To think that hard work alone does not make you wealthy

[ooohbetty]

I like watching Rich House Poor House and it has got me thinking, a lot of people work hard, hold down jobs, juggle childcare or caring for other relatives, some work long hours and can get help with child care, others don't have childcare but work hard when they can around school hours etc.
Both sets of families in the programme so far seemed to work hard and do their best but are still on the opposite ends of being rich and poor. So if someone says I'm here today with all this wealth because I work hard I think well from where I'm watching the other family seem to be working hard too, I do wonder, if a lot of folk work hard, surely the extra wealth has to come down to the actually vocations they have and possible other sets of circumstances that they have had presented to themselves at the right time in their lives where they can take these opportunities up.
There must be other factors to getting wealthy or am I being daft?

BerliozWooler the top 5% are still rich though and the stress from a professional job does not compare with the stress of unemployment your father faced (bet you've never had to worry about losing your home). The work can be challenging and stimulating and there can be a lot of demands on your time and emotional energy (depending on the job). But we never need to worry about food or the house being warm and we are insulated from ill health with insurance policies and pensions. My company's redundancy package would mean I'd still be paid for over a year, no-one on a minimum wage (or indeed a self-employed entrepeneur)
has that. It's not the same.

I've been very poor and now I'm rich. I can definitely say which was more stressful.

On luck and Somalis - well that's a case in point. I live in one of the most mixed boroughs in London and we have a good few Afghans and Somalis - so are they the lucky ones who made it here and the sensible ones who chose to emigrate (or indeed the unlucky ones - as plenty of people in the west are less happy by the way than people living in mud huts across the planet - these are not simple issues).

Sensible:? Jesus fucking Christ.

Anyway, it's exceptionally simple and again not something that is in dispute that if you're from a society like that, you have less chance of being able to use your drive and talent to access the sort of opportunity that is available in the West to some. If you are a rural Afghan girl who is married off at 14 and dies in childbirth shortly afterwards, it doesn't matter if you had more smarts and drive than Bill Gates. If you are a Somali refugee who has spent their whole life festering in the Dadaab camp, you might not even have the opportunity to work hard, let alone see any benefit from it.

This is a point that people in wealthy societies who think luck has nothing to do with their success too often fail to understand. There are many, many millions of people on this planet who don't have any access at all to the sort of circumstances that allow one to work hard and flourish. The chances of not one of these people actually being better than you are if they were given the same opportunities? Low.

Happy is a different point, but we're talking about wealth.

I think it is a mixture of education (intelligence), hard work and luck that will present the opportunities for financial success.
An other big factor, that seems to get overlooked is ones personality. It's the whole introvert extrovert thing, your own perception on things and moral standards you set for yourself.

Something I've definitely noticed about successful people is that they grab opportunities on offer.

Those opportunities may be afforded to quite a number of people but most don't notice them or ignore them or don't see them through. Only a few will rinse the arse out of them.

God we had this conversation at the rugby fireworks last night.....

There was about 5,000 people there, but mostly upstairs in the club it appeared to be just the members.

There was no demarcation and and yet there was a perceived divide.

We had a discusion based on this thread and to a man/woman we were all at the lower end of the top ten percent, (not too shabby I will concur)

Anyhoo........to a man/woman we all came from fairly bog standard back grounds, but made the money based on sacrifice and seperation.

We missed out on lots of holidays to overpay the mortgage in the early years, we now owe £10 k, this time four years ago we owed £100,00. An endowment of £30k (which we were already paying , just in case) helped ,we paid it in, although it was provided for.

As I said further up the thread, I was alone Monday -Friday (Thursday ) if I was lucky. We lived at oposite ends of the country, for the best part of ten years.

It paid off.

Hard work and sacrifice are rewarded. End of.

Hard work and sacrifice are rewarded. End of

Putting End of at the end of your statement doesn't necessarily make it true.

If this Hard work and sacrifice are rewarded was true, like another poster said most of the women in Africa would be millionaires.

Hard work and sacrifice are rewarded. End of.

Except when they're not. End of.

It's really interesting the way that people who think hard work makes you wealthy articulate this point by talking about how hard they've worked for their wealth. As if they honestly think that makes the argument. Whereas those of us who get it understand that the premise in the OP, ie that hard work alone does not make you wealthy, requires examination of people who work very hard and aren't wealthy.

Hard work and making money is not always linked. I work from home 2 days a week and to describe that as hard work would be an insult to those that do work hard. My friend works 3 x as hard as me easily and earns 3 x less. It's not always linked to hard work.

My industry is all about gift of the gab rather than working yourself to death.

Skills that are in demand are rewarded more than hard work for me.

footballers don't particularly work hard and are paid an absolute fortune.

However no one is saying hard work alone makes you wealthy, just that it tends to be a factor. On our Somalis etc those that now live near me are just like those of my ancestors who left worse famine in about 1850 from Ireland (literally starving to death). Many of us on here have those kinds of ancestors who either years ago or much more recently moved countries either to have enough food to live or else to seek a better life (usually both). Those who are unable to get the fares together in 1851 or 2017 and suffer in their home country are certainly the unlucky ones (assuming the life left behind is worse). Sadly some of mine sought a better life abroad and ended up with a worse one - risk taking leads sometimes to failure of course. It's not a one way bet.

People are saying hard work is definitely rewarded though, which is obviously not the case. And doesn't become so because one's own hard work was.

YANBU at all. I was very cross watching this programme as working hard was mentioned a number of times and especially seemed to be applied to the wealthy people. There are people working hard at all levels of the job market and I found it very insulting that they seemed to think they were wealthy because they worked hard.

OK: DH working class lad, v clever, Oxbridge, workaholic, top of his field. Combination of hard work and brains. In addition, making good choices. Good marriage to sensible, supportive woman . Sensible with money but not risk averse 're investments. And then luck kicks in, got enough work 30 years ago to roll in enough fees, never had a case that he caused to go pear shaped. Good health, his mine and the DC.

Then there's me. Confidence to work a room rather than sheer brains though I've learnt I did myself down on that count. Took a risk at 21 and bought a property
Career one was successful but I watched and worked and worked some more and always tried to deliver. Paid off. Several years at home, voluntary board, set kids up on trajectory for best London schools, supported DH in the early years.

Career two when DD settled in reception. Part time, worked hard, delivered, found solitions. Promoted, full time, prof quals. 8 years on now Director of my service. There was a change a couple of years ago. I determinedly set out to set myself up with the chance of getting there. My colleagues didn't, they didn't court and network and put themselves in line for the project that got them noticed.

It's intellect, hard work, resilience, judgement and luck vis a vis health. And most importantly judgement swerving bad choices.

We were at a party on Friday. Almost everyone there was in the top 1%. A dozen close friends. One probably top 10%. Two broken marriages, was the one who got close to the rails in our 20s and it was about self discipline.

Self discipline - that's a very important thread in this.

Raindrops Me working class lass with brains. Oxford could only be applied to through a separate exam. Very few people had internet. I knew about UCAS. By the time I applied to UCAS, was too late to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Plus most who passed the exams had tutoring. I had 30 mins instruction in a group on how to complete an UCAS form.

Brasty No one had internet when DH did it. I'm sorry your school didn't encourage you like DH's did in 1979. Couldn't you have done the exam the following year if you'd wanted?

It all depends on your childhood. Most wealthy kids who are pushed by their parents get into good schools, get good jobs and do well financially. Plus they will inherit their parents' money, house, cars and all their assets.
Poor kids struggle with all that and if they want to make more money they have to work a hundred times harder.
Of course wealthy kids can squander away their inheritance and become lazy, and poor kids can strike it lucky too. But in most cases your life is decided in the womb.

Madreputa- most definitely for children born in the 40's and 50's. Both of my parents were bright enough for University but both were forced to give up education and work so that they could contribute to the household. It had a huge impact on their earning ability

Hard work plus being smart over what particular work you choose - some being worse paid than other jobs.

The programme is particularly annoying because the rich and poor always come out with the same scripted lines about hard work and other aspects when the viewer wants to know an awful lot more about the situations - they keep showing blended families without saying why the children are living with the father or couples who have had a baby when they have no money (and in circumstances in which most of us would not think it wise to have another child) but no mention is made of the impact their choices have on their current situations. It also does not mention class - we keep having working class made good and working class poor on the programme without any mention of class issues which rumble in the background.

You almost want a panel discussion of the programme after each episode where people can ask the real questions about it.

They always come out with a silly moral message at the end virtually saying the rich families have no time for their children and have learned the lesson that the not so well off spend more time together which is often not the case in real life at all - the less well off often have less control over their hours and often both work full time.

So it is certainly an annoying programme at times but still interesting to watch.

I wonder if the rich families negotiate higher fees or if they are paid the same?

In what way?

bet you've never had to worry about losing your home

I've worried about doing something wrong at work and being sued by my employers then losing my home. I've been so stressed with work I felt seriously like walking out under a bus. This is not uncommon for city professionals.

When is this programme on and what channel btw. Sounds fascinating.

If that was true, I’d be a millionaire.

I’m not a millionaire.

Rain, it's called Rich House, Poor House and series 2 is on at the moment. Anyone with Sky can watch s1 too. I just checked on sky and it is on channel 5 so you can probably get series 1 ep 1 - 3 on demand from channel 5. they swap lives for a week but not completely or properly and every episode follows a similar formual - the poor go out to a posh restaurant the rich go to regularly and they each meet some friends of the other family to find out a bit more about each other. It is quite a good programme to make us all think about others and why we are where we are and what little others have.

Many many many of us richer ones constantly have worries of losing our home. One mistake and I lose everything as i get sued (I work for myself) and even 6 minutes of advice runs that risk. However as I am warm, well fed and have work I like I certainly don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me or think about the pressures of this kind of work or life and all the stuff everyone has to deal with like divorce, deaths etc hits me as much as anyone else of course.