To wish I was rich?

[antelopevalley]

Not mega-rich. But to own an ordinary house and have half a million in the bank rich.
I have no family beyond DP and the kids. It would be so lovely to have a really good safety net, and to choose not to work when life is tough.

Ironically you seem to be doing your best to look down on people who have actually done well.

I hereby refer all to the Sam Vimes 'Boots' theory of economic unfairness as to why it is actually very hard to pull yourself out of poverty. Being poor is incredibly bloody expensive compared to coming from a 'modest' background. It's like trying to climb up a downward escalator instead of the stairs.

Ironically you seem to be doing your best to look down on people who have actually done well.

Nope. I have nothing but good wishes to any of them until they start looking haughtily down their nose at other people. That's when the personality issues become apparent.

@MaybeIWillFuckOffThen they do not understand how hard it is to get to where I have got to. I have met very well paid people in jobs who note I am intelligent and articulate and wonder why I am not in very well-paid job. They have no understanding of what it took to get to where I am.
But I know and I know that without that effort things would be much worse for me.

I agree with @FemmeNatal tbh...

It is the norm for a substantial large section to get money from your parents, free rent etc -to save....

I grew up in the south. Went to local Comp , mostly a lower middle class/working class area. Not rich, but mostly home owner area, bought council house.

And EVERYONE I know who bought property has had some leg up/ help with deposit- because their parents although not rolling in it- were able to help them. Letting them live rent free, inheritance from grandparents, generous loan etc....

It's like a dirty secret....

I understand that their are many people who do not have that privilege.

Born into family who rent, will not inherit, who do not have the space.

It doesn't mean that people can't strive to be richer- but really not everyone can be rich...

It's just how the economy works. It's certainly not about hard work.

Some of the laziest people I've ever met, are also the richest.

Some people do not have the skills, personality, confidence to start a successful business.

Many people do not have the academic ability to strive for a well paid profession.

Tbh lots of people do strive to live in a council house, which is completely sensible - as it is a secure tenure that can get you out of the poverty trap due to low rents. Living in private rental can be insecure and very expensive.

@Snog how would you define 'rich'?

I also did not realise how little most middle-class people seem to give back to society. The kind of area I grew up in was full of mainly mums volunteering and trying to make life better for both their kids and the kids around them. Virtually every activity or club I ever went to out of school was run by these local volunteer mums from discos for teenagers to summer activities for young children. I thought that level of community involvement was normal, I only learned as an adult it is not.

Yes, I do get this really. It's not enough to enjoy what they have they have to believe they achieved it because they're better than other people. Which is a bit daft really, because all they do is show their inferiority in terms of self awareness, understanding of the world and empathy.
I completely get what you're saying about appreciation of things others may take for granted. Also why the desire for the security blanket of a sum in the bank is important. When you've had nothing, you are very aware how transient circumstances can be, only ever a redundancy/separation/illness away from poverty, and you carry the worry of plunging back there with you.

So you have the privilege of being intelligent and articulate and you've managed to get where you are now. Awesome. Now what can you do today that will bring you a tiny bit closer to your goal of owning a house and having enough cash in the bank to make you feel secure?

@prinnycessa OP is talking in terms of owning a house and having £500k in the bank. I'd call that rich.

Talking to the OP now not the bootstraps brigade:

I do sometimes find myself in a bit of a rattrap mentally thinking "There must be a way to just start making a lot more money, I mean there must be, look at what (blah blah person with astonishing rags to riches tale) has achieved! I'm intelligent, surely I could figure something out!" Then I nose around for a bit, do some research on various side hustles/small businesses, dust off the first draft of what would NO DOUBT be a bestselling novel if I just finished writing it, briefly contemplate the probably rather niche market for overweight twice-c-sectioned mothers of two with a squint on OnlyFans, and then realise that half the problem is I want to be rich so I can lounge around and enjoy my life more and all of these methods would require working my arse off whilst already working my arse off with the job that pays the bills and keeps the roof over my children's heads. And yes long run that might enable me to lounge around more later; but likewise it might enable me to work my arse off double hard during my children's early years and STILL get knocked down my a bus next year and never get a chance to enjoy it.

I think what a lot of the 'rags to riches' stories have in common are one or more of these things:

• A really clear professional goal pursued with determination from school upwards (lawyer, doctor, financier) - bit late for that now!
• Huge financial gamble that paid off (most small businesses) - can't run the risk of losing what we have because kids
• Pursuing a personal passion in a way that if you're very VERY lucky becomes economically successful (e.g. JK Rowling) - entirely in the hands of the gods really
• Years and years and YEARS of backbreaking slog.

And this is the thing, we none of us know the hour, and I want to enjoy my life. While I'm living it, not when I "get there". That's why I'm part time and consequently make a bit less money - to be with my kids more while they're young. That's why I'll poddle along in an ok job I can forget about when I get home, instead of be in the office until 8 and then up half the night worrying about tomorrow. That's why I'll take the certainty of just about enough for now over the possibility of absolutely loads (or possibly nothing!) down the line.

I think confidence probably plays a big part. A lot of the big 'success stories' people always had this huge certainty or confidence either in themselves or in the product/service they ended up making their fortune from. So going through the hard times, taking the risks, made sense to them because they felt they KNEW that what they had to offer would eventually pay off. I admire them for that confidence, I really do. But it's just not me. Maybe it's the way I was raised or I don't know what but I feel like life is incredibly contingent and random tbh, I feel like our actual ability to control events is much less than we are often given to believe. So the best thing we can do is cultivate happiness in the things we can control.

@changeornot I know plenty of better-off people take it for granted they can live rent-free with parents or they get a house deposit. I only realised that as an adult when I became friends with people whose parents had some money.
DP has an attitude of being really proud of how much we have achieved. His family are respectable but poor. His father used to eat bread and dripping regularly for tea so there would be enough food for the children to have a proper meal. He also worked from 13 years old and bought his own clothes from his earnings.
Our children should never have to deal with the poverty we both dealt with. But it would have been nice to give them things other people take for granted.

The other dirty little secret is how many people inherit lots of money. I see people retiring in their early fifties because of inheritances or suddenly buying a big house.

A lot of wealth is unearned.

The original example of that just isn’t true though. A £10 pair of work boots will be well-made, with a thick sole that will last for years. A £1,000 pair of Church’s shoes will wear out far more quickly, and require re-soling and refurbishing once a year.

So many people here seem to have crossed the line from saying that it is hard to pull yourself up to saying that it’s not even worth trying, and that those who have must be lying about where they started. Is this the lesson that is being passed on to your children, that they should just give up from the start, and not bother?

@MaybeIWillFuckOffThen Thanks for that. I had huge confidence issues when younger. Years of being looked down on by teachers and better off kids as a child and teenager took their toll. It took me years to build up my confidence as a result. And I agree I simply can't risk what we have already on starting up a business that could make much money.
But my life is better as an adult than I thought it would be as a child. And I am very happily married, and I know that is worth a lot.

@antelopevalley

But my life is better as an adult than I thought it would be as a child. And I am very happily married, and I know that is worth a lot.

This is amazing. And you did that. Again not telling you not to yearn after that comfortable cushion of not having to strive so bloody hard for everything, but make sure you also take some time to exult in what you've achieved because it's amazing ❤

@FemmeNatal

The original example of that just isn’t true though. A £10 pair of work boots will be well-made, with a thick sole that will last for years. A £1,000 pair of Church’s shoes will wear out far more quickly, and require re-soling and refurbishing once a year.

Oh dearie dearie me. I may never be rich, but at least I'll never be as leaden-headed as this either.

In the MADE UP WORLD with dragons and witches he was writing about, there were the two kinds of boots, which served as a metaphor (look it up) for the ways that poverty can end up costing more and having capital to invest can end up saving or making you money. FFS.

It may be possible for some people, it isn't possible for everyone. If everyone was identically talented and driven they still couldn't all be successful. The system is a pyramid, there needs to be a lot of poorer people at the bottom...

@antelopevalley Sorry - no wonder I'm poor 😂 I entirely agree with you - not @FemmeNatal

Yes there are so many people who emit the help they have got....

So they can tell you how hard they work

I think everyone can agree that to tell kids that they can have a good life- and their decisions matter.

BUT-- not everyone is going to be rich......

It's impossible but I do think EVERYONE should live in a society that enables people to have a decent road over their head, a bedroom for their kids. Food in the fridge. Not having to rely on food banks. A holiday once a year. Occasional treats, eating out etc..

This was achievable in the 90s- why is this becoming more difficult?

It kind of feels like you need to be RICH to afford a lifestyle that someone on very modest means could achieve in 1998.

Is this the lesson that is being passed on to your children, that they should just give up from the start, and not bother?

No the lesson for my children is for them to decide what matters most to them and to do what they need to do to get/maintain that, rahter htan assuming more money is always worth what you have to do to get it. And ideally also to give some thought to what contribution to the world at large they are best placed to make.

And most significantly to give them a very clear-eyed understanding of the fact that just because someone has more money than you doesn't necessarily mean they worked harder for it or are any smarter than you are (I'm looking at you Jacob Rees-Mogg). Or indeed any happier. Because the playing field simply is not level, no matter how much you might wish to insist that it is.

I’ve seen many people using it as a real-world example, and no, it wasn’t being used as a metaphor, it was being used as an example. I understand that you think it’s funny to try to make fun of the English of someone for whom it’s not a first language, but it isn’t, it’s just crass.

You think I’ve suggested that the playing field is level? Why? I’ve neither said it is not implied it. It clearly isn’t, as some children, sadly, will be born to the sort of parents on here that tell them they may as well not try. Sadly many will grow up believing it.

Sorry OP but you haven’t got a clue. Many people lived in council houses but vowed to not be dependent on the council, I am in a comfortable position now through hard work. Looking out of my bedroom window when I was younger didn’t fill me with aspiration, knowing I didn’t want that did though.

Hope you manage to raise your expectations tho and actually put a plan in place to get there. Otherwise you’re just a time waster.

I suffered a trauma and was able to take time off work to ‘recover’ … in fact I ended up closing myself off from the world, had too much time to think about things, developed terrible anxiety and other MH problems. I reckon I’d have been better of sticking to my usual routine. That probably wouldn’t happen to you. I’m just giving the other side of things, that’s all.

just because someone has more money than you doesn't necessarily mean they worked harder for it or are any smarter than you are

@MaybeIWillFuckOffThen But you literally just said in your post above that you could earn more but don't want to work that hard?

@MaybeIWillFuckOffThen Thanks.

And all those saying is the message not to even try improving your life are missing the fact that I have improved my life and my children do not experience the kind of awful poverty my DP and I experienced as children. If I thought there was no point in trying, we would not have achieved that.