To be confused by other people's finances...

[Haudyerwheesht]

I know it's none of my business obviously but still....I want to know!

For example how does my neighbour who only has one adult working in an averagely paid job afford to go to Florida and do Disney / universal etc twice in 6 months?

How does another person I know live in an enormous house and wear designer clothes and have lovely holidays etc when they're 24, with 3 kids and don't work (husband does). I kind of know the answer to this as they're both from wealthy families....but I want to know the ins and outs because I'm nosy!

Why does my friend rent for 1.2k a month and fritter money away when they could ft a mortgage much cheaper if they had a deposit?

How can my sister moan about money when she has no mortgage or housing costs, no council tax and her and her husband both work full time??

Obviously aibu to be so nosey but I'm not the only one am I?

I work for an IVA company.

I have had an eye opener at the level of debt some people get themselves into simply to live way beyond their means..buying expensive cars, clothes, holidays, you name it.

these people who are being subbed by parents- how does that happen? I semi understand maybe being paid for to go on holiday with parents but do they transfer cash into the accounts on a monthly basis or something? How does that happen?

I heard a really good saying once 'Never envy anyone anything Until you know the size of their debts"

A few years ago some friends were saying how much they have per month.

All earned far more than us although we were considered to earn the most given we ran a car had a house with a mortgage and 1 child at private school, holiday to Egypt, one year California, one year and New York the next.

We dont drink, smoke or eat meat. I saved a fortune on cash back websites, voucher codes.
Best was when Insurance company were doing a £100 cash back on house insurance. House insurance £97 Cash back £100

From the outside it must have looked like we were spending way above what we were earning.

The only "help" we got was because my handbag was stolen and who ever stole it started to use my Tesco club card. The Egypt holiday and several days out were paid for almost in their entirety by the Moron thief who stole my bag. It took them 3 1/2 years of them buying huge amounts and presenting the club card before it stopped

We are making changes to the house and people have asked how we can afford it - it's debt. A thought out loan with set repayments but there is no story about scrimping and saving, no inheritance, no 'if you live like me you can do it too' story. Just a plain and simple loan.

also don't understand why people waste so much money taking babies and toddlers to Disneyland. They won't care or remember! maybe because they enjoy it at the time? I took mine when they were 5 & 3 - they loved every minute of it. DD1 remembers quite a bit of the holiday whereas DD2 doesn't. I didn't think that was a thing people considered tbh, we just went for the fun at the time. By your reckoning people with babies and toddlers should quit doing anything as they won't remember it anyway

BlinkyBlink, nope, perfectly possible to have a

I know a couple who have just come back from travelling in the US for 8 weeks. Their neighbours may well be thinking WTF because strictly speaking both are unemployed! However, in the last 6 months they both took redundancy from well paid jobs and would have received packages that worked out at @ 3 years take home salary each.

I actually know quite a few people who have taken VR (or even not so voluntary) coming away with decent packages and then walked into another job within a month or two! Some have paid off mortgages, others have invested it or use it for amazing holidays, car upgrades and so on. The brighter side to redundancy, eh?

For those who take their children to Disney, I grew up in Florida and went to Disney four times, two of those times were for winning an award given out by Disney. Once was for grad night, which is a night when seniors about to graduate from high school spend all night at Disney.

We also went before we relocated to the US, I was four and don't remember it.

You do get a discount if you are a Florida resident and are just going for the day. But it really is not such a special place when you live near it.

I loved Busch Gardens though, but even with that, we didn't go very often. Just putting that into perspective.

these people who are being subbed by parents- how does that happen? I semi understand maybe being paid for to go on holiday with parents but do they transfer cash into the accounts on a monthly basis or something? How does that happen

From people I know:
Gift the deposit for houses
Pay rental deposits so no debts for that
Pay the childrens school fees or extra curricular fees
Give the adult children their 2yr old car every time they buy a new one
Pay for holidays
Some adults are living in houses that are actually in their parents name while the sort out their bad credit history
GPS who always buy the kids school uniforms and shoes etc
I know a few people whose parents bought them student houses when they were at uni - mortgage paid for a few years by housemates, then sold to buy first proper house or kept as an investment

The only help we have is when MIL knows we're struggling she drops round a couple of bags of groceries, bless her

I must admit, I think so many things like this are weird. My brother in law fits kitchens for fuck all, yet he, his family and my nephew and niece have two holidays a year in expensive all-in resorts. I have never had an expensive all in resort holiday in my life, but have had periods properly salaried. Ok he and his partner otherwise are absolute total boring fuckers they are complete 'cup of tea luv?' melt into sofa and don't talk people, so I guess they don't spend money at all the rest of the year. They have had new patios in the garden twice in ten years as well though - I guess child benefit/tax credits features a bit, but its still weird imo

Couple opposite us - one of those housing association homes they build amongst private homes - 2 spanking new high end cars, she's just changed her Audi convertible for a bmw and they've been to Disney too. He fixes fridges for a company, she's an admin asst. 2 kids and rest of family in local authority housing. I must be doing something wrong!

Do agree about the eating out, it literally eats up money.

When I was terrible with money, I was always in the end of my overdraft (which was 1750) and got 2 credit cards (limited at £500 each). I earned enough to definitely not be in debt but I spent tons on clothes, make-up, holidays, basically frittered as soon as I got paid monthly. I think I had a bit of a shopping addiction. I'm thankful it didn't get any further than that much debt, that was hard enough to claw back! (I'm still not great with finances now but I'll never get to that point again, I reduced my OD to £100 once it'd been paid off and that was only to be used in 'emergencies', and cancelled both credit cards).

Sofia I can cook. I also like to host friends at home. However, it is in no way cheaper to feed, say, 4 people than to pay for one meal out

I think there is levels on the scale of cost of eating out and the scale of cost in entertaining st home, but I agree, for us at least, entertaining st home is not the cheap option. It could be, as could eating out, but I've had many dinner parties where the cost is way in excess of what we would pay for two of us in an average restaurant. Doesn't mean we couldn't do it cheaper, just as we could also chose to eat in cheap restaurants.

That's meant to say 1000. 1000 for emergencies!

My mortgage is very low, just bought at the right time and had a significant deposit. DH also got a significant redundancy package, more than his annual gross salary. My mil also gives us money for things.

However ime extra money comes from gambling, jobs on the side, less than legal activities (selling tobacco, kodi boxes etc) and then the 'one off' payments such as inheritance and redundancy.

For us as while it is those little things we don't do that add up, we don't drink or smoke, I take lunch to work everyday (most people buy theirs where I work) and I don't buy coffee or such like.

But for a lot of people it will just be debt.

My dsis hasn't worked since having DC her DH now early retired earned about 20k. They live in a beautiful home with acre garden and spend £10k+ a year on holidays. Dbil was left a massive inheritance from a relative he'd never heard of. And their first house was £9k in 1980.

I wonder if there's mileage in a thread specifically about cryptocurrencies. I have a fraction of a bitcoin (bought in 2015 so it's done nicely but was more than £10), an ethereum-and-a-bit but a hundred odd ripples. I used Bittylicious for the first time (and they were very patient with a novice) before transferring them to a wallet and used Kraken for the ripples. I see them as a Grand National-style flutter but much more interesting than horse-racing.

Back to the original thread. Recently, through inheritance, I became mortgage-free, but I'm still a cheapskate. I haven't been able to train myself away from looking for yellow stickers at the supermarket. Only a few people know how solvent I now am and I'm quite happy with that.

I think social media massively distorts perceptions of what other people spend.

Also, we tend to save our money for the exciting stuff and spend the bare minimum on, for example, food. And we're very good at savvy clothes shopping, it's like a fun game. I've never had any debt, not even an overdraft.

im the last person to want to put money o happiness but I'm insanely jealous of them!
having to live in fear and misery over money for so long has done this to me.and I do cry over it.yes I cry ove rit. because you can say it doesn't make you happy but it makes things a hell of a lot easier.even to live some sort of basic okayness with money and life.
and I do have family I love with all my heart I have the best parents.but watching other people be ok and better than ok with money is hard.

Investments, shares, BTL

I got married late and had my own house when we married so sold it when we married and put down a large deposit. We got engaged and I moved home to save, so I saved for a year.

I didn't have debt and neither did dh. We based our house on one income not two. When I inherited we put the money towards house, bought two cars outright and immediately started saving for the next ones. We've always done it this way and have never had a car payment.

I figure out how much we can spend on vacation and put away a small portion of it every pay cheque. I have a part time job and we use it for luxuries. We budget and if we go over budget it comes off of something else we saved for. We pay off the credit card every Week but put everything on it possible and get Amazon points that we use for what we buy.

Basic budgeting & saving for what we're eventually going to need is how we do it.

but I've had many dinner parties where the cost is way in excess of what we would pay for two of us in an average restaurant.

Well yes because you don't tend to have a dinner party for 2 do you? if you took your party of 6 or 8 out to the restaurant then I am sure you would find it much , much cheaper to cook at home.

My brother in law fits kitchens for fuck all, yet he, his family and my nephew and niece have two holidays a year in expensive all-in resorts

How do you know how much he charges and how much his partner earns? Many kitchen fitter types can charge around £200 pd, which is £40/50k pa. He will have a van and tools to pay for, but he could well pay for his van out of his earnings and therefore have personal transport for little or nothing, so that's an expense saved.

If he sells Howdens kitchens, many fitters effectively sell these on at a profit so can earn that way too. If he fits kitchens, he could also do profitable bespoke joinery and maybe either did his own garden or got a mate in the trade to do it at mates rates.

And how do you know that his AI holidays are the expensive kind? Unless you actually see what they pay, they might be going out of season to cheaper 3 star places, which are obviously much cheaper than naice 5 star places in the main summer season, the difference in cost could be thousands.

Many people search out all the deals, discounts and cashback and can literally get twice as much for their money compared to people who pay full price without question in the first place they look.

Of course he could be underreporting what he earns and topping it up with tax credits but unless you see exactly what he charges, what expenses he had and how much he says he earns and what they spend, plus all the inheritence, cheap mortgage, bank of mum and dad possibilities, you can't say whether a couple of AI holidays is reasonable on their income or not.

I know someone who got a 6 figure insurance payout for a car accident which wasn't that serious - one member of the family had 'whiplash' for a little while and the others weren't hurt at all. They then got their mortgage paid off by an insurance policy that paid out when a serious illness was suspected even though the biopsy ended up negative for the illness. They have also had several legacies. I guess you never really know what people's circumstances are.