How did your waspy old money ancestors show their thriftiness?

[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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No. It's very cultural.

[Anonymous]

This is an incredible cringey thread

[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.

Sour grapes much?

That’s not really how it works. I’ve got a waspy old dresser that was once a very nice piece of furniture but it’s falling apart. I should get rid of it. It would probably cost more to fix it than to buy a new luxury piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, does it not?

There are people like this all over the country.

[Anonymous]

The real answer is that they were allergic to debt. Every time they took it out, they would work tirelessly to pay it off fast. My rich grandparents had a rewards credit card but they never once carried a balance. When annual fees were added later, they kept the old free rewards card. Never had a car loan. Paid off mortgages in less than 15 years. Invested consistently over time. It’s not that hard.