Do you consider this ‘wealthy’?

Yes. There's surely no possibility that bring in the top 5% can be considered less than wealthy.

I'd consider the richest 20% rich.

Personally, I'm better off than 40% of the UK according to the IFS measure and I consider myself "comfortable". I have enough for food, rent, energy bills, holidays and extras such as eating out.

Claiming to be "struggling" to pay for luxuries is just tone deaf and wanky.

I daresay Jeff Bezos might "struggle" to encrust his rocket with diamonds but it's not actually any sort of struggle or deprivation, is it?

It's just greed and/or status stuff.

Hard work does not equal being wealthy, it never did. Getting into the right career or owning a business makes a difference. I see people working hard but they don’t have origin ideas, start companies or become highly paid financiers or lawyers. It’s not luck. It’s about being more capable at skills that make money. Obviously some inherit but others do make it for themselves. All will work hard doing so.

They can indeed be struggling to afford what they want to. ‘Struggling’ doesn’t just apply to the least well off, and you can struggle to afford the things you want, not just the things you need.

I wouldn’t call them wealthy. That isn’t the same thing as calling them poor.

sounds very well off to me. not anything to feel guilty over,but more than one house when most people can't buy ONE, private schools, several holidays a year, that's definitely wealthy.

Every rich person i know believes they got there purely from hard work, plenty of poor people work equally as hard or harder. Two or three jobs and still struggle.

The reality is that hard work and a great deal of being in the right place at the right time i.e. Luck and privilege are also required.

🙄

But it is a CHOICE.

They have enough spare money to private educate their children, and absolutely it is up to them how they spend their own money, but if they don't want to buy a dessert it is because of CHOICES they have made, not because they literally do not have enough money to buy the dessert. They DO have the money, they're just choosing to spend it elsewhere.

It just makes them struggling to meet the standards they have set for themselves @PigletJohn However wealthy people could have deserts and school fees! New cars, several houses. Not go near a buy to let, and still easily afford school fees. And lots of very expensive holidays.

Any fool can spend all the money they've got and then complain about being hard up.

It doesn't make them poor.

Nobody said they can spend what the hell they like, but they're not in any shape or form struggling.

@category12

they do make a choice to not eat dessert when they go out for lunch! Or they avoid going to lunch

I’d avoid it too if it meant more holidays etc!!

For some people it is worth paying school fees and being careful with money rather than spending on eating out

just because they have no mortgage and kids in private ed it doesn’t mean they can spend what the hell they like! Even if it comes down to a pudding!

They sound like very wealthy humblebraggers

If you run them yourself, it’s a business. Loads of people run them as such. It’s hardly passive! If you have to sell anything to fund private education, you are not wealthy. What families in stately homes use state education? They are wealthy.I agree. Most have family trusts. They don’t sell anything to afford school fees! As if. Well maybe the odd Canaletto or Chippendale chair!

You could say that about many of the people who own stately homes. They're still wealthy.

If they have enough surplus assets to sell beyond the family home to fund private education for multiple children of course they're wealthy.

And owning a few rental properties isn't a business, it's passive investment.

Absolutely wealthy.

They are financing mortgages on the rentals. That’s not wealth. It’s really a business. Plus if they need to sell assets to afford private education, they are not wealthy. Wealthy people don’t need to do this.

Top 10%

How do you know the ins and outs of someone's finances? Even down to the specifics of the ltv

Yes, if they cancel their Sky subscription, don’t own a flat screen tv and don’t pay for private education.

So? Doesn't mean they're "struggling" - it means they're making lifestyle choices they can't afford.

They simply cut back on a holiday or have a cheaper car and they're back within their means - and they're still not suffering any deprivation. "Oh no we can't go to the Seychelles 4 times this year, it'll have to be 3." Oh dear, fetch a waahmbulance.

Someone who is actually struggling doesn't have that luxury.

I agree that we don't have a meritocracy, but I don't think one is desirable either.

If you had a perfect meritocracy you'd still only have a small minority able to come out on top - it's kinda obvious that not everyone can benefit from the rental income of two buy-to-let properties as the OP has, because they need the "failures" to be stuck renting from them and paying for their holidays.

And the grinding psychological damage from meritocracy is that it tells people who don't come out on top that they only have themselves to blame.

Yes but until we know what the brother does it is not crazy to think that her family has bought their home and paid the school fees.

Food, bills, uniforms, holidays, cars etc would wipe out a 100k salary each month easily

Well, the problem with the mirage of a meritocracy. We don’t have a meritocracy really. But the view that ‘if the poor just tried a little harder they too could become wealthy’ means that the wealthiest can feel ok about benefiting from a system that disadvantages the many to benefit the few. The myth of ‘trickle down economics’ does the same. I’m not a socialist but work with disadvantaged people and in inequality of opportunity is staggering. There are so many complex layers of hurdles and barriers that make it infinitely more difficult to become wealthy if you are born poor. Especially at the moment.

Are OPs family about to die, they sound quite young or at least only middle aged, what are hearses and shrouds got to do with it, they don't sound elderly.