My colleague at an internal medicine clinic was saying that she wasn’t upper class. I protested that yes, you are definitely upper class. You made more than $200,000 last year by yourself (not counting her husband), you have a huge house, no children, two nice new cars and just took 3 vacations at the end of last…

You forgot to factor in the value of your personal brand.

Kristen - you shouldn’t LOL at charity so quickly. Depending on how you structure your finances the tax write-off from charitable giving could really offset some of your other tax liabilities.

The reason they have so little left is because they’ve structured to pay their student loan debt off as fast as possible. If they didn’t have that there would be almost $40k left over.

There’s a TON of fat to be cut from the $500k budget.

The food budget is around $450 every week, for an average family.

The $80k+ Toyota.

Etc.

$500k for a family of 4 in NYC definitely does not make you rich. But having 2 cars (with payments!) in NYC is ridiculous. You need at most 1 car, and more likely zero cars.

I think $1.5M buys you a shack in NYC.

counterpoint: they are living within their means? $12k annual on kids lessons seems more wasteful than a 1.5mn home in manhattan (are you even remotely familiar with NY real estate..?) and vacation counts as “sanity/happiness maintenance” and is probably the most important money that cant be spent.

also land crusiers are damn near 100k these days...for a toyota...they could absolutely cut back if they wanted

Taking a look at it, maaaaaaaybe don’t do 3 vacations a year AND maaaaaaaaaybe don’t have a $1.5M home, which would reduce property taxes AND the mortgage?

Seems like a pretty stereotypical “living beyond your means”.

Reminds me of how the Houston police, back in the 1970s, kept telling parents of missing teenage boys that their kids were just runaways and refusing to investigate their disappearances, even when the kids were straight-laced teens who would never have thought of running away. As a result, at least 28 (probably more)…

The other horrible thing is these kids being bounced from one abusive situation to another. How many of the kids who get trafficked were initially vulnerable because they were being abused at home? I used to work with a girl who was trafficked at fourteen. At one point, she managed to get away to call her mother and…

Also this thread is enlightening:

The Root has really highlighted how hard it is for black children to actually survive childhood and adolescence...

I too think Kristen Bell seems super normal. She’s like your friend in high school that had severe anxiety and covers up for it by learning to be charming and that somehow crosses over into occasionally awkward oversharing (like every theater kid I was friends with). I get a similar vibe from Anne Hathaway and like…

I like Dax and Kristen, though. :( Mostly because they are my hometown couple so you are kinda required to root for them. But also because at least Kristen seems normal(ish) and not a dick?

I’m always angered when I look at Dax Shepard, but then I realize I’m really angry at Dane Cook.

We had a similar exercise conducted at a hospital I worked at about 5 years ago. Our “trainer” was a knowledgeable, former FBI agent & just about the kindest man you could ever meet. The first thing he told us was, “you’re not Jack Bauer so stop pretending to be”. He said they’d get calls all the time about people…

We had a work luncheon with the local police and DHS person. We were concerned about vandalism and copper thefts at buildings we manage. DHA told us that the copper being stolen was being sold to fund ISIS. No one had any copper stolen that was worth over $10. It was junk metal - the damage to what they were ripping…

Sounds like you need a shoulder to Chiron.