Middle Class/Upper middle class most frugal with money (in a good way!)

[Montana7]

Out of our friends with dc the same age as ours the most middle class & upper middle seem to be the most frugal & love a bargain.. Many are very high earners yet dc wear second hand clothes, uniforms, the families are very good with food & pride themselves on zero waste... Have great holidays think safaris, multiple ski trips pre covid but always prided themselves on getting the best deals... I think its bloody brilliant & after realising how much disposable cash DH & I fritter away especially around Christmas I aspire to be more frugal... Aibu to suggest the mc/umc appreciate the value of money more or is it just the ones we know...

@Freelady When life is a total struggle every single day, you need something nice in your day or week however small that is.

There are choices that can help but there is also opportunity, health, luck and self belief /faith in the future

@Kennykenkencat I notice you don't say what your income is?

By the time they've paid their mortgage, fancy holiday and for their animals they likely have not choice but to be frugal innocent areas

*in other

[quote RoyalFamilyFan]@Kennykenkencat I notice you don't say what your income is?[/quote]
I was getting in £3000 per month which might sound a lot but that paid for everything.
It was also at the time when mortgages weren’t as low as they are now.

The British perception of class fascinates me. Skiing is always mentioned as a posh hobby, but when I was growing up (different country), we lived in a town at the foot of a mountain. A day pass for the slopes was really cheap. So skiing was a cheap day out for a low income family like us. The better off people took their kids to McDonald's, which was the first western thing to come to our country and therefore aspirational.
Now, in the UK, if I say I'm going skiing and staying in my holiday home (inherited house in home country, in a town the locals look down on) I'd be thought of as posh/wealthy, even though I'm anything but.
McDobald's, on the other hand, is for the plebs but in my mind it's still a big luxury and I still get a thrill going in

@Freelady and if you save £1000 how does that help you prioritise “property and education”

@Kennykenkencat It is impressive you managed to pay for a mortgage, children and private school on that amount. Assuming it is not a very long time ago.

@TheToddlerLife

The British perception of class fascinates me. Skiing is always mentioned as a posh hobby, but when I was growing up (different country), we lived in a town at the foot of a mountain. A day pass for the slopes was really cheap. So skiing was a cheap day out for a low income family like us. The better off people took their kids to McDonald's, which was the first western thing to come to our country and therefore aspirational. Now, in the UK, if I say I'm going skiing and staying in my holiday home (inherited house in home country, in a town the locals look down on) I'd be thought of as posh/wealthy, even though I'm anything but. McDobald's, on the other hand, is for the plebs but in my mind it's still a big luxury and I still get a thrill going in

I've never been skiing but I assume the perception is precisely because of it being cheap in your country (and actually available in your country) but expensive for a package skiing holiday with accommodation and flights to get there.

However , it is also true that no matter how some prioritse spending they wont be able to get on the property ladder. BUT In rhe main, many of us, despite difficulty, have to be accoutable. I am really talking not about people in dire need here , or comple issues .. more about the demographic that says i cant afford so and so.. but spends £ 100 a month on
" my coffee" etc when in reality, yes it could be saved . A couple doing that cd bank 2k a year. And if you that is nothing.. maybe you are the rich one

Ps am typing this under 3 duvets as am saving money
🤣and yes I am fully aware that I am able to make that choice , its just that middle income people make sacrifices too..aware that Its not a long term draining burden for me . I KNOW i am lucky to be able to not put the heating on as I choose to save for paint instead. I know its a long teem dispiriting factor for many. Its also that I do feel sometimes are accountable too .

@IntermittentParps I get a thrill going to macdonalds too! Its changed a lot due to inflation in my home country (while macdonalds prices have stayed roughly the same as I suppose they can stomach inflation due to being a large company) but in the past, a big mac was equivalent to 2-3 local meals in the hawker centre! My dad used to grumble when we begged to go there, he said we should learn the value of money hahaha!

RoyalFamilyFan
I know ,ive been there. My personal view is you dont always have to spend to get a treat.?
Like a cheap instant coffee in a cheap flask with a blanket in the park is a treat to me . If thats what I hve thats what I have and its my way of squeezing a treat out of v little?

[quote onlychildhamster]@IntermittentParps I get a thrill going to macdonalds too! Its changed a lot due to inflation in my home country (while macdonalds prices have stayed roughly the same as I suppose they can stomach inflation due to being a large company) but in the past, a big mac was equivalent to 2-3 local meals in the hawker centre! My dad used to grumble when we begged to go there, he said we should learn the value of money hahaha![/quote]
When I was a kid we didn't really eat out at all, even 'cheap' fast food. I know I sound like a grumpy old gimmer, but seeing kids with their families just eating out like it's the norm still feels on some level odd to me.

Maybe i just dont care what people think
.? My car is the oldest in street, it has holes. Its 15. It does its job. It is no reflection on me . Its a car.

TheToddlerLife snap! When I was a little kid skiing was a standard winter weekend activity/PE lesson and McDonalds was a special treat you only got if you went to Milan!

Swimming otoh felt like a special treat in Italy (rural, no council pool) but was a cheap weekend activity for us in the UK.

I don't care about a posh car. I do care about a reliable car so don't drive an old banger. I spent my childhood in laybys as the car broke down, giving the car a push start, and getting the bus home as we had to abandon the car somewhere as it would not start.

I don't think you can generalise. There are many influences on people's spending patterns and attitudes to money.
I didn't consider myself to be poor growing up, though we certainly weren't affluent, but my Mum had grown up in absolute poverty in the 1930s and thrift was definitely seen as a great virtue in our house. I was taught to minimise spending come what may.
Whilst most of my peers at medical school in the 80s were having a great time but running up overdrafts or being bailed out by the bank of mum and dad, I was living like a hermit, putting money in a savings account out of my standard grant and had thousands in the bank by the time I graduated.

And I've never completely been able to shake it off, even when earning a very respectable wage. I spend next to nothing on myself now and when I do I feel guilty. I don't even enjoy receiving presents as I'm thinking about how the giver could better have spent (or saved) their money. I don't mind spending on others though, but when it comes to myself I am pretty frugal. I'm not sure it is "in a good way" though and I sometimes think it must be nice to actually enjoy having nice things.

@IntermittentParps its the opposite in my home country. We ate every single meal out.Even breakfast! Even today, chicken rice (full meal) is around £1.50. Even for dinner, my parents spend SGD 30 for 4 of us to eat a meal with 4 dishes, that is around £15.

in places like taiwan, singapore and hongkong, this is the norm. My mum has cooked maybe twice in her life. The supermarkets are very expensive and the wet markets are only open in the early morning and often the stuff is sold out by noon so only accessible by housewives. I got a shock when I moved to London as I learned to cook for the first time in my life at 19. My parents placed me in catered university halls for the first year as they were worried I wouldn't be able to adjust. I was shocked when I moved here that rich and middle class people had to do housework and cook too. But it kinda works out because the working hours here are shorter.

In singapore, many families have domestic helpers or they ate every meal out like my family. Of course, you have to eat cheap local food at the hawker centre, not at restaurants or fancy western style bistros aimed at expats.

There are ao many sweeping generalisations about 'the middle class' on Mumsnet.

And apparently even the Queen is now middle class.

Think I'm lower middle class, due to being * one income family. If I had a DP earning a similar amount, then we'd maybe be upper middle class. I don't really put much thought into it, as long as DD and I are comfortable and happy.

Class doesn't work like that. You don't change class according to marital status.

onlychildhamster, yes, food culture is so different in different places!

@Blueeyedgirl21

It’s a good job some people are what a lot of posters are describing as thick and wasteful , and spend money on decent trainers/boots/coats/clothes .. otherwise you wouldn’t be able to buy these second hand at all!

This is so true. There are people who boast about saving the environment by only buying second hand clothes, completely forgetting that if you only buy second hand stuff, you need a constant supply of people buying new stuff who will eventually give it away to become second hand. You're just shifting the buying activity to someone else.

@araiwa

I'm very frugal apart from my yacht and aeroplane which I use at the weekends

is that to nip to Aldi?