Mastercrafts new nxt line

[talltigeguy]

See I disagree with some of this. To me the inboard buyer is middle class, probably upper middle class. I would like to see some money figures to go along with their percents to see where we are making cut offs. We(my family) are middle class in my mind. Most of the people I know with inboards I would also call middle class. A few are getting into that cake eater status but not most I see in our area.

Sadly you don't need that much annual income to get a loan to buy one of these beauties, and regardless of what people admit on the inter web, MOST of these boats go out on long term loans!!!

I think that the crux of the issue is that nobody really knows what middle class is.

The only certainty I see in print is that the median family income in the United States is around 51K. I don't think that most of the folks buying these boats are making 51K or less. Some people think they are still middle class even when they pull down double the median, and they might be, but it is extremely variable where the upper middle class breaks into being wealthy.

Even an R20 is going to be a pretty tough squeeze if you make 50K per year, even with a long term loan.

[wakemitch]

To get an idea of what class you are in, this is a pretty cool tool http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html...CLASS_GRAPHIC/

I used it a lot in college (I was a sociology major).

Most people incorrectly label themselves as Middle Class.

[JohnnieMo]

Cool link. According to that I'm in the 96th percentile. I guess it's time to start eating steak for breakfast. :S

[talltigeguy]

To get an idea of what class you are in, this is a pretty cool tool http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html...CLASS_GRAPHIC/

I used it a lot in college (I was a sociology major).

Most people incorrectly label themselves as Middle Class.

That is cool. People that have a 90K income puts you at the 90th percentile, roughly. So if you made more than 90K last year, you are rich, just not as rich as your neighbor at the 95th percentile.

[robert theisen]

I'm just a poor man,with a boat. LOL

[Bakes5]

By my calculations, (gas, travel, maintenance, toys, breakage, purchase) it costs between $8k and $12k per year to play in the wakeboat game. Probably about $3k to $5k just to operate a paid-for boat that does not break. (The other $3-5k come from bigger car, bigger garbage or storage, repairs, worse gas mileage from said car, etc.). Certainly more if you add a $7k trip to lake powell or a $3-5k trip to a lake house.

That is a lot of money once you start looking at it. Approaching a mortgage payment for someone loving technically at a middle class income. Fact is, unless you are sacrificing somewhere else, most families out there with a nice wakeboat are probably in the top 5-10% income levels.

Here is another interesting link on the definition of middle class http://money.msn.com/how-to-invest/9...e-middle-class