Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion When does it cross the line into materialism?

It depends upon where you are, but $120K does not sound affluent (unless this book was written decades ago). Not sure where the $100K houses are either - even in some questionable areas of the nearby major city, prices are at or above $100K. In this area, $120K is well below the median family income (and is why we are the "poor people" in the area).

That being said, while there are materialistic folks here, my kids have found plenty of friends (and some are very wealthy) who are not materialistic. You would never realize that these families have money to burn. Some of them are very down to earth and use their money for philanthropic causes.

While my kids like nice things, and they have some, they also see folks who could afford all sorts of stuff, but choose to purchase only the things that they really want and use. These folks often have large investments in corporations - which employ a lot of folks.

120K a year puts you in about the top 10-15% of American households, IIRC. Many people who travel primarily in upper-middle class circles fail to realize this.

It's not the 1%, but it's wealthier than most.

You can buy a modest, decent 3/2 house (older housing stock) in a safe neighborhood for 100K in my city. (You couldn't have in 2008--but you can now.)

I believe the book is from 2006 or thereabouts.

The only problem is that when the median income is $150K and the median home price is $500K in a community, everything is more expensive in that community. If we had our income and our home in some areas of the country, we would be living well.

The real problem arises with college financial aid and FAFSA. They don't take into account where you live and a reasonable approximation of your expenses. Some schools ask for the CSS Profile and other info and do take your location into account - location makes a lot of difference to whether one is affluent or not.

In any case, while there is a lot of excess in this area, there are also plenty of folks who aren't the flaunting, nouveau riche types.

If wealthy people are house-poor because they're spending too much on housing, that doesn't make them not wealthy. That simply reflects their choice on how to spend the wealth they've got.

Well, I guess you could find a home here for less than $300K, but maybe it is condemned or needs $100K worth of work (foreclosure on our street that needs that much work).

Then I guess we could live in a community with lousy schools and use our savings from the house purchase on private school. But at $30K/year per kid, and three kids, the costlier home in the good school district starts to look like the better deal.

We are in the Northeast. When we lived in the Southwest in a similar community, our home was one-third of the cost of our current home. All the other expenses seemed to be less too - groceries, various activities, etc.

My understanding is that materialism means defining success / superiority / identity in terms of material possessions. But it can cut two ways... Some people cultivate a sense of superiority based on the things they have and some people feel superior for the things they do NOT have. Both types of materialistic thinking can be found at all income levels.

I recall my grandmother, way back when, being very proud of her piano. This possession signified "making it" in her mind. But she would never, ever be caught owning a dishwasher... Only a lazy, disorganized, self-indulgent sort of person would purchase that sort of a thing. So, that is an example of a very materialistic person, who also happened to be financially constrained.

Speaking of dishwashers, I don't know anyone, including myself, that feels grateful for their dishwasher. Maybe the problem is that we have a tendency to appreciate what we have RELATIVE to the people directly around us. And we take for granted all the luxuries that seem standard in our area.

Anyway, I'm not sure it "works" to tell our kids to be grateful for their presents because other kids don't have as much. Doesn't this just reinforce the idea that being "fortunate" is signified by having more material possessions than some other person?

Here's an interesting TED talk that I think is relevant to this discussion. The speaker is from Africa and she talks about how, when people hear where she's from, they automatically pity her because they assume she had a poor / deprived childhood. But that wasn't her experience at all. And she also talks about how she had learned to pity certain people growing up, and later realized that the stereotype she'd learned was not a full picture.

I totally feel grateful for my dishwasher. I also feel grateful for my washer and dryer. I have lived without these appliances. Maybe that's why.


NO effect? Am I misunderstanding you? I doubt this very much indeed. Even if you live in an extremely expensive part of the country, if you make $120K, dollars to donuts you are experiencing some privileges that someone making 20K is not--unless perhaps you are in the throes of bankruptcy/foreclosure.

I often hear people making 100K+ per year talking about how close to the financial edge they are. I do realize that they have much bigger mortgages than I do, and that some have large debts that I do not (we are debt-free other than the mortgage). But I look at their cars, their iPhones, their vacations, and how they clothe and feed themselves and I don't really feel that they are that close to the financial edge. I was a little surprised to read about the Food Stamp Challenge, where people try to feed their families on the "food stamp budget of $1-1.25 per person per meal per day" (so, about $130 per week for a family of 4) to make a point about how hard this is. That's about my food budget; actually, I think I probably spend less.

Ultramarina, I agree with a lot of what you wrote.

In a place like the SF Bay Area, though, you really do need a lot more money to survive. Rents are insanely high, as in an average of $2K for a one-bedroom apartment. The cost of fuels and food are higher than elsewhere, and taxes are very high (e.g. ~9% sales tax, high income tax). Then there is insurance and so on. Add it all up, and you really need to be making $60K gross just to survive here. Add in a child (or two), and that number goes up. Child care will run $180-$200 a week. You can forget buying a house until your income is way over $100,000. An apartment or a townhouse, maybe (maybe, at the $90-100K mark).

People with low incomes end up living with family or sharing apartments/houses.