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

But they aren't the mainstream narratives, they are just the podcasts/influencers you and other people CHOOSE to engage with. I follow Martin Lewis and Feed Your Family for £1 a Day and similar; I think the advice is really good and appropriate. My advice would be that you find different podcasts/influencers to follow. ML is definitely mainstream.

I completely agree with this too.

I/we used to have to count and watch every penny. Having grown up in a single parent family I found it easy, DH found it more difficult - that’s even though outsiders would have seen my background as privileged and his as stereotypical working class (you never know what actual situations are from outside).
Through our occupational success we’ve had about 10 years of not having to penny pinch, although I’m still careful.

A couple of months ago that all changed and were suddenly in a bad financial situation (unforeesable and no-one’s fault). OMG is it hard to go back to counting every penny. Plus we have more expensive outgoings with a bigger house, kids and pets.

You forget how hard it is, even if you have lived it before.

I don't think it's necessarily happening at rich people. Even people on ok incomes can be insensitive to those on less income when it comes to arranging things in a friendship group. People will often suggest things that others obviously can't afford as if it costs nothing. I'm not criticising here. It's just the way it is.

And if they've got two kids, presumably just keep them in a cupboard or something?

Exactly, it can mean very different things to different people.

Also it would be hard to understand how some people live when they want to portray themselves as wealthy but it’s all borrowed money….

Equally there are a lot of people on low incomes or benefits who live counting pennies due to lifestyle decisions they have made.

As PPs mentioned above, there are a lot of people who started very poor but managed to climb up and are well off now. This is the prime group to not understand why those at the bottom can't or won't do the same.

With regards to OP's examples "why don't you buy instead of renting or take a gap year and go travelling" - I've never ever seen this in real life or online. I guess it's just an attempt to start yet another divisive thread.

I worry about this a little bit with my daughter. I wasn't born into money, had a good work ethic from an early age, then fell into money later in life when my husband got very successful in his company.
My daughter has been brought up very privileged and I worry she'll behave like this as she doesn't know any different. We don't purposely spoil her, but she's naturally spoilt really with everything she has.

This! People are often inclined to distrust things which they have no experience of.
There is so much snobbery and jealousy on here, people have no idea what others have been through but are quick to tell them their opinions of how they live. Why can't we celebrate sucess, build up those who are struggling.
DH and I are fairly comfortable financially, we don't have many 'luxuries' but don't have to worry each month if we will afford our bills. But we both have progressive disabilities, people may look at us from the outside and think we are very fortunate. And in many ways we are, we have freedom, healthcare, free schooling, a secure place to live, a good marriage, amazing children who make us proud every day. But we also have constant pain, and the knowledge that it's only going to get worse. No one else sees that.

I do understand that someone earning that much will not be 3 times as well off as someone on say £33,000. But I don’t understand why you have listed things such as council tax, mortgage, childcare, bills etc when someone earning that much has to pay them too! They will be entitled to child benefit but that is all , hardly raking it in!
like many have said, I definitely understand that they may not have lots more disposable income, but what they do have is a greater range of choices, and that is privilege.

I’ve never heard anyone with “millions” tell anybody to “just buy a flat”, and I know plenty of people on both ends of that spectrum.

Are these personal friends, or conversations you just happen to have overheard in public where you seem to know the financial position of those involved, or do you just follow the sort of social media accounts where idiots make a fortune from being idiots?

Ya, there's a lot of people who blame poor people for being poor, single mums included. Like this is what they are choosing, it's their choice. It means they can happily carry on without guilt or awareness. It's how dad's can walk away too. Much easier to blame the single mom and carry on than it is to take a closer look. I don't understand it either. And a lot of men will date single mums and not help at all with the kids, which I know is controversial. But at the end of the day, if I saw my partner struggling with even a shopping bag for too long, I'd probably offer to help. Or is the shopping bag his baggage, his tough luck 🤔

The examples given in the post you replied to were paying mortgage, income tax,council tax, utility bills and nursery fees. Which of those do you think can be 'cut back'? Have to pay nursery fees to be able to work. I can't say to the council, can I 'cut back' on my council tax or tell HMRC I'm going to 'cut back' on the tax I pay!

I don’t think it is particularly or even primarily rich people who open my eyes to completely different outlooks to money.

Ordinary people seem to trot out ‘just put up a fence’ (which is a minimum of £600 IME unless you can do all the labour yourself) ‘just go to a hotel’ rather than stay with relatives (usually about £100 - 150 these days’

People who buy cars for their 18 year olds, talk about ‘only one holiday abroad every year’, ordinary people with finance on great big high spec cars that they ‘need’…people who are really really snotty about cheaper areas of London where people live (decent ordinary lives) because it is what they can afford.

And the constant updating of kitchens and bathrooms. People who talk of living in 3 bed semis (me when Dc were at home) commenting on links to houses that perfectly decent kitchens and bathrooms look ‘tired’ and will need a new one if the OP buys it.

And amongst the heartbreaking CoL posts, casual mentions of new graduates in first jobs at £30k, people earning £100k by 30.

And real nastiness to people who have had better luck, chosen different career paths or work/ life balances to earn more or have simply had abilities and talents that enable higher earnings.

It was during the financial crisis, and IIRC in the Telegraph, where a food writer wrote about ‘using up leftovers’.

I swear I haven’t made this up, but she actually wrote about using 6 discarded lobster shells (from a previous dinner party, obviously) to make broth for a seafood soup! 😂😂

Why is it relevant what shoes a journalist was wearing or how much they cost when she was giving advice to those who are unable to make good spending decisions?

This is what I mean by people being envious and jealous of others having more rather than focusing on what they have

I think you mean ‘sponge off the taxpayer’.

I think some comes down to character but I agree that some people are completely out of touch, especially if they haven't experienced it.

Two examples come to mind:

• the journalist who suggested people eat porridge while she wearing a a pair of £600 shoes.
• A comment on FB where a person suggested struggling single parents forage for food that is "abundant" in the UK. She fondly remembers her nanny taking her to pick mushrooms and having mushrooms on toast for supper apparently. I wish Id screen shot it.

Of course it is, those threads are always 'why do I bother having this high stress job when I don't get xyz benefit, I could give up work and claim xyz' except they never do, because they know they are significantly better off. They just people 'getting something for free'.

I agree that those on much higher income to most people are totally oblivious to how most people live. It is as if they do not watch the news. Food bank awareness etc. Life is a helluva lot more stressful on much lower incomes.

Wow. My husband is a removals and disposal/handyman/man with a van and sometimes when people take ages to pay we have to use his credit card to buy groceries, which we then pay interest on (that can't be passed on to the payers). God knows what we would do if he didn't have a credit card - saving is just impossible in this climate.

Perhaps someone on £26k should rent a room not a whole flat/house.

I was brought up in a very poor household, and have worked and probably had a bit of luck along the way and am now comfortable, but far from what I'd consider “rich”; that’s terribly subjective.

I would absolutely still advise someone to buy as soon as they can scrape anything together, the younger the better, even a hovel to do up. I wish I’d had someone to advise me similarly, instead of the implication being I should just get pregnant and get a council flat (as several of my contemporaries did).

A year off for travelling is solidly MC advice and requires far more money IMO than buying somewhere.

In my experience, most rich people don't even realise they are rich! My friend, who owns three houses and has children attending the most expensive private school in the UK, was moaning to me this morning that 'it would be nice to be rich enough never to have money worries.' My initial thought was 'well, if you put your kids in a state school and lived a little more frugally, you also would not have money worries!' Some people are simply too selfish to understand the realities of those outside their own bubble.

Agree OP, it gets me on property threads when someone says they are thinking of moving to a certain area and have a budget of £300k,and posters pop up saying oh no that area isdreadful, these areas are much nicer - then proceed to name areas which are way outside the OP’s specified budget. As if if the OP can magically produce an extra couple of hundred k from somewhere.

On MN..your child should have a room, unsuiteswimming pool and room for a pony to themselves, when ordinary families are sharing, parents sleeping in lounges etc. see it all the time. Along with just move, ltb, relocate etc..
Like none of it costs money.