To be amazed at how much money some people seem to have?

[EverythingTurnsToSkittles]

I'm talking about people who just do totally normal, average/low paid jobs, but just seem to have money coming out of their ears!

Someone that I know has one child and lives with her partner, who works in a manual low skilled job. She doesn't work. In the past year they have been to Dubai, flying first class, Cyprus, Center Parcs three times, plus several foreign weekend mini breaks in Europe. They also live in a really nice house and certainly don't seem to go without in terms of clothes, eating out, cars, etc.

Do a lot of people who live like this on a seemingly low income have family money? I have come across quite a lot of people like this recently and am intrigued about how they do it?!

I have an acquaintance like this. She grows popular plants.

yes it's definetly a growing buissness round here to

why cant i have rich parents or a faberge egg in my loft

I think OH and I might fall into this category. We've definitely faced stigma from other people who were nasty as they didn't 'understand' so jumped to wild conclusions about how we did it.

Basically what we do is save like mad when things are good (I think it's partially due to our mind set as we both had situations we needed to escape as young adults/teens), we have a food budget (but still eat well), have an oldish car which we bought outright and repair ourselves where possible, never had finance, use credit cards only for the bonuses and put money on every month, buy very little but when we do we get good quality things that'll last.

Don't smoke, don't drink (in pubs anyway!), eat out as a special treat (not that bothered we're more outdoorsy types), hate going to the hairdresser/salon so all grooming happens at home (small talk, ick!), no expensive hobbies. I guess we're quite old fashioned in our make do and mend attitude.

All of this has meant we've been able to spend a year abroad recently, we're in the process of buying a house (which will have a very low mortgage so repayments will be low, freeing up a lot of what is currently 'dead money' i.e rent). We have at least two nice holidays a year.

Currently I'm not working (don't need to financially) and I'll be renovating new house - also pregnant so we wanted to work things out financially first so that it'd be a viable option for me to be a SAHM. We don't claim any benefits at all (never have) so it was just working hard on low wages, careful planning and saving up for the future, making sacrifices where needed and choosing what to spend our money on. OH's job works out to be just under minimum wage, taking into account the pro rata.

I would say they are living way beyond their means and it will
Get them in the end . Unless of course they are being given money from somewhere . Someone I know is like this , her husband is a drug dealer on the side .. Nice !!!

Me too inspectormontalbano - can't be worse than the pond life I encounter in my professional and not so well paid current employment. Shall we become wastewater people together?

Probably credit carded to the max.

From the outside we look like we have lots...6 cars, a boat, large house, 2 kids, I work from home so really flexible hours etc, we go away once a month.
However we only actually own 3 cars, the other 3 are leased (for the business). The boat is no different to a caravan in terms of annual running costs (and we did a lot of work to make her look good), the nights away are more than often work related and we just happen to drag the kids along. We don't go on overseas holidays because we do not take holidays or annual leave, literally 1 night a month away and we rent. I would LOVE to buy a house but after getting married last year and overspending (again - whoops) so many pennies are repaying or paying for our commitments already.
However it all comes down to priorities, for us its lots of small regular treats and trips and my husband loves cars, for others its the owning a house and the holidays...others far more sensible than me its about having a nest egg for the future!

Low skilled manual labour can actually pay quite good money.

Men have the advantage over women that even if they leave school with little to no qualifications they can still make good money at manual jobs that a woman (traditionally) wouldn't do.

Road workers
Linesman on the railways
Especially working at night, quite high money.

DP does manual labour. Earns more than most of the people I know who have degrees and professional jobs. Certainly twice the average income. People are always surprised.

Yes! I agree OP and I say that from the POV of someone who is reasonably well off. I consider me and DP to have quite well-paid jobs and he has also inherited money from FIL, which means we can afford one nice car and a smallish house in a nice area. If people consider us rich I would agree.

But I know people who on paper should have a lot less money than us – e.g. only one partner working, in less well-paid jobs. And they buy massive houses, have several cars etc. One couple who have less than half our income decided their perfectly fine bathroom needed an update and spent 10K on it! I'd never do that! Another bought a new house, similar value to ours, but couldn't sell their old flat for a while. They went ahead with the purchase though and just owned both places. How??? How??? I think of us as much better off than them but no way could we afford to do that. Same with single-income friends who are always flying off to the US, Caribbean and Far East.

It's not that I mind, I just can't work it out!

There is also unseen money such as investments. None of my friends know DH and I do this.

MIL revealed today that she has just received money from ground rents she owns I have known her for over 20 years and had no idea she had these.

My FIL worked in the city but had some investments and pension plans go totally awry. My friends FIL is a retired electrician, he is having a far more comfortable retirement and pays for his granddaughters to attend an independent school.

Haha That makes 3 rookie ! I googled it & sounds interesting but starting salary of 14.5k..

always think they're insecure about their completely average lives and want to try and convince the world they've got money. They're mortgaged up to the eyeballs and take loans and credit cards for everything

I know people like this too

its pathetic and embarrassing but most of all makes me feel sad for them

Oh maybe i should hold fire on that resignation email then rosa humph.

We use a local driver regularly for airport runs who is a sole trader. He told DH the other day that he earned £80K pa and takes most of March off for a holiday.

Like others have said there may be an unseen income but I know a fair few family members who just spend way beyond their means. My SIL and DB are terrible for this with the attitude that 'if they want it, they buy it' and if it goes tits-up someone will have to help them . No bargain hunting or waiting for it to come down in price, no just realising they can't actually afford it and all of it on credit.

That would TERRIFY me, I simply would not be able to sleep at night being in that much debt and it's pretty selfish too as ILs and my parents always end up having to bail them out so my DNs don't suffer.

I've known SIL spend money on cosmetic surgery then bleat to grandparents she can't afford the foodshop. Its no way to live.

No amount of benefits will pay for the lifestyle described in the OP. There will be something else, of the many options mentioned in this thread.

People also don't always notice what people don't spend their money on.

We have lots of holidays and have just paid cash for a big extension, but I am the queen of looking for deals, I shop at Aldi and cook from scratch, and our bills and mortgage are tiny due to buying years ago and always shopping around. This has enabled us to save a lot. We don't spend on decorating, cushions etc. Before the extension, we had done nothing to the house in 10 years.

I know plenty of salespeople who make six figures.

One of my friends makes sarky comments about my other friend living beyond her means, absolutely refuses to accept she earns a massive salary, simply because she was a bit dizzy 30 years ago when we were all at uni. It's like she cannot compute it.

Over the years people have ocaisionally though DH and I had some sort of scam going on. We have a big house, nice cars and holidays, I was a SAHM to our 4 kids. They either though I was on massive benefits, because I am disabled, or DH was some master criminal drug dealer because he is a scruffy biker and often around to do the school run etc.

In reality we run a very successful technical sales company from home and DH scrubs up once a week to go out and see his customers.

DH and I earn relatively paltry wages - certainly by Mumsnet standards, as we work term time only in non-teaching roles.

But we both bought property in the mid nineties, so we have a tiny mortgage on our family home, and our parents have been in the position to help us out with bigger purchases so although we've had to pay them back we haven't lost huge amounts over the years on interest payments.

Having said that, we haven't been abroad since our honeymoon nearly 13 years ago!

It's all about priorities as well.

I absolutely love going away, but getting things done round the house bore me rigid, if it wasn't for DH the house would look exactly the same as it did 10 years ago. I also really enjoy paying the lowest price possible for our holidays and will happily spend hours browsing to get cheap flights and accommodation.

Therefore it looks like we've got loads of disposable income, but probably spend a lot less than most people in our income bracket on furniture and home maintenance.

We might appear to be like this to the outside world. DH earns a good 6 figure salary but many might expect him to earn much less - if you look at the average pay of his profession on any official study, it is around £40k. So not too low but I'm a sahm and we live in London. It's just that his particular industry pays well above the typical rate, and he's been in the profession for years.

We spend a lot of money on holidays, eating out and entertainment. It's what we enjoy and we can afford it without going into debt. We've never had to pay for childcare due to family living nearby, and had a big deposit for our mortgage due to saving furiously since our teens (no inheritance or family help). We've also been very lucky with investments and good work perks which means that there are certain bills/expenses which we don't have to pay at all, or at a very reduced rate.

We bought our house brand new ten years ago. I reckon we are the only house out of the 12 or so on our estate not to have a new kitchen or bathroom in that time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our 10 year old kitchen or our bathrooms and we took care to choose classic, non dating styles when we moved in.

Interesting thread, though it really depends on perspective and where you live in the country.

MIL goes on and on about the 'young' couple who moved in next door to them, how they seem to 'flash the cash', have two nice cars etc. What she doesn't think about is how they're mid 30s like DH and me, so have been working for ten-fifteen years or so, cars are due to him working for a major car dealer, and they live in the arse end of nowhere. So that nice big house probably cost less than £200,000. With two decent salaries, that's absolutely doable.

Fortunes can turn on a dime, so they say. This time last year, a relative was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So whilst we are now much more comfortable financially, due to inheritance, I also lost someone. It's all relative and I know which I'd rather have...

DP and I are students and I think a lot of our friends think we have a lot of money. Most of them are also students and don't realise that for us to privately rent a small house in a residential area is MUCH cheaper than renting a student room each in the city centre. We have one car between us, which is one of the biggest expenses (after rent) but because we both go to the same uni, it is much cheaper (and time effective) for us to car share there and back, plus the fact we care share / don't live in the city centre means that we get a heavily reduced parking permit.

We like to eat, but cook a meal from scratch every night, and don't eat meat everyday. We like to eat out, which is the one thing we could cut down on. However, we do have all 'the cards' (clubcard, nectar etc) and the points do add up, we can often eat out 'for free' using points.

We have a dog, who everyone assumes is a money pit, but because he is so small he doesn't cost too much; his (high quality) food, work out around 50p a day and most medical bills are on the cheaper side because he is small (i.e cheaper neuter, only needs half a worming tablet each time). So, its boosters once a year and his monthly insurance (£15). If anything he saves us money because we can never out for the whole day / out drinking all night!

We are getting married this year and everyone is agog that we can afford to. We are very lucky and have a skilled family, I.e, one member doing flowers, one is a seamstress, one a photographer etc. We have also not been pulled in to too many 'wedding traps', we are renting a village hall, but this village hall happens to be a tithe barn, a business opposite does wood fired pizza's, so this is our food.

By the end of the year we will have graduated and hopefully be able to buy a house, this is because DPs Father died when he was a baby and he is getting some inheritance. Obviously none of you are 'wishing relatives dead', but none of our elderly relatives will bequeath us anything 'worthwhile' as they have so many children / grandchildren. So, the deposit is a bit of a sad story, rather than long-lost great Aunt Edna leaving us her house.

We are travelling for a month for our honeymoon, however we are hosteling / backpacking it and we will have moved out of our rented house by then, to live with one of the in laws for a bit. So we won't have bills to pay, we will help out when we are there, but as we are away for a month won't actually be there much!

So we have 'helpful' family if not well off and low outgoings relative to our situation. Plus 'got lucky' to have a deposit in our twenties.

they have been to Dubai, flying first class,

Sounds a bit unlikely on that income unless they have a lot of airmiles saved up.

She may be lying to you for her own reasons.

I thought this of one of my friends, she earn't more than me, and got bonuses but their lifestyle was soo much more luxurious than ours.

When she went on mat leave we discussed finances a bit, she told me work only paid stat mat pay, I said that's rubbish but at least it's a bit of spends. She told me it didn't even cover the minimum payment on her credit card! That's a min payment of more than £600 per month! So all may not be as it seems.

I don't waste my time wondering about other people's finances. I waste it on wondering about their relationships instead