Reply #20: A few years ago, there was an article in the NYT Magazine

[Lydia Leftcoast]

about a family that was "struggling" on $100,000 a year.

Now, the cost of living in Manhattan IS high, but this family had all sorts of excuses about why they "had to" make certain expenditures, such as private school for two children and having a cleaning lady come in once a week.

I wonder what their cleaning lady thought about that if she read the article.

When I see a family headed by two professionals that is "struggling" to make ends meet, I usually see one that is living in a huge house in the exurbs (while the parents themselves grew up in a three-bedroom rambler in an inner suburb: one bedroom for the parents, one for the boys, and one for the girls), an SUV for each parent, as well as a car for each child over 16 (where their parents got along with one sedan, or perhaps a station wagon), that has their children signed up for every conceivable activity, and that has to have every latest fashion and electronic gadget. The cars alone are at minimum $6,000 a year each, and the demands of exurban life require constant driving.