to feel like a pauper on here

[FluffyPiggle]

Because I don't have a garden OR inheritance?!

No sunbathing in £50 notes while wearing half a bikini for me!!!

*meant to be taken in good humour ;)

We decided to go very last min - so v limited availability half term. When I saw price I nearly passed out. My dh's dad died when he was young so he believes in living for the moment- he justified it by saying he'd had a good year business wise- but we need to move so probably wasn't the wisest decision. Especially as nothing will ever compare!

Marmite that is beyond strange.

We rent (always will ) a small house with a tiny wee garden out front, enough for a bit of grass and a paddling pool for the sprog.
Car is from 1998, we barely use it - just for Ikea
We go for very cheap mini-breaks anything up to 3-hours' drive away once or twice a year, picnicking as we go filling our pockets from the hotel breakfast buffet

We live in a lovely town with great architecture, great weather, great cultural events, child-friendly, quite down-to-earth, good schools. We are all healthy with family close by and a fantastic group of friends. DH and I are both employed full-time in jobs we love that pay in magic beans!

More money would allow me to fly, at short notice, to.my DGM's funeral next week. I can't talk about inheritances, too ghouliish, yuck.

This thread is close to sinking into the old Monty Python sketch of the three Yorshiremen: we lived in a hovel. A hovel? You were lucky; we lived in an old sock.under a bridge... etc.

I have no inheritance because there are six of us and mother insists on going on three cruises with her fancy man every year. I don't bleeding blame her. I'm not interested in her money let her spend it on as many nights out at the bingo as she chooses.

It's amazing the amount of youngsters I know who get deposits for property in London because their parents would rather give it to them now rather than when they are gone. I'm not jealous. It's just the way it is. I think it's a london thing.

I don't feel too skint compared to some but wouldn't be able to afford private education. I drive a seven year old car. We live in a very small house. I buy most of my clothes at new look or tesco. Shop at lidl.

I go full ML pay so I do the whole coffee shop thing, I don't have to worry about bills and so on. Have decent savings. Own home and we rent another out, so things aren't too bad.

I have friends who constantly complain how expensive everything is, and how poor they are.

Kids in private schools, beautiful house, every winter to Maldives AND skiing, but she thinks that other people look down on her for being too poor, as the private school is not quite Eton, and they ski in Italy, not Switzerland.

I kid you not. She thinks of herself as poor as most of her friends are much richer.

I don't have a garden (because I live in a block of flats) and if my parents both died tonight, God forbid, I'd inherit four cats with a variety of issues. And that would be it. I wouldn't look forward to having the cats.

Some of MN is poor, some rich! I do laugh at some of the "My nanny says "ta" and I think it might be causing my DC difficulty at school" type issues though.

Im not even going to pretend that im not rich ,years of private education and lots of buisness plans mean that combined with my husban ee have a net eorth of £48 million i have 2 houses and i have roughy 5 trips abroad a year . However i worked hard for my money the CEO of my dhs company and a marrige child and divorce counslyr . I iherited almost nothing except items with personal meaning and as my husband loves to tell people how i invested in a £2000 carpet

Really happy?

Exactly BravePotato, unless you are Richard Branson or Bill Gates, there is always going to be someone richer than you.

But if you can afford any private school, skiing or other foreign holidays, and own a house, you are richer than most people in the UK and in turn, most people in the world.

Unless you have very high (necessary, not just because you fancy a flash place) housing costs, anyone on say £30k+ really is more well off than average and should feel grateful for that, rather than looking at a tiny minority of high profile very rich people and stamping their feet going 'it's so unfair, they have more than me'.

I earn £40k but DP earns minimum wage. Most of my colleagues earn more and have high earning partners, yet some often complain about how 'poor' they are, which is ridiculous.

We have very secure jobs and I am very grateful for that. We can afford to go abroad twice per year (Spain for a week, mid range hotel) but we don't buy a lot of the things that many people see as 'essential' like daily coffees and expensive bought lunches, beauty treatments, latest mobile phone packages, 'disposable' clothing, etc etc mainly because I think they are a waste of money.

It is very easy to spend hundreds of pounds per month on little treats like these, not thinking they are luxuries and then think you are skint, when you are really not. We can't afford naice hotels for example so would rather just be there for the experience, rather than paying a lot extra for nicer surroundings.

A couple of people have mentioned driving a seven year old car as an example of how 'not rich' they are. We'll I don't think a seven year old car is old, mine is six years old and it feels more like 'nearly new' and I expect to keep it for another five years or more.

Perhaps I should give classes in being happy with what you have and having modest wants .

On MN you're either rolling in money ( 30k to spend on holidays/.kids in private education ) or really struggling ( £30pw to feed a family of 4 ) I only notice the two extremes. But I'd imagine the vast majority of mumsnetter's are somewhere in the middle, they just don't stand out as much. I wear Boden, I live in a nice house with a garden, ( London area ) I take holidays, but only in the UK, & I'm due to inherit £300,000 - but I consider myself poor on here.

Oh dear, happyzapper, it seems a private education and pots of money can buy you neither literacy or class.

Where I come from, most people got water from stand pipes when I was growing up. Scratched a living. No cars, grew our own veg etc etc.

Now I currently live in the UK, have sold a business, don't work, kids in private school.

I heard a lot more genuine belly laughing in one afternoon growing up that I do in weeks at the school gate.

It's all about attitude.

YANBU. I often feel like a pauper both here and in RL. I earn very little money and am not very good at budgeting what I do earn.

On the plus side I have a lovely DS who regularly offers to loan me the vast amounts of pocket money he seems to accumulate from my parents! The interest rate varies

Can't help myself. Am snorting at AnyFuckers post.

Apparently the trick is not to hang out with people richer than you as it will make you miserable.

That said, Marmite I think it's wonderful you had the holiday of a lifetime. Much more fun to celebrate your good year on that than with a new posh(ish) car IMO.

I think there are a lot more people in the middle here than they would make out. It's easy to compare yourself to others and either think proudly that you're better off or sadly that you're worse off. Comparison is the thief of joy.

We're probably ok, mostly due to living in a cheap part of the county. We just bought our first house with a garden that I love, but houses round here are cheap (you can get reasonable 3 beds for £100k, go out a bit further and you can get 3 beds for £60k). If we moved back to where I grew up I think we could maybe buy a shed. We can't afford holidays abroad every year, I can't afford my own car and DH's is 13 years old and still got plenty of life left in it. We don't spend much on clothes, only buy in sales, but we do quite often stop for coffee as a treat. A lot of it's a question of priorities and the cost of living where you are.

'Comparison is the thief of joy' is so true CoolCat

We have very little, money-wise. We're just about scraping by, hoping we can manage the rent on our flat (no garden) until September, when our student loan comes in, which then all goes on rent, bills and food (and now baby food and nursery fees too). I bought my car from ebay for £300, it's a 15 year old Fiat that we can't afford petrol for. I don't even pretend to hope we'll ever be able to own our own home. I used to go to Haven with my family, but now that I've moved out, we're saving up desperately for a family holiday for my 21st next year (Haven again), and we were lucky enough to be chosen by MN to go and review Butlins in December.

Yeah, it's difficult when you compare yourself, because you end up feeling like you have nothing - but when I stop the comparison, I realise that I'm happy. The only thing I'd really change about our circumstances right now would be to have a little garden, or even a communal grassy area, where I could set up DD's paddling pool rather than doing it on the living room floor. We're at the lower end of the financial scale without a doubt, but we're happy.

I feel skint all the time (well, I lie - I feel rich today as I got paid!) and would love a garden. I grew up in a big house with my own room in a leafy area, we had a big garden.

We by comparison have a small house with just a yard. I try not to make comparisons but it's hard sometimes! All in all, I'm happy with my lot - doesn't stop me fantasising about more disposable cash though....!

Still goggle eyed at marmite with sheer undisguised awe and jealousy!

I'm imagining if it was me "bloody hell DH, Ted & Jane have picked out a last minute break. But pricey at £3.5k but beans on toast for a year and we can stretch to it. Oh hold on, misread the zeroes. It's £35k" and then would have had to pick self up off floor after 13 hours of hysterical laughter.

I'm happy. Middle income. But I'd fucking love to be rich!

I think being rich is wasted on the rich.

They can't seem to just enjoy it!

We went for a little three-day break over Easter to a lovely cathedral city. We drove 4 hours on a dodgy 1-lane B road, along with a shedload of lorries, instead of paying €30 motorway tolls and saving an hour's travel. We stopped off in a nondescript village halfway up and had a picnic surrounded by olive trees next to a field of donkeys! DS was beside himself I had to elbow him out of the way to look at the donkeys myself

It was a blast and we wouldn't swap it foranything. We love what we have.

BravePotato
I think being rich is wasted on the rich.

They can't seem to just enjoy it!

I'd be like the Kardashians. Bring on the bling!

I was on Rightmove the other day checking out local rental prices just in case our LL didn't want to renew our lease as the initial six months is coming to an end (fortunately she does ). Out of interest I had a look to see what is the most expensive house - at least with an advertised price, not just 'POA' - in London currently for sale...it's this:

www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-sale/property-44247919.html

It's a flat! It's not even a house! £65,000,000 for a sodding flat! How do people afford these things, and who is selling it???

My bets are - furriner from the middle east, oil, no tax paid in the UK. Being sold through some company so no-one is named as the owner.

Joking apart...I have been in some shitty situations, feeling trapped in a small urban flat in a rundown area with thousands of pounds of debt, no garden, nightmare neighbours, no prospects of change. Somehow I got us out of there by grasping opportunities when they came along and prioritising paying off the debts.

So now, while my terraced house belongs to someone else and I'll probably never own my own property again, my garden is a tiny courtyard (literally less than 20' x 20') and I can't afford much in the way of holidays - a weekend in the Cotswolds this year - I am debt-free, have a tiny (under £5k) savings buffer and can sit in my postage stamp garden in the sun listening to the bells of the local cathedral, sipping a glass of cheap plonk and be aware that in that moment, I am happy. I may never be rich or even 'comfortable' by the standards of many, but I have come so far from where we were and even those small pleasures which would be so insignificant to or taken for granted by so many - a tiny garden, birdsong and church bells, nice neighbours - seem like riches beyond compare and more than we could ever have realistically hoped to achieve even five years ago.