These families live well, live in good neighborhoods, frequent restaurants, post cool trips, and recommend wines.
But behind this successful aesthetic, there is a detail that rarely appears, with little left at the end of the month.
Who they are, where do they live, how do they reproduce
- Well-paid professionals: business professionals, lawyers, dentists, civil servants.
- High monthly income, low future liquidity: they earn well, but they have less emergency reserve than a cautious gardener.
- Lifestyle as a work tool: the dress, the watch, the imported car and the trendy restaurant are not luxury, they are personal branding.
- Appearance and consistency: consumption is not futile, it's strategic.
The paradox of “living as if it were”
This group inhabits what we might call an aspirational class, where the pressure to appear successful is as great as the effort to actually be successful.
It's the designer grant in installments, the renovated office thinking about High Ticket, networking events.
They live in a cycle of “investing in themselves”, making their own image their greatest asset, and also their greatest liability.
Why does this happen?
- Symbolic capital > financial capital - prestige opens doors, but needs varnish.
- Confusion between consumption and investment - buying a luxury car can earn new customers, but it also yields IPVA, insurance and maintenance.
- Short prazism - there is always another dinner, another event, another expensive course that “will bring a return”.
- Absence of estate planning - the income is good, but the moment is still one of “social positioning”.
The Invisible Cost
These families work to sustain a lifestyle that, in theory, will help them build their wealth.
The solution is not to give up the style of your strategy, but to balance it:
- Am I spending or investing in my image?
- If my income stopped for 6 months, would I be able to keep what I have?
- Is this consumption pattern serving me or am I serving it?
Because in the end, as a certain banker older and less charming than today's influencers used to say: “wealth isn't what you earn, it's what you keep”.
But of course, he didn't have an Instagram to maintain.