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 know what you mean there is a family who's daughter used to be friends with my DD. They live in a house that's worth at least 500k, plus inside it's all done up with expensive stuff, not B&Q! They must have spent at least the same again doing it up.

Neither seems to ever work, and they seem to spend all day in cafe bars in the local town centre..I figured they must have come from the London area somewhere and sold up or got an inheretance.

The thing is though I see lots of people like this in my local town centre, Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs, Friday mornings drinking coffee and eating in the local bars, probably costs £20-30 a time.. no obvious job , not older people but in their thirties, big houses, fancy cars the lot I often chat about it with my DM

It could be anything really, it doesn't need to be anything reckless.

Our summer holiday flights are entirely paid for with tesco vouchers most years.

Credit. Lots of credit.

Then again, I used to shop at sainsbos or waitrose, all named brands, meat every night. It's now aldi plus meat twice a week. Saves about £300-350 a month. Close on £4k a year.

We own our cars out right. Save £100 in a separate account each month and use that every 5 years or so to replace the cars (very unexciting cars). Sil has a high end car replaced every year on a car loan. Approx £300 a month. So an annual difference of about £2500ish.

So just differences in food and cars can really add up.

I worked out the repayment bit of our mortgage, plus life insurance and pension contributions are about £1500 a month. I could have some seriously nice holidays if we spent our money differently.

Manual labour is very well paid and is also quite often cash in hand so no tax on it - and therefore worth a lot more.

But I think some people are really good at managing what they have and being very thrifty. They don't fritter money away on things like takeaways, cigarettes, buying sandwiches at lunch. Most of us underestimate how much money we waste and how it would all add up to a big annual sum of money.

Our mortgage repayments were several thousand a month, as are many peoples' in London. Don't have them any more so we save loads now. If we didn't save it, it would pay for many first class flights and fripperies. They probably have no mortgage, inheritance, rental income from family assets, or all three! If not, they're living on credit.

Ha at that article. Reliant on their salaries to live? What do they think the rest of us do?

We would be 1100 per month worse off if our family didnt do our childcare (ive deduced from that allready the sum we give them monthly).

1100pcm over the year is a pretty sizeable amount!

In our circs we actually couldnt have afforded to have a child if my DM wasnt a childminder willi g to offer us a nominal fee. So we still dont have that 1100 to spare but a lot of people do!!

Maybe they sell that expensive glittery shite on facebook?**
**

Mrsjorah we don't do takeaways (cook from scratch every night), don't smoke, take homemade food into work for lunch. Still can't afford a fancy car or fancy holiday. Of course I find it unbelievable that people would spend tens of thousands on something that loses value so quickly (a car) or on a holiday that is over so quickly so I guess I'd need to earn a lot more before I could justify spending money on things I consider fripperies. Buying lunch each days frankly makes more sense if you don't like cooking and are pressed for time.

Yes or maybe they work for themselves around their children selling aloe Vera based products to unsuspecting mugs

maybe they have inheritance and secondly so many people lie about stuff, you dont know if they went first class or whatever. Stop watching other peoples life and work on making your own life better.

Ok @ourblanche you need a thread of your own for that story?

Don't compare the inside of your life to the outside of someone else's. Why does she feel the need to tell you about all these expensive things anyway? Focus on making your life the best you can.

They might well be criminals of course. There are plenty of crime families around -wife doesn't work, husband you are never very sure what he does but have a pretty good idea and another group are those who don't pay any tax at all who therefore have 33% or 40% more than the rest of us because of that.

The other issue is that most people borrow up to the limit of what they can get when buying a house - if the bank will loan you £250k, you buy a £250k house, if the bank will loan you £500k, you buy a £500k house. Therefore, many people assume that those who are close in age, living in a similar area, in a similar sized house for a similar length of time, have a similar income to them (or that people living in smaller houses are earning less than them).

Some people don't borrow up to the limit of what they can get a mortgage for, so have a much bigger income than you would expect for people living in that sort of house/area.

OP how funny you post this as I was going to post similar today - basically asking if myself and DH are being tight because despite his very healthy salary and my decent one, we just don't seem to be able to spend as much as friends. we are conservative with money but just because we are not flying business class on long haul trips and having a weekend break once a month like some people we know (who are earning much less) does that make us "tight"? I'd just prefer to spend the money on my kids education! Don't get me wrong - we treat our friends to dinners out to say thank you if they've done us big favours and are good with presents, but we are simply not travelling as much as some people seem to be able to. To be honest, it's up to you to spend what you want but am I missing something here? Are we being a bit too frugal? I don't know - but I like knowing there is stuff in the bank for a rainy day.

When I ask friends how some people can afford to spend so much, they say "maybe it's family money" - which I don't get. I come from a family which is pretty comfortable but I don't have a direct debit going into my account from a mysterious family fund as some people have, especially not at this age where quite frankly you should be fending for yourself!

Don't underestimate salaries.

My DH is 'just' a car salesman. He happens to be the best in the region and earns almost 6 figures. He earns more than a lot of the doctors that he sells to.

I don't work and we have 3 DC.

We've got a rental flat, and only have 7 years left on our mortgage.

We do have a lot on credit, but I couldn't give a shit. If we sold up the rental flat, we'd still be tens of thousands in the black.

Things aren't always as they seem.

Anyway, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. This life is a gift. You don't know what's around the corner. Do what you want, TODAY, as tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Dh was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 (now in remission), but if his lights had turned out, we could have said we'd had a fucking good time.

Well now that you mention it, for the last couple years my parents very kindly pay DS's school fees - they offered we didn't ask, and I know their finances and expenditures and they can definitely afford it.

I don't talk about it generally as there is that feeling that yes we should be fending for ourselves - but they're happy to do it.

It does mean we have a higher level of disposable income than we would have otherwise.

Breaking Bad????

lilproblem - you mention spending money on the DC's education - many children in private schools have their fees paid by grandparents (or trusts set up by grandparents), so when people say "maybe it's family money" effectively it would be like getting a direct debit each month if rather than paying the private school fees yourself, your parents were paying them.

One of DH's friends has a trust fund that pays him just under a grand a month income, set up by grandparents when he was a baby (comes from proper money!) - he also works but obviously has a lifestyle that looks a lot bigger than it should be.

"family money" could also mean that say, parents gave a couple £100k when they bought their home, so their mortgage is considerably less each month than it would otherwise be, or older parents handing on inheritances they "don't need" from elderly relatives dying.

Interestingly, in conversations about booking holidays this week, it turns out that 3 different friends are going on holidays that their parents are paying for - in each case, it's not the main family holiday, but smaller ones in Easter and May half terms. Other friends were genuinely shocked that when we had a villa holiday with PIL last year, PIL paid half and we paid half, they assumed PIL would pay for us all...

I don't think anything apart from criminal activity or credit explains first class tickets to Dubai.

If you're on a normal salary it's just not within reach.

Rookiemere - and that's up to you and your family. To be clear, the people I'm talking about have no kids (so I guess there's a saving right there) but people always say - well maybe it's family money! Like his dad is giving him some sort of spending allowance or something. In his mid 30's.

Laurie - or Air Miles, or a family member working for the airline, or wealthy parents/relations who have treated them, or a lotto win....

lilproblem - if we had no DCs, would have around an extra £3k a month coming in/not going out. That's a lot of weekend breaks...

That list of holidays is about 10k though. It's crazy money.