To ask if your parents are well off, what did they do for work?

[vadam]

Inspired by the other thread about expecting to inherit from DPs will.

Many posters seem to have parents with wealth and it got me thinking about my own. One was a mechanic and is now unemployed due to health issues and the other is a cleaner. Neither of them have any savings or assets. So I won't be getting much, if anything when they pass.

AIBU to ask about yours?

Guessing everyone's parents were unemployed then

Mine was a civil servant and self employed stock taker.

I wouldn't have described my family as well off, they bought their house when it was relatively cheap and it is now worth around 3x the bought price. Due to selling another house their mortgage was small which helped their outgoings. I suppose this is considered quite a big asset now.

We didn't have expensive cars, private school or anything like that but we always had Christmases and birthday's without worry and we went on 2-3 foreign holidays a year.

DH and myself earn more than they did combined but due to being limited to school holidays, inflation and the rise in living costs, stagnant living wages we cannot afford a house their size, holidays, trips.

I feel they were wealthier than we are, despite us earning more.

Not wealthy at all, didn't inherit here.

Nothing that impressive, just medium level civil servant type job. Mum was at home until we were all at school and did secretarial.

Born at the right time and bought a house that cost £18k when I was born, with help from family, and this meant they had money available (house sold for £400k a couple of decades after they bought it). They're now spending my inheritance on fabulous holidays, the bastard

I think you need to define well off first. I mean, I think my parents were reasonably well off but don’t have ‘wealth’

Do you mean standard of living when working or post retirement? Or savings?

Mine were a school caretaker and a cleaner

Both mine & DH’s parents are probably what you’d consider wealthy.

Dh’s family mostly due to inherited wealth & property.

My DM was a social worker & DF worked in business then ran his own company. He sold it a few years ago and did very well from it...retired comfortably at 50.

However like @PixiePowered says, I also feel they were wealthier at a similar household income than we are now. We had multiple holidays each year, expensive cars, a big house in an expensive area. In PIL’s case only DFIL worked - they really really struggle to understand why I work now. And they’ve all been able to retire young! Whereas DH & I earn not far off what DP would have earnt at the same age and are a million miles off being able to have the kind of lifestyle they did.

Mine were well off because my grandparents were wealthy and gave them a lot of money when they got married.
They both had ordinary jobs but moved up to supervisor/manager quite early on. They used the money to benefit themselves first like working part-time and taking early retirement. They never passed it down to us.

I mean well off as in a few hundred thousands in the bank and owning their own homes etc

My parents had regular jobs in civil service and local council (both retired) but were incredibly good savers and shrewd with their money and they’re what I’d call comfortable

DP’s parents owned a retail business based in an affluent town in the SE. It was very successful, and they owned the main high street store, which was in a prime location, outright.

Back in the early 2000s, when retail was booming, a major national retailer made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. The site was sold for a lot of money and they became very wealthy.

@AgeLikeWine How much we talking?

I think it depends what you mean by well off. My parents are middle class comfortable Waitrose shopping, foreign holiday going, new cars every 3 years driving types. They were middle management civil servants with excellent pensions and bought at house in 1980 for £20k sold it in 2015 for £750k. My brother and I went to the local comp but they paid off our student loans and gave us both flat deposits.

But they are not Kate Middleton family well offs (ie three kids in boarding school, flat in Chelsea, mansion in Berkshire, holidays to the Caribbean etc)

I posted on that thread. Both my parents were teachers. Other than the 6yrs my mum has off when me & my sibling were little, they both worked full time from the age of 21 - 60. No student debt to repay, house prices being low, both sets of grandparents being down the road and able to help out with bits of childcare and my parents being off in the holiday meant they never paid for childcare, only one car, no holidays, a relatively frugal lifestyle (partly through need, partly through habit, partly through location (very rural so there just weren't any takeaways or a local pub)) and now final salary pensions.

Dad consultant in medicine and came from wealth. Mum civil servant. In laws self employed business people but extremely wealthy due to hard work and investing in property at the right time.

Dad wqas a bricklayer, Mum was a barmaid. Didn't have a lot of savings. When my mum died 2yrs ago she had £500 in the bank. That was spilt between her 6 kids😂😂😂.

My in-laws are wealthy. Fil had a very sucessful building company which DH is now the CEO. When dd2 was born they set up a trust fund for her, I remember thinking wtf every time I looked at it.

My parents are not wealthy but they own a nice house and have about 50k in savings. The majority of the savings came from a win on the football pools about 10 years ago.

My husband's parents are wealthy. They own property worth about £1.5 million and who knows how much in savings. His dad was a civil engineer and mum a teacher. Both retired.

Investment banking/financial advisors. They also did the buying a house for 100k/sell it for a million London thing.

They worked very very hard and were away a lot.

The other day my mum was saying she made too many compromises for her career - maybe she could have run the place? So perhaps she's the only person who actually, on her deathbed, will be wishing she worked more.

No wealth here at all on either side. No parents owned a home or had any pennies to rub together. DH and I have done OK by working and by buying and doing up fixer uppers, just for our own homes to live in, but it has made us a bit better off than most of our mates, who have mainly had inheritances. No gloating here, just fucking delighted to have something to leave our DC - feels like a read achievement after where come from.

My father was a pilot retired at 54, mother a nurse then sahm.

Also did well on property, now very comfortable in retirement

My parents had regular jobs in civil service and local council (both retired) but were incredibly good savers and shrewd with their money and they’re what I’d call comfortable

Pretty much describes my PILs - plus they were lucky re property prices. FIL gone, but their money is being put to good use for MIL's nursing home fees.

Most people on that thread aren't talking about "wealthy" parents though. If their parents chose to buy a house, then that will be an asset which can be sold and becomes something to inherit. It doesn't make them 'wealthy' in most people's eyes.
My parents sound similar to @cobwebsoncornices - they actually lived very frugally, and both worked all their lives (Dad used to go out an teach nightschool on top of his day job). We didn't have a lot of things that would be considered very normal these days and money was very tight for them for the first 3 decades of their marriage.

@vadam

I don’t know the exact figure, but it was several million pounds, and that was almost twenty years ago.

My DF was an electrical engineer.

My parents are what would be described as wealthy in anyone’s books
My mum inherited an absolutely enormous amount of money/property/other assets.
Both she and my dad had hugely successful careers in a science field, and were both earning salaries in the 6 figures 30 years ago. My father however died when I was in my teens and while this basically set up me and my two siblings into never needing to work I’d much rather he was here.

My mother is in her 60s still working full time and is an absolute inspiration to me. And I am incredibly grateful to have such a strong, ambitious and successful woman as a mother and role model.