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.

I think that’s a pretty rare occurrence, TBH.

She shouldn't have asked. Honestly, apart from the odd fleeting thought, I don't see much point in wondering about such issues. Far better to just see to our own and get on with life.

There are so many factors that it's hard to compare. I've already made the point about tax; if you earn roughly the same as a partner, the chances are you pay less tax and receive more in child benefit than a household on the same income where one person earns a lot more than the other. I've also made the point about my ex-wife's habit of inconsequential but unnecessary spending accumulating to a four figure sum of wasted money on an annual basis (it really can help to count the pennies).

There's more to it than that though. When you started earning matters a lot. I didn't earn much until my mid-30s whereas my brother started earning well in his mid-20s. This has always made a difference but in recent years rapidly rising house prices have amplified the affect. Not being able to buy my first home until 32 meant a lot of wasted money in rent and buying at a much higher price than I could have purchased for 7-8 years earlier. By my estimate those years will cost me around £250k (price of the house increasing by £100k + interest on the extra mortgage + money wasted on the portion of rent that could have paid down capital whilst saving to buy). A lot of people who caused the credit crunch (i.e. joined in buying property at silly prices before 2007) were bailed out by the state with low interest rates for 15 years too, which later buyers haven't benefited from (we just got the higher taxes for the bailout and higher house prices from the state intervention!)

Also, who likes to save? I do, because I earn a lot now and don't want to pay huge amounts of income tax to subsidise asset rich but modest income wealthier families who "bought at the right time." So a lot of my money goes into a pension rather than spent.

There's also debt. That is normally the story behind cars these days. Most people don't really buy cars anymore, they lease them for three years based on their budget. New-ish Range Rover probably costs about £400 a month on somewhere like Cinch, quite affordable for me but I prefer owning a small car.

There are inheritances of course. Tax dodging by the self employed. And some people might earn more although there aren't that many families with more than a £130k combined income!

My Dad was always given feee F&M hampers from clients, I can remember eating my own body weight in smoked salmon one year! Didn’t cost a penny.

People always assume that we have inherited wealth but actually we run a successful business, set up with £7k saved from having two jobs.

This this this, 100%

Keep seeing it over and over, even with “wealthier” friends.

Doesn't seem to breed gratitude though, only a sense of entitlement for a certain standard of lifestyle, but sure, wouldn’t we all live the highlife if someone else was paying out left, right, and centre for it!

Same

It's baffling but I then figure it's family money/inheritance/lotto win/credit card debt. none of which we have.

Seven foot Christmas tree, £100 but we are paying the Home Counties premium, and then we go to the local pub and sit by their fire and have lunch, so in reality the tree including food is somewhere around £80.

Misses the point entirely.

Is this for real? They can afford it because they clearly earn more than you and potentially have lower fixed outcomes, mortgage etc.

I'm strangely drawn to this thread, even though there are many similar ones... My take is that people who post on facebook aren't always (just) showing off - they're also celebrating things that they see as a treat and therefore special enough to post, not claiming that they always have that lifestyle.

I also think inheritance/family money doesn't have to be huge to make potentially quite a big difference. You see loads of threads on MN where people are saying they want to help DC with a house deposit. If you imagine people in their late 30s/early 40s who received that kind of help 10-15 years ago, they might now have very small/no mortgage which would give them much more disposable income. I suspect that's not really what people have in mind when they talk about family 'wealth', but it wouldn't need to be massive sums.

In my experience it’s a factor of one (or more) of these three:

Good job
Inheritance
Loans / credit cards

The majority of people I know “live for the moment” which is fine for them but not something I could do.

I think you and I might think we have a decent income and feel well off but some people just earn crazy amounts!! I'm with you OP.

I think family help is a big factor.

If you have two sets of grandparents ready and waiting to help it enables you to work and subsequently save more

Usually because they are on a high income. It's amazing what some jobs will pay.

Also - what you prioritise and save for. A colleague of mine went on an expensive family holiday to Disneyland - she said when she came back into the office was 'That was amazing, we're stoney broke now but we're saving up to go again in two years!'

Also, people choose to share this information with you

I don't tell you I maxed out my pension contributions last year

It's all relative

I think this.

Just reuse a plastic tree year after year, then you'll have enough money for a proper Christmas spread and some Baileys.😉

I actually openly talk about money.. Never a shame. Mainly because I love good deal so of course talk about these things. Like holiday spend. Lots of people assumed my holidays cost tons (and probably wondered how can we afford them) but I always find deals. I found out that someone thought my last AI costed 2x as much as it did.
I am open about the fact I can afford these things due to low mortgage even on our currently just under average wages. It's actually good because colleague came few months after proper excited about holidays she managed to book for under 1k for 2 in nice place with nice weather she thought would cost 2k😂 she literally just had to book 2 weeks before main season and not with TUI (same hotel though😂).
On another hand few years back friend got really motivated when we talked mortgages and I am open about how small my repayments are. It also made her think about different area than the pricey one she was looking at.
Another at work changed saving accounts after few of us talked. Another uses marriage tax allowance now while her dh is off work, etc.
I learned stuff too!

Talking money, but not in a crass way, can be good for people.

I can't understand why people are constantly baffled by this??

For some mortgages are done so you bit more each month to spend. Or maybe loans or credit cards.

Talking money, but not in a crass way, can be good for people.

Nah. Bores me shitless and there are some people who ALWAYS bring the conversation back to the subject... they have rather empty lives, it seems to me.

Better good point about when people start. Eg I deliberately did law at university and I went a year young at 17 so had graduated at 20 when a lot of people are still messing around on gap year after gap year. I married at 21 after post grad and we bought a small house when I was 22 and had baby no. 1 when I was almost 23. I always worked full time (no maternity leaves etc).

Some people mess around in their 20s, have various gap years or non graduate jobs after uyniversity so can end up being 27 and just getting started on a career I qualified into when I was 23. By age 30 I had about 7 years of experience full time as a qualified solicitor in London (and 3 babies) and we were on house no. 3 (no. 1 was terraced, 2 was a semi and 3 bought in 1990 and sold at a loss in 1996 (property crash_) was detached).

Mmm, that seemed a strange example too. I could buy a loooot of Christmas trees with the difference between the price of my house and one with another bedroom to fit a 3rd kid in.

Yes SIL is like this. Conversations with her are so dull because they are so often about who earns what and how much things cost.

We bought a run down house in a very rural location in a not very sought after county in Ireland and (sadly) our mortgage is a third of what we were paying in rent. We bought just before a hefty deposit was required. I say sadly because I find it sad for the general population that owning is so much cheaper than renting. Also (aged 40) we finally paid off all our loans and credit card. We have a decent car on hp but people might see it and because it’s only a few years old might think we were rich. Bil is a gardener and designed our garden with dh and it looks posh so again people might think we’re rich. A few years ago we were on the floor dirt poor, in daily talks with the banks, dealing with the charities for help etc. I don’t know how people afford eg land rovers etc, but maybe it’s the same principle- both working small mortgage and credit?

Some can afford
Some go in debt
Some lie