Looking wealthy or being wealthy?

[Animallover87]

AIBU to think there's a difference between looking wealthy and being wealthy?

I think understanding the difference, between being wealthy and looking wealthy, is key to changing your financial situation. Our culture today almost encourages looking wealthy as being the ultimate aspirational target.

With beautiful Instaperfect homes, 2 shiny new cars, amazing garden makeovers, £1200 phones, and £200 trainers being shoved down our throats, many people desperately want a piece of that. Reality TV and social media encourage us to have that perfect lifestyle and it can be really difficult to avoid the trap of looking wealthy.

But while some can afford this lifestyle, many of these "Joneses" simply cannot. They might look wealthy, however, they are anything but. Many of them are up to their eyeballs in debt, are continually spending more than they earn, and constantly worrying about how they can afford to pay their bills.

Have you ever felt the pressure to spend to keep up with others? Or are you able to resist the spending but feel jealous of others?

Proper wealthy people often drive battered old cars and wear tatty clothes. However if you look carefully you can tell the clothes were expensive when new.

Tbh I think this is just one of those silly mumsnet tropes. Most rich people are businessmen/women and tend to be well dressed. The smaller number of wealthy old money types tend to be socialites and pretty glamorous (Paris Hilton, Peaches Geldof, etc). Far more likely to be doing 8 balls of coke than driving around in a morris minor wearing tweed lol.

This. That security makes it far easier to not give a toss.

I'm quite well off but drive a really old banger and I am quite frugal. I don't think a person who did not know me very well would know I am well off.

How much do you have to have before you can consider yourself wealthy? Until we know it's hard to answer the question. I thought no one was too bothered about phones anymore, they all look the same, so no one pays any attention. And clothes are often hard to determine cheap form expensive - look slim healthy and good looking and everything looks good on you.

I suppose there's the fact that somebody who's never had to work may not know how to look presentable. I'm not sure that's enviable though.

It was very very common keeping up with the Jones's in my part of Scotland which didn't really see the financial crash but the 2014 oil crash hit hard!
There was even a guy who turned up to a foodbank in a jag everything was on credit to crazy amounts and suddenly the job losses hit hard!

We got through it DH switched sector's but because we never fell into the trap and never went for credit or crazy spending. We are thankfully in a much more secure position now but still won't. It took us 4 years to save up to do the bathroom in the house.

But as you said, they’re young!! Didn’t you used to spend like that when you were younger? Priorities change as you get older, you have mortgages, children, hobbies, pets, etc. just worry about your own finances and leave those to enjoy their youth, they’ll soon have to deal with the crap of responsibility.

£1 million in liquid assets other than your primary home would be the absolute minimum, i think. I think thats considered 'middle class' in Hong Kong!

And if you don't have lots of liquid assets, a £2-3 million home would be needed to be counted as wealthy. For someone in their 20s who hasn't had the chance to save, 200k income.

I know someone who is wealthy and looks wealthy, she is new money though.

Somehow implicit in even investing any time thinking about this is the concept that being wealthy is somehow better.
I just can't even begin to care about whether people have a fat bank balance or not. There are so many better ways to measure people by.

I care if people are kind, or funny, or interesting or make the world a better place. Their bank balance is honestly the least interesting thing about them. Not least because it's most certainly not a marker or success or talent in a world where so much wealth is inherited.

Conspicuous consumption isn't wealth is it?

There are teenagers around here wearing 700 quid Canada Goose jackets. It is truly hard to tell that this is expensive from a distance. You would need to get close up to check you were mugging the right people. So difficult

I couldn’t care less. We have a mortgage to pay off but other than that debt free. We have a substantial amount of credit available but don’t use it. I value being peaceful about our finances over the latest tat that someone else has decided is fashionable etc.

If I see ostentatious wealth I usually think ‘they’ve got a big credit card bill coming’. Flashy wealth looks cheap (in the non monetary sense).

Proper wealthy people often drive battered old cars and wear tatty clothes. However if you look carefully you can tell the clothes were expensive when new.

🤮😖🤨🙄🤔

You’ve quite clearly copied and pasted your initial post from somewhere, OP, as it is a crafted piece of copywriting.

I find the genuinely wealthy people are less flash. They don’t feel the need to post whatever new car they’ve just bought, or the latest expensive gadget on their Instagram. They don’t have that need to impress.

Proper wealthy people often drive battered old cars and wear tatty clothes. However if you look carefully you can tell the clothes were expensive when new.

How do these 'proper' wealthy people get from the unacceptable new, expensive clothes and cars to the acceptable and proper tatty, battered look?
Do they suck it up and look improper and new money for a while or pay a commoner to wear their things in 🤔

You think a copywriter would say '2 new cars' rather than 'two new cars'? The former isn't the preferred phrasing.

Really rich people don’t give a fuck about flashy stuff.

Being wealthy isn’t anything to do with class though?

We should just divide it into two classes of wealth

People who want to be looked at desperately

People who find that idea amusing

, she is new money though.

and this is a bad thing because?

What’s bad about new money? It’s all dished out by the Bank of England? The only people who are aggrieved about this are the aspiring middle classes, if you want to down that route. Nobody else gives a crap.

That obviously wasn’t aimed at you@yoyy , I was agreeing with you!

Haven't read the thread but wow this reads like a journalist working on an article. So. Bad.

I prefer to try to follow the premise of Jante Law - much like I’ve seen in Denmark.

So no I don’t show off - at least no intention to - but I wouldn’t not buy something I wanted just to avoid looking like I was showing off.

I buy quality items and try to look after them, but my car is 20 years old, my daily-wear boots are 10 years old and look pretty new and have never needed new soles or heels (but would cost £600 to replace), the jeans I buy cost £150 and I dry-clean them not put them in the washer etc.

I avoid designer labels like the plague, I buy quality not fashion. For example I’d happily buy a hoodie for £300 from Sweden if I wanted.

I could buy a £150k car outright next year if I wanted but I’ll buy a £15k car instead.

I know I’ve had a few puzzled neighbours over the years wondering how I can afford to live there when I look like that kind of thing. They probably think my boots and jeans are cheap rubbish I have to buy new each year.