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?

"I agree 100k is nothing in the south. It definitely doesn’t feel rich."

Jesus. It is RICH. It is nearly four times the median national household income.

You might feel "skint" because you have made certain choices (to live somewhere expensive, to travel/eat/educate your kids/behave in a particular way, to pay off debt for choices you made in the past). None of those choices would have been available to you if you were only able to earn £18k per year. You might also feel skint if you hang out with people who are richer than you. But it makes you crass and possibly a bit thick if you think you can be poor on £100k.

A lot of people lack a sense of perspective. It's natural for people to want a better quality of life so they always compare themselves to better off people and not to those worse off.

People aspire to be richer and so always feel poor by comparing themselves to where they want to be.

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.

It is a bit ignorant and insensitive to moan about being poor to someone poorer than you but it does not really bother me. They are living in their own reality and I don't expect them to show gratitude for having more money than me.

Jesus. It is RICH. It is nearly four times the median national household income.

It is well-paid. But if people don't save / invest it, they are not rich.

It’s relative. You can earn £100k in London, live modestly (no holidays, shop at Lidl and Aldi) and still be on overdraft each month after tax, mortgage, CC, utilities etc

Bollocks.

Unless you are foolish enough to blow all money on a zone one house then I might buy that.

@badlad that is true.

If people are on £100k they are affluent, they have choices, they are "RELATIVELY" well off. They are definitively not skint, just spent it all

It is well-paid. But if people don't save / invest it, they are not rich

😂

It’s a high level, a very high level, of income. That’s what we are talking about here. Lets not get bogged down in semantics.

£100k a year is a lot to earn as a salary. If you chose to piss it up the wall, more fool you, but it gives you many many more choices than someone on £30k.

We live in London on a family income of just over half of £100,000 and I don't consider myself poor

I live in london on a family income of 25k. I don’t feel poor either. We budget, but overall have enough for food, heat, light and the occasional luxury.

My mil is widowed and has a pension of twice our family income. She is always saying how skint she is and playing the poor pensioner card. She just spends it on her version of “necessities”.

Brace yourself, @Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

We will soon be shouted down.

People will say that if you earn £100k and spend it, you are still rich, because it's your choice to spend it.

They don't realise that that is not being rich. It is choosing to be poor.

100k a year goes a plenty long way in the south. I wish people would stop saying that.

I know this because I live in quite an expensive bit of a The Home Counties. We have a household income of 85k and we are fine. Not rolling in it. But fine.
On 100k we would be even more fine!

I'm from up north and of course it would go further up there in terms of house buying. But there isn't some huge magical line just above Birmingham after which 100k ceases to be a significant wage!

They don't realise that that is not being rich. It is choosing to be poor

I think it’s incredibly insensitive at best to claim to be poor if you earn £100k and spend it all.

That’s not poor, that’s stupid.

MIL is the richest person I know but incessantly bangs her poverty drum. She shops in M&S and Fortnum's for her weekly shop. You can't tell me that someone who spends £8 on a specific type of cheese for her dog to take it's eye medicine each week is brassic.

@flirtygirl - You can have gratitude on even the lowest incomes as its not about how much you have but about your attitude and your appreciation of what you do have.

This is what i was trying to say but i don't think i got it across

I didn't feel actual gratitude day to day when we were struggling BUT i bore in mind there were folk worse off than me and that i shouldn't moan. Maybe it's the same thing? It is all about attitude.

While i was at rock bottom in my 20s, my childhood friend was rolling in cash. She married 'up'. I was doing the weekly shop with a calculator and having to stop at 20 quid for 5 of us, while she was furnishing a second home abroad and complaining on the phone to me about the cost of having part of a mountain blown away to enhance the view from her pool! Seriously.

I was slightly jealous about the pool but we still laughed and chatted about our lives. What else is there to think or say? I wouldn't have accepted charity in a million years from her and wouldn't have wanted her to treat me any differently. Life is life. I wouldn't have swapped either because her DH was/is a miserable ugly old shite She is and always has been funny and caring and interested in me. 20 years later I'm well off now myself and she's still got it all £££ wise but her DH is struggling with awful health problems (so is one of her DCs sadly) and she's not feeling fulfilled in her life. Swings and roundabouts.

Completely agree. Why is it always the richest who are so bloody insensitive and completely selfish - oh hang on, just answered that question haven't I. They go on overseas holidays, own multiple properties and charge tenants to pay their own mortagages, and whinge something chronic if ever asked to give anything to anybody else even if it's only a fiver or less. There's always been "wealth apologists" on mumsnet but just lately they've been out in force. It's so nice to see other people seeing straight through it and beginning to get totally fed up!

Opposite here: I'm bloody loaded (around 160k, live on my own). One of my bosses, who happens to think the world of me, keeps on saying how unfair it is that I am so undercompensated and coming up with schemes to get me a raise outside of the regular cycle. I had to take the poor man aside and explain to him that I am being paid more than my entire set of parents and grandparents ever were combined and that I considered myself filthy rich and didn't need him to make a fuss.

People who are really poor dont talk about lack of money. Those who talk abiut lack of money just want more.

That’s not poor, that’s stupid.

It is both. If you have no money, then you are poor. It makes no difference that your poverty is your own fault.

This is my ex-MIL too. I have no idea how much money she has but it's enough for a huge house, constant renovations, M&S grocery shopping and expensive gadgets. No money apparently and makes a huge fuss if you want to give the DC a biscuit or something as she "can't afford" to keep replacing them - pfffft.

I have never had her spending power, but she would always make me feel madly extravagant for buying something like fresh strawberries. If you pointed at her top of the range ipad, coffee machine, etc she would say they were "necessary". It was SO annoying that she genuinely seemed to see herself as skint. But I think she grew up very well-off with private school and horses etc and sees anything else as a comedown.

It's hard to just compare incomes (eg 50k v 100k etc) as there are a lot of other factors at play:

• dependants (not only children but sometimes parents who haven't financially planned for old age and are stuck)
• area you live (yes you could move but this in itself is expensive and could also mean a different/lesser paid job)
• commuting costs (yes you could earn a higher salary in London but you will pay a lot of that out on trains)
• general health needs / disabilities etc
• other expenses that could be unique to your circumstances (unexpected payouts / bills / funeral / medical costs)

So one family on a certain income could be living a very different life to another family on that same income.

It's all relative of course and they may well not be feeling as flush as they'd like, but to declare poverty is ignorant.

It is not hard to compare 20k to 100k though. It just isn't.

What some of those people who say it is don't seem to realise, no matter how often it is explained to them, is that the people on 20k have exactly the same problems with health and family responsibilities and travel.

I cannot stand this attitude!! I have met many who have had it.

Lol at 100k being ‘nothing’ in the south. 100k is never nothing regardless of where you are!
I’m in an expensive part of the SE and have an income of 35k. Have a small house and old car but certainly don’t feel that it’s ‘nothing’. It’s only hard to stretch 100k if you have an expensive lifestyle, which is a choice.

do people mean south or london?

we cope perfrfectly well on 40k here in the se next to london-if we had 100k that would be lovely

I guess it's all subjective. I know some people on a joint income of £65-70k (not in the south so it's a good wage,) who moan CONSTANTLY about how they have no money. (Potless and broke again a week before payday-woe is me!) These people have £450 a month rent and no kids. They claim they are broke during the last week of every month, and say they have fuck-all in savings. (Even though they take home almost £5,000 a month between them!)

They do squander on nights out, and stuff for the house (that they don't need,) like expensive paintings and ornaments and stupid pieces of art that cost £100 (but are not by anyone significant, just generic shit.) In addition, they fritter money away on expensive clothes and shoes, and £150-200 at a time on their hair, and £40 on nails, and £50 on a fake tan, and 100s of pounds of teeth whitening, gym membership, expensive hobbies, and several thousand at a time on holidays abroad. Then they act like they're hard-done-by, and people should feel sorry for them.

One woman I know spent £15 on her mother's 60th birthday because she was broke, yet went on a holiday 2 months later (that cost £3,000.) She can spend her money on what she wants, but this seemed very tight and selfish to me.

They are entitled to spend their money as they wish, but don't fucking gripe about it, to people who take home a joint income of £25K (or less,) and have kids to support, and a home to pay for, with a mortgage (or rent,) that they can barely afford!

YANBU @freetone

I am not even going to justify comments like '£100K goes nowhere in the South,' and '£100K is not a high salary!' with a response, A response is what these (few) posters want. They want to get a rise out of people.

Well you won't get it from ME.