If you wear designer items what is your HHI and/or net worth?

[Anonymous]

In what financial situation does it make sense to splurge a little?

FWIW our HHI is 230k.

[Anonymous]

Splurge a little? Like one or two items a year? $500k? I don’t know… dumb question. Ha

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s a dumb question. I have a few designer bags so I guess I splurge a little. I think your nw is more important than your hhi. We have a net worth of around 4m but I wouldn’t go running for shopping sprees at Hermes or anything.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is high...I don't want to brag but it's over yours by quite a bit. I tend to favour higher-end items/designer and then inexpensive stuff from Lululemon/Athleta/Vuori for my work out wear/lounge wear.

[Anonymous]

There’s not a strong correlation between who wears designer or high-end clothes and their NE or HHI. I saw an article once (sorry I can’t link to it) that said the average buyer of certain very high end and well-known brands (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc) was like 28 and made 80K.

I personally like designer items. But you have to ask yourself if you get value out of it. Would you rather have a 2K handbag or more money for that vacation? Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s a dumb question. I have a few designer bags so I guess I splurge a little. I think your nw is more important than your hhi. We have a net worth of around 4m but I wouldn’t go running for shopping sprees at Hermes or anything.

Unless you plan on spending down your net worth (and I wouldn’t advise that at $4m; you should still be in saving mode), income matters more than net worth when deciding if you should buy fashion items.

[Anonymous]

A lot of wearing designer items is about striving to appear wealthier than one is or it's about keeping up with the Joneses in order to maintain social status. These are natural impulses but it's good to step back and examine them and see if they're serving us. If we're having actual anxiety about whether we can pull off an item then maybe that's more about self-esteem.

Our HHI is $800k and I can barely convince myself to buy a shirt from Athleta. I just don't care about brands for their own sake and I'd rather get 5 items for $200 instead of 2. I've been very conscious to keep my sense of what is good enough for me to where it was in my 20s so that I don't just keep increasing our spending to match our income. So I'm still happy to drive a $30k car . . . I just got the highest trim package so I could have heated seats and a moon roof, which were splurges for me.

It's funny because the one thing I've always loved was diamonds and gemstones. As a kid I used to go to the gem store and buy uncut hunks of amethyst to admire. So diamonds are probably the one thing I would have upgraded to match my lifestyle, but in the last few years the technology for moissanite and lab diamonds has really improved, and so I can have my sparklies without spending $10k+, more like $1-2k. Yay! I understand that for some people, wearing my $250 moissanite ring from Alibaba that looks like a $20k diamond is a form of lying because society uses luxury items as status signifiers, but I'd rather hang out with people with similar values who wouldn't judge me either for loving sparkly gems or for buying cheaper look-alikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s not a strong correlation between who wears designer or high-end clothes and their NE or HHI. I saw an article once (sorry I can’t link to it) that said the average buyer of certain very high end and well-known brands (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc) was like 28 and made 80K.

I personally like designer items. But you have to ask yourself if you get value out of it. Would you rather have a 2K handbag or more money for that vacation? Etc.

Sounds right

[Anonymous]

We also earn around $230K, and while I have a few items that my mother would consider higher end, I don’t think I own anything you’d call “designer.” If I fell in love with a $3000 bag I guess I could buy it without ruining my life but it seems wasteful. (I grew up poor. YMMV.)

[Anonymous]

^^ PP again. I’d rather splurge on a $10K vacation than $10K in designer swag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of wearing designer items is about striving to appear wealthier than one is or it's about keeping up with the Joneses in order to maintain social status. These are natural impulses but it's good to step back and examine them and see if they're serving us. If we're having actual anxiety about whether we can pull off an item then maybe that's more about self-esteem.

Our HHI is $800k and I can barely convince myself to buy a shirt from Athleta. I just don't care about brands for their own sake and I'd rather get 5 items for $200 instead of 2. I've been very conscious to keep my sense of what is good enough for me to where it was in my 20s so that I don't just keep increasing our spending to match our income. So I'm still happy to drive a $30k car . . . I just got the highest trim package so I could have heated seats and a moon roof, which were splurges for me.

It's funny because the one thing I've always loved was diamonds and gemstones. As a kid I used to go to the gem store and buy uncut hunks of amethyst to admire. So diamonds are probably the one thing I would have upgraded to match my lifestyle, but in the last few years the technology for moissanite and lab diamonds has really improved, and so I can have my sparklies without spending $10k+, more like $1-2k. Yay! I understand that for some people, wearing my $250 moissanite ring from Alibaba that looks like a $20k diamond is a form of lying because society uses luxury items as status signifiers, but I'd rather hang out with people with similar values who wouldn't judge me either for loving sparkly gems or for buying cheaper look-alikes.

So you would rather support fast fashion and kill the earth?

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is a little over $400k and I don’t own any luxury items. I don’t judge people who do (unless they go into debt to do so) it’s just not worth it to me. I like nice middle of the road brands from Nordstroms and J crew. Anthropology still feels like a splurge to me! But I’m very lazy and finding good deals or comparison shopping and have no interest in spending time finding deals. So I guess I’m just middle of the road all around.

[Anonymous]

I remarried a few years ago. My income is $467k. I buy what I want. I have designer items, but I also love Zara. I am too cheap to spend $2000 on a purse, but I understand why other people do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what financial situation does it make sense to splurge a little?

FWIW our HHI is 230k.

Which designers? Not all good designers producing quality goods are crazy expensive like LV, Gucci, Valentino etc. Even if my HHI doubles tomorrow, I don't see myself throwing my fortune at vanity.

[Anonymous]

I think expensive jewelry and diamonds are the worst splurge unless your HHI is more than a million and net worth is more than 50 million.