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?

we have no debt, a really small mortgage that's almost paid up on a house that is now 'worth' multiples of what it was purchased for.

I was off work for ten years with the children- Got used to not blowing money on unnecessary stuff, it becomes second nature.
I am not a massive consumer (we have good electronics, a nice car, wear nice clothes etc) but tend to keep the things we have.

There are people discussing how much DEBT I must be in / wondering how we afford things. It is none of their business. I think we do have a credit card (DH's) but that's for emergencies and we've nothing 'on it'.

It doesn't have to be inheritance or debt. If your household expenses are far less than you earn, you have a lot of spare income. If you earn say 60k but live as if you earn 40k (which is a perfectly reasonable income for many) that's a lot of extra cash each year compared to friends who live the same lifestyle. (Obviously this doesn't work for those who are on lower incomes or benefits but for many middle class folk it does). They can then splash out on other stuff and may seem rich to their friends.

People often wonder how we get by. I'm a support worker, my partner is a sahp. I earn a below average wage, topped up with tax credits. We don't go on fancy holidays but we eat well and get by. We're just careful with our money, making sure the basics are covered before we touch any spare money. We don't have a car, or any expensive pets, so the biggest bill we have is our rent. But we get help with our parents, which helps massively.

@bigblug, but you're not "just careful with money" your parents subsidise you. Nothing wrong with that but saying you're just careful isn't true.

SIL is 35 and works a 2 day week at a FE college teaching art. She lives in a mortgage free property and drives a car bought for her by MIL who also subsidises her daily bills because she doesn't earn enough to support her lifestyle. MIL paid for her last holidays to Costa Rica, Alaska & N.Y (so not exactly, budget holidays!) Sibling relationships are deeply fractured and huge resentment abounds from her other siblings as a result. MIL cannot understand why there is such childish jealousy in her eyes. Duh! Older siblings in their 40's, working FT and servicing their own mortgages, cars, bills, etc and can't even contemplate the same type of holidays SIL is getting for free.

Lots of people on low incomes (and other incomes!) have had massive PPI payouts.

Aunt, there may be milage in a crypto chat, I think cryptos are very interesting and will be the future so would advise to get in now from a casual investor's POV.

My mate is a part time GP earning around £50k and her husband is a full time hospital doctor on around £90k. Yet, earlier this year they applied for a £4k loan to upgrade their ensuite. I found it strange that a couple bringing in £140k hasn't got an accessible £4k.

That said, I don't know what their outgoings are - they have a large house but don't seem to live extravagantly and their son is at a state school.

Please can someone start a crypto thread and link it here
(I don't know enough to start it I'ld get all the lingo wrong )

Funny " But I often wonder where her money goes."

Into savings. I'm frugal, that's where mine goes.

It's interesting to me that that doesn't seem to have occurred to you. Or is she always moaning about lack of money? I'm confused.

TreeTop7 I suppose we are similar to your mate. I earn £70k a year plus bonus, my DH is a farmer and we are owner occupiers - farm, house, cottages etc all owned outright so no mortgages and no ID on the business.

I have a lot of my salary in stocks and shares and investments, DH fluctuates on commodity sales and he draws dividends as/when.

I would much rather take a car on a 2 year lease hire and pay per month on a loan basis, than have a large amount of capital going on something like a car. It depends completely on what your investments are doing for you, but I have a good credit rating and the interest I would pay on a loan is much less than what my investments are doing, generally.

Everyone does money in different ways. DH has done work for people who we know earn more than us, yet they've still had to borrow off parents to pay DH. They have had no savings whatsoever yet have plenty of money paid to them.

We live in a small house, have almost no mortgage. Could afford a bigger house but DH works hard enough as it is. And we have spare income for nice holidays, anything our kids want to do, we can fund. So outside it doesn't look like we have a lot but we have all we need debt free.

I agree with a pp that you dont always know what others earn or their proper jobs etc

For anyone who's interested, I've started a thread for discussion of crypto currencies. I'd love to know more about them even though I've dabbled a bit.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2941870-Cryptocurrencies-bitcoins-ether-and-the-rest-lets-ripple-out?watched=1

Parental help - can be as simple as providing free childcare, paying for family meals out, hosting family meals up to buying large family homes and giving regular significant amounts. Didn't have any of that - we are expected to pay for meals out, host and there was no free childcare!

Inheritance/windfalls - I've inherited £30K in total and that was a tiny share of one estate and half a share of a tiny estate...so I can only imagine what some people must've inherited by now. DH and MIL have both won cars which they sold immediately. DH has had two significant redundancy payouts and then walked straight into another job + a couple of investments that did much better than we could've hoped.

Earning more than you think - some people have assumed in the past that I am the main breadwinner but DH FT wage is 4+ times what mine is.

Buying property when it was still relatively affordable and moving up the ladder at the right time and then not maxing out a mortgage to get a more impressive house with a load of maintenance. We don't have a mortgage now yet have friends in their forties with another 20-25 years left to run on theirs.

Poor pension savings and savings in general. Our pension pots are worth 3x the value of our home (mid forties). Think we could've gone on a few amazing holidays with that money!

Day to day spending - we could definitely go another nice holiday on what we spend as a family on meat and alcohol in a year. We would be healthier too...

I have known a number of people like this, and they have turned out to be in shitloads of debt. One family, nearly a 100 grand (excluding mortgage.) A mix of credit cards, store cars, a loan secured against the house, car finance, several bank loans, etc. Went bankrupt last year.

A few of the others had the shit hit the fan too.

Another three people I know had inheritances of 35 to 60K, and each one of them blew it all within 2 to 4 years. They now have sod-all and are now borrowing to fund their lifestyle.

I have a friend who made 50K on a right to buy house, squandered it all in 3 years (car, caravan - which was stolen and not insured and that cost her 10K, and costly overpriced furniture and holidays. The money went within 3 years, and that was 2 years ago. Since then, she has accrued another £30K of debt. (She rents privately and has done since selling her RTB 5 years ago.)

I don't know what's wrong with some people.

@Slimthistime. No she doesn't complain about lack of money. I always thought saving too. She's said she feels bad she won't be able to put away for her dd's future
Also her dd is very talented. She also said she feels bad she can't afford to complement her dd's talent with professional classes. She's a great mum and I know if she had the money she would definitely be putting it towards her dd's future. I know she does have some rainy day savings though. She's just not the type to get into dept either.

I imagine for a certain age group, there's actually quite a lot of inheritance money about for relatively low earners. People who didn't come from wealthy families but whose parents paid off a mortgage and saw a massive increase in house prices.
My parents used to wait the reduced food items every week, my clothes were from charity shops - yet they now own a house worth £350K.

Meh people make weird judgements on finances. My Dsis who is on 30ishK and her husband who is on 45+K like to tell people how I have SO much more disposable income as a single mum working part time, or their retired parents they believe it because they are Tories they want to.

Wealthy families pay for a lot of stuff for their adult children. When we were starting out we were living in a fairly crap apartment, no car. Our friends (exact same job for the dhs, I probably earned a bit more that the other wife) had a lovely 2 bedroom apartment in a block of apartments I had looked at but couldn't afford and a nice car. Her dad was paying for the rent and the car.

Right now dh probably earns more than people realise.

I don't know what's wrong with some people

I know someone who lived the city life, went bankrupt, moved in with her boyfriend and continued to live the same lifestyle via his credit lines!

I often think that people wonder about dp and i. We're not extravagant at all. But we don't struggle. We rarely use credit. But if we do need or want to buy something that quite expensive affording it isn't a problem.
When we 1st started our jobs we are in now we was both on nmw. We still work for the same company. Large companies that majority of the staff are on nmw. But we've both worked our way up. But to the outside world we still have the same jobs we had 6 years ago. So how come we can afford much more than we could 6 years ago.

"I would assume your friends are saving for something they don't feel the need to tell you about."

Possibly. I've never asked. Non of my business really. But I often wonder about stuff that isn't any of my business. We are quite close. I do think if she had some big venture she was saving for she would have said. Anyway her and her family are very happy maybe they all go to a very expensive life couch 🤔

I often used to wonder this about one particular woman I worked with. Was very anti-credit cards (Although did have a xxx, which was some sort of household bill related, she never elaborated further) and she worked part time, although her partner did work full time in a relatively well paid job. But the things they used to buy/do. Multiple nights out per month. She would only wear expensive make up, alwayd had hair extensions in and wore designer clothes. Would only carry designer handbags too. 4 kids top to toe in designer clothes also and two or three su shine holidays a year. Oh and a pretty new Audi on finance with payments of nearly 300 a month. I still dont know how she afforded it!
Myself and OH both have low incomes, old cars and only holiday in the UK. I got into a few brand's debt a few years ago and I'm still paying it off. Nobody would wonder the same about us!

I think a lot of people don't realise how much you need to save for a decent retirement, that is where a large chunk of our disposable income goes, plus a humongous mortgage. We have good salaries but spend relatively little.