People are always more generous with imaginary money compared with how they would expect someone to deal in real life

[Blueysshoes]

I know I am lucky and that there is a cost of living crisis but this is more about principle than finance.

So, we send our 3 kids to private school. We can, and do, afford it ourselves but if push came to shove my parents would step in as they have a lot of capacity that way. My MIL knows this which does give us wiggle room others wouldn’t have.

My DH’s sister has a very stable job but it doesn’t pay as much (but we run our own business so that in itself is less stable) which means she can’t afford private school. Unfortunately the school her children are likely to go to isn’t brilliant. Anyway, my MIL (who always loves telling me how DH and I should share) tonight declared that if ‘she had the money’ she would not only pay for her children to send their kids to private school, but ‘nieces and nephews’ because it wouldn’t be fair that one set of kids got an advantage the others didn’t.

She then finished with the fact that if she won the lottery but could only afford to help one of her children, it would obviously be SIL that got the help. Of course, the start point of this was that SIL couldn’t do it without help (whilst the assumption is we always could) but I do wonder if this was a case of her actually thinking we should contribute, not just a daydream about what she would do with unlimited cash.

Of course people are always more generous with imaginary money. Especially a lottery win. If you win the normal lottery, paying several sets private school fees would soon deplete it.

You would need it to have rolled over lot or a euromillions roll over.

But I don’t think she was suggesting you should pay for Sils kids either.

It also makes more sense that she would help sil out more. You are wealthy and your parents are wealthy. Sil doesn’t have that. Not sure I would say it out loud though.

I wouldn’t accept money from my sister to put my DD through private school even if she offered. My niece and nephew have achieved a lot due to their education but the fact that I can’t afford a similar standard of education for my daughter is just how things are. To compensate, I moved close to an outstanding state school. Unfortunately my DD is not getting on well there though, so am trying to find another good free option. Your sister could also prioritise her children’s schooling one way or another.

Ah yea op, I remember these sorts of conversations well with my mother

Both me and my brother had the same opportunities, my db chose to go to uni, chose to travel the world for 18 months, chose to drop out of uni, get a bar job, have 3 kids so has little spare cash. I chose to do an apprenticeship at 16, leave having kids until my mid 30s and generally be a bit more financially forward looking, so I'm in a better position, financially than him. My db is completely happy with his choices but my mum would suggest holidays as a family, but we could pay for my db, meals out where we subsidise my db and his dc. I wouldn't mind but my parents are far better off than me, but obviously didn't want to pay it all.

My DM became quite grasping over money in her latter years. Sort of implying I was wanting to get my hands on it (I had no need for it at all) and in the end left her money to the DGCs not DCs, which meant it was shared more widely and when one of her DCs would have really appreciated it.
Annoying but not much you can do.

Yes, most people are more generous with imaginary money because when people do have the money they actually become more greedy. The rich don't stay rich by giving their money away, after all. The tightest people I know are minted.

My DS has done better than me so my three don’t get opportunities her kids do. That’s life. I would not expect her to subsidise my choices.

If my family didn’t exist, this type of education is not a world MIL would have considered being all socialist (of course) so would have been happy with the educational choices SIL made. That’s not my problem.

Prince Harry got crap grades at Eton, you can’t buy good grades. Not saying this will happen with your kids @Blueysshoes but my point is that if your SIL kids are clever and motivated enough then they’ll do well wherever they go.

We're got a nephew who's only a toddler - we don't have any DC yet, already we've had comments about funding things for him!! My husband is a high earner and I do well too, so my MIL always makes comments about us "chipping in" for things for DN.

BIL doesn't earn much because he job hops and has no motivation to earn (he's said he's happy plodding along and doesn't want a stressful job) and his partner refuses to work more than two days a week.

I always massively eye roll when the subject comes up! It got to the point we were asked for fund their first family holiday - I had to hold back a laugh. Genuinely I understand for MIL it's hard seeing one son successful in a monetary sense and the other not, but it's not her job to redistribute earnings at all.

True. People are generous when it's someone else's money. And they always want other people's taxes raised, too.

There is a reason the rich tend to vote Conservative and you hardly ever see a wealthy socialist. Everything is 'but what's in it for me?' not 'what's for the greater good?'

Yes, people always know exactly what other people should do.

But it doesn't sound like she was having a dig or saying that you should pay was she? To me, it sounds as if she sees the advantages your dc enjoy and wishes she could provide her other gc with those same opportunities.

You do sound quite disdainful of both her and sil tbh. Yes, people make their choices in life but it doesn't stop most of us from wishing we'd done things differently from time to time, or even just feeling a bit of envy about what other people have got.

This is typical the attitude of 'subsidising their choices', 'but we've worked hard!' what you've reached from success and money in your business hasn't all come down to purely hard work and personal merits, there were advantages and unfair opportunities that you too benefitted from. Life is not fair and it's a myth being about all what you chose or deserve in life. You don't reach the top without stepping over some people. I think it grates on me the lack of awareness and empathy, it's all very hard nosed and cold approach.

So true. Same with taxes. People are "happy" to pay when the numbers are small and it hardly affects them. When they start having to pay bigger amounts, they change, especially when they have to make payments once or twice a year (self employed or landlords etc) or realise they'll have capital gains tax to pay on selling a property or shares! There's a lot of virtue signalling going on, i.e. when you tell someone they've a couple of hundred pounds of tax to pay on windfall, they're "that's fine, we all have to pay our share". When it's tens of thousands, their first question is "how can I not pay that!"?

The best (worst) client I saw it in action was a teacher who was also the union rep at our local comp school. He was often on local TV as the "spokesman" for his union during strikes etc. He came to me as a client because he set up a sideline business. At our first meeting, I went through options for "tax efficiency", but he did the virtue signalling saying he wanted to pay his tax IF he made a profit. For the first couple of years he made a loss and was happy to offset it against his teacher wages to get tax refunds. The third/fourth years, he made a small profit and paid his tax which was just a couple of hundred or so. For year 5, his business took off, and I remember seeing his face at the meeting when I told him his tax bill was a few thousand! He asked what he could do to reduce it and I told him it was last year and too late to change things, he was livid! We then went on to what to do to reduce the tax for the current year, and he ended up converting to a limited company, "employing" his wife and giving her shares (as she didn't work so didn't use her personal allowance), and for the next few years, he was back to paying a few hundred in tax, and happy again! (After engaging in tax avoidance!). Then he was on TV again spouting about how they should "tax the rich" more!

What apart from all the wealthy ones?

Erm @riotlady was that really necessary? Sorry but that really was quite offensive.

Doesn't sound like she's expecting or asking you to subsidise anything.
Just that she wishes she could help her daughter. People say stuff about winning the lottery all the time, that they'd pay off someone's mortgage etc. It's just imagining possibilities.

@Fizzadora don't think we're talking about the same thing

Who was it who said ‘a man who is not a socialist in his twenties has no heart; a man who is socialist in his forties has no brain?’ Words to that effect anyway.

Well, yes, technically. But somebody could do a damn sight more with the £900,000 they would have remaining from a million than someone could do with the £90 they had left from the hundred. Everything costs more when you’re poor and that’s the whole point. If someone only had £100 they would feel a 10% loss far more, so it’s a shit comparison.

This is why the tax bands are lower for lower earners.

Ironically, the ones with the least tend to be the most generous.

copied aspects of our house

Oh Op. You petty petty petty person 😂

Apologies for the offence- I’m queer and it gave me quite a giggle, the Romans have a spectacular turn of phrase. Happy to delete if it’s upsetting

That’s really really not true 😁 Being left with £90 is not the same as being left with £900,000

I’m sensing a superiority complex in OP…

I get it, OP. DH earns a lot and it feels like people are constantly hinting at how we should spend our money. We are actually fairly generous and spread out our donations across several different projects, but of course if people aren’t the recipients of those funds themselves, they seem to assume we aren’t giving anywhere at all. I have a particular aversion to helping anyone who gives off a whiff of sanctimonious “I deserve your money because I make less than you do” vibes.

You and your SIL made different life choices, and you have different financial positions now. If her family was starving and homeless, that would be one thing, but private education is a pure luxury. It is not your responsibility to pay for your nieces and nephews to go to private school.

I think your mil would have done better to not voice her musings out loud. Certainly it isn't your responsibility to pay for the education of sil's children. We couldn't afford private school, so when we were looking to buy a house, the quality of the local state schools was a priority consideration. It means living more rurally that I would ideally prefer, but that's what you do when you have kids, you plan your life around their best interests. If sil chose a bigger house as her priority, that's not your problem to fix.
To be fair to mil, she is probably seeing the disparity and just musing out loud that she would like to see her grandchildren have equal opportunities. I don't think she is seriously expecting you to pay for it.