To wonder why “new money” is so frowned upon in the UK?

[Namechanged2026]

Dh and I are what you would describe as ‘new money’. We both had very working class childhoods but have since earnt very well. We live in a big modern house, drive new cars (financed as it’s silly to put so much money into a depreciating asset - it works out cheaper to finance if you want a new car every 4 years) and enjoy a few abroad holidays per year (yes, we do like Dubai for the guarantee of weather, relatively short flight and quality of resorts (although we’re definitely not flashy Instagram types😂)). Our children go to private school and have had experiences that me and DH could only have dreamed of as kids.

We worked hard, got lucky and enjoy a lifestyle that we can afford. We don’t dress in tacky designer clothes (although we do have a few designer bags, belts, shoes between us), nor are we ‘flashy’.

But why is there so much snobbery towards this in the UK? Many people on super low incomes would talk about my situation negatively in a way that would suggest they would rather chose a lifestyle with a modest income and fewer luxuries because it’s almost embarrassing to want more than this. I see working class people use the phrase “money talks, wealth whispers” in reference to anything that looks like it might have been very obviously expensive. What do these people think that they would do if they all of a sudden had a super high income… just remain as they are as “money talks”?! Of course not. Yet they see no problem with the “old school” kind of wealth (country estates, kids at boarding school, muddy wellies etc etc).

It’s only in the UK that I think this attitude exists. In other countries it seems like such a positive thing to aim for a high flying career, to admit to wanting to earn as much money as possible, to discuss wanting to travel lavishly and experience lots of things. It’s actively encouraged. However in the UK, I think there is an attitude of mocking these kind of attitudes and suggesting people are shallow for aiming for this. I remember being at uni and telling a family friend that I wanted to buy a house in X area when I was older, only to be met with “is round here (a council estate) not good enough for you then?”.

So if someone is being criticised for being ‘new money’ it’s usually because they’re spending their money on things considered naff. The way footballers live is a good example.

I agree. This isn't aimed at a family with a nice house and new cars, it's the ones who spend it on a diamante lifestyle. Footballers is a good example - weekly barber trips and neck tattoos of crowns!

I bet you never talk to people who are "working class" or "lower middle class" . Do people actually refer to themselves in that way anyway? I have certainly never heard anyone do that.

I was just typing that people would respond positively to a new car but in a subtly undermining way - ‘oh isn’t it lovely! Aren’t you doing so well! I’m afraid there’s no way I could afford a new car until Piers gets expelled from Winchester haha - oh he’s really barely keeping up there, I worry about it every time they phone me’. At which point YOU are expected to undermine it yourself by saying ‘Oh God well DF popped his clogs of course and I inherited the car which he’d just bought like a fool, he was 92 so he never drove it. It’s a nightmare, drinks petrol, services cost a bomb…’

But realised that the exact quality of the undermining response will be class based too.

Sorry for typo, that was meant to be “oh so amazing life”

New money is the phrase they called one of the families in the titanic film 😅

Quite. OP's posts scream "I think I'm better than you".

Tbh, if you are a dick about money and flaunt wealth it doesn't matter if it's new or old money. You are just a dick.

No it wasn’t.

Why on earth would I make this up?!

So true!

I definitely think it’s a thing. Not my opinion but I think the reason is because it signals that you aren’t inherently worthy of the money. People born onto it are seen as upper class by birth whereas those with new money are seen as working class who got lucky and are fraudulently masquerading as upper class. As I say, it’s not my opinion but this is the impression I get. Like you don’t deserve it.

Humans are tribal; if you have broken away from the norm that could be seen by some close family/friends as a judgment on their life and choices. However, I say this kindly OP, you appear a little preoccupied by class; your posts are peppered with class classifications. It might be worth some self reflection if you are regularly receiving comments from friends and family.

Oh! It probably is, isn't?
They've got stamina, if it's them, I'll give them that.
Up until 3am looking back and now, it seems, here again.
I wonder if the DH will have a better researched job this time.
And if the OP is still a nurse with post-graduate qualifications but, obviously, not working as there's no need to.

I think the responses to your post are proving the point extremely well OP…

I think in the UK the snobbery is a lot about the aristocracy - an ingrained idea that only some people deserve money by birth, even if people don't think it consciously. Thus a penniless Lord in a crumbling mansion who's pretty much getting by on charity is looked up to more than someone who has built a fortune from humble beginnings. It is very daft.

It’s not a lecture. I just knew there would be replies o “if you’re financing a car then you clearly can’t afford it and this is why people slag it off” and wanted to avoid those.

I think this is it for me - it’s the choices people make which are judged, not the having wealth in itself. I question why people who drive a few miles a week ferrying kids around and going to the supermarket need a massive, and massively expensive new SUV every few years when a two year old regular estate car would make more sense and be a good investment for ten years or more, making less environmental impact. The same sort of people also do things I can’t fathom like changing furniture completely every few years, which is so so wasteful and again has a big environmental impact. Similarly, buying all new, co-ordinated and themed Christmas decorations every year. Taking holidays in Dubai makes people look frankly rather stupid to me, it’s too hot to do anything but be in air conditioned buildings and aside from the fact the place runs on indentured servitude and the laws are unacceptable to many people from Western democracies, it looks like a choice made due to social media rather than anything else. It frankly dwarfs the sort of conspicuous consumption Thatcherism espoused in the 80s, despite the fact we are more aware than ever of environmental concerns and social justice around the world. It’s interesting that British culture has frowned upon flashing cash for decades; it’s seen as quite vulgar. But social media has swept all that away, and, ironically, created more issues now that the gulf between rich and poor has been laid bare with less shame than it deserves.

I suppose the old cliches ‘more money than sense’ and ‘money can’t buy taste’ are only cliches because they’re true.

The responses prove people don't like a bragger. Nothing more.

My whole family is working class. I grew up on a council estate. Me and my sisters were the first in our family to go to university and we all experienced negative comments regarding this by those who lived near us and family.

New money isn’t frowned upon. Telling people on SM that you have money and endless posts about purchases, houses and holidays is frowned upon.

Many “working class” people have been conditioned to think they will never be able to improve their lifestyle or if they do, they will never be fully socially accepted by the “upper classes”.

I come from a country where class as a thing isn’t a concept, but this feeling of unworthiness still exists in some of the more modest families. Children grow up hearing this narrative of “know your place, this is how we were born and how we will die” instead of their self-esteem and confidence being boosted, and encouraged to achieve much more than their parents.

Some people are of course acting out of jealousy, but for others, this is the way in which they have been taught to think. Not to aspire for more. Not to want to improve themselves and be better than their parents. Out of fear, or lack of knowledge or resources… it doesn’t matter.

Many end up reacting negatively when someone who they thought would always accompany them on their miserly journey through life, becomes something more. I just wish all children from more disadvantaged backgrounds had that person that believed in them and pushed them to achieve their best. I was very lucky in that regard, some of my childhood friends or relatives, not so much. Every child is capable of success.

I think it’s the overt consumerism that I have issues with, not the fact you’ve worked hard and done well for yourself. I would totally respect those who did well financially for not having to buy ‘stuff’ and a new car every 4 years?

Each to their own, but don’t expect everyone to agree with your position, I certainly don’t expect others to do that for me.

I think it's also to do with inherited and stereotypical values around what money is best spent on. No logic to those preconceptions though. For example whether a new car is a better use of money than use for the preservation of the crumbling family estate - that's entirely up to each person. But since only the "old money" is likely to have the crumbling estate it neatly divides people into tribes as PP have said.
Personally I'm of the view that this country desperately needs wealthy individuals since they prop up our tax system and without them we'd have no money for state schools or the NHS which many "new money" don't use. So I very much hope, as someone who is definitely neither new money or old, that new money does not feel unwelcome.

The difference between new money and old money is a lot of the time (not all of the time), new money goes as quickly as it came. So take the car example - you can afford the finance today, but business goes into trouble, you get laid off or the lottery win runs out (dependent on how you got the new money) means that not only will you no longer be able to finance that flashy car, you won’t have the means to buy the £2k corsa. Old wealth will buy a car outright and run it until it dies 20 years down the line with 300k on the clock - it was the flashy motor when they bought it it just isn’t now as they’re not frugal as in tight with their money, they know that money has to last for the next generation too so they are sensible with their money. They also will have nice “toys” sticking on the cars or your designer handbag but they know when to use it, and that won’t be to aldi for the weekly shop (and yes the landed gentry shop in aldi and lidl as again they are not tight they are careful - that doesn’t mean they don’t go to waitrose etc for the bits they like).

Yes. I do think there’s an element of people feeling like you’re somehow criticising their lifestyle because you clearly aimed for something “higher”.