#29 50 swiss francs is 49 USD, so i agree with you. i was just saying that getting yourself from the $5 bottle to the $15-20 range can be totally worth it if you enjoy wine. i’ve tasted a $150 bottle of wine, it was great, but it was definitely NOT 5 times better than a $30 bottle.

I have a wine buff friend (who has built and filled a wine cellar) who said the same thing as Trent. Up to 50 Swiss Francs you are pleasing yourself (it tastes good) above that you are just showing off.

Young “aspirationals” also have another name or two in current vernacular: two popular ones are “douchebags” and “30k-millionaires.”

The young aspirationals are in their 20s, not necessarily college grads, but are so convinced that they must live a certain lifestyle. This lifestyle is indicative of instant gratification and deayed adulthood. The car of choice is a leased BMW 328, the clothing is designer, and they spend several nights a week at local “hot spot” clubs. How do they do it? Either parents give them money or they actually LIVE with their parents.

We have a few here. One of our warehouse guys has a new Acura (he just took off the license plate frame last week, when someone (hint, hint) mentioned that it had the word “leasing” on it). He lives way above his means, with designer clothes, the latest gadgetry, and lots of bling. He’s dating one of our accounts payable accountants: she’s a recent college grad, new baby Lexus, also into the gadgets and designer wear. Since she works in my department I know how much she makes… 15 bucks an hour, with no overtime. They both live with their parents. He once mentioned, “I live near you,” and when I raised an eyebrow he amended it with, “well, my folks live near you.”

My company tries to stress things like financial prudence, smart investing, and retirement plans. The aspirationals don’t listen, unless they’re young and married.

Maybe that’s the key.

@ #8… no, life is too short to drink BAD booze! Believe me, most of the so-called premium brands sold in clubs are swill. That’s just marketing.

Um, wha? I don’t see how this statement makes any sense… Just sounds like vehicles aren’t his priority. (And FWIW, I have a hard time respecting anyone who drives a Hummer…… Garbage vehicles that they are, save for H1′s. But you rarely see those. They *were* expensive.)

I think part of the reason the whole “dress for success” concept hangs around–apart from it’s obvious favor with marketers–is the fact that it feeds into our desire to spend with an implied promise of gaining some advantage. We can add the high end car and oversized house as well.

Logically, if you truly have money, you shouldn’t need to show off to anyone. You have the strength that comes from knowing you’ve arrived, and might even want to keep that a bit of a secret, lest you develop cohorts of new “friends” (hangers on) who are hoping to gain some advantage by affiliation.

When my husband and I bought our house we had a few things in mind: a fenced yard for our dogs, a spare bedroom to use an office, and a space for my ferrets to play out of their cage comfortably. We don’t have children (and are working towards getting myself sterilized) so that was a non-issue. We didn’t have to worry about how close we were to a ‘good’ school or what parks and playgrounds were nearby.

The result? We bought a small, 908 sq ft house on a corner lot with a big yard. Sometimes we get teased over how small it is – but we love it! There’s not much to clean, my pets all have their respective safe play areas, and the best part – my mortgage is less than my apartment rent was!

Buying what you actually need is amazing advice :)

I’ll second that! Great concept but I tried reading them back to back and didn’t get far with Stop Acting Rich because I felt as though I was re-reading the same book written in a slightly different format.

It’s fine to have the children share a room when they are quite young, but in time they will need their own rooms for privacy — at least to separate the boys from the girls. I think most experienced parents will agree on that.

He showed them a few machines and answered their questions. The gentlemen chose the one he wanted. When my uncle asked him to step inside to fill out the financial paperwork, the gentleman stated that he would be paying cash and proceeded to hand my uncle a brown paper bag. It contained $105,000, the full price of the piece of farm equipment the gentleman had chosen.

Needless to say, the rest of the sales staff were a little upset at missing out on that commission! Never judge a book by its cover.

And about the booze: I’ve had very good cheap wine. I’ve had expensive wine that tasted like sulfuric acid (to me). If you drink what you like, you’ll never go wrong. I have no problem admitting that 3-buck Chuck is perfectly fine by me for most occasions. Obviously I’ll take a little more care in selecting the wine when someone’s coming for dinner, but I never did see much sense in worrying about how much the drinks cost if I don’t *like* how it tastes.

I believe d’Toqueville (or some other French commentator on life in America) wrote that it was the premise that all men are equal that drives people to distinguish themselves through material means. He wrote this in the late 18th/early 19th century, BTW, so while his premise may be (probably is) flawed, conspicuous consumption is not new.