To be fed up with all the threads about high earners feeling poor

How are you affording childcare?

It costs more than £1600 a month here to put a single child in nursery. Quite a lot more than that in fact.

I'm 27 and have worked hard FOR YEARS and still ONLY have one main house and a TINY buy-to-let. We only managed 4 holidays last year whereas everyone I know goes away for at least 6. My kids don't even have their own horses - they have to share! 😭🎻

More than half of that would go on renting a room in lots of places. Earnings are one part of the picture.

Anyone of any stature of income can feel anxiety and worry over finances. Sympathy and empathy are not finite resources that we have to ration out, and empathising with someone concerned over money does not mean there’s any less empathy or understanding for anyone else’s position or worry.

No one is required to gush or even respond to posts they don’t want to – but it’s certainly not necessary to belittle anyone else’s feelings. They are never saying they have it worse, they are simply saying they feel worried or sad.

Giving the old ‘boo hoo’ response or starting a whole thread about it(!) is, quite frankly, gross, and you should have a word with yourself.

"Because people from all walks of life work hard but the inference is they haven't and that's why that statement offends. Truth be told those on lower incomes often work harder than others."

Generally, that's not true. If I think of those I know on higher incomes, they worked their arses off getting qualified as dentists, drs, lawyers, accountants, IT specialists, successful business owners. Lower income jobs don't often require that kind of initial hard work and investment in learning.
Salaries are usually reflective of the hard work it's taken to get to that position, which is why the statement 'I worked hard' is usually true.
Of course, almost everyone who works, works hard. No one's going to pay you for lazing around and not doing your job.

The real problem we have is that salaries are generally low in this country even for those in professional jobs.
That's why some people who work full time still end up receiving top up benefits and why those who are in professional jobs are feeling like they're struggling.

This is something we should all be angry about.

To be on fsm your parents need to earn less than £7200 per year. So of course they have a lot subsidised. I expect they aren't sat around talking about the suckers on six figure incomes who miss out on all the free stuff.

The threshold is so low that you basically need to be unemployed or a single parent working part time. Most of the parents on UC are not entitled to those things.

Lol £1600 is my income in total. I manage quite well on it

Pay them in another country!

If you’re on a very low income and have children it’s likely that you have a lot subsidised. Universal credit, COL payments, free prescriptions, FSM, funded childcare… very easy to lose touch with how much things actually cost and therefore the outgoings of people who aren’t entitled to anything

I think part the problem is the basics now need two incomes to be affordable at whatever level you are earning at. One person may have been able to cover the basics of housing, bills etc and the other earner could cover the more luxury parts of life such as holidays and days out. Everyone is feeling the pinch because the same money isn’t going so far as it was and people are finding they have little reward to what they earn. Cost of living needs to drop to single salary. I don’t know anyone on a typical 40hr min wage job who can cover housing and basics with help from UC or simply just struggling to buy food. Cost of living needs to fall back to a level someone in that situation has affordable options. If that happened everyone who earns would find their own lifestyle improved back to what they expect to have for their earning level.

I’m a single mum on a low income so I also wonder why on Earth people struggle on much higher incomes than me but I do understand the frustration of being told once you earn x you can have a certain lifestyle but when you finally get there cost of living has eroded those expectations.

^^ this. You can have a very large salary and still end up with nothing at the end obf the month and nothing to show for it. I have a 'higher ish' income but I've no money at all. No savings any more. No holidays, no new clothes. None of the things that are ' resdonable to expect.

Why? Childcare and housing costs and no access to any govt support what so ever. I'm also stuck in this position because I need to work to pay my half of the mortgage. So I can't pause my career. Yes, we could sell up and uproot our kids to live somewhere cheaper but that's not very practical.

I am highly privileged to have a house that I will own in 30 years time. But that's it. I'm overdrawn every month. It will get a bit better when the kids get older but right now it's pretty rubbish. Just seems no point to

Make the rich richer and pay taxes, and employ other people, and do their jobs. Absolutely no job in this world exists entirely in isolation from the rest of society.

This

Now many of the tory voters are getting a taste of the medicine they expected lower income households to swallow for years and they don't like it one bit. The hypocrisy is very real.

There are also lots of people who did put a lot of work in at school and may have previously been high earners but are no longer because shit happens.

We can't make assumptions about personal circumstances.

Why would you laugh your arse off if people die of starvation? Is that the kind of thing you find funny?

Because people from all walks of life work hard but the inference is they haven't and that's why that statement offends. Truth be told those on lower incomes often work harder than others.

YABU. Lots of different people with lots of different circumstances are on the internet. Scroll on if it’s not for you there’s nothing to be be offended about - their experience doesn’t diminish yours.

I would agree with you getting angry by people complaining they pay their taxes for “benefit scroungers” (they’re not) or saying NMW is too high (it’s not); or telling people they are poor because they are stupid. But your complaint is people having more money than you existing on the internet. That’s daft.

Getting back in to some industries would be the problem. My partner has known women be unable to get a job after a break to have children. That’s the reality for some industries, like tech. Just because you don’t know that doesn’t make it true.

I knew someone who was getting 3k a month and spent all her money on takeaways and eating out then complained she had no money

The idea that anyone can have an exec level job if they "work hard" and "make the right choices" is laughable. It's insanely nieve.

Also the real problem isn't how much tax you pay or the fact you don't get nursery funding either. It's how badly the Tory party have literally fucked everything. At least now people on £100k might stop voting for them.

See this is part of the problem, seeing minimum low wage workers as having those jobs because they took a 'wrong turn'.

As many low waged and minimum wage workers are needed and relied upon as higher waged and higher tax paying workers. Without the higher paid the taxes don't get paid - but without the lower paid the work society wants and needs doesn't get done.

If no one took a 'wrong turn' as you put it, then there'd be no support either professionally within the industry or services like cleaners, childcare, elderly care etc. They are valuable roles to society, but clearly not valued.

Both are mutually reliant - but only the financial contribution is ever considered or respected. I mean if no one took a 'wrong turn' and worked in these jobs and everyone earned I don't know £150k a year, there'd be a lot of tax paid - but essentially what for because there's no one in the lower paid jobs doing the actual work like child or social care and the knock on to that is less people again available to make that £150k because they are at home looking after their own children/elderly relatives.

My partner works in tech and if he’d have taken years off to raise our kids then he’d find it harder to find another job and would be have to take a huge pay cut when returning to work. This is because he’d have a big gap in knowledge about the latest tech and techniques.

He’s a man, but this is why women who have children are always disadvantaged, and why many choose to keep their careers even when paying high childcare costs.

Its not as easy as just saying, pause your career.

It used to strike me as tone deaf when my sister said to me that she was 'skint' (she and her DH have around 100K plus betwixt them a year, with 2 teenage DC), as I am on disability benefits, live in a run down HA flat with my ND twins...
But, I have got less myopic around it, as it's all relatively. Dsis and her DH have worked their butts off in challenging careers and their lifestyle has adapted accordingly. Her idea of 'skint' is very different to mine, but we are at totally different positions on the socioeconomic scale and I'm fucking proud of her for getting to where she has after our truly awful, abusive and impoverished childhood.
I've never been particularly materialistic nor acquisitive, so I'm okay getting by on the financial support the Govt provides for someone in my position.
I feel for anyone struggling financially. And what that looks like for every household will differ.
Sure, there's posts that make me think "Shut up", but that's more about whatever is going on for me (for example, if things are tough financially my end).