peter and i are probably the 'poor' ones in my family but we own our house outright (no mortgage) and have approx €20,000 in the bank.
Lend us a fiver then :twisted:
I was brought up in a "middle classe" Jewish family (I hate the class thing though) dad has his own business until the 1970's when it was forced to close due to Far East imports, but they never had a mortgage, their parents bought their first house for them outright. I didn't realise we were "well off" until a girl from school came to dinner (see in Leeds you're posh if you call it dinner not tea
) and were having a normal meal for us, home made soup, meat (probably beef I can't remember), jacket potatoes, a green veg and a large bowl of salad (which mum put on the table every day and we picked at it after dinner, she didn't do puddings very often), this girl thought my mum had made a feast and didn't stop going on about it for ages, she said she'd never seen such food - and on a weekday to boot!
I then lived in a council flat for 20 years until I bought my little house, and now consider my self working class, struggling to make ends meet but happy with no aspirations to climb up the social ladder again thank you! Somebody asked me 5 years ago what I wanted - and I said to earn less money, this sounds bizarre but I was in a well paid but horrid job, and I knew as soon as I got the mortgage sorted out etc I could leave and earn less money and work less hours, which I've done!