To be pissed off about the seeming totems of being well off

[QueenofPlaids]

Okay, I have been known to peruse the comments section of the Fail on occasion, but I've seen it creeping on here and also in real life, so I ask:

Why, when someone says they can't afford something, almost regardless of whether the something is a basic or a supposed luxury, is it then backed up by the:

"of course we don't have meals out, smoke, drink, have holidays abroad". IME holidays in the UK are no cheaper

Closely followed by:

"have Sky TV, two cars / a fancy car, gym membership & designer clothes"

It pisses me off no end. Now clearly, if you're skint, you're not going to have the above and that's fair enough, but if you"re just having to make choices like most everyone else why are meals out, holidays abroad and drinking seemingly the nadir of profligacy?

Could just be me, but I seem to see this often. (Whist the plural of anecdote is not data, I recently endured a lecture from a friend who is a sole breadwinner (bigger income, smaller mortgage) on why he couldn't possibly take his wife and kid abroad. Great, but he'd just bought 2 grand of Apple computer kit. This is not an isolated incident.)

Thete's definitely stealth boasting going on, if people are happy to admit to "sacrificing" television, yet not admit to sacrificing books!

The only times I've ever seen anyone put books on the list of expensive luxuries, they immediately say they borrow from the library or swap with friends instead.

Mind you, only someone with a serious reading habit would know how expensive that can be!

"I don't have meals out, drink and take holidays abroad" seem to be the most common ones, when many people stating these do use substantial disposable income in other ways.

Really? Do you have statistics to back this up, or are you just basing this judgement on a few carefully-chosen Daily Fail articles?

FWIW I don't do any of those things, nor do I have Sky TV/fancy car/gym membership/fancy clothes.

I don't think it's at all malicious though, really. I think it's a case of becoming so used to your own income that you don't know what is 'normal' for other people.

An example:

We have 3 small children, one of whom has SN and needs constant supervision.

DH works for a very low wage, but it's a job which allows him to support me with DD in the holidays (he can compress his hours to allow him some days off). He earns £10k per year.

I get Carer's Allowance of just under £3k per year.

We (thankfully) get some HB, a little CTB, CTC/WTC. DD gets DLA.

Now, I don't think we do too badly, tbh. I don't have to worry too much about money and we don't have an overdraft (we had a terrible time financially in the past, but that's over, and we don't/can't have debt).

Then, I was reading a thread in Style and Beauty, and I saw that lots of people spend £200-300 per month on clothes, for them alone, and I realised that life is so different.

We don't drink (well, DH has an ale on Sunday with dinner at DF's house), we don't go out in the week or at weekends, we don't go on holiday, we don't buy clothes unless they are worn through, and even when I do go shopping I don't spend much (recent shopping was £63 pounds between 3 girls for clothes, and hadn't bought any since previous year), we don't have hobbies, I don't have haircuts, etc.

So, I realised that the reason I feel we are 'comfortably' off is that we regard as luxuries things that some other people regard as essentials.

It doesn't mean I'm boasting about our lifestyle, nor are they, we just have completely different barometers of what is essential.

I say these thins when rabid anti-working mumers suggest I am only working s I can pay for all the luxuries they don't have.

"lots of people spend £200-300 per month on clothes, for them alone"there are some people who spend that amount on a single item of clothing

The thread heading was intriguing. Totems of being well off particularly intriguing but I have no idea what you mean.

Where you live has a big impact on how rich or poor you see yourself.
We live in a small village, there's no school here so the 2 nearest schools are either in the next (posh) village over or in the nearby town. We chose the village school so are the 'poor relations' - we drive clapped out bangers whilst a lot of the people there change brand new cars every couple of years, we don't go abroad whilst most people tere have a couple of foreign holidays a year, we go to butlins, they go to blue water/centre parks, we rent a 3 bed house, they own million pound mansions etc etc BUT if we had sent them to the town school we would have been rich by comparison - havin 2 cars, swimming, gymnastics, ballet lessons etc, goin to legoland and staying in new legoland hotel, having sky, having a tumble dryer, having an iPad etc.

broke today is different from the broke that I know.

Growing up we had no car, and I mean EVER. We could not even afford the basics, on hot bath, once a week. The cupboard was pretty empty most of the time. I had mostly hand me down clothes from other people, and in the course of my whold childhood I went on five holidays. Lots of time we had to sit in the dark because the meter cut out.

I think that people on the whole, don't want to admit that poverty is something that can happen to us all - however well off you are, it only takes a bit of bad luck for it all to disappear. Therefore, some people, who are doing okay financially, like to comfort themselves with the thought that other people are poor because they spend all their money on Sky TV, or foreign holidays and so it is their own fault.

I don't really 'get' the foreign holiday thing - it isn't cheaper to holiday in the UK, unless you are talking about camping, rather than hotel stays.

For us, I spend money on SKY because my family derives enjoyment from it all month for less than the cost of one day out, which can be prohibitively expensive if you want to go to to somewhere other than a (free entry) museum.

I don't consider cars to be a luxury - depending on where you live, they are a necessity for many.

Eating out is a luxury to me, because you can eat at home for a lot less money, so I understand why that is used as an example of wastefulness.

But there is this idea that the poor shouldn't be allowed to complain about anything, unless they are living in a cardboard box. god forbid they should have a mobile phone and still consider themselves to be skint!