At the beginning of December the Daily Mail newspaper published an article which claimed to show you the various signs that you had truly “made it” in this world. It was in fact a study that systems company Synseal had commissioned and asked 2000 participants a series of questions. Their answers helped determine to what standards of living people can think of themselves as “made”. It was a good read, and here are some of the main things they discovered. Some of them are quite quirky, as Synseal put it:
1. Holiday home
2. Children go to public school
3. Having a cleaner
4. Having a nanny
5. Frequent shopping trips to other cities
6. Annual ski trips
7. Pony riding lessons for the kids
8. Have flown first class
9. A driveway longer than 200 yards
10. Wine cellar
11. A summer house
12. At-home gym
13. Car for mainly weekend use
14. Owning a sit on mower
15. Personal number plate
16. A hot tub
17. Golf membership
18. Enjoys sailing weekends
19. A small orchard in the garden
20. Home cinema system
21. Has an orangery
22. Shops at Waitrose
23. Having electric garage doors
24. A wet room
25. Designer luggage
26. Attending horse racing/Ascot every year
27. A glazed conservatory
28. Own an aga
29. A TV larger than 55 inches
30. Eat lobster
31. His and her sinks
32. Log burner
33. A TV in every room
34. Member of a tennis club
35. Fridge with ice dispenser
36. 400 thread count sheets
37. Have a pedigree dog
38. A wine cooler
39. Takes the dog to doggy day care
40. Takes the dog for treatments
41. A Facebook page littered with foreign holiday pictures
42. A golf handicap of under 15
43. A lazy Susan
44. Owns a picnic hamper
45. Matching bathrobes
46. Own many gilets
47. Own cricket whites
48. First name terms with the local vicar
49. First name terms with the pub landlord
50. Have 2,000 Twitter followers
Let’s play “Have you made it” bingo. How many of you went down that list and ticked off what you matched up with your own lifestyle? Personally I can’t say that I’m on first name terms with the local vicar, or own an aga.
There is a serious side to this research however. You may have noticed the odd mention of a conservatory or glazed extension. Well, there was a second string to this research. It revealed that a quarter were planning on building an extension and a fifth were intent on building a conservatory. So, under the fun stuff there was a serious side, to find out what the middle classes plan to do on the home improvement front in the future.
The numbers aren’t that bad. I imagine that a quarter of the people surveyed who want to build an extension, or a fifth who want to build a conservatory, equate to a rather large potential market. This is what Synseal will have wanted to find out, in order to see where the market is moving to.
So, what have we found out? We know that if you have a pedigree dog, a hot tub, a wine cellar and cricket whites, you have made it. Well done! Not sure where you might have arrived to, but well done all the same. Importantly though, we also know that a quarter and a fifth of the middle classes with money to spend plan to carry out major forms of home improvements at some point in the future. Plenty of business still out there people, time to go and grab it while things are betting better!
13. Not a bad start to the list lol
Only one – First name terms with the pub landlord. No class!
I’m in on this one, I sold myself an electric garage door , but I didn’t need the Daily Mail to tell me I had ‘made it’ when I could stand on my drive and press the remote control to show the world my junk store :)
First name terms with the landlord since I was 14 ……..hic