WDYT? Top ten percent of households (income)

[BlsdMama]

is $148,687+.

 

That can't be true can it?

 

If you make $150,000k, as a household, you are in the "elite" top 10% of households as far as income.

Does that seem right to you?

 

http://www.usfunds.com/investor-library/frank-talk/what-does-it-take-to-be-in-the-top-1-percent-not-as-much-as-you-think/#.VOEMjp3F_9U

[catz]

Seems reasonable to me?  

[Sun]

Why does it seem not true to you? Isn't the average household income in the US 40-something thousand per year?

[HSmomof2]

Sounds about right to me too.....

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

As a single-income family, we are nowhere near the elite threshold. However, we know many two-income and double-dippers who are. They don't seem elite, just barely upper-middle class. It's expensive to live in Northern Va.

[regentrude]

That is in line with all stats I have seen.

 

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2013/09/29/what-is-your-us-income-percentile-ranking-n1712430/page/full

 

The median household income in our county is 37k.

[creekland]

It definitely sounds right to me.  Average household income is right around 54K.  You're talking almost 3x average.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/20/news/economy/median-income/

 

ETA:  This link has a calculator where one can see where their income ranks percentage-wise.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Seems low to me but I'm in a very high cost of living area.  

[hjffkj]

Sounds right to me.

[Catwoman]

is $148,687+.

 

That can't be true can it?

 

If you make $150,000k, as a household, you are in the "elite" top 10% of households as far as income.

Does that seem right to you?

 

http://www.usfunds.com/investor-library/frank-talk/what-does-it-take-to-be-in-the-top-1-percent-not-as-much-as-you-think/#.VOEMjp3F_9U

In our area, $150,000 per year is most definitely not "elite" or even "pretty well-off," but I know the cost of living is significantly lower in other parts of the country, so I assume it all evens out to that number when you look at the country as a whole.

[catz]

Seems low to me but I'm in a very high cost of living area.  

 

I'm in a fairly high cost of living area too so I know what you mean.  But as a national average, sounds about right to me.  The way your lifestyle looks at that income level will vary widely depending on where you are located.

[prairiewindmomma]

That seems accurate.

[Guest]

Maybe 'elite' for income level but not lifestyle. Most people making that income spent a lot of time in expensive schools (loans) or own their own business( taxes and insurance). Plus, taxes.

[plansrme]

I would not call the top ten percent of anything "elite." An "elite athlete," for example,

would be a very tiny fraction of one percent in my book. Top ten percent is just that: top ten percent.

[catz]

Statistically it is right. But if you look at lifestyle of a family making that much money, they aren't typically living an extravagant lifestyle. Usually no private jets, no mansions, no live-in maids, etc. Realistically, it is just enough to be comfortable and not have major money woes. But definitely not enough to live on Malibu Drive and sport a Porche, or whatever.

 

That is very true.  We are very close to this income level in a medium high cost of living area.  What I'd say we have is no debt other than our mortgage (which will be paid off before our oldest hits college).  We have a nice (but not amazing) house in a popular urban neighborhood.  2 functional, fairly new vehicles (but not fancy vehicles).  1-3 vacations a year.  I stop at Starbucks guilt free.  We eat out on a regular basis.  We have a good nest egg for retirement and emergencies don't throw us around the bend.  Like last year we had to buy 4 new appliances in a row and replace a vehicle.  It was extremely annoying, but it didn't cut into our lifestyle at all.  I will also say, we do not really homeschool on the cheap.  Both my kids enjoy many enrichment and outside activities.  We get a CSA in the summer and we can shop the higher quality grocery options.  We do 1-2 house updates a year (we live in a 100 year old home).

 

But if you came to our house and I served you a meal, it would not scream elite by any stretch.  I think what separates our lifestyle with someone closer to average is small things like music lessons for kids, shopping at whole foods, and having college and retirement savings.  I think we're probably actually living a fairly similar lifestyle overall.  And we chose NOT to do some things many families do.  Like pay for private school or have cable TV.  I usually buy cheap/on sale clothing and loved hand me downs when my kids were smaller. 

 

Anyway, "elite" is definitely NOT the right word for the top 10% of anything. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I find median income for families in states to be telling--enough for a very modest home, beater cars, cell phones and the occasional meal out. When we compared average rents + utilities + food for our family, we wouldn't make it on median family income....and I think reality is that many many families struggle.

[momacacia]

I have heard this to be true for quite some time--so I'm assuming it's close to accurate. It also makes you realize how far out in the stratosphere folks like Gates, Buffett, pro athletes, etc., are.

[prairiewindmomma]

Good point, WoolySocks...even my neighbor next door with a Porsche in the driveway (and dinner last night at the Country Club from the pics on FB) still shops the clearance rack and lives in a fairly average house.

[Laura Corin]

The average UK salary is around £27,000 (about USD 40,000).  So I don't find your figures difficult to believe.

[Farrar]

That's pretty low around here, but it's a high cost of living area. We don't hit that. Alas. However, if we became a two income household and I managed to pull down a decent living full time, we might just. But it would still be under a map I saw recently that said it took more than $200,000 a year to live comfortably here and own a house and not accrue debt and so forth. Ack.

[SparklyUnicorn]

The median household income in my city is 35K ish.  So no, that really does not surprise me.  I know surely there are areas where that is probably not considered "elite", but in a lot of areas it definitely is.

 

 

[Farrar]

I kept looking for the one about what it took to live comfortably without debt and so forth, but I can't find it. But I did find this one about the top 1% by state.

 

http://mentalfloss.com/article/61362/what-youd-have-make-be-top-1-each-state

[KungFuPanda]

It seems off to me. Like somehow they should adjust for HCOL. If your lifestyle is the same as someone making 50k and living in Texas it seems odd to label it 'elite.' Number crunching alone doesn't paint a real picture.

[Starr]

It's 32 in our county. Compared to many places housing is cheap but fuel oil, groceries, cars, stuff, etc is high.

[Farrar]

I get why sheer numbers wise that's the top 10%. I mean, what else could it mean but by the numbers. But it's definitely true that it's sort of awkward when you don't understand the context. Someone I know on FB lives in a much, much cheaper, smaller city and posted some article about a family complaining they weren't able to get by with a certain income - sort of a "it's hard to be middle class" sort of article... but the household income was a little less than what dh makes. And she was pretty harsh about it saying they were clearly pretty rich. I was like, eek, you just don't know how far a dollar goes in different places...

[Tsuga]

Yes, because the distribution of incomes has an extreme positive skew, meaning, most of us are bunched way, way at the "bottom" compared to the very top earners. If you look at a plot with the actual distribution of incomes, all the way from zero to a million, and then you look at how many people earn what, you will see what looks like a bell curve, more or less, up to about $160k. And beyond that, what you see is an x-axis that stretches far, far to the right--so far that you almost could mistake the bump at the bottom (which represents earned income salaries more or less) for part of the y-axis. In fact it is so hard to represent this on a screen, because the distribution is so wide and so much of us are at the "bottom" (near 0) compared to the people at the very top, that you don't even see it represented as such.

 

I am not going to draw the graph, but basically, imagine an x-axis going to 50 million, which isn't even the highest compensation, but whatever. Now 50 million is a big number. Look at what percentage 150k is to 50 million. It is .3%. Not three percent. POINT three percent. So a top-ten percent earner is earning less than half a percent of what the top "earner" is getting.  (I put it in quotes because given intelligence and time use variation between people it is impossible for that to be a truly earned difference.)

 

So what we think of as "rich" or "elite" has to do with a tiny, tiny percent of the population. In some companies, the CEO is earning in a day what an employee earns in two years:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/epi-study-restaurant-ceo-minimum-wage-workers-pay-gap

 

This is why they talk about the 1%, or the 5%. But not the top 10%. It's such an unequal distribution that there is more variation in the top 10% of incomes (by population) than there is in the bottom 90%. So talking about the "top 10%" is misleading.

 

In addition, all of us "top 10%" earners tend to be clustered up in areas where there are high-paying jobs. This inflates the cost of homes, child care, food, and everything else. So what you find is that we actually are running in place. (Dang we live in a high COL area...)

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0

 

Where I live, the median income is about what I earn. Double it and you get above the median household income because many families are single-income. Of course we pay in child care. Most of us did well in school and got good degrees and have worked or tried to work through the entire recession. We benefit mainly in the fact that we haven't had to leave this area and rent a shack somewhere in the midwest, I guess. We still live here. We still send our children to good public schools. We still have parks. That is what $150k gets you: good neighborhoods, meaning, other employed people, schools, roads repaired, police who answer your calls. Nothing more.

 

It doesn't get you a yacht. That said many people who have saved and who didn't get hit during the recession got some good deals on homes, cabins, and very small boats. Nothing fancy, but some nice consumer goods. Lucky them. They are far from rich. They shop at the Goodwill with the rest of us. They probably have college savings for the kids. I know a family where the dad makes about $120K. He works in IT and was employed throughout the recession. Mom homeschools, so no childcare costs. They are well-off. But they do NOT seem rich, not at all. They don't act rich. They worry about money because they know they will have to pay for college and their kids are nice but not geniuses, no matter how hard they homeschool. We go camping and kayaking, they go to a cabin and get to use their little motorboat. That is what they get for their hard work.

 

As for us, we get what our European friends consider "normal" life: real vacations, normal hours of working, child care, and some music lessons. That's about it. That's the top 10%.

 

In a sense the Internet and boards like this--of super-involved, highly educated people--really distorts what many people in the US are living. It's not a small number of people who are literally on the edge. They are working two jobs, they are suffering a lot. They are just silent politically. People think, when they see people in their trailers, in the ghetto, on the news "oh that's the ghetto, that's really poor people". And to some extent it is. But it is actually a really large number of people, a big percentage of people, in our country who live that way! It is not a tiny minority. And that's the scary part, you know? How many people are living in this country in disgusting, mind-numbing, grinding poverty.

[Bootsie]

Yes, those are reasonable numbers for the top 10% of income.  These are things to keep in mind:

 

There is a huge difference between the top 10% and the top 1%.

This is the top decile of income for households.  With a greater number of households who are made up of retired individuals, who typically have low annual income, it is easy to get such numbers.  These numbers are calculated based upon one year's income, not lifetime income.  Yearly household income is highly variable over the lifetime.  This means that the top 10% tend to be dual income earners in their peak earning years.

This is based on income and not wealth.  Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, a retired basketball player, etc. may have a large amount of wealth but very low income in a given year.  (The same for many who are retired).

[Shellydon]

I don't consider $150K to be elite by any means. 

[bettyandbob]

That seems right. 

 

That is significantly more than my family income. However, when you consider that level of income you need to consider the COL of the area the family lives. A two income family with that income where I live would have a nice house, but not necessarily a McMansion. They would have material things and be able to have their kids in activities, but they would still be conscious of costs, concerned about savings for college, retirement, etc. 

 

A household where there was only a single wage earner who earned that amount would actually be slightly less stressed. They would not have spent the 0-12 years balancing child care costs. The single wage earner would have a pretty high level job and perks from that. If they were concerned with expenses of college they'd be discussing the stay at home spouse adding income as the dc reached that age. 

[maize]

Doesn't surprise me, it's a lot more than we've ever made and certainly more than 90% of the families I know make.

[MistyMountain]

Yes that is not at all hard to believe that is the top ten percent. It isn't too high.

[Okra]

Well, that seems right to me. I would think that 90% of the US would earn less than $150,000.

[Murphy101]

I don't consider $150K to be elite by any means.

From the 50k demographic - $150k might as well be the queen of England for as likely as I am to ever meet it. So yeah, it IS elite. Is it the elitIST, the top of the elite? No. That's the 1%.

 

We live in a classist society. And there is a huge and growing divide between the classes.

[ikslo]

That is very true.  We are very close to this income level in a medium high cost of living area.  What I'd say we have is no debt other than our mortgage (which will be paid off before our oldest hits college).  We have a nice (but not amazing) house in a popular urban neighborhood.  2 functional, fairly new vehicles (but not fancy vehicles).  1-3 vacations a year.  I stop at Starbucks guilt free.  We eat out on a regular basis.  We have a good nest egg for retirement and emergencies don't throw us around the bend.  Like last year we had to buy 4 new appliances in a row and replace a vehicle.  It was extremely annoying, but it didn't cut into our lifestyle at all.  I will also say, we do not really homeschool on the cheap.  Both my kids enjoy many enrichment and outside activities.  We get a CSA in the summer and we can shop the higher quality grocery options.  We do 1-2 house updates a year (we live in a 100 year old home).

 

But if you came to our house and I served you a meal, it would not scream elite by any stretch.  I think what separates our lifestyle with someone closer to average is small things like music lessons for kids, shopping at whole foods, and having college and retirement savings.  I think we're probably actually living a fairly similar lifestyle overall.  And we chose NOT to do some things many families do.  Like pay for private school or have cable TV.  I usually buy cheap/on sale clothing and loved hand me downs when my kids were smaller. 

 

Anyway, "elite" is definitely NOT the right word for the top 10% of anything. 

 

What you describe here is definitely not a lifestyle that would be sustainable by a family earning the median.  Someone earning the current median wouldn't be able to live in your COL area, even, and definitely does not live a "fairly similar lifestyle overall."  40K a year would not allow this even in a low COL area.

 

4 new appliances doesn't cut into your "lifestyle"?  Guilt free Starbucks?  1-3 vacations...A YEAR?

 

You are definitely elite by today's standards, even when you try to protest to the contrary. 

 

I don't judge you for your money, and I am sure you/your DH have received quality educations and earn your money.  But please don't try to pretend that we are living similar lifestyles.

[Wheres Toto]

The median household income in my town is $117,000, with 3.4% of households below the poverty line.   I'm in a very high-COL area, in a town that until recently houses would easily go for $20,000-$30,000 more than the exact same house in the next town over (not the one our high school kids go to, next town in the other direction.  The school district is considered very desirable).  While we do have a few extremely large (8000 square feet) mansions, we also have a lot of renovated bungalows from when our town was considered a summer vacation spot.  We live in one of the bungalows. :tongue_smilie:

 

Now the town where our kids go to high school, has a median household income of $155,000.  It is also one of the states most highly educated municipalities with 85.94% of the adult residents having a 4-year or graduate degree, and the percentage of white collar workers is 98.77% - which I would think makes a difference with income levels.  I think the smallest house in that town is probably 2,000 square feet and there are very few businesses so the taxes are extremely high.

[Carrie12345]

We were close to that at one point, and we live in a fairly low COL area.  But we have more than the average number of kids and took that time to pay off student loans.  On one hand, it's funny to me to consider us part of the "elite" at that time.  On the other, I still can't figure out how the average American family makes it work.  :(

[*lifeoftheparty*]

Doesn't sound right to me AT ALL.

We bring in very close to that and I definitely don't feel like I'm elite, lol.

I live in a townhouse and drive a 7 year old car.

There are people all around me driving Cadillacs, Mercedes, etc. and living in McMansions.... I guess a lot of us in the top 15% just live in the DC/Baltimore metro area??? I must be *surrounded* by the top 5% or something....

 

 

 

[catz]

What you describe here is definitely not a lifestyle that would be sustainable by a family earning the median. Someone earning the current median wouldn't be able to live in your COL area, even, and definitely does not live a "fairly similar lifestyle overall." 40K a year would not allow this even in a low COL area.

 

4 new appliances doesn't cut into your "lifestyle"? Guilt free Starbucks? 1-3 vacations...A YEAR?

 

You are definitely elite by today's standards, even when you try to protest to the contrary.

 

I don't judge you for your money, and I am sure you/your DH have received quality educations and earn your money. But please don't try to pretend that we are living similar lifestyles.

Wow, ok. I mix with people much closer to the median and I am just speaking to my own experience. My own brother brings in half what we do and lives in a larger house in an outer suburb with similar appliances, amenities, and drives nicer cars. His wife regularly gets manicures. But they have no savings whatsoever. They have an 17 year old they are not helping achieve higher education at all

 

But you bring up a good point. We do not have true stress related to finances, and that is a big deal. We have a modest home with 20 year old ripped furniture. We would be doing much better in some communities and worse in others and that was the point I was trying to make.

 

We married late, both owned houses when we met, both have higher tech related degrees and we only have 2 kids. It was hard work. I ate ramen and lived in a hovel in my 20's FTR. I was born into a family living in a mobile home. I was not born with a silver spoon by any stretch.

[Catwoman]

What you describe here is definitely not a lifestyle that would be sustainable by a family earning the median. Someone earning the current median wouldn't be able to live in your COL area, even, and definitely does not live a "fairly similar lifestyle overall." 40K a year would not allow this even in a low COL area.

 

4 new appliances doesn't cut into your "lifestyle"? Guilt free Starbucks? 1-3 vacations...A YEAR?

 

You are definitely elite by today's standards, even when you try to protest to the contrary.

 

I don't judge you for your money, and I am sure you/your DH have received quality educations and earn your money. But please don't try to pretend that we are living similar lifestyles.

I don't consider anything she posted to have been "elite."

[MomatHWTK]

"Elite" is a subjective term.  If correct, the facts represent that 10% make a certain annual income.  One can label the statistics in a variety of ways to suit a variety of interests.  "We are going to impose higher taxes on the elite," makes a much better sound bite than, "We are going impose higher taxes on those who make over $150,000 a year." 

 

This site offers some graphics that represent income distribution from 2011, for those who are more visual:

http://www.statisticshowto.com/skewed-distribution/

 

Here's another graph for 2010:

https://benperreira.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/income-and-chance/

[Lucy the Valiant]

While 150K is probably the top 10% in the nation, it's certainly not the top 10% in our (high COL) area.

 

It would be a fortune in my parents' midwest small town, but it is significantly below the median family income in *many* Boston suburbs, ya know?

 

 

 

Editing to add: Obviously, lifestyles just aren't comparably by numbers alone; 50K in some areas *IS* 150K in others. (This can be kind of unbelievable if you've never moved from low-COL to high-COL or vice versa).

[Catwoman]

Wow, ok. I mix with people much closer to the median and I am just speaking to my own experience. My own brother brings in half what we do and lives in a larger house in an outer suburb with similar appliances, amenities, and drives nicer cars. His wife regularly gets manicures. But they have no savings whatsoever. They have an 17 year old they are not helping achieve higher education at all

 

But you bring up a good point. We do not have true stress related to finances, and that is a big deal. We have a modest home with 20 year old ripped furniture. We would be doing much better in some communities and worse in others and that was the point I was trying to make.

 

We married late, both owned houses when we met, both have higher tech related degrees and we only have 2 kids. It was hard work. I ate ramen and lived in a hovel in my 20's FTR. I was born into a family living in a mobile home. I was not born with a silver spoon by any stretch.

I don't think anything you posted sounded "elite." Sounds more like a normal middle class lifestyle to me.

 

Unless you're driving to Starbucks in your new Bugatti and driving back home to park in the garage of your 25,000 square foot castle. ;)

[meena]

See the graph for 2010 income distribution here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/06/department-of-awful-statistics-income-inequality-edition.html

 

I wouldn't call being in the upper 10% "elite". I'd probably reserve that title for the upper 1-2%.

[MomatHWTK]

I recently read about a family that spend $70,000 for a playroom for their two toddler girls.  That, I would consider "elite."  :) 

[ikslo]

Wow, ok. I mix with people much closer to the median and I am just speaking to my own experience. My own brother brings in half what we do and lives in a larger house in an outer suburb with similar appliances, amenities, and drives nicer cars. His wife regularly gets manicures. But they have no savings whatsoever. They have an 17 year old they are not helping achieve higher education at all

 

But you bring up a good point. We do not have true stress related to finances, and that is a big deal. We have a modest home with 20 year old ripped furniture. We would be doing much better in some communities and worse in others and that was the point I was trying to make.

 

We married late, both owned houses when we met, both have higher tech related degrees and we only have 2 kids. It was hard work. I ate ramen and lived in a hovel in my 20's FTR. I was born into a family living in a mobile home. I was not born with a silver spoon by any stretch.

 

And on my end, we are a two income family in a low/mid COL area, in a small, decent condo with one child.  We manage to save a bit towards retirement, and also have only mortgage debt.  We both drive old cars.  My 2001 Honda is nearing 200K miles, and we are praying it doesn't quit on us when it reaches that milestone, because a car payment would mean cutting back.  We have to replace the water heater and AC unit this year, and as such cannot afford to go on vacation this year.  We don't consider ourselves poor - we are probably somewhere between the median and  top 10% - with both incomes.  Everything is budgeted.  A family iPad at Christmas was a splurge that broke our budget, and our expenditures are reevaluated with every ebb and flow of my husband's job.

 

I wasn't trying to read into your original post or guess at your circumstances, except to say what you described is so far from the average that I see, that while you don't feel rich, you definitely aren't living an average lifestyle in my book - even adjusted for COL.  Living comfortably is more and more difficult these days when you aren't in that 10%. I would consider myself elite to live without financial stress. 

 

And I have never been on 3 vacations in one year in my whole life.  Can I come with you? :)

[idnib]

.

[ikslo]

Maybe it was the 3 vacations a year that did it for me.  I'm just jealous.  :drool:

 

Maybe elite is not the correct word for the top 10% - but it is definitely not average.

[Tsuga]

That Daily Beast graph is misleading because the last bucket is for $200k plus. In other words, it massively distorts the X-axis in a way that masks the income inequality in the country. It distorts the axis to the point of being intellectually dishonest, which is funny because DB is extremely liberal for the US audience (me being an extreme liberal who reads DB articles every now and again).

 

Here is a closer visualization though even this doesn't fully describe it:

 

http://www.lcurve.org/images/LCurveFlier2003.pdf

 

http://www.lcurve.org/millbill.htm

 

(Sorry, you don't have to be a liberal to benefit from the person's work to help us understand large numbers. I realize the website has political content. My apologies.)

 

The point is, I couldn't even make a graph myself that would fit on the screen that would show you the disproportion between the 10%-er salary and the salaries of the 1%ers, if you would also be able to see the difference between the 10%er and the 50% er. The difference is of that magnitude. I mean it is just unfathomable.

 

As for being "elite", well... let's take the dictionary definition:

 

 

 

elite |əˈlÄ“t, ÄˈlÄ“t| noun1 [ treated as sing. or pl. ] a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities: the elite of Britain's armed forces | [ as modifier ] :  elite colleges and universities | an elite athlete.• a group or class of people seen as having the greatest power and influence within a society, especially because of their wealth or privilege: the country's governing elite| the silent majority were looked down upon by the liberal elite.

 

I would not say that the top 10% have the kind of special political power and certainly not the numbers to influence policy. Between $100k and $250k or so is really where you get stuck with the high taxes and also not enough to like, open a Swiss bank account, you know? 

 

I would say anyone over $75k or thereabouts is privileged, but elite does not cover this group. There is not enough political power. People might feel that the $150k-ers are "elite" but I think that is lack of knowledge about who really has power and what $150k really buys. That ignorance is understandable given how hard some people in this country are working to mask inequality.

 

People who are elite are really able to buy political power at this point. In the $150-250k bracket you are still very much concerned with maintaining your own social status, at least where I live (and I suspect most of the people in this income bracket are in areas like ours, high tech, high COL). You are spending that money, you are vacationing, you are giving the full 10% to causes like the schools, the church, the arts. Yes you are well off, but you are not influencing things like the 1% er who literally has so much money he cannot spend it.

 

 

 

While 150K is probably the top 10% in the nation, it's certainly not the top 10% in our (high COL) area

 

It is "only" in the top 25% in the top-earning zip codes of the following cities: San Fran, Boston, DC, Seattle, New York. Basically, among the richest cities per capita in the entire world.

 

That's it. Everywhere else you are well into the top 10%, in many states, you're easily in the top 5%. It's easy to forget what a bubble we live in.

[Katy]

Most of my friends with dual incomes make about that.  It really doesn't take much- start in a higher paying field out of college and get a promotion or two.

[catz]

I don't think anything you posted sounded "elite." Sounds more like a normal middle class lifestyle to me.

 

Unless you're driving to Starbucks in your new Bugatti and driving back home to park in the garage of your 25,000 square foot castle. ;)

 

:lol:  LOL!  I go to a coffee shop maybe once or twice a week and feel a little naughty doing it!  I wear a $5 winter coat from a thrift sale.  I have on Target yoga pants today (I know, don't even start).  And I drive a Kia minivan because Honda dealers are so darn rude and their minivans are so darn expensive!  And to me, camping or road tripping to a hotel with free continental breakfast is vacation!  We did fly somewhere for 2 weeks over the holidays and that was heaven.  I got my first smart phone less than a year ago and I don't have a data plan.  I have a $10/month Republican Wireless phone. 

 

Believe me, I feel very delighted we don't have financial stress at this time because I do at least in a small way know what that is like.  But I definitely don't feel like we're living high on the hog.  We very intentionally make conservative choices financially so we can have nice savings options too.