Friend thinks she's poor

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This is a bit controversial. It's not a biggie, but wondered what peoples' views are about this attitude...

There is a friend in our group who talks a lot about how she is one of those families the government refers to as 'just managing' to get by financially. She says she married a man who had nothing and they are not well off.

When I mentioned once about my child benefits, she mentioned they weren't entitled because their income was too high. They recently moved into a massive manor-type house in the middle of the countryside (and we live in an expensive area of the country). She mentioned they pay £2000 a month for it. She always buys expensive clothes, etc for her kids and seems in general to have stuff that we could not afford - expensive memberships, etc.

Recently, I was talking about how I am trying to apply for 30 hours free childcare a week. She mentioned that their income is too high to be eligible. That must mean their net income is over £100000 per annum. I'm sure that's not what Theresa meant when she said 'just managing'.

She talks to me about how poor they are A LOT. It's starting to annoy me. She knows we must have an income less than half of theirs. We have a small three-bed semi. We live quite frugally and do OK. But if they are poor, then what are we in her opinion?! What planet is she on? Maybe they have debts, etc. But I don't understand why you would move into an expensive manor house and splash the cash around if you are hard up??

Yes, and it's none of my business. But I don't understand this attitude at all.

She probably is poor. She’s spending all her disposable income on rent. For her massive fucking Manor House...

Fur coat & nae knickers. She doesn't sound like the brightest bulb in the box. £2000 a month to be a Hyacinth!

Who in their right bloody mind would waste £2k a month on rent?!

Surely you'd find something for maybe £1k max and save the other £1k for a few years to actually buy a house?

yep I have a family member whereby the family is on 60K without bonuses/overtime. Theyve always gone on how skint they are and bleeding poverty. So much I used to often dig deep in my own pockets to help them out. I've recently realised their salary and how we both pay the same rent... I guess in relation to a millionnaire they are skint.

Unless I had a very good reason for keeping her in my life (or she made up for this irritating nonsense in other ways), I'd probably gradually decrease the time spent with her to save myself the aggravation and the bit tongue.

I have family members like this. They play the poverty card because they’re worried people are eyeing up their money. Where in reality no one cares.

For some people poor mouth is a habit they learn from their parents and don't realize what it sounds like outside the family circle.

Sounds like some sort of attention seeking.

My exH did this constantly and it really was offensive especially when he did it around others.

Call her out every time and hopefully she'll stop.

I absolutely HATE this kind of attitude and behaviour from people who are obviously very comfortable.
I recently returned from an exotic holiday with a relative like that. Sucked the joy out entirely.

The genuinely poor people don't talk about struggling for money because they find it embarassing
This! There is no pride in actual poverty (i.e. needing a foodbank)

Where do you live that you can get a manor type rental house for just 2k per month?

They are probably living month to month with no assets, which is why they feel poor. They might not even have a decent pension to look forward to, if they've always had different priorities. I know people who earn more than double our household income who run out of money at the end of the month, but this is because a high proportion of their income is already taken up with car leases, sofa loans, etc with very little wriggle room each month for unexpected costs.

I am comfortably off, and treat savings and pension as a bill etc, so I have to check my thinking occasionally, when I've spent all my money leaving me tight at the end of the month until another reliable large amount of money comes in.

I do find it a lot more nervy having a high disposable income than I did renting and saving though. It's not logical, because I took on my mortgage when I earned £20k less, and could comfortably afford it then. Some how the potential loss seems so daunting, when in reality we're not very spendy so are mostly squirrelling it away anyway.

I met a woman recently through mutual friends. The conversation was about this woman’s new house that she was in the process of buying. Someone said “Which house was it again?” to which she replied “Oh the only one we could afford” coupled with a glum face.

I found out later what house it was- the asking price was €1.3m 😂

@loseyourself I have never been able to buy on my own, not because I couldn't afford the monthly repayments, because I have always paid far more in rent than I ever would have paid for an equivalent property I was buying. The issue has always been that just as I got close to having the deposit squirrelled away, by taking on an extra job, or living for months on, well, not very much food, house prices soared our of my reach again.

@ohdobehavedahling great idea, if you work in a profession like nursing, where it doesn't really matter where you live, there will always be work for you; but if you're in something like the creative industries, and just starting out, you pretty much have to be within easy reach of London, Bristol, Cardiff or maybe Leeds. Even teaching vacancies aren't evenly spread out across the country.

I do agree though that boasting about paying £2k a month for rent is a bit OTT - obviously all the other bills are presumably commensurate with that, so their heating bills, council tax etc must be very high. She does realise many people don't actually EARN that in a month, doesn't she?!

Though I suppose so much of it is who you hang out with (yes, grammar police, I know it should be "with whom"). If you're hanging out with people who earn £500K plus then you'll think that's normal; if you're hanging out with people whose income is below the NMW you'll think that's normal too. It's relatively rare, in my experience, for the two groups to mingle. The only places I've seen it happen are in some parts of the NHS and some parts of the uniformed services.

I've been very poor and reasonably well-off at different times in my life, and having been very poor, when I was in a well-off phase, I always tried to be sensitive about not making a big thing of it but also taking others' circumstances into account. If, for instance, a work night out was suggested, we always tried to make sure it was affordable for those on the lower bands so everyone could join in, and in a couple of instances, those going through a rough time, between contracts say, were subsidised.

But then even when I was relatively well-off, I was still a mad bargain hunter and thought that second hand vintage (mid-range labels, the old St Michael and the like) was a far better bet than modern throwaway fashion, for instance; and I drove an old, economical car so I could enjoy a weekend away occasionally.

Yes, there are lots of people out there living this kind of life. Poverty is relative (unless it's absolute - as in, you literally can't feed yourself because you have nothing, most of us don't ever experience or even see that sort of poverty). Compared to the people she is comparing herself to, she 'feels poor'. Even when she isn't (though she may not have much disposable income with all the foolish spending she is doing). I have a family member who often talks about how hard it is to afford his taxes and how he isn't 'rich'. His salary is at least 250k a year (house is mortgage free, only one car which is paid off, literally no major expenses); his christmas bonus is usually around 100k on top of that. He thinks he's just one of those ordinary working people that everyone is talking about....

I don't understand this constant need to talk about money. The only time money comes up with friends is if you're going somewhere together and you want to know the cost. I do have a friend that tells me how much her house cost, how much her husband makes and her parents' house value. I don't reciprocate because I find that sort of conversation a bit odd. I think she's fishing for me to do the same because we're a very frugal family, so our spending doesn't match our careers or locations. Maybe your friend is doing the same, fishing because she's nosy. People do like to get themselves worked up about what others have or don't have.

She sounds really miserable. But, if you’re crap with money you can struggle
On any amount.

Not everyone is good with money, people make bad decisions. Then complain about them 🤣

We see threads on here every so often from people like her. They look at their income and think why don’t I feel wealthy.
A lot of it is lifestyle creep where luxuries become necessities.
I work in a high paying field so sending your DC to private school is common. People start seeing it is normal and expected. Outside of that bubble it isn’t. The money we spend on school fees is entirely luxury discretionary spending and anyone who can afford it is privileged. But I do know people who would argue with me that it is a necessity.

My DP can be a bit like this (nowhere near as bad!) at times and I always look concerned and ask him whether his diamond shoes are too tight. He’s learning. . .

She sounds really miserable. But, if you’re crap with money you can struggle on any amount.

Very true!

A woman at our work was dreadful - she actually made a LOT of money as a musician in the 90s but was working as a hotel cleaner before us. She was always demanding a pay rise because her salary just 'wasn't enough to live on' - yet continually buying fripparies, or leasing expensive cars (when I - on a much higher salary - was driving a 2nd hand runaround).

But if she'd had any financial sense whatsoever she wouldn't have pissed her original fortune up the wall.

I have a friend like this, either splashing the cash or beans on toast depending on pay day. When she moans I comment on things she's boasted about. Can't pretend to be stupid and go along with it so boasting about £80 massages after pay day will make me remind her before pay day when she's apparently skint. No time for it!

I think everyone thinks they are poor TBH! if she has friends who are well off maybe millionaires?she will feel she has less than them .Also the 2k P/M mortgage is probably the tip of the iceberg, with running costs and work on a house like that .

The best thing my parents ever taught me was to never think that I had to look a certain 'way' to impress people.
So many friends and family have fallen into the trap of having the latest gadgets, big house, posh car on credit, best clothes and make up.
As long as I have a home, a car that works and gadgets that haven't broken, then I'm OK.
Must be so hard to keep up with the Joneses.

There are other ways people may not be eligible for the funded hours that just whether they earn the minimum or maximum amount. A friend is Canadian and due to her nationality, her children are not eligible.

I also think it’s odd that a family on £100k opts to rent rather than buy and would wonder if they have debts that mean they are unable to get a mortgage. If so, it could well mean their disposable income is very low and that’s what she means about being poor.

Ugh I hate this too! I had a friend who used to talk about how "tough" it was to pay the mortgage. On her 140K consultant doctor's salary and husbands 60K+ salary. Well I suppose she didn't have much money left each month after paying for designer clothes, private school, £200 haircuts, multiple foreign holidays a year etc etc but she didn't seem to realise that wasn't the same as just not having as much money! Really annoyed me as I earn less than a third of what she does as a single parent, and I don't consider myself hard up.

People don't think and the more money they have the more they see certain things as essential. For example private school - and then moving in those circles they encounter much richer people than them, and are insulated from any actual poverty - so they start to feel "poor".