To think most rich people don’t understand how the rest of us live?

Haven't read all the responses but agree. Not badly off - but I was with a much wealthier friend recently who was pushing for us to go away for a weekend. I said I can't afford it at the mo, she said 'but it doesn't need to be a super-expensive hotel or anything...'

She just couldn't seem to compute that right now, I just don't have any spare money whatsoever. A few hundred quid (and more in fact) is nothing to her. It's not her 'fault' but if you have the kind of money when there's always at least several grand in the current account, I think you begin to lose sight of what's 'normal'.

I keep seeing advice from wealthy people that is completely out of touch with reality - things like “just buy a house instead of renting” or “take a year off to travel and find yourself.”

I am struggling to recall seeing/hearing anything like this except from weird Americans on Reddit.

If you have never experienced something then you can't fully understand it. I can't comprehend being mega rich, equally I can't compregend living in a slum in Brazil for example. I can try and think what it might be like, but I would be way off. I am too far removed.

Assuming that these people giving somewhat haphazard suggestions on the internet are ‘ rich’ is naieve.
They are just people passing the time on the internet. They could be anyone, or trolling, or, anything…but you assume they are “ rich”. You could widen your parameters somewhat and stop assuming everyone that says impractical or out of the box suggestions are ‘rich’. Brainstorming ideas on the internet is a game all of its own, you never know what might resonate or spark a new idea.. people don’t throw out ideas after carefully studying your bank statements, on a chat thread.

The reason this is more of a problem when rich people are out of touch with how low-income people live is because rich people overwhelmingly are the ones in positions of power and influence over things like policy, national spending, etc.

So while it's true that anyone can struggle to understand how someone from a different social or economic group lives, it's less of a tangible issue if a poor person doesn't understand how a rich person lives because they've no power of a rich person's life (talking in societal terms). But rich people not being aware of how poorer people live can actually affect important things.

@Pavingprincess proving the point of the thread with absolutely no irony.

Tell that to people earning more than the minimum wage who have the audacity to still live in social housing. If a wealthier person finds themselves in a situation where they can’t afford to keep their kids in their school they are told just to move somewhere cheaper. If a person in social housing has to leave their home, the system takes in to consideration that they shouldn’t have to move away from their local area. It’s either ok for kids to move school because of family circumstances or it’s not.

It’s not only wealthy people who out of touch. DH’s family aren’t rich at all, but SIL - retired last month- has never moved out. So, never paid rent/mortgage, utilities, home insurance etc. She constantly berates DH for not having disposable money and not donating enough to charities.

Even if I was a billionaires I'd still favour public transport and active travel over even considering a car.

Ok

I agree with you OP. I've been very poor and experienced homelessness, and most of my family are quite poor, but I was very lucky from the age of about 25 to get out of that trap, and I still forget, even though I lived it.

Absolutely, in the same way I have no idea how the well off or even comfortably off live. I can go through periods of time feeling quite comfortably off and thinking hm I really am quite privileged (and don't get me wrong, in many ways I am privileged - I have a roof over my head, food, a loving family, can afford cheap luxuries, etc.), but then I'll speak to someone who is ACTUALLY comfortably off and get a rude shock 😂

Surely the point is, not understanding who other people live isn’t the preserve of “wealthy” people (whatever that means).

As always it seems absolutely fine to bash anyone who has some money but the minute you suggest those on a low income have done anything wrong at all, ever, nobody wants to hear it.

I've seen some absolutely ridiculous posts on here.

One woman was talking about problems with her daughter, who was questioning her gender identity and saying she was a boy. She was concerned about her daughter being indoctrinated online. She seemed to be following things on instagram.

One woman was genuinely saying she would take her daughter out of school, quit her job and take her travelling for a year to find herself. Remove her phone and take her travelling all over the world. Who's got money to not work and fund the mortgage or rent for a year and go travelling around the world on a jolly for 2 people.

I read advice once in response to a blended step family not really, getting along, was to split the family back up again. Sell the house and buy two more houses. So they live apart with their respective children and go back to a non living together, relationship. They were a married couple and had been together for a while. Just go and buy two houses and have two sets of mortgage, council tax bills, etc was the advice given.

Those things can only be done if there is a considerable amount of money available to the family.

But then I grew up in her family where I had to wait for my mum to go and collect the benefits on monday morning at the Post Office, so we had food to eat and a bus fare to school. Maybe i'm the one that's out of touch.

Poor people also have to pay nursery fees and council tax and housing and tax and you may not have 4 times what others have but you still have a lot more

Even so, lifestyle creep is a choice. No one forces you to move to a bigger home, or to buy a new car.

The “it’s just about mindset” crowd drive me nuts too.

There are people struggling who on the surface don’t need to be - two identical families on same income and one is fine and the other is struggling. Because sometimes people have very different expectations of life - so one family chooses a 2 bed semi in a nice part of town and the other choses a 4 bed detached on a posh road … and they also always choose to go on holiday every year and they chose to eat out and have a takeaway every week … and then they feel that they are struggling and stressing over money and can’t understand the other family are not and that can be annoying. On one hand they are struggling and on the other they made their choices and spent it

there are people who fritter away tens of thousands on the latte lifestyle and that could be house deposit money for someone else

which is why it’s always hard - at most wealth/ income levels in the same jobs and towns some will struggle and some will thrive and when you see a post here it’s hard to say how much people are making their problems worse by their choices and how much they are just making the most optimal choices and still going to be in trouble

and then there are the utterly clueless

and there are those I feel sorry for , who seem to me to miss out on so much personal development because they just throw money at any problem - find child care tricky or boring ? - spend £250 a week on entertainment

I think that's great!

This is a ridiculous thing to say.
The hardest place to be is the bottom of the income scale.

Yes, but she has the option to choose that lifestyle doesn't she? She has opted for private school.

I was born to teenage parents, we struggled to provide food and we spent many a Sunday in the dark as we had no more money for the meter. Clothes to short and shoes falling a part

I was determined to never make some of the choices my parents made. University was not even a choice for me , nor was driving as examples. I have saved hard to ensure my children have those choices. On paper people think we doing ok, but when we discussed with my sister and showed her the outgoings - it wasn’t much difference. The main one being we have managed to buy a house - mortgage payments higher as we are the wrong side of 40. She will still have to pay her council rent when hopefully at 67/70 our mortgage will be paid! We private rented in a 2 bedroom flat for many years.

The only thing I wish was that I had enough to help our children get on the property ladder - that looks very unlikely!

We seem to be focusing on the wrong side of who is rich. It’s not the always the families who earn the £100k mark it’s the much more wealthy and that gap is HUGE.

It feels like someone is playing the low income against the middle income as good distraction why they get more wealthier.

It's far broader than "rich versus poor". I think people generally these days have very little empathy for others, and an ability to "walk in someone else's shoes" in any aspect of life. Despite the internet and easy travel, people do seem to be becoming more insular and less able to see the broader picture nor understand other peoples' points of view, etc. It's very worrying. We've got young and old against each other, rich and poor, drivers and non drivers, North versus South, home grown versus immigrants. We're becoming less tolerant rather than more tolerant.