to think you can tell when someone is 'very' wealthy

[nothingbutsnow]

.....more due to how they behave, a sort of self possession than actual money signifiers like clothes, jewellery, etc?

By wealth I mean perhaps more than just well off.

It's something i thought about a few days ago in a garden centre, a family passed by us with teens and there was just something obvious yet not easily described. Clothes were sort of 'anti-mumsnet', like skinny jeans, bright tops, nothing remarkable visually. It made me realise I had observed this before but never thought much of it.
It was more a sort of looming self confidence, not especially pleasant, but noticeably interesting! Not rude or ignorant but disconnected from their surroundings enough to tread on your toes.
I've seen discussions on MN about such things in the past, and the difference in my experience has been they are rarely thin, but more buxom, tall, strident. The teen girl was in skinnies, tshirt and trainers (nothing remarkable) but she had an expression that I can't describe.

There doesn't seem to be an interest in trends at all, especially fashion.

People on here always say it is battered up old Barbour jackets, moth eaten cashmere and dog hair, but I think this is a stereotype rarely seen outside of the rural eccentric.
To me the give away is posture (not so much elegant as assertive), air of disinterest and a certain way of existing in/taking up space differently.

None of this is important, but it's something i noticed. Anyone agree that it is indefinable yet obvious?

It’s not only wealth and not all wealthy people but I think comes from a real confidence in the family unit. No insecure attachments either in the parents or their children.

The few I know have awful relationships with family, lots of repression & bitterness. And lots of philandering, 2nd marriages etc, a bit like the a royals really. Although one can't generalise.

@HolidayTime2021

I think with you would go to a garden centre or not in the 1st place with your children says more about class and money than guessing based on a quick glimpse at people.

i disagree, life isnt this black and white. people come upon all manner of reasons to pop out during a pandemic.

Kanaloa

good god calm down, im just throwing thoughts out, it cant be helped if you dont get my meaning. i refer to posture, confidence. Just breathe...

Where I'm from, there are quite a few very wealthy fishermen, but you'd never know it to look at them.

^

Same here. Extremely wealthy East Lancs engineering company owner in a boiler suit. Doesn't look or sound wealthy at all.

Obviously that's self made wealth, not inherited which we know are two different kettles of fish

A lot of you talk as if you really feel a need to put these people down, or else elevate them to a special place in the sky...

We are all just people in a crazy world.

I’m breathing fine. I just disagree with you because you’re spouting absolute nonsense.

Their heads on their shoulders have a very wealthy air. The necks of the upper classes, natch.

And you still haven’t explained how you know this family were wealthy, other than their indifferent expressions and the magically wealthy way they took up space.

Surely it's situational though. They might have their heads sitting on their shoulders in a certain way at the garden centre but drop them into the council estate DHs is from & their heads would be spinning!

There doesn't seem to be an interest in trends at all, especially fashion.

People on here always say it is battered up old Barbour jackets, moth eaten cashmere and dog hair,

This is me! All my furniture is a mixture of second-hand and homemade. No interest in design, trends whatsoever. I still wear jumpers I had in the 90s, and they were “hand-me-downs” from my older brother.

I own land and a fairly sizeable home, but I’m not wealthy.

@LemonTT

I suspect they were just from very far north to be in a tee shirt in this weather. Possibly millionaire Eskimos.

Or Geordies?

How do you know they were actually wealthy, though? I was described in this way by a receptionist at a hotel in Montreal who didn't realise I could understand her talking to the other receptionist. Apparently I just had an air of being rich and privileged.....well I'm definitely not either...just a bit quiet and aloof, I guess! I wear nice enough clothes but they're all second hand from charity shops. Have also been negged by random men saying things like 'you look like a rich girl trying to look poor'. Totally wrong. Zero family money or privilege, and at the time of that comment, in my very late twenties, I was in fact so poor that I'd been to a food bank a few weeks earlier when my pay was delayed at work. No idea what it is that makes people think I'm wealthy, but they're all very wrong!

Yes I agree.

I also think it's interesting that it's generally possible to pick out, for example, that someone is French or some other nationality/part of the world by small cues in the way they are dressed/behave/look without hearing them speak. There are also subtle differences in faces.

Obviously that sense is not always correct but interesting how nuanced it is all the same.

I think what you are trying to describe are people who have been rich for atleast two generations. People who worked hard for their money and became rich in their own life they show charisma and resolute but their aura is different. They still care about the money they have earn and are proud of it because it came from their hard work. But a generation or two down, kids who grew up in wealth and are accustomed to it will have a different approach to it. They have that kind of feel to them that money doesn't matter to them because they never had to worry about it. There is an old saying in my language which translates to ' if you make a pauper king, it will take seven generations to take out the feeling of poverty from them and if a king becomes pauper, it will take seven generations to take the royalty out of them." I am not sure about the pauper becoming rich but we know how the dethroned royalty behaved like in subcontinent.

@HeatingOnHeatingOff

I’m considered wealthy (13k a month after tax salary)

Yet I don’t look wealthy at all. People are very surprised when they see my house as they expect me to live in a bog standard house.

The nursery kept pulling me to one side asking if I was claiming everything I was entitled to and seemed surprised we were over the 16k a year benefit criteria. They then started asking for my national insurance number so they could check if I was entitled to any free hours from 2 years old!

My sister once said to a colleague “if you saw my sister you would never think she had her own business and could afford to shop here at M&S!

I’m not scruffy but my jeggings are £15 M&S ones, tops are cheap simplybe ones etc.

Plus I was brought up on a council estate and I think it shows when I talk to people by the things I say etc.

So now I don’t think you can always tell.

I'm very curious about what you do for a living!

@HeatingOnHeatingOff

I’m considered wealthy (13k a month after tax salary)

Yet I don’t look wealthy at all. People are very surprised when they see my house as they expect me to live in a bog standard house.

The nursery kept pulling me to one side asking if I was claiming everything I was entitled to and seemed surprised we were over the 16k a year benefit criteria. They then started asking for my national insurance number so they could check if I was entitled to any free hours from 2 years old!

My sister once said to a colleague “if you saw my sister you would never think she had her own business and could afford to shop here at M&S!

I’m not scruffy but my jeggings are £15 M&S ones, tops are cheap simplybe ones etc.

Plus I was brought up on a council estate and I think it shows when I talk to people by the things I say etc.

So now I don’t think you can always tell.

That's because you don't come from wealth. That's the difference.

I also born and brought up on a council estate but now definitely middle class (lol) and "comfortable". I don't think I come across as middle class to anyone though!

You can take the girl out of the council estate......

😄

Ooo just to add to that, my DS however comes across as middle class. As that's how he was brought up. Despite me. Lol! Tbh that was my intention, I wanted more for him than I had and thankfully that's one thing in my life that I did ok at 😄

Wrt men's skin, the nicest skin I saw on a man was a Greek diplomat's. He told me that he used moisturiser - and always shaved twice when he shaved.

I dont know if this is true really. I have a friend who is super rich. I didnt know at all until I rocked up at her mansion. Tennis courts, swimming pool. The lot. Nothing about her says money. Being super rich is very normal to her so of no consequence.

I have a relative who has hundreds of thousands in the bank. If you met them in the street you might think they was destitute as they live by choice a life of poverty.

True millionaires in my experience tend to be very grounded nice normal people. It's the people who want to be richer and aspire to have a lifestyle they cant afford who tend to scream money by appearance. Like a acquaintance who was putting both kids through private school, large detached house, two new cars. Mum didnt work but dad was in the same field as me. I couldn't work out how they could afford that lifestyle. Turns out that they couldn't and it was all a show.

Unlike the first person I mentioned who drove a very normal car that was a few years old. She didnt need to try hard or impress or grab peoples attention as I say, being born into money wasnt of note in her life. She doesnt need to convince anyone of anything or aspire to it. That's the difference.

OP it's too vague.

What do it mean by wealthy?
How much? Certain lifestyle? Certain background? How got money? Certain Jobs/ kids schools/ holidays? Own range rover/ Bentley/ helicopter?

Hard to know what in mind.

You saw the family and noticed them. Casually confident, woman not wearing current fashions.

As pps say how you know wealthy?
Some people are just confident, not fussed about just doing their own thing.

You noticed her clothes apparently out of date according to MN s&b. I don't get the big significance you give this tbh!

Swishy hair comes up a lot. Never understood this!

Op can you say ball park figures or something?

@megustalacerveza

How do you know they were actually wealthy, though? I was described in this way by a receptionist at a hotel in Montreal who didn't realise I could understand her talking to the other receptionist. Apparently I just had an air of being rich and privileged.....well I'm definitely not either...just a bit quiet and aloof, I guess! I wear nice enough clothes but they're all second hand from charity shops. Have also been negged by random men saying things like 'you look like a rich girl trying to look poor'. Totally wrong. Zero family money or privilege, and at the time of that comment, in my very late twenties, I was in fact so poor that I'd been to a food bank a few weeks earlier when my pay was delayed at work. No idea what it is that makes people think I'm wealthy, but they're all very wrong!

Have you got nice straight hair? That usually does it.

I also worked with someone who I found out was the brother of someone massively famous and from a rich family. I would never have guessed he came from a seriously rich family.

@Grumpyosaurus

well according to MNs the super rich gentry look like tramps & drive bangers so that would be a no. I think it's quite an out dated trope. I know by sight our local wealthy gentry, and can confirm that the stereotype is not outdated at all. The last time I saw one of our local landowners before he died, he was litter-picking a hedge in wellies, jeans and a lumberjack shirt with a rip in it. And the last timeI saw the other one, he was on board a tractor and dressed accordingly - and the last time I saw his wife, she was in a knackered Barbour. And the last time I spotted their son, he was driving a knackered-looking pick-up.

The Duchess of Devonshire wears cheap green Dunlop wellies. Her coat looked like a proper old Barbour though.

I find the idea that wealthy people look behave in a certain way just really odd. They are still people with own personalities, preferences, insecurities etc.

And there's a fine line between self confident and arrogant.

This thread is verging on the psychotic. It must go in Classics as the most sincere yet ridiculous MN thread ever, showcasing all that is weird about England.

How I love it.

Look, what is weird is not the way rich people's heads sit on their shoulders but that you would think their heads sit differently on their shoulders.

I have brothers who everyone assumes are posh. Yes, they somehow ended up at Oxbridge but they are not remotely posh. They didn't go to public school but no one believes that. Their heads sit on their shoulders in a very ordinary way. They are successful and happen to have a hard to place accent with RP vowel similarities. There it ends. Their naivete, unsquashable candour and enthusiasm mark out them as different and people fill in the blanks.

South Africans seem to experience similar difficulties. I shall watch out for them in garden centres.

Sorry but I can’t believe you’re STILL going on about people on Mumsnet saying skinny jeans are dated! You do seem quite obsessed with this topic. Why?

The majority of rich people I know are by no means show offs and still work very hard for every penny they have. One guy in particular you absolutely would not say looked well off at all, he wears his fluorescent work jacket everywhere he goes and is just your average workman type. When he went in to a car show room to enquire about a Ferrari (as his 7th car or something) he was dismissed and told he should consider other (significantly cheaper) cars on the market. They just presumed by looking at him he didn’t have the money when he literally has millions in the bank. I can’t remember the full story but when the car arrived for him to collect they had by this point realised he definitely did have the money and all of a sudden were falling over themselves to help him. He now drives about in his Ferrari with the hi-viz jacket on 😂