Man friend yells at me for bag collection

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snow0160

O.G.
Jul 23, 2012
274
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My good friend for years never understood my obsession with bags. He told me how he splurged once and bought his wife a $200 bag and asked if that is what my bags cost. I hated breaking it to him but I am a Chanel classic girl so it is $200 x 30 lol. He immediately went to scolding mode. He said with the amount of bags and clothing I could buy your typical American home. I felt bad about this and didn't know how to respond. This is not the first time I've been talked down to for my choice in bag or clothing. Anyone have stories like this? How do you deal with it?
 
When this happened to me, it involved t-shirts.
Was visiting a friend. We went shopping. I bought 2 t-shirts. Which he thought cost too much. And said so.
I laughed & responded along the lines of, "Good thing you're not buying them, then."
Moved on.

No one comments much on my chanel.
But, my reaction would be about the same.
And move on.

Let the crazy dance go on inside their heads, not yours.:smile:
 
Unless you otherwise live in dire-straights, put off buying a "typical dream home" indefinitely, take out huge loans to fund your lifestyle and borrow money all the time from those around you (esp from him) and/or moan and complain that you've no money whenever, I don't think it's his place to comment so negatively. Your money, your life.

Some like lots of bags that cost a couple of hundred dollars, have their nails done every week and go on quite a few trips in a year while some like a couple of ultra-expensive bags that last a lifetime and eat at noodles-4-U, some in between :shrugs:
 
Last edited:
Forgot to answer one of your chief questions:

It's never really happens to me, perhaps coz I'm pretty quiet about how much things cost and friends that know usually have too. If a friend gave me a hard time about how I spend my money I think I'd say something like @remainsilly but your friend must have caught you off-guard in the moment and it's always more difficult once that time is gone. Time for a friendship review maybe? :shrugs: Friends (should) have their friend's best interest at heart and not make them feel bad about themselves.

My sister's BF and her husband once expressed 'concern' that my sister was spending a lot of money on what they considered luxuries and it just happens she is godmother to their son (she is single with no kids). Apparently many conversations steered towards money. My sister became suspicious and cut her godson out of her will.
 
Hi!

Why would you feel bad? Your life, your money, your decision! Tell him to go pound sand if he says it/something again.

If someone reacts like that over something this trivial every serious discussion would be fruitless anyway.

Has it happened to me over my lifestyle? Yes. But when, that is a one time occurrence with that person because I generally try not to surround myself with negativity/ negative people. So I tell them straight away, go pound sand.

There's one exception though - and that's when someone is candidly/honestly surprised or baffled. Doesn't happen very often. One I remember is from a couple of years ago and it was rather funny. I bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon at a rather small, local supermarket. So it's my turn on the checkstand and behind me in line is an elderly lady. The bottle gets scanned and 135,00 Euro pop up on the display. So that lady poked my shoulder and told me I should look at the display, there had to be a mistake since I only bought one bottle. I gently told her that that's what the bottle costs and her face said everything. If I remember correctly she said something like that that was crazy.

Anyway, don't let someone drag you down - enjoy your Chanel bags!!!

Kind regards,
Oliver
 
Wow what gives him the right to lecture you? Especially when your finances have absolutely nothing to do with him. I'm sorry you had to go through that, snow0160.

I don't think you need to feel bad about how you've spent your own money, especially when this guy isn't even your SO or family. I've had friends express incredulity at the amount I spend on purses but no one has actually lectured me the way he seems to have done to you.

Depending on his tone, I may have been really caustic and replied something along the lines of 'I'm sorry you find my lifestyle choices so offensive, but now, could you please explain why you found it necessary to put me down in such a disrespectful manner?'
 
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It's never happened to me to that level. Generally, I just ignore it because they're prying into my finances and I'm not discussing that with anyone except DH or a financial advisor. I don't need to prove myself because they're insecure.

Not justifying his actions because nothing does, but insecure is probably exactly what happened there. He probably felt pride (or something like it) in buying his wife an expensive bag (and has probably heard from her about your amazing purses). I'd probably have said, "a bit more" and swiftly moved to having him show me pictures of the bag he bought and oohing and ahhing over that.
 
My good friend for years never understood my obsession with bags. He told me how he splurged once and bought his wife a $200 bag and asked if that is what my bags cost. I hated breaking it to him but I am a Chanel classic girl so it is $200 x 30 lol. He immediately went to scolding mode. He said with the amount of bags and clothing I could buy your typical American home. I felt bad about this and didn't know how to respond. This is not the first time I've been talked down to for my choice in bag or clothing. Anyone have stories like this? How do you deal with it?

When someone has different values from you and is prone to being judgemental, it's not going to be easy to argue with him. I mean you could compare your hobby to cars, watches and sports tickets (like hello, the prices of World Series baseball tickets) but if your friend is the uber thrifty type, there's really nothing you can say. It reminds me of my FIL who thinks it's crazy for us to raise a kid in a small rented apartment downtown when we could be comfortably paying a mortgage on a nice house in the suburbs with a yard. Never mind that we don't want to live in the suburbs, do yardwork or own a car, he'll never be convinced cos it's not his values and it's not how people did things in his day. But he respects us enough to not go on about it all the time.

So for your friend, it comes down to respect. If he wants to keep your friendship, he needs to respect your decisions and back off or you're just not going to be that close anymore.
 
First of all, I am so sorry that you had to go through this.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that sometimes, people make those snarky, rude difficult comments out of love. Getting old is expensive. Growing up is expensive. Health costs, property or automotive maintenance costs, legal actions, loss of job - all of those can devastate you. And it's darn hard to get your money back out of physical items. When I was in the middle of a very expensive custody battle for the Knight, I took some of my art collection, and handbag collection to consignment shops. They offered me $50-$100 for my Bottega Veneta bags and $200-400 for Chanel bags. Let's just say, I sold a huge amount of my jewelry collection instead.

Even if things are good, saving can benefit you. If you are under the age of 50, you are young enough to have compound interest work in your favor. If you save $10000 at the age of 30 (or three Chanel bags!) and put it in a money market or investment account that earns 5% - you will have $26533 at the age of 50 without doing anything else. If you save that same amount at 40, you will have $16289.

Savings is another form of pampering.
 
Unless you otherwise live in dire-straights, put off buying a "typical dream home" indefinitely, take out huge loans to fund your lifestyle and borrow money all the time from those around you (esp from him) and/or moan and complain that you've no money whenever, I don't think it's his place to comment so negatively. Your money, your life.

Some like lots of bags that cost a couple of hundred dollars, have their nails done every week and go on quite a few trips in a year while some like a couple of ultra-expensive bags that last a lifetime and eat at noodles-4-U, some in between :shrugs:

No I didn't want to share this but i am a 1%. This makes people uncomfortable
 
When someone has different values from you and is prone to being judgemental, it's not going to be easy to argue with him. I mean you could compare your hobby to cars, watches and sports tickets (like hello, the prices of World Series baseball tickets) but if your friend is the uber thrifty type, there's really nothing you can say. It reminds me of my FIL who thinks it's crazy for us to raise a kid in a small rented apartment downtown when we could be comfortably paying a mortgage on a nice house in the suburbs with a yard. Never mind that we don't want to live in the suburbs, do yardwork or own a car, he'll never be convinced cos it's not his values and it's not how people did things in his day. But he respects us enough to not go on about it all the time.

So for your friend, it comes down to respect. If he wants to keep your friendship, he needs to respect your decisions and back off or you're just not going to be that close anymore.

I also rent and people give me so much bs over this! I rent because I don't want to settle in FL but I've had people make snide remarks about that too. My family lives here and I eventually like to move to California. I'd like to get a house on the beach in Malibu. No chanel bag collection could pay for that! Lol
 
First of all, I am so sorry that you had to go through this.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that sometimes, people make those snarky, rude difficult comments out of love. Getting old is expensive. Growing up is expensive. Health costs, property or automotive maintenance costs, legal actions, loss of job - all of those can devastate you. And it's darn hard to get your money back out of physical items. When I was in the middle of a very expensive custody battle for the Knight, I took some of my art collection, and handbag collection to consignment shops. They offered me $50-$100 for my Bottega Veneta bags and $200-400 for Chanel bags. Let's just say, I sold a huge amount of my jewelry collection instead.

Even if things are good, saving can benefit you. If you are under the age of 50, you are young enough to have compound interest work in your favor. If you save $10000 at the age of 30 (or three Chanel bags!) and put it in a money market or investment account that earns 5% - you will have $26533 at the age of 50 without doing anything else. If you save that same amount at 40, you will have $16289.

Savings is another form of pampering.

I appreciate this yup 1000% true which is why I am not mad at my friend. My fiancé is works at a hedge fund and I am a firm believer in index funds ability to outperform most active investors. The guy who commented on my choice is a computer guy and he meant well but likes to give me a hard time. It is ok we joke around a lot but it was offensive. I'm sure he'd also disapprove of my new car choice and my Damien Hirst original print for Christmas. I do want to say something which is I never look down on him for his choices because I know he is less financially stable but he gives me a hard time. It is ok to discriminate against the wealthy but not the other way around and I totally get that. But this is the exact reason why my mother chooses wealthier friends but I like to have friends from all walks of life.
 
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I think you need a different good friend from this walk of life.

A friend is supportive of a friend's choices as long as the choice does no harm.

To yell at you for your choice which obviously doesn't harm anyone, isn't a friend at all.

Everyone has their thing.
 
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My good friend for years never understood my obsession with bags. He told me how he splurged once and bought his wife a $200 bag and asked if that is what my bags cost. I hated breaking it to him but I am a Chanel classic girl so it is $200 x 30 lol. He immediately went to scolding mode. He said with the amount of bags and clothing I could buy your typical American home. I felt bad about this and didn't know how to respond. This is not the first time I've been talked down to for my choice in bag or clothing. Anyone have stories like this? How do you deal with it?

We have the right to spend our money on whatever we want. I'd walk out if this happened to me. [emoji35]
 
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