Where we come from
People in the middle-class tend to come from a middle-class background. There are certainly exceptions. Some people had an upper-class upbringing who now live a middle-class life. It’s a massive mindset change. Very often, this group will have champagne tastes on beer money. It’s hard to accept that you don’t have the money for the finer things in life. And if you’re going into debt to get them, you’re placing your financial future at risk.
Yet another group of middle-class people comes from a low-income background. For them, the temptation is to make sure their lives and the lives of their children are nothing like the life they led growing up. In doing this, they can go a little overboard, and wrack up debt they can’t service.
In a lot of cases, they lack the financial planning skills needed to manage an income, pay a mortgage and bills, and still have savings left over. They were raised in a hand-to-mouth existence, and so the culture of savings has not been inculcated in them.For those that grew up in the middle-class and remain there, they don’t know anything else.
Many of the habits they acquire when it comes to money come from their upbringing. However, being middle-class 30 years ago is not the same as being middle-class today. Life was a whole lot simpler back then. The demands on your money were not so many. It was not as easy to incur debt as it is today. It’s normal to want to give your children more than you had growing up, but you can’t do it at the risk of bankruptcy. You need to be objective about what you can afford and not succumb to the temptation of debt.