I think this ties in with the idea that for many people, what are really luxeries have come to feel like necessities or even worse, entitlements. Why should their special snowflake have to go to just a “state” school. Shouldn’t everyone who gets into Xuniversity have the right to go? Honestly, I have sympathy with people who feel they can’t afford the college their kids dream about, but it makes me furious when they start to complain about the small amount of help given to the very poor.
To satisfy curiosity–and I was certainly curious and asked a lot of questions…
The couple were shopping for Christmas gifts, staying with other friends here, gathering baby clothes and other items for pregnant daughter. A toy here even full price at Wal-Mart here would be 25% of the price in Brazil. So a high end 50 dollar toy in the US was 200 in Brazil if even available. Same with any baby clothes–the states afforded a 75% savings for same or better quality products. And items we take for granted aren’t available.
They took trips not only to the states but to other countries every 6 months or so to get items for themselves and family. The trip cost was easily recouped and more so in savings.
But–don’t judge (even though hard)–all items were out of boxes on the way back. Ruffed up to look older, stuck amongst other clothes etc. to get back through customs where the duties were so high that the trip wouldn’t be worth it.
Just a game everyone played it appeared. Cost of doing business.
And yet, they didn’t seem to grasp the correlation between the free “everything else” (education, health care, free public transportation) and the price of their consumer goods and small pay checks after huge taxes.
@ccprofandmomof2 --“Yeah, anyone who can take a flight to “save money” on consumer goods is not exactly in touch with the masses.”
They consider themselves middle class and very fortunate to be able to take care of not only themselves but aid their extended families also. They essentially support and aid a lot of family. Nobody was living what we might consider a “rich” lifestyle. Far from it. I happen to think they were very much in touch with the masses of their country. As Americans we don’t have the need to look outside our boundaries to get what we need, but that isn’t the case everywhere.
The vast majority of Americans are imbued from birth with capitalist ideas. So it’s not really a surprise that becoming wealthy is a common aspiration and not feeling rich is a common feeling. I don’t necessarily agree with certain people who say they aren’t rich, but it’s hard to shake off a philosophy that surrounds us from the moment we enter the world.
In the case above of the Brazilian couple, they want imported goods. They don’t want to pay the tariffs their country charges on imported goods. There are baby goods made in Brazil that are reasonably priced. Those just aren’t the products this couple wishes to buy. It’s not like Brazilian babies are crawling around naked. 
The Brazilian government has instituted a “Buy Brazil” policy in an effort to support Brazilian manufacturers which makes imported goods expensive. https://www.selectusa.gov/article?id=Brazil-Trade-Barriers
@doschicos --And we don’t want imported goods? Making judgments since those come to us rather than us going after them?
But that’s a good start to a definition of “rich” …“being rich” affords you the ability to buy quality goods of your choosing. How good a quality depends on how rich you are.
Sources for this? My guess would be that group is mostly elite athletes/entertainers/business owners/founders. Wealth moves around a lot in the US. Also depends on whether we’re talking .01% in income or in assets.
Some people will never have enough. That’s ok, it’s that characteristic of human nature that keeps innovation and growth going. Someone else feeling rich or not feeling rich doesn’t affect me much.
Of course we want imported goods < a good reason to be conscious of how we impose tariffs and how much.
Your friends can do whatever they want, no judgment. It’s just you described it as “But they come to the states to buy baby clothes because it’s unaffordable there.” I’m just clarifying that it is the baby goods they desire, the imported stuff, that is expensive, not baby clothes and baby goods in general. I’m not being judgmental but I don’t feel any sympathy for them either.
My husband was run over by the financial crisis when he was about top 5%. So, we do have continuing anxiety about what “could” happen. We do worst case scenarios in our heads. But, that said, in my opinion making it is being able to live of passive income. Yeah baby!
Raised in lower middle class upbringing. No family money, no inheritances.
Now considered top 1%.
And consider the above statement to be patently false, at least in our case.
This isn’t true of my family or anyone else in the top 1% that we know.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/ lists a “self made score” for each of the 400 wealthiest people. 1 = completely inherited, 10 = self-made starting from poor and disadvantaged beginnings – more description at https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/02/the-new-forbes-400-self-made-score-from-silver-spooners-to-boostrappers/ . You can look yourself to see who inherited and who is self-made.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of “the 1%”.
If you believe this one, the above might be true, especially if monthly spending is very high and they have a lot of kids to educate:
But if you believe this definition, it’s hard to understand how the 1% could be “stressed and worried” about paying for college.
https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/measuring-the-top-1-by-wealth-not-income/
Lol.
This is an interesting discussion. I have not seen consistent info on what it takes to be in the top 1%. I just found this article on the top 1% in individual states and the number varies from $250K to 700K depending on where you live. Which does express some of the differences of opinion and perspective in what the 1% looks like and the highest numbers do generally correlate to highest cost of living. This info was released in July
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top-1-percent-of-your-state.html
I will say we come in at about 250K in one those states toward the top of the list. Our house is 2000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms. We drive Kia vehicles into the ground. My kitchen in my 100 year old house was last done in the 80’s. Discussion of luxury vehicles is laughable to me, as are our local 30K+ private schools, and bilingual nannies and cleaning ladies. I don’t have a data plan on my phone. Our luxury items are kid related things - music lessons, activities, supporting non-profits they are involved in. Most of our vacations are road trips. My kids have been on a plane a few times. We live urban in a SE diverse area. ANY college education is a huge privilege and I do feel that way. But no, we cannot afford to be full pay at private schools while my spouse approaches 60 and have 2 kids coming up toward college. It would literally strip our savings and portfolio to almost nothing. We can afford more like the 30K flagship options and yes my kids have had 529 plans since birth. We are playing some merit games with my senior and fortunately he has stats to make that possible but we’ll see. He is applying to 2 public in state tuition options too. I actually see the difference between us and some our neighbors is debt level (we have none at this moment including mortgage) and retirement planning. Otherwise in terms of day to day living, pretty indistinguishable.
Anyway - I really think the way EFC is calculated is broken. And I’m absolutely NOT saying it’s harder on us in the donut hole than it is for lower income families because I do think it’s harder for lower income families. Just because a school says you can afford and can choke up X dollars does not mean you can or should and that is true of every income level. Colleges don’t care about your health care, your aging parents, your retirement, your other kids, your wet basement, your totaled vehicle. My kid will be going to college somewhere. There are bright kids who absolutely are not due to finances and complexity of the system. My kid dual enrolls at an urban CC that is SE diverse and I see magic and tragedy happen there all the time. Heck - I could go on and on all day on the health care and education system in this country alone.
I do think it’s a bit unfortunate that my highly motivated kid with a 34 ACT has to limit his scope due to money when I feel like we have been living quite conservatively since his birth to keep doors open. I definitely think most people we mix with day to day would be shocked to know we are fully pay or what our income is on paper (that actually varies and could plummet). But certainly not as unfortunate than the low income overachiever finishing her 2 year at CC and can’t afford to go on and finish her bachelor’s at the flagship. I see our privilege. But I definitely feel not rich on this board when I dare to tread into elite school threads.
“Stop even applying to Ivy League schools so they could clear a path for the truly middle class”
Can only speak to my own experience, but the majority of 1%ers I know did not attend a top tier college … however, many (not all) pursue top universities for their kids with a blinding, competitive passion!
Most of the 1%ers I know went to state schools. Many, certainly not all, sent their kids to their alma maters or other state schools. That may be related to the fact that we do not live in the Northeast, where it’s common to aspire to those schools.
Our kids did private schools through high school, but state schools for college.
The most important reason top 1%ers don’t feel rich, is how they got there. If you grew up very poor like I did, you know what it’s like to be without. You know what it’s like to live in a neighborhood that isn’t safe, where drugs and school dropouts are common. You might not care about the things other “rich” people do ( like fancy cars or purses or other status symbols). You might not want to talk about $. But you feel it. You know that all of your neighbors live in fancy houses and many grew up that way and know nothing else. You might want your kids to have the benefits of wealth ( great schools, safe neighborhoods, etc) but you might also want them to be hard workers.
If both you and your spouse worked hard to earn high income and made sacrifices (starting a family later, taking on debt for education, etc) you might feel differently about work and how income is earned. If you started a business and it went well, you also likely remember the lean years. The year you lost your biggest client or took out a mortgage on your house or any of a dozen things that took on risk and did not guarantee reward.
I think money is complicated. I agree with other posters that having enough money to live well on thru passive income is a big thing. Also, having a paid off house and paid college. You cannot underestimate the cost of living in many of the areas in which top1% jobs exist. They are not in areas with 250K houses. And the extent of taxes is far reaching in many states.
So most of the people I know are in the top 5% (some top 1% and some top 5%). I think none of them considers themselves wealthy. What do they worry about? College, sending their kids to private school, taxes ( estate and otherwise), medical debt and long term nursing care, kids ( some of whom don’t grow up and leave the nest).
Believe me, the top 1% sees the other 99%. Even if they live in a bubble, they have family and friends who do not. If you look at the demographics, few people who grow up rich, keep the wealth in the family. Money often stays in a family only thru a single generation. So it’s important for people to understand wealth, Entrepreneurship ( if there is a family or other business) and modes of creating income. Some people can do this with 50K a year, others with 100 and some cannot do it with 1 million per year.
Here are reasons I feel rich on an income of $60,000 per year: I own my home free and clear. I have no debt. I have good health insurance. I can afford to help my children with some routine and the occasional extraordinary expenses. Here are reasons I don’t feel rich: I don’t have sufficient assets so that I could retire right now. If I or one of my children had health problems and large medical bills resulted, it would indeed be a catastrophe financially, too.
For me, being rich basically means never having to look at prices. I don’t mean ten million dollar home prices, more like mundane things like groceries or hotel rooms. The first luxury item which comes to mind when I think what I’d buy if we were rich is good cheese 
Although now that we have Trader Joe, it’s way more affordable.
I dunno, many of the folks who are in top 5% (don’t know those in top 1%) do care about prices, especially of hotel rooms. They like getting value for the $$$ they spend. Maybe the 1% are different.
Actually, have read studies (don’t have cites) that say that after reaching a certain comfort level of wealth, more $$$ does NOT translate to greater happiness, mostly more fab vacations.