To be shocked by the wealth on Instagram

[Daisypowers]

I deleted my social media accounts about 6 years ago, I just got sick of it. As a result, I've lost touch with a lot of uni friends and people I used to work with. I've been happily getting on with my life, progressing steadily but happily with my career etc.

Today I (reluctantly) logged into my old Instagram account to look at my cousin's wedding/honeymoon photos (she got married abroad and I couldnt go). I saw reems of posts from people I used to know (mostly aged around mid 30s) who all appear to be insanely wealthy these days. It looks like a few have married into wealth, but I really can't work out where the rest get their money from?! I know Insta is all about showing off the best bits, but there's just endless feeds of big house purchases, holidays, ski trips, spa breaks, kids taking riding lessons, expensive meals out. I'd literally have nothing of this sort to post on Insta!

Everyone else seems to have bought nice houses in and around London (£500k/600k+) in the past few years which has blown my mind. And renovated them, furnished and decorated them beautifully. While also affording to go on 3-4 holidays a year (despite the pandemic). How?!

How have all these people who all left uni at the same level as me become so stratespherically more financially successful in the same period of time? Many of them have very middle of the road middle management jobs and I can't imagine they earn much more than me and DP to be honest.

Good money management, DIY and 0% finance.

Debt or inheritances?

It’s always handouts/inheritances.
There’s only so much credit you can get now.
Even normal non wealthy families often have 30-50k to handout at the opportune moment, normally a house purchase, which then generates more wealth as you move up the property ladder.
Once you’ve moved up a run for two, living in a huge house but smaller mortgage, earning well, it flows from there.

@cherryonthecakes

Debt or inheritances?

This probably.

Fake it till you make it?

Not as luxurious as it appears?

are they oligarchs ;-) ?

Debt , inheritance or as we say in Scotland “ fur coat but no knickers”

People probably think this of us. Our house is £650k but our current budget to upsize is £1m+. We holiday 6 times a year. We have nice things.

• DH works 2 jobs (out of choice) to earns six figures
• I worked hard, also earn six figures
• we made money buying a shit hole when house prices were not as bad and selling it a couple of years later
• we lived frugally for a few years to buy our house
• made a lot from the rise in housing
• very very careful with money - always looking for discount
• drive very old cars
• refuse any type of finance except mortgages - we used credit cards to increase credit scores
• I regularly do more types of training, I learned Python in my spare time and I’m trying to learn Java Script - all using free resources
• I came from poverty
• never had a penny of handout or inheritance, only debt is our mortgage

It’s possible and you don’t see the behind the scenes. I shop in lidl, price all my meals to keep them about £1 a portion - bevause I’d rather spend the money elsewhere and save / spend on nice meals out / socialising / holidays

Klarna

All my clothes are second hand except the odd dress for an event.

I would never buy a new car or finance one

I sell any old clothes

I take on any extra jobs I can find

We have a saying that we will work very hard all hours (DH works 80-90 hours a week easily) until we have kids.

I forgot to say I’m 27

Me and my partner's families are comfortable financially, not poor but not well off either. But neither families have a spare £10k or £30k lying around to give to us to buy a home. Although most of the people I'm talking about would almost certainly of needed deposits of £100k+. But seems this is maybe normal now?

Credit. I saw this a lot in my late teens/early 20s. Lots of holidays, nice cars, luxury apartments.
DP (now DH) & I went camping, lived in a houseshare, drove his first car until it pretty much fell apart and bought a flat at 25.
Over the next few years a lot of our peers moved back in with their parents to clear their credit card debt. I know several people who had around £30k of debt.
It was pretty hard at the time though, feeling like I was failing at life as I couldn't afford their lifestyles.

It's called debt/finance.

Mortgage to the hilt. Car(s) on some form of finance (possibly company).

Household items? Debt.

Holidays? Debt.

I don't think that inheritances are as common for the age group and where it does happen they often go straight on weddings and the like.

Some people are religious in repayment and eventually the house purchase will pay off on mortgage clearance (or they'll remortgage and clear the more expensive debts).

Quite a few people will be paying for the dream they're living now for a hell of a long time.

Also, our deposit was £9k, outskirts of London 8 years ago. Our area then went up a lot due to Crossrail, so we had £70k equity a few years later to buy a house. A good dose of luck and good timing helps.

@AwkwardPaws27

Also, our deposit was £9k, outskirts of London 8 years ago. Our area then went up a lot due to Crossrail, so we had £70k equity a few years later to buy a house. A good dose of luck and good timing helps.

I think those days of luck and timing are long gone.

I think those days of luck and timing are long gone

True, my point was that if they had previously bought a flat it may explain how they had a £100k deposit.

People will claim how clever/frugal they are but it's mostly bank of mum and dad and inheritances.
If you have been helped out in some way early on in your 20's, that's your foundation and by your mid 30's you will possibly be in a big house with lot's of disposable income. The ones that are annoying are the ones that have conveniently forgot the help they had and pretend they have done it themselves. Which only a few will have done. I know several people who have bought their dc houses, cars, luxury holidays.
One of our dc's partner inherited and they have a massive house, rental income, loads of holidays. Plus we spoil them all and take them on holiday every year, buy them designer stuff, nice presents etc. Mainly because we can and because we've seen our parents hoard a fortune. We don't want to do that, we want to see them enjoy our money and don't want to be old and rich just for it to be taken away through care fees.

IMO the type of people who post about their fabulous lives on IG are the type of people who wouldn't be averse to doing a bit of..ahem..jiggery-pokery to make it LOOK like they are insanely wealthy/happy/successful IYNWIM. Usually people who are a bit insecure and feel the need to keep up with the joneses as it were.

A family I knew moved away to a foreign country and suddenly seemed to have a picture-perfect lifestyle with the latest everything, kids constantly pictured doing any and every sport /craze and of course they are "top of their class" at everything despite them not doing particularly well academically when in the U.K. (I was actually told this by the mum!). I always kept an open mind about it and was recently told by a close "friend" of hers that all is not as it seems and the mum desperately wants to come home and hates it there.

On insta though you'd think everything was amazingly perfect.

Take it all with a huge grain of salt - IG is generally fake, fake, fake.

OP, people only put on Instagram the nice things. Understandably. People will show you the results - houses, cars, holidays. They won’t show you ‘how’ they get there. They won’t show pictures of themselves 12 hour days and 89 hour weeks, they won’t show you pictures of time taken to do extra training/courses. And they won’t show you pictures of how they prioritise and save on certain areas to spend on others.

Do they have corporate jobs? My job, for example, can pay anywhere between £20k less and £15k more than my salary. It's the exact same job, just a different type of company (think hospitality head office vs retail vs fmcg etc) and a different sized company. Plus company benefits can vary greatly from company to company. Annual bonuses, for example, I've had potential bonuses of between 8% and 30% of annual salary, again company dependent.
I am not a high flyer and have an ordinary "graduate + 10 years experience" job.

Also depends on location. The higher salary for my job involves schlepping into London, which I'm not prepared to do.

Not paying into pension

Mortgage debt currently cheap and over 35 (?) years

Not saving.

Good jobs (many jobs pay more than people realise).

Priorities and showing off the good stuff not the beans on toast.

Also wanted to add - genuinely wealthy people generally don't boast about it in RL or on social media.
The truly wealthy people I know are very discreet.

We're probably considered very wealthy - dh owns a company which makes millions and if I wanted I could post all kinds of things on IG and you'd probably be agog at what I can afford etc. however I wouldn't ever dream of doing that - I just don't feel the need and it's actually pretty silly to go around flashing your wealth to every Tom, dick and Harry!

People who have to show off the latest designer this and that probably can't really afford it and it's simply to project the kind of image they want to maintain. After all, how are others to know whether it's something they simply borrowed, is on loan or on credit?
There are a lot of the Cheshire housewives living near me and I believe they all rent designer clothes/handbags/cars etc for the show! Not saying they're not comfortably off but it isn't all real, it's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

@ValkyrieVik

Also wanted to add - genuinely wealthy people generally don't boast about it in RL or on social media. The truly wealthy people I know are very discreet.

We're probably considered very wealthy - dh owns a company which makes millions and if I wanted I could post all kinds of things on IG and you'd probably be agog at what I can afford etc. however I wouldn't ever dream of doing that - I just don't feel the need and it's actually pretty silly to go around flashing your wealth to every Tom, dick and Harry!

People who have to show off the latest designer this and that probably can't really afford it and it's simply to project the kind of image they want to maintain. After all, how are others to know whether it's something they simply borrowed, is on loan or on credit?
There are a lot of the Cheshire housewives living near me and I believe they all rent designer clothes/handbags/cars etc for the show! Not saying they're not comfortably off but it isn't all real, it's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Agree with all of this!

I don't follow anyone on instagram but occasionally scroll through it and have realised the platform is now used by z-list celebs trying to make money from their grid and generally just showing off. It's a platform that never makes me feel good after I've scrolled through so I try to stay well away from it.