... to think that most MNers live in a bubble?

[frgr]

Seriously, the amount of times I read on here about "oh we earn 70k a year but we're really struggle to provide for little Jacob's polo lessons this year" (or some other such shite).

In real life, the average income of my family and friends is probably circa the national average. I know for a fact that my BIL is on around £6/hr and works 42 hours a week, I know that my best friend's total family income is about 22k because she was talking about mortgages a month ago... I'm talking about hard working people who go out come rain or shine and do their day's work, to provide for their families.... and then I log on here and find out MNers are posting trivial shit about being unable to afford XYZ and feeling hard done by on their incomes of "only" 3x the national average.

I don't know if I've become more sensitive to this crap since starting re-posting on here last year (after a break of about 3 years), but it seems to me that certain members of MN are totally and utterly oblivious as to what the average family is having to endure during this recession.

It's fucking unbelievable, it really is.

In your opinion, why are so many MNers out of touch with reality? Does this site cater to a different class than me? Are avg MNers just generally deluded - do I even belong here any more, with our 21k combined income, worrying about where the next school trip fee is coming from despite the fact that both of us work?

Christ.

I think LeQ that you have to have something inherently in you to be an entrepeneur - somthing that enables you to take risks more so than most people.

I take some risks (I always apply for jobs above and beyond what i am experienced in) but could never make a financial risk as your DH does (and mine to an extent)

Oh I was reading about that last week Melex- Betelheim, Victim Guilt- he ahd this idea that his own survical of teh WW2 camps (BelsenBelsen IIRC) was down to eprsonal merit and those that died made that choice.

But then the man is a widely discredited loon, also responsible for refrigerator parenting theroy of ASD when we now know it is epigenetic. Widely believed he faked his creds as well.

I think if you are extremely well off (I am talking Xenia's reputed riches upwards ) you have the options of either believing you are better than everyone else and deserve that; accepting it's a bit of luck (even down to being born NT) as well as a lot of hard work, some aren't so lucky, and possibly being a little philanthropic on the sly; or going slightly mad. If you have empathy, anyway. I have seen posts from people saying 'even if I had been born severely disabled I woudl have still achieved all of this' but then I worry about people's MH and grasp of reality tbh.

When my dp lost his business and we lost everything ,house included ...there was no way on earth I was ever going through that again ...not with children to support

So no, I wasn't prepared to take the risk again

LQ you don't think that calling people who are less entrepreneurial than you "chaff" is a bit offensive?

I'm sick of this idea of risk being confined to the financial arena. When DH worked with adults with learning difficulties he had to have injections against potentially fatal conditions from biters and other violent patients. When he took out a second mortgage on our home to start up in a business selling something plenty of people want but I'm not convinced anyone needs. I know which one I considered the more risky situation.

usual there's also the question of actually being able to take that risk again. There are such things as credit scores.

Usual - we were at the brink of losing everything a couple of years ago.

A couple of days after Lehmans fell, the company DP was contracted to went bust, owing DP over 60K. DP had to pay staff and materials which had been accrued over 3 months as well on top. It was a nightmare, we had to sell all the goodies we had bought (cars, another house) and struggle, and then pay the VAT bill out of scraped together money. We then had to cope with the downturn and the fact that NOBODY was buolding anything, so DP couldn't get work.

We were very lucky to have not lost the lot.

I can't go thtough that again. Luckily DP has now started a cushy job which is as secure as any in construction, and involved no risk to our own money.

I'm with GetOrff - something in my makeup and family background means I cannot take financial risk, and in that case that includes taking out loans for anything except a house, or going on a Mark Warner holiday instead of putting 5 grand (5 grand ) in the bank.
Fortunately for my career it also means I couldn't go into a career in something chronically ill paid "interesting".

We lost everything eyars ago, when DH was ill for a while.

But what it seems to have taught us os that if you have a roof and each other you will survive.

Don't get me wrong- we are risk averse in some ways and I struggle with DH being self employed but with the choices we had it was the best road to take at teh time of his redundancy. Less risk of him having a relapse than returning to shift work, for a start.

I don't like dependency, and I would hate to have to give up my home again: that scares me, even if it's rented. But there's not quite the same fear there once was.

We went through a year of worry ...was one of the worst times of my life ...dp was declared bankrupt in the end,he did manage to get another job so for the next few years we were ok and pretty secure but then he got made redundant ...such is life

namechange - I am the same re debt. i do not hjave a credit card (well i do, but only use it for holidays etc, and always pay it off in full) and would never dream of taking out a loan for a car or holiday, or have anything on HP.

I don't think it is a good or a bad thing to be risk averse, it is just part of who you are. Some people can do it, some people can't. I suppose we aren't particularly risk averse but we don't do boredom very well either. Neither DH or I could stick at a job that we didn't like for very long. Both of us have done it and for me it was one of the lowest points in my life. Some people can make the best of things even if they hate a job. They see it as a means to an end and a way of enjoying the rest of their lives. I just find it soul destroying.

I don't think, personally, that either attribute is better than the other.

Some of the post above thoguh just seem to scream out women relying on men for income. if you diversify and wife forms the White Company and husband a company selling shirts by male order so you each darwa £4m a year or whatever they both did last year or one of you is a leading surgeon and your husband earns £200k a year as an accountant then you don't lose everything when your husband screws up.

Absolutely agree Niecie. If I was even a bit more risk-tolerant I could potentially be really truly rich by now, but I simply couldn't do it (and DH isn't up for risk either).
My DPs were very honest about their money situation when I was growing up, and although they did it with the best of intentions, and we were never at risk of losing the roof over our head it has resulted in DB and I being pathologically cautious, which is a swings and roundabouts condition.

Where in my post did I say I didn't work

I worked too; but when it went tits up I was 38 weeks pg and signed off work with hjigh BP and a history of eclampsia. Limited amount to be done!

I never relied on Dh until teh carer crap; I earned the sole wage at times but although he earned more becuase of our fields, we both earned.

Those are pretty extreme examples as well, TBH. Many of us have been working when everything went tits up, I'd be willing to bet. Just not necessarily as surgeons...

duchesse - in response to your question to Xenia earlier in the thread - yes, I do think some families have a "commercial" gene in them! I look at my DSS1 and am sure as sure we will never have to worry about him going after a well-paid job. That is what he is about, and he will get there - it's just in him (and you can map his family tree and see how it passed down).

I think the children of bakers are often bakers, of actors actors, of doctors doctors etc etc so you'd expect it so for entrepreneurs too

But it's good to spread risk. I do a variety of things and when I was married their father did too. It's the all the eggs in the same basket thing that can be risker. Even buying this house which went up £1m was a risk, even used the chidlren's savings and every penny of ours to buy it and the time we had a mortage x 5 earnings and interest rates rose to 15% (not a fun day that one)

lequeen a friend of ours recalls a childhood of very mixed fortune. Sometimes the family would have to pack their bags and move because their father's latest business venture went tits up.

At other times they had a chauffeur.

Not everyone can live like that.

DH was once offered a job during the dotcom bubble to help set up a website. He wouldn't be paid much, receiving the majority of his fee in shares.
That website is now the leading online retailer of books.

LeQueen - do you think it is possible to be entrepreneurial without a certain amount of "fall-back" cash, and a certain guaranteed standard of living already?

I'd imagine it is incredibly hard to do while thinking about literally whether you can afford either the gas bill or the food bill and realising you can't afford both, for example. Or while on Income Support and/or having to take short-term badly-paid jobs.

Well UD we had to do that last year, as has my DH's business partner. They had no capital, mortgages in excess of £200k, wives working part time and 6 children between them.
The choice was sit back and let everything we'd worked for for 15 years go down the pan or jump in and get their idea off the ground.
Now since nobody was offering an alternative it was an easy decision but we could have and I guess still could lose everything.

"Why would anyone want to study accountancy at uni?"

My first degree is in Acountancy and Economics. It was actually quite interesting! But I haven't really used it since graduating and part of me wishes I'd just studied English as I secretly wanted to.