Do you ever look around your peers and think "where do you all get your money from??

[lovelydaffodils]

This is in chat not aibu so could do without a massive pile on

Feeling a bit blue and frankly a big dose of the green eyed monster as I look round my peers.

We earn well enough between me and oh but so many ppl in our peers have second homes and massive new cars frequently and big holidays and kids at private school
Where on earth does it all come from?
What do they know that i don't?!

I’ve always had to work with people who do the same job or less hours but still have more money than me.

An awful lot gets passed down by families either directly or via practical help - food and childcare. I wish society recognised those of us who don’t have that. It has become incredibly difficult to make a life here without it now.

I meant to add the impact of housing costs and age. I am surrounded by people just 5 years older who paid a third or a quarter less: and who still think they earned it all.

Hahaha, I guess your next post will be how you can provide crypto investment advice right?

I often wonder this - not in an especially jealous way - more in a 'how on earth' way.

We live in an area where incomes are low and housing is very expensive. I have no idea how some people can be managing. (I don't mean things like school fees, I mean things like running a car/having a couple of dogs.) There's a lot of inequality in property - among property owners, those who bought 20 years ago (like us) are considerably better off than those who bought 10 years ago (and worse off than those who bought 30 years ago). And that's the people who have been able to afford to buy at all.

We're a relatively high income family, had generous family support when we were younger and are about to be mortgage free thanks to an inheritance. We live in a big, shabby house and drive big, shabby cars. I don't think you'd pick us out as relatively wealthy among our peers, but I think we probably are.

I have a comfortable lifestyle on a small income mainly due to

Mortgage paid off on a smallish well insulated home with solar panels. Housing costs cause huge disparities in living standards. Renters can be sometimes doubly screwed because it’s harder for them to make the improvements that would make their homes cheaper to run. This needs to change urgently.

No more paid childcare, in fact our teens were encouraged with hobbies that make them money and have part time jobs so I do not have to provide much in the way of extras. Just tons of food and replacements for clothes that are constantly being grown out of!

Probably if I’m honest, not investing enough into my pension.

Don’t own my own vehicle and work related transport is paid by my workplace. This is a substantial household expense for a lot of people. I bike / walk and use trains or taxis as needed but still spend loads less than when I ran a car.

Because I don’t own a car, I get most shopping delivered and this means we eat better for less as I am not tempted into buying extras at the shops.

The rest is more of a mindset of keeping discretionary spending under control. My iphone for eg is one model back from the latest, paid for with cash and on a £5 per month contract. Books and subscriptions are requested as gifts for birthdays or Christmas. Hosting friends reciprocally for coffee or drinks, and having some crowd pleasing recipes up my sleeve saves a fortune on coffee shops, pubs and restaurants. We still go out occasionally but it isn’t a habit.

We definitely wouldn’t be picked out as relatively wealthy amongst our peers but probably are too! Appearances can be deceptive.

As people have said, you don't notice where other people don't spend their money. And savings and pensions are really invisible. It took me ages to realise that one of the reasons that DH and I have less cash than friends that I know earn similar amounts is that a lot of them, to my surprise, are making either no or very low pension contributions. We both have very good pensions but that we have big contributions to - I pay 9.8% and he pays 9.6%. If we didn't we'd have an extra £700 a month, which we'd definitely notice - hopefully we'll notice the difference in our retirement, too (if our pensions don't collapse and all our money was wasted...)!

All the time. They all spend thousands on holidays. Many times per year. And no it's not put on a credit card. Just can't figure it out.

I don’t understand what the big mystery is. They earn good money.

Contrary to popular belief, salary and wages aren’t the main source of income for a lot of people.

But salary and wages also are the main source of income for a lot of people.

I honestly think there are people that have won millions on the lottery and kept it a secret.

A couple that I know are currently on their 5th or 6th foreign holiday this year. They have 4 kids. The husband is a supermarket manager and the wife is a part time hairdresser. She wears £300 dresses and the kids all wear designer clothes. Neither are from rich families at all. They live in a normal 4 bedroomed house in an average priced area, but have had expensive work done to it in recent years

Apart from generational inequality and regional inequality, plus a bit of immigration, the only other source of money that I have heard of in this country is drugs.

It is quite well known that there was some washing of funds going on through Britains property market. How much that would push up prices I have no idea, but obviously the economic mismatch of London with the rest of the country does have impacts.

Most people I know have good jobs but there is a significant divide between the ones with family help & the ones without. So the ones with family help got help to buy in london in their early 20s so many have made ££££ just because of that whereas others had to buy in their 30s. Then help to move up the ladder, renovations etc. Same with school fees.

And the ones who had the family help all bought a "holiday home" during covid.

tbf some must be criminal proceeds!

All paid for through my crypto investments which have been providing me with on average £8k a week.

and how much did you invest?

As people have said, even on two good salaries, school fees and second homes etc are unaffordable without funds from family, inheritance, or selling the devils lettuce.

Yes this! Inheritance is life changing.

Definitely a huge driver of inequality. For many having help to buy a house from family is more important then what they earn.

I know exactly what you mean OP as a couple with two DC who earn well and have a comfortable life, I often get surprised at things my friends group spend money on or do and it does make me wonder. However I also know that I pissed years of getting good bonuses away in my 20s and didn't buy a property at the point I should have. Oh how I wish I knew then what I knew now! So I could have been that elusive friend if I had made better choices!

Oh and pensions - DH and I put a lot into our pensions, we're essentially skint as a result but I insist! We have flexible schemes that we could reduce payments into if times got tough so it feels right to pay loads in when times are ok. I have friends the same age who pay a LOT less, like £100s less than we do. But then perhaps they have inheritance coming, who knows?

A lot of people earn more than they let on or have investments. Private school for example is easily paid for if you are a mid earner (£100k household) only have a couple of children and plan for it from when you first have a child.

I don't think the average person could afford 2 lots of school fees on 100k with the way house prices/rents have been the last decade or so.

As a household we earn more than £100k and there's no way we could afford private school for two DCs. Well we could if we didn't fund a pension. So back to inheritance really as we won't get any, hence the big pension payments.

Quite often it's the grandparents paying the school fees and not the parents.

Credit, debt, overdrafts.