this week?

ps.. I hate companies that dont report during the "regular" earnings period.
 
OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

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Burnem Wizfyre said:
Thanks I’m a bit retarded, I didn’t post what I did as a brag I’m legitimately curious where others think i stand.
Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to be snide or anything, just stating the facts how I see them and where I think that puts you relative to the rest of the country.
 
Pogi.G

Pogi.G

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Arden said:
Plenty of people who are middle class drive a Lexus. Some people who are upper class drive Hondas. What someone drives, in and of itself, doesn't tell you much about a person at all. What I think you can say though, is that if you walk through a middle class neighborhood in America, you'll probably see more cars that retail in the 30k-50k range (new) than the 70k-120k range. That's not overly controversial.

Defining middle class, or any class, is tough. And things get really fucking complicated when you try and add factors like "values" into the equation instead of just focusing on assets. A big part of what constitutes "middle class" or "poor" is going to heavily depend on your own personal lens, which is largely shaped by your background and personal experiences. If you take a random citizen from Aleppo and drop them in a Detroit suburb, they are going to think everyone there is rich. If you do the same thing with a native of Beverly Hills, they probably would refuse to get out of their Tesla. Which one is right? Neither. Both. It's subjective.

If you dropped 100 random Americans from middle class neighborhoods in my neighborhood, I'd be willing to bet that 80ish of them would agree that it is a middle class neighborhood, despite the fact that the average house is valued at 1.2m. Is that a guess? OFC.

Maybe I'm wrong. But look at the pic I posted, because that's what my neighborhood looks like, and that's a 1.25m house. If you think that looks upper class instead of middle class- cool! Neither of us is right and neither wrong because this stuff is all really, really subjective.
Click to expand...
Here We Go Discovery GIF by Shark Week


I consider vehicles to be a big hindrance towards a large portion of the population in terms of generating wealth.
 
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Furry

Furry

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Lambourne said:
Don't need to, I've got it. Not gonna post your address so I'll just post cropped pics of the houses in the background of your truck pic.
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As someone who's guilty of spending weeks looking at windows to track down the apartment of a furry that posted a segment of a window in one picture with nothing more than that and a the city she lived in, the autism can be real. And before you think that was a 100% creepy, she challenged me to do it cause she thought I was bluffing when I said I could, so it was just mostly creepy.

PS, this should have been PM'd. Not a very gentlemanly thing to air it out like that.
 
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Gravel

Gravel

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Click to expand...

So now we get to the part where the Fed has basically acquiesced that there won't be more interest rate hikes, and we start heading into economic cratering.

And then in another 18 months, they'll realize they fucked up and start jacking interest rates back up to try to correct it.
 
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OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

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Gravel said:
So now we get to the part where the Fed has basically acquiesced that there won't be more interest rate hikes, and we start heading into economic cratering.

And then in another 18 months, they'll realize they fucked up and start jacking interest rates back up to try to correct it.
Click to expand...

I just need rates to come down into the 5's so I can refi the new rental properties and make 2x cash flow per house!
 
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Zog

Zog

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Gravel said:
So now we get to the part where the Fed has basically acquiesced that there won't be more interest rate hikes, and we start heading into economic cratering.

And then in another 18 months, they'll realize they fucked up and start jacking interest rates back up to try to correct it.
Click to expand...

In the feds shoes they can only do so much. The more they try to force something, the worse the outcome gets. This is just buying time.

Jacking rates up will cause a whiplash effect that will need a kneejerk reaction that inevitably will make everything worse.

The best thing we can do is hold on for dear life and hope everyone else fucks up worse than us.
 
Palum

Palum

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Gravel said:
So now we get to the part where the Fed has basically acquiesced that there won't be more interest rate hikes, and we start heading into economic cratering.

And then in another 18 months, they'll realize they fucked up and start jacking interest rates back up to try to correct it.
Click to expand...
giphy.gif
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Cashed out a chunk of one of my accounts and withdrew the funds. S&P just below a 52-high and while I might miss out on a Santa rally, it seems like a good time. This is going to pay for my pool. Gonna throw the withdrawal into my high yield savings account (5%) and pay out the milestone payments from there. Had a good run this year all things being equal.
 
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