"down payment on my car" really resonates! I am the child of a comfortably middle class suburban home-owning family surrounded by neighbors whose incomes ranged from significantly-more-stressed-and-stretched to so-much-more-well-off-I-didn't-even-fully-comprehend-their-assets (an interesting feature of a peri-urban suburb with homes most…
"down payment on my car" really resonates! I am the child of a comfortably middle class suburban home-owning family surrounded by neighbors whose incomes ranged from significantly-more-stressed-and-stretched to so-much-more-well-off-I-didn't-even-fully-comprehend-their-assets (an interesting feature of a peri-urban suburb with homes mostly 100+ years old....not quite the extreme class homogeneity we see in some newer/planned burbs today?) Anyway, my besties who occupied similar or lower-income places on that spectrum did a lotttttt of sitting for those higher up the earning ladder and boy did those chicken nuggets and milk bottles equal a lot of jeans, first phones and early college savings!
Anyway because (of the privilege) of never being asked to work to support family expenses, I maintained my earnings for my own saving/spending. I can draw pretty damn direct lines from every single essential or luxury thing I acquired in my teen and college years (including paying off student loans) to units of time spent babysitting (tbh I am more charmed by this on behalf of my 15 yo self than my 25 yo self. one of those ages is more nostalgic, one feels more fully bought into scarcity student loan crisis culture!)
"down payment on my car" really resonates! I am the child of a comfortably middle class suburban home-owning family surrounded by neighbors whose incomes ranged from significantly-more-stressed-and-stretched to so-much-more-well-off-I-didn't-even-fully-comprehend-their-assets (an interesting feature of a peri-urban suburb with homes mostly 100+ years old....not quite the extreme class homogeneity we see in some newer/planned burbs today?) Anyway, my besties who occupied similar or lower-income places on that spectrum did a lotttttt of sitting for those higher up the earning ladder and boy did those chicken nuggets and milk bottles equal a lot of jeans, first phones and early college savings!
Anyway because (of the privilege) of never being asked to work to support family expenses, I maintained my earnings for my own saving/spending. I can draw pretty damn direct lines from every single essential or luxury thing I acquired in my teen and college years (including paying off student loans) to units of time spent babysitting (tbh I am more charmed by this on behalf of my 15 yo self than my 25 yo self. one of those ages is more nostalgic, one feels more fully bought into scarcity student loan crisis culture!)