This.
We don’t discuss our incomes etc with our neighbors or most of our friends and relatives.
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Lots of housing diversity in my neighborhood. Student rentals, subsidized housing, million dollar homes. Right now the neighborhood is up in arms thanks to a proposed 6 story apartment building that would be right on the fringe of the neighborhood. Lots of NIMBY coming out. Housing stock is scarce and my immediate neighborhood is desireable. I’m not “friends” with my neighbors, but if I had to guess I would say we are better off than most of them. The friends I have live further out of the city and I would have to guess they are better off than I am. We all do the same types of things, and while we talk about travel, restaurants and shopping, talking about costs and finances just isn’t part of that relationship. My H has been ill and one of the medications his physician wanted to prescribe was not covered by Medicare/supplement. $700/month. Before my mother died, I would have been worrying about how to pay for H’s medication because I wouldn’t have had the funds. I have a dog I love dearly and she wouldn’t be alive right now if I hadn’t inherited from my mother. Financially we wouldn’t have been able to afford Sabadog’s care, which is likely better than a lot of people in the US receive. I’m very careful not to talk about what we have spent for her care as most people would consider it excessive for “just a dog”.
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In theory, wouldn’t any rental housing (including houses) potentially be Section 8 housing, depending on whether the landlord accepts Section 8 vouchers?
Of course, NIMBYs often do not want any increase in housing stock (“affordable” or otherwise), because they think it would hurt their property values, which are often the only values in local politics.
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I rarely have any discussions with anyone about income or assets. Honestly, it doesn’t come up. I live in a “nice” neighborhood as do all of my relatives. We are able to pay for everything we need and many things we want as well. We feel very fortunate. Those in my neighborhood are similarly situated. The neighbors next door are renting. They’re a young family with 2 young kids. The H is an attorney for the military and the W is a dentist. They don’t want to take on a huge mortgage while they have daycare/preschool and so many other expenses. They are trying to figure out what to do when H stops being in military. They’d prefer to stay in our neighborhood (it’s a very welcoming area) but may have to move into a place being remodeled at his relative’s home so they can afford to pay off that loan. Time will tell.
Real estate in this neighborhood has gotten very high. A son of a 1st cousin is an MD (geriatrician). His wife also works full time. They’d like to move from their 2 story place to a one story place but don’t think they afford the price difference. They are noticing the challenges of having to climb stairs regularly (bedrooms are all upstairs). I always used to think that MDs had it made, but it appears these days in our state, they don’t make all that much, compared to the very high cost of living (especially buying real estate).
Agree for the most part, since people tend to choose houses based on “location, location, location” and do not want to live in “bad neighborhoods” (where there are more people poorer than they are). Because elementary schools serve small neighborhoods, they tend to have similar low SES diversity. High schools tend to serve larger areas and therefore tend to be more diverse than elementary schools. Colleges draw from even larger areas, but also skew upward on SES due to affordability issues for those with less money.
The effect of rising housing prices can cause a neighborhood to have higher SES among newer entrants than long term homeowners.
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Could stairs be good for one’s health? The study at Association between stairs in the home and instrumental activities of daily living among community-dwelling older adults - PMC seems to suggest that may be the case.
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I am closest with people I went to HS with.
One friend is relatively poor, I would have to say. She and her H live in a very low-cost area and handle most repairs to their house (which they bought for cash for less than $150K) themselves. But she has no children and has said that she has no reason to keep a lot of $$$ in the bank. In fact, she hopes to die with only $10 left to her name. Why not spend it??
Another friend came from very old WASP-y money. (I helped her clean out her mother’s house. There were sterling silver trophies in the basement from golf and tennis tournaments in 1905.) My friend has also done very very well for herself. She was an actress and, though not a household name, you would recognize some of the TV and Broadway shows she has appeared in. She’s even done very well with real estate she has bought and sold during the years.
Another friend shocked me a few months ago. We were talking about estate planning – she has a special situation: five adult children, four of whom are very successful and one of whom is disabled. She told me her and her husband’s assets and I was flabbergasted to learn they only have about a third of what DH and I do. And both she and her husband are attorneys.
So, I guess I’d have to say, my close friends are not similar to me in terms of money. Regardless, DH and I can afford whatever we need, and we can also afford some things we want. We live a good life.
ETA: Then there’s my HS friend who has a big house in far-West NJ and an apartment on Fifth Avenue with a stunning view of Central Park. Her husband was a urologist. I guess there’s a lot of money in urology!!
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Not picking on you, but I wonder why you would be very careful to not talk about that. Do you mean you don’t talk about the inheritance or your mom’s care or medicine for the dog? Unless you would be bragging in some way, I’m not sure why those topics would be so taboo. I mean, they certainly aren’t anyone’s business, but I guess I wouldn’t have a problem mentioning any of that to a friend. Just curious.
I edited my post to hopefully clarify and respond. I can assure you I’m not bragging. Most people I know would consider what I’ve spent on Sabadog excessive and ridiculous. I’m not sure what they’d think about the costs to keep H going (sarcasm intended).
Oh, gotcha! No comment on your dh. 
“Income levels” and “wealth” are correlated, but can be completely different, particularly among older persons. Millionaire Next Door type surveys find that the vast majority of persons with an inflation adjusted >$2M net worth have middle class type incomes, in many cases earning under $100k throughout their career. The surveys also found that the overwhelming majority of wealthy persons (by net worth) live frugally, rather than live/spend as media typically projects wealthy persons. Instead they became wealthy by living frugally and saving over time.
This makes it difficult to identify who is in a similar place to them, or even define what “similar place” means. Is it someone with similar income? similar wealth? similar spending? similar degree of financial challenges? A combination of all of the above?
I get the impression that most people I am friends have far more financial challenges than I do, but usually also have much higher spending. I doubt that anyone I know (and few in United States) are in a similar place to me in combination of income, wealth, spending, and degree of financial challenges. And aside from a few rare circumstances, I think this has little impact in our relationships. We don’t do any activities that require paying a problematically high expense for one group. We don’t talk about anything that one group would find problematic for financial reasons.
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This is how my friend group does it too. Actually we almost never do anything together that isn’t free. We go on a lot of walks, or we hang out in each other’s living rooms talking. We have a book club and the rule is the books can’t be new releases, so we can get them from the library. These are habits left over from when most of us were on tight budgets with student loans and little kids. But mostly it’s because we like going on walks and sitting around living rooms and reading older books.
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The cousin’s S is a geriatrician and sees aging patients all day, every day. Yes, of course he knows that stairs & exercise CAN be a good thing but also having a place where one can comfortably and SAFELY age in place Is very important. He would like to find a home in his/our neighborhood that is all one level and in his budget.
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My kids attended a catholic grade school with widely diverse wealth and income ranges. Even if you could figure out which group you were in (we were in the lowest), there were still difference based on what the family had to pay for.
Two families in my ‘group’ happened to be related and the grandparents were very wealthy. (VERY). The grandparents paid for all educational expenses, for the grade school (cheap), high school (much more expensive), and college. These two families didn’t have to pay current tuition nor save for college like I did. The grandparents also helped with sports fees and other one time costs the kids needs, freeing up ‘family’ money for things the parents wanted. I had more pressure to balance my budget than they did. My kids had to do free or cheap activities like girl scouts, church choir, rec sports while their kids could play travel hockey and take private skating lessons.
It all worked out.
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I grew up in a very homogeneous SE town. We all were able to afford a lunch at Friendly’s, a movie, or bowling, but we didn’t ski at Telluride or summer in Europe either. When we wanted to get together money wasn’t much of an issue. My kids also grew up in such environment, but just a step up.
IMO it was easier not to have to worry about having to keep up with jones. My kids didn’t come home to ask me why their friends could/couldn’t do XYZ and they could/couldn’t.
At my age now, I go for easy. I don’t have super rich friends and I don’t have friends who couldn’t easily go out for a dinner or a trip.
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My daughter and I always lived, and she always went public school pre-k through high school with those who made and had much more and much less than we did and had. We were fortunate that families with more shared experiences with my kid, and we did what we could for those with less, including families who occasionally had the electric cut off or spent some nights in the shelter system. This is something I appreciate about NYC: there are some great public and charter schools and teens almost all take the subway and have contact with those in different social classes.
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My husband and I have been retired for a few years, and we feel lucky to have had careers during a period of growth that allowed us to invest and save enough to be comfortable…not affluent, as some of my friends and neighbors are, but able to enjoy our simple (and relatively economical) hobbies/activities with enough travel, restaurants, and entertainment to meet our interests. We have always lived in solidly middle class areas, but there are much poorer areas close by.
My sister, who is retired and has a much lower income, has always lived in our aging family home in an area where prices are going up. The neighborhood deli was sold to a new owner who has renovated it entirely and is selling premium products (for which prices are not posted). Neighborhood restaurants are being replaced with fancy ones charging twice what the previous ones did. It’s a small town among many small towns that have never before been subject to this kind of change, almost like a type of gentrification, with people who work in the Big City who moved to the area during Covid and can afford the increases in the cost of living. I guess I would say the area is diverse.
There are wealthy people in our town but no billionaires to my knowledge. However, most of our friends are in a similar income bracket as us because we have worked with most of them at some point. Our neighborhood is diverse and my kids’ elementary is Title I.
This thread is making me realize that we talk with each other way more about finances than most of y’all. That might be because my spouse and coworkers are underpaid academics and there’s a lot of griping and no shortage of panicking involved. Their spouses are also not big earners. After an upcoming promotion to full professor, I anticipate my spouse’s salary still won’t hit $65K/yr. I’m also an underpaid academic, but make a little more at a different institution than my spouse. 5 years ago, I was making $52K.
A lot of our friends are, like us, doing “okay” financially, but have been and forever will be on tight budgets. Most of them have scrimped to get kids through college and save for retirement, many with their own student loans. A minority of them have zero retirement savings (gulp). None go on international vacations. The only ones who have gone on regular domestic vacations involving flights are the ones with no retirement savings, which I guess makes sense. I regularly attend international conferences but cannot afford to bring my spouse along (not complaining, just grateful I get to go!)
Most of us have sent our kids to college for low or free tuition (one perk of being underpaid academics). We all know which of us could afford be laid off or retire because we’re afraid of job security and it’s a constant topic of conversation. We also know whose elderly parents have savings and which ones don’t because taking care of them in some way is another big responsibility for all of us, without exception.
Now I’m realizing we talk about money a lot compared to others. I think it’s because it’s a constant stressor for nearly all our friends. We were so relieved to recently find out that our most financially responsible friends, who have a similar household situation as we do but are 7 years older, are nearly identical to us in terms of their retirement strategies and saving. That reassured us that we’re doing all right, seeing how we might be 7 years from now.
My kids’ friends have more SES diversity and they all talk about money freely (except for the rich one). They all have jobs (except for the rich one lol), so they do have some discretionary money, and they’re openly considerate of everyone’s limitations. There’s a lot of hanging out in homes watching movies and some cheap outings like bowling, swimming, ice cream. Plans revolve around busy work schedules. And around the rich friend’s many vacations lolol.
With our friends, we mostly hang out in homes to eat homecooked food, go on bike rides, watch movies at home, etc. We do go out to eat with friends, but have noticed those without kids can afford to eat out more than the parents can. We don’t eat at restaurants unless it’s social and even that strains the budget. My spouse eats with friends in the super cheap college cafeteria a lot for socialization.
We have some wealthier relatives and find it’s difficult to keep up with the activities that they want to do. But we don’t live near them, so fortunately we mostly hang out at someone’s home when we get together. We wouldn’t be able to afford to go to a non-home vacation with them, even if we got cheap transportation. However, we have a family member who is a high earner and has bragged about how diligently she’s been saving for years. We were shocked on a recent visit that she volunteered how much she’s saved for retirement and it’s the same amount as us.
One of my coworkers makes over 3x my salary and it gets to be a bit of a struggle to socialize because she wants to eat out for every meal and loves shopping (I do not). I end up cooking for other people frequently, in part to avoid expensive restaurant meals. My less wealthy friends/family are mindful of reciprocating but that seems to be a bit lost on the wealthier ones that eat out a lot or prefer pricey groceries.
I know it’s gauche to discuss money in some social circles, but it’s common in ours. I don’t recall our wealthier friends discussing money much if any, so in our community it seems to be a function of wealth. We have wonderful friends and we have a great time doing things that work within our budgets, so we are rich indeed!
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Housing insecurity is a very real issue in urban areas. I thought I was on pretty solid ground entertaining friends at my home, a modest 1BR in a NYC hi-rise, until I realized that for a lot of young adults, particularly in the arts field, having an entire apartment to oneself was considered a luxury. They were accustomed to couch surfing; having all their belongings crammed into the space of a walk-in closet, often with a close relative (a sister in one case; a mother in another) in the same situation - barely able to afford city rents. It started to get uncomfortable when one young fellow asked whether I needed a roommate (I didn’t and don’t.) The diversity is one of the things I enjoy about my neighborhood, but I’ve learned to limit my social interactions to local church functions.
Of course, this raises the question of where in modern life do you find community, if you aren’t particularly religious? Or prefer to meet people of different religions? I’m still working on that one.
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I’m surprised how much many people in this thread seem to know (or believe they know) about others financial situations. Among friends or others I regularly interact with, I often have a general idea about employer income based on their occupations. Employer income ranges from $0 (volunteer as primary job, or are retired) to 7 figures per year.
Wealth is less clear. Homes in my VHCOL area are usually valued over $2M+. However, this does not mean everyone has high wealth. Most people have a mortgage. Some have a HELOC or loans on home equity, in addition to mortgage. A few rent or have other situations where they live in homes that others own. Among most people I interact with, I usually know little about how much they have in non-real estate wealth, such as retirement accounts or stock investments; and as such could not even make a good guess about their total net worth.
Some seem to struggling financially. However, a similar statement could made about the vast majority of households in the United States. Most people spend money almost as fast as they make it, sometimes faster. Some people I know have jobs associated with high incomes, but make it sound like they are barely getting by after their high expenses and are having notable financial struggles, in some cases carrying high credit card debt. Some have side hustle type work beyond their primary job, although I’m not sure whether this primarily relates to assisting with their financial challenges, or primarily relates to non-financial reasons. Among most people I know, I don’t have a good idea about who is struggling more/less than others.
As an adult, I can’t recall ever feeling that I couldn’t interact well with friends/acquaintances because of income/wealth/financial disparity. Some people have different opinions than others about spending, and some have very different spending habits, but this does not prevent us from interacting well. However, in relationships I have found that having compatible financial habits is important – compatible spending/saving habits and compatible long-term financial goals, not having similar income/wealth. I’ve got along fine with partners who had completely different income/wealth.
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