Could Irvine turn into the Beverly Hills of Orange County?

[quote author="bkshopr" date=1242958676]According to my income survey poll several months ago the average IHBers income was $270,000/yr.</blockquote>


$270,000 for screwing around on internet forums all day? That's impressive.
 
[quote author="High Gravity" date=1243033472][quote author="Sunshine" date=1243000854]



Neither of them are attorneys. I've never heard a recent law school grad ever refer to law school as college. Graduate school, yes, but not college. Similarly, no law school student would ever say that he/she was in college. The fact of the matter is that law students and attorneys (and others who have advanced degrees or who are working towards advanced degrees) take pride in their advanced degrees. Some law students and attorneys take it a step further and have huge egos that lead them to shout "I'm in law school" or "I'm an attorney" from the rooftops. This latter group drove me nuts in law school and they drive me nuts today.</blockquote>


If you want to talk about self aggrandizement, the basic law degree in every other English speaking country is called a LLB (bachelor of law) but in the USA, the same degree is called a JD (doctor of law). This leads to the ironic situation where the next degree after a JD is an LLM (master of law); yes, only in America, you have to have a "doctorate" degree in order to get a master degree in law.



But the most hilarous thing is the suffix "esquire" which is a British term denoting gentry status. I'm not sure how many attorneys in the USA own land in England but I would suspect not many and yet they all refer to themselves as "esquire."</blockquote>


Esq. is cheesy; I can't stand it. Luckily, I work for a corporation and so I don't have to deal with the nonsense very often. However, I never know what to select when I fill out a questionnaire or survey that asks me what my level of education is. A lot of people consider their law degrees doctorates but it doesn't sit right with me, especially when you see people work far longer and harder to obtain, for example, MDs or PhDs. And, if you try to explain an LLM to somebody who doesn't work in the legal field, the conversation goes something like this:



Friend: How's your friend Jane?

Me: Good, she decided to keep going to school and she's getting her LLM at Berkeley.

Friend: An LL what?

Me: Master of Laws

Friend: Oh, so she's getting her master's degree now? In what?

Me: Law

Friend: (looking confused) Cool.
 
I totally understand why someone feels poor even tough relatively we are much better off than most. After moving to Irvine and Newport beach area, my wife and I feel poor despite our high income. I think we are experiencing what graphx and others are calling "house poor." we are our neighbors with their nice cars, upgraded homes, nannies, and high entertainment expenditures. We spend maybe 25 percent of our income on house expenditures - HoA mortgage, taxes, garden, and utilities- and we feel poor. Maybe we are not use to such a high fixed cost. I consider ourselves very thrift but still very poor. We do not know how our neighbors afford all these luxuries and my only guess is that they not their homes at much lower prices long time ago. I think my income would be considered in the upper quartile of the neighborhood but they have the benefit of a lower fixed cost. That is why I think we are experiencing a house poor situation. Nonetheless, we are very fortunate to have what we have so we do not have much to complain about. However, I know that poor feeling.
 
[quote author="etheran" date=1243222486]I totally understand why someone feels poor even tough relatively we are much better off than most. After moving to Irvine and Newport beach area, my wife and I feel poor despite our high income. I think we are experiencing what graphx and others are calling "house poor." we are our neighbors with their nice cars, upgraded homes, nannies, and high entertainment expenditures. We spend maybe 25 percent of our income on house expenditures - HoA mortgage, taxes, garden, and utilities- and we feel poor. Maybe we are not use to such a high fixed cost. I consider ourselves very thrift but still very poor. We do not know how our neighbors afford all these luxuries and my only guess is that they not their homes at much lower prices long time ago. I think my income would be considered in the upper quartile of the neighborhood but they have the benefit of a lower fixed cost. That is why I think we are experiencing a house poor situation. Nonetheless, we are very fortunate to have what we have so we do not have much to complain about. However, I know that poor feeling.</blockquote>
The cure for that poor feeling might be me to move to Santa Ana. haha But seriously, I never understood why people compare themselves with others, especially when it had to do with income levels. Do what you need to do and be grateful that you have your family and that you are healthy....everything else is just noise.
 
[quote author="usctrojanman29" date=1243222762][quote author="etheran" date=1243222486]But seriously, I never understood why people compare themselves with others, especially when it had to do with income levels. Do what you need to do and be grateful that you have your family and that you are healthy....everything else is just noise.</blockquote>


Having a wife who is first generation Korean, I can completely understand it. Her parents basically gave up their life for their kids... moved away from a place where they had family, land and connections... and came to a country where they knew nobody and barely knew the language... plus a country where a college education is a huge deal and neither of them had one... Her parent's realized they would never see a return on their investment, that the return would come the next generation down .



Think about that pressure it puts on the kids. Most kids want their parents to be proud of them, but when your parents do something like this for you, geez... being "average" isn't good enough... plus "doing good" is all relative, so when all the other immigrants are pushing their kids to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, etc... you gotta too, and that's the standard you are held up against.



Not saying its right or its wrong, but I definitely see in some cases where it comes from.



Delroy
 
[quote author="C Delroy Spuckler" date=1243226405][quote author="usctrojanman29" date=1243222762][quote author="etheran" date=1243222486]But seriously, I never understood why people compare themselves with others, especially when it had to do with income levels. Do what you need to do and be grateful that you have your family and that you are healthy....everything else is just noise.</blockquote>


Having a wife who is first generation Korean, I can completely understand it. Her parents basically gave up their life for their kids... moved away from a place where they had family, land and connections... and came to a country where they knew nobody and barely knew the language... plus a country where a college education is a huge deal and neither of them had one... Her parent's realized they would never see a return on their investment, that the return would come the next generation down .



Think about that pressure it puts on the kids. Most kids want their parents to be proud of them, but when your parents do something like this for you, geez... being "average" isn't good enough... plus "doing good" is all relative, so when all the other immigrants are pushing their kids to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, etc... you gotta too, and that's the standard you are held up against.



Not saying its right or its wrong, but I definitely see in some cases where it comes from.



Delroy</blockquote>
Well Delroy, I'm actually a European immigrant and you basically have described the story of my parents when they came to the states with me when I was 4. From what I've heard, we had more than a decent life in Poland because my grandfather have a large plantation and hook-ups with the communist gov't. However, my parents left all that behind and moved out here with little money wanting better for me and worked 2 jobs (nights and weekends) until they bought their home after living in the US for 5 years. Of course there was pressure to work hard (in terms of education) but in no way did my parents try to tell me what I should be. They stressed that I should work smarter so I didn't have to work with my hands. I guess my parents realized that being happy and not worrying about what others thought of you and your status sunk into my head.
 
I guess because I don't really care about having a new expensive car or the latest high-tech gadgets I don't really feel poor - that is until I run into some French or German who's here on vacation before heading off to Mexico and Costa Rica for two months.
 
Oh trust me, my wife and I could really care less what others think. We are simple folks that just want to spend our lives together. I think we are maybe the most simple folks in our neighborhood. We do not compare ourselves to others. We obviously want to increase our wealth so we can retire young together. We do not waste our time benchmarking ourselves to others. We have a friend who tries really hard to compare himself to us and it just makes him unhappy. Instead, we just focus on what we can do to increase wealth in real terms for our own retirement and not for the next fancy car.
 
[quote author="etheran" date=1243259513]Oh trust me, my wife and I could really care less what others think. We are simple folks that just want to spend our lives together. I think we are maybe the most simple folks in our neighborhood. We do not compare ourselves to others. We obviously want to increase our wealth so we can retire young together. We do not waste our time benchmarking ourselves to others. We have a friend who tries really hard to compare himself to us and it just makes him unhappy. Instead, we just focus on what we can do to increase wealth in real terms for our own retirement and not for the next fancy car.</blockquote>


This may be why you feel poor too. If you are maxing out retirement savings, then there's a decent chunk of your income that is not disposable. This makes earlier retirement even more feasible because you're already used to not having a ton of spending money.
 
This is my plan too - I would MUCH rather be able to retire at 55 and enjoy my life, than have a fancy car or fancy clothes. I just could care less about that stuff. A fancy car would just give me stress because I would have to worry all the time that someone would scratch it or ding the door. With a cheap car, if you find a scratch or a ding, you are just like "Oh well."
 
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