"How Much Did That Cost?" I Hate That Question!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Somewhere I have a book of ‘cowboy with and wisdom’. One bit of advice is ‘Never ask a man the size of his spread.’ If you have 100,000 acres and enough cattle to populate a medium-sized city and the other guy has 40 acres and a mule, you’re likely to make the person uncomfortable, envious, or resentful. If it’s the other way round, then the other guy is bragging. He has enough that it shouldn’t matter what other people have. It’s like asking someone how much they have in their bank account. It’s just rude.

I’ll help someone out who is legitimately looking for advice. I didn’t mind saying how much I paid for my new refrigerator when someone here was looking for a new fridge. Questions about other things, I find intrusive. Though I started a thread on this very subject a few years ago, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what I will and won’t disclose. I think that for me it comes down to luxury items. I won’t say how much I paid for a couple of my watches. Nobody asks, but if they did I’d tell them to google it. If you want Luxury Item X, you probably already have an idea of how much they cost. If you don’t, then you don’t have Need To Know and are just being nosy. It depends on the context. Is the person just curious? Or is he being nosy about my finances? Is my answer going to provide useful information? Or will it evoke envy, or will the person think I’m an idiot for spending money on such a thing? In the end, it’s rude to put a person into a situation where he or she must consider the context.

I think it was Mark Twain who, when asked his age, said ‘As old as my tongue, and not quite as old as my teeth.’ A similar answer might be used for costs. I’ve told people ‘Two dollars and eighty-five cents!’ and ‘A miiiiiiiiilion dollars!’ In answer to some questions I’ve found intrusive, I’ve said ‘Why do you have a need to know?’ If pressed, I say ‘Seriously. I’d rather not say.’ The questioner might just be making conversation and see nothing wrong with asking. But if an answer might establish some sort of status or make one or the other party uncomfortable, it shouldn’t be asked.

ASIDE: I was attending a little party on a VC-10K tanker. A woman kept asking of the plane, ‘How much does this cost?’ What, she’s going to buy one?

62

My friend’s overly nosy neighbor asked how much he paid for a car. He just smiles and showed her a screwdriver.

Twenty minutes later, the cops ask him how much he paid for the car.

63

One from the sports world:

“It’s not about the money. It’s about the love.”

64

“Some in pounds and the rest in coppers.”

The only time I get asked prices is for beer at pubs or my one friend who I have a low-grade friendly one-upmanship battle with from time to time.

65

My folks brought me up to believe that asking about money is rude. However, if someone shows me something that I may want to buy, and if I know them well, I will ask: do you mind if I ask the cost? It doesn’t come up much, because I usually just google it.

66

I don’t think people are asking to pry into your finances but because they would just like to know how much that thing is.

67

Speaking of whom: When I don’t care to tell what I paid, my standard answer is “I swapped it for a dead rat and a string to swing it by.”

68

No one in my life routinely asks how much stuff costs.

But, there is a person in my life who I sometims wish to provide answers that amount to “none of your business” because she is so obsessed with price and quality.

I’m a knitter. I sometimes knit in public with casual friends who also knit or crochet (or spin). In general, people asking what yarn you are using are expressing admiration and curiousity. Sometimes intent to try the yarn later, sometimes not.

The knitting world is small enough that based on the name of the yarn, one can often get an idea as to how much someone spent on the project. Not neccessarily dollars per skein, but certainly is this the Lexus or Mercedes of the yarn world, or the cheap used Toyota.

This is generally no big deal–most of us use yarn from a variety of price points, depending on the project, our mood, the phase of the moon . . .

But this one friend . . .

If it’s pricey, she wonders if it’s worth the cost (and how you can afford it–she can’t, you see, fixed income, you know). If it’s cheap, she wonders how you can stand to knit with that crap. It makes me not want to tell her anything, because I’m way less fussy than she is, and my budget is not enormous, but it’s adequate for my yarn buying needs, because I’m careful about what I buy.

At any rate, I’m not sure I can explain why this comment was not as flattering as I think she intended it to be, but . . . “I never liked handspun until I saw yours” just didn’t work.

Other people saying nice things, makes me feel good, even if I suspect they are being more encouraging than my quality deserves.

Her comments just set my teeth on edge.

69

I think it depends on the person, and how personal in nature the item was. For example, I won’t tell people how much I paid for my fiancee’s wedding and engagement rings, because (like others have reiterated) if my figure was ‘too low’, they’d think I was a cheapskate/the stones arent real, etc. If my figure was ‘too high’ they’ll think I’m impractical and point out all the other stuff I could’ve bought with the money.

Sometimes you can deflect the question by being honest about what the item is made out of, without disclosing the cost. My fiancee’s ring, for example, is white gold (can’t remember karat) with a 1.5 karat 3 stone setting. I don’t mind telling them that. Since prices on stones vary according to quality, they’re free to imagine whatever price they think 1.5 karats of crystallized carbon is worth.

With our actual wedding, I’ve had a hard time keeping my own mouth shut because we have gotten a such a good deal on so many things. My wedding is costing a quarter what my best friend’s wedding cost, and I will have double the amount of guests. Fiancee asked me to be humble and not gloat about it. Still, when my friend’s wife casually asked how much our caterer cost, I smugly replied, “$9 a person” :smiley:

Her response? :eek: Apparently her caterer charged ten times that amount.

And here I’m telling everybody on the internet :smack:

70

On the flip side, my friend went to a convention last year and bought a gaming table. While I suppose it was rude of me to ask, I was genuinely curious because buying furniture is a rather impulse buy at a convention (at least the conventions I went to). He spent ten thousand dollars, which I felt like was way too much- I made a thread about it because I also thought maybe I’m just thinking its overpriced but its actually a good deal.

But my best friend and I allow us to be nosy like this. We’ll act all judgemental, and rebuff each other’s criticisms. I guess that’s what friendship is all about :wink:

71

Wow, how bizarre. I’m never going to ask anyone about their kids after this…

72

I only find it a weird question if it’s for incredibly mundane/consistently priced (i.e. paperback books) or incredibly personal (i.e. wedding rings) items. I don’t see it as being wrong when the object in question is interesting to someone personally. I’ve had a few friends mention they own swords, some show swords and some combat worthy (if dulled) swords, I always ask because I want to get a baseline for when I can eventually afford to buy some of my own. With computers I’m a bit more knowledgeable, but if somebody buys a new laptop or something, I like to ask how much it cost and the specs, not so I can comment, but so I can keep that laptop in mind if a friend ever needs a laptop in that price range and quality.

I agree it can get out of hand, and some people do it to be snarky, but I think most people just like to get an idea of the cost for future reference.

73

I know, right? My husband is ALWAYS asking me that. Rude! Personal! Obnoxious! Anyway he’ll find out all he wants to know when the bill comes, so that’s the big hurry?

74

I think that asking prices is a cultural thing.

I grew up in a poor, largely immigrant neighborhood. Growing up we talked about prices all the time. Part of it was about survival- pooling information about the market is one of the techniques poor communities have developed to help them get by. If someone knows a good place with day-old bread, this is information the entire community can use. We just routinely shared what we knew (and in pre-online shopping days, this information was even more essential) and we all benefited. To expand, one of the reasons why cell phones have been such a boon to the developing world is that they allow more communication about market conditions. People benefit from knowing market information.

People who got good deals were rightfully proud of their skills, and eager to share their knowledge with others, much like a hunter would want to share how much he caught in his favorite hunting spot. This kind of conversation was fun to us, like telling fishing stories.

It was just normal for me. We were all poor. We all know how much you get on welfare, so it’s not like we had secrets from each other. It’s the middle class that feel personally insecure or attach things like shame to their finances. I didn’t grow up with that sense that it was personal or had any value judgements. Asking “How much did you pay for that” was exactly the same as saying “That’s a really nice dress! Where did you get it?”

It took me a LOT of funny looks in college to get out of the habit of routinely sharing the price of things I bought, which, in the way that I grew up was approximately the same as talking about the weather. I still slip up. When you are raised one way, it’s tough to ever really get rid of it. Just looking at me, you’d probably not ever consider I wasn’t raised in the same middle-class way that most of the people I now know were. But these differences are there, and I spend a lot of energy trying to fit in to this culture that isn’t mine.

We live in a material world, and we live in a world where things are valued by their price. Economists will say that price conveys all kinds of information about market conditions- how much it costs to produce goods, how far it has been transported from, how rare it is, etc. When someone asks the price of something like a digiridoo, they are really asking “Where does this item fit in to my world” using a value that we all know and understand. When something is new or unusual for us, asking a price is a way of trying to grasp something concrete about it so we know how it fits into the world around us.

So, I hope you guys can be a bit patient.

75

That was quite a good post even sven, thank you.

76

I didn’t grow up poor but I am certainly an immigrant, and it definitely is a cultural thing. Indian people don’t even discuss salary, and it took me aback once when someone asked me my salary to my face, in front of several other people. I mean, I was actually offended - a product of cultural upbringing to be sure.

I was also taken aback when an Indian neighbor once told me how much he paid for his new Honda without me even showing any interest…I’ve never met an Indian who shared money issues that blatantly - my parents and friends and family all thought it was trashy.

77

I noticed this in the neighborhood I lived in about 15 years ago. It was an up and coming NYC neighborhood but many of my local friends had settled there before it was “up and coming”, they held low paying jobs and were generally on public assitance for their children . The conversational habits sometimes frustrated my roommate and me,…it seemed like all these girls ever talked about was how much stuff cost.

Whenever my family and certain friends start asking me about my spending, I recoil and cringe, it is a tactic on their part. My mother is the worst…she’ll ask my how much my latest vacation cost then if I say “$2000”, she’ll be all " That’s more than twice the amount for the quote I just got for redoing the driveway".
Then she will give me the expectant look of a begging dog…at which point I will change the subject.

She will then bring the conversation back to how much the driveway will cost. We can go through this dance for weeks.

I have told her point blank many times if she wants something more from me she needs to ask …then I get some offended remark about how she would never ASK me for anything.

My other family members have picked up the habit from her, using the question about how much I spent for something as a lead in to fishing for a monetary gift from me…their subtext is always that it would have been a much better idea to give the money to them rather than spend it on whatever I spent it on.

But I am digressing, this is why I hate being asked how much stuff costs though.

78

It’s not just cultural, it varies from family to family.

In my family, you did not talk about money. I could not tell you what my parent’s salaries were, how much our house cost, or anything like that.

In my husband’s family, money is talked about very openly and I really struggle with it.

79

Stop! I mean stop letting it get to you. If you feel guilty about your mother, perhaps you can arrange to give her a once a year monetary gift. Everyone else can go hang…look out for number one because no one else is going to. It’s YOUR money and I am getting all het-up here because some family members (? which ones) think that a better use would be to give it to them?! Unless someone is sick in the hospital they are not entitled to any of your money.

80

[QUOTEAttendajo]
Far more obnoxious are people who volunteer what they paid for something without my asking or showing the least bit of interest in what they paid. They are always either bragging about how wealthy they are to be able to afford such a quality item or bragging about what an incrediby good deal they got on something
[/QUOTE]

I agree with this. I always want to ask people, who volunteer the price of things, “Why’d you take the price tag off?”