So what class are you in?

[alwaysmoody]

I see a lot of comments about social class "la di daaa"

So I'm curious to which class you would all place yourselves?

Honestly?

I'm from a LC background but I'm wealthy now from my own hard work and live in a MN area from what I've gathered (Chiswick) but I definitely don't fit in with these "mums" I still prefer having my friends from council estates in hounslow over

So what social classes are you from? And please be naice

I belong to the upper class. I have a bruised and battered Barbour jacket, 150 acres of land, never-ending vowels and both a larger dog (black lab) and a littler dog (border terrier).

You should see the state of my Range Rover.

My Dad got very annoyed at his car insurance company when they increased the premiums for his Land Rover because it was a 'premium brand'. He told them it was covered in sheep shit and they had a funny idea about what was 'premium'. Guess I must also be 'upper class' then if you inherit the ability to swear at sheep class of your parents.

we buy organic groceries, go to the theatre, have a cleaner, listen to R4 etc,

I've done the University bit and work in a senior leadership role, so I guess that's a bit middle class, but the bits in bold? None of that. Definitely not organic groceries, I'd rather tear out my fingernails than go to the theatre, don't have a cleaner and I only listen to the news on Radio 4 if I'm travelling for work in the car and then switch it off.

Working class. I'm sometimes mistaken for middle class because I don't have a regional accent, but that's a red herring.

Somewhere on the line between working class and middle class. Parents and ILs reasonably well off, DH and I both grew up comfortably, both degree educated, own our own home (well, mortgaged) and own our crappy secondhand car outright, but both work what I’d consider to be reasonably working class jobs (nhs for me, and semi-public sector general management for DH).

My parents family in India are monied, both sides. I don't remember struggling as a child, but my parents had wc jobs mostly
I think they had help from family though. We went to India a lot, sometimes for a year at a time and had staff. It everyone in India did, my parents were Brahmin, India is very caste based. I remember just getting things for free.
Horrible society

I suppose middle class, but not ‘posh’ middle - DCs go to state schools, we live in a nice bit mixed area.
I don’t think if you work, you’re ‘working class’, that’s more blue collar work.
You wouldn’t call a CEO who earns £100+ working class!

I think this thread is absolutely proof that the class system seems to be a big game that nobody quite knows the rules to. They guess various rules... e.g. ‘I have a cleaner’ or ‘I have a degree’ or ‘I don’t own a toilet brush’ etc To try and signify what class they would like to consider themselves to be.
It’s quite a clever game really because nobody ever wins and it keeps people consuming, keeps them in jobs, keeps them spending thousands on education, keeps them paying taxes etc

In the US I'm upper middle class. The class system in the UK is sufficiently mysterious to me that I have no idea what I'd be there.

Really? Does the USA have an upper middle class? As an outsider the USA class system seems largely built on money and the material items that belongs- from county club membership to restaurant bookings.

You would need an annual income in the millions to be upper middle class?

Case in point - based on three different descriptions on here, I can think of myself as working class, middle class or even upper class.
Just... stop playing the game!

Exactly, I don't!

So I am confused. Why the focus on cleaners?

Having a cleaner is lower class? or lower middle class? or what?

Having a cleaner is lower class? or lower middle class? or what?

Nobody knows! That’s my point! Nobody knows the actual rules of this bloody game! Which keeps everyone playing!

I am much more likely to be your cleaner than have a cleaner so I'm working class.

Working class. I can play at being middle class (or at least I used to be able to) but I have never had any money and don't think I ever will have and it's not through want of trying. I'm on the bottom of the pile, no doubt about it. When I watch the documentaries about poor people their lives look normal to me (better sometimes). I don't think I will ever be a home owner (unless I manage to buy the council house I don't have one of either!) and I don't think I'll ever get paid much more than minimum wage (I'd settle for never having to claim state benefits again). But of course their are contradictions, nobody is completely one thing. In my mind I'm a middle class social scientist stuck in a working class life and making observations on it for the great study on social injustice I'm working on (there is no study).

great study on social injustice I'm working on (there is no study)

You should start that study

I don't need to work because I have plenty of inherited money and own several properties but as an unmarried mother so where do I fit?

I was born and raised well and truly underclass. Most of Mumsnet would’ve avoided families like mine !
But I have tried to educate and work my way up to working class.
My children are on their way to middle class careers - but they will find it hard to fit in with a lot of their more privileged peers .

@Ethelfleda

Maybe some day! Not much energy to actually put pen to paper when in the middle of it!

Or I could do a George Orwell and just write a book about it

Not cleaning is upper class

I don't need to work because I have plenty of inherited money and own several properties but as an unmarried mother so where do I fit?

Ws the initial source of the funds from trade?

I say ‘class’ rather than ‘clarse’, so I guess that means ‘northern’.

@Largeyellowdaffodil

Really? Does the USA have an upper middle class? As an outsider the USA class system seems largely built on money and the material items that belongs- from county club membership to restaurant bookings.

Indeed we do, and the class system here is largely built on money. But the money has to be considered in terms of not just income and spending, but also assets and debt. Lots of people who live a flash lifestyle are just a few paychecks from having it call come crashing down on them. And have nothing saved for kid's uni costs, retirement, etc.

You would need an annual income in the millions to be upper middle class?

Oh lord no. A household income of over $475k would put you in the top 1%.

dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/

The poshest members of our family live like they have no money; for example their bathroom looks like something out of a period drama as it's not been updated or probably decorated since 1940.

Sounds charming. People who constantly upgrade their bathrooms, or any other room, are probably quite low in the class hierarchy.

at a sociology lecture (in joke!) working class if tv bigger than bookcase middle class if book case is bigger than tv
it was a joke folks!
(when we moved house I had to work out how many bookcases we could fit in - so there!!!! seriously its a dated concept - I am with Bourdieu - who talks about different forms of "capital" & the control of the social "field" by those in power)