To have no sympathy for a family that overstretch themselves to pay school fees?

[mrsruffallo]

Why not just go to state school?
here

They didn't 'lose their home'! They sold it! And repaid the money they had borrowed and spent. If they had stopped paying their mortgage and defaulted on all that spent money that would have been 'losing' their home, and the banks wouldn't have got their (spent already!) money back.

They are a pair of fucking twats. As soon as you start borrowing to fund your lifestyle then you can't afford that lifestyle any longer. They borrowed for school fees! 4 kids x at least 7 years of school fees each - they expected their property to go up in value to the tune of 28 years of private school fees, did they? I'm no expert but I think the cheapest private schools wouldn't be under £3k a year, so nigh on £100k just on school fees, paid for by mortgaging their house Sorry but they really had it coming.

I don't know where they live either, but where I live (south coast, commuting distance to london) you can rent a 4 bed for under £1200 pcm. It won't be flash but so what? I rent a 3 bed for £800 - you could happily fit 4 kids in my house! Dickheads.

I read this thinking the woman was a bit crazy, slightly deranged, then I saw the photo of her in the second link (private school) and it reinforced my view.

Crunchy it is now law that you have to call your permitted goldfish "Dave", these days?

Keith looks stunned, doesn't he? I bet he never gets a word in.

I skimmed through the article as I don't have the patience to read such a self-absorbed article.

Remortgaging the house to pay for school fees is ludicrous, we live in a country that provides free state school education, so use it, 93 per cent of the population do. Now they are paying £2k per month on rent which is more than the average wage to house their large family. If you want a lavish lifestyle that's fine but don't moan about it when you struggle to pay the bills.

Perhaps I should go and book an all inclusive holiday to the Bahamas on my credit card and then moan when I can't afford the repayments. The family clearly need a reality check.

can we start a support thread for Poor Keith? He looks like he needs a nice quiet night watching sports on telly with a beer in hand
I thought I was high maintenance but this lady has really set the bar high

I remember that thread GetOrf. It was brilliant.

I am now bitterly disappointed to find out that not every middle class financial conundrum can be solved through baked goods.

Those photos in the second link are fairly unflattering aren't they?

Totally agree mrsruffalo it is indeed "poncetastic"! How can anyone possibly have sympathy with them? What a pair of twits.

She sounds very entitled as in having a big house in a nice area and having 4 dc in private education is her god given birthright. No sympathies here especially when she expected the whole shebang to be funded by forever rising house prices.

Yes, the photos are ......."unflattering"!! Am now in hysterics!

I'm reading the comments underneath - for once I actually agree with the comments on a DM site. Help!

The daftest bit is that she would take a four bed but 'needs' a five bed.

No, you don't - you have 3 children of the same sex - you only 'need' 3 bedrooms.

Entitlement yet again.

creepy oh yes. Bloody conservatives.

(actually it is a side effect of DS1's rigid thinking, our first fish was named Dave, therefore Fish Are Called Dave.)

Complete failure to understand the first, very simple, rule of money management:

"You can only spend it once".

No sympathy, I'm afraid.

You don't need to spend tens of thousands of pounds renovating, nor do you need to spend money on school fees. You may want these things, and you may perceive that want as a need, but if delude yourself to the point where you take your eye off the ball of the real essential, ie actually being able to afford the roof over your head, then you have only yourself to blame when it all goes tits up.

And yeah, the author's gratuitous whingery is tiresome, but she's got rent to pay, hasn't she?

It's a shame wife swap isn't made any more, she'd get the shock of her life!

Well, you see, she shouldn't have had 4 kids if she can't afford to keep them. Stop child benefit after 2, that'll show 'em. These sorts of people, well, they fritter their money away on rubbish, don't they, and then complain about it. They demand a room each for their kids. I shared with my sister and it didn't do me any harm. This country's gone soft.

I dashed here to quote that bit about having four kids but 'needing' five bedrooms but I see someone already has it.

It looks a lovely rented property they're pictured in too - really slumming it there eh!

Or a family that over stretches themselves to live in a mansion,did have a snigger at the pic of the house,twas hardly a shack.The needing 5 bedrooms made me really get sympathy pangs-not!!!!!!!!

Also: 'So when Dolly draws on the wall with crayon or Monty spills juice on the carpet I know at the end of our lease these normal spots of family life will be totted up as wear and tear and added to our bill.'

Erm, are you very stupid? Wear and tear is the bit that doesn't come out of your 'bill' (do you mean deposit?). That said, you could just, erm, clean it up like the rest of us?

They had no problems sending Monty the son to a state school so I do not see why her precious girls couldn't go to a state school too. This woman does not come across well in this article.

I have 4 children and I wanted my daughter to go to a private school after I had my first child but me and my husband realised that if we had anymore children then we couldn't afford to send more than 1 to a private school. I just do not understand why she would send a couple of her children to private school and then send the son to a state school because they couldn't afford to send him. Either all or nothing in my book.

I can't do links as I'm on my phone but I did a search on rightmove and within 5 miles of where they live you can buy 3 bedroomed family homes for £150k and rental 3 beds start at £800 PCM. Therefore within a couple of years they could easily afford to buy their own home.

I know it's the Daily Fail but even by their standards the story is hilarious. I think they are humouring her to give their readers a laugh.

Don't be silly hazie - those rental places probably have magnolia walls and ugly carpeting! You can't expect her to put up with that!

I don't want to be mean, but they sold up three years ago as they were in dire financial straits. The youngest child is two, according to the article. Adorable though Dolly is, they really could not afford that fourth child, could they? What happens in a few years when she goes to school? If they had been living on benefits and had another child in the meantime they would be slagged off for having more children than they could support. Why is it any different because they are 'posh'?

That is what I was thinking too LizzieMo.