To think some people on MN must have magic money trees?

[CoughLaughFart]

Am I the only thinking there are an awful lot of MNers who have no concept of others being less well off than they are? I’ve noticed a few times, but it seems to be getting really bad lately.

Two threads that spring to mind are the passport thread (where the OP’s partner is being pressured to get one so that he can volunteer for a work trip) and the holiday fall-out thread.

TBF most people on the passport thread seem to get that spending £75 on a new passport when you can’t afford to go abroad isn’t very sensible. However, there are quite a few posts along the lines of ‘Just get one, it’s not that expensive’ - even someone saying the OP’s partner should just ‘grow up’ and buy one and ‘that’s what savings are for’. Similarly, on the holiday thread a number of people are advising ‘Book the first flight out’ or ‘find different accommodation’, without a thought that holidays are generally expensive anyway and that effectively booking a second one might be beyond some people’s means.

These are specific current threads, but it seems to be a general attitude in some corners. ‘Get a cleaner’. ‘Get some nice wine and chill in the garden’ (to someone depressed because they’re skint and live in a rough area).

I’m grateful to be in a decent enough position financially, but I’d never simply assume anyone else was. Don’t people at least consider the potential for different circumstances before offering their ‘helpful’ advice?

"And with NO savings or credit or access to any money other than the fucking UC and see how far they get. Not for 30 days, for months, so they can see how much it wears people down." Yep! Exactly - and I said 6 months. Long enough to get a slight sense of how it feels for the end to be a long way off if in sight at all!

There was another show "Tower block of commons" Nadine Dorries replaced IDS on it (his wife was sick), she cheated hiding £50 in her bra, the host was really annoyed as she couldn't just magic up £50 when needed! Dorries massively missed the point of the show/experiment.

*@ElspethFlashman
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Whenever someone humble rags on MN "I'm lucky in that DH has a good salary" I wonder if they're married to an actual MP, cos "good" on MN seems to be 100,000+.

Or a very nerdy code writer (someone who writes software in difficult software languages). Seriously, I had no idea that such a boring job paid so well.

But I do remember being very very poor myself so totally get where people are coming from. 75 for a passport might not be much for some but if you have 14,85 euro left for groceries for 9 days then you just don't have the money.

I also loathe people who are good at spending someone elses money for them mentally "take it out of your bonus pay" (No that's to pay the taxes). "Just go in overdraft and pay it next month! You need this pencil skirt!" (No, I need new glasses because my prescription has changed in the past five years and I can't afford new ones and I'd like to be able to see sharp again). People have no idea what it is to be really poor. No tv. No going out. Hole in your shoes (added bonus of wet feet when raining). Holes in your underwear. Owning only two pairs of trousers and re-sewing the seams each weekend to make them last a little bit longer.

I've never had debts, thankfully. But I've been without money lots of times.

There was another show "Tower block of commons" Nadine Dorries replaced IDS on it (his wife was sick), she cheated hiding £50 in her bra, the host was really annoyed as she couldn't just magic up £50 when needed!

Why am I not surprised?

I think it would be a real shame if MN became somewhere where you couldn’t admit to having money. The story of the stolen wellies was posted for MIL based entertainment purposes, and wellies (or anything else precious) which you can’t afford to write off are just that, whether they cost £5 or £300

Similarly, if you ask for MN views on the relative merits of various private schools, you should be able to do that without ridicule or snarkiness just as much as if you are looking for advice on surviving on a very low income.

I do agree though that wading in with “solutions” that are clearly not viable is less than helpful. If you have never had to survive on a truly low budget, possibly best to bite your tongue.

There are so many non-money related things, though - from taste in books and TV to health and well-being issues - where the collective wisdom would be lost if MN were “only” for those in certain income brackets.

MN has always been a place where people with much higher earnings than average come too.

I am in a professional job with a higher than average wage but in MN standard, that would still be low and I do feel like a peasant at times lol

Oh @MrsStrowman.... ye Gods woman... I’m only a little way through the thread and I’m sure... very sure indeed.. that many people will have told you this... but you’ve just done EXACTLY what the OP is talking about!!

Getting a cleaner is NOT about priorities... it’s about having an income that actually allows you to afford one.. WHATEVER your priorities!!!

And “a couple of pounds a week” over six months.... that’s just NOT do-able if your outgoings exceed your income... and those outgoings are all about meeting your kids’ basic requirements.

You have clearly never lived like that but many of us have. It isn’t easy I can tell you...

I’m still shaking my head at the fact that your come onto a thread where the OP is making a very valid point about Mners who appear incapable of even projecting their minds into the shoes of those who live (and work) barely above benefit line... and make comments showing that you are exactly one of those people! Enjoy your relative wealth but please try broaden your mind and perspectives a little please

Yes i know where you ate coming from i was on a different site once and i was struggling to pay for something that my child needed and had to have for school and i asked for suggestions of reasonable options without paying too much. I got told to get the most expensive and to sell something i own to pay for it. 🙄🙄

There is one poster in particular who is very vocal that women should all "get better paid jobs" - as though they all grow on trees - and not waste their lives in low paid dead-end jobs

That always drives me crazy! I don't know why people seem to think it's that easy to walk into a new job, even aside from the money factor. It's so hard (not to mention soul destroying) to try and find a decent job. I absolutely hated my old job, it was making me completely miserable and I was applying for jobs every week - I got so sick of hearing "They liked you but they went for someone with more experience." (They were 99% through agencies so I always got feedback). It isn't a case of simply finding a job you like, applying, doing well in the interview and getting the job. There is also the little factor of all the other people applying. If you don't have experience in a particular area, it's even harder.

As for the housing situation ...

I once worked with a guy whose mum paid for a deposit on a house (or maybe a flat, I can't remember) in a nice area of the city we live in. One of the ladies in the same department was trying to find a house to buy with her boyfriend at the time and they were having a discussion about what they'd found when he came up with this gem: "I don't know why anybody bothers renting when you can just buy."

The rest of us - mostly renters, and those that had bought had not had an easy time of it - all just looked at him not sure what to say as all of us would MUCH rather be buying but couldn't afford the deposit. The lady who had been having the conversation said, "Not everyone has their parents paying their deposit for them." He didn't say anything else about it but a few opinions about him were definitely formed that day.

Incidentally, his mum was a high up manager at the same company and if he was anyone else, he wouldn't have lasted the probation period - late in every day (literally every day - after a while we took bets on what time he'd come strolling in at each morning), always on his phone, falling asleep at his desk regularly (he was one of those people that always complained that he "never had enough time to do anything" but spent pretty much all of his time playing computer games and would do so until the early hours every evening).

It is all on tick OP, they are living beyond their means they are up to their necks in debt, it will all come crashing down when Brexit strikes

I think the 'give up the starbucks' came from an article by Martin Lewis but people missed the point of it. The point he was making was seemingly 'little' expenses if regular enough can soon add up.

Much as I admire Martin Lewis and his very wise advice, I don't agree that people have missed the point here. I've never been to Starbucks (and don't drink coffee anyway), but a quick look online suggests that a drink costs between around £2-£4.

It may well be that middle-class people/middle earners habitually spend this once or twice a day and not really think about the cumulative cost, but for many ordinary people who have to keep a tight budget, £2-£4 on something as frivolous and unnecessary as a takeaway coffee would never seem like a 'little' amount - and most certainly not something they'd dream of doing every day. If you have to keep strictly to a budget, it's second nature to look at your monthly income and then allocate spending across each day in advance - so you'd instantly see that £3 on a coffee each day would be an extortionate £66 (based on a typical 9-5 job) when you could easily take a flask in from home for a tiny fraction of that or get a jar and make it at work.

I think it would be a real shame if MN became somewhere where you couldn’t admit to having money.

On Skype there’s a ‘banging my head against the wall’ emoji. WHY don’t we have that here? WHY?!

What I never understand about the "how much do you spend on X / earn threads" is that most of the stats on this are easily available via a quick Google so they always seem a bit pointless.
AIBU works better for finding out where you are on the normal distribution for batshit behaviour than easily calculated figures.

Do that many people earn 6 figure salaries?? I seem to read this all the time on here yet I don’t know that many who di

6 figure salaries is quite rare, but there’s at least a million earning 70+
Here’s the ONS link www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2017 which shows (amongst much else) that the top 20% of households have an average gross income of around 90 thousand. Obviously that’s a minority but it’s still many millions of families. (Apologies for terrible screenshot, but it’s all in the link)

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3621852/More-1m-people-say-earn-100k-year-nearly-50-000-make-1m-survey-finds.html
Do more than a million Britons really earn more than £100k a year? Survey claims a raft of high-earners and that nearly 50,000 make over a £1m

This is just below 4 per cent of the UK working population, which stood at 31.6million in the first three months of the year, according to official figures.

The number of those who said they earn more than £200,000 a year is much smaller at 235,000, according to a survey of more than 1,000 people by global currency business Centtrip

Article from 2016.

People who do earn 6 figure salaries don't admit to it in RL because unless you work in the city and are surrounded by other high earning individuals, you're hardly going to discuss how much you should invest in this or that are you? I'm too embarrassed to admit what our household income is in RL because I know that it is much higher than most. I'm aware that I have a frugal bent but reading MN threads have definitely confirmed it. I admit to feeling slightly judgmental about all those Florida Disney threads - we've been once and it cost an absolute fortune and I know that we're well off compared to most. What I like about MN, is that you can have a discussion about salary, income, mortgage, holiday spend, school fees and all those topics which you don't normally discuss frankly because it is seen to be rather vulgar. It gets heated because people don't take it all with a pinch of salt. If you're asking for opinions, you'll get it all - whether you want to hear it or not! Some may not be telling the truth but my general view is why bother lying on a public anonymous forum when you can name change anyway.

We don't earn six figures between us but we earn quite a bit above the average, and we live in one of the lowest paid areas of the UK. In days gone by, pre-maternity, I earned much more. My accountant nearly cried when I said I was pregnant.

I understand why people might be upset at seemingly insensitive comments at times but I do think that if you and your friends etc have a certain way of life, whatever that is, that is the norm to you and therefore you would just discuss things as per your life and expectations. I don’t think people can win really as everyone is from different walks of life on here and it would be a bit patronising to talk to someone that’s maybe financially less off than you about what they should do in their situation and trying to imagine what they can afford etc when really you don’t understand and make suggestions based on this. It might seem inconsiderate if comments/ideas are out of reach but I think it’s better to just say what you think based on your own life and people can take it or leave it. If the OP person was stood in front of you it would be much easier to pitch things more appropriately but on here it’s much harder to know who you are talking to so people will be on different wavelengths. I guess just weigh up replies and do what’s feasible. I wouldn’t take offence, that’s the risk you take putting questions out to a random (the real meaning of the word) group of people. Just take what’s helpful and leave what isn’t.

I’m on maternity ‘leave’ (if you can call it that being self-employed) and I am not sure what I am going to do when I have to get another job in about a year’s time. My DH supports us both but we have a mortgage and no real savings so we would be pretty screwed when I go back to work if I can’t find anything suitable. I have a drug induced involuntary movement disorder that could be considered a disability but I will never convince anyone to give me PIP as my condition is supposedly ‘mild’ enough not to need any help.

It does depress me when I see one of my friends spend his money like water. He moved house last year to an even bigger 5 bed new build yet he has already replaced the kitchen, is redoing the drive and bathroom, has changed his car (not to mention the fact he had already changed it 4 times over the past 3 years, owning a brand new Range Rover which he sold at a loss to move). He is constantly boasting about his home improvements despite the fact he doesn’t ever seem to need to do them. I know I appear to be very envious (and if I am totally honest, i am!) but I’m only mentioning all this as he only bought his last new build before he moved as he inherited lots of money when his DF passed away, yet he said he was once in 9k of debt and eating out of dustbins. He seems to have no concept whatsoever about the value of money and I can’t ever understand how his part time care work pays for all of his new stuff. I’m guessing his partner who works in IT earns enough, but he is the opposite and very careful with money.

I realise I have a bad case of envy but I am sad that my DH has always worked his arse off in London, yet rarely gets rewarded for it with a decent salary or pay rise, and my health has limited my employment and job prospects so that I may not get another job that easily. I suppose that point of my ramble is I wish my friend well but I’m always secretly wishing he wouldn’t go on about his next new purchase order venture when I drive a 15 year old car and have been out of work since my ill health. I’m sure we can get by but sometimes those who have no money issues like my friend can be pretty insensitive to those who do.

To put this in another context, DS has just left school, without a desire to study any topic at uni, although he has decent grades in hard subjects at A level.

He has done a crash catering course and been hired (at minimum wage for his age with a review in three months) by one of the smartest most upmarket hotels in the country. He is flat out, working harder and longer than he dreamed he was capable of, being challenged and learning how to work in a creative industry. I think this is what he needs as he thinks through what he wants to do. It probably isn't his life's career path, but anywhere in the world, he will be able to earn a living as long as people eat. And it buys him time to decide what he actively wants.

But he worked 17.5 hours yesterday, went back to work 12 more today, and he's worked seven consecutive days, although they fell into two weeks administratively. He's loving it, but tired. And his employer is looking to give him development opportunities because they can see someone growing.

The world doesn't turn fast for people who want to get away with the minimum commitment of time and effort.

Webuiltthisbuffet - and you've just proven the EXACT point I was making and the general point others have made. Enhanced by the fact you DIDN'T include the full paragraph I wrote to make it look like I was saying something else - tut tut!

My point was that martins point was that "little expenditure" is relative to your income. Takeout coffee might not be a "little expense" to everyone - it certainly wouldn't to me, but it is to some. I'm capable of understanding that!

Being on a middle income doesn't necessarily mean people aren't looking to reduce their spending. Nothing wrong with that.

But my point was its equally true of a very small costing item eg newspapers when the person trying to save is on a tight budget. It's just a different scale, the percentage of income could well be similar.

Martin encourages people to note ALL their expenditure and the little items that are often forgotten, and extrapolate the cost of those little items to how much they cost over a week/month/year and how that will be impacting their budget, their ability to save for whatever they're saving for.

I'm very well aware of how people on tight budgets view and manage money, I've been one of them most of my adult life including times where I've gone without food, a warm coat or even a home.

I have been dirt poor where my mother had two jobs to keep three of us and there was no money in the house and, after years of full time working with a DH doing the same, better off. Now that I am on an enforced retirement ( too stressed after 34 yearns to continue teaching) and the DH made redundant we are back being income poor again. The thing that struck me most is that people are damned insensitive when you are poor and resentful and rude when you are what they consider well off as if you have won the lottery or have been left an inheritance rather than wearing yourself to the bone for the kids and the tax.

It is human nature. If you are a decent and well mannered person you do not make others uncomfortable if you are better off than they are and if you are not in such a good place you do not make yourself feel better by criticising those who are enjoying the fruits of their labour.

I think it would be a real shame if MN became somewhere where you couldn’t admit to having money.

Ffs that isnt the point of the thread at all! Someine havingmore money tjan someone else doesnt affect anyone. If you are on a thread discussing expensive things thats fine knock yourself out.

Telling someone struggling to get by each week, counting every penny and who is fed up and depressed by the constant grind to "have a weekend break, just sell something on eBay to pay for it" or
"Get a cleaner in twice a week.to give you a break" -- cos not having any money doesnt actually mean that it means i have £40 a week to give to someone else- - or "have a spa day it will make you feel better" is the kind of useless advice op is talking about. If you dont have spare money at all all the lovely suggestions on how to spend more money are freaking uselesd and shows that the poster has not read what the op has actually said at all but has just jumped in with some platitude as they cant consider not everyone has enough income to pay for all that stuff.

Most people who post such rubbish recommending extravagance are probably skint. You are not and clearly careful. Debt is spiralling out of control (again). You are wise to be unhappy with the 'spend, spend, spend' lot - its a front and simple maths confirm there are few with inherited cash, massively overpaid jobs and many, many more with humungous debt burdens.
If you havent got it lie about it is the ordure of the day. Stay happy and be smug.

Graphista - Sorry, I didn't mean to selectively quote you in order to inadvertently twist what you said. Apologies and point taken.