I'm living paycheck to paycheck and constantly worrying about money. We're a household of 2 and we make about 64k a year (hard to say my wife's since her hours are random and shitty). That's before taxes. We've got our credit cards maxed out just from paying regular expenses, nothing crazy. Car is falling apart and we can barely do basic maintenance, no idea how we will replace when it goes. Several thousand in medical debt. According to a google search of the poverty line I'm not even remotely near poor but I feel like I am. We don't buy a lot of fancy things. We travel twice a year to see family, which I do consider a vacation, but only reason we can afford is our families are nice enough to let us stay with them or cover hotel as well as food, so we only have to pay air fare. And oh yeah, my boss is on me this week about missing too much work, even though 1) I'm salaried and get my job done and 2) I have not gone over my 4 weeks allotted PTO. Is this really what being middle class is supposed to feel like? What level do I have to reach to be not miserable and stressed out of my mind?
Oh yeah, my wife might be out of a job now since she decided to walk out in the middle of a shift due to stress. Not that I blame her but more burden on me, yay. I can't walk out, we'd die.