That's very believable; the kind of people who unnecessarily send their kids to an expensive private school when some of the best public schools in the country are nearby are the kind of people who would generally socialize together.

And $250k is wealthy. That's literally top 1.5 percentile in the U.S. They don't have to blow half of their income sending their kids to an expensive school. They choose to do so and that is the hallmark of wealth.

It doesn't matter what percentile in the US it is, when a 2 bedroom apartment is $3k+ and the average small house is $6k to rent.

Also. If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed. I went to public school all my life and then ended up in Berkeley. I'm 40. It was borderline negligent for my parents to send me there in my opinion as a kid knowing what I know now. But we were pretty hard up for money.

But if you told me, should someone lease two luxury cars or send their kid to private school.... You'd have to be nuts to think you'd gain more from the cars than the school.

After taxes (assuming single income, CA residence), $250k is $150k of spendable income. $6k on a house is $72,000 a year, leaving $78k to spend on food, utilities, etc. Assuming for some reason you spend $1000 on utilities each month (presumably you run a cryptofarm in your closest and a weed farm in your backyard), you still have $68k to spend on food. Assuming you spend an average of $20/meal/person on 3 meals/day every day of the year that's still leaves $2000 for other stuff.

Or in other words, even with profligate spending you still have money leftover. Which brings us back to this: techies apparently are good at code but very bad at basic finance.

If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed. I went to public school all my life and then ended up in Berkeley.

Berkeley is considered one of the best universities in the world. If you don't think it's a good school, the problem is you, not the schools.

If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed.

I volunteer coach to various local schools (changes every season). My alma mater is (now) considered one of the best public schools in state and occasionally makes the national list; it sends a higher % of students to the prestigious colleges (Ivy League, Berkeley, Stanfurd) than the famous local private schools (Troy and Harvard-Westlake).

But if you told me, should someone lease two luxury cars or send their kid to private school.... You'd have to be nuts to think you'd gain more from the cars than the school.

This is a nonsensical strawman...which supports my first point.The choice is not to lease two luxury cars or send their kids to private school. Both choices are the wrong choice. The correct choice for someone making $250k who claims that they are living paycheck-to-paycheck is to send their kid to public school, and address any deficiencies with tutoring or extracurricular activities (both of which are more likely to benefit college admissions and academic performance than private school and cost a fraction of private school tuition).

TLDR: if you are in the top 1.5 percentile you are not, nor will you ever be considered living paycheck to paycheck. If you tell someone that, they'll smile at you politely and assume you have a severe mental defect.

I told you I went to public schools and made it into cal...while talking about people spending $4k a month of 1st grade.. And you decide to talk about the quality of UC Berkeley instead of the average 1st grade school in the SF Bay Area. But yes, I have the mental defect.

> These are people that make $250k-$600k probably. But that's not "wealthy" in the SF bay area.

This is absolutely batshit to someone living in the midwest. I could save enough to retire in 5-7 years if I were making that much.

It's all relative. Someone making $250k with a family in the SF Bay Area could be basically living paycheck to paycheck if they just try to appear casually financially well-off. Nice house, nice car, electricity is 4x more than Idaho for example so add bills, eat out a few times, and send one child to a $4k a month 1st grade and you're living paycheck to paycheck.

No, that's just bad financial management. Spending $48000 to send your kid to a private school is a choice that parents can make when they're wealthy enough to do so.

"Living paycheck to paycheck" means that you just barely make enough to pay for food and rent, and don't have any spare money to cover unplanned costs like medical care. Spending a ton of money on vacation and private school is by definition not living paycheck to paycheck.

No it doesn't. Living paycheck to paycheck means you don't have any left over each paycheck, and the worse version of it is that you don't even have emergency savings left over in case unforseen costs come up.