Middle class chap car of choice in your manor
Discussion
PTF said:
I suspect the working middle class are normally leased/PCP'd to the eyeballs on two £40k+ cars parked on the drive. Probably of the XC60 or X3 or Discovery variety.
The middle class with actual wealth, rather than simply a high monthly income, are more likely to be driving a £3k subaru legacy that they've had from new.
A nice compliment, thank you. I am tempted to replace the 10 yr old legacy with a new model outback, but then the legacy is only 10 yrs old and has only done 92k. I think I should really keep it and my Morrisons shares for another few years....The middle class with actual wealth, rather than simply a high monthly income, are more likely to be driving a £3k subaru legacy that they've had from new.
okgo said:
SW London. Lots of Range Rovers, lots of Volvo's, lots of Cayennes etc, X5's but also everything in between, cars not really a mark of 'success' for a lot of folk in London I think, houses/schools your kids go to etc come a fair way above cars I'd have thought.
Very true for London, especially the posh bits of Z1/2.Different for the middle (and upper middle) classes outside London though. House is less of a big deal. Cars get used more, and seen more.
Limpet said:
For most people, a car is like a fridge or a vacuum cleaner. It's bought to do a job, and beyond choosing some basic specifications, there's not a lot more thought goes into it than that.
Nowadays, even a cheap car like a Dacia Sandero or Duster could be driven hard to the South of Italy and back, Ton-up via Germany, in air-conditioned relative comfort, with more infotainment than you can shake a stick at, with no maintenance or much likelihood of a breakdown. SidewaysSi said:
I live on a road where most people's houses are in the £7-10m bracket. The old boys drive Astons, RRs, Ferraris and McLarens. Some of the yummy mummys have Audis, LRs and one has a 992 Turbo. No one had a s
tty Subaru or Volvo that they have had for 20 years.
But wealth whispers and all that junk as we all know.
Wow, I feel like worthless scum if the middle classes are in £7-10 million houses.tty Subaru or Volvo that they have had for 20 years.But wealth whispers and all that junk as we all know.
jamieduff1981 said:
Wow, I feel like worthless scum if the middle classes are in £7-10 million houses.
It's called the PH reality distortion bubble. Happens a lot on here.In this bubble, the average person is a powerfully built company director earning £150k a year. Anyone who doesn't hit the 40% income tax bracket is a worthless peasant who must live on a council estate.
Anyone with a car on finance can't afford it, and openly boasting about your financial circumstances including, but not limited to, the size of your pension pot, the value of your house, how you paid for your car, and how little unsecured debt you have is not considered vulgar at all.
Reminds me of Harry Enfield's Stanley and Pammy sketch. And like that, these people can't be serious. Nobody is that cringe inducing in real life.
jamieduff1981 said:
Wow, I feel like worthless scum if the middle classes are in £7-10 million houses.
I was going to say that you must be new here as it seems the entirety of PH lives on / adjacent to / at the quieter end of a road where the houses cost in the millions (and therefore their house is also worth that much, or more) and considers that to be perfectly normal, but I can see you have had 106 months to adjust. Perhaps you have recently been spending too long in the real world away from PH?
Anyway, to bring some balance I would consider myself to be middle class to the core; My partner and I earn around the national average wage each doing white collar jobs, we own* a house adjacent to a garden centre in a pleasant bit of green and leafy West Yorkshire where the house prices are right around the national average (a reminder to the majority of PH, that's £250000, or 25 followed by only 4 zeros, not the 5 that you are all used to), and most of our neighbours are middle aged couples whose kids have moved out.
A quick look outside the window and I can see the following:
~10 year old Mazda 3
current model Cayenne
couple current model MX5s
current model 320d
a few work vans
old 307 SW
ropey old 206 (ours)
XF-S estate
quashqui
freelander 2
new-ish Leon
- mortgaged, so the bank owns 80% of it
Limpet said:
jamieduff1981 said:
Wow, I feel like worthless scum if the middle classes are in £7-10 million houses.
It's called the PH reality distortion bubble. Happens a lot on here.In this bubble, the average person is a powerfully built company director earning £150k a year. Anyone who doesn't hit the 40% income tax bracket is a worthless peasant who must live on a council estate.
Anyone with a car on finance can't afford it, and openly boasting about your financial circumstances including, but not limited to, the size of your pension pot, the value of your house, how you paid for your car, and how little unsecured debt you have is not considered vulgar at all.
- APPLAUSE*
Limpet said:
jamieduff1981 said:
Wow, I feel like worthless scum if the middle classes are in £7-10 million houses.
It's called the PH reality distortion bubble. Happens a lot on here.In this bubble, the average person is a powerfully built company director earning £150k a year. Anyone who doesn't hit the 40% income tax bracket is a worthless peasant who must live on a council estate.
Anyone with a car on finance can't afford it, and openly boasting about your financial circumstances including, but not limited to, the size of your pension pot, the value of your house, how you paid for your car, and how little unsecured debt you have is not considered vulgar at all.
Reminds me of Harry Enfield's Stanley and Pammy sketch. And like that, these people can't be serious. Nobody is that cringe inducing in real life.
deadtom said:
Anyway, to bring some balance I would consider myself to be middle class to the core; My partner and I earn around the national average wage each doing white collar jobs, we own* a house adjacent to a garden centre in a pleasant bit of green and leafy West Yorkshire where the house prices are right around the national average
In the USA, that would probably be considered middle-class. White collar or self-employed tradesperson, moderate-middle wealth. In the UK it may not.In the UK, the concept of "middle-class" is a bit weird and isn't really based on median or mean wealth or income. Traditionally it means fairly comfortably wealthy (and educated), but money that is earned through "professional" work, rather than established wealth based around land-owning. It has tended not to include successful blue collar people, but may include their (possibly)privately educated off-spring. Nowadays it appears to be more about interests, culture and consumer choices.
No, it doesn't make much sense.
MC Bodge said:
In the USA, that would probably be considered middle-class. White collar or self-employed tradesperson, moderate-middle wealth. In the UK it may not.
In the UK, the concept of "middle-class" is a bit weird and isn't really based on median or mean wealth or income. Traditionally it means fairly comfortably wealthy (and educated), but money that is earned through "professional" work, rather than established wealth based around land-owning. It has tended not to include successful blue collar people, but may include their (possibly)privately educated off-spring. Nowadays it appears to be more about interests, culture and consumer choices.
No, it doesn't make much sense.
This is true, but individual net worth (and how high it is) still seems to be where these myriad threads end up being focused.In the UK, the concept of "middle-class" is a bit weird and isn't really based on median or mean wealth or income. Traditionally it means fairly comfortably wealthy (and educated), but money that is earned through "professional" work, rather than established wealth based around land-owning. It has tended not to include successful blue collar people, but may include their (possibly)privately educated off-spring. Nowadays it appears to be more about interests, culture and consumer choices.
No, it doesn't make much sense.
okgo said:
I think definitions vary, but probably avg wage earners in avg national house isn't it. You can tell that just by the responses to the thread tbh.
I would have thought that in the absence of more detailed consideration that averagely educated, average income people living in an average house would be quite a good datum for middle class-ness.The fact that the thread so far suggests middle class-ness is wildly different (read: more wealthy) just shows that the PH middle is not the same as national middle.
MC Bodge said:
deadtom said:
Anyway, to bring some balance I would consider myself to be middle class to the core; My partner and I earn around the national average wage each doing white collar jobs, we own* a house adjacent to a garden centre in a pleasant bit of green and leafy West Yorkshire where the house prices are right around the national average
In the USA, that would probably be considered middle-class. White collar or self-employed tradesperson, moderate-middle wealth. In the UK it may not.In the UK, the concept of "middle-class" is a bit weird and isn't really based on median or mean wealth or income. Traditionally it means fairly comfortably wealthy (and educated), but money that is earned through "professional" work, rather than established wealth based around land-owning. It has tended not to include successful blue collar people, but may include their (possibly)privately educated off-spring. Nowadays it appears to be more about interests, culture and consumer choices.
No, it doesn't make much sense.
Is it because Upper Class is exclusively for the 'landed gentry' types, so no matter how many millions you have, you're not considered upper class because your Aunt isn't a member of the nobility, leaving Middle Class to basically cover everyone that isn't being housed by the council?
I think a thread of 'What is Middle Class?' would be quite useful, although would just be full of the classic PH "I'd need at least a £15,000,000 lottery win to be able to retire" distortions
SturdyHSV said:
Yeah I sort of felt I had a rough idea of what 'middle class' meant, until I read this thread. Ignoring London because the whole thing is just insane, but it seems 'middle class' covers basically the entire spectrum from not being on benefits to owning a yacht.
Is it because Upper Class is exclusively for the 'landed gentry' types, so no matter how many millions you have, you're not considered upper class because your Aunt isn't a member of the nobility, leaving Middle Class to basically cover everyone that isn't being housed by the council?
Potentially, yes. It is complicated by the fact that some people who wear a company uniform or get their hands dirty earn considerably more than others who work in an office or have a high level of education. Is it because Upper Class is exclusively for the 'landed gentry' types, so no matter how many millions you have, you're not considered upper class because your Aunt isn't a member of the nobility, leaving Middle Class to basically cover everyone that isn't being housed by the council?
Much of it is down to snobbery or perceived snobbery.
How one speaks, dresses and behaves also has a bearing on it I have found too.
Edited by MC Bodge on Monday 21st June 11:25
Rob 131 Sport said:
This ‘oh that’s a nice expensive car it must be leased’ is continuing to annoy me. I and many of my friends, acquaintances, and business colleagues own cars in the £30-£70k category that they have bought from savings.
Middle class chaps are generally pretty financially savvy.
Reminds me of a few weeks ago on my way to work I was sat at a multi lane junction with my window wound down minding my own business and a guy in an old Nissan Qashqai was parked in the lane next to me and shouted "Nice lease car" to me" whcih I thought was one of the strangest back handed compliments/ insults I had heard in a while, my car is a 66 plate BMW 240i which I won outright and I would assume is too old to be a lease car anyway. Middle class chaps are generally pretty financially savvy.
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