Anyway, interesting post!

Funny story, one time me and a friend helped feed the homeless at a restaurant over Thanksgiving. My friend is a millionaire while I barely eek by. Nobody had uniforms or nametags but you could tell who was the homeless and who were volunteers. I had plenty of people come up to me and ask for directions and help. My friend (the millionaire) had another volunteer come up to him and offer him a hot meal thinking he was homeless! Ha ha ha. It always makes me chuckle.

Volunteering, BTW, isn’t an especially effective way to sneak into cultural events on the cheap. Most nonprofit organizations expect volunteers to donate dollars, not just time. Lots of dollars.

Kids are darned expensive, that’s for sure. But not having kids so you can pursue your project of looking like you have more money than you do? Awww, c’mon… Surely this has gotta be a lame attempt at humor. I hope.

It would be interesting if people actually told the truth in them “I’m looking for something that pays me well for not too much work, with good perks and workmates, which is close to home!”

Seconded on The Pocket Stylist. She teaches you how to look stylish and gives tips on where to spend and where not to.

You can end up spending a lot of money following her advice, but you can end up saving a lot, too, and still looking good. Her advice to spend a lot of time *looking* at designer stuff to develop taste and then *shopping* in bargain bins is pure gold.

A trick I learned as a kid from the parents though, if you want to go to a fancy restaurant to experience it you can go get a soup and salad and a drink for cheap. Eat before you go in the hotel, a granola bar or something, maybe some fruit from breakfast. Then go order light, eat relatively cheaply (compared to the high dollar main coarse) enjoy the company and the experience without breaking the bank.

It’s great fun to do and it allows me to feel decadent without feeling guilty later.

Two good points:

1. Not letting things fall apart. If you let one thing go, it’s an excuse not to do other things. And it makes “fixing up” a much bigger process.

2. Getting into things by volunteering. That could be handy with, say, symphony orchestras (which I love).

I also realized—I don’t know if I want to “look rich” or hang out with rich people. I like my friends. I doubt we’re any of us going to be rich and I don’t know if I particularly want to get to know rich people. I’d rather spend time with people because of who they are than how much they make and what they wear.

I want to be a good person. That’s most important. Things like being well-groomed and having a classic wardrobe are handy at work or for social functions. Learning inexpensive ways to look good isn’t a bad idea. But I’m not going to spend my life striving for the ideal “looks rich but doesn’t have to pay as much.”

-MM

One thing I do note in the article is that it’s about making deliberate choices … and one of the drawbacks the same writer points out in having rich friends is “when you delude yourself into thinking that you can afford the things you see others buying without a second thought.”

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/HowEnvyWrecksYourFinances.aspx

As someone who doesn’t want kids, I’m not offended. Having kids is not a financial decision. I think she was trying to be funny, but it really came up flat because it wasn’t all that much more absurd than the rest of the article. It really capped off my feeling about her entire perspective: “Why should I care what rich people do? What do I gain by pretending to be rich?”

I don’t care what other people think about my car, my clothes (she’s really obsessed with clothes), my furniture or my vacation. The reason I buy used furniture and clothes on sale and drive a fuel efficient, reliable 15-year-old car is that it allows me to save more. The more I save, the more options I have. When it’s time to replace my car, I’ll be able to pay cash if that makes better financial sense. When the housing bubble bursts here, I’ll have a bigger down payment and will qualify for better mortgage terms. And eventually, ultimately, I’ll be able to retire.

This article strikes me as the exact opposite of The Millionaire Next Door. I want to be the guy with a million dollar net worth who looks like a regular working stiff, not the working stiff trying to look like a millionaire.

I took this as a joke, actually. But then, I am not pursuing a career/life where looking rich really helps. If I was a lawyer, tho, then hobnobbing & a BMW would probably be rather useful.

This reminds me of the Tightwad Gazette’s discussion of being thrifty vs being poor. “I can’t” (have nice things, go anywhere, be employable, have people over…) is about being limited. It poverty. Thrift is about “I CAN” (clean the house, take a bus, learn to change the oil in the car, hem the too-long pants, use stain remover, change the washer in the faucet, invite friends over to watch a game or Heroes…). Thrift is empowering.

Put your career goals in the cover letter and skip the objective statement—it’s wasting space that you should be using to provide more detail about your background and qualifications.

I recently did this without realizing it by clearing my kitchen counterspaces and replacing worn out dish clothes, drainer, and sink rack. The total cost of this upgrade was $27, but the kitchen feels like it had a full remodel.

Her point was taken about buying used cars but her quote: “But in five years, that Honda wont be worth as much as my BMW. The BMW will last longer, its higher quality, its got more style.” is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever read and makes me think she’s never driven a mile in her life.

I think better advice to look rich would be to buy a classy but efficient used car, or a decent but lower end new car.

Generally, I believe this. However, last December it was time for me to get a new car. I had targeted the Honda Accord as the right car for me (not going into a make/model war here, it’s necessary for the example).

First of all, I was surprised at how difficult it was to buy one used. Secondly, I was surprised at how high the price of the used ones were. I sat down and compared prices.

See, there is more to a car than just price. You also have to consider lifetime maintenance costs and lifetime lengths. Since I was comparing new and used of the same type of car, I pretty much ignored lifetime maintenance costs, figuring that they’d be about the same.

After talking with various car dealers, looking at the original model year of the older Accords and seeing when people trade them in, I was able to come up with an estimate for how long the car would last giving my driving habits. As I tend to be a cautious, low mileage driver, I expect to drive my Accord for 10-12 years, or up to 180k miles. (As an aside, this is a good way to figure out what type of extended warranty to get.)

When I compared the few used cars to my target maximum mileage, and divide the price of the car by the remaining miles left, the new car was *cheaper*.

I was so astonished that I called various folks to check my math, but I was right. I even wound up getting a nice deal on the new car, which made the numbers even better.

Last note that is slightly related, I’ve found that if you look at a longer-term car loan vs a shorter-term car loan, but you plan to pay off the loan in the shorter time anyway, the dollars you save in paying down the principal can exceed the extra dollars you pay in interest.

Obviously, my situation was unique to me, but they are some out-of-the-box things that are worth considering.

An additional tip: shop at upscale grocery stores as much as possible. You’ll pay a bit extra but you’ll get: a) much better quality food, particularly the meat; b) you’re less likely to buy junk food, because it isn’t bulk discounted in big displays, and c) and you’ll meet a better class of people.

There is always an excuse for not giving. If you want to give, then give. It shouldn’t matter if you have debt or not.

The real underlying premise of the look rich but live cheap should be your rationale for wanting to look rich in the first place. Be who you are, rather than exerting time, effort and money on someone who you aren’t. You aren’t living life for others, so why would you want to give others the “impression” of something else? I agree, “buy quality and care for it”, not to to make you feel rich, but because you should buy stuff that won’t cause you to waste more money having to replace it, and you should care for it because you just spent hard earned money on it.

Classic looks are nice and all, but you do end up being a khaki pants and blue blazer cookie cutter of a man in the end. Yes, I have 6 khaki pants.