How did your waspy old money ancestors show their thriftiness?

[Anonymous]

Did not use credit cards except for emergency.
Heat came on very late - some years it was December.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll play. My grandparents, born circa 1910, were quite literally the millionaires next door.

My grandfather didn’t go to college although money was there; he ended up inheriting stocks from two generations prior upon his father’s death in 1970. By this time, he was about five years from an early retirement.

Instead of looking at this as a windfall, he truly continued on with a very simple life. He always had a company car and my grandmother didn’t drive. When he retired, he bought a car with cash. I don’t think they ever had a credit card.

They shopped sales and were the first couple I knew who had stockpiles of essentials like tissues, toilet paper and their favorite foods.

My grandparents made no impulse purchases, ever. Everything from furniture to decor to lawn equipment was carefully researched with an eye on end of season or clearance sale. My grandfather could and would repair and fix anything himself and did a beautiful job.

Controversial: they gave little to nothing to charities. They didn’t believe in “spoiling” the grandchildren and didn’t adjust for inflation. We each got $50 for high school graduation, from 1975-1990. They held to buying us each one clothing item during a visit with them and they’d expect reimbursement from their DC!

My parent intervened about 5 years before they died and diversified their stocks and grandparents under slight duress gifted all GC whatever the max amount was w/o tax implications. It was enough to put a down payment on our first home.

Where on earth do you live that this could possibly be true?

There is no gift tax due unless you give someone $13 million over the course of a lifetime. You do have to report it on your taxes (as the gifter) if you go above $18k in a year, but there is no actual tax due unless you exceed the $13 million lifetime limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll play. My grandparents, born circa 1910, were quite literally the millionaires next door.

My grandfather didn’t go to college although money was there; he ended up inheriting stocks from two generations prior upon his father’s death in 1970. By this time, he was about five years from an early retirement.

Instead of looking at this as a windfall, he truly continued on with a very simple life. He always had a company car and my grandmother didn’t drive. When he retired, he bought a car with cash. I don’t think they ever had a credit card.

They shopped sales and were the first couple I knew who had stockpiles of essentials like tissues, toilet paper and their favorite foods.

My grandparents made no impulse purchases, ever. Everything from furniture to decor to lawn equipment was carefully researched with an eye on end of season or clearance sale. My grandfather could and would repair and fix anything himself and did a beautiful job.

Controversial: they gave little to nothing to charities. They didn’t believe in “spoiling” the grandchildren and didn’t adjust for inflation. We each got $50 for high school graduation, from 1975-1990. They held to buying us each one clothing item during a visit with them and they’d expect reimbursement from their DC!

My parent intervened about 5 years before they died and diversified their stocks and grandparents under slight duress gifted all GC whatever the max amount was w/o tax implications. It was enough to put a down payment on our first home.

Where on earth do you live that this could possibly be true?

There is no gift tax due unless you give someone $13 million over the course of a lifetime. You do have to report it on your taxes (as the gifter) if you go above $18k in a year, but there is no actual tax due unless you exceed the $13 million lifetime limit.

Pp and I lived locally. 10k gift in 1999

[Anonymous]

Do you think so many people in the DC area had "WASPs" for grandparents, let alone old money WASPs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll play. My grandparents, born circa 1910, were quite literally the millionaires next door.

My grandfather didn’t go to college although money was there; he ended up inheriting stocks from two generations prior upon his father’s death in 1970. By this time, he was about five years from an early retirement.

Instead of looking at this as a windfall, he truly continued on with a very simple life. He always had a company car and my grandmother didn’t drive. When he retired, he bought a car with cash. I don’t think they ever had a credit card.

They shopped sales and were the first couple I knew who had stockpiles of essentials like tissues, toilet paper and their favorite foods.

My grandparents made no impulse purchases, ever. Everything from furniture to decor to lawn equipment was carefully researched with an eye on end of season or clearance sale. My grandfather could and would repair and fix anything himself and did a beautiful job.

Controversial: they gave little to nothing to charities. They didn’t believe in “spoiling” the grandchildren and didn’t adjust for inflation. We each got $50 for high school graduation, from 1975-1990. They held to buying us each one clothing item during a visit with them and they’d expect reimbursement from their DC!

My parent intervened about 5 years before they died and diversified their stocks and grandparents under slight duress gifted all GC whatever the max amount was w/o tax implications. It was enough to put a down payment on our first home.

Where on earth do you live that this could possibly be true?

There is no gift tax due unless you give someone $13 million over the course of a lifetime. You do have to report it on your taxes (as the gifter) if you go above $18k in a year, but there is no actual tax due unless you exceed the $13 million lifetime limit.

PP was clearly referring to the annual gift tax exclusion amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were your families so frugal because they were living off investment returns/dividends/family allowances? Most people were frugal in the old days, but I assume your wasp ancestors were quite wealthy. Was it on paper only? Were they trying to hold on to fortunes from a bygone era? Or do you think that’s just how people were in that era and they were no different?

No. They were growing fortunes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:driving to the next town to save 10 cents on 2-liter store brand soda.

Buying soda is very NOKD.

Well dear you might need some mixers for the gin

That would be tonic. Or perhaps bloody mary mix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No need to buy much of anything ever because you use inherited grand pianos for the children’s music education, inherited wool sweaters and blazers for clothing, inherited lake house for weekends away, inherited great books for entertainment and education, inherited pearl earrings, inherited desks for study, inherited rugs and paintings for decor, etc.

Yeah, I didn't have to buy pearls. I have a necklace from each grandmother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think so many people in the DC area had "WASPs" for grandparents, let alone old money WASPs?

My grandparents were WASPs, literally, but poor farming WASPs. My parents lived through the depression. I still practice almost all of the things described here - and I’m a self-made striver. Why wouldn’t anyone be frugal?

[Anonymous]

WASP family with a large collection of massive but not valuable Victorian furniture pieces leaves entire setup at summer home from 1870-forward. Various pieces then willed to generation born 1899-1920. Oldest son inherits summer home in the 1940s. In late 1970s, 2 of the children swing by to pick up their stuff because divorced youngest child needs to outfit a new house. The other picks up his pieces after 30 years because the truck was already rented.

[Anonymous]

Weird of OP to start a thread asking about “your WASP ancestors”. Very few people are from WASP lineage nowadays…

Anyhow, a lot of these things people are talking is just about people dealing with poverty. We are much wealthier than our ancestors. We don’t need to live like England during the air raids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird of OP to start a thread asking about “your WASP ancestors”. Very few people are from WASP lineage nowadays…

Anyhow, a lot of these things people are talking is just about people dealing with poverty. We are much wealthier than our ancestors. We don’t need to live like England during the air raids

??? Huge swaths of the Southeastern US are nothing but WASPS. Even in the NE/Midwest there are plenty but you mix in more Irish/Italian Catholics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:driving to the next town to save 10 cents on 2-liter store brand soda.

Buying soda is very NOKD.

Well dear you might need some mixers for the gin

That would be tonic. Or perhaps bloody mary mix.

Tonic is a type of soda. And soda water is the original soda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are definitely explaining my family and we are wasps. But are these really wasp characteristics?

They sound like anyone who has lived through the Great Depression, honestly.

Not really. These are common characteristics of people who don't like being wasteful for various reasons, and it's a spectrum between being rationally frugal and irrationally miserly. This includes people from different cultures/ethnicities from around the world and not limited to old/new money, it's mainly personality trait related and personal life experience related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weird of OP to start a thread asking about “your WASP ancestors”. Very few people are from WASP lineage nowadays…

Anyhow, a lot of these things people are talking is just about people dealing with poverty. We are much wealthier than our ancestors. We don’t need to live like England during the air raids

??? Huge swaths of the Southeastern US are nothing but WASPS. Even in the NE/Midwest there are plenty but you mix in more Irish/Italian Catholics.

No. White Southerners don’t count as WASP. They tend to be Southern Baptist Protestants and tend to be of Scots-Irish stock.
The true WASPS are from the Northeast, historically