To sometimes wonder how people afford their lifestyles?

[Babysafari]

Most people that I know appear to have really nice lifestyles. New cars, really nice houses all done out immaculate and on nice roads. Holidays abroad several times a year to nice places too. I've also noticed that most of the parents at school pick their dc up themselves (I'm on maternity leave). There are loads of dads at the school gates too and a lot of mums and dads do the school runs together. A lot of these people are really young too.

One of the dads is a road sweeper so won't be being paid loads and his wife doesn't work, yet they are always doing the school run together but they seem to have the above lifestyle.

Me and dh have a decent household income, hardly rich but 50k, we're not struggling at all but our cars are old, we can only afford cheap holidays, dh works really long hours and is never there for school runs.

I'm not being deliberately envious, logically I know they could have family help or anything I guess people just make it look so easy, I wonder how they do it.

If that was the case then our entire lives would revolve around luck. Luck doesn't mean you can pass exams/get a degree etc. I have a few friends from the council estate where I grew up who are now teachers, lawyers and GPs. We had nothing growing up and yet they still have well paid jobs now. That doesn't come down to luck. That comes down to sheer hard work, grit and determination.

Well, no. You need luck to be in a position where you have the opportunity to work hard to pass exams etc. And that comes from luck, because not all human beings have or have had that chance.

I come from a council estate and have done well too, so I know whereof I speak. But much as there are and have been many problems in British society over the past few decades, there are and have been plenty of times and places where opportunities were even fewer. Do you think there weren't people just as clever and hard working as your friends and you living as serfs in the Middle Ages, or slaves on plantations in the eighteenth century Americas? Or very smart women living in patriarchal societies now and being denied education and married off at thirteen, who'd do just as well as you and I if they'd ever had a chance to get some reward for their grit and determination? Where do you think determination would've taken them? It is only luck that you weren't born a slave in Mauritania, or a woman in rural Afghanistan with a father who didn't believe in education. It is only luck that you weren't in an accident as a 16 year old preventing you from ever being well enough to work or study. Nothing to do with any choices you made.

Now, it isn't all luck. Plenty of people get the same chance and choose not to take it. But you'd have to be a fucking idiot to think being born into a situation where you had access to at least some opportunity, even if it was less than what some others get, is down to anything other than the roll of the dice.

I'm with Merd, so much of this is luck. If it is choices, it is luck to be in the position to have choices etc.

Bloody hell hobbit how did you find that disney deal??!!

Hands off my sweets - I agree I was surprised but she told me so I assume it is a snapshot impression of one banks customers. She is in a wealthy area so it may be a case of outgoings and incoming incoming income being higher and access to more debt than an average person!

It's mostly a mixture of luck and choices, in varying proportions. At the extreme end of the spectrum, there are people born into the worst conditions with very little/no choice about their lives, be it through slavery, serfdom, oppression or simply living in a place that's so marginal all they can do is eke out an existence. This, of course, is bad luck, and most of them won't see significant improvement in their circumstances without good luck. At the other end of the spectrum are people who have the good luck to be born into significant wealth and have lots of choices. They can do near enough anything they want. They still have to make the choice not to go and set fire to it all or whatever, but most of the choices they could make will not remove their good fortune.

Witsender please explain how it is luck to be born on one of the worst most deprived estates in the country, have no money, live with alcoholic parents, then be moved to the care system but still make the choice to go to college, then uni and become a teacher and GP (a brother and sister that I know).

Not Witsender, but I'm going to answer anyway. It's pure good fortune, and nothing else, to have been born on that estate in the late twentieth century rather than a serf in Russia in the eighteenth century. The great great great grandparents of the couple you mention most probably were clever too, but most probably left school young and didn't have the opportunity to go to university.

And it's luck to be clever enough to become a GP or teacher, and healthy enough to get through the course. Plenty of people could never do that, however hard they work. Some human beings are just not very bright. It's not a moral failing, any more than it is to be bad at drawing or running. I'm a professional, also from a council estate and also with a certain amount of, shall we say, family issues. I have a brother with severe learning difficulties. He's never going to become a professional like I am. What is that if not the luck of the draw? Or do you think he should just work harder and be more determined?

I recently started a spreadsheet on what I spend my money on (yes I know you lot have been doing this for years!) and am appalled at what I spend. Food, clothing, birthday presents, school stuff, it just seems to be haemorrhaging out of my account.

I have a friend who shops at Aldi all the time, is always on the look out for a reduction, really counts the pennies. I reckon she spends hugely less than me on just day to day stuff and she budgets to the last penny. My sister is the same. I reckon both of them would have the money to do stuff that I don't have just because they don't fritter money away on crap.

Of course slaves, child brides in Afghanistan etc are in their position through the bad luck of their birth place, but it isn't those people that I believed we were discussing - more your average Joe and how they've afforded their 3rd holiday of the year.

Well, there was nothing in the post I replied to to specify that. But even if there was, that leaves the argument that luck never plays a part in some difficulty, because it clearly acknowledges that it does, sometimes. You're then left with trying to suggest that in certain sets of circumstances, luck plays no part at all. That there are little boxes you can ciphon people off into and say, what you did was all about your choices. Given that some of us are lucky enough to be born with pretty impressive brainpower and others are not, this is a rather difficult position to sustain. Especially as, even in a small group of a few dozen people, statistically some of them are going to have experienced child abuse, severe health problems, mental illness, caring responsibilities and a million other things that impact on a person's ability to succeed but are not of their making. The odds of even the few dozen people at the school gate all having the exact same level of experiences of these things are astronomical. You kind of acknowledge this yourself with the example of your GP friend- you clearly think they've had some bad luck. Which they have.

And yes it is an unfortunate luck of the draw that your brother has learning difficulties. I'd like to think you don't assume I'm that much of a stupid bitch that I think he could overcome this by working harder and being more determined hmm.

Then rationalise that with your claims about hard work and determination. You clearly accept that some people don't have the raw materials to 'succeed'. So how, exactly, are the people you mention who worked hard and did well NOT benefitting from good luck because they were born free, with bodies and minds that work adequately, in a society where it was possible for them to achieve what they did? You're going to have to come up with a convincing explanation for that one before you get to proclaim that things not helpful to your argument aren't relevant to the discussion.

Cross posted, but yes we can leave it whenever you like. I won't post any more on the matter if you don't.

Yes Sibary, ok I think we all get it that you believe that everyone has everything they have not through any form of hard work but through luck and what their family were doing in 862BC.

No, I'm pretty sure it's just you whose reading comprehension is so shit that you think 'it's a mixture of luck and choices' means that. Nobody else has posted anything so stupid. I think you might do better to stick to the chocolate.

Dh goes to work at 5am gets up at 4am to get there on time so is able to pick dcs up at 3:15

Saying that we have a 10 year old car and holiday in the U.K. Which usually cost us £500 and I book attraction tickets over the months leading up to the holiday.

Blimey. Acknowledging that there is an element of luck doesn't detract from hard work. In many circumstances you need both. Chill.

That is literally exactly what I said. It's not my fault that you apparently didn't read those parts. I think the problem is more that you're so shit at taking the piss that your attempts were an entire failure (and nobody is fooled by the pretence at aloofness). Still though, it might be down to luck rather than poor decisions on your part. Hopefully that'll be some comfort to you.