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? 🙈

Yup
Plus the 90k debt to family. That eats into budget considerably

Of course it’s a bloody race to the bottom - there are posters on this thread (and every thread about income) who insist that anything over the essentials to stay alive is luxury and privilege.

Yet even the JR foundation says A minimum standard of living in the UK today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.

If posters who actually think they’re arguing for the less well off are happy to dismiss things like phones, haircuts, dental care, an occasional meal out etc as unnecessary fripperies then really the bar is being set low.

@Blossomtoes
Well yes, but not if I want to continue living the way we do (which is pretty frugal in most areas tbh). I could save most of my fuel costs by walking to the nearest school but I choose to drive them further. We could eat a lot less meat (already grow our own veg so save a lot there) which would bring down grocery costs. I could cancel all my children’s clubs and let them sit on a screen every night. None of these things feel particularly luxurious to me.
Referencing the original thread this thread is about, I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable if I had the choice of buying a house way out of my budget and then giving myself too little to live on.

They're a luxury in that they're not essential purchases - that doesn't mean they shouldn't be affordable to everyone, but they're still not essential to life.

Things like music and drama education are even considered a luxury now. I pay quite a bit for my DD to attend a drama/singing and dance activity every Saturday for 3 hours and I also pay for my DC to have piano and guitar lessons. They are both pretty expensive but I want my children to experience a creative education as well as the core subjects, it just isn't really available in any meaningful way in schools anymore. Instrument Lessons used to be affordable but now they are not to the average family. When we talk about the 'essentials' are we not including education in this.

They're a luxury in that they're not essential purchases - that doesn't mean they shouldn't be affordable to everyone, but they're still not essential to life

No they're not essential to life but the UK is one of the biggest economies in the world. The average person should not be having to live their life with only the bare essentials.

But your judgements on this thread appear to be targeted at those who earn a good salary.

I think the term discretionary is better than luxury.

We live in zone 3 and choose not to have a car. That is discretionary spend because the public transport is so good but lots of families near us do have cars and I wouldn't consider running a car to be a luxury either. A helicopter would be a luxury spend.

Calling it essential doesn't meant that everyone has access to it. Calling it essential mean that everyone SHOULD have access to it. The fact that people cannot afford these things is a problem that does need addressing. Saying that others who have these things are not allowed to have concerns is just not acceptable.

If posters who actually think they’re arguing for the less well off are happy to dismiss things like phones, haircuts, dental care, an occasional meal out etc as unnecessary fripperies then really the bar is being set low.

Indeed, as if folk who are less well off are being ultra privileged to want what is considered a minimum standard of living, or the choice not to spend money on hair cuts rather than having that choice imposed on them. It’s quite telling what a person would accept as a standard of living for others, when they would never chose it for themselves.

I do agree, but I think your last paragraph is the issue.

Access to these things are considered a given and therefore essential if you're in a middle class and middle earning job.
They're a luxury that other people don't think you should have if you're lower than that, because it's assumed you haven't worked/tried/aspired hard enough and are just lazy and entitled. And you're told it's all about your choices and responsibility, cut your cloth accordingly, cut back, work harder, do better, ..... Etc etc, we've all seen those threads, those things are then not essential but luxury.

Different rules.

It would seem that the first group don't like the same 'advice' poorly labelled judgement being given to them when they start to struggle and in fact argue the same points from their own perspective, as the second group do from theirs when the argument arises.

Of course it’s a bloody race to the bottom - there are posters on this thread (and every thread about income) who insist that anything over the essentials to stay alive is luxury and privilege.

That's not how I read the comments. It's just that if you are on a low income and struggling between heating and eating, having people whinge that 100k a year isn't much and they're having to cut back on their holidays is rather galling. I'd rather sort out the people who are struggling the most, first. Make sure that everyone can have dentistry and haircuts, before you get started on someone who can't go skiing for the third time this year. Yes, people should have extra income over and above the very basics - it's why I prefer the idea of a living wage rather than a minimum wage. We should all be able to have a meal out from time to time, if we want to.

So the way I read the complaints on the thread isn't as a race to the bottom. It's that when you're nearer the top, you should be helping those nearer the bottom before you worry about whether you can buy Imogen a 14.2 because she's going to outgrow her 13.2 some time this season. It's why austerity doesn't and hasn't worked. When you keep people poor, they have no spare income. So they don't have yoga classes, or haircuts or a nice takeaway. And then it's not just them suffering, but the people who provide those other services. Because if the rich get richer, there is actually a limit to how many of those things they'll buy. Whereas if you distribute wealth more evenly, it helps everyone bar the greedy fuckers right at the very top, who can fuck off anyway.

I think you’re living in the real world, MN is not representative of the average household in the UK. Many members on here quote individual incomes in excess of 100k as though they are the norm , talk about oxbridge, RG universities and private schools as though that’s what everyone does.
Some of the house prices on here actually make my eyes water. You can buy a four bed detached for 300k in the north where I live. The north - south divide in terms of house prices and income is very apparent when I read MN discussions. Our income allows us to live very comfortably up north, it wouldn’t down south.

Yes, it is definitely a huge factor in this perception - the North/South divide and I would include the Midlands in that.

you should be helping those nearer the bottom before you worry about whether you can buy Imogen a 14.2 because she's going to outgrow her 13.2 some time this season.
Wtf do those numbers mean?

Wealth isn't being distributed more evenly though is it? Levelling up starts with tax revenue being spent wisely on things like education and health, starting with the preschool period. Its starts with responsibilities for both parents and the state.

It isn’t a race to the bottom. People on a higher income that have been able to afford the ‘luxuries’ are of course going to notice, and dislike, being squeezed.

We all live in the real world, but that does not mean we all share the same reality.

But your judgements on this thread appear to be targeted at those who earn a good salary

They're not judgements - just opinions/questions.

I absolutely agree - but that doesn't change the fact that those things (coffees, gym memberships, SKY packages) are a luxury to many people simply because they are totally out of their budget.

So for those people, it does sting when you come on and read threads full of people complaining how hard their lives are because they can't afford to spend £100 a month on the TV anymore.

@Swiftbushome I assume the PP is talking about the next size of pony (13.2/14.2 is hands)

Interesting thread. Well I've been giving this a bit of thought and I honestly think my family would really struggle to cope on 1900 after mortgage.

After mortgage costs, our other fixed bills/direct debits come to 850 so that would only leave us with 1050 for spending money (including groceries). Although, in that situation we would probably cancel some "luxuries" like additional pension contributions and health insurance to free up another 450 which leaves us with 1500 a month or around 900-1000 after groceries. Even on a "budget month" we would spend quite a lot more than that. If we had to do it then I guess we could but there's not a hope we'd have any savings.

Reading this thread has really made me wonder about our spending and how we manage to spend so much on miscellaneous costs.

It may sting, but that’s a risk you take take reading those types of threads on a site with such a diverse user base.

Someone that’s lost their beloved mother may feel stung reading a thread where someone is complaining about theirs, but that doesn’t mean the person complaining isn’t entitled to do so, or that they’re required to shut up.

@whumpthereitis - I never said they should shut up 🤷🏻‍♀️

But some of these threads are just totally tone deaf to how millions of us have lived for years now.

That doesn't mean life isn't harder now, but complaining that you can't afford the most expensive SKY package or weekly riding lessons when there are people who have never been able to afford those things is insensitive to say the least.

This does essentially translate to "don't moan unless you are THE poor" because there is always someone who has more until you get to the bottom 1 person.

Don't moan because the quality of you living decreased. There were people living like that already.
Don't moan because your health got worse. There are people who already had it.
Don't moan because -just enter anything-.

People are allowed to moan about decrease in ther living standards even if they were or are still higher than someone's in poverty...

Of course people are allowed to moan, most of us are feeling the pinch, but people are not just moaning about having to cut down on things, they are moaning because they have no idea how to live on several times the amount the typical family has managed to live on for years.

If you're smart and hard working enough to earn six figures, why are you not smart enough to plan ahead and work this out for yourself?