To ask what social class you would say I am?

[flowersandcake]

Hello!

So my friends and I were discussing class issues and one friend told me that I would have 'no idea about anything as I'm upper class' and another strangly interupted and mentioned that I'm working not upper class? I personally thought I was middle?

My situation is:
5 bed house worth 900K, no mortgage
2 Teenagers
Lucky enough to pay for their uni fees and sixth form fees, both at private sixth form, one went to a grammar and the other a state secondary school
DD owns a pony and DS used to
DD plays the violin and DS the drums
2 holidays a year (one longer one and either a week in cornwall/scotland or a couple of weekend city breaks)
Household income of 110-140K depending on the year as DH is self employed and can earn up to 90K.

I promise I'm not boasting or anything, we give 10K a year to charity and DS is in the process of persuading his dad to give his uni fees to a charity.

So what class would I be in your opinion?

Upper middle? I don’t know I thought you were basically ‘stuck in the class you’re born into’...but I have no clue.

I’d say we are working class, maybe upper working class? Both degree educated, 75k a year coming into the house but We would not be able to survive if one of us lost a job. Also we both come from working class families, although my parents are now really well off, that is fairly recent.

I mean maybe middle though...We do shop at Waitrose, although this might be cancelled out by the fact that I buy all my clothes from primark and eat meat and potato pie barm cakes.

If you were M or UC, I don't think you'd have to ask. You'd just know. And you certainly wouldn't ask or talk about it.

Having said that, it has bugger all to do with money/big houses/flash cars. M or UC people may possess those, but they can still be M or UC without any of them.

You seem to be falling down the classes.
If GP’s were upper and DH was upper. And you went to private school yet your children only went to state school then that’s really not good at all.

And your income does not match the lifestyle you lead by the sounds of it.

Me on the other hand - I’m on the way up 😂😂😂😂

Just need to marry DD off to some upper class toff now - or maybe not............

Well, very roughly. You can put a middle class person in a council flat with no money and they'd still be middle class. You can give a working class person millions of pounds and they'd still be working class...I completely get that.

Occupation is still relevant....wealth to a lesser degree.

Then loads of other factors

Education
Interests
Hobbies
Taste
Background

It's a minefield!

This is a complete and utter mystery to me as a Yank.
I am foreign as well, and it is an interesting phenomena to me as well. Is the class inherited when a British person reproduces with a non-British?

I would be quite interested if someone could advise me on my ex-dh's class. We lived abroad for the majority of our marriage, so I don't have a long history of observing him in his native environment. :)

No, the income and the lifestyle don't match, and yes you can have a house that's escalated in value. And state educated kids. I've never heard of a self employed banker but then what do I know.

I'm assuming she's saying if her husband is upper then they are titled.

However on the facts given, which don't make a lot of sense, she's bog standard middle. But she's never said what she did for a career, she's not said where the extra 50k a year is coming from, how long they've lived in their house, if they just paid mortgage off as older.

It's all a bit weird...

Some good replies here and I like @formerbabe’s summary (guessing I’m middle middle, maybe pushing upper middle 😜). More curious than your class though is how you own a mortgage free £900,000 property and can fund private schools etc when you’re not working and your husband isn’t that high an earner...

Ok sorry I got to page 6 before I had to jump in and say that:

livery is 1k a month

This is simply not true. I have had ponies and horses all my life. A livery is not this much, even a full one, for a child’s pony. Complete BS. And I live in Surrey where they are extortionately expensive.

This whole thread is a complete embarrassment - you seem desperate to brag and prove that you are upper class, when in reality you do not understand what that entails. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with breeding and education. The fact that you think playing musical instruments at school changes your class is hilarious and shows you to be aspirational.

No, the income and the lifestyle don't match yep, strange

@MissConductUS I imagine this is because you have no monarchy and therefore no aristocracy (in the British sense of titled people). (Not a criticism - I am republican). In theory, a British person could be penniless and still be upper class by virtue of their ancestry.

Upper/Lower middle and working class are more reflective of lifestyle, occupation and income, but even then not exclusively so.

Take Lord Sugar - he is a Labour peer and a multimillionaire, but loses no opportunity to bang on about his working class background.

how you own a mortgage free £900,000 property and can fund private schools etc when you’re not working and your husband isn’t that high an earner...

OP didn’t fund private school, she funded 2 years of private 6th form college for 2 children. Huge difference in cost.

I would assume things don’t add up because OP has been changing her story to try to fit in with her desired class since the beginning. I would assume she works but has now decided that that doesn’t look good so is changing her story.

* I think the majoity of the upper middle classes are techincally working class as well, we all work or our DPs do.*

Jesus wept.

@craxmum read watching the English (not right about upper class, the author seems to think she is upper class... Awkward) but gevwral informative to foreigners like us.

It is fascinating re the class "structure" as it does still exist in this country. I can sympathise with the bullying re how one speaks - as I had that. I actually had speech lessons to help with an impediment as a child & ended up with a really not local accent

That said my grandparents were most definitely working class - down the mills and the mines, next gen went to uni (when it was free) - became professionals, and I had what I would class as privileged middle class upbringing. Who knows what you would call me now - I swear like a trooper

Lord Sugar quite often says a lot of things I take with a huge pinch of salt!
Back to the OP - she obviously hasn’t been on AIBU much before otherwise she would have known this wouldn’t go well.
The Class system in the U.K. is fascinating though.
I know plenty of working class who think they are middle class! Makes me laugh every time. Each to their own though.

My toes are curling.

So OP earns 50K pa. And also doesn’t work.

Her DH earns 60-90K pa. And is a self employed banker at least in his late 40s

OP is from a solidly UMC family and went to private day school, where she was mocked for her accent and for listening to radio 4.

I believe the phrase is “chinny reckon”.

(Which class says that though, eh?)

Also I don’t want to be a dick but if you’re in your 40s and a banker earning 60-90k, things have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I was using Lord Sugar as an example of someone who is rich, but identifies as working class.

"Chinny reckon" brings back memories of school. It means 'I think you might not be being entirely honest'.

Lower middle.

One must be born upper class (although you can marry into it and your children can become uppers).

Upper-middles are technically descended from now-retired titles if I'm not mistaken, but I think in practical terms having an inherited pile in SW7 or the country or going to a public school will suffice.

Wannabe class - I can just imagine you are the annoying person who is desperate to be upper class and also asks their child to please behave when they are acting like the devil and calls them Tarquin. The type of person who goes on to everyone how their child has a pony and they holiday here....or to boastfully list their material possessions. I bet the first questions you ask someone is where did you live and what do you do (meaning how much is your house worth and how much do you earn)