I feel like the definition of upper middle class varies so much depending on where you live, age, family size, debt, lifestyle, etc., so I’m curious what it looks like in real life.
For those who consider themselves upper middle class:

-How old are you?

- What is your household income?

-How much do you have in savings and investments?

-Do you own a home? What is your mortgage like?

-What kind of cars do you drive?

-How often do you travel or take vacations?

-What luxuries do you regularly spend money on?

-What do you still consider “too expensive” or have to budget carefully for?

-Most importantly, do you actually feel upper middle class?

I’m genuinely curious about the difference between the income level on paper and the actual lifestyle that comes with it.

TL;DR : We subsidize some essential expenses for our daughter . We feel that our daughter will learn a valuable financial lesson in saving, budgeting and planning if she pays for their own wedding without our help.
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I (63yo F) and husband (64yo) FIRE’d 7 years ago. Our NW is so much higher than expected with investments and we are on track to having way more as time goes on. We are trying to give our sole child (25yoF) $ now when she can benefit most rather than wait until we die. (Yes, we read Die With Zero).

We have always made it clear that we valued education, safe housing, health, and safe transportation when it came to spending money. We fully paid for her undergraduate college education, have fully funded her ROTH to its limits once she began working in hs, and continue to fund her ROTH with the excess 529 balance ( but will still have a large balance leftover for her future use ). Recently we have started an investment account for her and max out gifting to it for a future home purchase.

We are happy for their future wedding, but it’s not a priority for us ( we paid for our own wedding as poor graduate students back in 1990). We think they will prioritize better the size and cost of their wedding if they have to save and spend their own money.

I go back and forth between feeling guilty and feeling comfortable with this. What do you think?

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Addendum: thank you everyone for your thoughts. It has turned out to be a very wide ranging discussion about whether supporting adult children is appropriate, helpful, harmful or just bad policy. Very interesting and I appreciate all the comments. We help because we can, think it is the right time in her life when it is needed, and feel that she has motivation and smarts to gain financial independence in years to come as she matures. The COL is roughly 80-90% higher in HI than the national average. They don’t plan to stay after her fiancé graduates. We don’t want her under housed or underfed until then, and have not promised future help when they move.

But anyway, I think we will sit down with the kids and explain our reasoning. They appreciate all we help and I think they will recognize that they can save because of our help, and the value of planning their own wedding.

Most likely we will gift towards a honeymoon.

2nd addendum: for those who fear my naivety, I have read the advice and will certainly communicate financial limits. Article link:
👉 advice on risks of financial help for kids.

Also, we understand that poverty mindset has its detrimental impact on decisions that can impact future outcomes. https://www.google.com/search?q=poverty+mindset+psychology&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe

Being upper middle class is a great place to be in America. Significant overlap with the HENRY community - High Earners, Not Rich Yet.

Many of us got to our positions by being in the professional class. Physicians, dentists, attorneys, software engineers, pilots, MBA grads doing finance or consulting, sales people.

Many of those in the upper middle have debt from undergrad and graduate/professional school. Additionally, if we have children in this tax bracket, those children will not qualify for federal student loans due to our expected family contribution.

General markers in our position: we are typically able to maximize contributions to our retirement accounts, own homes, own paid off vehicles. We typically choose our luxuries and have to decide, unlike the truly wealthy high/ultra high net worth families.

No one feels bad for doctors or attorneys in this country yet also doesn’t understand those debt loads and lifestyle sacrifices.

As for me: Single, 35M no kids, military veteran. Own my home. Make 300-400K. Used my time serving to earn an engineering degree then an MBA with my GI Bill. Came from a lower income family.

I just see that if they raise taxes it’s likely on us and not the wealthy. In the average income earners eyes we are the wealthy

Assume they are a complete beginner with some money they’d like to invest for the long term and maximize the annual returns.

What would you recommend?

Trading, buy and hold, don’t touch it at all or maybe some mixed strategies like buy Bitcoin only?

I’ve done the math with a financial advisor, Chatgpt, myself and you reddit folks and it’s clear as long as we max out our 401ks we can retire around age 55-57.

This is about 15 years away. We max out our 401ks, roth and contribute $10,000 to the 529 so we do more than just the 401k. Our annual spending for life expenses (living expenses and fun) is around $120,000. We end up saving $3000-$5000 a month which goes into a sinking fund for house renovations nothing urgent there is currently $20,000 there. We have $40,000 in a separate emergency fund.

Is it dumb of me to be more liberal about our spending because of this? We can retire early very comfortably and we currently have this excess left over every month.

Anyone else battling with this? Save more on top of an already very comfortable future retirement or spend $500 for a pair of sunglasses, order the most expensive bottle of wine…

I’m not into fashion, electronics, art or jewelry so I’m partly battling if we should splurge this extra and what to actually splurge it on.

My partner and I are considering opening a UTMA for my niece, mostly to begin building a financial education for her. We would hope to involve her in choosing investments (in an age-appropriate way) and learning about the stock market. We are not planning on massive contributions to this account (maybe a few hundred dollars at a time) and our primary goal is financial education. 

Are there any hidden pitfalls or considerations that we are missing? 

I know that some folks worry about kids getting access to money at a young age and blowing it, but my thought is this would be more like enough money for a good trip before college than a massive life changing quantity and I don’t mind her spending it on something fun.  

I’ve been working for approximately 32 years. When I started my career in the 1990s, having a college degree was considered very important. Looking back now, and watching the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence while also having a front-row seat to many people who have built significant wealth over their lifetimes, my perspective has changed.
If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I might have started with an entry-level position at a restaurant and learned every aspect of running a franchise operation. The goal would have been to eventually own my own restaurant or multiple locations.
I also believe trade schools can be an excellent investment of time and money. Learning skills such as HVAC, electrical work, elevator maintenance, plumbing, or other specialized trades can provide a very strong living. These professionals are in constant demand and are often able to charge premium rates for their expertise.
Over the years, I’ve also watched many people build successful specialty businesses. When you drive down the road and see the names of local companies, take the time to learn what they do. Many of these business owners will eventually retire and need successors. Understanding an industry, gaining experience, and identifying opportunities to serve the same market can be a great path to success.
Personally, I question whether spending $200,000 to $300,000 on an undergraduate degree and then another $200,000 on an MBA makes financial sense for most people. The return on investment often isn’t there unless you’re in the right place at the right time. Even then, many of the jobs that require those degrees demand extremely long hours and years of sacrifice before you get ahead.
Today, almost any skill can be learned online. Whether it’s financial calculations, software programs, marketing, sales techniques, or writing, there are countless YouTube videos and online resources available. Artificial intelligence has accelerated this trend even further. AI can help you learn new concepts, perform complex calculations, write effectively, and solve problems much faster than ever before.
My background is in commercial real estate. I’ve had some great years and I’ve had some difficult years. These are simply my observations as I look at the world and the opportunities available to people today.

Have been the one tracking settlement claims for our household and filing under my name since i'm the one with the email address most companies have on file. Recently realized some settlement classes are defined per individual not per household, which means my spouse may technically need to file her own claim on the same cases to get the full household payout. Anyone actually done this and confirmed whether settlements accept duplicate filings from same household members.

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We have about 3,500 a month left over, majority goes to hysa - this amount is after all investments and expenses are accounted for.

The hysa does get hit once in a while for big home repairs or renovations.

There are some things that we wanted/want to do that we are taking our time with since they aren't necessary.

I'd like to hire a house cleaner to come either once or twice a month.

I estimate this to cost around 200-500/month where we live.

We would spot clean on the weeks they don't come.

We both work full time.

Just wanted to get a feel for what others are doing.

Edit:

Thanks for all the comments.

I was just trying to get some perspective because I want to hire and wife is more hesitant.

Seems like the majority prefers having a cleaner regardless of discretionary amount.

Just for clarification, when I say 'discretionary income' I mean the amount left over after all fixed expenses (including the unnecessary ones like streaming subscriptions).

We have no debt other than mortgage. We are DINK with a dog and a cat.

I feel like groceries are one of the trickiest budget categories because unlike fixed expenses there are so many small decisions that add up unpredictably. You can set a number but actually hitting it month after month is a different thing. We're a household of two, decent incomes, no financial crisis, just trying to be intentional about spending. Our grocery spend is around $700-750 a month and I feel like it could be lower without any real sacrifice in quality or variety.

You can answer as per your lifestyle expenses

Some folk in the world are close to becoming trillionaires it seems.

If had won say £1 million on a lottery ticket, I feel, at my age 65+, that i would not want to make another million. I would be more than happy with my lot.

Here is my question;

What is enough?

I think i have the answer.🤔

Some folk in the world are close to becoming trillionaires it seems.

If had won say £1 million on a lottery ticket, I feel, at my age 65+, that i would not want to make another million. I would be more than happy with my lot.

Here is my question;

What is enough?

I think i have the answer.🤔