Quote:
Originally Posted by vkm20
Another reason for me aksing this question is I know some people who probably are earning same and are in similar situation like me but they live lavishly and in bigger nicer houses than me. It puzzels me how they manage it and still be happy.
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My reasons for sometimes being curious about other people's income is very similar to yours. It has nothing to do with any financial voyeurism, envy or Lord knows what...it is simply because I have become a bit puzzled about some issues related to neighborhoods, schools, types of people in the US ands their money philosophy.
Little illustrative story:
Recently my husband and I visited some neighborhoods in an area that we are looking to move once our current place is sold. This would be a suburban area, considered ...nice, closer to my future workplace (a university). I believe it has even been named at some point one of the top 10 places in the US to raise a family. (Whatever). We had a very clear idea about how much house we can afford in that area on our 108,000 income and on a budget that would allow us to continue to save for kids' colleges, retirement, annual trip to Europe (my family is there) and other stuff.
After inspecting the neighborhoods and looking at the houses in our price range...I got a weird feeling that my neighbors would not necessarily be the type of people that I would relate to very well. I
have never cared about how much money a person makes because this is not one of my criteria for associating or not associationg with a given person; but I do care A LOT about the inherent quality of the people around me. Those places, albeit with nice houses, larger and more comfortable than a typical European is used to anyway...seemed to house...well...MEDIOCRE to SUB-MEDIOCRE types.
I saw more pick-up trucks and less-than-intelligent faces in those neighborhoods than I wanted to admit, definitely not the kind of people I would die to go talk to or get to know. There was nothing inherently wrong with them (many would accuse me of being a difficult snob, sure...but I've moved on long time ago from this kind of discussions)
; the subdivisions looked nice...but the faces and the "neighborhood culture", I just did not "get" them, end of story.
So I asked my husband: where are then those individuals like us, meaning the more educated people, the kind who look like they have read a book in their lives, are interested in a stimulating conversation, enjoy traveling some, and whose lives are not reduced to watching football games on a big screen TV after work while stuffing their faces with fast food?
He said: "Well...those are in much more expensive neighborhoods".
I asked: "But why? Aren't they supposed to be like us?"
His explanation was that most Americans at our income/educational level stretch themselves to much larger mortgages and leave for saving much less than I aspire to. Likewise, people below our income and educational level stretch themselves to the mortgage that WE could handle comfortably based on our income. And it certaintly doesn't help that we are both in somewhat non-lucrative fields, on a "high education/comparatively lower income" ratio.
He said that many of those people that I would normally be able to relate to as being "more like us" go to 300,000-400,000 mortgages whereas I do not agree with more than a 220,000 mortgage. Granted, some of them may have also started with help from parents, some inheritance, etc - which none of us has been blessed with.
So the conclusion was that if I want to live comfortably in the US, I need to come to peace with NOT having neighbors I can relate to because most people stretch themselves with mortgages beyond the treshhold that I consider "responsible" for a given income level.
It was quite disappointing as I will surely not go get a 300,000-400,000mortgage just so that I can bump into some polished professional, PHD or just some refined/intelligent person in the hope to find that "common ground" in the neighborhood.
At the same time, I do not fancy my kids going to schools with children raised in football-games-on-big-screen TV-only/fastfood households just as much as I would not want them to go to schools with obscenly spoilt children of vulgarly rich people.
Unfortunately, the professorial/more intellectual areas in this city are downtown, far away from our workplaces and again...very expensive.
Conclusion: looking forward to a relocation over the ocean where people are more mixed and the chances of finding my peace higher.
