Is this a (financially) middle class household these days or not?

[Yealp]

I don’t think so, my best friend thinks it’s completely middle class.

Income after tax per month 5,200
Household one adult and one dc
Mortgage payment 1k a month, equity 350k (4 bed detached)

so you went to uni and did really well and are now a senior party at a law firm well done and I mean that

I'm doing ok after going to uni. My parents are working class, if my children do better than me at private school etc then they could be middle class, I never will be

A great job is fantastic. That alone doesn’t make you middle class. See my comment that my old boss worth £12m saw herself as working class with money

I'd expect a better house on that wage if you're so worried about class.
We bring home ...christ just realised over £6k but live in a mortgage free semi worth £350k. I dont give a shit about class but if you wanted to split hairs, my birth situation actually means I'm pretty top tier as landowners. However I chose to pave my own way.

It depends how the money is made, working in an office environment with a university degree = middle class, runs a skip hire business = working class.

My in-laws have a much larger and more expensive house and more disposable income than my parents, but they’re definitely working class, both working in manual jobs, whereas my parents are both university educated professionals in not very well paid sectors.

Your lifestyle and your roots are not necessarily the same thing. A solidly middle class person (eg Emma Thompson) will always give off that vibe even if they no longer had two pennies to rub together. Same with working class - Gary Oldman, Ray Winstone.

Well, there are a lot of ways used to sort people by class in the U.K.

probably the simplest is:
if you’re aristocracy you probably are aware of it. Title in the family somewhere and a big country like that your family may or may not own anymore.

if you are underclass/precariat you probably know about it. Grew up on benefits, parent (or parents if you had two) constantly worried about money, you never had money for school trips, new clothes etc.

anything other than those two is the middling sort.

there’s more detailed ways of classifying people than this but this is a start.

My mother was a stay at home mum and my dad was constantly doing different jobs although is he relevant when they divorced when I was 5? Grew up in a large house although it was rented. Mothers hobbies were what gets described as pretentiously middle class online but then dad was the opposite. Found out I was pregnant at 15 (apparently this is peak peasant 😂) but speak with a relatively posh accent.

Honestly the more class threads I read the more confused I become

My son pays more than that in rent each month for a tiny one bed flat and his income is a fraction of that

Yeah but education and working in certain sectors does I’m afraid. See eg Keir Starmer. You can grow up in a working class household but once you go to uni and work as a lawyer you personally are not working class even if your background is. Lots of people love thinking they are working class when they’re not though, almost like it’s some sort of badge of honour.

But would you expect her to pay a higher mortgage? Because £1k a month is a lot of your job is at all precarious

Yes, exactly. And you can afford it. Middle-class.

What do you mean, they are middle class because they HAVE a mortgage as opposed to renting?

Or that they are middle class because their mortgage is high at £1000 a month?

Or that they are middle class because their mortgage is low at £1000 a month?

We have no mortgage, does that make us middle class or not? Does it depend on whether we are renting or we have paid it off?

I do sort of get that but I don’t understand why so many people are labelling themselves as middle class as some sort of badge of honour

why do people care these days?

You say it's £3k disposable income after bills. Doesn't really signify class but it does signify a massive humble brag.

£1000 a month mortgage
Have you seen what £1000 a month gets you in rent nowadays? Fuck all ...it's disgusting really.

Earning a high income does not erase anyone's childhood experience but the children of high earners will invariably be middle-class with few exceptions.

‘Middle class’ is a con aimed at getting working people not to see where their interests lie, & at undermining solidarity.

if you have enough capital to live on the income that is generated by it, you are upper class/rentier/ capitalist class/parasite class - whatever you want to call it.

If you don’t, you’re working class.

In the example given, the £350,000 capital mentioned is tied up in the home. It does not bring in an income. Assuming the income mentioned is from a salary for work performed, this person is working class - just with a bit more financial cushion against disaster than many working class people. Fundamentally though this person is dependent on selling their labour to make ends meet, so they remain working class even if they shop at Waitrose.

If however the income referred to comes from eg rental property, or dividends (which I don’t think is the case, though) this person is upper class/capitalist class/ whatever. They do not need to sell their labour to make ends meet.

That's us. A much older middle class couple. I'm 60 husband is 63 , children grown up and have homes and wives of their own. Grandchildren to spend money and time on. Mortgage long gone. Would expect a younger middle class person to have a mortgage.

I would say working class, but the children and husband would be middle class. Your class doesn’t change on marriage. If Princess Anne married Wayne Rooney, she wouldn’t suddenly be working class!

1k a month isn't a huge mortgages I'd say it's average to low.
Also it's not unusual too at that amount in rent

It’s the rent for my daughter’s flat share! She doesn’t even get a one bedroom flat for 1k. 🙈. And that’s up north, not London.

How did your mother pay to rent the house if she didn’t work?
What sort of jobs did your father do? Were they blue collar/white collar/ professional?

Just having a “good job” isn’t middle class unless you’re a high court judge or something else that requires a high degree of education like a brain surgeon.

Although I’ve found that you can mimic middle class very well if you speak with a posh RP accent and wear outdoorsy country type clothes in a dowdy way.

Most people pay more than that In rent!!!!!!

@LadyBlakeneysHanky - I get what you are saying from a Marxist theoretical point of view but I disagree as by your definition I would be working class. I have no property that I rent out and no factories that I own. However, my household income (earned from a desk job) places me in the top 1-2% of UK earners.

My mortgage isn’t completely paid off but it is over £2 million. I don’t employ anyone - other than cleaners and a dog walker a few times a week. I come from a family who has always had to work for their income but even my grandmother (paternal side) went to university and my family is full of doctors and a stuoid number of accountants 😂 on both my paternal and maternal side. Plenty of academics on both sides.

I think I’m truly middle class going back at least three generations. I’ve thought about it a lot as I am not from the UK but find the whole class discussion fascinating.

Rent in my area is £1,200. My long term mortgage is only £600