Are people like me middle class?

lostinrates

Cleaver wrote: »

I have always, and probably will always, call the lounge 'the lounge'. And I'm from the most traditional middle-class background ever. My Mum listened to Radio 4 and I wasn't allowed to turn the TV during the day or at weekends. I holidayed in gites in northern France and learned about the Norman conquest.

And I have a really f*cking expensive alarm clock. And I buy trousers just for sh*ts and giggles.

OK, I found the boundary to where class matters to me. My mother would scalp me if I had a lounge. And I like my scalp. ATM I have a drawing room or a sitting room (where I most definitely sit on a sofa not a settee or couch, but some times I lie on a day bed, not a chaise). My mother insists ATM on referring to my sitting room as ''the morning room'' and while I know what she means I really don't think I use the room as a morning room (I'm in t now) and therefore its a sitting room. My drawing room, when it here, won't really be a drawing room, but rather the opposite of a drawing room, its where I'll be receiving people in a clean environment, not where I ''repair'' to..it'll be ''foreign'' to me too.

lostinrates

toby3000 wrote: »

It's always been like that, industrialists with no heritage marrying into the upper classes.

I think class is as important as it's ever been in Britain to be honest.

I can't multi-quote, but 'Lounge' is meant to be one of the instant indicators of being lower-middle class- non-U and all that:p

I've lived in places where there is ''no class'' system suppossedly, and in my experience Britain suffers from far less snobbery than many of those suppossed meritocracies.


Weirdly, a comparison can be made by comparing atmosphere at functions put on by Embassies....how middle class does that sound!:D


eta: and actually, neither of my parents had much...my mother ended up a single mother here in a foreign country where she married someone who left school at 14. the kind of marriage you speak of was to bring ''class'' to one faily and money to the other. My father had no wealth to give, and class just isn't what it was.

Cleaver

lostinrates wrote: »

OK, I found the boundary to where class matters to me. My mother would scalp me if I had a lounge. And I like my scalp. ATM I have a drawing room or a sitting room (where I most definitely sit on a sofa not a settee or couch, but some times I lie on a day bed, not a chaise). My mother insists ATM on referring to my sitting room as ''the morning room'' and while I know what she means I really don't think I use the room as a morning room (I'm in t now) and therefore its a sitting room. My drawing room, when it here, won't really be a drawing room, but rather the opposite of a drawing room, its where I'll be receiving people in a clean environment, not where I ''repair'' to..it'll be ''foreign'' to me too.

What the f*ck are you going on about?

Procrastinator333

Eskimo12345 wrote: »

I grew up in a modest house with my two siblings and my folks. My old man worked full time all his life, office based on the same wage as shop floor folks. My old dear took a part time job when I was 16. The telly in the lounge was only replaced by my grandparents hand-me-downs when they got a new one as we couldn't afford to buy one; all our winter coats were presents from my grandfolks, who also worked all their lives. I worked part time to put myself through uni and only relied on the folks to feed & home me during the holidays.

Now, at 29, I have a good job and earned around £37k in the last 12 months. Last year I bought a three year old m sport beemer for 12k in cash. I live on my own in a large apartment in the middle of town, with a massive telly and £5k's worth of home cinema gear in the lounge. My alarm clock was £300, and I'm currently saving £500 a month towards a house. Nothing I've bought was ever on credit as it didn't take my degree in physics to work out that saving up for something is cheaper than buying it on credit.

Personally I reckon that due to my income and resultant lifestyle, I'm middle class. To be honest, compared to what my folks had I feel like I'm loaded beyond my wildest dreams. I buy new suits for fun. However my older mates at work reckon middle class means that mummy & daddy had so much money that you don't have to work, and so I'm still working class.

Whadya reckon, am I middle class? Or if you think I am still plain old working class, do I have a chance of making my (future) kids middle class by continuing to advance my career so I earn enough to buy their education etc so they will be?

The greatest tale I ever heard for not bragging or showing off went like this. One night this chap was in a casino, splashing the cash, insulting fellow gamblers for being cheap, generally being a loud and an annoying tos*er. A rather unassuming chap came to the roulette table this person was playing on looking to get a seat. True to form the idiot told him this was the high rollers table and he should go play on the small stacks table. At this point, the chap looked him up and down and asked him how much are you worth? The idiot asked what did he mean? Today, if you sold everything, how much are you worth? The guy put his swagger back on, $25m I reckon. The newcomer looked at him again for a moment and then said "flip ya for for it".

There is always a bigger fish.

vivatifosi

Cleaver wrote: »

What the f*ck are you going on about?

I think she's being posh Cleaver. Unfortunately I'm common as muck so don't understand. I love my toilet and living room but consider myself too young for a settee. And as for the ambassador's party, well the closest I've come to that is a box of Ferrero Rocher.

Graham_Devon

Eskimo12345 wrote: »

Now, at 29, I have a good job and earned around £37k in the last 12 months. Last year I bought a three year old m sport beemer for 12k in cash. I live on my own in a large apartment in the middle of town, with a massive telly and £5k's worth of home cinema gear in the lounge. My alarm clock was £300, and I'm currently saving £500 a month towards a house. Nothing I've bought was ever on credit as it didn't take my degree in physics to work out that saving up for something is cheaper than buying it on credit.

Personally I reckon that due to my income and resultant lifestyle

It's funny y'know.

I've been in houses where the family doesn't work and has a house provided to them by the taxpayer, and has all that...though probably not the alrm clock, and the m sport, but seems under 3 year old vauxhall zafiras are popular. (and no, I don't know how they do it either, but I'm sure we've all seen the same type of thing on the TV).

Yet you want to call yourself middle class cus of it

Eskimo12345

terryw wrote: »

Definitely not!
A middle class person would say:
"Are people such as I middle class"

We have a winner! :rotfl::T

Cleaver wrote: »

Blimey, you've spent 1.2% of your entire wealth on an alarm clock.

Poor quality sound makes me sad; it genuinely grates on my nerves. The sound that little toy produces makes me happy when I listen to it, and it's completely unobtrusive in the bedroom. If something makes me happy, and I can afford it, should I not buy it if it's over a certain percentage of my net wealth?

Cleaver

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think she's being posh Cleaver. Unfortunately I'm common as muck so don't understand. I love my toilet and living room but consider myself too young for a settee. And as for the ambassador's party, well the closest I've come to that is a box of Ferrero Rocher.

I have a lounge, a kitchen, some bedrooms, a bathroom (not a 'barthroom') and a couch to sit on.

However, sometimes I ask Mrs C if she has sufficed when we've had a meal, and she can never remember what this means. I think that's quite middle class of me.

ruggedtoast

Ages ago I trained as an EFL teacher. The trainers in the language school explained to us that wherever you work in private language schools, regardless of the country, many of the students you will teach are struggling in sets a good level above what they should be. Beginner students are in Intermediate. Intermediates are in Advanced, etc.

This is because the students have money, and are too vain to be told they have intermediate English when they think that have advanced English, and the language schools are businesses so tell them what they want to hear. So they waste their money and their time in a set that is too hard for them, and the school struggles to please students who are barely managing and then criticise their poor teaching.

And this, basically, describes most people who think they are middle class in the UK.

Like the OP with his or her £300 alarm clock (which no one on £37000 a year can justify), but the makers of £300 alarm clocks badly need people on £37000 a year to think they are middle class and try and act up to that lifestyle. As does every other brand and aspirational service that people who are actually middle class dont care about.

Meanwhile people who think they are middle class moan bitterly about the price of things, how awful the local comp is, and why the Daily Mail says immigrants are taking all the jobs. All the while ignoring the fact that the reason all these things bother them is because they are not middle class, they just dont earn much.

Historically the middle classes used to be semi financially independent people, doctors, lawyers, merchants etc until industrialisation created the necessity for a large clerical class, earning a bit more then the proles, and desperate to be thought of as getting somewhere. Alongside a booming industry in what knife to use if you were ever invited to a French restaurant.

somethingcorporate

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

The greatest tale I ever heard for not bragging or showing off went like this. One night this chap was in a casino, splashing the cash, insulting fellow gamblers for being cheap, generally being a loud and an annoying tos*er. A rather unassuming chap came to the roulette table this person was playing on looking to get a seat. True to form the idiot told him this was the high rollers table and he should go play on the small stacks table. At this point, the chap looked him up and down and asked him how much are you worth? The idiot asked what did he mean? Today, if you sold everything, how much are you worth? The guy put his swagger back on, $25m I reckon. The newcomer looked at him again for a moment and then said "flip ya for for it".

There is always a bigger fish.

Love this.

I was taken out drinking with some senior work colleagues in a farming village just north of York a few months ago. I was taken to a "local" Yorkshire pub where the only others in the pub were a handful of guys that were very loud, wearing dirty tracksuits, had dirty faces and using language that would make a squaddie blush. The most common of common people you could ever imagine and you wouldn't give them a second glance if they walked past you on the street.

Between these 3-4 guys they owned 15,000+ acres of prime farmland around Yorkshire making each of these "common" folk multi-millionaires (at least on paper). It goes to show that you should not judge a book by its cover!