People on good wages saying they are struggling

[ChopSuey2]

Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed by people on good wages saying they are struggling?

I am not talking about people who have good wages but are paying off large debts or whose childcare leaves them broke, but people who say they can't afford to live on a certain amount but actually have a decent or even lots of money left after essentials. Equally, people whose essentials (food shopping and heating particularly) are ludicrously high (not including those with high costs related to disability).

I really feel like people need to read the room. People are genuinely struggling and saying you can't afford to live on a good wage is insensitive.

I'm not sure if it's relevant but I would consider myself to be on a good wage (not a higher tax payer and in London).

YABU - people can say they can't afford to live on a good wage because it's all relative
YANBU - people need to think about what being unable to afford things really means

Also, it's not free to move house. Legal fees, estate agent fees, stamp duty, Early Repayment Charges to get out of say a 5 year fixed rate mortgage (which may be a lower rate than a new one for a smaller house!) and potential changes in commuting costs all need to be factored in.

We earn a very good wage between us but have a mortgage, spiraling energy bills, one of the highest council tax rates in the country…. our outgoings on the three things above are now combined £1200 more a month than they were this time two years ago. That’s pretty much all our spare money gone.

YABU

We are on a good wage and I am horrified by the amount of money we spent last year just living. I have no idea how people on lower incomes are managing and things seem to be getting worse. Life is getting more expensive and a bit shittier day by day and I think everyone has the right to complain about that. As PP said, we should be able to so without judgement. And if we all complained enough, took the attitude that we are all in this together, regardless of income, and started getting a bit fucking angrier, who knows? Things might change. That's not a rhetorical question, I genuinely haven't got a clue as I am not an economist.

I’m not sure what you are looking for here. Is it a pay on the back that you are marvellous saving loads after all your housing and daily expenses, and how you may be making people feel inadequate who have more of an income, yet aren’t eeking out an existence like you are, or maybe they are thinking, why is she so worried about what we have?

Are these people you are commenting about - quite harshly - asking you for a cup of sugar, some people have different views than you, and sometimes when you have never been in the situation where you don’t know when the next penny is coming in, having a nest egg isn’t as important to those of us who know money can be very hard to find

Uncalled for

Exactly this.

You can't just snap your fingers and sell your house to make things more affordable, there are massive cost implications when buying & selling, other implications such as job & school locations which would be affected. And who's to say your house will sell / sell fast.

And the amount you stand to lose when you sell a car can make it not worth the effort if it hasn't held it's value well.

Yabu People on low wages get a lot more financial support then people on high wages plus people on higher wages usually have bigger outgoings. So if someone is saying their struggling they probably are no matter what their wage is

How can you owe them money then!

Yes, but that doesn’t mean that it is quick or easy or practical to sell to free up money. Anytime that you income is hard, one way or another.
what they are saying is… I’m struggling to maintain my current lifestyle

Probably for how much it costs to run a boiler for hot water even without heating, and for the electricity portion of the bill? Just a guess?

You're right. We're on a high household income with high housing and childcare costs and have had to make some cut backs to balance the budget, but I wouldn't dream of complaining about that.

I don’t think you’re the type of household OP is discussing. That’s most average 2 adults working households.

YABU. No, it isn't insensitive or tone deaf (as people like to say), for people on higher than average incomes to complain about money, or talk about money, or ask about money. Everyone is allowed to, it is not saved for those on lower incomes.

You do know how long it takes to buy and sell houses to move and the legal costs etc that are involved? It's not like switching from waitrose to aldi

DH is a higher rate tax payer.

We still worry if the car breaks down unexpectedly! £50k sounds like a lot, but when that's an average, because almost 50% of it is non-guaranteed commission, and your rent is £1300 a month, it really doesn't go as far as you think it does.

I wish it did. I wish I was as rich as I thought people on £50k a year were when we earned £30k. I swear we had more disposable income then.

Yabu!

we are the “squeezed middle” and the screws are turning more and more… struggling to buy food and pay for car repairs now! No holiday this year, not even a UK one. We seem to have less disposable income than friends who work very p/t and can access UC and whole host of other support at the moment.

YANBU

There have been multiple threads but one not that long ago finally wrote down her expenses which included a couple hundred going into a savings account, over £100 for particular make up, and then a couple hundred for a holiday fund.

The poster then only had a couple hundred left at the end of the month for luxuries.

It’s a different world on here.

Why are you focussed on this? Everyone has been affected by price hikes.
People are feeling low that the things they could afford, they can't anymore even though they're working just as hard and salaries haven't changed.
Why not focus on our government and their greed and the greed of all these profit making companies still raking it in and still charging us extortionate amounts.
United we stand, divided we fall.

I see on MN frequently people with higher income criticise people with lower income who are struggling - criticizing their spending on non essentials, commenting that they should get higher paying jobs etc. The same I think now goes for a lot of these higher income people, so while you are a bit U I can see where you are coming from.

Most people seem to have missed that I am specifically talking about available money after essentials rather than a specific amount. £50k for a family of 6 renting/with a mortgage in London is obviously very different to £50k if you own your home outright or live somewhere with cheaper housing costs.

@ScroogeMcDuckling Having lived in homeless hostels on jobseekers, I think it's fair to say I know what's it's like to be properly skint. Some of the people who say they are struggling despite having more after essentials owe me money so saying they can't afford to pay me back does grate.

I guess what I'm getting at is feeling some people need to get a bit of perspective. It feels a bit 'let them eat cake'.

I kinda agree. Pre covid we would holiday abroad a couple of times a year. I’d get my hair and nails done regularly and eat out a couple of times a week, sometimes after work meeting friends for tea and then on the weekend. I’d also be able to save whilst doing so.
We’ve not been on holiday since pre covid. Since then COL and a baby means a drastic change in finances.

Now we’re going on a 1 week Spanish holiday this year as our only holiday which we used to book as a ‘side holiday’ with a bigger long haul holiday too. But now this 1 week Spanish holiday is all we can afford. We also now have a meal out or takeaway once every other week. I haven’t gotten my hair done in over a year. We’re also lucky to save anything month to month. So we’re definitely not skint but it’s a drastic change in lifestyle but I also still wouldn’t moan we were living on the breadline or anything. Compared to most were doing alright. It’s about knowing your audience.

I know many older people with own homes worth £500k +, £100k+ in savings and pension income of £30k+ who don't really count their savings as money, so when they say things are tight they mean they find it difficult to save the maximum £20k into their isas every year.

Sigh.

I've just spent a weekend with my high earning sil who's very worried about how she's going to cope financially this year. Quite puzzling to me. But it's literally that her level of "skint" is nothing like mine. I think I'm skint if I've no money in my account or I'm trying to stretch meals out to last that week by making batch meals of things we can eat with pasta or rice, cutting out baths and limiting time in the shower, walking around the house in the day with a dressing gown on so I don't have to put the heating on.

Her version of skint is having to space out hair/nail appointments, only one holiday and not to upgrade their car.

So yeah I think it's all relative