What do you think when someone calls you rich (when you are rich)?

I have also lived in a small rural area for nearly 30 years. The subject has never come up. In any case, "richness" surely is in the eye of the beholder? I don't think there's an exact definition.

Wealth is relative. We can also be rich in many ways. My family are priceless to me.

I think money and finances are a personal thing and that it’s vulgar to be bragging how rich you are.
Being rich can mean all sorts of things to me ie if you have your family close by or if you have good health these things mean so much more to me than money

I think the OP was meaning money or wealth I get it occasionally depending on who it is I either don’t react, or if they are being objectionable I have a few put downs.

We have a bachelor friend who loves to talk about his big fat pension, inherited property, juicy investments etc etc. However, he is a self-confessed "mean bast*rd" and proud of it.

We can't feel envy when we look round his bathroom at the grotty avocado suite and weird heating system. We even beg him to let us pay for a proper carpark rather than hunt for a free space miles from anywhere.

Still, he's happy!

You might be rich if you’re one of those who think £195 for a 2.1kg M&S Christmas Beef Wellington is reasonable.
To be fair, it serves 6 and there’s no prep, but you still have to cook it!

Mollygo

You might be rich if you’re one of those who think £195 for a 2.1kg M&S Christmas Beef Wellington is reasonable.
To be fair, it serves 6 and there’s no prep, but you still have to cook it!

They don't send a chef round to cook it for that price? 😲

I did look at Tom Kerridge's Marlow pub menu.
We've booked for 12 of us for Sunday lunch. 😁
Only £175 pp.
The thing is, it's not something you can keep and admire.

I feel incredibly rich . My DH has an appointment for laser eye surgery in 10 weeks ,the gp surgery wants to give me a health check up and the nhs want to give me a diabetic eye check up. Don’t have to spend a penny except on parking at the various hospitals. My friend in France has to spend a fortune on the same things and then has to fill in the forms to claim some of it back. She has to have the money in the first place.Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.

I can't imagine any area where everyone talks (or not) about religion, politics or money. Seems very odd to me.

But surely all these topics can be mentioned without making others cringe? As an ex-accountant I've known folks with high incomes and/or wealth and just the opposite - to me they were just people. I've got friends who are clearly not "well off" but aren't destitute either - or maybe they're just not spendthrifts. My late "best friend" had no money but went on numerous cruises via her credit card and left nothing to her sons after she died once the credit cards had been cleared.

My peniless cousin who brought up 4 sons alone while working as a care assistant had loads of cruises - and still does!

For myself, I spent most of my life with little spare but in later years struck lucky with a few investments and two sizable (unexpected) inheritances so I now regard myself as "very comfortable" - but am nowhere near a millionaire. I only have one property (too big for me really) and a 15-year old car. DH and I have also enjoyed a few cruises which we never expected to. And it still feels odd to be able to afford them.

In our local u3a we have members in various states of wealth - but I am guessing cos nobody mentions it cos it simply doesn't matter - the objective is to enjoy company and learn a skill or similar. Money just isn't relevant. The person is far more important than the money they have or don't have.

Forgot to add that everyone knows my politics cos I am active within our local party but I have plenty of friends who support other parties. We might discuss some issues but agree to differ if we need to, I also have religious beliefs but respect those with different ones or% none at all.

To feel comfortably off, able to eat well, heat my home, pay bills when they come in and go out for meals occasionally is more than enough for me.
I haven’t had a proper holiday for seven years but a couple of nights away two or three times a year is all I want.
Of course it would be lovely to buy my AC houses, and educate the GC privately but that will never be possible and that’s ok, my friends can’t do that either.

I now understand how this thread began.
Most of us agree that we don’t generally talk about money
( other than to be concerned about rising costs of food or heating!)
Being ‘rich’ can be understood in various ways.
But I would still like to know about the OP’s grins.

I concluded that the bulk of wealth in this country comes from inheritance. I have friends in their fifties and sixties who have recently inherited a property which enables them to move from renting to owning a property, go on holiday seven times in a year or relocate down south and buy a coastal property.

Growing up in a different culture where money is not a taboo subject and talking about money is not consider vulgar, I do discuss money and finance with my daughter and to some extent my siblings.

Well I don’t at all understand what this thread is about Cabbie
What this mean
‘Round these parts, in real life, if someone calls another person rich, we all grin at each other’
I just have a mental picture of everyone gurning at each other in a little picturesque village

Is it a grin of embarrassment? Or a smirk of satisfaction? Or something else?
That’s what I would like to know.

My late H and I have/had a comfortable life , nice house and enough for our needs and wants but we never inherited a penny.
Our parents, born just before or just after the turn of the last century , lived through very hard times and left nothing .
It is the next generation who were able to buy houses and improve their standard of living enough to benefit their families.
My own C will inherit but it is our own hard work that has made that possible as I am sure applies to many of our generation .

BlueBelle

Well I don’t at all understand what this thread is about Cabbie
What this mean
‘Round these parts, in real life, if someone calls another person rich, we all grin at each other’
I just have a mental picture of everyone gurning at each other in a little picturesque village

I am sooo tempted to mention such rural places: but I won’t. 😂

I do discuss money and finance with my daughter and to some extent my siblings.
I think that is perfectly acceptable, and not rude at all.
What is rude, however, and how this topic took off is someone saying, " XYZ must be rich," about a stranger, with grins included. Then others agreeing.
Then starting a new discussion about how it is acceptable round their village.

That's probably as clear as rural mud to most of us!

PS. for clarification, the OP on this thread did not write the rich comment, but pounced on it straightaway saying they agreed. Which was kind of worse! 😆
Then proceeded to find excuses when pulled up on it.
Then wrote this new thread!
Simples.

I don’t think the OP and the others in her circle are grinning, I think they are smirking. Lovely word, should be used more. 😂

escaped

PS. for clarification, the OP on this thread did not write the rich comment, but pounced on it straightaway saying they agreed. Which was kind of worse! 😆
Then proceeded to find excuses when pulled up on it.
Then wrote this new thread!
Simples.

Having read this thread over a few days what I don’t understand is why saying ‘You must be rich’ to someone is considered to be rude? It’s a fairly commonplace response; not usually meant to be pejorative in any way.

I think it’s much ruder to pull someone up on a casual response, like a bossy 10yr old in the school playground. 😳

Rich is a relative term. To millionaire a billionaire is probably rich and the billionaire sees the millionaire as poor.

In an area of high unemployment and insecure jobs, someone with a secure job with the average take home pay has riches beyond attainment.

I keep asking people to define 'rich', but no one ever does.

MaizieD

escaped

PS. for clarification, the OP on this thread did not write the rich comment, but pounced on it straightaway saying they agreed. Which was kind of worse! 😆
Then proceeded to find excuses when pulled up on it.
Then wrote this new thread!
Simples.

Having read this thread over a few days what I don’t understand is why saying ‘You must be rich’ to someone is considered to be rude? It’s a fairly commonplace response; not usually meant to be pejorative in any way.

I think it’s much ruder to pull someone up on a casual response, like a bossy 10yr old in the school playground. 😳

MaizieD you have misunderstood.
They didn't say it TO someone, they said it ABOUT someone. There's a big difference.

I said something a bit cheeky directly TO someone yesterday, that's fine. They haven't come back to me, so I assume they got it! No one else was involved. If I'd said it in the 3rd person, it looks like I'm inviting others to agree, and I don't like that because that IS playground behaviour!

I haven’t read the M & S thread. I was going by Dd’s explanation upthread (which no-one challenged).

On a thread about the cost of M&S Christmas food, people were saying it was unaffordable, then someone said that they shopped there and didn't even look at the prices.

Someone replied with 'You must be rich', and a third poster endorsed that.

Others pounced on the 'you must be rich' ones, said the comment was unnecessary and called them rude.



If the story is incorrect I semi apologise. I still think that leaping on someone and telling them they’re rude for an innocuous remark is bossy child behaviour.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again.

I really do not get some folks (on here and in RL) obsession with other folks wealth 🤷‍♀️

Is it envy, reverse snobbery, or just out and out nosiness ?