to think too many people on here are too obsessed with other peoples' money?

[wannaBe]

it's getting rather tedious..

too many threads complaining about what other people earn/spend/opinionating on if you can afford x and y then you must be rich, and if you can't then you're not, and on and on and on.

Really, who cares?

Why does it bother people so much how much other people have?

If you're happy, what does it matter? If you're not, and don't have enough money, being bitter about other people isn't going to change that.

Can't we just move on from obsessing about other peoples' money?

but that is the difference in perception isnt it? whether it is an actual measure of proverty or not.

That is perceptions then laurie. I dont think its essential to me. We moved in and the bloke before me had paid 10k to put it in We are the only ones in our block to have it and the old man next to me said it was posh

It is an actual measure of poverty isn't it?

I'm guessing that the areas that have less central heating are those which are generally poorer?

IS devon really that warm ? im moving I live in the north of scotland and we would perish if we didnt have heating ! can i be ignorant and ask how you heat water ?

yeah it is to the government that is why we live in one of the most deprived areas but if you looked at it from the outside it doesnt look deprived. It looks like postcard pictures but just has low wages and hardly anywhere with heating. To me though proper poverty is run down estate like you see on tv something like Nelson Mandela house.

Really? Thanks LieIns!

mrsjay - I dont know how it works but your electric heats your water (not science minded!) however just used to boil kettle and wait for it to cool if needed it but didnt want the electric wasted.

Water here is very expensive though I pay 72 quid a month as we cant have a meter and thats with no bath in a flat

You see I don't see lack of central heating either as an automatic sign of poverty. I know someone in an old farmhouse with aga, not poor, but no central heating. And I do think this view is shaped by your own childhood experiences.

Like I am always taken aback by people who see double glazing as a necessity.

How do you know what's true and what isn't?? It's the internet!

i know this is not a popular view on MN: but my parents were poor when i was a child & i think it was good for me.

i seem to be much tougher then my peers who have more MC parents & i think their softer lives made them soft

molly you will have an imerser (god spelling) to heat your water we used to have one before we changed boiler ,

I can remember when i was young about 100 years ago when we had poxy underfloor heating and single yes SINGLE glazed windows , used to wake up with ice on the inside in the winter it was a tad chilly !!

I don't mind discussing finances in vague terms online, but I am not at all comfortable with it in real life. I have noticed that real life people seem to be becoming nosier, perhaps because their boundaries have been skewed by online life. I find myself fending off questions such as "where did you get the money for that?" quite frequently. I would never dream of asking anybody that.

I suppose a degree of nosiness is natural but I know certain RL people who are obsessed, and seem to be constantly looking for the slightest sign that we are richer or poorer than they are. It is inconceivable to them that we are similarly placed but have different spending priorities. I couldn't tell you if they are richer or poorer than us but I'm not constantly on the lookout for little nuances. I speak as somebody who has to unload her groceries after dark so that they are not examined for clues.

My instinct is to say YABU but if online nosiness leads on to real life nosiness then YANBU.

RL nosiness is very unreasonable. But it si one of the things I like about here that you cana sk things you couldn't in rl.

I find finances and economics fascinating.
How much people earn. How they earn it. What they spend it on, Fascinating!

i come from a family of nosey women....its part of my cultural hertiage to know everyone's business.

i dont go to the supermarket more than a few times per year, but when i do, i love looking in shoppers tolleys to see what they eat.

"i dont go to the supermarket more than a few times per year,"

[visualising Wasabi at the checkout with 6 months supply of stuff in her trolley] :)

Most houses in Devon DO have CH- either that or my mate who helps the council put central heating in all the CH is Devon and Cornwall is a right lazy sod!

Im talking about homeowners sanctimoanyarse you get everything if your with the council.

pushed - seeing as i am nosey, i should share.....

we get veg box deliveries. Very cheap, very easy, & v low calorie.

Course you do molly, free rent and everything

honest like

You should see my parent's council house in Somerset, or my Grandad's- Grandad's has an ancient Parker Ray tht has been patched because he was using it with a hole in the flue (91, struggling a bit); parents have a geyser 9actually being changed today I think)- neither ever claimed HB or got it for free.

Anyway I have had shite private landlords so know no sector is easy, we lost our owned house when DH got ill, so will move away from that topic!

I think a lot of judgement goes on both ways on financial threads here but not only is the discussing of finances how women will eventually get a properly equal wage, or indeed learn about how other people live- there are so many misapprehensions about every area of finance - from how disabled people 'get everything' as a friend put it on another forum (if only!) to regional variations in costs and how policies affect people.

I doubt I'd have known how much a motorised wheelchair costs without MN, or how much more expensive it is to live in the SE than where I am now in S E Wales.

If you don't want to discuss finances, there are other parts of MN surely?

Actually we know from work done on the decent homes standard that the poorest housing in general is in the private rented sector and poor elderly owner occupiers.

I would love a veg box but I don't get one because the neighbour would be rootling through it before I could bring it in from the doorstep. Then I would hear her telling everyone say "and for dinner they had...curly kale!"

I certainly believe that Lesley; I have seen some atrocities

However it does vary and the more vulnerable you are the more open to that you seem- for example Grandad's CH has not been touched since 1950- something because he has refused it, he adn Nan were deeply paranoid that anyone and everyone was trying to get them out; Grandad is 91 and still refusing access, but we now know he has ASD so is indeed vulnerable. SSD are aware but very little they can do as he is technically not a danger to himself (yet). Nan has been gone years.

Last house we lived in- private rented- had a water leak that dripped into teh main electricity fuseboard; luckily we had two bathrooms so could seal that off but the whole place was a deathtrap, no heating or hot water for ages at a time as they would only fund stopgap repairs on the boiler that wold go immediately then take months to be sorted again...... nightmare.... the LL this time is a complete dream!

DP is very creative with winter veg which is a relief otherwise winter can be veeeerryy long...but i also like seeing food change with the seasons.

I find the ways people define 'rich' and 'poor' really interesting.

I think we sometimes see the divide between rich and poor on mumsnet - the result is wealthy people saying 'well if you are unhappy, then why don't you do this...' and less well -off others saying, 'yes but you don't understand...'

But also many people are struggling do I suppose there are going to be more threads about wealth/income.