Money, status etc

Stevepage

My Wife’s uncle used to be in the music business for years. Done very very well for himself and has a friend who he made through work.

said friend had an amazing career. Started out in A&R for a label, then eventually founded his own label and made a shit tonne of money from some very successful acts. He gave up on the label due to a change in the industry and became a business strategist. This led to him becoming the manager for a hugely successful artist who you will all heard of, but only for a year. Now continues to give advice to businesses around the world.

he drives around in Aston Martins, Porsches and Ferraris. Owns property in London and Malibu,CA but doesn’t dress like a flashy rich person. 

If you were to ask him what was important in life he would, without hesitation, say good friends and loved ones. Financial wealth doesn’t mean very much at all to him. Nice to have but not as important as people make it out to be.

McSwaggerty

Money isn't the key to happiness - time is. You need to be able to afford food and a roof over your head, but time is the thing. Time to be with friends and family, travel, have experiences.

fretmeister

Blueingreen said:

fretmeister said:

m_c said:

I always find status/money quite interesting.

I've done work for a multi-millionaire, but you would never know it. His sole luxury is he has a 911. He always wanted to own a Porsche, so he bought one. His daily driver is an older Volvo.
He does stay in a big house in it's own grounds, but it's not excessively big, and he bought it as a pretty much derelict set of buildings.

His neighbour is similar, albeit a lot more well known (former CFO of one of the large banks that got bailed out), but is very similar. If you never knew who he was, or his background, you would just think they were average joes. No flashy cars, or flashy clothes.


Which reflects what a couple people I know who've worked in banks say.
They'll deal with millionaires in jeans and a t-shirt, yet people with maxxed out credit cards desperate for more credit dressed in the lates designer gear.

One of my friends is a partner at rather a large accountancy business. He's proper loaded.

When he's not in the office he dresses (an occasionally smells) like he's a roadie from about 1978. 

You do get the opposite.  My job brought me into contact with a lot of wealthy folk.  While some lived unpretentiously, I was also very familiar with the phenomenon of people who earned 6 figure salaries - and the first number not necessarily a 1 - who were in trouble if a glitch held up payment of their salary for a couple of days. At first I struggled to believe it - what, you're earning a quarter of a million a year and you're panicking and kicking up a fuss because your salary is going to come through on Monday instead of Friday?   But eventually  came across that kind of thing enough times to realise that's just how some people live.  Even though they're earning megabucks, every £ that comes in is going straight out again.

Definitely. I think that's what some people don't understand.

During lockdown I saw no end of posts about sports people getting slagged off for not taking a 25% pay cut for example.

There was no thought that a 25% cut could cause them to lose their house or default on other loans. Quite often a large income means large financial obligations / liabilities too. 

While some top level footballers and F1 drivers with a few years in the game were probably immune, for the vast majority of sports the earning levels are way lower.

Taking rugby as an example - hookers are usually the lowest paid on the field. Several prem hookers are earning in the £50K region and the last disclosure showed that it was only the 1st choice England hookers getting over £100,000 a year.

Yes it's way above average earnings, but it's also way under immune status. I suspect that some of the people moaning on the fan pages earned more and they'd go nuts if they were asked to take a 25% cut.

Sporky

fretmeister said:

Sporky said:

I spend most of my income on Givenchy bin liners so that the waste management operatives think well of me. 

Are you ok?

I don't remember you being funny.

Superb work! 

p90fool

My motorcycles are cheap and mainly scruffy, and my car is 15 years old and scratched to buggery. 

It's a price I'm happy to pay for finishing work at 11am on my four day week and having the rest of the day free. 

Working until 5pm and adding an extra day would be a hell of a sacrifice just to have a shinier car, which would soon look just like the old one anyway. 

Cars as status symbols are too subtle a game for me to be honest, the crossover points between "That's nice!" and "What a bellend" are ever shifting and often overlapping, so why bother anyway?

LastMantra

I love a bit of debt.

octatonic

Sporky said:

I think the condemnation of credit is a bit overworked too. A mortgage is generally seen as "noble" debt; why not a car on finance? Cars are jolly expensive these days. £x00 a month is a lot easier than £x0000 in one hit.

It just comes back to the depreciating liability vs appreciating asset.

Cars are not exactly a waste of money- for some they are crucial.
But they depreciate.
Houses, for the most part do not.

I like to think about the ratio of their relative costs.
For instance, having a car to house ratio of 1:4 (£62k car, 250k house) is dumb because nearly a fifth of your asset base is invested in something that depreciates.

Having a 1:20 ratio is much more sensible ( £12k car, £250k house, 25k car, £500k house, £50k car, £1 mil house).

For me the issue isn't about being 'flash'- it is about being flash at the cost of being financially stable later in life.
Also, I don't think anyone really thinks of a £50k-75k car as that flash anymore.
There are loads of them out there- some people just like nice things.

If people don't like/want nice things then fine, don't buy them.
I don't particularly see it being laudable to have millions in the bank and live like a pauper- that sort of wartime frugality seems out of step with how most people live these days but it doesn't bother me if people make that choice.
I do find it funny when people promote that as some sore of ideal position.
People should largely do what they want, if they can afford it.
I have a friend who is terminally ill at the moment- he will die way too young.
My age, basically.
You're dead a long time, so why not enjoy what you can, while you can?

When I lived in Singapore I saw a lot of flashy behaviour- young men in hotted up cars (which are hugely expensive in that country), flashy jewellery, very shiny clothes.
It was explained to me by a local that what that behaviour was signalling was something quite specific.
Basically saying 'look, I am a success, you can trust me, I won't cheat you'.

Now I don't know know if that is the absolute truth but it did contextualise what looked to be a bit gauche to our eyes.

Every society has its rules and norms- because I am a foreigner I thought it best to try to understand some of it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867

This book ^^ is an interesting unpacking of social class in the UK.

I think broadly speaking most people here are either working or middle class and a lot of the discussion seems to be a tension between those two class bases, or even a tension between upwardly mobile lower middle class and more established middle class. The interesting thing about the English class system (to this an outsider observer) is how the class strata are not based on income as much as they are in other places.

But I digress....

Sporky

Maybe, but it was excellent, thoughtful digression. 

AlexO

But what about the other angle of understated luxury?

Is it fine then if what people are spending £££ on is tasteful?

octatonic

AlexO said:

But what about the other angle of understated luxury?

Is it fine then if what people are spending £££ on is tasteful?

Yes, this is where class comes into play.

I have a friend who is a doctor- went to Edinburgh university, very smart, all round 'good egg'.
Lives in a nice house in the cotswolds but not especially flashy.
Married to his childhood sweetheart, 3 kids-one just got her PHD.
He drives a Ford SUV, his wife drives a Mini.
Has a TV in his living room but sort of out of the way, not the focus of the room.
As far as I can see he outwardly lives a comfortable but modest life...

... And owns a chalet in France and spends about 1/4rd of his time there skiing.
(Used to be more- but...  Brexit).

That says a specific class profile to me (again as an outsider)- sort of middle or upper middle class.

I have another friend who is a former city trader/wide boy type.
Has a big house in Chiswick, drives a Tesla, his second wife (20 years younger) has a baby Range Rover.
His house has full home automation, LED coving, lots of marble, huge 85" TV that is the focal point of the living room, last holiday we went on together was to Ibiza. but he is always going away.

This suggests a different class profile.
I know a lot of people would look down on this but he seems to love his life.

They are both seemingly happy people though- just different.

octatonic

Sporky said:

Maybe, but it was excellent, thoughtful digression. 

Thank you.

fretmeister

Why is a big TV a class thing?

Thats just silly. 

monquixote

octatonic said:

Every society has its rules and norms- because I am a foreigner I thought it best to try to understand some of it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867

This book ^^ is an interesting unpacking of social class in the UK.

I think broadly speaking most people here are either working or middle class and a lot of the discussion seems to be a tension between those two class bases, or even a tension between upwardly mobile lower middle class and more established middle class. The interesting thing about the English class system (to this an outsider observer) is how the class strata are not based on income as much as they are in other places.

But I digress....

That is an excellent book and I recommended it to all of my foreign friends.

I'd also recommend Affluenza which is specifically about attitudes to "Keeping up with the Joneses" and people being increasingly materialistic and miserable.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Affluenza-Oliver-James/dp/0091900115

It actually covers Australia and NZ, IIRC they mentioned that Sidney tends to be far more materialistic than other regions.

digitalscream

fretmeister said:

Why is a big TV a class thing?

Thats just silly. 

That's weird. There are three remaining council houses on our street, all three families are on benefits, and they have the biggest TVs in the street hanging directly on the walls opposite their front windows.

Not only is it stupid (glare from the window), they're very proud of the size of the TVs and talk about them at every opportunity.

Never understood it myself.

Accordingly, I've never understood the need to have lots of big, expensive things on show. Sure, I've got some expensive guitars, but I didn't pay much for them. I probably earn more than anyone else on the street, but I've got the cheapest car...and, were I to suddenly win the lottery, I'd probably have a bunch of older cars so I could feel some pride in the fact that they're still running when they really, really shouldn't be.

The point of affluence, IMO, is about the things you can do with that extra money, not the things you can buy with it.

Snap

What people spend their money on is their own business, and shouldn't be judged by others. So what if the 75k car is paid for by a loan or PCP? What has that got to do with anything? If they can afford the monthly payments, and they like a fancy car, so what?

But, splurging your cash to project and image, or keep up with the Jones is a bit of a wasted effort for me, and very sad really.

I don't care what people I don't know think about me. I only care about my friends and family tbh.

We have some nice things, but we got them because we wanted them and were in a position to be able to afford them. People will judge that, but tbh that is their problem. I would never judge someone cos they have a modest car. I've just been out and about in a 12 year old baby blue Fiat 500. I love it. If some ponce thinks I'm a bigger ponce for poncing around in it, great, who gives a toss? 

octatonic

fretmeister said:

Why is a big TV a class thing?

Thats just silly. 

I don't know- I didn't make the rules.
But it is.
It isn't really the size though- is it focus of the room? Are there books about too? 

It isn't the only one- accent, language, dress, hobbies and habits, where you holiday, who your friends are...

One thing I found interesting was when home decor magazines promoted a style of home furnishing and renovation that looked essentially like a nice hotel. I believe this was because a lot of working class kids got rich (footballers, pop stars) and working professionally they stayed a in a lot of nice hotels.

Coming from estates they didn't see that sort of thing before and it became aspirational.
They didn't want old country estates that looked like they were falling down.
They still bought the country estates and the city penthouses but they were renovated and blinged out.

Range Rovers and Bentleys too- they were cars for the upper classes, but not anymore.
Upper class people treat their cars very differently to lower class people, almost in a disregarding way- they are just things to drive and use.

Furniture is another- upper class people inherit their furniture. Other people buy theirs.

stickyfiddle

This is all fascinating and I'll have a read of those books. I'm very British "mid-Middle Class" I guess (mother was a teacher, father an engineer, their grandparents were miners and bus drivers), but obviously living far from the UK in what is frankly quite a strange place with a huge confluence of cultures. 

MrsF and I are in corporate jobs (law and finance respectively, but in the same industry) and the range of attitudes you get is fascinating. You see every stereotype imaginable and the pressure to keep up can be massive. I know partners who earn $400k+ who still feel poor because of how their finances are setup and the commitments they have made (schooling, extra houses, etc etc). Equally you see a load of young brits come out on a 2-year contract, live it up for 18 months then realise they have nothing to show for it and no desire to extend their stay. 

I make no bones about admitting a big part of why we're here is to save as much money as we can, but there's obviously a balance to be struck, hence we prioritise travel and I get the occasional nice guitar to enjoy now in case I'm dead at 50 (hopefully not!). But that's never at the expense of saving money because we both ultimately want off the treadmill.

I work with so many guys who have been partners in massive global firms for 15-20 years and I honestly wonder why. They must have a shitload of cash by that point, and personally I have a massive list of stuff I'd much rather be doing if I didn't need to pay bills. 

beed84

I don’t drive and haven’t really felt the need to as I can get about just fine. But the thought of spending thousands of pounds on a fancy car, however nice, is a diabolical to me, especially considering the additional costs and time spent driving it, waiting in traffic jams etc.

In recent years I’ve gravitated towards wanting fewer things and to feel less encumbered by my possessions. While shiny new things have made me feel good in the past, they’ve tended to be superficial and have generally made me feel miserable in the long run – now, I’m constantly clearing out rather than acquiring stuff like I used. 

Overall, I’d say money and status is a pissing contest no one ever actually wins, and is mostly with yourself – who really cares about what car you’ve got or how big your house is? You or them?

Sporky

I have a very big telly. Lady BMcH and I mostly use it for gaming, and it means the menu text is big enough to read. You can't see it from outside the house. 

SurfinSirFari

Just for balance, I'm just heading off in my (t)rusty Skoda Felicia from my floating hovel. Life is ok.