To wonder where some people get their money from

[todaysname18]

NC in case she's on MN

Dh and I are 36, decent education level and good jobs, but we don't earn a fortune. Live in se so quite expensive area and own a little 2 bed house. I thought we were fairly average. But we have some friends, they're only 30 so a few years younger than us and I just don't understand how they have so much money. When I ask her what her dh does she just says he "works in IT" which doesn't sound particularly highly-paid but

• She's not going back to work after mat leave (genuinely no idea how anyone can afford to be a sahm nowadays)
• They live in this absolutely massive 6 bedroom house, not rented
• She drives a Mercedes, not brand new but only a few years old
• They go out to dinner at least twice a week and are always doing day trips at weekends which involve expensive meals and entry to various places, the sort of costs that quickly add up
• I don't know where her clothes are from but they certainly look expensive
• Her ds, 6 months, has SO many clothes it's unreal, I see them 3-4 times a week and I rarely see him in the same outfit twice and lots are fairly expensive brands, I've definitely seen him in a Ralph Lauren polo!
• She just bought a designer handbag...whilst on maternity pay! Who has that sort of money?

I know people will say it sounds like I'm jealous, I absolutely am! But I also just don't understand how they have this sort of money?! Do 30 year old couples regularly own million pound homes?!

The way she says it is so dismissive "oh, he just works in IT, nothing exciting

Yes but if her DH is on a lot of money what do you expect her to say - "DH is head of his department and earns £250k plus a mahoosive bonus, don't you know"? Then you'd be posting about how she's a showy-offy cow and you don't like that either.

Quite!

My brother works 'in IT' on over 200k.. you'd never know it because he's so down to earth and has no outward display of wealth.
I do understand you wondering though. I know a family who live in a 5 bed house with all the children in private school. She's a SAHM and he's 'in insurance' but where I live a 40k salary is considered fantastic. You don't get big paying jobs around here.
I'm curious even though it isn't my business.

Dad - nice, well put.

While I like your classifications dad I don't see why number 1 is so unlikely. If people earn a lot of money they aren't necessarily going to tell you about it. Who discusses their salary?

I agree to a certain extent, but even a big salary tends to erode fairly quickly when you're talking 6-bed in the SE and Mercedes salary. You'd have to combine it with 2) quite heavily unless by 'big salary' you mean 'eye wateringly enormous'.

For example I live in the Midlands with a household income of about £65k take home. Our monthly expenditure for bills is £2000, which looks to leave a very hearty chunk of money leftover for holidays, fancy cars etc - about £41k. Then we want money for a rainy day and for our next house move, and pension contributions. Another 2k a month, and it's down to 'just' (sorry, HEAVY irony there, I know) 17k. 5k off for holidays, and it's 'only' £12k, or £500 each fun money per month.

Yes yes, ridiculous sums still. But still not really Mercedes money. I drive a 14 year old Citroen. I shop in New Look and Tesco. I'm a member of a cheapy gym not a posh one. As I said upthread, I may inherit quite substantial sums that will pay off my mortgage though - THAT would free up quite a lot of monthly income for me!

Depends thecatsthecats I find this to be quite regional and something I noticed in abundance when I moved to London, that people can be quite unusually money focused from a young age. Also, you make a lot of money on property. I have a good friend who probably earns £200k ish plus bonus’ in a bank, so he’s undoubtedly highly paid. But he bought his first London house at 24, bought a second with a girlfriend at 26, they broke up and he bought her out and rented out and bought a 3rd house. He then met another woman who he married and bought a 4th together, she also owned a small house she rented out (all of his were rented out at this point)

Recently they moved out of that house (now valued at £900k, bought for £500k) they rented that out too and bought a £2m suburban mansion.

So really a huge amount of their income comes from that- and they were all bought over 20 years, affordable for him because his salary was high but also built up gradually.

I know so many people who have done this- some not very high earning at all. I have a friend in fashion which is very poorly paid who collected 3 London properties on 100% mortgages and rented them out- cashed them in for a huge house in the suburbs. Plenty of cash left over

Disclaimer...I haven't read the RTFT

but the reason most people wouldn't discuss an inheritance which doesn't necessarily come from Mum and Dad but possibly Great Aunt / Uncle Grandparent etc is that you get people saying "oh you are so lucky " when in actual fact usually you are grieving for someone you loved and who you still miss. In a lot of cases you would sooner still have them around.

stressed people often say an inheritance is nice but they'd rather have the deceased around. However, my nan died without a penny to her name. So no inheritance and still grief to bear.

I know many people in IT and earn over 200k. IT is so big these days, that in banking it’s almost a given if you are senior enough that would be your pay, then bonuses on top of that...

Thanks all for your comments. I guess I made a big judgement over the works in IT comment, I guess I assumed if he was earning six figures she would have been more precise about what he does, but I can see from examples given that this is a fairly normal generalisation to avoid boring/confusing people. I know all their parents are still alive so I discounted an inheritance but obviously it could be from a grandparent etc. Obviously if this is the case I'm 100% sure they'd rather have the relative still living and I certainly don't envy them their loss

I know a few people have mentioned how nosey I'm being, I'd never say anything to her face which is why I chose to speculate here. Also with the sahm comment, I have to go back to work if we hope to get a bigger mortgage in the future for a bigger house, but I guess as they already have a 6 bed house they don't plan to move any time soon

I think it's fine to discuss it on here. I am happy to be frank about my finances anonymously online, because IRL of course it's awkward to alk about these things.

It's only human to wonder about other people's situations, finances, and lifestyles. Even MNetters who are supposed to go round with head down and socks stuffed in their ears, notice other people and have a little bit of green eyes occasionally!

I have a friend who, if you looked at her children’s clothing, you would think she was absolutely minted- all immaculate joules, Boden, fat face stuff, designer brands, trainers. Turns out she has a friend who is actually rich rich, who just happens to have kids a year older than hers, who drops off bin bags of the stuff every season. Honestly, their wardrobes are probably worth more than my car.
You can’t really use that as a measure of wealth!

You could be describing my situation, just a couple of rungs down the ladder from the people youre talking about 😂 We say "works in IT" because he does. As it happens the IT he does meant he sold a business a few years ago and we invested it. We prefer to keep it a humble success and live happily within our means, and don't really want to talk about it too much with friends because when people discover the specifics we found early on they wonder why kids aren't in private school, why we don't live in the expensive town down the road and it changes their perception of us. I've lived on a council estate all my life, we have "chavvy" outside-of-london, glottal stop style accents, living the lifestyle we chose suits us more than trying to go all middle class. There's only one new friend that has come out and said "where do you get your money from?" and I actually really respect her for it 😂

Bill Gates works in IT ...

Pay range for IT is vast. Depending on your skill set and it's very skilled and varied.

Starting at £25K up to ££££

As poster above just stated 'Bill Gates is in IT'
That sort of sums it up!

Inheritance is such a lottery. My elderly neighbours across the road are very much working class but living in one million pounds worth of house bought from the council many years ago. Their grandchildren would expect a very sizeable inheritance when the time comes. (And good for them, because they’re a lovely tight knit family).

These threads always attract “oh it’ll all be on credit living beyond their means” posters and whilst that’s very much a possibility for holidays, cats and designer handbags, I’d be surprised if it accounted for a thirty year old in a hugely expensive house. Affordability calculations have been tightened up massively in recent years. It could possibly be interest only, betting on salary increases/stock options in gears to come.

're the being a SAHM, have you considered that for many low earning spouses of high earning DHs, being a SAHM is the cheaper option? It certainly was for us when we had 2 preschool dcs.

If your work needs longer hours than nurseries or childminders will cater for, you need to use a Nanny, and you are therefore looking at paying out around £2k a month before you've got to buying your train ticket to work.

If her dh works long hours, she has no family help and her job is long hours for low pay (or just shift work that means paid childcare is tricky), her being a SAHM until dcs are school aged might be the option that leaves them with the most money each month.

IT does pay a lot depending on what your skill set is. Have a look on LinkedIn to see what he actually does?

You have no idea what lies underneath. Limited contact with family could mean they have died and left an inheritance.
A relative was orphaned age 2 but brought up by her Auntie as part of their family, she calls them mum dad brothers etc. No one would know unless she told them. She will have a substantial inheritance as both parents were professionals, large house plus compensation for death of her family in the accident.
My DH has 4 jobs and works away alot. If anyone asks I just say he is self employed. I used to wfh in a well paid professional job but looked unemployed as i'm often out in daytime in dog walking clothes.
2 elderly neighbours of my mum will be leaving sizeable inheritances to distant relatives as they have no children - babyboomers with nice houses, fianl salary civil service pensions. The relatives have virtually no contact with them so no one would expect t
hem to inherit and i'm shocked by how much they are worth.

My dc were dressed well from charity shops and car boot sales 😂. Lots of boden wearers, designer labels round here being passed on for pennies.

They may have low over head costs, ie small mortgage.

They may manage their money well and have different priorities. It's amazing how regular hair appts etc add up.

They could be in a lot of debt
Or selling drugs??

IT can be really well paid, but he'd need to be bringing home a massive salary to cover all of that

Not this again!

Sounds like she's underplaying his job to me. That's a good thing, at least she's not bragging about how much he earns.

Or maybe one of them have been left a load of money through inheritance? Or maybe they are in debt up to their eye balls?

Who knows?

I understand exactly why people ask this question, as I do the same (in my head - not to them obviously!) and it is because I feel such a failure compared to them. We have a very shabby house, two old cars (live very rurally - so no buses at all out here and petrol costs are high as the nearest shop is a twenty mile round trip), big mortgage still (on a two bed terrace) and debts at 50 plus years. We live in the South East, have several elderly relatives here, no siblings or other family so can’t move to a cheaper area as need to be near to them. Joint income of 56K (I get 34k (degree educated and responsible job that is slowly killing me with the stress), DH 22K as a mechanic in a garage - a physically demanding job that he is now struggling with now due to his age) both of us working very long hours. Two teenagers. We do nothing, don’t go on holiday, don’t go out to dinner, don’t do days out, don’t drink, don’t smoke. We pay the debts, pay for teenagers to do one activity each, pay a big mortgage. We all have old clothes, every thing is bought second hand and patched up/limped on until it dies. We did a whole year with no heating or hot water - just a coal fire and boiling kettles to fill a bath a few inches to wash in when the twenty year old boiler died a couple of years ago. I took very short maternity leaves with both DC in order to keep my job and then paid £1200 a month for 5 years to keep them both in full time childcare (no choice as needed long hours every day to cover my job - child minder wouldn’t have covered it all) which absolutely crippled us and is the cause of the debt we still carry. I feel like a total and utter failure at life when I see people in lovely decorated houses with cars that aren’t 20 years old. If I find out it is because they have inherited lots of money, so don’t pay a mortgage or because their Mum did all the childcare for free so they could work full time and pay all their money off their mortgage years ago, then I don’t feel quite so much of a failure. That is why I wonder how they do it.

56K income sounds like a lot, like we should be secure and well off so I feel so useless that I cannot see how to afford the nice carpet, the new(er) car and brand new (not second hand) clothes.

They earn vastly more than you think (dishonest about cash-in-hand work, or simply a bit cagey about actual, genuine salary?). Probably unusual, and surely difficult to hide, and may not last.

DadOnIce why would you think that being discreet about your salary was unusual?

My own parents have no idea what I earn let alone any of my friends.

OP why would you think that having a six figure salary would mean that they would be specific about his job role? That’s a slightly odd line of thinking.

I earn a six figure salary. None of my friends (or family) have any idea I earn that much. And most of them would only know a very generic job title if you asked them my profession.

Never ever assume that you know anything about someone else’s financial position, you’ll pretty much always be wrong.

If they are nice people and you like them why does it matter what they earn?

Both me and OH say "Oh, we're in IT" if asked - no one asks more mostly because it probably sounds boring (although we love it). But it can cover anything from poorly paid support to enterprise scale consultancy.