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?

Want2bSupermum As far as I am concerned there is no way that a family with 1.5 jobs which bring in no more than 40k a year plus two children can afford a 500k house. If anyone is able to do it please do share!

That's my calculation too. It really is baffling. My (part time) hairdresser lives in a 1/2 million pound new build and has just shelled out cash for a giant Jacuzzi in the garden. Her DH is some kind of salesman, no degree, both have newish Mercedes. My neighbour has 3 Mercedes and was a plumber for the local Council. His wife has never worked. I know people who shell out on newish cars for their kids on hitting 18, buy £50,000 horseboxes and several £30,000 plus horses, yet none of them seem to have anything like the traditionally well paid careers, or to be particularly posh. Its bizarre.

I honestly can't figure out how people afford holidays. If I take us on a trip out here, it comes to about £60-£80 including petrol, entrance, food, little gift, ice cream etc.

Where do people get the money from for a holiday? Is it on credit card, or do you save up? I haven't had a proper holiday for nearly 16 years and would love on.

It's about priorities. And various other things. I haven't been on holiday abroad since 2003 and the and time I went on holiday was in 2009, but I have a smart phone and a lap top and broadband and TV. If I didnt' have those things I could probably go on holiday...but staying in touch with people and browsing the internet is more important to me, but I certainly can't have it all.

I think there is a lot of debt out there - living on the never never tends to bring out the worst in people spending money they don't have on just about anything that takes their fancy.

In addition to that, there are some amazing deals out there (the Wii we have came free with my mobile contract) and then there's ebay, and gumtree, and amazon....you can really pick up a bargain.

Hiddenhome, maximize Tesco vouchers for the travel end of things via supermarket shopping and use of the Tesco credit card that you pay back every month.

Try to sort out a house swap, housesitting, or stay somewhere in Europe where you won't find another English tourist for miles, that is an unfashionable as possible! That is how we have done it. This works particularly well for things like skiing.

Also look at places like the former East Germany, the far north of Bavaria near the Czech border (eg the Bavarian Forest), and consider Kolping hotels (run by a Christian charity) or plain gites in the back of beyond, or youth hostels with family rooms if you want something in a prettier area. Sometimes you can stay cheaply in university accommodation in the summer vacation.

Also sometimes going for 5 days is financially viable when 1 or 2 weeks might not be.

Skinny I am very much the same way and disappointed that no one on here has managed to shed light on how those on lower incomes are able to afford these expensive homes.....

If you are in the right industry then there are lots of freebies that go around, we've had lots of MP3 players, monitors, TVs and other gadgets over the years - many of which we have traded and sold and then bought the items we want.
We normally sell existing technology in order to upgrade to the next thing, it is amazing what you can get for things, so often things have been zero or very low cost to us.

And there are bargains to be had on larger items. I have just ordered a new bed for DS1 today. I paid slightly less than half RRP, and asked if they would waive the delivery fee or else I would pop next door and see what they would offer me. Deal done.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I paid full price for anything that cost more than £50.

We budget, save, put money aside for Christmas and holidays as we go along. We are really frugal about things like coffee and lunches out, which many people we know do 2-3 times a week and then moan they can't afford a holiday.

We are definitely in a fortunate position, but DH has been made redundant twice in the last 4 years which has been very stressful, so we haven't had it handed on a plate.

My salary is £200 per month - yes per month.

I like how you tried to draw attention to this, and then downplayed the fact that the vast majority of your income comes from benefits and child maintenance, ComeYoniWithMe.

A lot of people really haven't seen much of a change in their income and lifestyle with the recession, if you've kept your job, have a house were your mortgage repayments are cheap (particularly if you calculated what you could afford and set budgets on higher rates), and don't rely on benefits for any of your income, then the recession isn't something that will effect you - other than the fact a lot of companies have deals and offers on so your money goes a lot further.

DH's team was ring fenced for the last load of redundancies (so didn't have to worry about it), and my company are just doing them now (I survived the first lot that was all the way back in 2009), but I'm on mat leave, and wasn't sure if I was going to go back anyway, a nice payout might just make that decision a little easier.

It does sound like I'm gloating, I'm not, it's just we haven't been hit by the recession - we bought a house much smaller than borrowing to the limit the bank would let us borrow so we could afford to live on just DH's wage if we wanted too, we have a good load of savings (currently 6 months worth of mortgage, bills and food costs, we add £300 a month to it) so our spending money is just that - I also don't tend to shop regularly for clothes, so rather than spending 5 lots of £30 on things over a couple of months, I will just buy a couple of things from Boden online.

(And I tend to assume that most people pushing a £800 pram have been given it by grandparents).

My income went up by a large jump once I stopped paying childcare. We were hand to mouth for years but now we are OK. We both have reasonable wages and a mortgage which is reasonable compared to some. We couldn't afford to buy our house now. But I am amazed at how many kids have expensive phones which must be on £35 plus a month contracts. Also when we go on the ferry to France it stuns me how many people are in big huge four wheel drive cars which must cost to buy and to run. I suppose people prioritise for whatever works for them. We don't pay for private education and we don't go out much but we do pay for Kids to do expensive hobbies that we wouldnt be able to do if we did the former.

LessMiss - have they inherited them? If people are in sales, don't underestimate the commission if they overachieve against target.

I think that those who were already on a low income with a tight budget have been disproportionally hit by this recession.

If you were earning enough that you had money to put into savings each month then you were more likely to be able to absorb rising food and fuel costs. If you had the money to spend on regular treats/meals out then there was expenditure to trim when looking to save money. If you were already budgeting carefully to cover your weekly food shop there wasn't any slack to take up.

If you were in a job where you get x amount per annum regardless of hours and you haven't been made redundant your income has stayed the same. If you were in a job where you are paid by the hour then you're more likely to have had your hours cut/lost usual overtime due to the downturn and had a drop income.

If you were on a lower income you're more likely to have been in receipt of one of the benefits that's been cut or to have been hit by the 'reassessment' of your health/ability to work or the bedroom tax.

If you were looking for low skilled part time work to supplement your income the workfare scheme had filled the the needs of many companies. In the past people may have taken shifts shelf stacking etc but the paid work isn't there because workfare gives it to companies for free.

Um...our ipad was free too actually! DH was given it by his work. We recently bought another one as a 70th birthday present for his Dad so there's somebody else who got one for free!

A lot of very good points there Pickled.

I know what you mean. My friend and her husband both have an ipad each and her 3 dc each have a ds. She is a sahm, he works full time and she was telling me they get help with housing costs etc. I did wonder how they can afford all the gadgets when we get no help at all finacially but would have to save for ages to get an ipad

Another friend moans how skint they are and can't see how anyone can afford to save but manages to have a week away in Cornwall or the like plus get married spending a good few thousand.

How are the doing this and what am i doing wrong!?

I found my Audi TT down the back of the sofa I won in a raffle.

I think sometimes appearances can be deceptive.

We have holidays but not abroad. our holidays/weekends away are always in the camper.
There are 2 cars on the drive but they are company cars so no MOT/unexpected costs - we only own the slightly tatty campervan.
I don't own anything "named" unless its from TK max
We have smart phones but about 3 years old so non contract now
I am a lidl convert and anything not spent is saved for weekends away
We didst over stretch ourselves when buying a house - we borrowed about 100k less than we potentially could of.

Nothing beginning with i owned here - give me a record (or tape in the van) any day. Still have a big old fashioned telly too.

We save up for our holidays hiddenhome.

When our DC were small, we went on Sun holidays, then as they got older and I went back to work so we had more money we had a week abroad. We go SC, book early and aren't into 5* etc. We,also, have never been worried about taking them out of school for a few days until they hit 13/14.

Overprotection how exactly did I downplay it?
Benefit bashing are you - how lovely.

Benefit bashing are you - how lovely.

Not really, I was just somewhat amused at your attempt to portray yourself as some sort of superscrimper who magically lives a champagne lifestyle on a tramps budget.

It's not just you though, there's a lot of bollocks being spouted on this thread.

Pickled, I completely agree, in the main.
I know of a few people in higher paying jobs who have been made redundant. But they have either been able to find new roles pretty swiftly or belt tighten. Certainly not living in poverty.

Well.....going from my own experience I was made redundant from my job when the recession started.
However since then I have found work but on a short-term self employed basis. There are more & more companies employing people this way because of the flexibility it offers them.
I get more per hour than in my old job BUT I have no job security, pension paid holidays or sick pay. There are loads of people out there like me. It's cheaper for businesses as despite paying more per hour they make a huge saving on the benefits.

So I have more cash in my pocket, but need to be careful as I have no security. Most people with cash in their pocket will just spend it all though in my experience, thus appearing to be well off even though they know their job is not secure.

I think it's my £20 mortgage that allows my champagne lifestyle rather than the millions of £'s I get in benefits.

Quite a few people seem to be evading their taxes....

These freebies should be included in your income that is taxed. As an example, emergency daycare is paid for by employer BUT the cost of it is added to my income and I am taxed on it. If I won an ipad at work the cost of it would be added to my salary the month I collected it and taxes would be paid on that amount.

My iPad is from work!