Keeping Up With The Joneses.

Contributed by: Cindy Wysong, CFP®

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If you’re not familiar with this romance-filled Netflix series, the Featherington family is one of the royal families included in the storyline.  The Featheringtons yearn for – and struggle to keep up with – the societal norms of the British elite.  Habitual gambling and amassing piles of debt cast a dark cloud on their already-gloomy financial affairs.

Granted, growing up in a middle-class American family is a stark comparison to this British royal families from the early 1800s.  But, I do feel the old adage “keeping up with the Joneses” is timeless.

I can remember my parents teaching me not to get wrapped up in “keeping up with the Joneses.”  True happiness, they said, does not always follow accumulation of material possessions.  (Try telling that to the Featheringtons.)  And, now as a parent, I try to instill the same sentiment with my own children.

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I recently had a conversation with an old friend at lunch who point-blank asked me if I could tell his wife to quit spending so much money on things they don’t need.  Such a bold request made me laugh out loud…until I realized he was serious.  With Amazon packages piling up at their door seemingly daily, he felt she was simply buying too much stuff.  Rather than indulge him, I challenged him with a simple “Why?”  (He knows what I do for a living, so I think he was a bit flabbergasted at my initial response.) It took a bit of back-and-forth friendly sparring to realize his ultimate concern.  Although they can easily afford today the things she likes to purchase, he was concerned for their future retirement…namely, if they could ever retire.

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Part of my job in helping couples understand the reality of their retirement is to understand their ability and desire to save money today.  Of course, the more you save today, the more you will have in retirement.  But when is enough enough?  At what point can a spouse feel guiltless when making an unnecessary purchase?  Conversely, at what point should a spouse feel a little remorse when pushing the “Order” button in the Amazon cart?

It boils down to goals.  What are your shared financial goals in life?  What are you trying to achieve?  Maybe you do try to keep up with the Joneses.  Maybe you even desire to BE the proverbial Joneses (or the Bridgertons), leading a life where peers are clamoring to keep up with you.  From a financial planner’s perspective, so long as your actions today reflect what you are trying to achieve in the long-term, keeping up with the Joneses doesn’t matter.  Perhaps you already save enough for retirement.  Why not live a little and buy a few extravagant things every now and then?  But (insert exaggerated pause), if your savings amount doesn’t come close to hitting your target, it’s high time to have a conversation with each other. 

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Back to my lunch date.  Do you think I agreed to telling his wife to quit spending money?  Absolutely not, dear reader!  I know which battles to pick.  Rather, I recommended he initiate a conversation with her as to why their overall spending concerns him. (Notice I emphasize “their” here.  I highly doubt she is the sole culprit in their money-spending stress.)  Tackle the goal-sharing, concern-bearing conversation together with open dialog, trust, and vulnerability.  (Note: getting a third-party professional involved at this point might not be a bad idea.)  If they can collectively understand how their financial decisions today will impact their financial lives in the future, she might naturally choose to spend less.  Or maybe, just maybe, he will learn he can relax a little bit and enjoy a few “extras” in life.

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Since signing off as Lady Whistledown could be a copyright infringement, I’ll stick with…

Cindy Wysong is a Partner and Wealth Advisor at BCWM, LLC.

To contact Cindy:

Email:  cindy@bcwm.com

Telephone: (913) 685-2300

www.bcwm.com