Jealously about lifestyle

That makes no sense, the fact she doesn’t know their finances doesn’t mean they are likely in debt. And you need to have the core income to be able to get debt in the first place,

Life is about making choices.

And then being happy with the choices you make.

You say yourself that you could afford a bigger house if you work more and spend less time as with the children.

So you make a choice.
Bigger house or
More time with the children.

And then be happy with that choice.

Look up Gratitude journal, really changes your mindset.

we also use the idea that everything we have cost us so many hours at work. That new house still worth it ??

and just think how early you will be able to retire as you are not servicing a huge mortgage and paying massive electric bills.

So as I said, they simply have more money...

Not at all. I am content with what l have and my lifestyle, lve come a long way since the council estate.

I said if she is wondering how they can afford it, they probably have debt.

I never said all people who live like that have debt.

So sorry for the loss of your teenager, that's awful

What is stopping you both from moving into senior management?

Or they simply earn more than the op and her husband. Peoples finances are their own business.

I do understand OP but it's all relative isn't it? If I were your friend, you'd be the Jones I was trying to keep up with. We can't afford to run a car at all, live in a tiny terraced house in a shitty part of town, no spare money ...

I totally get the feeling as all my friends are doing way better than me and I constantly feel like a failure, but I guess I'd be the Joneses to someone else too...?

That is one explanation, and some people do indeed carry a lot of debt.

But there are other factors too. Some things can cost less than you think, such as the company car example upthread. Some people have more money than people would be aware of if they don't know them very well.

And the early 40s age cohort OP is can have wildly varying wealth depending on when they got on the property ladder. Most people born in the early to mid 80s didn't have chance to get on before things went completely awry, but a few did. If the couple next door are 43 and 41 and one of them happened to buy a cheapo flat in 2005, for example, they could be in a hugely different position to an otherwise identical couple who didn't buy anything until the last few years.

My SIL is the same as you. She is constantly comparing herself to others, decorates her house every 4 years because she wants to keep with other friends who have much bigger houses. She is never happy or satisfied with what she's got and it looks bloody exhausting.
I find I have little in common with her, we live in a small 3 bed semi and she always looks down her nose and asks why haven't we got a bigger house etc. We actually have a much higher combined income than her and her husband but we just have different priorities.
It really isn't good for your mental health to constantly compare yourselves,maybe look into some form of therapy to try and find the root cause to address your feelings.

This is just such a resentful little post. It really is. People get in debt for all sorts of things, and live in all different sizes of houses. Assuming as someone has a bigger house, cars etc that it’s all debt is silly, as you need to have the base income to be able to even get the debt, they don’t just throw you a huge mortgage. Sure some will be in debt, but so will some in small houses, some in rented and some living with family.

The envy will destroy your friendship. All the fancy stuff will probably be on tick/debt - unless they have very well paying jobs. Would you want the worry of overstretching your finances?

My BIL drives a fancy car and has a fancy house, but only shows up round ours if he wants to borrow money. He's probably only a month or so away from losing it all.

As my dear old gran would say he's all fur coat and no knickers!

The irony being there are probably quite a few folk out there jealous of your set up. As they say envy is the thief of joy. Just focus on things that are within your control and forget what others spend their money on. I am probably in a similar situation to you and have a few millionaire friends (large Central London Town House, Aston Martin cars, exotic holidays etc) who have both retired early. Their lifestyle is quite frankly astonishing and now and again I think 'wow I wish I could be like them' but it's a pointless exercise and on the grand scheme of things there are plenty of people out there who are having to choose between eating and heating their home and that brings some perspective back as to how lucky I am.

Or it could be no one else's business including friends

Op there is something missing in your life that is on no one else

You can use those feelings to figure out exactly what you are discontent with in your own life and make active changes if you need to or help you see that what you have is enough. It isn’t wrong to feel like you are being left behind, but what would you need to do to change things? Would that price be higher than you want to pay?

For example, having an affordable smaller home is much better than having over stretched and have money worries about losing it all. Having a paid for car is better than finding money for monthly payments for a more expensive, newer car. Many of the people you are looking at will be in that situation, they just won’t be telling you that.

It is always disconcerting not to have achieved what you might have expected to but so long as we have what we need it is enough.

My household income is over £100k. We can’t have children. Want to swap?

Really surprised about all these threads about people being envious of their own friends and even the comments on here about debt and the like, I genuinely didn’t know that was such a common thing, that people feel and behave like this. Wanting what others have, being bitter and resentful and saying it’s debt or the like as a way to make themselves feel better.

its just really sad that people are like this,

Honestly if you don't know how they can afford it, they are probably up to their eyeballs in debt.

There's a post over on the mse forum about a family with a great lifestyle who have just realised they have 75k of debt.

The grass isn't greener, it's all smoke and mirrors.

As @officeparty has posted, you have no idea what people might be struggling with behind closed doors and wealth isnt an automatic indicator of happiness. I am so sorry for your loss @officeparty

Agree that envy is a complete and utter waste of time and energy. As Baz Luhrman wisely says in the song "everybody's free": "sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long but in the end, it's only with yourself".

In life, you will always find people who are wealthier than you and also people who are poorer than you. Think about all that wasted time you've spent comparing yourself to others and what you could have been doing instead- you could have been working on a side hustle, you could have been thinking up creative ideas to start a new project, you could have been thinking about changing jobs etc etc.

This really is all about the lens through which you are viewing your life - change the lens, change your feelings. Gratitude meditations are really helpful for this.

The people with the flashy cars and big houses aren't satisfied with them either. They also want bigger and better.

Same here, my company car costs me £20pm for a £45k electric car.

The cars might be company cars, costing them a fraction of what it would cost to buy it themselves. We have a company car costing us £200 a month and it's worth £35,000 no way would we be able to go into a dealership and purchase one privately

On a practical note, whenever I feel like this I do something in my smallish home that makes it nicer - a bit of DIY or decorating, decluttering, or even a nice scented candle. Over time that makes a difference both to the house and the mindset. Also there's lots of 'small space' inspiration online that's very positive. I also remind myself that large houses = more cleaning.