We wondered about our spendy neighbors, too. Then 2008 culled that herd right out of our neighborhood. It was a teachable moment for our son: What you can pay for and what you can afford are two very different things.
10 Likes
We know many many people that either inherited money or like their parents paid for their grad kids to go to college and OOS… Lol. When you have a few that’s a big chunk of change. Plus they paid for their kids medical school, apartment /condo etc. It’s amazing what people will tell you… Lol
My SIL has a friend who was born into wealth who I detest - I can’t be around her. It’s not that she’s wealthy, it’s that she is always “crying poor” as my dad would say. Like, learn to read a room.
I can’t sit there and listen to her whine about the cost of her Tesla or her kid’s upcoming wedding when I know they just had a barn built on their multiple acres to house the antique car collection.
Her H would be the guy at the 4th of July picnic who would make a show of handing his teens money for the carnival - a couple hundred dollar bills each.
Huh? We made far less than that and our kids were not eligible for need-based aid at private colleges. Very few college offer need-based aid to those making anywhere close to $280K. While there have been some complaining about very high income and not able to afford the “dream school”, the more typical scenario for that is a much lower income level.
I think the point was that many folks on this forum, especially those who are close to retirement, likely have over a million in assets.
4 Likes
What a friend😂. Sounds terrible.
Go to Newport Beach. No doubt NB has incredibly wealthy people, but when I see G Wagons and Ferraris coming out of apartment complexes, it also makes you wonder.
1 Like
We have friends, a couple who have no children and have both been working full time professional jobs since they graduated college (so almost 40 years ago). Recently when discussing retirement with them, my husband said retire now already how many more millions do you think you need. They were taken aback, they still have lots of debts - mortgage, car loans, and not a lot of savings. I can’t figure out what they have been spending money on without a child to raise and put through college. They don’t appear to live expensive lives - they drive KIAs, go on one big vacation a year (Viking cruise), but do live in a huge house. I guess the house has sucked up their money over the years (and it is not even paid off). This is another illustration of how people live differently, spend differently, and have different priorities for their lives.
5 Likes
The house price can be looked up on real estate web sites…
However, some people are financially supporting other relatives, which can be a non obvious to others drain on their finances.
Others may just be inefficient at using money, meaning paying too much for what they do spend money on.
2 Likes
While kids are expensive, they also provide a foundation for a “dull, family-oriented” life
DH and I both spent much more on "entertainment ", which included travel, pre-kids. And then of course, post-college, the money that had been going into child-rearing and college saving was no longer encumbered. In a weird way, in re-prioritizing spending, kids forced/enabled other savings. I’d be hard-pressed to say how much our changed lifestyle “saved” us, but I can see my way to how a childless couple could have gotten to the same age as me without saving much.
If you don’t invest in some way it’s easy to end life with the same amount of money that you started with.
3 Likes
I don’t give a rip about what the Jones’es are doing or spending their money on.
6 Likes
We have always been savers from day one and we were fortunate to start off married life with no debt of any kind. We saved/invested my entire income for the first 8 years of our marriage. By the time we started our family , H was making significantly more and we continued to save/invest very aggressively and lived well below our means.
We only had one child to put through school and she picked a public flagship over a private that we had been budgeting. And we had the added bonus of parents who helped partially fund a 529.
We are at a point now in life now (empty nest) that we do have a nicer house, take more expensive vacations, and have some pricier hobbies. We had family members die young and we want to strike a better balance in having meaningful to us experiences now while we’re healthy and able.
So, maybe now someone looks at us like the we’re the Jones but it’s been a lot of scrimping and saving for the first 25 years of our marriage, coupled with the gift of not having any debt when we started out in life.
12 Likes
I know how much they paid originally when they had the house built. But that was 30 years ago, what I don’t know is how much they continue to pour into the house (they do seem to always be redoing a kitchen or bathroom).
Although they still care for her parents, they are spending time, not money on them (this is something we have discussed with them - her parents have plenty of money).
I would think they also know how to invest as he is a CPA.
I generally pay no attention to the Jones. As others have said there can be a myriad of reasons why some people are able to do or not do the things you see. No good can come from trying to compare your situation, economic or otherwise, to someone else’s.
I am close enough to a couple of families friends/neighbors/etc that I have loose insight into their economic situation. Some prioritize current consumption for future consumption some prioritize savings (and it could be for kids education or retirement or some other rainy day). Some stretch themselves with debt/loans. Some don’t have kids and are able to take crazy vacations a couple of times a year.
1 Like
+1
Comparison is the thief of joy.
9 Likes
I realized that my fam might be appearing a little like the Jones recently. We have added two new cars in the last 5 months. Back at Xmas we took a nice trip. And 3 of 4 of us took a short trip to my hometown via plane. This was all while dealing with two graduations(HS & College) and the extra costs that come with that. Also D19 last Summer did a study abroad in Spain.(But about 75% was paid for from her honors program.)
But if you really knew us you would realize how deliberate we are with spending. We hadn’t taken a trip since 2019 other than driving to stay with family. D23 got a full ride.(We were going to cashflow about $10K a year on her schooling.) D19 is launched and we are even making her pay for her phone. During Covid my better half finished her Masters and got a big promotion at work. I recently got a new job for a lot more money. But see we never get far from our roots. One of the new cars replaced a 13 year old car. We decided to pass my 3.75 year old car to D23 for college. (Her having a car makes getting home from breaks so much easier.) We are a Kohls family for clothes for the most part. We make dinner about 5 nights a week. The other nights I am getting food and bringing home. I do the grocery shopping and usually we are buying what is on sale especially when it comes to meat. Our entertainment budget is small. We cut the cord on cable years ago and just stream. We don’t go to concerts or ball games. We might see a comedian once or twice a year.
I guess what I am trying to say is we aren’t crazy cheap, but we are very prudent and deliberate with our spending. I forgot to mention we replaced out 14 year old family room furniture last year and redo a bathroom. But those were planned purchases and budgeted for.
3 Likes
deleted for privacy reasons
5 Likes
I listened to an interview with a radio host (unfortunately I can’t remember the name) who said as a teen he had a much richer friend but who never acted like it. He said he was invited to dinner (good for him because he was always hungry) and saw a family picture from a ski vacation. He hadn’t ever realized people could even do that! Certainly not his family who lived paycheck to paycheck and always in debt (he certainly knew about having a car repossessed). That was the way he thought everyone lived.
From that point forward he decided to learn how to achieve that. The friend’s father took him under his wing basically giving him a blueprint on how to get to college, how to earn some money and manage his money to achieve his goals. He said that no matter how rich he became–through hard work–his family just discounted it to “luck” and gave him no credit. He was truly grateful to have had a mentor.
8 Likes
In which case it would be “old” Bitcoin money!
3 Likes
There was a story on NPR about a couple. One had grown up poor. The other had not. The latter was always asking the former to “defer” purchases in order to realize something better (ie save). But the one who had grown up poor had endured so many setbacks beyond their control that they couldn’t really believe in, or trust, a better future. It was an illumiating story, and it made me far more sensitive to those who have trouble saving.
8 Likes
Several of my daughter’s HS friends lived in the Mansion-part of town, with 3 door garages and huge cathedral ceilings. The interesting part was, during college application time I found out from her that some of those kids’ choices were scaled back by their parents for affordability…
We lived comfortably, but comparably modest - but funded her 529 starting at birth. It’s carrying her tuition all the way through grad school
3 Likes