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?”.

This is interesting, I always assumed that if actually did ever get rich that we’d not be accepted by the “old wealthy”

The UK is a very odd place when it comes to money and class.

I genuinely don’t understand the obsessions with brands and what they signify. Burberry is a great example of this. The genuinely wealthy have always gone for Burberry coats as they represent beautiful British tailoring. The aspirational wealthy stopped buying because of its chav association a while back. Genuinely wealthy people couldn’t give a toss what people think about them.

Same with Holland Cooper. Who cares if it’s not to your taste. The fact genuine royalty chose to wear it, yet some still turn their noses up at if baffles me. Why do people care so much what brands other people wear?

‘Perception of arrogance’ then that could be phrased as.

Whether or not you agree with it, the US is a mirror image of the UK in this regard, and historically. The US was built around man-made success, entrepreneurship is seen as heroic. Part of the US breaking from Britain in the American Revolution involved the rejection of hereditary elites. Showing success is also much more readily accepted – finances are discussed more openly and readily and big ticket items are not as side-eyed.

The US experiences more inequality but a less rigid social structure. Someone ‘self-made’ can more rapidly be accepted into elite circles.

Of course the US has old-money families - the Rockerfellas, the Vanderbilts - but they don’t culturally dominate the social hierarchy.

That depends on context to an extent, though. If ‘less openly judgemental’ means being polite at a party rather than pointing and laughing at your bling, sure. If it means their child marrying your child, no.

I assume this is a continuation of the shit there is at school for trying hard & being academically successful. Or at least it was like that in my school.

The idea that the upper classes never flash the cash is arguably quite a new one and certainly not static. There was plenty of very conspicuous consumption going on over the last centuries- great houses built, grounds modelled and remodelled, vast amounts spent on art and fashion and so on.

The notion that the real class signifiers aren't related to money really caught on in the 20th century and particularly post-war, when many of the upper classes found themselves significantly worse off than they had been and therefore needed a way of thinking about class that was separate from wealth. Hence U and non-U etc- you may not be able to afford to live very differently from the middle class any longer but you can still feel secure in your class status because you say "writing paper" and they say "note paper" etc.

And Callum and jade may well not have quite the community enhancing business , they may well be into crypto or marketing spam ,a bit of light drug dealing, bailiff recovery, or even only fans , I’m not saying they are at all- but the idea ‘all ‘ new money is from legit , wholesome and ethical business is just not the case. It has always been the same by the way - I know of a very very well off guy who was an accountant for a very very top organisation yearsago - but it wouldn’t have been stunningly well paid - an acquaintance of his told me he was wealthy via a huge business bung ! And a couple of million 25 years ago set you up very nicely.

On here it’s viewed extremely negatively to own a brand new luxury car, to travel abroad multiple times per year, to buy designer items etc. People look down upon it with an air of superiority

I don't think it is superiority. I think the uk middle classes are quite post consumerist, and mumsnet are quite representative of this.

So spending regularly on luxury cars and flying, are considered unnecessarily consumerist and damaging to the environment. Plus middle & upper class people don't really value ostentatious displays of wealth, its viewed as vulgar and inconsiderate of the feelings of others to talk about money or boast of your possessions.

Trump experienced something like this and perhaps still does. When I was in the US in 1990 he was about to go bankrupt, following years of trying to buy his way into celebrity via movies, and discussion of him in the media was that he was a joke, desperate to be accepted in upper NY society but too flash, but also just generally crass and talking constantly about sex and his own brilliance. Hence why he was such an easy mark for Epstein. He always spent money on the ‘wrong’ things. The lesson he appears to have learned is not that he needed to knuckle down, order bespoke Savile Row and become an authority on ancient ceramics or something, but that if he had ENOUGH money and power, those who snubbed him would eventually be forced to suck up to him and those who measure success the same way as him would support him. Which in fact has come to pass.

I can’t be the only one who rather wishes that the snobs had found a way to accept him back then.

For me, it’s not ‘new money’ per se, it’s the attitude of some people who have it. I was a teacher at an independent school. After years of attracting an ‘old money’ demographic, the school started to attract ‘new money’ parents. The attitude of some of them was awful - parents’ evenings were full of claims like ‘I’m paying you to give my child top grades’ and ‘I’m paying you to answer emails immediately whenever I send them’. One child asked if he could come in for extra one-to-one revision lessons during the Easter holiday before GCSEs because he’d missed three weeks of term to go skiing, and I said no, I was visiting my sick Dad. He actually responded ‘so what’s my Dad paying you for, then?’ Another emailed me on Christmas Eve at 10.30pm and asked if I could rewrite his UCAS personal statement by the next day so he could check it with his Grandad who was visiting for Christmas. When I said no, his Dad complained to the head.

They aren’t all like that. But it isn’t unusual or atypical.

Is it the whole, "Money can't buy class" thing? I can see what they mean when you watch certain documentaries about the newly-minted, but the media presumably only picks the extremes.

Anyway, OP, with the UK's class system, everyone should know their place and never rise above it... because to do otherwise would clearly be vulgar!

You wouldn’t be, but that’s because of who your parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents were, not because they think you have tacky taste in kitchens. Literally nothing you can do to become accepted as “old money” if you aren’t - the best you can hope for is your great grandkids might be.

Except that American heiresses save many titled families.

Only time I hear things like this is more to do with people having big flashy cars on finance, designer clothes etc but crying poverty and saying they cant afford basic essentials while living above their means on the above.

@Namechanged2026 , have you not seen the not infrequent threads where the poster is insisting that only the children of wealthy people can go on to become wealthy themselves and that the rest of us disadvantaged types are stuck in our lowly lot in life? I’ve argued against this on many an occasion because my husband and I (in our sixties now) came from absolutely nothing, we both left school at 16, no one helped us at all but we worked all our lives like Trojans and had to be risk takers. I absolutely acknowledge that life is more difficult for young people nowadays. Our collective wealth currently stands at approximately 6 million. We sent our children to independent schools, had and still have frequent and very nice holidays, live in a very nice house but otherwise are not flashy. Much like yourself I imagine.
There’s jealousy obviously but actually I think more importantly many people cannot accept that they could, if they had been prepared for the effort and the risks have had a fighting chance of being equally successful. They find it hard to admit to themselves that the level of effort and risk was not for them; which I do understand because the sacrifices are pretty painful at times. So instead of congratulating you they call you flashy or whatever because admitting to themselves that your success is earned and most people can be successful is difficult for them if they haven’t achieved it themselves.
This is not meant in any way to be judgmental by the way, we all have our limits.

Well yes.

But most people would want their children to marry someone of a similar background I would imagine. Whatever their 'status'.

It's familiar, accessible and relatable.

I dated someone who was 'new money'. The flash car, 6 figure salary and big house was pretty much his entire personality. He was embarrassed and critical when I spoke about camping holidays because he liked to take package holidays to more 'exotic' locations even though my camping holidays in Cornwall were more expensive than his all inclusives to Bali or wherever he was going. He sneered at me when I took my children to Shakespeare performed in the grounds of a local castle because it was 'cheap' and preferred to 'flash the cash' at the ballet so that everyone he knew could afford it. He abhorred anything that might have suggested to other people that he didn't have money.

We would go out with his friends and their partners for dinner and he would insist on picking up the whole bill even though it was entirely unnecessary. It wasn't kindness. It was a crass display of wealth.

The first time he came around to mine for dinner, he commented on the quality of my cutlery (of all things). And then apologised for his own. I didn't bother telling him I'd bought it from Asda 10 years previously and just left him feeling inadequate that his cutlery was inferior to mine 😉

He was painfully aware of his perceived social status. It was all born of insecurity that something might betray his more modest roots.

Whereas a very wealthy (old money) friend of mine retired early recently and she excitedly told me that "life is so much cheaper in the daytime!" So, now, when we meet up we go out for lunches and early birds rather than more expensive evening dinners. Because she doesn't see the point in spending money just for the sake of it.

That's what I meant by having something to prove.

'Humans are tribal '
Yes, this is one of the issues.

Michael Caine has commented on the UK thing of Brits resenting people who make money, as opposed to the US.

Charlie Chaplin did too.

Don't let any one piss on your chips.

I think a very flashy way of spending money is also looked down upon by certain families in Europe and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world as well. I don't think it is just a British thing by any means.

I suppose muddy wellies and crumbling French chateau or English country houses are not "flashy" because they have an appearance of being a bit run-down, which quietens it. Probably silly, as once the gilt would have been shining!

To me, I think it is also, up to a point, about art and culture. Older types of wealth spend often lay closer to art and culture, which informed the aesthetic a lot more. Some of the sorts of carving you would get on old wall boiseries or the type of art that hung on walls, or the hand-crafted furniture had more skill in it than the kind of mass-produced items that newer money tends to get spent on. It is the gap between spending as (once) a kind of patron of the arts and spending, effectively, in factories. There is still a class thing about spending on modern art, as opposed to mass produced things like designer handbags or flashy sportscars (though older historical "treasures" of the motoring world can be seen as just that.)

Some of it is artificial, as everything was new at some point, and the gold would have glittered at Versailles. But a large McMansion is pushing to claim any artisitic value beyond just being flashy, big and costly.

I think it is a misconception that America is all "new money." There is an old money culture in America as well now.

It’s not new money per se, it’s that you’ve described some typically ‘tacky’ things.

I know and work with plenty new money and old money people. Most of the new money people still aren’t wearing designer clothes, or financing new cars (I’m assuming interested this works out cheaper for you as I don’t think any one of the people I work with finances their cars, and they do buy new ones regularly).

Out of interest, what wealth bracket would you put yourself into? HNW or UHNW?

But I think the answer is that culturally the British are relatively modest, self deprecating and not at all ostentatious - so obvious displays of wealth jar.

Thoughts and prayers op.

Sorry but I have to disagree. If the OP or indeed as you say you, are worth £6 million but weren't flashy I'd be fine with that. It's the ostentatious displays of wealth posters object to not the fact that you either earned, inherited, stole or won the money. It's what you do with it that counts. Dubai for a holiday and an enormous shiny RR = crass, New Zealand and, I dunno I'm not interested in cars particularly, but say a Lexus as they're expensive but not particularly flashy, I'd have no issue with. You're spending your money on expensive items but not to invite the world to look at you.

Maybe they just don't like people who are well off. How do you know it is anything to do with "new money".

The main thing is always jealousy and politics of envy.

I remember a tweet saying something in the USA you see someone with a nice big house, a nice car and you think "man they worked hard for it, hopefully if I knuckle down I can be like that as well".

In the UK you see it and just feel "they don't deserve it, I'll have it off them"

As a family who moved from India, grew up with nothing and now are a household paying the additional rate of income tax (an eye watering 45%) we hate seeing the left clamour for more and more taxes. We worked hard, did well at school and are allowed to enjoyed the fruits of our success.

I'll bite.

To be honest I cringed at most of your post. I am probably 'old money' in that I do come from at least a couple of generations of proper money, estates, Eton etc.

I think it's just all a bit crass and embarrassing. Dubai - anyone with old money left decades ago and isn't seen dead there. I say that as someone who had family ties to the royal family there. New car every four years - tacky. Designer handbags - depends, when you wear them, what designer etc.

Money also doesn't change your class. If you're working class and then get wealthy you are still working class. And vice versa if I suddenly lost all our money and ended up in a council estate I wouldn't suddenly become working class, I'd just be a poor middle class person (of which there are millions!)

None of this is to say you shouldn't enjoy the results of your hard work in whatever way you see fit!

Massive generalisation klaxon, but I think it's fair to generalise that middle class children are bred for success, as it's standard for their parents, and working class children are bred for getting by, as that's also standard for their parents.