Comments on: Keeping Up With the Joneses – All About Appearances

By: Roundup and Link Love | The Wisdom Journal

Roundup and Link Love | The Wisdom Journal — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:57:26 +0000

[...] If you decide to make the recipe, you might want to tone down the garlic. At least that’s what my wife says. You might be able to tune out the news, but not the fabulous taste of homemade guacamole! Let the Joneses find out how good it is and THEY will be trying to keep up with YOU. [...]

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:40:35 +0000

I don’t even know who the Jonses are or if they’re happy…but I do know that I sometimes wish we had a little house or that I had a sewing room. Still, I didn’t get a lot of what I wanted (the extraneous stuff) growing up, so I’m not going to start getting into debt over it now. I’ll just work on earning more and see what happens.

By: Frugal Dad

Frugal Dad — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:09:51 +0000

@Andy: No, “DINK” or DINKY (Double Income No Kids, Yet) was a term coined in the 1980’s to refer to the subset of the yuppie culture that chose to remain childless in pursuit of their yuppie lifestyle.

By: passivefamilyincome

passivefamilyincome — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:04:52 +0000

Nice post. I often feel like we are in competition with my family. My sister and her husband bring in 2.5 times that salary that we do and are also buying very expensive toys and going on vacation. They often wonder why we don’t want to go with them and give us a very hard time.

btw – love the picture.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:05:32 +0000

Great Post! Our friends are DINKs and have at least 1000 DVDs, two high def TVs and every gaming system possible. I use to be so jealous that they could “afford” all of that. But two months ago they moved into his sister’s basement to “save money.” I realize now that they are probably in debt up to their earlobes after buying all that stuff, while Jaci and I just bought our first house after years of saving for a down payment!

And by the way, I LOVEEE the word “DINK.” Is that term original to FrugalDad???

By: Ron@TheWisdomJournal

Ron@TheWisdomJournal — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:11:19 +0000

Reminds me of the old saying: Spending money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.

Love the house BTW. My wife and I spent 4 days there back in 2006. It was awesome. George Vanderbilt was extremely well read, very advanced for his time, and shared many things with his “staff” that other people of his financial stature did not. He bought all his maids new furniture and allowed them to have their own rooms and days off. THAT was unheard of in those days. His wife would share hand-me-downs of their daughters clothing to the estate’s farmers and would sit on their own front porches, drinking lemonade and shootin’ the breeze with them. As a matter of fact, the estate has some 3rd and 4th generation workers who wouldn’t dream of working anywhere else.

If anyone EVER has the opportunity, a visit to the Biltmore House should definitely be on the schedule. I cannot wait to go back.

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:33:04 +0000

It’s definitely hard having good friends who are a few years older. It feels like I should be where they are, even though they’ve got seven to ten years on me. My husband and I try to use these friends as inspiration: “If we work hard like they do, look at all the good things that can happen to us in a few years.” Of course, it helps that we don’t have a lot of crazy spending friends; it’s more about career advancement than gadgets.

By: David Carter

David Carter — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Yea this is a tough lesson for many people to learn. There is just so much pressure to have material possessions. It is no wonder that the national savings rate was negative recently and now is somewhere around 0%(meaning people aren’t saving a penny). If people read articles like this enough, hopefully they will eventually get the idea that saving is important.

By: Frugal Dad

Frugal Dad — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:36:06 +0000

@Peter: We remained friends, but eventually drifted apart after we relocated to another city. And I didn’t intend for it to sound as if they rubbed our noses in their success. Quite the opposite. It was more about our own insecurities as it was anything they said or did. Thanks for your comments!

By: Peter T

Peter T — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:30:13 +0000

> We had some church friends that were in much better positions than we were, financially, and we wanted to match their lifestyles.

What happened when you decided not to match their lifestyle anymore? Did you keep your friends or did you drift apart (maybe also due to your kid and new friends with children)? If they are friends from church, I would expect them not to tease or belittle you for your lack of money and expect you not to envy them for what they had.