I’d say people with the same household income can have wildly varying standards of living due to how money savvy they are…..and that’s not due to age which determines the price they bought property at.
So for example, some people on £75k have over the years built up a pot of savings. They have £10-£15k they can draw on when needed. This means that when bigger expenditures appear they can buy a 3 year old car, or a new boiler outright and without any credit agreement. Therefore they don’t have hundreds going out monthly in payment plans and eating into what’s available for basic living or holidays. Some people on £75k will manage the weekly shop for their family for £60 and others will spend more than double that…with exactly the same number of people in the house. Some will have 4 TV subscription packages and others just 1. Some eat a takeaway every week whereas others might have it once every 6 months. Some check their utilities and insurance every year and switch and others don’t, meaning they might pay £500 or more on those things.
The impact of these different things all factored in together can make a huge difference. It can mean one family of 4 with kids the same age can manage 2 holidays a year and the others can’t have any. It can mean one family can upgrade to a bigger house and will retire 5 years earlier than the other.
Money savvy means no spending more than you need to on things. It doesn’t mean being cheap or going without, just that you get more value from your money. So ultimately the person who watches the pennies has more £ to spend.
I know families who have the same income as other families and the adults nad kids are similar ages and neither have had family help. They started from the same position. One have regular monthly payments going out for 2 cars which they replace every 2 years. They also eat takeaways weekly and spend a lot in the supermarket and keep their heating on high through the day and night in winter. They have also borrowed in the past for an extension and to do up their bathroom. They don’t have holidays as they are ‘skint’ even though they have more than £100k coming in. The other family has a similar income and lives in a slightly smaller house. They drive cars which are about 7 years old and monitor their bills and weekly spending. They eat out with friends but don’t have takeaways and only tend to eat out once a month. But they always have 3 holidays a year, including a big one and they manage to send one of their kids to a private school. They also have good pension provision and are looking at stopping at work just before 60.
These little focuses on money accumulate in impact and over the years mean some families live hand to mouth and others have flexibility and choices available to them. Often they don’t have so much of the immediate items which people might fritter on, but actually have more of the big stuff and importantly have spare cash so that when something crops up that they’d like or need, they can just choose it, without serious consideration of affordability. So they might get the letter about the school ski trip at £1.2k and look at it and say ‘yes’ because the savings are there, whereas the other family has no savings and knows that each month every penny goes.
Lots of people see money savvy and being a bit frugal as dull, boring and meaning people go without. Often it means they get far more because they know that always buying brands in the shop, when you can get similar or identical for 1/3 less, and always paying a lease for a brand new car fritter away hundreds each month which could be put to better use. It’s fine if you’d rather have the branded food and a new car every two years if you accept that then you can’t have the holidays or early retirement, or upgrade to a bigger house, but actually you can’t have everything and choices always have to be made….and they impacts that somehow people often can’t seem to see.