Am I stupidly poor? Or living in the real world?

[Chunkythighss]

Just off the back of another post…
people commenting that they will have to live off £1900 AFTER paying the mortgage and how this is going to be a struggle.

nearly £2000 a month extra.

This is more than I earn a month and pay rent, bills, etc… yet people are saying they’d struggle to live on this after bills?

Am I massively poor or is this normal? 🙈

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting none of that means a gym membership is essential though - it's just something that's nice to have if you can afford it.

Of course people do benefit from being able to use the gym and the pool but that's not the same as them being essential things 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe you should stop setting your standards so low, when you speak from some a position of privilege.

*such rather than some

Do you know why it's low and it is getting worse?

Just look at threads like this. Or any money related threads on MN. It's because so many people want to race to the bottom and drag others with them. Just look at what op is on about.
A thread about someone wanting to overstretch on mortgage and yeah, 1900 may sound like a lot, but not when you will owe family 90k and need to pay that back, when your bills get bigger but income won't.

Op is literally moaning about a thread where people tried to point out lack of future financial viability when the plan was complete overstretching to limits. Doesn't matter what wage person is on. That was the point there. You can ovestretch at any income. But noooo. Because it's more than someone's income it deserves its own moan thread.

And before anyone says anything, my income is only couple hundred more month than the 1900 mentioned so no "nOt liViNg iN rAal WorLd" here

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting

I have a condition that would really benefit from regular water exercise. I simply can't afford it, as well as the essential bills like rent, gas, electric, council tax. So that's that really. It doesn't happen.
No one is sending the bailiffs round because I don't have a gym membership, they do if I don't pay my bills.
Some people don't actually have the choice to prioritise their physical and mental health and it's ridiculous to 'shame' people being a burden on the NHS for that.
And yes, I work full time.

Yes I've seen so many threads on these boards where people describe really basic things as being a luxury...haircuts and colour, gym, a takeaway coffee, cinema trip, meal out. Fgs, this is the UK in 2023

But they are a luxury for a lot of people! A hair cut and colour is really expensive, so not a 'basic' at all. Meals out and take away coffee is nice to have, but not essential.

And yes, maybe that should all be affordable and considered a 'basic' in the UK in 2023. But they aren't. They are luxuries for a lot of people.

Yes that's my point. These should be fairly standard things that people should be able to afford. Wages are cleverly set at a level where people can just about get by... meanwhile companies increase profits, pay their workers crap wages whilst shareholders profit. Our lives are getting worse. In the 1980s I was at private school. It was full of girls who came from "average" families. A dad in middle management and a mum in admin. Or dads a taxi driver, mums a teacher. People in equivalent jobs now can't afford private school.

And what about the literal millions of people with health conditions who literally, literally couldn't afford that?

If it isn't accessible for everyone, its not an essential expenditure. It just means it's essential for YOU.

Honestly, if you have never had to scrape pennies from the sofa to afford bus fare/dinner, then you will never understand what a ridiculous concept gym membership is as an essential outgoing,

Ah yes. We're in agreement. Sorry, I misunderstood your post as "they aren't a luxury, they're a basic that everyone can afford".

If it isn't accessible for everyone, its not an essential expenditure.

That includes literally everything.

It’s precisely because I have had that life where I’ve fished down the back of the sofa for change that I now view things like healthcare, dentistry and gyms as essential. I’m angry that anyone is suggesting in 2023 that we should be reclassifying the basics of a civil existence as luxuries. Someone upthread cited DIY dentistry?!! Which is clearly fucking ridiculous.

lots of people are struggling but let’s not all race to the bottom with our hair shirts.

I am not sure why these should be considered a 'luxury' my Mum was pretty frugal with money but always asks me if I want to sort out a hair cut when I visit her as it is about £20 cheaper for a good salon. It was part of the routine of her life and she was a teacher and my Dad was an Economist. My Mum has a cousin who was an Architect in the 70s -2000s and he had a massive house in London. We had help buying our house, my DH is an Associate in an Architect's practice, I have a good job Cyber, data area and still we are in a small 3 bedroom house with no garden to talk of! I'm not sure why we are so happy to accept the standard of living to be so low. People find this challenging as we know it wasn't always the case for our parents - not saying everyone but my parents had a good life on their income in London suburbs. We had tennis club membership, season tickets for football, a trip around the U.S for 8 weeks planned by my Mum and stayed in some of the best hotels in the US. I went to private school until I was 13. It was all within their reach and they probably earnt less than us proportionally.

But it’s all relative to what your bills are. My childcare bill is in excess of £2k per month. If I only had £1.9k after paying the mortgage before paying this and all the other bills I wouldn’t be seeing it as ‘extra’ like you describe. Surely you can see this?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has helpful research around minimum income standards and what we should expect as a minimum standard of living including goods and services. It suggests a minimum income of around £43k for a two adult household with two children, is needed to have a basic standard of living. It’s easy enough to look and see what they consider to be essential, or not, and to see where you individually sit on that continuum. It’s not about a race to the bottom but by any means a couple bringing in £100k plus between aren’t living with the same restrictions as someone on £30k and I can understand why the latter would be raising an eyebrow at the former saying they were struggling.

Did you read my first post on this thread. I suggest you do. Scrabbling for money looking down the sofa was the norm, but it wasnt for bus fare it was for basic food. We didn't use the bus because it was a luxury, even with several bags of food shopping. We walked, and prayed the handles didn't split. We were poor enough to have not just free school meals but an additional poverty payment for clothes once a year. I am black and we know 'as long as you have health you have wealth'. We protect the NHS by keeping by keeping healthy. Gym membership is an important aspect of that.

I am not saying I disagree. In a functioning society, everyone has enough disposable income to cover this. But they DONT.

Calling something essential indicates that everyone has access to it, and that is not the reality of the world we live.

You can justify anything in terms of 'health' whether its physical or mental.

I NEED to get my hair coloured for my mental health.

I NEED to get my nails done for my mental health.

That isn't how the world works.

You were still able to budget in a gym membership by making cutbacks elsewhere. That is STILL not an option for everyone.

I have a good job Cyber, data area and still we are in a small 3 bedroom house with no garden to talk of! I'm not sure why we are so happy to accept the standard of living to be so low. People find this challenging as we know it wasn't always the case for our parents - not saying everyone but my parents had a good life on their income in London suburbs. We had tennis club membership, season tickets for football, a trip around the U.S for 8 weeks planned by my Mum and stayed in some of the best hotels in the US. I went to private school until I was 13. It was all within their reach and they probably earnt less than us proportionally

Yes exactly. Growing up my dad had a good job, mum was mainly a sahm. We had holidays abroad, a cleaner, ironing lady, private school. The sort of things you'd have to be really well off to afford nowadays.

Our household income is over £80k a year. We're not struggling at all...but we're not rolling in it. We can't afford a new kitchen, our house needs decorating. We really don't have a lavish life at all. We live in a terrace house with a tiny garden and a patio that needs replacing. I won't say we are counting pennies. We're not. We pay our bills with ease and can afford treats like a meal out...but we don't live a luxurious life by any means. However, we aren't in any debt apart from our mortgage. I assume that people with refurbed houses and flashier cars are in debt up to their eyeballs

I agree, where does it end?

Any food other than gruel is a luxury?
It is then hugely ironic when you see threads where people are torn apart for judging someone on benefits for having an iPhone / theme park days etc / a holiday etc

You could if you had to.

Many people say that heating your house to 17C is a luxury and unless you state multiple times how privileged you are to have your house heated to the temperature and/or mention you absolutely need to have it as such because of health condition/baby/elderly relative you would be assumed to be living the life of Riley without realising it

Mindboggling for my family in what is considered poorer country

Yes, similar, in fact my Dad is always points out the size of our house on our income and how it reflects the decline in living standards!

I have a nearly 16 year old and all his friends bar one live in big period properties, many have parents that are older than us (early -mid 40s) so tjeu may have had the windfall from property purchase when we were still at university but those friends our age all only have more expensive homes as parents have large deposits. We had help but not £100000s. My parents didn't need any help in contrast on their joint income.

I think the replies on that thread were partly due to the question being asked. The OP was asking if it was too high a mortgage to commit to, leaving £1900 for everything else. Committing to that level of available cash for the next 25 years just so you can have a flashier house is different to asking if it is possible to live on £1900. Of course it is possible if a necessity but life could be easier if another option was available.

I have a master's and a PhD. I'm still not in the higher tax bracket - and it's rather disingenuous to cited that as if 50% of your entire income goes to the treasury, when it's 45% of anything over 150k.

I have previously worked around the clock, literally. I was working sleeping night shifts. I then went straight from them to a day job. And I still wasn't hauling in megabucks, I was just doing OK. So that attitude that somehow you work extra hard to get more is plain wrong. There are plenty of people working long, hard hours who still get paid a pittance.