To think that not many people live an average life anymore?

[Meandbee22]

I turned 25 last week and am currently 15 weeks pregnant with my first child- I’m worrying how we’re going to afford life when the baby’s here. I live in quite an average area (covid made the house prices rise quite a lot though) but have noticed that so many people seem to live extravagant lifestyles now- it’s almost like you’re either very well off or struggling quite a lot with money. Whenever a house gets sold within days there’s builders in ripping the place apart and having the place completely redone- no one seems to just move in anymore. Most people seem to drive mercs or BMW’s- no one really has an average car anymore. Lots of people take their kids out to eat at the Ivy a lot around here- no one seems to take their kids to McDonald’s anymore! I grew up in an average family and I grew up in the 2000s so I’m not feeling nostalgic over the simplicity of the 90s (was only born in 97 so don’t have any memories of the 90s). My dad worked full time and my mum worked part time but we had a nice average life- we had a PlayStation and went on a uk caravan holiday every other year and went to McDonald’s on our birthdays and just did normal things like that- we didn’t buy much, but today the Amazon delivery driver more or less lives on my street he’s here so often! I am worried that I can’t afford much for my child and they will see other children with all these exciting things. I was just wondering if anyone else had felt similar

**haven't bought a new pair of shoes

I'm also a '97 baby OP. I feel the same way. We live in an average area, a terraced house that we managed to buy and I feel both extremely lucky and very confused about how so many around me have so much money or nothing at all. We do have amazon though, and it delivers very cheap items to us including books that are only £4 or £2 cleaning products that Lidl doesn't sell 🤣

The Ivy's not posh any more. It's a slightly nicer chain restaurant. The prices aren't much more than what it costs to eat at Wagamama or Pizza Express.

Do you understand what average means? In order for there to be an average as many people must be below it as above it. Unless you are the computer at the ONS you can't possibly know what the average is (nor whether you are using the correct measures to judge it by), so what you are going on is anecdata, which is not the same.

I live an average life. I'm not wealthy but I'm not on the bones of my arse either.

I've been to the Ivy and it's not that expensive or exclusive any more, they're everywhere.

I live in what I class as an "average" area. Free school meal uptake is high, different languages is high, car ownership is low, rental/HB is high, unemployment is high, charity and community engagement is high.

So mine and your idea of what constitutes averages really varies.

DH earns a very high salary, I earn a miniscule one. We definitely don't live like 'rich' people and live in a fairly low-income area. I feel we're 'under the radar' and appear 'average' in terms of how friends and acquaintances might view our lifestyle: we do lots of our own DiY and garden maintenance, don't have a cleaner, don't spend money on expensive clothes & accessories, furnishings, holidays, consumer goods/electronics or cars (we lease our car and it's a fairly innocuous model) and live in a 'cheap', small house that (I think) belies our household income.

We spent our 20s and 30s and into our 40s dedicated to a decadent, partying lifestyle and, as such, our pensions are crap because we didn't save anything. Consequently, we decided around five years ago to make moves to mitigate the choices of our earlier years... so, hopefully, we can start partying and travelling again when we're in our mid-50s!

I think many people in our situation are hard to guesstimate on the 'wealth ladder' and that's fine by us - we're still thoroughly enjoying ourselves, even if we've stopped living it up like we did until a few years ago!

We have a lot of Amazon packages, it's usually just stuff that Wilko doesn't sell, a lot of people use Amazon similar to getting a supermarket home delivery and it will be mainly boring stuff

I'm never jealous of cars as most people now buy on a pcp. The value of the car is almost irrelevant, as the finance structure makes the monthly payments as affordable as an average car used to be.

I think you are right about houses. Nobody seems to move in and 'make do' with hand-me-down furniture anymore. I have four DC in their 20s and all of their friends are buying houses that are immediately instagrammable. I suppose it's cheap credit again for many.

Dh and I both work in professional jobs (I’m part-time) and we live a fairly average life. Both drive Fords, moved into our house over 5 years ago and doing it up slowly, rarely eat out, kids go to McDonalds as a treat etc. The area we live in is fairly well off and loads of people seem to have help like gardeners, cleaners, car washing services, dog washing services etc but we don’t have anything like this. I know what you mean though about people seeming to have extravagant lifestyles.

I suggested you go park up near your local McD drive through. You’ll see that plenty of people are eschewing The Ivy for a Big Mac

Sounds like you’re judging everything on one estate?

I think it's more the fact that people show off the best parts of their life on social media. They might go to the Ivy once a month but you don't know what they're doing the rest of the time
Nice cars are often financed but they won't show what they have to sacrifice to afford those cars, etc etc

I'm over here in a house we are gradually working on, as we can afford it, been here 10 years. We only buy second hand cars for ourselves. We definitely do self catering breaks, gradually saving for when we are older (I work in care, and the costs terrify me), I've never had cosmetic surgery, I don't buy designer clothes, we don't have the full range of gadgetry either. We really do get 'looks' on our street from the other people our age, our cars I'm particular. But I give zero fucks about cars, I guess its just important to them to drive brand new/ luxury options etc.

Thank you everyone! I'm feeling a little better now after reading your replies. I think the car things bothered me as we've sold our car as we can't really afford it anymore. I get that sometimes the cars are on finance, but they still have them and it's still an expensive thing to do

@Swayingpalmtrees

Don't start or continue comparing, you have no idea of people's debt levels and/or attitudes towards money. I have friends with smart cars that have bought a pair of new shoes in five-ten years, I know many that drive around bangers and are millionaires.

Live your life, make your own plans, stay focused.

This is so true. For years people thought DH were skint because we had one old car, never ate out or had takeaway, rarely bought new stuff or went away and it was because we spent our holidays refurbing the house and all our money went on DIY or paying off the mortgage.

You don’t know who is being flash on credit and who says they are skint and is saving every penny that they can. I never told people what we were doing as I learnt from experience that people would moan and disagree with it, plus it wasn’t their business.

I have also caught some people telling others this is a genuine designer bag and then telling others it’s from a market in Turkey. So the only people who really know the truth is the people in question

My brother drives a fancy BMV, but it's on PCP with monthly repayments that are higher than my share of the rent for the flat I share with my partner. My brother lives at home and is in tens of thousands of debt. Always has the latest iPhone, new clothes, gets takeaways and eats out a lot etc, everything goes on the credit card. According to Google over half the adult population in the UK is in debt.

In my experience, wealthy people don't drive flashy brand new cars. Some of the consultant doctors I work with drive cars that are over ten years old. They shop at Aldi and buy second hand clothes for their kids. Truly wealthy people tend to prioritise things like school fees, extra pension contributions, holidays and travel, over things like flashy cars and eating out.

Much like MN- two camps, those that live hand to mouth and those that can save thousands of pounds a month.
Where are the people who can save a few hundred, have 1 holiday abroad a year, have a mortgage but wont pay it off before retirement.....

A close friend of mine has a car worth approx 45k, a house worth 250k, wedding was almost 10k, always going on very long haul holidays.
I have nothing at all like that but at the same time these things don't really interest me.
Another friend just told me she bought a 3 grand laptop. Mine was £99 second hand.

I'd also say embrace second hand stuff for your baby - a lot of baby stuff is way over priced and not used for very long. I think the only things that you are meant to get new are the car seat and the mattress (unless you know where they came from). Facebook marketplace and vinted are your friend.

@HelloMrBond

You may find that most of these people don’t own their fancy (probably white) BMWs and Mercedes, but lease them.

We've always leased cars up until this current one.

For the leases we've had we've been paying out between £300-£500pm so not an insignificant amount of money.

Posted too soon!

We're not well off btw, DH had an 'in' at the car company which meant we got good deals on new cars and/or all the bells and whistles. Cars are his passion so he would stretch himself to the max he could afford. Since things went south for us financially we've ditched these and now pay less than £200 a month on a second hand car.

What I was trying to say was that leasing a car isn't a cheap way of doing it. It is a cheaper way to drive a nicer car for a while, but it isn't an insignificant amount of money to sneer at.

OP's observations are anecdotal, but it's factually true that the gap between rich and poor has widened during our lifetime, and even more so over the last two years.

Just look after yourself and your family, OP. Keeping up with the Joneses is a fool's game.

Best thing to do is to figure out how you want to live your life and the values you want to pass down to your children. It really doesn’t matter what other people are doing, and there are so many easy ways of financing consumer goods these days that anyone can look like they have money.

We’re mid-40s. We don’t own a car, don’t wear anything designer (I buy clothing secondhand sometimes), do our own DIY (DP loves it), don’t have a cleaner, cook most of our meals at home, we take one trip abroad back to NZ once a year. We live in central London, mortgage free with assets minus the house in low 7 figures, zero family help. We prioritise school for DC and investing. You would never know looking at us and we prefer it that way. DC won’t know the whole of our assets until they are out of school and well into working hard for what they want in life.

We had no money when we first had kids and both had very old cars, barely any cash to do up our house, no holidays, cheapest pram, lots second hand stuff etc. The baby and nursery years were a real struggle but a decade on and our careers and finances are in better shape and things aren't quite such a struggle. I do look at lots of younger parents these days and wonder how they can afford the brand new fancy cars, new houses, furniture etc but I assume there's a lot of credit involved. Btw my kids love Mc Donalds as a half term treat!