If you grew up LMC/poor and now UMC/rich, do you have the same friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up poor. My parents were poor immigrants. Dh is also a child of poor immigrants. We both studied hard, worked hard and now have a seven figure income and live in an affluent neighborhood. Many of our close friends are from when we were younger and starting out. They are all professionals but we earn more than all our friends.

While we socialize with new people, I personally like our old friends much better. I don’t know if it is just harder to make good friends when you get older or I just feel comfortable with people with less money.

If you grew up poor and now have money, do you hang out with the same friends?

Do you just pay for everything for your friends who have less money?

I like to travel. This is where I’m seeing the biggest discrepancy in lifestyle. Some old friends can’t or won’t book a trip when flight prices are too high (>$500). I would like to go on this trip with them. Should we just offer to pay for the whole thing? We have close friends who were in our wedding. We want to go away with them and they can’t go because flights will cost $4000 for their family. I think they wanted to spend $2000 or less on flights. Same with hotel. I strongly prefer to stay somewhere nicer. Should we just pay for the whole trip?

You live in a bubble. Not everyone who has money likes to travel or traveling with friends. The discrepancy is about lifestyle NOT income.

[Anonymous]

DH and I have encountered this problem as well. Good friends for years, we all kind of moved along in life together - college, jobs, marriage, kids and our choices reflected these life events and more disposable income as we got older. Now we make significantly more and find we can only enjoy this with our nuclear family. Friends cannot afford or do not want to splurge in the same way we do. Everything from restaurant choice to vacation to Xmas exchanges. We go with their flow and just do our own trips when we want to enjoy what we have worked for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have encountered this problem as well. Good friends for years, we all kind of moved along in life together - college, jobs, marriage, kids and our choices reflected these life events and more disposable income as we got older. Now we make significantly more and find we can only enjoy this with our nuclear family. Friends cannot afford or do not want to splurge in the same way we do. Everything from restaurant choice to vacation to Xmas exchanges. We go with their flow and just do our own trips when we want to enjoy what we have worked for.

I should add this even comes up in simple things like splitting a check equally or itemizing, or booking a weekend girls night that involves air mattresses. I didn’t bust my a** to sleep on an air mattress on a very rare weekend away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are much like you, started out MC now fairly wealthy. Sadly we have lost a few of our original friends. I think nor matter what you try, the large disparity in $$ is always a culprit. In order to "assimilate" with older friends, we don't propose activities that are out of their price range. In the few instances when we have offered to pay for a vacation, the other party were actually offended. Large disparity in wealth most definately causes a rift from our experience.

Appreciate the honesty and this is the unfortunate truth. Such is life.

This is the same for people who go from poor to upper middle class.