-You grew up with high-ish quality brands, but used those things until the end of their lifespan. (This applies to cars, clothes, electronics, etc). - Yes -Your parents paid all your college tuition and most of your expenses, but you had to go to an in-state college. Yes -You had a small pool or hot tub in your backyard. No way that would have been awesome though -You owned a small boat, but put it on a trailer because it is too expensive to dock it in the lake. Also nope -You went on a few big international trips growing up, but just a few. Yep -You lived in a pretty big house, but you had to make an annoyingly long commute into the city. Small house in the heart of the city -Some years of your education were private, but not all of them. All private, but where I live public are in a different language that I can't speak fluently -Your middle class and lower middle class peers always assumed you were much richer than you actually were. For example, your peers had a hard time believing that your family could not afford a 40k a year college, or they didn't understand that your family could not afford a mansion. Nope -You felt a ton of pressure to pick a "practical" major in college. Nope

The thing is, my parents when they were kids were pretty upper class. My mom's grandparents were the first people in the whole province to have their own car. And all the people in both families were surgeons and PhDs. When I was born and my parents moved away we were low-to-mid class but habits are difficult to shake off so my dad would spend a lot on branded stuff. We had to go for a few years not buying anything (like ANYTHING) just because we had no money left lol. Thankfully, we're doing pretty decent now and I think we graduated from middle to upper middle (especially because we have 4 earners in the house and no dependents).