To be absolutely fucking amazed how much money people have?

[HiggsBoson]

I thought we were in a recession.

I thought people were genuinely struggling.

DP and I certainly do as we are on low incomes, but we try to be grateful for what we have.

How is it then, that so many people can afford ipads, clothes from the likes of Joules and Boden, Mercedes and Audis, Hunter wellies for their kids ffs, expensive overseas holidays and huge 10/20/30K weddings?

Honestly I'm quite baffled. Everybody seems to have an ipad - they're £500!!

What's going on?

My friend works for the courts (Court Service) in the debt dept and she said you would not believe how much debt so many, many people have. There are people on every street in our city with huge debt....not just a few thousand but tens of thousands - it has reached her in the courts so it is serious debt. Yet their bank statements show they pay for meals out, sky, holidays....no one would ever know they were in serious debt.

It's fine to disagree and and i am happy to stand corrected. Just throwing out questions to get a balanced arguement on it

LadyBeagle bit of a pointless post if you aren't going to point out any of the things you disagree with and why

There is nothing wrong with corporate tax per se. If anything it needs to be simplified and should be a flat rate on profits. The media mislead people greatly when they talk about taxes paid as a percentage of revenue. From a corporate perspective, taxes are paid on net income. Personal income is paid on gross income which is a different kettle of fish.

I think there are a lot of 'self employed' people who are not really self employed. I read an article about the number of self employed at the BBC. I can't fathom how they are self employed.

I also think capital gain tax on primary residences should be tightened up. I think it is shocking you can live in a place for 6 months and not pay capital gains on any profits. If you are doing a BTL then there should be 20% VAT applied to the purchase price of the home. The only time this shouldn't apply is if the home has been your primary residence for at least 5 years or you have proof of your employment location changing. I would abolish stamp duty.

Don't get me started on utilities.... how the government can justify applying any VAT to them is just awful. It is a bloody necessity to have electricity, heat and water. The utility companies are not ripping people off. The government are. Sadly it is the people we voted in.

morethan I have noticed that our Town Centre is dead during the day. The old and unemployed are not about anymore. All the shops are closing and it can be like a ghost town, during times you knew it used to be heaving

They're all in the shops in the retail parks (3 within 5 miles at the last count) and garden centres that have been built around where I live. They're always absolutely thronging at any time during the working day. I guess the people buying the £500,000 plus new builds need something to do during the day!

Yoni you write smug posts about how you live on the cheap and the get huffy when people come back with comments.

And actually it's not all right. When my DH lost his job a few years ago he wasn't allowed any kind of unemployment benefit as we 'owned' a flat and were told to sell off that asset first before he could get support. Really. The person at the job centre said '...I know where you live and it's a nice street.' This despite paying into the system for years.

So if you own your own house or will shortly wtf should the govt be giving you tax credits?!

Flame away but posters like you just irritate...

I do think the OP has a point though.

Being an oldie and having lived through several recessions, I am always reminded how easy it is to be made redundant, and you think it will never happen to you.
It surprises me that some people aren't more cautious, but I couldn't pick out those who should, in the street.

If I worked in retail in my town, I'd be really worried about my job.

In the little highstreet where i live (which is a suburb of the main town) we have been really lucky over the past 5 years because the shops have been filled with small independant shops (very rare.) The downfall though is it has become a victim of it's own success because Costa, Tesco and now Sainsburys have moved in and already 3 little shops have closed

William

When we paid our mortgage off, I called tax credits helpline immediately within the hour. They said thank you very much, it makes no difference as it is not an income nor does it affect income.

Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn't have taken the money?

One of the other things that puzzles me is that while I guess DH and I are reasonably well off, we do a lot of things ourselves. ie DH does pretty much all his own car servicing and repairs and we drive older cars. We decorated our own house, as in physically doing the painting, tiling, kitchen and bathroom installation, etc.. Yet I have friends who I'm pretty sure don't earn as much as us, who wouldn't dream of dirtying their hands by doing that sort of stuff, yet have top quality kitchens and bathrooms which cost a fortune to install!

Isn't it just a symptom of the increasing inequality in society? Rich are getting richer, poor are having to weigh up heating versus eating. It's only going to get worse.

Saying that, the flashy type rich are often not necessarily happier than the frugal saver rich types. I only say that because people often chase money equating it with happiness. I think it's more interesting how unhappy many rich people are and how some people manage to be happy even in very difficult financial circumstances.

I am cynical like that though because i blame supermarkets for everything. I am still convinced it has been the supermarkets that have torn communties apart - first by enticing shoppers away from the independant shops in the highstreet with their cheaper prices, then building big superstores out of town thus luring shoppers out of the local shops altogether and now they have opened up in every highstreet in the country (almost) to put the final nail in the independant shops coffin. They have even closed non food businesses from selling tvs/books/cds/furniture etc. Those independant shops (bakers/butchers/green groucers etc) put communities together, now everyone hates eachother as they walk around a large supermarket aisle looking depressed

I didn't find my iPad in a hedge. I found it at a bargain price on the 3 website when the 2 came out and they were shifting their stock of the original iPad. I paid £20 a month for it for 2 years and then recently upgraded to an iPad mini. It was free but I now pay £29 a month. £29 is what, 2 rounds of drinks in a pub? A takeaway? I don't go out drinking so think this is fair enough. I get my iPhone the same way, cheapest contract deal I can find and pay it out of my wages.
I'm sure you'd be fascinated to learn that I also have a kindle. I craft from home and spent last summer working my fingers to the bone when the kids were in bed and hoarded all of that money in PayPal to buy a kindle. Oh how wanton of me!!
If only I'd sat on my arse and done nothing and then I could have had a sack cloth and some ashes instead. Woe!

Chocolate

I know exactly where you are coming from and was explaining the irony of HMV going bust, to my ds's 21 and 18.
Until they emerged there were many small independents selling music and related goods. They all went out of business or had to concentrate on other sides of their business to survive.
They were quite amused when I told them I bought vinyl from the market, Martins the newsagent. Boots ffs, and Woolworths. Them were th'days

Morethan. I'm not interested in a bun fight about who deserves tax credits and who doesn't especially on Mumsnet which can make even the most leftie of socialists feel like fascist conservatives. And that's not what this thread is about. And god forbid I might suggest that anybody might not deserve money given to them by the govt... That is their right, right???!

But when Yoni started yammering on about how she's debt free, owns a house and lives on a low income in a smuggle way... Well she was asking to be questioned and pulled up.

Yes it is very ironic. I long for days when communities had local shops everything was such better quality.

It is also ironic that everyone nowadays want quality food yet also want to pay the very least for it but also think it is discusting that farmers don't get their fair price, chickens are crammed in cages and so much food is imported and they want local produce too. How on earth does anyone think this is possible without some sort of moral injustice and without some poor bastard losing out at the other end of the supply chain?

How on earth does the poster who claims to live on £200 a month salary do it?

My gas/ electric/ water and council tax bills come to more than that before anything else.

I can't see anyway how her claim can possibly be true if her house is now worth £165,000 so council tax alone would be £100+ a month.

Re the question as to how someone earning £40k affords a £500k

And you don't know how much equity they have? They may have bought and sold quite well over the years, been left an inheritance and only have £120k mortgage for example.

William

I didn't think the post sounded smug at all, probably because I have posted pretty similar ones in my time. But each to their own. I know some comments wind me up too, no offence meant

Since 2006 my husbands income has Increased considerably. It's true not all are effected by the recession.

My husband is a cautious man, always has been. We have never outstretched ourselves, have no debt, and our only annual splurge is that our children are in private school. We only made that move when we had enough put by for each child. If it ended tomorrow, the children could stay in school.

Many of our friends have no idea what he earns (some of them I suspect have an idea). and I know they would be shocked, 1 or 2 I know would be disgusted! We avoid certain conversations!

We live in a very normal area, our house is quite large, and we are now mortage free.

£200 a month .......?????? Our council tax is £240 a month.

Bearbehind

Council tax may be a lot lower surely dependant on when the OP bought the house.
We could manage on not much more than that I think. Although very lucky we have a bit more
I think it depends on what utilities you have and use as well. When we moved to town from country and gained gas, our utilities costs doubled irrespective of how little we used.
The OP might use cheaper ways of heating, lighting and cooking. I used to have a woodburner it saved us a fortune

morethan council tax is based on the house's valuation in 1991 so when it was bought is irrelevant.

I'd love the poster (it wasn't the OP) to come back and explain how it's possible?

Everyone has different priorities. I like nice food but my clothes budget is tiny and our TV is third hand. My daughter has swimming lessons but we don't have Sky. I spend a lot at Christmas but I hardly ever get my hair done.

a lot of people still have nice lifestyles, many of folk on Mn as well, generally they just don't talk about it as it's seen as being insensitive so it skews how many there are.