Why do well-off folk pretend to be skint?

[musingmondays]

So, my sister is a SAHM and they don’t need to count the pennies. They have a very big house, multiple holidays, multiple trips away a year, 2 new expensive cars, pay for housekeeping and dog walking

I was shopping with her the other day and went into M&S to buy some sweets to take into work with me. All she could say was, wow this is so expensive, she’d never go anywhere but Aldi. I don’t know how true this is or not.

When we moved house, ’You’re lucky to buy a new sofa already, we had to save ages for ours’

‘You’re buying DC clothes from Next? Wow, I don’t know how you afford it. All DNs stuff is from charity shops. I’d never buy shoes new, they grow so fast’

Some of the things she’s saying I question. She makes out as though she can stretch money very far and is very savvy. Maybe she can do. It makes me feel embarrassed and shamed when she sees me to be spending and comments on it because she knows we have less money. Both DH and I work decent, average-income public sector jobs so by no means rolling in it but just doing what I would call normal things.

Anyone any idea why someone might do this?

She’s a SAHM, and maybe fascinated that you have your “own” money, as you’re working. She might be more commenting on that. There may not be TG at much cash at her disposal, once all of the fancy stuff is paid for by her DH…

Has she struggled for money in the past?
I find some habits are hard to kick. I used to have to shop really carefully as we were skint. We are very comfortably off now but I still find myself trawling the reduced section and shopping around for cheaper food and clothes.
I don't feel the same with luxuries like holidays abroad because they've always seemed expensive.

Sorry but it's got fuck all to do with priorities. No amount of shopping in Aldi is going to get me a fancy car or a big house 😂 they must have a certain amount of cash for those things to be possible in the first place

But you're not the person OP is talking about.

I love holidays and prioritise them over most things. We also live in a relatively expensive area.

But actually, don’t have very much left at the end of each month at all. We mostly shop in Aldi, don’t eat out much, and I get most clothes from vinted (I wouldn’t buy all new for the DC anyway, there is no point when they grow out of them all quickly).

We used to have a dog walker and a cleaner, but most those things made sense me as my hourly rate (self employed) is much higher than that of the cleaner or dog walker, so giving those jobs to someone else enabled me to take on more work and still make a profit for those hours, if you see what I mean?

What I am trying to say, is that if you looked at my family from the outside, based on our house and holidays, you might assume we have more disposable income that we do (no new cars though!)

I trim back everything month where I can, get the cheapest insurance quotes, buy second hand with most things including furniture, avoid expensive TV packages and subscriptions, we have quite an old phones and SIM only packages etc.. and it all
adds up. I am not claiming to be skint, but it doesn’t sound as if your sister is claiming that either.

Everyone deals with their money differently, with different priorities.

Also many people have certain things that they irrationally won't spend money on as they're 'too expensive' even if they can easily afford them.

People also aren't very good at objectively assessing other people's finances, usually because they don't know the details or notice what people don't buy.

She says they had to 'save for ages' for a sofa. But she could have obviously easily afforded one by not spending a lot of money on holidays, paid help etc.

It's a bit weird that she comments on it so much. She's either a bit insensitive, has no filter, or possibly she doesn't have free access to family money like she should have.

I didn’t think it was appropriate for the relationships board so will ask for it to be removed there.

Holidays, fancy cars, big house and baulks at probably less than £5 on sweets? There's something else going on for sure. My mum is a bit like this but I always put it down to her post war, working class up bringing

4 ideas, apart from her being purposefully obnoxious, which she's hopefully not:

1. She wants to signal to you that despite her being "very rich", she can't afford everything she'd want, like you probably imagine you could in her place. Regardless of their income, the vast majority of people don't feel rich and think "if only I earned this much more, I'd be so much richer."

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/03/how-do-britains-highest-earners-feel-about-their-income

2. She actually feels poor, because she's not the one bringing in the money and sees it as her job to budget and save as much as possible. She buys the clothes, but husband wants to go on a nice holiday, so they splash out.

3. Clothes serve as a signalling device, if you are already rich, you don't need to signal wealth, so underdressing becomes a power move. Look at Sam Bankman Friedman.

https://medium.com/illumination/the-surprising-reason-why-rich-people-dress-like-losers-c1df45e1b0ad

https://www.ft.com/content/1ab3e653-e454-4065-8024-8fa46dc0b9b8

4. She has different priorities and genuinely does not understand.

We don't have cars, house, dogwalker etc, but we're generally doing well yet we shop at Aldi, buy clothes and toys second hand, furniture from Ikea etc.
The savings from these are minor compared to our huge rental and nursery bills.

The way I think about it, nursery and housing are "non negotiable", so the rest is what makes a difference in being able to save. Maybe for her, a "dog walker" is a non negotiable and clothes are in the "whatever" bucket?

I don't say it out loud, but come to think of it, I'm also often surprised that so many friends always buy new clothes for their kids, while I get a large bundle of nice clothes on Vinted for 10 GBP.

Its simple. They have no self awareness.

Why have you started 2 threads on this OP?

Edit: Sorry, just realised this thread was about your sister not a friend.

However she clearly climbed social class and is now obsessed with deriving her self worth from denigrating other people in small ways. She's playing a double blinder by pretending to be frugal as a direct contrast to her lavish lifestyle and she really gets a kick out of it.

Sorry to say this but you are the poor sibling that's making her feel good about herself. She knows she can insult you in tiny subtle ways and you will take it. A lot of pseudo new-money families or those faking most of their assets cannot assimilate with truly wealthy people because it triggers them. Since a lot of their lifestyle is built on smoke and mirrors, they don't know how to socialise with genuinely wealthy people who have the same sort of lifestyle they do, but 10-20x of their disposable income every month. They cannot handle the jealousy and truly rich people can also easily spot their fakeness by giveaways in their speech or conversation.

She needs to find people who live normal lives so they can be dazzled by the superficialities of her life without questioning it. She's latched onto you because it's clearly working as well otherwise you wouldn't have started a thread here.

I am in the top 5% of earners and still find M&S food expensive. I also find it has tons of packaging on everything and is aimed at couples and singletons not families. I do buy the odd thing there but we do our main shop at Tesco with the odd bits from other supermarkets.

When DDs were little I bought most of their clothes at Primark, and yes, Next is relatively expensive when they are going to grow out of things quickly. We got new sofas in 2022 which was 20 years after we last changed our sofas.

Just because you have money it doesn't mean you have to throw it away. I always look at whether something is value for money. That doesn't mean everything is cheap, it means is it worth what you are being asked to pay for it.

possibly she doesn't have free access to family money like she should have.

what does that even mean, do you mean free access to her husbands earnings??

Just said above. I didn’t feel it was apt for the other board so asked for it to be removed on there

some people might pretend to be skint as they don't want to be asked for money/loans or for others to expect them to subsidise them / pick up drinks tabs etc.

Others because they simply hate spending money, count every penny, shop for cheap bargains etc even though they have more money than they can ever spend.

their choice, nobodies business so long as they pay their way and don't expect to be subsidised on outings, holidays etc.

I have a family member who has a huge house in a lovely area and a flash car, but they’ve spent so much money on that they’re too skint to do anything. Sometimes what you see on the outside isn’t the truth.

My Mum does this and it's quite entertaining.

She was just recently talking about how little money they have now my Dad has taken partial retirement (she retired some time ago but has turned her very large home into a B & B and earns tax-free income that way.)

This is the same person who recently asked me for advice on whether to put savings into Premium Bonds or a savings account and I said that my understanding was it's a better option if you have more than £50k, and she said that she did and put it in the Premium Bonds. Also the same person who spends approx £200 a week on food for 2 people and replaces her entire home decor about twice a year.

You both sound well off you just spend money on different things.

It is like competitive under eaters, they just can’t help themselves. Everybody has things they want to spend money on and things they don’t, but it is rude to comment on other people’s spending.

I know someone similar to this. Her idea of a Christmas present for her daughter was a Disney Plus subscription. That was her only present. But she's absolutely rolling in it. She probably has more money than she could spend in her life but she wouldn't dream of buying herself a coffee when she could have brought one from home.

If you ask me, it comes from feeling like she doesn't deserve anything nice. It's actually really sad.

We as a family are well off and can afford to do our food shop in M&S, shop in expensive clothes stores, however we don't as I don't like to feel like I am being ripped off. I shop in Aldi as its good value for money. I buy DS's clothes from Primark/Asda as he grows out of them quickly or wrecks them playing footy. I will happily spend a lot of money on good quality clothes if we are getting our moneys worth but not just for the sake of it. I agree the sweets in M&S are expensive and I wouldn't buy them.

I agree - some habits are hard to break. We can live comfortably now but I still shop for second hand clothes and in cheaper supermarkets... it's been bred into me since childhood and I never feel I can "afford" nicer things (but do have a cleaner now).

I know people like this: gorgeous home, plus several additional homes they rent out, including a London flat, expensive holidays, nice cars, expensive sporting equipment like bicycles, frequent long weekend getaways, house cleaners, etc They also do a lot of 'charity' work, but only the kind that involves 'jollies' for themselves (eg, pay us to climb mountains, pay us to cycle long distances) where they cream off the donations to cover their expenses first.

Yet mysteriously claim to be skint all the time.

They're really not.

In my experience, a lot of well off people are like this, pretending to be struggling like everyone else when they're clearly not.

It’s irritating so tell her to stop commenting on how you spend your money