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^

To answer the post above. Yes we need every one and all their work is important from the hospital cleaner through to the consultant surgeon. But the consultant surgeon is going to be paid more, rightly so than the cleaner.

Well perhaps it's me that's learned something then.

Honestly, I thought @TwistedSisters was underestimating people's knowledge/awareness when she said I think a lot of people on this thread genuinely don't realise that a watch that costs thousands isn't about telling the time, it's generally a good investment. but it seems she was spot on. People are virtually queuing up to tell me that they never realised!

FWIW I'm certainly not in the £40K+ watch league myself. I rarely use a watch, preferring to tell the time on my smashed phone screen, but it just seemed like common knowledge to me. Oh well.

Why rightly so?

When neither would have a job without the other?

Are you really asking why a consultant surgeon is paid more than a cleaner. Drs train for years FFS. Of course its rightly so that consultants are paid more than cleaners. Jeez.

The surgeon cannot do their job without a very clean / sterile operating theatre !

Sorry but you really are being rather naive to suggest that a consultant surgeon and a cleaner should be paid the same.

One has studied for years, trained and has a stressful job that can be the difference between life and death. The other has a job that’s important for the cleanliness of a hospital but certainly doesn’t carry the same day to day stress and responsibilities. The pay reflects that.

Yes that’s why we need each and everyone doing their respective jobs. But jobs are graded with training, experience, responsibility etc. You wouldn’t expect the cleaner of the operating theatre to be performing your surgery as they’re not qualified to do so.

My DH often wonders why he doesn't get the rewards for his hard work, yet his boss, who I'd say was probably paid twice as much but does half the work is better rewarded... yet his boss has only had his job because of the fact that his father helped him get it 25 years ago 🙄

So, I guess when my DH said he needs to probably work smarter, not harder, then he might see rewards for his efforts.

I KNOW why a consultant is paid more, I am simply asking why it is apparently so obvious that they should be.

As a Marxist I subscibe to the theory of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" and no, that isnt communism FYI.

Things that have been said to me recently.
I found a cheap holiday for us and our two kids. It was only £3k
EE gave me a deal on my new phone. It's only £75 a month
I have Sky. It only costs £x a month

To me, £400 for a watch is expensive. I get that there are way more expensive watches than that though.

Generally, I prepare myself if someone tells me a makers/designers name before they tell me how much something cost but find that I do that sometimes - lesson to be learnt here.

It's what's important to the individual I guess but I don't know any seriously wealthy people. I know a number of people who are just trying to get through life and treat themselves when, where and if they can.

The price of happiness...

(I personally loved the explanation of what Argos is).

As a non-Marxist, I would say it's not because they consultant is rewarded to make hard choices etc. It's purely because literally anyone can be a cleaner who is physically healthy, but very few can be a consultant - it's simply a function of supply and demand.

I suspect nurses and teachers would be paid more if there was a true market for their labour, rather than their pay be set by the government.

Seriously love, have a word with yourself.

But do you really think that an amazing cleaner should be paid more than an average consultant. It makes no sense, I could start doing a cleaning job tomorrow and be excellent as it's unskilled, it is an important job but its still unskilled, but someone without many years of training or experience could not do mine. Also if it came to it and you needed to only have one or other then you'd get rid of the cleaner as the surgeon could do it themselves, most definitely other the other way round.

Would I have trained for many years to do my job and have a all the stress wtc that goes with it when I could earn the same doing a cleaning job, absolutely not, doesn't mean I don't value everybody in every job. You'd have a serious problem if that ever happened.

And of course ite obvious why it should be, it's not even a question that should be asked. Maybe you have picked on the wrong example as it actually is ridiculous IMO.

A significant proportion of the population would think a gift of a £400 watch was a real treat. Imagine if you’d scrimped and saved bought a £400 watch for your DPs special birthday, for someone to repeatedly call it ‘cheap’ wouldn’t make you feel great would it?

Yes of course there is a scale, but you can buy a watch for £5, so £400 is not at the bottom. You could buy 80 ‘Cheap’ watches for that £400 one!

Your travel lodge example is a bad one. Generally you won’t find that much cheaper for a hotel stay. You most certainly couldn’t have 80 nights in a ‘cheaper’ hotel for the cost of a travel lodge. You probably could barely have 2. So relatively speaking a travel lodge is cheap.

Or maybe the issue is that you just didn’t realise you could buy a watch for a fiver?

What's that got to do with pay though? Are you seriously suggesting this means a surgeon and a cleaner should be paid the same.

Exactly my point 🤩 or should I have said wonderfully entitled to do whatever she wants with her wads of cash including regularly buying an opera ticket for hundreds of pounds then thinking ‘ner…..I can’t be arsed to go to that’ (again) 🤩 beautiful stuff ❤️

You'd be first in line at the Cartier stand if you came into money

I wouldn't. It isn't something that interests me or gives me pleasure. I would rather spend the money on something else.

In the grand scheme of things a £400 watch may not be considered an expensive watch, but it is definitely not a cheap watch to most people (not some people as asserted on here by the tone deaf).

I say that as someone who is definitely not wealthy but comfortable enough to be able to immediately replace our washing machine when it died on us recently.

I stand corrected. She is perfectly entitled not horrifically entitled. I initially found the idea ‘horrific’ that you could just waste cash like that. However this thread has changed my mind and I now think she’s perfectly entitled to spraff her wadds of disposable cash however she god damn wants and if she wants to buy opera tickets for hundreds of quid then not bother going simply because she literally cannot be arsed - then bloody bravo to her it’s an absolutely stunning example for this thread. Dazzling even 🤩🤩🤩💫💫💫

Why is everyone so hung up on a watch which is something that is down to personal preference and budget? Watches are my thing, I love them, I personally would rather spend £5k on a watch than on numerous holidays because they last a lifetime and can retain their value and I get joy everyday from wearing it. if you have no passion for them and they’re just a functional item you can buy one for £10 and £400 seems ludicrous to spend, and if you’re on a tight budget £400 IS NOT CHEAP, but if you’re into watches and understand the range of prices and value they hold, it’s not ‘an expensive watch’ per se.

Just like someone who loves handbags and spends hundreds or thousands on one. To me, that’s expensive because I’m not into handbags and wouldn’t pay more than £30.

This thread was bound to be a bun fight because wealth is relative. Some people might say turning on the heating this winter is someone bragging because they can’t afford to - whereas other people might scoff at someone saying they could only afford to put £20 of fuel in the car because the other person can’t afford a car.

To me, when I read the OP my first thought was things like being able to afford to just get the car fixed when it goes wrong despite it costing thousands, or being able to get a new roof without a second thought. Replacing white goods when they break without panicking about how to pay, or in essence all this boils down to having zero money worries!

(apologies @Britinme I deleted the bit of my post directly relevant to yours as it was overlong! edited to say, yes, I really get that feeling, being able to buy what you want in the supermarket was a milestone for me too!)

Perception of wealth really depend on who you are comparing yourself to and how you judge "wants" and "needs".

I might want a holiday, but I need a new fence. My DSis tells me that she "needs" holidays so will do without other things to make sure she gets them

She has a really good Teacher's pension (was a headteacher, single, no dependents).

I have a tiny pension due to not working and then being PT (due to dc) in the days when PT teachers could not be part of the pension scheme. I've been on holiday twice in 10yrs.

On paper I am wealthier than her, she perceives me to be wealthier, but honestly I would swap that for the security of that pension! If we both live 20 yrs post retirement she would have "possessed" more money than me over that time. Both of us are massively more wealthy than our WC parents ever were.

For me, real wealth though would be the total security that every one of my needs, food, housing, medical, support as I age, could be met without a second thought. There are not many people in that position.

I still get a frisson of indulgent naughtiness when I buy flowers for myself!

I think many people are just confusing something that is objectively cheap/expensive vs. subjectively cheap/expensive. Some are also referring to something that is cheap as in substandard quality. It's going off on all tangents.

I agree with the PP that said it’s all relative. I can afford to top up my car when I need fuel and put the heating on. I wouldn’t be able to replace the roof though, especially as we’ve just found out our new house needs a full rewire. If you had told me that 15 years ago when my daughter was born that I could afford my own house, and didn’t have to worry about day to day living just big stuff then I would have thought I’d made it!

I think sometimes the problem, however, is you will people’s abilities tend to wane if they aren’t getting rewarded for them.