# Spending Habits of the Blue Collar Wealthy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721 "2015-12-17T19:33:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/1 "2015-12-17T19:33:19Z")
There are blue collar jobs that pay over $100K/yr ([for example](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-blue-collar-jobs-that-pay-100000-a-year-2015-01-08)). To the extent this has been studied by those who care (such as marketers) are their spending habits in general similar to white collar workers with similar income, or to other blue collar workers with less? ---
**Author:** ![moldmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@moldmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/2 "2015-12-17T21:06:03Z")
I’ll say it depends on the person like most things. I’ve known lots of contractors and skilled trade’s guys who are pretty indistinguishable from other middle class people in their taste and spending habits. Then there are what I call the “redneck yuppies”. They are likely to spend lots on pickups, hot rods, Harleys, bass boats, 4-wheelers, hunting gear, guns, etc. This is especially pronounced among young single guys who get a good job such as on the Bakken oil fields and go hog wild. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/3 "2015-12-17T21:13:52Z")
In Australia, particularly the state of Western Australia, the mining boom created the phenomenon of the “cashed up bogan”. > [@](#): > > Cashed up bogan or CUB as it is termed in Australia, is a 21st century evolution of the traditional bogan. Traditional bogans wear flannette shirts, sport mullets and scream at their tribe of snotty nosed kids while living in public housing. > > But the turn of the century brought a boom in the blue collar trades such as electricians, builders and the mining industry in particular, and with it these bogans found themselves moving from low to middle income wages. The CUB still has all the personality traits of a traditional bogan - racist, uncouth, poorly educated with a heap of kids. But the modern CUB has more money and thus desperately seeks to pretend they are not bogan by buying designer items and expensive things. These items usually include designer hand bags for CUB females such as Louis Vuitton and low brow brands like PlayBoy merchandise. They usually are mortgaged to within an inch of bankruptcy to show off a brand new car and living in a McMansion - a poorly made, mass produced house on a tiny block of land which is huge in floor space to give the air of wealth . Some think this is a socio-economic construct, I think it’s more Darwinian. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/4 "2015-12-17T21:50:37Z")
If you can equate white collar workers with college graduates there is likely a difference in spending habits, although I don’t know how significant it would be. According to [this](http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/patterns-of-homeownership.htm)more college graduates own their home, which would mean they would be buying stuff that a renter likely wouldn’t be. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/5 "2015-12-17T22:15:32Z")
I’m betting they buy big pickup trucks instead of a BMW or Mercedes. (And fully loaded, those can cost pretty close to the same…) ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/6 "2015-12-17T22:29:01Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m betting they buy big pickup trucks instead of a BMW or Mercedes. (And fully loaded, those can cost pretty close to the same…) That’s true, not only because of the cultural factors but also because most highly paid tradespeople are self-employed to some extent, and so the expensive nicely-optioned truck makes a really good tax write off. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/7 "2015-12-17T23:35:18Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > In Australia, particularly the state of Western Australia, the mining boom created the phenomenon of the “cashed up bogan”. > > . > > Some think this is a socio-economic construct, I think it’s more Darwinian. I think this is as unenlightened as the view that all black people are gang bangers and all white men were in a fraternity even though these are only very small, and far from universally respected or well liked, subsets of the larger population. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/8 "2015-12-17T23:44:45Z")
The general view is that a highly paid, but poorly educated person who comes from a poor socio-economic background will waste their money on frivolities. I know of no evidence to support this impression and suspect that well educated people from upper class backgrounds are just as likely to throw their money away. There is an old saying from the North of England - From clogs to clogs in three generations. Meaning that Grandfather slogged away building a business; son improved on that and grandson threw it all away. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/9 "2015-12-18T00:42:28Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > I think this is as unenlightened … We are talking popular culture and you want to chuck a U-ey at the lights and talk about enlightenment? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/10 "2015-12-18T03:38:24Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > We are talking popular culture and you want to chuck a U-ey at the lights and talk about enlightenment? The OP isn’t talking about pop-culture, I have no idea exactly what you are talking about. ---
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/11 "2015-12-18T04:14:22Z")
While 100K/year is certainly a nice salary, such wage earners (whether white collar or blue) are generally in a different category from those I’d call “wealthy”. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/12 "2015-12-18T05:49:51Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m betting they buy big pickup trucks instead of a BMW or Mercedes. (And fully loaded, those can cost pretty close to the same…) I met a Polack miner who moved to Australia. He told me, “Those engineers, they have no money. Me, I own a sports car. And I have a big house!” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/13 "2015-12-18T06:29:31Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > I met a Polack miner who moved to Australia. He told me, “Those engineers, they have no money. Me, I own a sports car. And I have a big house!” Yes, I knew quite a few tradesmen who were fairly frugal. Earning $100,000 (or past years equivalent) and living like they earned $40,000, they could amass a tidy bundle. Some came from Europe and were old enough to remember the war from their childhood, and knew the prudence of saving money instead of spending. In one town, quite a number of these tradesmen had secure jobs during a downturn and bought up the houses of the les fortunate labourers for cheap. When things picked up, they more than tripled their money reselling these houses, and until then renting them paid the mortgage. If their kids went to college out of town, they’d buy a house nearby, pay their kids a salary to manage it, and sell it for a profit when the kids graduated. They knew all the investment angles. By the time they retired, they had over a million in the bank… but you couldn’t tell them from the people who lived paycheque to paycheque. However, what’s the point? “Whoever dies with the biggest bank balance wins”? There’s got to be a healthy tradeoff between spending it all now and having no fun whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/14 "2015-12-20T03:59:07Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Some came from Europe and were old enough to remember the war from their childhood, and knew the prudence of saving money instead of spending. If you were a continental European and had money saved up before the war you had a very good chance of losing it. That experience made such people not trust saving money. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/15 "2015-12-20T13:37:46Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > The general view is that a highly paid, but poorly educated person who comes from a poor socio-economic background will waste their money on frivolities. I know of no evidence to support this impression and suspect that well educated people from upper class backgrounds are just as likely to throw their money away. > > There is an old saying from the North of England - From clogs to clogs in three generations. Meaning that Grandfather slogged away building a business; son improved on that and grandson threw it all away. I don’t know that anyone spends on frivolities, I think that in the milieu of each socioeconomic class different status symbols apply. Everybody wants to belong, and there are different gatekeepers for the different classes. Here’s a quote from an article found [here](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why-do-poor-people-waste-money-on-luxury-goods). [Quote=McMillan Cottom] You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor. And not intermittently poor or formerly not-poor, but born poor, expected to be poor and treated by bureaucracies, gatekeepers and well-meaning respectability authorities as inherently poor. Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it. [/Quote] Somewhere on here there’s an active thread about things that were formerly tacky, and now are not, and people were making a fuss about folks not dressing up for the ballet. It’s the same sense of wanting to appear as if you belong to the group. We all do it, but the ticket for admission seems silly to those that don’t belong to that group, so the spending habits of the blue collar wealthy look wrong, because in some cases they continue to buy the tickets for admission to a group they no longer belong to, and haven’t figured out the status symbols required for their new group. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/16 "2015-12-20T14:26:32Z")
> [@](#): > > But the modern CUB has more money and thus desperately seeks to pretend they are not bogan by buying designer items and expensive things. These items usually include designer hand bags for CUB females such as Louis Vuitton and low brow brands like PlayBoy merchandise. When I see someone carrying a Coach (or Dooney and Burke, or similar) handbag with the designer’s initials as part of the design, my tacky-meter goes off. Tacky screams, “Lookit me! I have a COACH BAG!” Non-tacky might own a Coach bag, but it isn’t the initial print. It’s a plain leather bag that will last forever with good care. And that sums up the spending habits, pretty much. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/17 "2015-12-20T15:33:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by McMillan Cottom > You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor. And not intermittently poor or formerly not-poor, but born poor, expected to be poor and treated by bureaucracies, gatekeepers and well-meaning respectability authorities as inherently poor. Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it. Born poor is not really blue collar - it’s just plain poor. On the whole blue collar is far closer to white collar than straight up poor IME. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/18 "2015-12-20T16:49:35Z")
commemorative plates and old cars that “ran when parked,” at least if Jeff Foxworthy is to be believed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/19 "2015-12-20T16:58:21Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > commemorative plates and old cars that “ran when parked,” at least if Jeff Foxworthy is to be believed. Redneck =/= blue collar. Dear god what gives with all the ignorant stereotyping in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721/20 "2015-12-20T17:07:16Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Redneck =/= blue collar. Dear god what gives with all the ignorant stereotyping in this thread? granted this is a GQ thread, but I felt enough serious responses had been given to the point where I could try to inject a little levity. I don’t know where you are from, but Jeff Foxworthy and cohorts have made quite a living off of the [Blue Collar Comedy Tour.](http://www.bluecollarcomedy.net/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spending-habits-of-the-blue-collar-wealthy/740721.md?page=2)