On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

I would argue that it's hard to save enough for college at any income, due to need-based financial aid (aka perfect price discrimination by ogopolists). Most need-based systems take into account parents' income and college savings, and children of software engineers in particular are going to be near the part of the curve where that starts to bite.

I randomly chose Princeton's financial aid calculator because it was close to the top of Google. For a family with two working parents, two kids (one entering college), and $250k in home equity in Illinois (the middle of the USA):

* For a $100k/year SWE + a $25k/year something else and no college savings the expected family contribution is $30k/year

* The same family with $250k saved in a 529 college savings plan is $45k/year

* For a $125k/year SWE + a $50k/year something else and no college savings the expected contribution is $50k/year

* The same family with $250k saved in a 529 college savings plan is $66k/year

* The same family with $450k in home equity is expected to pay $75k/year (I guess you're expected to take out a home equity loan to pay for college).

* Make the family renters with $50k/year income (30k+20k), and their contribution drops to $4.4k/year.

The point is: The more you save, the more you need to save. And the more you make, the more you need to make.

That's not to say need-based tuition is bad policy. But, it does mean that "surely it's easy to pay for college with your level of income" doesn't really come into play until you reach the top 1-2% of income.

Everyone below that is going to have their tuition adjusted to make the out of pocket cost painful but bearable, and the average SWE isn't a 1%-er.

My peer group is probably a bit younger, and they/I are all renting or are relatively new homeowners. The "sticker price" on houses matters to my group a lot, as does monthly rent.

I'd love to find a FRED-like data source for median rental rates over time and/or an index thereof. I suspect that rents are generally correlated with sale prices on a multi-year time scale.

I had no money and no resources as a child. I lived in a family of 8. We went clothes shopping once a year. Being one of the youngest, I just got hand-me-downs mostly. The first time I got a new sweater I was 14.

We had 3 books in the house growing up, all gifts from our 'city cousins' at Christmas. We had no TV until Dad brought one home from the TV repair shop - a 10-inch black and white deal. It smoked and dripped plastic on the floor first time we turned it on. Dad took it back and they gave us another one, which actually worked sort of. We did not live on a bus route, have any parks to play in, or any public library.

Were we poor? I suppose we might think so today. But all our neighbors were in about the same situation. We were happy, and didn't consider ourselves deprived in any way.

What made us content? We lived on a farm. There was always meat in the freezer and food on the table. We had the entire outdoors to play in including an ancient barn, a shop with tools and a workbench. Chickens and pigs and calves and cats and kittens. Tree swings and trees I could climb so high, I could see clear to the horizon. Creeks with frogs and fish and tadpoles.

I see folks living in cement boxes in crowded towns, kids who's entire life is the sidewalk and the mall. Parents working so hard you never see them. People next door so isolated you can't really call them neighbors.

When I grew up and went to college (full student loans, qualified for everything they had) and got a job in town and got married, I told my wife we had to raise the kids outside of town. Out of all that cement and worry. And we did.

We gave them a shop and motorized vehicles to maintain (mower, tractor, carts, bikes). Gardens to tend and cats to feed. Neighbors to visit and chores to do.

It was different from my growing up. They had hundreds of books and an unlimited budget for new ones. They had good schools and involved parents. But it also had the advantages I had. They could run heedless through the wide boundaries we set. They could spend a summer day on projects or books or Scouts or building something. Or just wander the creek and collect tadpoles.

I worry most of us are confused about what's important, and spend so much time pursuing somebody else's goals we forget to have any of our own.

I prefer to keep my insides on the inside.

I’m also very pleased with the results I seem to have wrought myself (with help of course), but I always notice that I’m a bit behind the curve compared to people getting ahead in the workforce, adulting with home refinancing or retirement, entering Ivy league direct from high school, or in high school, the students that seemed to know which classes to take, or what AP was (I took 3 while my peers averaged 6-7 AP courses). Same for sports. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s noticeable when you have parents that can’t help you and while I’m very capable of learning all of these things on my own, and I have, I’m no match for folks basically speed-leveling early in life.

Also wrt money, I always hated spending it, and really hated debt/interest. Now I find myself very willing to spend money on actually useful things like gear and tools, lest the power of money, or my ability to earn it, diminishes in the future.