to ask how do people afford all these things ?

[kermitspants]

Me & DH have a fairly good/decent income between us. What with the cost of living increases etc and general costs to run a house for 5 of us, we don't/cant afford to have many luxuries. I see FB posts with friends (acquaintances) who:

Were celebrating the coronation at home with Fortnum & Mason champagne & hamper

Purchased a brand new landrover as a gift for their wife for Christmas

Brought their DC a brand new car for their 18th

Pop up marquees in the garden with the biggest TV screen for friends to come over and watch England playing

Christmas and the gifts are ££££££ with some people taking the DC to lapland (in addition of the summer holiday they had) and buying top of the range gifts/food/hampers

Have the biggest Christmas trees (ours is usually around 5 foot and costs around £50 (real tree) which I thought was a hell of a lot of money for a tree). Goodness knows how much the bigger trees cost

New York trips for Christmas

My 'luxury' for Christmas food was a posh bottle of M&S prosecco for the table along side Tesco food. I splashed out on a £14 posh bottle of fizz for the coronation, and that was pushing the boat out.

Am I missing something here ????

NB - those who think I am jealous, need not reply.

Some have more money than others, be it through inheritance, income, help from parents and relations. Some are happy to put things on credit and/or lease cars - often, the higher the debt, the bigger larger the overdraft/credit card limit. And here's another thing, some haven't been effected by the col crisis.

Also, social media is all smoke, mirrors and carefully staged. Don't believe all you see. Do as I did and step away from it completely. At the very least, it will stop you caring about what others are doing.

I agree. So many people buy the biggest, fanciest house they can afford and then wonder why they have hardly any spending money left. We live in a very modest ex council 3 bed. It’s enough for our needs, it doesn’t cost much to heat / look after and we have no desire to move to anything bigger. Any spare money we have we’d rather spend on a nice holiday etc.

I would say the biggest factor of being able to treat yourself if you are lucky enough to be in this position is not moving to a fancier house just because you can. That will eat up all your money very quickly

I agree with this. We could double our mortgage and have a bigger, posher house but we haven’t. We have enough space and we like where we live. Our mortgage is low compared to our income (now, anyway. It was a far higher percentage of our income when we first moved in). That gives us ‘extra’ money for things like nice wine, decent food, expensive day trips with the children etc.

Tell her to mind her own business!!

Yep this.

But also, not all of the things OP has listed are necessarily that expensive.

New cars are often leased. You can rent a big screen and marquee for maybe £300. If it's a big group of friends splitting the cost, it might not be that much more than they'd spend going to the pub to watch. Fortnum and Masons hampers can be a couple of hundred pounds: obviously a lot for a treat, but equally, plenty of people would have that in disposable income. Holidays vary wildly in cost, people use airmiles and work perks, may stay with friends and family... all kinds of possibilities.

I don’t know how people know job titles and salaries of acquaintances beyond a vague idea.
Work in IT - might be on £30,000 might be on £500,000. Both wear jeans, walk dog at lunch and work from bedroom at home.

The former Communist countries are generally doing quite well but it's still a bit worrying that Slovenia could catch the UK up in about 34 years.

I guess another way of looking at it though is how far the UK has fallen behind the countries it used to be on a par with like France. The average household in the UK is now around £8.8k behind.

These threads come up every few days.....

Some people are richer than you

1. Higher income most don't tell others how much they earn just seems a bit boastful.
2. Credit card not living within they're means
3. Inheritance
4. Won some money either lottery or on the bingo.

Whatever the reason it's nobody else's business. It's they're life.

This comes up all the time!

I always think the OP won’t be happy with any response other than “it’s all on credit and you can laugh when their house is repossessed”

MY FIL was a bank manager, back in the days when you met your bank manager when you wanted a mortgage. He said the worst were the ones flashing the cash on new cars, jewellery, posh holidays - lawyers, doctors etc. Bugger all savings or investments, massive mortgages that they would try and convince him to lend more on....credit card debts up to their necks..

I think there's a lot of that goes on.

These people have achieved their goals...

You noticed their purchases
You are impressed
You're thinking about them
You're feeling inadequate

They're show offs.

I took a taxi the other day and chatted about CoL crisis with the driver (small town, happen to know him). He said if there is such a crisis, it hasn’t arrived in our town yet. Says people are taking exactly as many taxis to exactly as many events at the theatre / pub / restaurants as before. He says his business has not dropped off at all this year (but that it also hasn’t grown like it usually does)

Obviously, he was being a little facetious, but I think he was pretty on the money, as it were. For people that can afford luxuries, not much has changed.

The Tory party have made things financially much better for the very rich, made things financially better for the rich, made things financially a little bit worse (but nominally kept things the same) for the upper-middle earners… and fucked the people at the bottom senseless.

God forbid you’re too poor to even renew your passport and have a car, because you might not even be able to vote the fuckers out!

Sorry for all the fucks.

Work colleague who is always on facebook - bought her daughter a new car, holidays to Dubai, shopping in New York, wee trip to London - flash clothes, botox etc. Every few years she's on facebook selling stuff to pay back the debts. Then she gets all flash again. She's absolutely up to her neck in debt, close to bankruptcy, lost her house once.... you'd never know it from Facebook.

Well 3 kids is a luxury in itself.

Hampers can be corporate gifts, NY on airmiles, Range Rover through the work car scheme, but I'm thinking they out earn you. What's your household income?

I can afford stuff but i don't post about it on FB. Those who do, have something to prove

I can addord champagne but wouldn't dream of broadcasting a label. That's vulgar

We have noticed the CoL crisis, in that our fuel bills have increased significantly, food is obviously much more expensive etc. However due to a combination of me changing jobs to one with a higher salary, DH being promoted and also receiving a higher performance related bonus than last year, our household income has increased by £20k year on year. There are many people who have enough leeway in their budget to be able to weather the storm.

Quite a lot of people are in a lot of debt and continue to be given money by irresponsible lenders.

Who the hell do you know that do those things?

I only know one person even remotely like that, they both have decent paying jobs and no responsibilities except one dog, add to that that she comes from 'old money' too.

Its less big screens in the garden, Jimmy Choos and Lambos and more a nice wood burner and pizza oven in the garden for gatherings and expensive brand hiking gear and their old Landrover is because they actually go off road to places since they love nature and camping (like old money they buy the good quality stuff but it isn't 'flashy' or 'kardashian-esq designer name' stuff).

I mean I do have other friends that live above their means but not like that, its more like getting a new £900 phone or brand new games console on credit that they can't really afford.

Also I get the feeling a lot of people you you describe is 'keeping up with the Jones' which just makes me cringe.

I saw a video the other day on how to store and look after the paper bags you get from brand named stores (like Channel or Gucci etc...) so you can keep reusing them for long and ways to display them in your house. It just seems farcical to me, I'm all for reusing but doing your Tesco shopping with a Louis Vuitton paper bag that you have 'laminated' seems hilarious to me.

On a decent income, low mortgage (just under 5 years left), no debts apart from the usual bills and outgoings.

We give ourselves a weekly budget and we stick to it religiously. The budget is lower than what we actually have available and this excess is then put in a savings pot for big purchases like holidays, boiler breaking down, whatever its needed for really.
No credit used at all, we save for everything which is why our garden is taking so long to do!!!

There could be any number of reasons why folk have more money than you.My husband has a good job,but pays half his salary to the taxman (a whopping 62% on 25k) our former next door neighbours who earn way less than him have more money as they’ve two incomes/2 personal allowances (whilst he loses his in entirety.) Those who are self employed pay less tax,often very high earners who are self employed pay themselves minimum wage and the rest in dividends,attracting less tax.
Thats not a dig at the self employed by the way,just a fact. There’s also benefits,some earn little enough to get the full array of child benefits but still a very good salary,but a single high earning family will likely get none,as well as higher tax.
Lots of folk are also up to their neck in debt whilst creating the illusion of wealth on social media.
Fixating on others is not productive or healthy and will only make you disgruntled ,far better to think of ways to save if you are struggling ,and think about what you do have,three kids and a partner. My husband has survived two heart attacks,those second chances are worth more than any cash and I’d happily lose his good income for him not to have a dodgy heart. Whilst it was horrendous to nearly be widowed at 44, we have been blessed with extra time, whilst others have been less fortunate,my best friend dropped dead at 41.

Sometimes it's even simpler than this. Some people think they're careful but hemorrhage money that they don't need to spend. This becomes a lot more obvious when you do a D81 or form E in divorce!

My ex-wife tried to get spousal maintenance when we divorced and it highlighted a lot of areas of wasteful spending in her budget (needless to say, she didn't get it). For example, she would stuff her face on bags of chocolate every night and buy a coffee every day even though she could make one at home. She also bought luxury fruit for the children instead of things like apples and bananas. These things might look like tiny amounts of money - it was only about £6 a day - but over a year this wasteful spending amounted to over £2k. She also drank too much, something like 2 bottles of wine a week which at £6 a bottle equated to another £624. She also bought school dinners despite being a SAHM who had time to cook which was probably about another £400 a year in extra expense.

In contrast, my brother in law who supposedly earned less than I did could afford a nice holiday with his family every year. However, his cupboards weren't jammed full of chocolate, luxury biscuits, crisps and wine; they both worked and provided childcare so paid a lot less tax than us; and they cooked.

It's very easy to see how someone like my brother in law could afford nice champagne despite earning a lower salary because in contrast my ex-wife was careless with the small spending.

Brought their DC a brand new car for their 18th

I got Dd a brand new car for her 18th.

I looked at buying her a 2nd or 3rd hand car for a few thousand but by the time I added up the depreciation, (at least £2000) the mpg, the mots (even if just 2 needed which I know cost on average around £300 each time as I have always had older cars and usually spend on average £300 getting them through the MOT) so another £600, possibly needing 3 if you want to sell it with a full MOT
Again the repairs, judging by my own q history with cars would be another £300 per year.
Then you start to add up that if the car is off the road for its MOT then that is 2 days without the car plus another even 1 day per year of the car when it needs repairing, even just something like a new tyre then that it is at least another £1000 in lost work over the 2 years as either Dd misses work or I do to drive her (both self employed and for Dd you have to drive as usually there is no public transport)
The safety aspect as Dd drive’s long distances at odd times of the day and I just imagined her breaking down on some unlit country lane at 3am and everything that could go wrong.
Add in lower tax disc and insurance for a new car with all its safety features and it starts to look cheaper to lease than to buy an old banger.
It was £183 per month with £0 down £4392 for the 2 years against having to shell out £3000 and then losing £2000 on depreciation and £900 on 3 MOTs Another 5 days missing income when the car is having its mot or just 1 day per year having a repair is another £1250 and £0 tax as opposed to £165 per year
Think quotes were about £400 cheaper at the time for insuring a brand new car as opposed to an older car

so £5280 with a car at the end worth £1000 as opposed to a £4392 and having no worries about breakdowns, accidents with bad outcomes as safety features were outstanding and even losing work and contracts because the car needs repairing.

For the extra £112 which could be eaten up with missing just an extra 1/2 days work or the repair is £112 over the £300 allocated to get car through its MOTs or repairs it was not a lot for peace of mind.

I think people should do the mental and financial gymnastics and seriously look at whether buying older is necessarily spending less than buying new

FWIW we have had a Fortnum and Masons champagne hamper. It came free with DH’s company credit card as he had spent over a certain amount on it throughout the year

They either earn/ were gifted lots of money or have lots of credit card debt. Who cares ?