To not understand how people fund their lives and feel a bit jealous?

If you're wondering why money doesn't stretch as far as you expect, it's because you're expecting too much. And there's a simple remedy for that.

Good call

Start a thread in money matters itemising your spending and asking for budgeting help. That will be more useful. Your money must be going somewhere.

Ok, to reply to your update - you need to stop looking at people and being envious of what they have. Many people could look at your life with envy, couldn't imagine ever having a gift of a house deposit, a high salary, a holiday in the Maldives.
Your money will go far, and it will give you a very comfortable, privileged lifestyle.

In words of a famous tennis player - you cannot be serious!

Some people have more money than you. Some people have different priorities to you. Some (most?) people have better money management skills than you. Some (most) people have better awareness than you.

What you're asking is why do your neighbours have big posh cars and a seemingly limitless luxury lifestyle yet you have to scrimp and save

Firstly - by my standards you're not scrimping but I'll take you at your perception

Secondly - the neighbours either earn way more than you, have inherited wealth or are in debt

That's your answer

You sound younger than mid thirties and imo its a shame that you can't live happily without envy

Wow... we earn roughly half that, have a three bed, live on the commuter belt and do in fact commute into London lol.

We have two cars, go on a caravan holiday and a mini european break every year. Could afford a big international one but we like to save instead as the house needs work. We save £800 a month. There are only three of us however and whilst DS does a lot of EC we ourselves do budget carefully when it comes to the food shop, but then we also eat out twice a month.

How are people on £100k finding money for both savings and holidays? How much are you saving on this salary after bills and holidays?

If you genuinely can’t afford to buy new shoes for yourself and you take home a combined income of 180k then something somewhere is going horribly wrong.

Good grief.

So sorry to hear that you won't be sending your child to private school, just like 93% of the population. I'm sure you'll all cope.

I would say that's the car purchaser's choice, not yours.

Not sure why you are complaining. But not affording new clothes, shoes and coffees out on a household income of £ 180k a year is kind of ridiculous. Has one of you got a gambling habit.

Have you considered taking in some ironing to earn some extra money? 😂

If the mortgage after a £50k deposit on your 'very modest' 3 bed house feels big on an £180k pa income , then it's unlikely it's actually that modest in reality.

It's a common problem on here. People spend their money on the most expensive version of everything and then complain their money doesn't go very far and they 'can't afford anything nice'. I bet your grocery bill is twice the national average. Plus you're apparently looking at £15k holidays.

So you've chosen to live in an expensive area, you probably fill your trolley with abundance at the supermarket without a second thought, and you're spending the price of a very decent second hand car on a holiday. Your 'financially careful and not big spenders' probably looks like 'we feel like millionaires' to the majority of the population.

Perhaps try spending less on a holiday? If you really are spending £15K on them then that's an insane amount even for that income.

We earn less than half you and we struggle to afford a non luxury overseas holiday (prices last night £5K nearly for a week although that is all inclusive but I think for us we get close to our moneys worth when you compare the same holiday but SC)

However we spend a lot day to day, don't worry about replacing shoes/clothes so that's where we differ. If I didn't spend a fortune on fitness coaches/physio/running then we might not balk at 5K. We also don't have a big mortgage because we bought several years ago and haven't upsized. We technically could but then our lifestyle would drop and we would find ourselves working just to pay the mortgage and I'm not sure it's worth it.

It is frustrating that money doesn't go as far as you once thought it would but everyone has to make compromises somehow unless you are mega rich. I'm glad we don't have to worry about feeding/clothing everybody, putting the heating on even if sometimes I have a little sulk that I can't afford a nice holiday.

Come on OP. Surely someone capable of earning a salary at that level would have arrived at their mid thirties with more awareness of how this post will go down with readers on average or low incomes?

But in case this post is real, ….it’s down to priorities. I prioritise travel and time with family over cars, clothes and eating out. I don’t look or act ‘rich’. And I am fine with that. It filters out shallow money obsessed people.

It sounds from your user name that you also prioritise travel over a bigger house or a smarter car. That’s ok. Just own it and be confident in your choices. You aren’t obliged to explain your priorities to anyone. If you really want a bigger house / car, cut back on holidays and eating out.

If you’ve not grown up with this kind of affluence, it’s easy to imagine that such a salary will buy a millionaire lifestyle. But it won’t, not in the South East of England!

You live in a affluent area obviously those around you either earn more, budget better, have lower out goings or lots of debt.

Do some budgeting, write down what you spend and see where you are going wrong. We have a joint income of approximately 90k it’s around 5k a month our outgoings are-

mortgage 600
house bills approx 1000
food approx 800
petrol approx 300
Dog walker 200
Expenses (clubs, gym, childcare etc) 500

That leave 1600. We save/invest £900 and over pay on mortgage by £200 so that leaves £500 which usually getting mopped up with car expenses, birthdays, days out etc. We rarely eat out, buy second hand clothes (by choice). If we were more careful/cut back we could save another £1k a month I reckon . We have one child and one adult child at home. We go on one abroad holiday a year budget 3k and usually one or two weekend breaks.

You either have big expenses or don’t live within your means.

This is a good idea. It sounds like they deserve a bigger house and new car

That's a budgeting issue. It might not be mega riches, but you should be very comfortable indeed on that income. If you're not, you need to seriously reassess your lifestyle and expenditure.
Perhaps drop the second Maldives trip and save instead?

I do like it when people are direct 😄

I live in the north on what is probably a similar combined salary.

We put probably £2k gross salary into pension a month, and a further £2,750 into savings (although £1k of that is saving for in year spend, like home improvements or holidays).

We have two non 4x4 cars (8 and 5 years old) and a 3 bed detached house (mortgage of £1,500 pm). Admittedly no kids, but a dog that probably has £200+ spent on her a month.

Even if my mortgage costs doubled (to allow for bigger house prices in the south), I could still afford a new top of the range 4x4 on top of my current expenses on some sort of finance deal, but I choose not to as I’m saving for the future. I probably spend £15k a year on holidays that could easily cut back on if I had other priorities.

I definitely don’t need to pack a packed lunch on a day out.

If at that level of salary you can’t afford it, you need to look at your spending habits as either you’re saving so much it’s impacting your day to day life (fine if you want to make that trade off) or you are frittering money away somewhere mindlessly.

I know that others near me are spending more on cars because they’re not spending as much on holidays, or home improvements or saving as much as I am. You need to understand what decision you’re making differently to rationalise your spending differences.