Just to spin your head...

I currently live on $14k a year.

Granted, I'm 25 and live in a college town in the midwest. My share of the rent is $255/mo (live with g/f). I spend $115/mo commuting. My car is paid for. My high deductible insurance is $60/mo. I spend about $220/mo on groceries and another couple hundred eating out and entertaining myself. Of course I have no children.

I'm in no way saying everyone should live like me, but I'm quite content living so cheaply. It's not because I have to (I make about $60k/yr) but the vast majority of it goes towards 'vacations' of 6 months or so between jobs (sometimes that involves traveling). I could easily afford a mortgage if I was willing to be tied down, but I'd rather not be. I tend to work for 6-12 months and then take that much time off. The rest of it goes towards my Roth IRA and savings.

I live on 12k a year in one of the richest counties in the nation. It's easy. You know that stuff you think you want? You don't actually want it, you want the feelings associated with buying and showing things off. Sit down sometime and take stock of the things you actually use and derive enjoyment from on a daily basis and you'll be sitting there with a very tiny and cheap list. This is easier now than it used to be. Broadband internet is unlimited entertainment for $20 a month.

Yeah, living in a hurricane prone area last fall made me examine my 'list' as you call it. I thought to myself: "If my apartment were obliterated and I could only take what would fit in my car (an Aveo), what would it be?"

In the end my list was: My girlfriend, my cat, a week of clothes, my computer, my magic cards, and a couple books.

All the rest of it is just stuff that takes up space.

Once you realize what really matters, you start to question purchases. For a while I thought I really wanted to start a DVD collection, but then I realized it wouldn't be something I'd save from a burning building, so what was the point in having it? Even if the cost of the DVD is only about what two movie tickets cost, at least you don't have to store the movie tickets.

Drinking $5 cups of Starbucks is not Lower Middle Class.

You are doing it wrong. Commute in manhattan (one of the cities Retric mentioned) is $81/month.

http://www.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm#30day

Yep, also with 2 workers, that 5$ cup of coffee is 200$/month.

$5 thats roughly how much I pay for lunch

It won't cost that much if you make lunches for the week at home on the weekend.

Yes, as a matter of fact $100 per month is a lot of money. Start saving even a little bit now and you'll be surprised at how it adds up. Your college loan payment is so huge that even 3% of it would have a big effect.

By the way, my dentist charges less than $100 per filling. Does the nitrous oxide cost an extra $700? (Ah, I miss getting fillings as a kid.)

It is infinitely harder to find a tenable pediatric densist than it is to find someone to fix your own teeth. It's so far apart that they aren't even the same problem. And so, I suspect, childrens dental work costs quite a bit more.

If you have a pediatric dental bill that gets a little bit higher than that, it might be worthwhile flying the kid to Argentina to get the work done. The dentists here are, by and large, better than in the US, the culture in general is a lot more tolerant of kids, the prices are a lot lower, and you get to travel to Argentina. And some of the dentists speak English.

I think Costa Rica is a more popular dental tourism destination.

Yeah, kragen. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a week off and fly my kid to Argentina for a filling.

All due respect to Argentina --- I've got team members from Argentina -- but come on.

You might already have some vacation time, it doesn't necessarily take a week, and it would be more worthwhile if you were talking about more than just a single filling.

It's really not that bad if you pay for dental insurance. I do for both of my kids and it's not nearly that expensive.

Plus you make a good point on why people should avoid junk food and exercise better hygiene, and teach they're children to do so as well (I know that's not always the case, but I bet studies show it is a huge majority of the time).

A substantial fraction of the variation in dental caries is independent of behavioral risk factors.

2 kids, same diet, same hygiene regime; one flawless set of teeth, one mouth full of fillings. (In fact, the bad teeth get even more care than the good teeth).

Some people just have weak teeth.

Yes, that's what I was saying.

Dental insurance is a bad deal. It mostly involves paying in advance for dental work, at a premium. Note that routine dental work is not something that "insures" well; you can't buy cost-effective insurance for something everyone knows is going to happen.