My son just left for a year off school, during which he’s going to support himself in a low-paying job in his dream industry. We fronted him a couple of months rent, which he’s paying back as soon as he has a few paychecks under his belt, but otherwise he’s going to have to support himself. We could afford to pay his bills for the year but we want him to know what it’s like to be self-supporting. He’s prepared to eat ramen for this job. I’m happy he wants to pursue his dream but also that he’ll have the experience of living off the salary at a time when he can still change course if he decides it’s not worth it. He drove 1,300 miles on Kind Bars and slept in his car to get to his new apartment and he couldn’t be happier.
Good luck to your son. I am happy for your son.
For a 66 yo guy like him, how much wealth (i.e., assets minus debt) should he have accumulated before he could be considered as belonging to the upper middle class, in your opinion? 1 million at the minimum? 1.5 million? (Assume that the annual income right before he retired at 65 yo was, say, $130,000 before tax.)
How many percents of Americans at 66 yo have accumulated at least 1 million or 1.5 million (before tax) of wealth? 10% for 1 million and 6% for 1.5 million?
More than he has. I think he is in trouble. How many more earning years does he have left?
Maybe he can rent his house out.
If he rent out his house and rent a one-bedroom apartment like me, he could be in a much better financial shape. Of course, I do not think he is willing to go such an “.extreme”.
.
How about swinging just one elite college tuition? Can we be considered as middle class? We have swung it with a final income before retirement not much more than $100,000 before tax, and almost a year without any income. (We often ate at a fast food joint and rarely have any vacation though.)
He might.
An ex friend of mine was doing well. Bought himself a $1.6 million house. Quit his business. Started a new business. A labor of love. The new business turned to xxxx.
I was looking to rent an airbnb. I was searching. His house came up as a rental.
Like Gabler, I also saw his house was for sale a couple of years prior. I guess there were no takers.
So…who knows?
He is definitely in trouble but not because he doesn’t earn enough. He owns a house that is worth over $1 million, for sure, but it’s no one’s fault but his own if he’s blown through the equity ( which I bet he has.)
Writers don’t retire - they can keep writing for as long as they live if health reasons don’t interfere.
He won’t be able to rent his house for much if it’s in disrepair. It probably would have been a wiser move to use some of his equity to do the repairs needed on his house but apparently he didn’t do that either.
@mcat2, you are at least middle class. Don’t worry about this. 
My uncle bought a condo in Florida for $40,000. There are cheaper places to live than where you live.
Well, maybe whomever is helping pay the kids’ ed expenses will gift OP with funds to fix his place up. If I were in OP’s shoes, I’d be mighty uncomfortable, especially if he’s still borrowing from his kids and hasn’t paid back his 401k.
Writers can keep writing past normal retirement age but somebody has to buy the work.
@Himom, I think the writer is feeling mighty uncomfortable.
^ but he has been quite successful so there is no reason to believe he will never have a book published again. He is also still teaching and writing articles for publications.
I don’t understand why people are making excuses for this guy.
“College Confidential Middle Class Disease is a disease posters have when they live in a $2 million dollar house and think they are middle class”
Upper middle class, dstark, upper middle class.
And it all depends upon how much is financed. If most of that is mortgage debt, you’re probably broke.
@emilybee, I don’t know. Maybe I have seen many people like this guy. Maybe I could have been this guy.
I don’t know why people are trashing this guy.
What the author wrote about the middle class is true.
The upper middle class is starting to get squeezed. They are getting priced out of many areas. They have trouble paying college tuition while saving for retirememt.
People who are upper middle class don’t think they are upper middle class. Why is that?
I do know why I am defending him. I think what he wrote is true.
@busdriver11, if the guy is broke, he is middle class at best. 
It wasn’t circumstances beyond his control that put him in this situation - it was his own stupidity.
Yes, what he wrote is true for many people - but he is the wrong messenger.
A lot of upper middle class people spend everything they make and live paycheck to paycheck. That is why they don’t think they are upper middle class. They are consumers.
At his age, with little savings and big debt, he might be considered lower middle class/poor
I can see him as a cautionary tale of how easy it is for a series of poor financial choices to put a family in a very uncomfortable financial situation, despite education, jobs, and an apparently affluent life.
I’m not good at categorizing a person or family into a class, but having to borrow for heating oil is definitely a sign of financial insecurity, as is being unable to pay bills and taxes.
Honestly, it is hard to decipher what is true or not. He calls his wife a film executive, when she was an office manager? They’ve had financial troubles for a long time and she never took another job? Still maintains a costly home and borrows to pay for weddings. He has not seen the light. He has merely stopped eating out and going on vacation.
@emiliybee, It was a mixture of circumstances that put him in his situation.
He is squeezed. He knows what it is like to be squeezed. According to posters here, he is up to his eyeballs in debt. He has very little net worth. He probably is middle class. If he is the wrong messenger, then so are Bernie and Hillary. (I hope this flies).
A lot of upper middle class people are saving and they are still getting squeezed. Do you know what kind of house you can buy in SF with an income of $125,000? An imaginary house.
@dstark I think many put him down as a form of avoiding fear. If those of us who struggle financially do so because we are stupid or did something to deserve it then they are safe because they aren’t stupid and don’t deserve it.
I have $132 to my name right now. Fixing my brakes after my next paycheck means I’ll be eating one meal a day for the next several weeks. Because I let myself get into a pastor to small churches rut I am forever broke. And it takes money to save money. A recent study shows how poor people pay a lot more for toilet paper than wealthier people because we can’t afford to buy in bulk for example. I have to attend a denomination meeting next month (pastors are required to go). It costs $185 plus mileage plus I will lose two days of my secular job. Pastors of large churches (and higher incomes so could afford to pay their own way) will have their ways paid by those churches. I’ll be out $400.
Not whining. I love what I do. But it infuriates me when many who don’t have to struggle are positive that we who do are objects of ridicule.
And before someone says I am splurging on this smart phone. It is required (but not paid for) by my secular employer. It’s how I get assignments and the plans of care for those assignments.