<p>Had a talk with a friend about this earlier.</p>
<p>At my undergrad, the wealthy students got credit cards or allowances from their parents. They didn’t wear Ralph Lauren or anything, but they had money for dinners out, movies, pizza, and fun. I was one of the few that worked for my money, but my friends understood when I wanted to save it. Most of them were very conscientious about the fact that their money came from their parents and wanted to be careful with it. It was sometimes hard to “keep up” with nice dinners out every weekend, movies, and shopping expeditions. A fair amount of students had cars on campus; most of them had the hand-me-downs from their parents, but they were hand-me-down Saabs, Volvos, and the like.</p>
<p>I think that some of this is geographic; Boston takes a lot of pride in not flaunting wealth. The (subtle) indicators of wealth in the Boston area are your ZIP code, if your kid went to a prep school, and where you vacation over the summer. Sales people who are used to looking at women’s shoes to gauge their wealth have to learn to re-adjust in Boston, where everyone wears “serviceable” shoes. </p>
<p>At my law school, things are a different story. A lot of the students wear Ralph Lauren, Nantucket Reds, or other “status” clothes. Lot of Vineyard Vines and seersucker. There is also a very strong contingent of students who don’t come from good families but who put themselves through school. My school gives good merit aid and is relatively inexpensive, so we get a lot of economic diversity. More of the extremes though - the wealthy who flaunt their wealth and those who work for everything. </p>
<p>I grew up with middle-class values - don’t talk about money, don’t spend frivolously on clothes, drive a car until it dies, buy things once and take good care of them - so the “new rich” values are just odd to me. When I read NorthStarMom’s posts about not knowing that her friends were wealthy and saw Pip-Pip’s comment, I thought, “Yes, that’s old money!” The new money has the new cars, the new clothes, and everything is very in-your-face. Old money, regardless of whether or not its left, is frugal - sometimes even more frugal than middle-class people. They know that they don’t need the status symbols. Those “symbols” are a lot more subtle; it’s a manners issue and an issue of how you keep things. I could not put it better than it was put in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” in which someone said to the main character, upon seeing his house, “You’re from old money.” Response, “No, I’m not.” Reply: “Yes, you are. Look at that horsehair chair. It’s falling apart and needs to be reupholstered. Old money keeps it that way. New money fixes it immediately.”</p>
<p>Long story short - what kind of “money” are you around? Maybe it’s just me, but being “new money” seems to be very in - being discreet about wealth is a thing of the past. Which is sad, because it makes it harder on the kids without the cash.</p>
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