Moaning about being ‘poor’ when rich

[freetone]

AIBU to think if you are childless, go on 3 holidays abroad per year and live in a 4 bed detached house on a private road then you don’t have the right to moan about being ‘poor’? My DF and his wife have been like this recently. He earns over £150k a year. It shows how far away from reality they are imo. Really gets on my nerves when there are millions of people genuinely struggling. Anyone else experienced people like my Father?

Who actually goes about their daily life remembering to feel grateful?

I do Laiste. I really do. I’ve known poverty and I feel grateful every day I now earn enough to have a nice life, save money, and pay bills. I feel grateful when I go get some water to drink from the tap that by sheer fluke I wound up born into a country with an abundance of clean running water. I feel amazed when I go swimming we have enough water we can even use it for leisure and fun. I feel really thankful after coming from coffee with a friend that I have people who love me and want to spend time with me. I feel especially thankful when I’m happy and contented as I know what it’s like to be depressed and feel like my life is over. I feel so thankful when I open the fridge that I get to choose what to eat for dinner tonight instead of going hungry. I feel thankful when I go to work knowing that I am in a country with women’s rights where I can be independent and live my entire life single if I choose.

We have such an abundance in this country. Not everyone sadly. But most of us. Having been someone without enough to live on I have such an attitude of gratitude now. Sure, I don’t have these thoughts every single day about every single thing I do but I’ve thought about all this a lot. I know tonight when I go to bed I’ll have a second of feeling really really lucky that I get to sleep soundly in a comfy bed with a roof over my head to protect me from the elements, a door that locks to keep me safe, and no reason to worry anyone will burst in through the door in the night and kidnap or kill or torture me.

I think having a basic awareness of history and the world is useful. You realise how insanely fortunate we are and how so many things we take for granted are a distant dream/ambition for many. It’s a choice to see things this way.

I do too. It's important to my mental health and perspective. It counteracts the need for 'progression and comsumption' and settles the soul. There is a huge amount of science behind it. Its transformative.

Absolutely.

The folly of the rich struck my parents recently. They have childhood friends who were always the rich ones. Doctors, engineers and business execs at top of big firms. All on over £100k salaries, some on multiple of this.

Turns out most of them had less savings etc then my parents. True, they have big houses but had HUGE debts and overdrafts for years. My parents always spent within their means having been totally skint when we were tiny.

The 'rich' people basically frittered a lot of their money on holidays, cars, flying lessons for kids, etc etc etc. My parents have always been mega sensible with their cash, and after years of skint appreciate their house, UK holidays etc.

Count your blessings. Most of us have far more than we realise.

positivepsychologyprogram.com/neuroscience-of-gratitude/

I remember going around the supermarket with a calculator, so I wasn't mortified when I got to the till and I didn't have enough money or I'd have to put something back.
Now I go to the supermarket and don't have to do this anymore so I consider myself "Rich" even though I'm not.
I'm working and I have a car, and a roof over our heads, plus one abroad holiday per year so all is good.

@EmeraldRubyShark I could almost have written this myself. I earn below average wage but I have cut my cloth to suit, so I live quite comfortably. I also feel very grateful to the twist of fate that brought me to my parents and family in this country, where absolute poverty is rarer than in most of the world.

When my dds were young I was a single parent in private rented accommodation in London with a nanny (due to the demands of my job. I earned six figures. After tax, I had enough to survive but not to save and I was terrified that if I lost my job I would quickly lose my home. It’s actually it that much post tax if you have to pay a nanny (due to the demands of your job) and huge rent (because you live in London due to that being where your job is).

MY dd are a little older and due to a particular circumstance (which I don’t intend to share) we have been able to buy. Things are much more comfortable now

My friend had two DD and one SDD, all. At private school, a massive house and she doesn't work.

When she moans she's skint I really have to bite my tongue!

Winebottle In any job I have been in, people think they are underpaid. It doesn't matter what their salary is, they think they are worth it and more.

I find that really odd but I guess it’s a matter of perspective. For example I have friends who left uni and walked straight into jobs on £25k so they see that as a kind of minimum. I was earning £8k five years ago and now I’m on almost £40k. My first job on more than NMW felt like absolute riches to me (£18k) yet a friend who had started on more than that in the eighties was dismayed and thought I was disappointed! I never dreamed of earning more than NMW and spent some years in awful insecure zero hour jobs so I felt rich on a stable £18k.

It really is perspective. I feel I’m paid very generously, even though I’m aware I’ve earned it with studying hard work and luck, I believe the job needs to pay a fair bit or nobody would do it. But I personally feel my salary is excellent for what I do and I’m quite open about that. Thankfully I work in an organisation where people seem to really feel well remunerated (it helps we’re treated well in other ways too) and it just wouldn’t happen where someone would stand making a coffee complaining about earning £28k when the people we work with are often on sub NMW. It’s gauche.

Totally agree.... drives me nuts, I’m in the middle class with my head just above water... I don’t moan about being poor but people who I work with who earn 3 x my wages, live with thier parents complain about being poor every month.... they go on trips and eat out every day. I wish I could afford to eat out every day. I just find it a bit sensitive to be honest especially when they moan to people less off than themselves.

Ut I’ve also lived on benefits so feel guilty if I overspend. I like the idea of feeling grateful and considering if we really need a lot of the things we buy.

Having been poor I totally agree that many have no idea what poverty is.

Saying you can’t afford x is fair enough - you’ve spent and accounted for your money elsewhere, but that is categorically not the same as being poor. Being poor does not mean you can’t afford luxuries, or that things MIGHT change for you in future. It means you do not have enough for a basic roof over your head (ie rent a bedsit, not a mortgage on a house) or basic food (eg beans and bread). Some posters really need to check their privilege.

For all the pp saying 100k is “RICH” in London, it really isn’t or at least isn’t necessarily. Anyone earning that salary will be putting in plenty and unpredictable hours. They will need expensive childcare, not as a choice but as a requirement of doing their job.

For me when my dd were young, after nanny, rent and transport, I had about £800 a month on a salary of just over 100k. Not horrendous poverty but not vast wealth either when I needed to pay utilities, council tax, food, etc. We lived in catchment for the school I wanted but in a small rented house. My job was so stressful and long hours that I would say I was genuinely happy after I was made redundant and had to live on benefits.

So I think things are complicated and it’s not so easy to dismiss others issue.

Lovely to see others here who practice gratitude!

My final point having finally read the entire thread is that surely a lot of this is down to language? I’ve been saving several hundred per month for my first home and I’m acutely aware I’m in an incredibly fortunate position to be able to do so, as mentioned above I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d earn over NMW. But I might use the word skint with friends if what I really mean is that I’ve ran out of my month’s disposable income, I’ve got not enough left for whatever they’re suggesting after my planned outgoings (I wouldn’t compromise my savings plan for a spa day for example whereas of course I would for an emergency). And it’s only something I’d say with friends in similar financial positions. In my area/group ‘I can’t, I’m skint’ isn’t synonymous with ‘I have emptied all of my accounts and am bottoming my overdraft/maxing my CC and am in real trouble’ it’s synonymous with ‘I can’t justify that right now as I don’t have much left until payday of my planned daily living money/I’ve had some unexpected expenses this month and can’t justify this extra thing’

On the other hand ‘I’m poor’ absolutely means you have nothing. No savings. I would never in a million years say I’m poor anymore.

my (definitely wealthy, multi-million net worth) in laws are like that too.
but everyone has the right to moan.
mainly I find it causes socialisation issues between family/friends when at very different wealth levels. e.g. i struggle with birthdays and meal outs (as we are expected to pay our share) and turn down family holidays abroad.
when i say "struggle", i can afford it but it is a much bigger % hit on me than them.

someone mentioned the poverty mindset. I have that. i know i am comfortable yet I am guilty about moaning about being poor. i complain about prices of everything all the time and I get unhappy at pub/restaurant if I pay a penny more than my share. I fly into rage when DH takes a fiver from my bag or when children dont finish their food. I guess it's because I grew up poor, often hungry, hot water a luxury etc. So i baulk at costs more than others.

I think we must be doing things wrong. We have a combined income of about £140k, DH works full time, I work part time. 3 teenage children.

We have a nice house in a nice area far, far away from London and the south east. Two cars. Cleaner comes each week. No denying that we're comfortably financially. The boiler breaking down doesn't throw us into a panic, for example.

But given the way some people are going on, you'd expect me to be wafting from lunch date to lunch date in my diamonds, designer handbag and designer clothes. Jetting off, first class of course, to the Caribbean in the summer, and skiing in Klosters in the winter. Living the "made in Chelsea" or footballers' wives lifestyle.

It's really not like that. We are very ordinary. Shop in a mixture of Asda/Aldi/Waitrose. No school fees. No pony. No Range Rover and no Rolex.

You are, nonetheless, in the one or two percent of the highest income households in the country.

It really depends on your outgoings and what your disposal income is. Unless you have personal knowledge of someone else's expenditure, not just their income, you can't really fairly decide if they're poor or not.

You can earn £40k and have more disposable income than someone on £80k.

It's also a case of cutting your coat according to your cloth, as my DM always says. Some ppl live beyond their means and with such little left after spending, they probably do feel poor.

They have in many cases, not prioritised their spending. I have a friend who is on a low salary, yet her DC us in private school. Ppl may assume she's rich...but she gets into debt and is sometimes in rent arrears to do so.

And also not POOR which is what the thread is about! Being generally comfortably off, having to work to fund a certain level of lifestyle, even having to save a bit to pay for a big expenditure is not being poor.
There’s a world of difference between not being able to afford something and being poor. If you’ve ever been poor, it’s unlikely you’d ever say ‘I can’t go for dinner, I’m poor’. How much better to say ‘I can’t go for dinner, I can’t afford it this month’. Being poor - I can’t afford my rent, I can’t buy milk, I can’t top up the electricity.
Not the same thing at all. This thread just serves to show how many people have no clue about what bring poor actually is.

sandy sure if I sleep on the streets I will have a lot more disposable income. That is a pretty meaningless thing to say.

But given the way some people are going on, you'd expect me to be wafting from lunch date to lunch date in my diamonds, designer handbag and designer clothes. Jetting off, first class of course, to the Caribbean in the summer, and skiing in Klosters in the winter. Living the "made in Chelsea" or footballers' wives lifestyle.

I agree.

Earning 100k doesn't automatically mean rich.

It doesn't mean you're starving....but when you have children... I have one in University .... that money doesn't go far. £7 - 8k a year for Uni accommodation. .. and with another going off soon it will be a big hit on our pockets... so £100k income won't go far at all.

Things are relative... relative to your lifestyle.... to where you live in the world .... not just in the UK...Also relative
to what you're used to because even those who are in the bottom 10% of the income bracket, would not be considered poor to those in other countries who cannot afford 3 meals a day, or a roof over their heads or those whose children have to go out and work from
8 years old or younger.

At least the poor in the UK have benefits to claim and food banks to access. A poor person in many other countries who was housed and fed would, whose DC got FSM, free medical treatment...would feel very rich.

clairemcnam

sandy sure if I sleep on the streets I will have a lot more disposable income.

That's if you're alive to spend it living on the streets. It's a very dangerous place to be. The death rate is high on the streets and you have to watch your back. Not for the faint hearted.

POOR = lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.

The definition of comfortable varies from one person to another.

I am very grateful. I would like to be richer. I would like to buy things and do things. But I am still grateful. Every day.

Today, we went for a walk. We walked to the shops. Along a lovely river. We bought some 36p loaf of bread and fed the ducks. We went further up to Smyths toy shop and made lego in store then got free leg miNI sets to take home.

We ate our sandwiches in the town park. Then we came back home via another park walk and stopped off at the slides where the kids played for a while.

We got home and built our lego and made dinner. DD and DS both said they had a brilliant day. It cost 36p.

We may not do swimming or cinema trips or eat out or do anything that costs money. But I'm still thankful. We had a lovely day. The sun was shining.

My brother on the other hand says crap like 'you haven't lived until you've blown £300 on a meal out' (in a posh restaurant I'm guessing).