to find some people attitudes, such as "i work hard i deserve it" really sickening

[carriedababi]

was reading some magazine in the dentist, there was a woman from dragons den iin the mag.
saying how she had a wardrode worth 3 million.

and she went onto say well i work hard for it.
so ideserve it.
and something todo with she sees her expensive clothes as a symbol of how sucessful she is.

really made me feel sick, how a horrible nasty attitude to have in life.

i'm sure even if i was a millionaire, i would not be proud about spending that much on clothes.

i don't know its just the arrogant im entitled to this that got me.
and dont they think people how have less also work hard. probably alot of them work alot harder

what do you think

There's no need to be rude, Tilly and northernrock. Suffice it to say that 1) not everyone chooses their career based on financial reward, they may choose it because they love what they do, and then find it's extremely hard to make a living 2) not everyone is lucky enough to receive a large financial reward based on the time they put in and 3) circumstances change, e.g. the current economic climate we hear so much about!

Nowhere on this thread have I said that there should be jealousy of high earners (funny how so many people assume that's how people will feel, but really money isn't everything to everyone) By all means enjoy your money if you have it.

I simply feel that "deserve" is incorrect. You only have to think of those in the third world working extremely long hours for about £1 a day - do they not "deserve" more, or are they "fools" to work for such a small amount? Or midwives/lecturers/mechanics/actors who no matter how hard they work will still get the same salary or a precarious low income, but do the job for love? Someone with a window-cleaning business which goes bust when someone else invents self-cleaning windows, whereas their father had made a good income cleaning lots of windows?

There could be best friends who are almost identically employable, but born 1 week apart. They each approach the same local employer on their 18th birthday. The first woman gets taken on and mentored to a high level, gains lots of experience, many opportunities and extra training, and rises to the highest level after a few years and earns £80000. The second woman has missed out by a week even though she did the identical thing of visiting the exact same employer on her 18th birthday. She needs a job and the only one available is in nursing/teaching/firefighting, she enjoys it, goes up the ranks and that becomes her career. She works a 60-hour week for £30000. If their birthdays had been the other way around so would their careers have been. Is the first woman more "deserving" than the second?

In all reality though if life was going to hand you out cards of ill health and a drug addicted child, whilst money would not take away the pain it would indeed be the safety net and one less thing to worry about.
At least the enormous pressure of eating, having shelter etc would not futher add to the stress and misery.

I repeat money would not eradicate to these problems but at least lack of it wouldnt add to them.

I don't think clothes are a waste of money but then I am really shallow!

Would it make things better if she spent the money on exotic travel or a nice house? Is it just the frivolity of clothes that offends you?

I don't think you'll find the people making the clothes complaining (unless they're working in terrible conditions in which case you know), nor the people that supply the fabric and the buttons, or the people that deliver them, or the landlords of the shops that rent the space to sell them, or the butchers where the landlord buys his meat, or the farm that supplies the butcher. It's good that rich people spend money. It's great - it's exactly what they should do. They should spend more, on silly cars, and topiary, and shoes, and cleaners, and ridiculous lamps, and biscuit jars and picture frames and a new dishwasher every year. Thank goodness they do.

Sorry can't agree with these argumments in favour of spending money on crap to keep the economy going. Look at the state of the world we live in - if anything is going to change then wealth needs to be redistributed. And what do you do with so many clothes anyway???? You can't surely wear them all can you??

So the message to people is - work really hard, take risks, risk everything in fact, and then we'll just give it to people who don't and haven't?

No - money is much better earned. Better to have a job than a hand out.

I think most people who are anti on this thread are being judgemental on what she spendsthe money on, rather than the fact that she spends it on something that gives her pleasure. If she had spent the money on a bigger house or 3 race horses it wouldn't be so controversial. I presume that she keeps a lot of people in employment, pays tax at a top rate of 50% and not only puts her personal effort but risks her personal capital to generate her income. If spending £3m on clothes ( think of all that VAT) makes her happy so be it. Actually i suspect that what I spend on clothes is a far greater proportion of my income than the £3m is of hers, and yes, that makes me happy too.

That's an excellent point higgle.

Think of al the women who spend huge chunks of their disposable income on Primark and TopShop.

Anyway, i love Hilary, she's an inspiration and I won't hear a word against her or her wardrobe!

Footballers buy silly cars and houses (and pay for prostitutes) and this woman buys clothes and a nice house etc. My comments are:-
(1) If you are reasonably well off it's generally best not to go on about it as that doesn't make other people feel any better
(2) I certanily would not spend money on clothes if I had lots of spare money but it is up to everyone what they spend it on if they earned it
(3) What you deserve is a difficult issue. I am sure she (and to an extent I) probably do work harder than a lot of people and a lot of my supposed success comes from simple hard work. However plenty of the poor get uop at 5am to do a cleaning job, juggle a lot of others, don't get much sleep, do split shifts with their husband so they don't have to pay for child care etc and still may only earn the minimum wage.
(4) We certainly need good examples of high earning women which is the only reason I ever mention my 5 children at/were at private schools, my island etc. It's just to make it clear particularyl to teenagers that if you work hard and pick a good career it possbile to achieve quite a lot if that's what you're after and just because you're a woman and a mother doesn't mean you need to earn pin money and live off male earnings.

Xenia: you are different though, and this woman is different. It's not for anyone to achieve if they try hard enough. People like you are an elite of achievers and I'm all for it. Go for it. It's good for everyone else (as long as it's all legal and non-exploitative!) as much as it's good for you.

I certainly would not control how people spend their money. It's up to them. I bought a set of nails (nails to use with a hammer) recently and thought it was great I could afford them.

There is a more general point which pains me. It is that if women have spare money they tend to put it less into a house deposit or investments and more often they fritter it away on clothes and shoes. Now if that's the best way they can get a rich man to keep them it may be the best investment they can make of course but it does often seem like rather a waste. The only difference between someone solvent and not is one spends beyond their means whatever level those means are and one doesn't and the over spending of money some women don't have is a concern as there can be a gender difference. In part it explains why women don't have pensions either and men do and women end their lives in povery because they bought clothes not investments.

So on the more general point women should I believe seek to spend less on clothes and put more of the money aside.

Of course hit is the debate of the moment as Cameron rightly (from a personal level) said pay back debt and then have to retract it as the broader economy would rather we went for spend spend spend.

Oh Xenia why do you have to go and spoil it all.

Is that true? Men probably fritter away money as much as women. £10k a year on clothes is hardly anything if the income is say £1m. Cars cost more and depreciate very quickly. I know my female friends who run their own companies invest, mainly in several properties.

In any case I don't admire HD for just being wealthy. But for being female, a lone parent and having the odds stacked against her. And achieving so much.

Xenia

Points 1 and 5 of your first post are contradictory, are they not?

And I'm a bit that 'women don't have pensions because they fritter their money away on shoes'. Many women don't have pensions because they have irregular employment history (taken time out to have children) or have worked in lower-paid jobs which don't come with pensions. The idea that anyone except the very rich would automatically have a pension plan is fairly new. Many women now coming up to pensionable age will have assumed that's what their NI contributions were paying for.

Ahhh..I just realised how she is. I really like her.

However I maintain it's a bit tacky to spend conspicuously and talk about it.

lequeen, although we will have to agree to disagree on this one, i do think it's very touching, how you fight your dhs corner.
you sound like a good team and he's lucky to have you supporting him so much.

Crikey......fair bit of jealousy on this thread.

Some people will work hard and will be skint, others will earn more, it's up to them what they do with it, I don't really care tbh.

And don't resent being a skint carer either, that's just the way my life panned out obviously my role is worth 200k plus per year, but meh, that ain't going to happen.

And wot LeQueen said !

"We certainly need good examples of high earning women which is the only reason I ever mention my 5 children at/were at private schools, my island etc"

Well it is her money to spend as she pleases but I did have similar thoughts while reading this www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2046109/Zac-Efron-treated-100k-bottle-champagne-Russian-billionaires-son.html. Just think how many starving people that could feed.