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?

‘1. I'm skint because I can't buy whatever the hell i want. Get over it,neither can 90% of the population.

1. I'm skint because the money I have is earmarked for specific purposes. Good for you,but you're not skint,you're being responsible. Welcome to adulthood.
2. Truly and really skint,watching every single penny.’

Yes yes to this! I have a friend who lives in category 1 but genuinely feels she is category 3. I find it exhausting listening to her somedays as I grew up in category 3! I’m very greatful that we are fairly comfortable these days but by mumsnet standards we are probably considered not very well off at all

I don’t have a magic money tree, I have a well-paid job.

I remember what it was like to be skint though. I lived in a very poor household as a child (in the North during the Thatcher era).

I’m one of those rare people who have managed to go from having free school meals at school to being a high earner.

DH, on the other hand, has no idea what it is like to be poor. When I first met him, he used to think it was a bad month if his bank balance dipped below £1000 . At the time we were both students (and I thought it was a good month if my bank balance was positive).

Who are these hoards of people that prop up the entire market.

A couple of years ago 70k pa put your salary in the top 5% in the UK. 31 million or so working people. That means there’s 1.55 million people with salaries of over 70k. That’s a big market. And doesn’t even cover the people with say 35-70k who may not be able to buy regular expensive bags but ceirtainly can once in a while.

To posters who are struggling with debt or a sudden unexpected bill:

'Just get a credit card'

Read somewhere about someone who'd misplaced her £300 wellies ! Good !

I was on one earlier in the week which really showed the two extremes. It was about a maternity item and someone as well as myself wondered if it was worth shelling out on the cheapest one we could find then others joined posting links to ones £100+.

There's no harm in that people obviously have different finances but i was in awe left wishing i could afford to spend £100 on something other than baby stuff whilst pregnant (and wondering whether i really should get the cheapo version or not bother and save the money).

Thanks for the post op. Thought provoking. It’s too easy to live ina bubble and not think outside of it. On a less crucial level I often think similarly on name threads - I always try to answer about a name I think is really awful on the basis that surely someone reading posts will know or have a child or partner with that name let alone the poster who may genuinely love the name and has a lot invested in thoughts of coming child. That thought has made me change the tone of what would otherwise have been a flippant/thoughtless post. I think this is really important. I read a lot of posts which make me wonder whether others who may be silent are feeling like sh**.

To be fair, I think a lot of posters on MN are simply full of shit. The obsession with class markers and being "common" is not the sign of a forum full of duchesses and countesses. Actual posh people don't tend to give a shit. They don't need to.

Read somewhere about someone who'd misplaced her £300 wellies !

I thought the MIL had stolen them?

Read somewhere about someone who'd misplaced her £300 wellies ! Good !

That poster used those 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week working in a stables, not for poncing around Waitrose in. Cheap Primani ones would have fallen apart at the end of the first week. And she hadn't misplaced them - her MIL had taken them.

I feel in a bit of a no man's land on mumsnet. High household income, but both me and my fiance are sensible misers so spend very little on living in general.

It's always very hard to get my head around people who earn a lot less saying they can afford things I'd consider luxuries (frequent hair cuts, expensive holidays).

I had to convince myself to spend about 1600 over this year on a personal trainer because I just don't like spending that much. Glad I did. The change in my health is massive in the past 6 months.

Primani - is that an exclusive invite only primark label? Love it !

"Read somewhere about someone who'd misplaced her £300 wellies ! Good !"

That's just bitchy and nasty. And if you did actually bother to read the thread, you will know that her MIL STOLE them and they were a present from her mum. And given she wears them for 6 days a week, all day, a decent pair will last her years, unlike many many pairs of cheap ones.

AynRand - agree fully.

The sheer lack of compassion, empathy or even BASIC MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING, that no money MEANS absolutely NO money for some people/posters on here is astounding.

Period poverty, food poverty...being treated disgustingly dismissively by posters who are far better off.

Then the descension into comments where basically there's definitions ascribed to deserving v undeserving poor.

"1. I'm skint because I can't buy whatever the hell i want. Get over it,neither can 90% of the population.

1. I'm skint because the money I have is earmarked for specific purposes. Good for you,but you're not skint,you're being responsible. Welcome to adulthood.
2. Truly and really skint,watching every single penny." ABSOLUTELY!

If posters say "you shouldn't assume people are skint" well you shouldn't assume they're well off either.

And before anyone says it, yes I know not all well off posters are like this, but there's a core group that are, and who also refuse to recognise that they're better off more out of LUCK than effort on their part. "I work hard for what I earn" as if cleaners, retail workers, carers, refuse collectors... Don't work hard!

No one has suggest the age old 'just take in some ironing'. Often the solution to all money problems on here.

I was once on a thread about cooking in the week when you were busy or some such

A poster claimed that her family (or at least she and her DH) lived on Charlie Binghams ready meals during the week which meant nothing to me.

Then I moved somewhere with a Waitrose

One Charlie Binghams meal on its own is £8.50

I still haven't got my head around anyone being able to spend that much a month on just ready meals before the rest of the shop

It is very very expensive to be poor.

And I think these people are disproportionately represented in the mumsnet comments because the rest of us are busy either working a lot of hours for less than £50 per hour, or we're busy cleaning our own houses, or we just feel too outnumbered/intimidated to admit that yes, we are too poor to shop in Boden and wouldn't know about the decline in Mint Velvet quality because they're not in our price bracket either.

Up the revolution.

Or spend time with real people who also live in hope that artex makes a return to fashion because they can justify reskimming an entire house just for asthetic appeal.

The food poverty one, with the OP thinking most people have gardens, outdoor space, can walk to a handy place to pick their own fruit and then actually have a massive freezer for it.l,...OMFG.

I've ended a friendship, in part because the lady couldn't understand my finances. She's married to a merchant banker. I don't know what is complicated about me not having access to that kind of money, but worse, she used to talk about how money wasn't important while wondering why I couldn't go to the ballet with her, and she'd say "treat yourself".

I can't decide if these people are thick, in denial or just total gits.

There is an assumption , that people have savings or can just put things con the credit card or go into your over draft , i think some people just cabt understand that sometime s being. "Skint" is having absolutley no money

If the approximate cost of educating a person to 16 is around £50k to the state, and the "educated" person at age 16 can't read, write or reckon, then something has gone wrong in terms of expectation, from home or school. If that same person expects a level of consumption and standard of living equal to those who have worked hard, saved money and learnt difficult skills, then which of those people has got it wrong?

True, humans are not all equal, except before the law (I trust) but to ignore the very real differences in intellect, application, luck, and genetic inheritance is to fly in the face of real life real time. I am not as clever as others here, nor as beautiful as a supermodel. I don't earn as much and my next holiday will be the first in two years, but thats my life, and I stay sane in it by not judging myself against the insane standards of consumption portrayed in magazines like Hello.

Most people do the best they can, within their limits.

With respect to SneakyGremlins, and other posters I've never been quite that broke, but I (much younger at the time) was without a home or work in a foreign country, without rights or status. It felt, and was, a precarious existence.

I've never heard of a duala.

Counselling doesn't cost minimum £45 per session if you go to a counselling centre that gives concessions for those on low incomes. There are plenty of them.

There are plenty of people on here who have little or no money and they talk about their financial struggles. No-one seems to object to that.

Mumsnet has members from all across the socio-economic board. Everyone has problems at times regardless of how well off they are.

Ayn

Yes. Having a high income allows us to live out our stingy principles in full. We can afford Costco membership and bulk buy absurd amounts of dishwasher tablets. We can enjoy cheap meals because having a meal out or takeaway is no big deal. We can stock up, keep a cheap car running, and do a thousand and one things that enable cheap choices.

The only people who think there is anything romantic or noble about being poor have never been poor.