The casual things that wealthy people take for granted

[KaleQueen]

Inspired by a thread that’s gone totally off topic….where someone suggested a £400 watch was cheap.

What’s the most casual (even accidental) brag you’ve ever heard a wealthy person say?

I can start as I know someone who celebrated a big birthday recently and is an absolutely lovely person but during their party (in the wonderful house) they said “oh! Here comes the string quartet. I had completely forgotten about them!”

^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5174898-to-feel-slightly-suspicious-of-dp?page=35&reply=138771616^

Ooh I’ve got a good one…. Chatting to a school dad in playground (very rich property developer) he was bemoaning some (first world) bad luck he’d had and said “I was so stressed I ended up buying a hotel we didn’t really want”!!! Err, yeah same. Annoying when that happens.

We were talking about holidays and a very wealthy friend of DH's announced that you couldn't get anything decent for less than £1,000 a night. She is lovely but I still can't get over that comment, not least because the most recent holiday they'd been on spanned most of August.

To be honest be must have given off creepy vibes or something ( maybe his elusiveness) as in my experience, clothes at Uni have no meaning. Kids wear all sorts of crap for all sorts of reasons. Plenty of them wear the same clothes on repeat. My friend was in pyjamas the whole time and just wore the same jeans and T-shirt for an hours lecture and then back into pyjamas.

Talking of expensive watches, an old friend of dh had a p/t job after he retired delivering £100/200k watches to the buyers around London - usually, it has to be said, Russians, Arabs, or other super-rich. They couldn’t be expected to just buy them in a shop and walk out with them like ordinary mortals (not that they were any species of ordinary mortals, perish the thought!) - too much danger of mugging or otherwise being targeted.

In the pandemic I needed some emergency dental care but had to go private as NHS dentist had terminated me.
The private dentist said it will be about£5k for an implant, I said you could buy a car with that! He was like who spends only £5k on a car. Em....

It was meant to be deliberately like that - as in that’s what posh people say…
this was meant to be a lighthearted thread but I see it’s got a bit dark in places….

Fabulous - I mean who hasn’t done that at some point?

Your lack of self awareness is staggering.

@KaleQueen hasn't it. And barely anyone has given examples of "casual things rich people take for granted". It's banging on about the price of watches.

I think it's the lack of worry like someone else said. I don't need to worry about food. I do worry about my car. My other half worries about affording to buy a second home. My actual rich friend only stresses about her business because it's her identity. She could give it up as she has enough dosh not to worry.

@Disappearedwife i would say a £50 watch is cheap but £400 is expensive. Not crazy expensive I know they can be in the thousands but probably the most expensive I could and would buy.

My definition of expensive is if I would be upset if it broke and couldn’t easily be replaced, so a new look pair of boots I could replace the next day. A £200 of boots I might have to wait to the next season sales to buy them.

There's that moment in As Time Goes By, when Lionel's wealthy publisher Alastair goes out of business, and he casually says "but I've managed to rescue a couple of million".

I think it's interesting to see other peoples frame of reference. What's cheap for one person, is bank breaking for another.

I cannot imagine sending 400 on a watch, but then I've always been poor. I don't even own a watch! My one and only handbag is a rucksack from Amazon that cost a tenner. The dishwasher has been broken for 6 months.

But saying that, dd is having a birthday party in a month that's cost me over 200. She's also requested an Xbox that I've bought with Klarna. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to afford to do those things (saved up for months beforehand) because there was a time when birthdays were a trip to the charity shop and a cupcake in the park.

I also think there is some delusion about how many people are living. My tumble dryer example sounds basic and routine - it’s not downing champagne or flying to the Bahamas but I’ve got the social awareness to know that easy replacement of appliances is actually a massive privilege and comfort that many don’t have.

@FussyFusspott clearly not old money.

I consider your viewpoint but also I consider that dozens and dozens of people agree with me and have given thanks to each of my posts

The comments about how it is impossible to live in London on £100k + a year so they had to move

wrf change your lifestyle if living in London is so important to you we can’t all live a lifestyle we want to live and many of us earn far far less

I’ve never spent more than £50 on a watch. Ever. I’m comfortable, but not wealthy. I wouldn’t dream of spending that much on a watch. To the vast majority of the world and most people in the U.K. £400 is a huge amount of money.

A watch in addition to a phone is handy as it stops me looking at my phone constantly and being tempted to fiddle and time waste with it! If I’m not wearing pockets I also might have left my phone elsewhere in the house or it’s in my bag and I’m running for a train etc. I didn’t have a watch for years abd recently got one again. I love it, and also love how old school it feels as it’s a wind up watch, no battery ❤️

KaleQueen, I take it you’re from old money then?
Are you playing old money bingo with the answers posters come up with? 😂

Wonder what was special about the £65k pony ?!

Love searching Horsequest by high value 😁 Then accepting that I still couldn’t ride it properly so would need the equivalent value in weekly lessons so we’d grow old together achieving nothing !

£400 is a cheap watch to someone who likes and appreciates watches. I don’t own any watches. I like ponies.

Wow. On a recent holiday I set my budget at £100 per night for three of us and ‘splashed out’ on 130 for a better hotel for the last night. I consider myself pretty lucky and privileged.

I'm enjoying the ongoing bonkers discussion on £400 watches. Pretty sure if I spent £400 on a watch it would be the most expensive item I own...

Going into a shop, any shop, be it food, clothing, coffees in a coffee shop and not needing to look at the price and perhaps make a cheaper choice. Not having to ever do that blows my mind it must be amazing! And I am someone who can pay my bills and mortgage etc and can save for one holiday a year, I am not on the bread line but I do have to look at prices as many people I know do. But how amazing if you never had to worry about looking at the price of things!

What people are not understanding is that things like watches and high end cars are investments, they only increase in value if you take care of them and buy the right brand.

I have a wealthy family member who has a watch collection, every now and then he sells one and usually makes at least 10K on the sale - WITH NO CAPITAL GAINS TAX.

Clocks, watches and cars do not attract capital gains tax if they are sold at profit. This is why rock stars etc have large garages full of cars and lots of watches. It's "thing" partly because it's profitable. They also buy woodland because that is also a tax efficient purchase ......

Oh, where to start......

*A friend who dragged me round Barker and Stonehouse to show me how much everything in her house cost.

*Same friend gave me the grand tour of their new kitchen. It cost more than my flat. Every gadget you could imagine. Boiling water tap, ice maker, integrated coffee machine, double oven, a fridge that's bigger than my bathroom etc, then put a frozen pizza in for for lunch as she can't cook..........

*A friend inherited a £300k house and still complaining a year later that it's not worth as much as it 'should be' and regrets not pushing her elderly mother into doing it up before she died.

*Another who lost both parents within a year and hasn't stopped gushing about how wealthy she is now. She told me she's a bit sad her parents are dead but just look at her lifestyle options now.......

*One who informed us that it'll cost £40k a year to support their children when they go to university. Not sure why it'll cost that much but she'll find a way to spend it and deem it to be loose change.

*A friend of a friend 'shamefully' admitting that her new skirt was from the high street as ''sometimes you don't feel like paying £400 for a new skirt do you?" Erm, no I never feel like it love.

*A lovely friend showed us her engagement ring. Other girl said, 'Oh, it's a bit like mine'', and promptly slammed her hand on the table with a diamond the size of a grape. Friend looked gutted and said how much smaller hers was.

I think I need to meet some new people 🤔