Churchill's Ghost
VIP Member
Interesting post from Deanna on Quora regarding the finances of the Harkles:
'Prince Harry was well known for his frugality throughout his adult life. He didn't spend much money on clothes, and he was very happy to live in Nott Cottage within Kensington Palace when Prince William vacated that space with Catherine for their more palatial place. Harry didn’t needlessly spend money to look good or to impress people; he was happy, joking, funny Harry.
Everyone knew he was a prince, so Harry didn’t splash out on decorating or on new clothes for each day. The very wealthy people who come from wealthy families and are aristocratic understand their wealth is in their stunningly large mansions and country homes. They have paintings worth more than some people’s homes. The very wealthy own land, and they are content to reuse the faded rugs from decades ago. Harry comes from this. Harry played the wealthy sport of kings: polo; he enjoyed the 50,000 acres that Queen Elizabeth owns surrounding her beloved Balmoral Castle. This is his life.
That was his life. When he decided to marry the rather middle class American who knew nothing about the British way of life, Harry likely didn’t anticipate Meghan’s appetite for spending money. She was new to this lifestyle, and Meghan wanted to spend the way she thought Catherine did. (Catherine watches how much she spends by the way.)
Harry, by not marrying a wealthy British woman, wound up trying to rein in his wife’s insatiable appetite for the good life as she saw it. Harry’s aristocratic friends laughed at Meghan. She tried too hard. Nott Cott was good enough for Catherine to live in with the love of her life, Prince William, but Meghan only saw their 20 room “apartment” at Kensington Palace and wanted to get out of the tiny apartment (as written in Finding Freedom). That’s when she asked to live in Windsor Castle, and nobody in the family asks for a place. They are given as gifts, and Harry forgot to tell his rich, new wife the niceties of dealing with royal life and the Queen.
I think Harry understands Meghan is flying through his inheritance money and the huge sums given to the couple from Prince Charles. Why Meghan’s first year as a royal cost over $1,000,000 for her clothing alone, and most of it was maternity wear, which she didn't bother to rewear when pregnant with Lili. Word is Meghan had a deal with her friend to resell the clothes Meghan wore, so they could split the profits. Maybe the Dior maternity dress that cost a whopping $90,000 is being worn by some rich housewife in New Jersey.
Meghan likes to spend money on things. She wanted a mansion with sixteen bathrooms. Why? I’m sure Harry wasn’t happy with that purchase price, and they could have lived as lovers for life in a medium sized home near LA. A $5,000,000 home would have been better than a $14,000,000 home. The upkeep alone would cost one million a year at their Montecito mansion. At least.
Then there is her need for private jets. And Meghan is wild about security. It makes her look important to have bodyguards around her, except they don't need them in America. Nobody is chasing them down for their photographs anymore, so Meghan even spends cash on private photographers. Add in her three PR teams, which she kept when she was a royal living in Britain, too. Did Meghan not trust the Brits to make her look good? Because they certainly did!
Harry has a cash flow problem on his hands.
He is frugal, and that’s why we’ll spot him wearing wrinkled clothing such as that ubiquitous grey suit along with his shoes with a hole in the bottom. Meghan is in new outfits all the time as she doesn't recycle them, which all of us do. Wearing the same clothes over and over is something even the royals do.
Meghan missed the memo on that one, too. I don’t know what Harry is going to do when they run out of money, because Prince Charles is fuming at the couple. So I wouldn't be thinking he’d help them out in their wealthy lifestyle now. Who’s left? The Queen? Oprah? George Clooney? Gayle King?
Harry is either in so much love with Meghan that he’s blind to her spending, or he is trembling over upsetting his bride over their finances. Either way Harry is not making his wife live a more frugal life. As their relevancy wanes, it would make sense to move and reduce their spending on attorneys and public relations teams. The couple needs to live within their means, as we all do. And I don’t think Meghan understands by not being a good royal and staying she lost a great job and all the perks.
I wonder how long they have left to live in this ostentatious manner.'
I said it what seems like 100 threads ago, but it bears repeating “Money shouts, wealth whispers” I think that, besides understanding this by running in these circles, Catherine is instinctively more thrifty because her parents are self-made. She knows what they sacrificed to make their business successful.
I also think an American from literally anyplace else other than LA would understand this. Even an actress who grew up anywhere other than LA would understand this. The vast majority of Hollywood is new money trash with no understanding of or appreciation for quality or history. Everything—EVERYTHING—in Hollywood is about surface, not depth. She grew up steeped in a place that is tacky and superficial. She is as provincial and ignorant about the wider world as a woman who never left the “holler” in Appalachia. She literally does not know anything different and is convinced that her way is the only way (and that it is how everyone thinks and acts) Even when she was in Canada, she ran with the tacky, superficial new money crowd. I guarantee that at Northwestern she considered everyone else (except maybe those from Manhattan) as a rube, That is why she has no innate taste or class.
I would say that any one of us would have adapted better than someone who is native to LA.