For DH’s job, the limit on receiving outside gifts/food is $20. Makes it difficult when he is overseas and his colleagues hosting a conference want to take the group to dinner. Since the other agencies/industry groups can’t pay for his meal, he has to get a separate bill. It then comes out of his per diem (which is fine), but it’s a logistical hassle for a restaurant to provide separate bills for some diners in the group but not others.
DH generally brings in breakfast/snacks (on our personal dime) when these folks come to his agency for meetings. The agency can’t pay for sandwiches for a working lunch. Ethics rules sometimes have unintended consequences.
There is definitely an upper bound on how much one spends on suits and professional attire in DH’s role. It’s not politic to wear really expensive suits on a public employee’s salary (assuming one had that kind of discretionary income in the first place).
Yes, Counting Down, I’ve seen that. Lots of lawyers in law firms leave for federal government jobs. When they are invited to parties hosted by their former firms, they either have to decline or pay the firm for the cost of the dinner. The lawyers may want to socialize with their former colleagues, but may not want to pay, say, $150 for the privilege, especially since their new salaries are much lower. And then there’s always the question of whether they have to pay their fair share of the centerpieces and fancy lighting scheme, etc.
Similar thing is happening in my industry - pharma reps can’t wine and dine doctors as they used to.
A funny story from my past life. Once we interviewed a bunch of attorneys for a position at my company. One guy was really nice and knowledgeable, and I thought that he was an excellent fit for the job. My boss disagreed - it was the first time he has seen anyone wearing a (very fancy) high end designer suit (the buttons had the designer name on them). The suit was indeed like no other suit I’ve seen before, so perfectly tailored… Said boss also fired our outside counsel, in part because the dude happened to come to a meeting with us in his Maserati (this was a proverbial last straw of sorts). I guess his logic was that a startup should not be funding these lavish luxuries… LOL. When I bought a second-hand Burberry trench, I hid it out of sight because I was afraid the boss might think he was paying me too much.
But perhaps not everyone ratchets up his/her spending if his/her income increases. The Millionaire Next Door seems to describe the type of people who do not feel the urge to spend every dollar as fast as they can earn it.
It all depends how they made their money. The old “Millionaire Next Door” types lived frugally and invested their money slowly becoming millionaires. But now we have young people becoming billionaires before they are 30 years old. I am sure their spending habits are quite different. Easy come, easy go.
The instant billionaires are extreme outliers however you look at them.
Though I would not be surprised if some who hit instant wealth do not greatly increase their spending habits, just like those whose incomes grew relatively slowly.
In NYC, entrees are north of 30 and appetizers are 15+, drinks (12-15 for a glass of wine), tax at 9%, tip 20%. Do the math ucbalumnus. This is at an average restaurant, not some fancy place. @ucbalumnus - you seem to have a lot of opinion about what’s right or wrong. I generally give my personal experience. Where are you coming from? Do you have kids in college? A college counselor? Professor? College admission person? Where do you live, urban, suburban? I am not trying to get personal with you, but just want to know where you are drawing your knowledge.
How do you save tax through trusts? I thought you pay the same tax with or without trusts. A trust makes the process simpler but pay the same amount unless it’s an exotic trust.
When I was younger, I remember meeting a woman my age who told me, “I love dressing down. It’s so much fun to go out and no one knows how much money you have.”
I thought that was a great statement from someone who is truly wealthy.
If that was the only reason to ‘fire’ outside counsel, that’s just silly. Presumably, you want the very best outside counsel possible and chances are that all the firms of that calibre are going to have similar billing rates.
DH and I went to a seafood restaurant in Dallas the other day. I ordered seared scallops. It was supposed to come with grits and spinach. Carb conscious, I asked them to hold the grits. In retrospect, I should have asked for a substitution instead. There were 3 scallops in my $35 dollar entree. I told DH “it’s a good thing I wasn’t starving.”
Fluff does not equate to quality. I like to deal with tightly-rum organizations. Best mortgage/insurance companies we had had a simple billing. I used to get worried whenever our financial company upgrade their stationery to include gold emblem. Our concilwoman sends you a reply in gold stationery but never takes care of your request,
Some companies that are very conscious of being low-cost providers will not allow business travelers to upgrade even on their own dime. Can’t let the clients hear about any of their employees travelling on anything but coach.
When I was in mortgage lending, we always used to worry about our clients who just had enough money left for closing costs when we approved them. The lending guidelines did not allow for what we (mostly) women lenders always called the “new curtains and towels” phenomenon - where new homeowners suddenly “needed” to spend more money now that they had a new home and were earning more. (I’m referencing my quote above about need rising with income)
@toledo That reminds me of a time many years ago when I was out to dinner with a group of wealthy female friends. When the bill came, there was a bit of friendly arguing about who would pay (each woman wanted to treat). Finally, one of the women said, “what are we fighting about? We’re all loaded.” The price of the meal was equally insignificant to everyone.
Igloo, I think you missed my point. If this is a large company, presumably their outside counsel is a large respected law firm. Discontinuing your relationship with a good firm because of the type of car someone drives is, as I said, silly, if this was the only reason, which it probably wasn’t. The firm that would replace the original firm, is likely going to be billing at the same rate.
Just a note that the image of “old money” is mostly fiction. Visit Newport: giant homes built for a few weeks or months of a year. Look at photos of the mansions in NYC. Boston is supposedly the most sedate of the old money but they built massive mansions - one is an MIT frat - with extremely elaborate interiors and tons of art.
Our company has meal limit guidelines that are pretty tight, but not unreasonable for the small towns to which many of our employees travel. I busted my dinner amount cap in Sandusky, Ohio at a modest Italian restaurant just with 1 beer, pasta with meatballs and a side salad. It doesn’t get bounced, but we get a flag on the expense statement. I can’t even imagine eating for $25 for dinner in a major city! I spent $20 on lunch splitting a sandwich with my husband at the LA airport!