Does wealth cause a disconnect with people?

[mids2019]

We are doing moderately well with a net worth of £1.4 million. In the West Midlands (house,pensions,investments) in our very early 50s. We had about a £60K growth in one of our funds last year and our financial advisor seems to be getting 10-12% returns on investments pa regularly.

In do feel now it's difficult to talk about money with friends and people we know in the same town (a little down trodden on general) as some of them have real money troubles and the cost of living crisis is really biting. When do missions get round to money we stay diplomatically silent and remain vague about wealth and financil goals to not needlessly antagonize people.

Does anyone feel the same and do they tend to discuss investment etc. with those with similar amounts?

Thanks for all the interesting replies and the general conclusion of keep quiet. I think keeping quiet strangely extends to not buying luxuries as an obvious display of wealth as in my peer group maybe rocking up in a new Mercedes would cause envy comment and right or wrongly I worry about the impact of envy.

I really find not talking about money at work difficult because I have an office where discussion of savings, pensions etc. seems just a rich vein of conversation often with people working out when they can retire.

actually one of the fears of obvious display of relative wealth comes from a poor relationship with an ex manager in the NH S (where I work) who was unhappy with performance and openly mocked my address hinting I simply didn't deserve wealth as if struggling financially was a penance that has to be paid for working in the NH S (another thread).....

Lol....that's why anonymous threads are good as this is something I don't reveal in real life (as suggested by many on this thread). I do think it's an interesting topic and investments seem to be very much hidden wealth (as opposed to the house,car etc.)

We never discuss savings/investments with friends/family at all. It's a subject like politics that is best avoided. No one else needs to know your financial situation, whether you're rich or poor. It's just not "polite" to talk about it beyond generalities and WILL cause friction if you do.

But you CAN discuss money generally without being personal especially at more basic levels, maybe not the higher end investment territory, but certainly the core basics of paying off credit cards each month, basics of compound interest, importance of a pension, etc etc. All can be done in a "gentle" conversational way without it sounding as if you're gloating about being "rich".

I think I agree with this. The thing is if we were a bit more extravagant in our tastes wealth becomes more obvious with the friction you refer to.

I mentioned above how buying a property and having my address known at work lead to things being said that shouldn't so as you suggest I am conscious about the obvious benefits of privacy.

Wealth isn't what you spend. It's what you keep.

I think it was Rihanna's accountant who, when she tried to sue him for nearly allowing her to go bankrupt, said: "Does she really need me to tell her that if you spend all your money on stuff, you'll end up with a lot of stuff and no money?"

I’d say two things:

1. I think someone’s made the point above that you really don’t know how your friends are doing. I have known people who have done similarly to you and start sort of assuming everyone around them is in miserable destitution, when in fact they may be speaking to people better off than them, and they can end up looking quite foolish (trying to pay for everything etc.) so be careful not to assume about others.
2. Unfortunately some people do find it hard to be happy for others’ success, financial or otherwise. So you will have to face a certain level of restrained bitterness if you become comfortably-off.

I echo this. In the UK the fact we don’t discuss money, particularly salary details directly contributes to women earning less in the workplace. That’s why the EU Pay Transparency Directive has been introduced in Europe. It introduced a ban on pay secrecy clauses and job adverts have to have salary bands attached and you can’t be asked for previous pay history. Hopefully there will be a trickle down effect into the UK.

They hide the bank balance but the cultural markers tend to be there, beyond house and car: the swishy hair, the good teeth, the quality but discreet jewellery, etc.

Actually I do kind of get this. I have a house worth 1.2m and my boss lives in a small flat. She's the high earner in her household whereas I earn a little less than her but my DP earns more than me, so we're both decent earns but in v diff financial situations despite her earning more than me.

I haven't openly shared my house or financial situation with her deliberately! So I do get where you're coming from work wise

Our addresses are available on an HR system and I did talk openly about it. Little did I know it would get thrown back at me.....

I think it's part of a culture of having to show you are a low paid stressed out dedicated NH S worker within our place (consultants excluded).

I really know what your getting at because my partner has a very dubious role currently and we have a nicer house and greater wealth then perhaps senior managers at her organisation. I wonder if there is an unwritten rule that your boss should be manifestly more wealthy that the employee?

Yes I think there's definitely a bit of an unwritten rule about it at work.

My parents were both low earners but my Dad deliberately kept his job low level/low stress because he renovated houses in his evenings and weekends. I always remember a manager two levels above him at work found out his home was worth about 3x as much as his and got really difficult with him.

I never discuss finances at work!

Well if you are going around telling everyone what your net worth is, that won’t make you friends for starters.

DH & I (both in 60s) come from a business/finance background and manage our own investments, and as a result, friends often ask us about financial things like personal pensions, ISAs, government bonds etc. We're careful always to talk in generalities, and not give any specific advice other than pointing them in the direction of helpful resources, people etc.

It's difficult, as sometimes people ask direct questions, but then don't like the answers e.g.

• Will you use your pension lump sum to pay off your mortgage? Er no, because we don't have a mortgage...

One friend in particular seems to have become very bitter and snarky to us since we both retired last year, making constant jibes about us 'being lucky to have such big pensions' when the reality is just that we've planned ahead and had different experiences (we started invested from a young age, benefited from expat salaries/working abroad and (sadly) have inherited from the death of both our sets of parents). They have always been 'spenders' on holidays/cars, have a second home, and still have their parents around, so it irks me slightly that they seem so bitter, especially as we've never gone out of our way to talk about money to them.

I really detest people who are bitter towards those in a better financial position than them. I don't think anyone should be made to feel bad for having done well, been savvy or even been lucky. Other people's success has no bearing on someone else's difficulties. Jealousy is an ugly trait.

I am just genuinely happy for those doing better than me. And if my "wealthy" friends want to talk about their money woes, hit me up. If it's important to them, it's important to me.

This!
No reason to talk about money unless you feel the need to brag.
I have s friend who has s similar to me and we can freely discuss investments etc, but Iwouldn’t with a group of friends.

@Heereforagoodtime

If someone got all their money through inheritance I don’t automatically assume they’ve done better than me. I just know they’ve been luckier than me.

I didn't say they were doing better, I said in a better financial position. There's a difference.

I’ve never ever had a conversation with any of my friends about investing. We’ve talked about things like ‘ooh we just bought a holiday home’ or whatever - but anything else? Nah.

So much so if someone started to discuss investments I’d assume they were financially fucked and had got involved with some MLM schem.

I don't talk about money to friends for the above reasons and part of it is general civility and part of it knowing envy is a real thing.

I asked the question about disconnect as some people unfortunately do view money as a divide and it's seeing bitterness that makes me a bit fearful especially when working in a public sector role.

@mids2019 as this is anonymous. I'm going to ask you if that figure includes your property?

I think it's really sad. It's become such a divisive subject. I would not want to talk about it but in my 20s I would tell my friend if I was buying shares for example.

We've now hit a very awkward point where she appears to have saved nothing for retirement and I've been planning an early retirement for years

We don't actually sit and talk about money

She got very upset when she was having dinner with me and My my family and kept saying incredulously to my older brother "but how can you afford to retire?"

She seem like she was going to cry

It emerged that in spite of her doing much much better than me she hasn't saved any of it

So now I'm even more careful not to say anything that goes near money

It doesn't affect my social life in the sense of I live in a very small place and the things I go to don't tend to be very expensive

Occasionally go to London for a concert, but a lot of people do that

If I had all the things I wanted, I'd have a really expensive wardrobe, but it's not within my range of retiring early!

Nothing more boring than discussing other people's money. It's not like they will give you any and I have no background in finance so no point. I slipped up recently, discussing something that someone else heard regarding our finances. That person now treats me differently. Wish it never happened. So yes talking shop with others is not the best idea.

Agree.

I would keep it to myself.

If you read the room incorrectly you are going to come across as a bragging bore.

Discuss with your financial advisor. No one else needs to know how minted you are.

X

Eesh. That's rough. I can understand people not planning for retirement but not realising they haven't is something else, altogether.

My husband and I have taken the approach of enjoying life now and having "post-retirement jobs". We can't put enough away to sustain the life we'd want without basically sacrificing all the goods things in our life now (and for the next 15-20 years). Instead, we're chomping away at the mortgage to get that gone but, otherwise, future planning is minimal (we should have had a good pot from rental properties but sold out because everything about it was crap).

I have a private pension that's worth pretty much nothing, my husband has a teacher's pension, which is worth far less than they used to be, but we should be able to cover the bills and a basic life. If we want luxuries, we'll top up with our "post-retirement jobs", both of which we'll be able to do ad-hoc, and then when we're too old for those jobs we'll just have a quiet life together looking back on the good old days.

For us, working towards retirement was just not really an option without basically sacrificing everything (including children... As in, not having them in the first place, rather than treating them as a sacrificial lamb) for the majority of our healthy years together.

We might live to regret it but, until very recently, we've always held back financially and then, a year or two down the line, looked back sympathetically on those young uns wanting to reassure them that it all gets better. There is an element of assuming that trajectory will continue (in which case we will be able to save for retirement and possibly bring that forward) but we're not banking (LOL) on it.

I don’t think I talk to any of my friends about money like this. More about retirement age and how feasible early retirement might be. I’m fortunate in having some inheritance from wider family and some early good decisions but I wouldn’t consider discussing it with friends. Why would you? I’m delighted so have financial options but it’s not part of my discussions. I talk about logistics. The savings plans. The additional contributions. But not the outcome any more than I’d talk about my salary.