To ask where all the money comes from?

[Whatsnewwithyou]

Mostly on these house buying/selling programmes with youngish couples in ordinary jobs and budgets of 750k. Is it almost all inheritance?

I have a friend who always seems to be going off skiing and another who has been unemployed/job searching for ages but still shops at John Lewis and goes on holiday. Both are single and have very nice houses. It turns out both have trust funds from grandparents but I knew then both for years before they ever mentioned it. I used to wonder why I couldn't afford all these holidays etc when they could and thought I must be really bad with money.

So are trust funds and inheritances quite common? They must be, right?

Over the last 20 years house prices have risen way beyond wages. As a result, the gap between those who inherit from property owners and those who don’t will get ever bigger.

There are solutions to this, but they are politically very unpopular.

Trust funds can't be that common, but perhaps it's becoming more usual to inherit from grandparents than it used to? I inherited a decent amount a few years ago from my grandma - although not life changing, it helped us buy a better house than we could have otherwise afforded. And I'm from a very 'normal' family income-wise.

There's a lot more money about than a lot of people realise. The black economy is very extensive, and a lot of people whom you wouldn't look at twice in the street are sitting on large amounts -- they just don't always flash it, but they have newer, nicer cars and better holidays. Some hoard it and pass it on to their children; I spent some time as an adviser in relation to this.

Back when I was one of 4 junior people in a professional services department, it turned out that the other three, two of whom were junior to me and the other in the same grade, were all directors of their respective fathers' companies on the side and all had a company car! I had to run my car from the not very generous salary.

A lot of it is also debt related. My DH was away on a work trip recently and he said the dinner conversation was about leased cars, huge expensive holidays paid for by credit cards, only interest being paid on the mortgage with no idea how the capital will be repaid. Certainly showed him how people who earn a lot less than him manage to live the high life we can't achieve. Scary future ahead for some folk though. Very glad I'm not one of them

I wonder the same - people in very mediocre jobs going on lots of holidays, having lavish weddings etc. I have no idea how people do it . As far as inheritance goes - I guess potentially with the rise in divorce rates people could potentially have divorced parent who once they split both managed to keep owning their own houses so potentially inherit two houses rather than one ( although of course many inherit very little if parents need to pay for care).
My next door neighbours have 3 kids and mum works very part time in retail. They are always away, have expensive hobbies, season passes to nearby theme parks etc. I put it down maintenance form her eldest child's dad as he has well paid job. I guess if a family is low income and they are getting a few hundred quid a month in CM which is not taken into account for any benefit entitlement and they have low rent in the form of HA/ council property then they could be ok financially and be able to afford things that other families on low income can't.

A lot of it is debt driven until something happens to cause the house of cards to collapse.

I think other people spend a lot less money on food than I do! I have noticed that many people I know go on holidays a lot, but they eat the cheapest food, really nasty food with no nutritional value. But that's their choice. I prefer to have a good every day life style rather than a holiday.

Also I have student debt. And I have savings. And I rent Lots of people have no student debt or savings and they are on the property ladder.

It's all about priorities, and I think a lot of people prioritise holidays or clothes or a house above everything else.

Yes agreed debt is scary and credit so easily available.

I don't think trust funds are that common unless, say, you were educated somewhere fancy on a scholarship and have an unusually high number of friends who come from exceptional wealth. But I do think a lot of people get sizeable handouts from parents who were lucky with the housing market or acquired windfall shares. I also agree with pp who have said a lot of it is paid for with eyewatering amounts of debt. Plus people who are self-employed often make personal use of things that are technically company assets for reasons of both gratification and tax efficiency.

I'm constantly surprised at the number of adults supported in their day to day spending and lifestyle by their parents - one I know in her late 30s gets free full time childcare, first house bought as a wedding present (wedding paid for of course). Another is over 40 and her Dad leases new cars for her every 2 years. I thought I was doing well to get a few grand towards a house deposit in my 20s!

I do agree that a lot of people are in debt up to their eyeballs and on interest only mortgages. But that doesn't explain the young couples in super expensive homes as they'd never get mortgages without huge down payments and earnings.

I hadn't even thought about black market money! I do know a lot of people do jobs for cash that they don't report but that's small potatoes and wouldn't lead to actual eye-popping wealth. I guess it's more black market drug money that would.

My grannie left what money she had to my dad, not to me. But I guess some peoples' grandparents have enough to go around to all the family members.

I've often wondered this. Some people really don't seem to live in the same financial world as others.

When we were looking for a caravan, we knew we could only afford a very old one, doubtless with issues that would need to be addressed as and when. People asked what our budget was and we told them and several instantly responded with something like "Oh, I'd advise you to increase your budget by 3 or 4 thousand". We hadn't set our budget based on an arbitrary figure that we thought would look pretty when doodled and coloured in on sparkly paper - it was what we could actually afford! And that was just a caravan

Mind you, the people on these property programmes do often seem to be able to magically increase their budgets by £100-200K on a whim, so possibly we're the odd ones. Maybe they all have a key to the garden where Teresa May's magic money tree grows and we just need to ask nicely to borrow it and pop down Timpsons.

What constantly baffles me, though, is not so much HOW they have vast amounts of money at their disposal, but that we live in the age of the internet and there are plenty of big, exhaustive UK and international property-search websites available and yet, still, they obviously think "Well, we know what kind of house we'd like, we have £750K readily available, but could up that to a million if we jot down a few plans on the back of an envelope, we'd better go online.... TO EMAIL THE TV PEOPLE and ask them to find properties for sale on our behalf" !! It's the equivalent of Googling the number for directory enquiries so you can spend over £10 to find out the number for a big business that you want to call.

I would always suspect that if you are able to buy an expensive house when you are very young then it’s most likely to come from parental involvement.

One good way to make money is to be the only child of parents who are only children. I've known a few people in that position.

These programmes are aspirational. Most people don't live like that. They never do episodes featuring people on minimum wage. Or even average wage. Because that wouldn't make for quite such pleasant and unchallenging viewing.

I do often wonder this.Im a unicorn trainer and my dh is a yoga teacher.We have 3 squillion pounds

Trust funds aren't that common but inheritances are - especially parents receiving inheritances that they don't need and passing most of it on their children.

Why wonder about other people's finances? I bet they don't chew over yours.

@Whatsnewwithyou , we're you watching the programmes this morning about Australia ? I wondered how they can afford a £800k house on their wages . I mean they were very low for that sort of lifestyle . Interestingly dh earns around £200k and we live in a fairly ordinary house and friends who know what he does ( I don't say what he earns but he is a director ) have asked why we don't live in a massive house . We have paid off the mortgage and are quite happy as it goes .
Dh is very sensible and worries about mortgage rates going etc up if we moved .

The programme does pick this budget though for the "wow" and propertyporn aspect. Most people don't have a trust fund, it is very few, more people inherit something, but not normally at the age of a young couple.

God not this again

Either:

• Debt
• Inheritances
• Bank of mum and dad
• Dodgy earnings

And I agree I feel like I live in a different world some time. We have went camping for years with a group of friends. Some of them have in the last few years bought camper vans and keep suggesting we do. They forget that they have inherited money and that we are still struggling just on our income.

Some of them have quite a good pot of equity from selling their pokey London flats.

I’ve also known families who were comfortably well off to release equity for their children or to give them their pension lump sum to help them get on the ladder.