This thread is really eye-opening. I grew up reasonably well off. Not wealthy compared to a lot of kids that I went to school with but we had a small detached house with a big mortgage. My brother and I got to go to private schools. I had horse riding and piano lessons and my parents spent money taking us to things like the ballet and museums. So definitely not poor. We also ate a lot of Tesco Value baked beans and Smash, and my parents worked 16 hour days minimum to afford these luxuries.
DH and I have bought gig tickets and then not gone, because we were too tired, once even travelling all the way down South before deciding we’d rather have the night in with family. We get takeout when I cba cooking, even though I’ve got food in the fridge to make dinner. I’ve even committed the apparently crass sin of ordering multiple desserts and only eating a bit of each (it was my birthday, it was my favourite restaurant, we can only afford to go there a couple of times a year, they change their menu every couple of months and I couldn’t decide between the two and my DH convinced me to get them both as a treat - I felt positively wanton!).
I don’t think £400 is an expensive watch because I know the price ranges of actually expensive watches. It’s pretty low range in the grand scheme of things. My mum knows that I’d love her Cartier and Tag should she die, but even those are only £3k (again, expensive for the majority of people, including me, but not expensive when compared to a lot of luxury watches out there). I’d never spend £400 on something that’s just a fashion accessory…my Garmin Fenix on the other hand is worth over twice that but it has literally saved my life twice on solo overnight ultras so I think it’s worth it 😁
My favourite throwaway comment was from a lovely lady whose address change I was registering on the phone when I worked in the call centre of my local council. I was setting up her new council tax direct debit and I mentioned that I was looking to change banks - she said that I absolutely had to get an account at Handelsbanken - wonderful people and such personalised service. At that time, they only took on private clients and the perks of the accounts ran to ‘access to wealth management experts’. I was on a £14k a year job, logging missed bins and hearing complaints about potholes 😂. Heck, I wouldn’t be accepted as a client now, on the terms they were offering then.