In 1999, according to IRS data, my family got into the first 5% of American households by income. Surprisingly, we were not rich. We still were uncomfortable about the time when our kids will go to a college, and our retirement plans were far from clear, but it was not too bad either. We were able to have what we need, keep accounting loose, and the balance on the checking account was still slowly but persistently coming up. In 2001, with the dot-Com melt, my company had downsized and I lost my job as a software developer. We started to live on my husband