Rich Housewife - AMA

[Iho]

Ask me anything.

Well if you're going to come on as a 'rich housewife' and stating that you live in a £2m home, you would surely realise that millions of people in more populated parts of the UK, housewives or not, live in £2m houses and consider themselves very ordinary and of no significance to be asked anything!

I think the lifestyle the OP is describing is that if an affluent person, not rich / wealthy. It’s certainly how I’d describe mine. To be actually wealthy I think you’d be looking at sufficient assets to support a lifestyle beyond a house in the U.K. and IOW and a couple of Mercedes. Wealthy nowadays must be at least £50m of assets, and maybe £100m, what with the cost of living crisis ;)

As she's said, it's relative. She lives in Lincs. £2m goes a LOT further there than in the SE.

Either way, £2m property value is considerably higher than the UK average house price of £270k (https://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi/). Arguing the toss that £2m buys a 3bed terrace in certain pockets of Zone 1 and so she's not wealthy, is utter nonsense.

Absolutely, ‘rich’, is of course, relative but to declare myself extraordinary & ‘rich’ AMA worthy, I’d need to be in top 0.5 per cent & my 2m home one of many. (I wish)! 😀

Millions of people in the UK do not live in properties over 2 million.

“As of late 2025 and early 2026, estimates suggest there are approximately 116,000 to 150,000properties in the UK valued at over £2 million.”

I'm working class background and my ex was a high earner - not as high as yours but enough to have a comfortable lifestyle and send the DC to a major public school; and although living in a modest London home I used to sometimes have a cleaner.

For the life of me I can't understand why you don't have a cleaner for your 8-bed house and why you don't send your children to independent schools - surely they're basics if you have enough funds!

Around 673,143 homes in Great Britain valued at £1 million or more.

So roughly 1 in 45 homeowners in the country owns property worth at least a million; and around 1 in 190 owns a home worth over £2 million.

Maybe. Idk much about boats. But I guess it fits in with the 'I'm fond of mixing with the absolutely loaded to elevate my fairly modest position in the millionaires club hierarchy'.

The thing is I know people who have 2.5 million pound houses and live on UC. It's just that in some places that is literally just a regular house.

No savings?

That’s nonsense. The OP strikes me as the complete opposite to that. Her children went to state school, she has known her friendship group since school and she doesn’t even have a cleaner.

To be fair our household income is far less than OP’s, and I’m currently looking for a cleaner. Saying that, we do both also have jobs.

Having a cleaner is definitely an indicator of privilege, but lots of people who wouldn’t be classed as “wealthy” have them.

Of course you do

How could you buy a 2.5m house without a large deposit and large income to pay the mortgage?
You’d need about 250k deposit and to earn around 375k between you. I don’t think that’s doable on UC.

@greenrabbit100 Not sure the £600k pa is actually correct in the sense of a salary, given savings are only £170k.

It’s very odd. She said he “earns” 600k ”pa” implying a regular salary. And 30 employees.

I pointed out last night that it would be super rare for a developer to take that much in personal income as it would be crazy tax inefficient and profits are generally reinvested to build up assets. To lenders/investors asset-heavy developers are much more bankable than income-heavy ones. Equally, developers with a ltd company prefer profits taxed as corporation tax rather than personal income.

So does she mean 600k salary which would cost his company around 690k and he’d lose around half in income tax; or does she mean a 600k value package including a lowish salary, dividends, equity, pension contributions (firm can pay directly into his private pension as a business expense, reducing the company's Corporation Tax bill & he’d pay no personal tax until retirement).

With 30 employees the company would be paying out annually over £2 million+ in salaries, NI and pension contributions.

To support that he’d have to be a mid-market player with typically £15-20 million in annual turnover; around £80million+ under construction and planning at any one time; the company itself would have a NAV (net asset value) of around £15-30 million.

All of which is possible (tho perhaps not in Lincolnshire), but why would you take 600k annually when you could take 100k and add a million to your business assets biennially?

If anyone can make this make sense let me know.

You know people in 2.5m houses on UC, do
they own them outright?

I hope this thread is real, because OP sounds awesome.

But it might be some kind of socioeconomic experiment to flush out the Mumsnetters who are driven entirely by snobbery and oneupmanship, or by bitter chips on shoulders. If so, it has certainly yielded robust data!

I'm also curious about all the questions about what OP contributes to charity or gives back to the community. Why should she do either?

Yes. Else they wouldn't be entitled to UC.

50 percent nastiness and 50 percent jealousy.

And no savings?

I presume not. Though I'm not privy to their personal info I know they're a very honest person.

So one person rather than people? How did they get the 2.5m house?

I’d say you’re pretty “privy” to their personal information given you know they own a 2.5 million property outright and claim UC

When did you pay off your mortgage? Did you use bonuses for that or just out of salary?

This probably isn’t as uncommon as you’d think.

My partners ex wife owns a £1.5m property outright - her parents bought her it after she divorced. She drives a brand new car that they also bought. Her bills are paid, and she claims UC for “spends.” Free prescriptions etc etc.

She has access to money, but none in her own account and no savings in her name, because rich people aren’t stupid.