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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To envy 'proper grown ups'?

246 replies

RedZebra · 26/07/2018 00:15

Lately I've been thinking about how I wish I was more of a 'proper grown up' and feeling a bit of Envy towards people who are. Here's my list of what IMHO makes a proper grown up:

People who seem to have their shit together:

  • Have good financial plans / approach e.g. stuff like
    • mortgage paid off early in life
    • pensions
    • ISAs
    • second homes
    • homes they rent out
  • Seem confident and decisive
  • Have some kind of polish / upstanding citizen feel about them (hard to put finger on this)
  • Not big drinkers or pot smokers
  • Have interests and hobbies e.g. triathlon, cycling
  • Have regular holidays planned well in advance
  • Have regular idyllic seeming big family meals and get togethers at Easter and Christmas and family birthdays
  • Have families that are proper-seeming and not nuts or chaotic
  • Have good professions and are well respected
  • Have well behaved children with interesting hobbies who get top grades

AIBU to envy these types of people?

How do people who tick most of the above do it? How do they 'know' to do and be all the right things as adults? Do you think it's a kind of family training or do you think you can acquire this approach?

OP posts:
AJPTaylor · 26/07/2018 11:32

comparison is the theif of joy.
i dont know any one with all that in real life. most people i know have some of it, at the expense of other bits usually.
there are some strident mumsnetters who reckon they have it all and berate others that dont and really fail to recognise that along with work and planning they have an enormous dose of good luck as well (supportive parents, good education, help with a deposit for first home, good health for them and kids and 2 incomes).
we managed to pay off mgage at 50 but we were lucky. could get 100 per cent mortgage and went from buying first home (well second, first was a neg equity disaster in the early 90s) at 31 to paying off mgage on a 4 bed in 18 years. but we had good health, 2 incomes, healthy kids. we havent got investments or huge pensions. the risky bit is putting all that in place over the next 10 years so need health and work to do so.

LavendarGreen · 26/07/2018 11:34

An average 3 bed semi in early the 1980's in the midlands was about 16K, that same house now is £145K. In today's money, £16K is around £50K. So the house prices are literally 3 times more now.

No wonder people cannot get on the property ladder! You need about £40K as a deposit!

HostaToFortune · 26/07/2018 11:36

How it’s done - organization, knowing what I wanted to do from an early age and being lucky enough to be born with the brains and background to get it, being in a profession with a decent level of income, having a seriously awesome kick ass SAHP for a husband

With the exception of the DH who is a SAHP yes to all of these. Success is always a combination of luck and hard work.

DH is not a SAHP, he works in an equally difficult and demanding job as me. As a result our home is overflowing with clean laundry which we never have the time or inclination to put away (slinging it in the machine is the easy part), there is paperwork all over the place and we can never find it, the dining table is a dumping ground for stuff we don’t know what to do with. Oh, and we’re seeing a relationship counsellor because our marriage is in danger of falling apart.

But yes, other than all that we’ve got this grown up business sorted SmileConfused

Hideandgo · 26/07/2018 11:38

We have all those things, and any subsequent lists. Though kids behaviour is always a work in progress. We are lucky, have worked hard (neither of us from wealthy families) and both are from very stable, loving, supportive backgrounds. I think that makes a lot of things easier like how we treat each other and how much family support and presence we still have in our lives. There are things that could instantly take all our joy away though and I never forget that. For now we are all healthy and well, including our parents. That is sheer luck.

LavendarGreen · 26/07/2018 11:38

@AJPTaylor good post. And some people on here claim that they have mortgages paid off by 30! And yeah they do berate and look down their nose at people who are struggling/in debt/have a high mortgage etc.

In reality, as some people have said, the vast majority of people do not 'have it all,' and you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. Wink

DieAntword · 26/07/2018 11:42

Honestly I envy people who’ve got mortgages by 30 let alone paid them off!!

LavendarGreen · 26/07/2018 11:50

People who have their mortgages paid off by 30 only seem to be on the internet.

I have never met anyone in real life who has done this. Grin

As I said, people should take what people claim on the internet with a pinch of salt. Much of it is exaggerated/fake/bullshit by pure fantasists who actually have very little.

Ionlylookatthepictures · 26/07/2018 11:53

Actually Lavendar we did have ours paid off by the time I was 28 and Dh 30. But we then went out and got another one on a new house which is taking years to pay off! 😩

Hideandgo · 26/07/2018 12:00

I think you’ll find that people who can pay off their mortgage at 30 are savvy enough not to pay off their mortgage at 30.

Caribbeanyesplease · 26/07/2018 12:09

People who have their mortgages paid off by 30 only seem to be on the internet.
I have never met anyone in real life who has done this

Do you go around asking everyone you ever meet about their mortgage? Confused

allthgoodusernamesaretaken · 26/07/2018 12:12

Eating blue cheese - that's grown up

crunchymint · 26/07/2018 12:12

If you can pay off your mortgage at 30 you are either in a very well paid job or have family money. You can't do this by simply being financially careful.

BettyBooHoo · 26/07/2018 12:13

We have almost everything on your list, bar a second home. But I still don't feel like a proper grown up at all, it constantly surprises me that I'm the mother of teenagers.

runningkeenster · 26/07/2018 12:16

I think you’ll find that people who can pay off their mortgage at 30 are savvy enough not to pay off their mortgage at 30

???

Debt is not a good thing to have if you lose your job. My priority would always be to get rid of all debt at the earliest opportunity.

Hideandgo · 26/07/2018 12:26

Running, if you want to be properly wealthy, debt and how you leverage it is hugely important. The people who understand this are the really wealthy ones.

mimibunz · 26/07/2018 12:29

I can tick off a lot of those except that I have proper crazy family.

AStatelyPleasureDome · 26/07/2018 12:43

Hideandgo is correct, you won't be rich enough to buy the second homes, buy to let etc without borrowing money. Also, money is cheap at the moment. But not everybody wants wealth and its trappings. If you are happy to buy a 3 bed semi and pay it off by the time you are 40 and happy to always live in the same house, but have no debt, then that's fine. Horses for courses, to coin a cliche.

stressedbeyond123 · 26/07/2018 13:30

I'm 46 and still waiting to feel like a grown up!

i have a good job, my own home, children, family get togethers....but still waiting for me to know what the hell i am actually doing Wink

Ionlylookatthepictures · 26/07/2018 14:01

crunchymint ours was paid off thanks to a ridiculously bargainous doer-upper just before the boom followed by an amazing financial adviser who secured us a mortgage on a second doer upper that we moved into, selling the first at a good profit and using the proceeds to pay off the second. Neither dh nor I were well paid at the time neither did we have any family help whatsoever. We were just very very lucky and it was a long time ago. We are not particularly grown up either Smile

FiestaThenSiesta · 26/07/2018 14:11

“Debt is not a good thing to have if you lose your job. My priority would always be to get rid of all debt at the earliest opportunity.”

Depends on the debt. Agree who can afford to wouldn’t pay off mortgages at 30 but reinvest.

Interesting how many posters decided someone who ticks those boxes must be boring and dull. I know lots of people who tick that list. But there is a whole lot of “negatives” they could add to the OP’s list.

JustlikeDevon · 26/07/2018 14:11

Op your list sounds more like a wish list than a list of 'grown up ' traits. I am technically a proper grown up but if I have to trade my life for a boring pension and cycling lifestyle, slay me now. One size does not fit all.

Hideandgo · 26/07/2018 14:51

So having a pension is ‘boring’. Lol! I can’t think of a person on this earth who would not want a pension. BoringGrin

JustlikeDevon · 26/07/2018 15:01

Having the pension is not. Having a life that means it's your only high point is. If all anyone does it save for retirement all those who don't get there will have pretty miserable existences. I don't want to exist, saving for my old age. I want to live and enjoy living.

TheTurnOfTheScrew · 26/07/2018 15:06

IMO MN is a parallel universe when it comes to finances. About half the posters on here claim to have paid off their mortgages by some crazily young age. In actual life I've not met anyone under 50 who lives mortgage-free.I barely know anyone who got on the ladder before 35.

Plughole3 · 26/07/2018 15:10

Paying off your mortgage at 30 is a bit vague, I could be mortgage free tmw in my mid 30s if I moved away from SW London due to my equity.

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