Poor life planning..

We're never going to agree, and the conversation has been done 1000 times, so I'll just leave it there. Our positions are entrenched and immovable.

Yes I get that, and expect my taxes to go towards education for all. Education is a public good.

What I object to is a punitive tax on private schools.

i don t mind paying twice (through general taxation and fees) but I do object to paying three times through general taxation, then through fees and now through a specific tax on private school fees

Exactly this. I’m a little torn as I do understand that people need a decent standard of living. I work as a manager in a company and a few women I work with, single mothers, are earning more than me and my DH also a manager once their wages and benefits are totted up. They have a very low stress position and walk out the door with more money and that feels wrong.

Bitter much?

Loophole?

You mean policy driven by spite.

You have misunderstood. Op is saying that the rich should live within their means just as the poor have to live within their means. If you do or don’t have a degree you still need to choose a mortgage or school or holiday or car that reflects your income. People need to leave enough aside for other day to day expenses. Some well off Mumsneters think they should be exempt from sound financial planning. A lot of these threads make you wonder how some of these people ended up with such high income in the first place.

I think you mean any voter can have an opinion. A lot of people pay tax but don’t vote, they may as well write their complaint on a piece of paper and chuck it in the bin!

Im sick of all the high income families complaining that they don’t want to keep libraries open and keep OAPs off of trollies in between bragging about their expenses lifestyles.

It is completely true that the poorest get told to put up/shut up/batch cook/take in ironing when they complain about struggling.

Also, this is what happens when you vote to pay less tax and deplete the system for 10 years. The system crumbles and needs putting back together. There was a time, maybe before the 80s, when people were happy to actively contribute to society. Although there are always peaks and troughs. Children dying in mouldy slum housing in the 2010’s is very comparable to people dying of poor conditions in the Victorian slums.

Sorry, wrong thread!!!

So if the idea is that everyone should get identical lives, where is the incentive to improve one's lot, why did I slog through an OU degree when I was at home with two young children if not to be able to get a better job once they were in school? No country, however left wing, has ever successfully applied this, in fact the gap between haves and have nots in these countries was far greater.
The OP talks disparagingly about her family's life choices, what about her own life choices?

It is also arrogant to assume that tax payers should pay for all your supposed “basics”! Where is your own sense of responsibility?! If you want nice things, get off your butt and work for it like the rest of us. Not take from those who have slogged hard all their life and give it to those who can’t even be arsed to get up and get a job!

It's debt. In our case, anyway. We're (suddenly, due to both a really fortuitous change of circumstances and a massive amount of hard work) better off than we've ever been. More money than we'd ever hoped to earn. We were desperately skint before this, though, and scraped by with debt coming out of our arseholes, living in a financial hole we never thought we'd climb our way out of.

The debt hasn't disappeared, we still have it. We're just able to actually pay it off now, which leaves us with nothing despite a nice income.

Not gonna moan though, it is what it is. I'd still rather be in this position than our previous one. It's about perspective I spose.

I just think most people live beyond their means. Lifestyles inflate to match and then eclipse increased salaries, and then it's too easy to become entitled and lose touch with reality a bit.

The education that your tax pays for benefits you indirectly by producing an educated populace? It's quite obvious if you think about it

I'd sort my 3 year old's sleep out, not because of my husband but because my child is 3 and should be in his own bed. But then I never had my kids in my bed, they were in their own rooms from 12 weeks and slept through from 6 months 🤷‍♀️

I do agree with this. There is not a huge amount of incentive for continuous education, aspiration, saving so the dc have a better life than if we didn't, saving money into a pension only to see it decrease in value and taxes go up!

What on earth is the point, if I can't enjoy it? I don't mean swan about living the life of Riley. I mean go out for dinner once jn a while, take the dc to cinema. Put petrol in the car and have a day out and not have to take cheap snacks.

Charity begins at home, not at the treasury.

But if they were talking about the complaints of a much lower earner, they're quick to sneer at the 'poor choices' those people have (allegedly) made! The fact is, for both groups, they merrily live up to their income. Experience tells me that the much lower earner has far fewer choice than the higher earner. I read a whiny thread from someone who whinged about how hard their life was on £5 a month & I laughed because I was the dreaded single mother with 2 kids, earning a quarter of that + child benefit. We got by, it was a bit of a struggle but nobody died. By god, what I could I have done with the equivalent of £5k a month! Maybe I would have over extended too - who knows.
Everyone should contribute to our society. It's what ensures that we have the nice things & not a few ridiculously wealthy people + an underclass of under educated, resentful rabble. I know it's what people have been enthusiastically voting for this last decade & a half but it hasn't turned out well so far, has it? I don't bear a torch for Labour but they don't stand a chance if the electorate just squawk like hungry baby birds, beaks agape for More.

North Korea will welcome you with open arms 🙄

Not really. I had an excellent career and I was equally good at being self-employed for 20-odd years. But if the then version of me had been in the same situation now, I would definitely just have gone offshore. I worked, I saved, bought a home, put money into a pension... Right now to little personal benefit because my taxes are being used to finance the incompetent and inadequate. I don't mind paying my due tax share for schools, hospitals, roads and justice at all.

I mean if we are critical of people who make poor choices why not people who have kids when they clearly can’t afford it? People who didn’t finish school or imporve themselves in any way? People who use payday loans or spend stupid amounts at xmas, people who seem incapable of working full time hours ever they. Plenty of people make silly choices.

Earning lots of money through hard work and then being a bit miffed that you are getting shaken down even more to sub people who make really really bad choices doesn’t seem unreasonable to me tbh. Your sister didn’t make bad choices but she’s now hostage to other peoples bad choices.

100%

A lot of peoples problems comes down to financial illiteracy. It usually follows that higher wages = higher spending but no thoughts towards generating passive income or building up a buffer for a rainy day.