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.

You’d win your bet! Maybe that’s where you get your money ;)

There’s national statistics on total net wealth available too, etc. I found this quote:

”Physical wealth made up the largest share of wealth for the least wealthy households compared with property for mid-range households and pension for the most wealth.”

So perhaps the wealth we see on Facebook isn’t really where it’s at. It’s those big private pensions that we don’t see.

Some people/families are bankrolled by the parents/grandparents and don't admit it!

Others put lots on finance.

I think that's a good point.

Additionally, if you're under about 40ish, maybe 45, your housing costs are very likely to be substantially more as a multiple of your income than they are for your equivalents a few years older. This is particularly acute in the areas where the job markets are best. You can be on a high income, spunk loads of it on the housing and childcare you need in order to be able to earn that high income, and there not be a lot left over. I suspect this is probably the situation OP is in.

Were celebrating the coronation at home with Fortnum & Mason champagne & hamper - just Googled and one of these is £140, which is hardly breaking the bank for a lot of people

That would break the bank for quite a lot of people as well .

Haha knew it!

And yeah absolutely, income and wealth are two very different things. Because of our shitshow of a housing market over the past few decades, there are people who've never had that much money who happen to be sitting on substantial wealth, purely because of the location where they bought their often very modest home a few decades ago. If you're in a fairly expensive area, the younger people probably have much better paid jobs than the older ones do/did because that's what it's increasingly taking to live there.

Someone somewhere is looking at your lifestyle and thinking the exact same thing 😉

I was going to say this. I have my own business and could take 70-100k/year if I wanted in dividends (I don’t). Plus my husband works. We live quite frugally but occasionally we buy for ‘big’ things or go on fancy trips and I get the impression people are surprised we have the money. We also have no mortgage. The truth is you really have no idea how people are doing financially.

I'm not chastising her. She can do what she wants with her money. The point I was trying to explain was that we all make different choices with our money. So whereas she will spend £50 a month on cheap wine, I might be able to afford £15-20 for a nice bottle every once in a while. Similarly, she might choose to spend hundreds of pounds on expensive fruit and chocolate all year, I might choose to buy cheaper fruit and less chocolate and get a holiday for the children.

Admittedly though I did object to her demand for spousal maintenance because she refused to budget (or to maximise her income capacity) and spent money like this whilst trying to claim I had an ability to pay because I didn't make my luxury purchases in the same way (i.e. as frequently) as her.

They earn more/have lower mortgage/have savings/have parental help/won small on lottery/put it on credit cards/spend less on other stuff.

It’s basic maths really. I can afford stuff others can’t but can’t afford stuff some others can. The trick is finding happiness anyway.

Yes, it would. No doubt.

But being able to afford it as a one-off isn't, on its own, a sign of great wealth. It's £140, with several months' notice of the expense. That's beyond some people, but it isn't limited only to the wealthy.

I do these things because we have a high household income, investments, low utilities and an electric car.
We are spending 40k this year on multiple holidays.

Our household income is 150k+ with 500k in savings, but we live a pretty frugal lifestyle. Most of our friends/neighbours probably think we are on half what we are on, or limited savings.

We don’t have flashy cars on finance, most of our clothes are gifts or second hand & I meal plan to keep our weekly food budget under £60. If we eat out, it’s for breakfast or lunch to keep it cheaper.

The only thing we do splash out on is holidays. We can spend the 2k we have leftover in a month on a holiday because we don’t need to save it. The savings are what make a significant difference to our every day spending because we know we have that back up.

I never believe a lot of what I see on SM. Yes some people can afford stuff outright, some are drowning in debt just to keep up with others.

It's ok for people to show what they have and what they buy, each to their own. Whatever makes people happy.

People spend their money differently. So a Fortnum’s hamper is £80-100. Same as a big Christmas tree. Others might spend that across a month on a haircut, a more expensive food shop, a meal out as a couple etc.

Yep
Some love to think that people are up
to their eyeballs in debt because they spend extravagantly. The reality is that they may simply have more money than you.

Exactly.

Of course there are millions of people in the UK who've about as much chance of affording a luxury hamper as they have of angels flying out of their arse. But those are clearly not the people OP is talking about, nor comparing herself to.

And as an example of significant luxury spending, £140 on a Bank Holiday weekend treat isn't really it. If the plan is to spend the weekend mainlining all the coverage and consuming the contents of the hamper, that's not an outrageously expensive way to spend a couple of days compared to some of the typical things people with disposable income might do.

I think we often forget that millionaires live all around us and we usually would never know - they could be your neighbour, the person behind you in the queue at the supermarket, etc. It's not possible to easily identify a 'wealthy' person, certainly not by what job they do.

All manner of ways as suggested plenty of times upthread. In my case: sold pur home last year with £100k equity, bought a new house (larger monthly repayments but the equity made a nice dent in the loan value) kept back £30k to do stuff to the house, had a lovely holiday and bought a brand new car outright.

We won't have another abroad holiday for at least 5 years, wouldn't put it past people I know questioning it, but it's not anyone's business...

How can people not understand there are so many variables? You could be a high earner but have a huge mortgage that cancels out being able to afford expensive holidays.

It's ok for people to show what they have and what they buy, each to their own. Whatever makes people happy.
.............
I suppose so but I think people generally shouldn't talk about personal finances and expenditure, it's embarrassing to others and can come across as ostentation if they are extravagant and 'pleading poverty' if the reverse.

Only mention if necessary, be careful to whom you talk and sensitive to the listener.

In my experience of friends of varying income levels, it’s generally all finance or credit cards.

I very regularly see the same ones cutting corners on their kids, ie. Little to no Christmas/birthday gifts, not much in the way of extracurricular activities, not spending much at all on their own children as grandparents are fronting things like winter coats, clothes, “big” toys etc.
Yet the same ones are hosting with very expensive bottles of wine, always having takeaways, going out for breakfast, buying themselves nights out, tickets for XYZ, etc etc. Always on social media. Haven’t managed to take their kids on any holidays, though 🤷🏼‍♀️

That is just my observations from my experience of this from people around me- not generalising. When you look a little closer OP, you’ll see it’s a very thin vaneer, often trying to keep up with the jones

OP, what is your household income? Three kids is pretty expensive nowadays also. The only people I see with 3+ kids now are the very rich or very poor on benefits. Many stop at one or two kids because of the cost involved.

I’ve seen many posts on here from people asking ‘AIBU to try for a third?’ with many people with older children advising no, due to the rising costs as they get older. Lots of people don’t envisage the expense when their kids are little so it can be easy to have three kids close together in age and only realise when they are all becoming tweens, how much their bank accounts getting rinsed.

Yes. And equally, spending £15 more to get a 7ft Christmas tree instead of a 5ft one isn’t an indicator of either wealth or extravagance.

Some people just enjoy their money more 💁🏽‍♀️

Read a thread the other day on takeaways/eating out and someone announced they only eat our twice a year because they prefer their own cooking and that's nice for them but sad for me, seems a joyless way of living. But different strokes.

Not saying this is going to be the case for everyone but …..We had some friends who always had the most amazingly lavish lifestyle. They did the same jobs as DH and me so we were always confused about the dramatic difference in our lifestyles. Turns out the husband was stealing from his company. £500k worth of fraud in fact.