Upper class habits to stay rich

[publicsectorlife]

What habits do the upper class have to stay wealthy? What would they never buy that they would consider a waste of money?

Our household income is very good. But yet we seem to be haemorrhaging money with high mortgage, commuting and childcare costs.

But yet our friends with generational wealth (ie small mortgage) seem to be living such a different lifestyle with about 6 holidays a year.

We can’t do much about having no inherited wealth but I think we must be missing a trick.

Also having family in London or people with houses in various parts of the world who can put you up so you have better job opportunities and free accommodation for a bit

Interesting question.

Sometimes one finds that a family member can be rather draining, initially financially, then every hour, (on the hour, it seems to one) a new revelation is 'reflected' in the National press.

One can say no more, as one is already on a highest dose of an expensive, holistic medication to deal with his previous antics and now the 'other half' is consuming close on 60 cigarettes a day too.

IT REALLY IS ALL A BIT TOO MUCH.

.

This is so sad. My dad died when he was 82 yrs old and was so generous with his time and money. I'm so grateful he didn't hoard his cash and had a great time living.

Things I have learnt from this thread

I need friends with holiday homes abroad - not sure if this is feasible now as I'm 42 and I can't be bothered to make new friends.

To be rich I can't spend money. There is a high cost item I really want at the moment (2.5k). It's not required, will not make my life better. DH thinks its not worth the cost. can I hold off??? 😬. We have a large mortgage still so clearly defo NOT upper class.

Also, where did the OP go after starting a thread about class on MN??

You've answered it yourself

My friends with generational wealth have nursery and schools fees paid for via trusts and their mortgage is a token amount.

We spend 8.5k not pm to stand still 5k of that is childcare and 2k mortgage.
If we had childcare covered and help with deposit (so smaller mortgage) lets say mortgage was 1k pm we'd have £72k NET additional disposable income per year.

That's 2 x full ISA allowances to create more wealth, a fancy family car (on hire) a ski break and a nice long trip to ikos with change leftover....

Oh they ALL seem to have fucking friends and family with holiday homes abroad so a fancy holiday cost 1k for a family of 4 for a week all in... (we sadly dont 😅)

Don't know if anyone has mentioned compounding yet.
Save and invest even a tiny amount every month and get it to work for you. Over a 20 year period even a tiny amount put aside and invested can grow into something worthwhile.

Yes they have.

The truly wealthy just own assets that make money which they use to purchase what they need/want.

For example, they would buy a car outright not pay interest, or at the very least secure a low interest bank loan against their assets to purchase.

Those at the very top certainly don’t pay income tax as they often don’t earn a taxable income, many only have unearned income. They probably can’t understand anyone paying beyond 20% income tax. If they did earn more than £50k they’d put it in a pension wrapper to get the tax relief and allow it to grow (let’s say £50k grows to £100k) before taking it out and paying 20% tax thereby paying £20k tax and keeping £80k versus paying £20k tax on the £50k and keeping £30k. Even better, if they don’t need the money they can put it in their kids pension wrapper and get the tax relief (£20k) added back and transfer the wealth down through the generations - growing it and paying a lower and lower effective percentage income tax as they do so.

This is partly what Reeves is attacking with her new pensions being inside the estate rules

The rule is delayed gratification makes you wealthier, the most successful people in life do this naturally - they would rather have two marshmallows tomorrow than one marshmallow now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

Use other people’s money to make money

either dead or alive, often parents are funding their lifestyle and dead grandparents

they use borrowed money to build business and assets

Then why does one still live with one? 😂😂

Warren Buffet famously only flies economy even though he is a multi-billionaire, considers private jets or even business class a waste of money!!

Well, all of that might be about to change with the budget fingers bloody crossed

I see people who look rich but they're not it all goes on cars and flash clothes. My Dad is rich, he's often seen in the pound shop honestly you'd think he was skint but he was brought up in poverty so old habits.

So dull and worthy though. I know there’s fun to be had in being thrifty at least for a while but I love eating out and going for coffee and to the theatre and exhibitions etc. I don’t do any of these very much because there isn’t the money. If I had the money I’d use it. You’re a long time dead.

Lol

Give to your children. That is the trick. Whatever you give they don’t need to work for. Then for your grandchildren…money circulates and benefits all youngsters while big accounts are kept by elder and compound.

I Haven’t been reading all the replies but live in London in „Rich“ neighbourhood. Lots of them stay on holidays in parents/grandparents houses/chatou in France, Spain, Italy etc very often taking friends with them so friend can invite them over next year somewhere else. Some of them „saving“ money by sending kids to local (very sought after public school) till year 3-5 so can deal with mortgage earlier and sometimes send them private afterwards (private tuition all the early years) or private tutor them through primary/secondary schools-still cheaper than private schools tuition. Very often grandparents pay for one or two holidays a year/house extension/school fees etc. They don’t spend much on brands, but buy good quality, pricey stuff that last rather change every season. I really admired them for not wasting money on gaming gear as well-hardly anybody buy their kids gaming gear in primary schools. They don’t need to prove to anyone that they made it 🙃 so that’s really helps…

Trust funds.

Its amazing how much difference it makes to have an annual income without needing to work for it or pay income tax / NI on it.

They are not missing anything by not going to Starbucks. And if you shop at Lidl you can live very well quite cheaply (ditto Aldi). So I doubt they lived like monks.

Friends with houses in other parts of the world who they can visit. Not replacing stuff that is perfectly good - great-great-grandad's furniture is perfectly fine (and is a valuable antique, probably) i.e. the 'Heseltine test': they don't buy their own furniture and (like HMK) they buy good clothes and repair them.
They also have more money...

OP, do you think only upper class are rich?

I am by no means upper class. We are mortgage free (multiple London and overseas properties) I didn’t inherit anything (yet) but mum and dad paid school fees and university fees. So no loan. I just wonder if it’s life choices? We have one little girl for example and waited a bit to have her (maybe waited too long) but I notice the disparity between myself and some of the mums in our play groups etc. (and it’s not just my age -and wrinkly skin)

Actually it sounds as though they are creative and resourceful.

Thing is with regards to places abroad etc - why do you think most of the Telegraph reader demographic tended to be voting for Brexit ? Because it didn’t matter 2 hoots that they couldn’t go and live abroad full time in EU or work freely , because they usually do neither - they have the money to have multiple homes to come and go from and pay the bills on , so 90 day limits were no big deal to most of them whereas an awful lot of average middle income people can’t afford to be keeping a home abroad plus an extra one in uk and pay bills on both and not be able to work in EU either. No, the Telegraph readers were more concerned with rules coming in within EU on where they had lodged all their money to avoid tax etc - they like to bang on about benefits and non contributors whilst in a lot of cases contributing as little as they can possibly get away with personally . I have no issue at all with pensions being brought into estates - after all the recipients haven’t earned it and it’s been given tax relief on it.

Agreed, but I wouldn’t want to do that for an indefinite length of time if there was an alternative.

A £300 everyday dress is probably no better in quality than, say, a £75 dress from places like M and S, a large part of that £300 will probably go on payments to named 'designers' who in reality only contribute their name. The same applies to loads of household items, I would never buy a set of knives just because they carry a famous name for example.
To get real, keepable clothes you need to spend far more that £300, you also need to keep your shape for years too! The Princess Royal wears clothes twenty, even thirty years old that presumably have worked out quite cheap if one considers high initial cost/number of years wear.