Are people like me middle class?

Eskimo12345

Norma_Desmond wrote: »

It's not the leather sofa per se that's chavvy (or shall we say 'nouveau'), it's the fact that everything you have or aspire to is brand new, shiny and expensive.
What are you trying to prove?

My car wasn't new - I didn't see the point in spending another twenty grand more on a new one. If I can buy something second hand which meets my needs, I will. Your point seems, primarily, to disagree with my taste. As for what I'm trying to prove, I could ask you the same question about the following snippet:

Norma_Desmond wrote: »

I have battered antique leather chesterfields that were bought for a song from auctions, a lot of inherited Georgian furniture, REAL paintings with chipped gilt frames, again from auctions / antique fairs, our car is 11 years old - and my alarm clock was £4.99 from Argos.

If those things make you happy, then by all means, have them around you. It's your home and you are free to surround yourself with things which you enjoy. I can imagine what your place looks like, and I'm sure it's great - I do appreciate the olde-worlde ambience that accompanies that style of interior design.

Eskimo12345

Gloomy_Past_Bright_Future wrote: »

You wonder why the OP needs a £300 alarm clock to wake him up...
Oh thats right, most people wake up in their partners arms or to the laughter and screaming of children coming in their bedroom.
But OP read your original post and ask yourself would I want to wake up to someone like that, and then realise that yes you do need a really good alarm clock that will keep working for a good few years yet!

My GF often stays here, and I am putting off having kids until I can afford to give them life experiences that my folks couldn't afford to give me.

I don't need a £300 alarm clock. But when I hear the music coming from it, it makes me happy. And I like being happy.

Would I want to wake up next to someone described in my first post? To be honest, I wouldn't judge that by a few paragraphs on a forum, but you are of course free to do so.

ffacoffipawb

moggylover wrote: »

My mother always called it the lavatory (but then ours was separate to the bathroom so it would have been confusing calling it a bathroom, and she always said that a toilet was a piece of porcelain, not a room). Nowadays I am more likely to refer to it as the "loo":D My DS1 insists on referring to it as "the bog" (and I blame his father entirely for that:mad:) and DS2 calls it the "ty bach" which is the Welsh for toilet:D.

Welsh for "toilet" is "cachfa".

Laconic

Eskimo12345 wrote: »

I grew up in a modest house with my two siblings and my folks. My old man worked full time all his life, office based on the same wage as shop floor folks. My old dear took a part time job when I was 16. The telly in the lounge was only replaced by my grandparents hand-me-downs when they got a new one as we couldn't afford to buy one; all our winter coats were presents from my grandfolks, who also worked all their lives. I worked part time to put myself through uni and only relied on the folks to feed & home me during the holidays.

Now, at 29, I have a good job and earned around £37k in the last 12 months. Last year I bought a three year old m sport beemer for 12k in cash. I live on my own in a large apartment in the middle of town, with a massive telly and £5k's worth of home cinema gear in the lounge. My alarm clock was £300, and I'm currently saving £500 a month towards a house. Nothing I've bought was ever on credit as it didn't take my degree in physics to work out that saving up for something is cheaper than buying it on credit.

Personally I reckon that due to my income and resultant lifestyle, I'm middle class. To be honest, compared to what my folks had I feel like I'm loaded beyond my wildest dreams. I buy new suits for fun. However my older mates at work reckon middle class means that mummy & daddy had so much money that you don't have to work, and so I'm still working class.

Whadya reckon, am I middle class? Or if you think I am still plain old working class, do I have a chance of making my (future) kids middle class by continuing to advance my career so I earn enough to buy their education etc so they will be?

Careful there: making up for a deprived childhood has ruined many a person who's done materially better than the parents.

However, you're working class. The best definition I've heard went thus: upper class people can give their children both wealth and opportunity. Middle class parents can't pass on significant wealth, but they can give opportunity (nice schools, gap years, extra tuition, exposure to professionals...). Your parents may leave you a house or two and pay into a trust fund, but if you want to live at their standards, you'd better work. Working class parents can pass on neither wealth nor opportunity, so everything their children get they have to get for themselves.


If you manage to keep a well-paying job throughout your working life, then you may be able to bequeath a middle-class life to your children.

pension-newbie

very interesting.

for what its worth I think Eskimo12345 is not the nob his critics imply, maybe a bit too self conscious, and possibly aspirational in a way that is a little old fashioned - but I would think that as a middle class middle manager (by most definitions) but who thinks it all eternally enduring and ultimately irrelevant (except when it costs you a job/promotion)

my analysis would be Upper class is more a state of mind and based on historical truths that are no longer true(mainly feelings of self-entitlement and cold blooded giving the shaft to others). Working class is equally about looking after yourself (but including family and local community) and ignoring those in authority as far as possible. Middle class is neither one thing nor the other, mainly management or professional (typically doing things for the state, or for others, not themselves). That is - Upper class owns the estate, working class cleans and maintains and middle class manages the estate

My only real disagreement is with those who think Middle class people don't have too work - we probably work harder/longer (more fool us) than others, and mainly not for as much reward as you might think.

Must go, the peacocks won't feed themselves

lostinrates

pension-newbie wrote: »

very interesting.

for what its worth I think Eskimo12345 is not the nob his critics imply, maybe a bit too self conscious, and possibly aspirational in a way that is a little old fashioned

I agree. He? has asked a question and explained how he ticks and what leads to his question. I also think the OP;s responses to others have been rather polite. Which, funnily enough, does more than the possessions whch make him happy. And I agree with him in that we all make our own choices with the resources we have, and thank good ness for that!

WHITEVANMAN

Eskimo12345 wrote: »

My GF often stays here, and I am putting off having kids until I can afford to give them life experiences that my folks couldn't afford to give me.

.

And what will you teach them when you eventually do have them? That money and material items are what makes ones life happy.
If £37k a year isnt enough to give you and your (potential) kids a good life, how much would be?

Until you get over your need the need to fulfill your financial egotism, you will never be ready to fully appreciate a family.

When you have a life changing incident you will become accutely aware that wealth and such possesions are the one thing we can all do without. You'll be wondering why you wasted all your time and money on those trinkits while trying to fullfill yourself and your life to make up for all you feel your parents failed to give to you.

By all means enjoy all your purchases for their real merits, but stop looking for answers that show you have become succesfull, that you are an achiever or that you are worthy.
Respect comes not from what you own or your material wealth, but from what you do that is worthy, how you behave and the respect you give to others; from this, you will learn your class.

diable

Just realised M Sport is a M Series wanabee

diable

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Class is shaped more by education and societal place than by money.

Some of the Upper Class have become desperately poor..... Whilst some of the working class have become obscenely rich. But in general, their class will not change with their bank balance.

A working class man can win the lottery, buy a mansion, buy a Rolls, buy some land, but he'll still be a working class man at heart. An upper class man can lose his fortune, but still act and think like an Aristocrat. These things are bred into you, and difficult, if not impossible, to change in a single generation.

You can take the Chav out of the council estate, but you can never take the council estate out of the Chav.....

Money does get you a better class of !!!!! though as if you are minimum wage then its estate !!!!! but if you are 200k a year then you move to the classy estate around the corner ;o))

Eskimo12345

pension-newbie wrote: »

for what its worth I think Eskimo12345 is not the nob his critics imply, maybe a bit too self conscious, and possibly aspirational in a way that is a little old fashioned...

lostinrates wrote: »

I agree. He? has asked a question and explained how he ticks and what leads to his question. I also think the OP;s responses to others have been rather polite.

Thanks for your comments It has not been easy to reply calmly to all that has been said! I do consider myself very aspirational, and it's difficult to see why people see that as a bad thing.

WHITEVANMAN wrote: »

By all means enjoy all your purchases for their real merits, but stop looking for answers that show you have become succesfull, that you are an achiever or that you are worthy.

I can understand why you think I try to show I am successful with my choice of purchases, but I have already tried to explain I buy things because I enjoy them.

As we live in a meritocracy (give or take), a significantly improved lifestyle compared to ones parents is possible with a lot of hard work. Why should people who can afford things such as 'expensive' radios and cars, shy away from purchases that others consider extravagant and are perhaps out of reach of the average man on the street?

diable wrote: »

Just realised M Sport is a M Series wanabee

The same way a Boxster is a 911 wannabe, a Freelander is a Range Rover wannabe and so on? It's a bit of an irrelevant comment, really. For the record, if I wanted an M I would have bought one.