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?!

IT can be really well paid, but he'd need to be bringing home a massive salary to cover all of that Their lifestyle does not sound particularly out of reach though blackvelvetband.

Unless it’s a high 6 figure salary its unlikely income pays for everything. Perhaps a combination of equity/inheritance & a 6 figure salary.

Their lifestyle does not sound particularly out of reach though. Really depends where you are though. Where I am in London a terrace would cost 1.1m+ prep school 15k a year

But IT can be very well paid, the richest person I know (millions) works in IT!

IT specialist contractors get paid at least £600 a day. It is very lucrative.

That is unusual. Could be anything or a combination of factors.
I have a friend who is low contact with her parents but inherited a lot of money from grandparents. That combined with her dh having a decent job meant nicer house and nicer hols than the rest of us.

I had some friends in a similar situation at 30.

He worked in IT IN A specialist niche. He eventually got.head hunted and earnt even more money. I never quite understood what he did but he had a first class degree in maths and theory of computation, a masters specialising in some kind of IT security and oddly enough was a brilliant hacker tho ugh he used his skills for legal purposes so far as we know

We are so used to people complaining about having vey little money, we forget that some people are loaded.
There isn’t anything wrong with wondering how people earn their money, most people are curious about wealth and to be fair to the Op she did admit that she was a little jealous
What I don’t much care for is the assumption by some, that people must be maxing up credit cards , into ‘dodgy ‘ stuff etc. Some people are just extremely good with money, others have made different choices and as s result have made lots of money
My mother was a single mother to myself and my siblings, she made good financial choices and now as a result is pretty well off.

When I ask her what her dh does she just says he "works in IT"

Depending on what he does in IT, he could be earning £200k+ as an IT consultant. I meet IT people a lot in the course of my work and the ones who are excellent at what they do, and specialise in a niche area, are extremely highly paid. IT is also a field where it doesn't have to take people years and years to get to the stage where they are experienced enough to be highly paid - plenty of people in IT have started to develop their skills as teenagers, out of interest, rather than through formal professional channels. So by the time they start work, they may already have a lot of relevant experience.

I think there’s a huge inequality of wealth in this country now. People forget that some people have a LOT of money. And then there are people who have chronic life long health conditions managing on pounds per day unable to heat or eat without it being a choice.

Also so many people in London/SE made a lot of money from rising property prices. I work in a large organisation & loads of the 40+ yr olds are in 1m+ houses despite relatively normal salaries because they made 600k on previous sales. I looked at a doer upper in a up coming area that was up for 850k in 2012. We couldn’t afford it, a developer got it for 750k, probably spent 150k & sold it 2 years later for 1.65m, mental!

‘Works in IT’ can mean a six figure salary.

Some people live to the max . Interest only mortgages to the max hey are allowed . We are early 40's and have nearly paid off our mortgage on a decent 4 bed detached house but not massive . It's how we choose to live , some people choose to have a mortgage until 70 . Dh earns nearly £200k and I don't think anyone would know that looking at how we live . Couldn't give a shot what anyone else thinks or how they want to live though. 🤷‍♀️

You don’t really get interest only mortgages nowadays. 15 year are ago you might have been right

IT is such a broad field, and people often say it if they don’t want explain the specifics of an IT based job knowing that not everyone will understand. Someone who works for NHS or another big company in IT support will probably be earning £20-30k depending on grade and responsibility. A school IT technician, probably not as much. I have a friend who is a programmer and head of a team of programmers who sometimes says “IT” who earns around £70k. I would imagine his boss is on a lot more.

Add this to inheritance, savings from wife’s pre-maternity job, and maybe just being smart with investments in the past, and it’s reasonable that they might be able to afford all that. I don’t blame you for being a bit jealous to be honest. I like our lifestyle, but it sure would be nice to be able to spend like that without worrying about consequences! Unless they are just living far beyond their means. I have seen that before...people who appear to have it all, and it turns out they’re actually in debt and struggling to cope each month.

An old friend from school days who happens to be a local estate agent once told me when I was musing about how seemingly ordinary people afford that big house, massive renovations, private schools, nice cars, expensive holidays lifestyle that very very often it was all on credit...

I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense poshpenny. Of course people can be in debt, but let’s be realistic, how much debt can you actually be in? Years of children being in private school at £15k each a year- personal loans tend to go up to about £50k, credit cards maybe £20k, nowadays it’s hard to get multiple of those, but even if you did it’s only going to keep you in that lifestyle a few short years

I don’t understand why people are so desperate to believe others are in bankruptcy level levels of debt.

If it is programming, senior programmers employed by big tech companies earn extremely well 6 figure base salary, good bonuses, and then (often not at all visible) regularly given stock. Enough stock that if the company is doing well you could pay off a substantial mortgage within a few years.

@todaysname18 none of your business really ... could be inheritance , compensation , maybe she has a escort job on the side that you are unaware of . Money is material , stop getting wound up about it

Not everyone has a lot of debt. Some just made wise career choices. I was paying 5 lots of school fees at one point our of income - always paid fees out of income.

If you are really interested in them you can do the following - pay £3 to do a Land Registry search on their house which will tell you if they own it, whose name it is in and if there is one or more more mortgages on it. Secondly go on Companies House website and search for the husband. if he is a director of a company it may tell you the highest paid director's pay in some bigger companies and at the least will perhaps show you if he is a shareholder, a director and what the accounts show eg he and his wife may have a personal service company and you could look that one up. Then go on google and look at what they paid for their house and when they bought it.

Some jobs do pay a lot. When we looked at women who make £1000 a day some of those were in IT. I make a fair bit of money in law. We had two horses at one stage, still have a nice big house, my 5 children have gone through or are going through university with no student debt or any debt of any kind and I am paying all the student fees. i am not into flash cars but I got a fairly nice second hand volvo this year.

People differ so it is hard to know other than doing my checks above how much they really do earn and what they do. I will always remember one boy my husband taught who did not know what his father did - we did wonder if he were an arm's dealer but perhaps his father just kept his business secret for other reasons.

I don’t understand how people could pay for so much stuff on credit. I thought lending criteria was pretty tough these days so you’d still need a large salary.

@serenmoon you're completely right. Some people are desperate to believe anything other than someone else might just have more money than them.

I say my boyfriend "works in IT"...he runs his own company and makes between £2,000 - £6,000 per week.

I also always answer "I'm not sure" when my friends ask how much he earns, which they often do.

Yes I alluded to that upthread serenmoon. You have to have a high salary to be given huge mortgages and substantial credit cards/loans, so while they might be living to their maximum they would still have to be high earners (and generally able to repay the debt).

As you've already established, working in IT covers a massively broad salary range, and also access to designer clothes is an awful way to ascertain someone's level of wealth. Luxury products are available far more easily than they ever were, and if you're a careful shopper you can get name brand kids clothes for cheaper than one might think.

People get very expensive cars with loan agreements and mileage allowances from work too. They might only be putting in a couple of hundred quid a month of their own money for it.

Other than that, one or more of the following: inheritance. Hidden income sources. Family money. Credit. Parents or even grandparents having bought an ordinary modest property in Central London in the 70s for not very much, seen it increase in value to the seven figures, cashed in and given some of the money to their kids. Lottery wins, not necessarily them but someone close to them. Someone does win most weeks, after all, and many of those people would buy houses for children, parents, siblings etc. The number of people living in expensive homes funded by lottery wins must be well into the four figures by now, if not five.