AIBU to be baffled by colleague on same wage living lavishly?

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😂 does this make you feel better? So she definitely didn’t inherit from her aunt, her husband definitely doesn’t have a well paid job, she definitely didn’t have a lottery won at any stage. It’s debt.

Could be that she has a trust fund from grandparents, parents are buying / paying for things to avoid inheritance tax. Having no debt means you aren’t paying fees in the form of interest to service said debt. I save £200 a month for my next car (own mine outright and always have) it’s a discipline that not everyone can do, and don’t mean afford, it jeans when mine finally gives up the ghost I will buy a car outright up to the amount I have (currently on £15k hoping it will last 5 more years). The trips you mentioned may not be that expensive, bat the actual Disney tickets because those who are good at finding cheap flights and accommodation can make money go much further, all those holidays combined are likely cheaper than a week in school holidays in a bog standard ai, and my money’s on her mum paying for the spa trip

I'm currently living on such a low income a lot of MNers would wonder how I'm not on the streets...

If I suddenly got 50k a year - even accounting for tax - I'd be able to afford the things mentioned in OP. And that's before being able to split costs with a DH! (I don't have one!)

Some of us know how to budget very well. Amazed the thread has only a few posters pointing this out.

I wouldn't mind so much but so many who earn well look down on those on benefits and think they are rolling in it. Nope - just budgeting in a way so many apparently can't comprehend!

I also find the debt assumption bizarre.

do people really think it’s possible to just go through life accumulating more and more and more debt without it coming to an end? No debt, no matter how poor quality is endless. You will obvious get to a point (quickly- within years) where no one will lend you any more and you are struggling to make repayments.

how does it even work in people’s minds that normal working salaried people can take out debt every time they want a holiday, car, shopping trip, and it never catches up?

Yes - what I find baffling are these types of threads. How can anyone afford to (insert thing) when i am struggling. People must know that other people have different incomes and lives than they do surely? What people are really saying is I want to be told that she's doing something nefarious so that I can feel better about my life and not being able to afford what they can.

I have this from colleagues - some who earn more than me but the general thought seems to be that I am loaded (No one seems to be shy about telling me this which really pisses me off) and assume my dh earns a fortune and 'keeps' me. (He doesn't).
I don't buy coffee or lunch every day, I only buy something if I really want it, I save every penny I can without making myself miserable. That may be very little one month or a bit more the next. I don't save FOR something, I save INCASE I want something. I sell clothes etc that I no longer want. I do prolific surveys. I take advantage of sales and bargains.
You just have to decide what your priorities are.

Why obviously - you know nothing about her?

Not necessarily. I know a lot of people who work in education with high earner spouses ... you'd be surprised.

I also know people whose own parents died relatively young and they've inherited quite a bit at young ages.

The lifestyles of all of these people are quite similar to what the OP has posted ...

Well for comparison of people affording different things on the same salaries the first £50k I earn goes on my mortgage 😫

I have colleagues who earn less than I do who live more lavishly than I do, however our situations outside of work are very different! I’m single so nobody to share bills with, most of my colleagues have partners who are the main breadwinner so household income is much higher than mine.

Also just because parents and in laws are alive doesn’t mean there can’t have been inheritance, I have a friend who has twice received inheritance, once from a great aunt and then from an uncle. Another friend was left a large amount of inheritance from grandparents who skipped a generation in the will, her parents didn’t get anything it all went to her, her sibling and cousins. If your parents are well off they may also choose to gift you money towards things like house deposits whilst alive, I wouldn’t have been able to buy my house if my parents hadn’t kindly gifted me the money for the deposit.

Yes, this. We go on regular holidays which we pay in installments, but my friend regularly says how she'd love a holiday but can't afford it. Meanwhile, her and her husband spend a fortune each month on unnecessarily expensive contracts for the latest phones and smart watches, which work out more expensive monthly than our installments for the holidays.

I've always been poor so now I have more money nowhere near 50k I can afford all these things because I know how to live poor I don't really spend money in day to day life. I couldn't tell you the last time I bought new shoes or clothes I bought a new handbag about 6 months ago for £3 second hand. We don't have the newest phone contracts or cars on finance my car is 10 years old, I don't buy expensive coffees or pay for nail, eyebrows etc. When I get my hair cut its a dry trim. We don't have sky TV. Kids aren't in loads of clubs. All our tech is old and 2nd hand. We have no childcare costs, low mortgage. We buy basic food not always the healthiest but lots of pasta and potatoes.

Grandparents. My kids have had a huge amount from grandparents.

Her husband earns more than yours I presume, pretty obvious really no?

Partner
inheritance
bank of mum and dad

Just a few suggestions

No point trying to figure it out, one thing I realised years ago is never underestimate just how much money some people have.

It's true, none of the things mentioned are necessarily particularly expensive. A new house last year means bugger all, there'll be people who moved house last year who are paying a few hundred a month. Or who downsized to be mortgage free! New car, could be a lease a couple of hundred a month also. Again this is accessible for many.

And of the travel, most of the things listed are pretty broad. You could spend a lot on them but also a little. Even the Paris and Euro Disney holiday, they might be doing 1 day there, staying in the cheapest youth hostel they could find and using Tesco points for LeShuttle. You'd need a certain amount of disposable income to do all of them, yes, but I'm not sure they constitute 'lavish'.

I do always find these threads odd- the assumption everything is on credit does seem to come from an idea that while the poster accepts the concept that some jobs pay significantly more than others, it’s almost like they think the sort of person who holds down one of those jobs is not a “normal” person. So they can’t comprehend the idea their colleague’s DH might be earning 2/3/4 times that their dh is earning, and still seem “normal”.

When I inherited a significant sum of money at 25 I didn’t tell anyone! Well apart from close friends. There was one woman where I worked who was baffled I was able to afford designer clothes and bags. Yes I did spend some of it!

Why would anyone ask this kind of thing on here? How is anyone supposed to have the first clue about some random woman at your work, OP? What are you actually looking to achieve with this thread?

She probably has a high earning partner or money you don't know about and don't need to know about. The end.

You don't know that!
Perhaps she spends less.on other things than OP. And prioritises holidays and meals out.
Maybe her mortgage is smaller, maybe her family help . There could be all sorts of reasons why she spend as she spends without assuming she is lying or in debt.
I actually think 50k is a good wage.

Whereabouts do you live?

We live in the Midlands, which has a great income to COL ratio. We bought our house when we were both on 35-40kish each at a good rate, overpay, and pre-kids went on lots of trips abroad.

People assume that you're pushing the boat out travelling, but we would just spin the wheel on Skyscanner and get flights for less than 75pp usually.

I was thinking exactly this!

OP, £50k is a good wage - so the question really isn’t how does your colleague manage to spend on all these things but why can’t you? What are your expenses?

coffees from Starbucks every day?
gym membership?
new car on finance?

Yeah there's loads of jobs where it's all done on a generally available grading system. I've had some where they didn't even have spines, iyswim. Everyone doing X job was on salary 1, everyone doing Y job was on salary 2 and so on.

Either she has a wealthy husband, a good settlement in a divorce, a inheritance or she’s lying. my parents were like this, my dad had a very good job in the forces and my mums wages were basically fun money for them.