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

Possibly a lottery win 😁 I know 3 sets of people who hit the jackpot of a couple million and one lady who won the millionaire maker on euro millions. It’s not enough to retire on these days so I think all have kept working (1 started their own business).
patiently waiting for my turn 😂

Our salaries are very open and transparent.we don’t discuss what we earn. It is just known because of what we do

you really shouldn’t assume

My husband's sister has a lower salary than us but my in laws choose to subsidise her house purchase, cover all her childcare costs, and do repairs to her car and property themselves or paid by them. They also pay for a family holiday a year for her, her husband, and their kids, plus additional things like meals out. If you added the financial gain to her you'd understand that she's not living on her salary.

I have a friend like this - her H sold a business he had for just under a million - but then still works for them as a consultant on a good salary. enabled them to have a very low mortgage, no debt and still get about 20k a year in interest that they count as part of income and they both still work him full time , her around 25 hours.( they have 2 primary aged kids) - there can be many reasons over and above someone’s salary

Is it jealousy perhaps?

It’ll be her partner getting a good wage I expect. My dh got himself a very nice car last year. His boss had the cheek to ask him how he afforded that on his wage. Dh took great pride in telling him that his wife bought it for him lol

why can’t she just be wealthy enough to afford these (fairly basic) treats?

when people cat understand that others aren’t the same as them it’s a big marker of your naivety and lack of diversity/ life experience. Take it as an opportunity to try and meet some different types of people

I know someone who is a bit like this. He has all the latest things but everything is on credit. He drives a brand new Audi and complains that he can’t afford to buy a house but his colleagues can. The colleagues drive bangers, don’t have expensive things and some have second jobs. I think some people don’t mind living in debt and would rather that than not have trendy things or go to trendy places. If she genuinely does have the money, maybe she has an inheritance or money coming in from somewhere else

Edit - rereading the OP, £50k is not a bad wage and I think actually many people could afford to live like the colleague if they had a partner earning a bit more than them and no kids or debts other than mortgage, as long as they were very careful day to day and didn’t go on a trip literally every weekend. Probably depends on where they live in the UK though

I have never discussed stuff like this in over 35 years of work. I was always told not to mention salaries anyway.

My colleagues and I will chat about fairly personal things but it’s considered crass to discuss money

Sounds like a certain teacher I know who is married to a bloke who is worth millions and has a €20k per month income from his trust fund. Also their huge home was bought outright by his parents as a gift to them so they only pay bills on it. They took out a small mortgage on it so they could build a second home, a beach house which she regularly moans about how hard it is to find the time to supervise. Their children are in private schools. They frequently jet off on expensive holidays across the globe.

She often says they live modestly on her wages as a teacher while he is a post-doc researcher earning peanuts, but her lifestyle is more like Kate and Wills slumming it as normals when Wills was working for search and rescue as a helicopter pilot and Kate was a stay at home mum. Acting like they were living modestly like any armed forces family but actually in a giant Norfolk mansion with servants.

I feel similar. I am in the same band and hours as several people in my office. However, none of them are the main bread winner, so whilst their wage goes on nails and holidays and little treats, mine goes on food and mortgage. And they have the cheek to question why I can’t afford a new car

Also not uncommon for grandparents to leave bequests either. If one of colleague/husband's GPs happened to leave them 10k in 2005 when they were 23 and they used it for a deposit on a crap flat, that's the sort of decision that can have significant downstream implications after a couple of decades like we've just had.

Well we all have different back stories. I have a quite modest wage as a TA and my DH is a HGV driver. However being older than lots of my colleagues I am fortunate to have bought my first house (mortgage with my sibling) 35 years ago for the princely sum of £40,000. Then unfortunately both my DPs passed so I received a modest inheritance. I am now mortgage free, where as lots of my colleagues are still paying rent/ mortgage for houses that cost considerably more. We by no means live lavishly, but are comfortable. I wonder if any of my colleagues feel the same as you OP. ( We only go to Europe for a week's holiday once a year btw)

Sbe could have inherited from other family such as GP. Or a lottery win!

This. The salary of one partner in a marriage is just one of multiple factors, especially in a society where age and inherited wealth make a huge difference. Region too, so even if two people live in the same area now, if one of them has equity from a more expensive region of the country to play with, that could make a huge difference.

Plus stuff like age and stage make a massive difference. And dumb luck. I happened to apply for a new mortgage rate in late 2021, in the final days of the artificially low rate period. Took a long fix due to idleness, as I don't enjoy all the pissing about involved in sorting these things. The version of me whose rate happened to run out a year later would be paying more for the same thing.

I don't think travel is necessarily a good barometer either. Some of the things mentioned are inherently quite expensive, but they aren't all. Ryanair flights, hand luggage, staying with a friend or somewhere very cheap half an hour outside the city... these things can make a big difference.

Good for her is what I say.

I would easily be able to do all that on £50k a year.

Some people are just better at budgeting.

You also don’t know her lifestyle.
She may have a DH, they may have an interest only mortgage, she may have never had a credit card etc and so the money you use paying it back is what she saves for trips away.

Loads of people will have it better than you but many more will have it worse.
Just focus on yourself and own happiness else you’ll drive yourself mad.

I used to work with someone like this albeit we were early/mid 20s. Lavish lifestyle and had a reasonablely well off partner. We went into town one day and they were splurging on Tom Ford and other designer beauty items. Transpired (as suspected) it was all on credit cards and trying to keep up with the partners lifestyle. Family left to pick up the pieces of repaying credit cards. They also had a big flash wedding....sadly ended in divorce less than a year later.
They are back flashing the luxury life again, failing to show on social media it is being funded by their new man.
I often got the impression they were somewhat embarrassed by their family not being "rich" however they would have bit been poor either.

I have a colleague like that, driving one of those small white Mercedes.

She can't understand how I can blow £4K on a holiday even after me suggesting she works out how much her car costs per year compared to my totally paid off old banger. Dread to think what her hair, nails, white teeth and makeup budget is every month but suspect that is where I'm making the savings compared to her.

You mention a DS so I assume she either has a partner/husband or is divorced and receives maintenance of some kind. That's the most likely source of the money that allows her to do this. If the DS's father's income covers all the bills etc. she's got the take home of £50k to spend on what she wants.

Other possibilities - support from parents, trust fund, historical large insurance/compensation payout, premium bond/lottery win, inherited large sum or property from deceased relative, invested very cannily in the stock market at some point in the past, has an income stream from another business or property rentals - lots of possibilities.

No use comparing your lifestyles, you just have to make the best of what you have.

One of these. Or gifts from parents. Or dare we say it dodgy or even very dodgy deals.

OP states that she has a DS and a DD. So at least two dc…

So she has a DH? What doesn’t earn? If she’s in £50k and he’s on £150k that would make a huge difference. She could also have had inheritance from grandparents, or family trust funds.

Ah that makes sense. To be this interested in someone else’s lifestyle is quite unhinged 🙈🤣

This poster seems to start threads about budgeting and £ but doesn't return.
She doesn't come across as particularly switched on -asking quite specific questions but not giving any details about her own situation so people can't really answer properly.