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.

Unless you went for a second child and it turned out to be twins…sorry but a third child IS a luxury.

😂

Using credit is a good thing. Don’t pay for stuff with your debit cards. Never use your own money, always pay it off monthly so the credit card companies don’t get any interest.

You get the safety of using someone else’s money, the rewards for using the cards and gain credit rating. Always pay the balance in -full- though.

That's a really good point.

People sometimes have ideas of some things as luxury spending and some not, without necessarily thinking about the amounts involved. So OP appears to have 3 DC, and we all know kids are expensive. I expect I could buy multiple new cars with the money it'd cost me to have another child.

Or on a less drastic comparison, that Fortnum and Masons hamper for the coronation apparently cost £140. Let's say last weekend, a different family went to the beach and pay for travel and ice creams one day, then take the kids to soft play and get a takeaway plus a few beers the next, people probably wouldn't think of that as extravagant but it might be say £80, so the difference there isn't colossal. But the hamper is seen as a marker of affluence in a way that a Chinese and the cost of petrol to get to the beach isn't.

It’s priorities.. and also income v expenditure.

My dad worked hard all his life and saved and invested his money. He drove an old banger, never indulged in expensive clothes or holidays, and he died a millionaire. He could’ve had anything but material things didn’t mean anything to him.

Lots of people have inherited family wealth, tied up in investments or property.

A few houses bought in the 90s in London would be raking it in in rent now

As expected, OP hasn't returned.

DH sold his place when we met and made a decent profit. We put this towards a decent deposit which allowed us to purchase a very nice property. DH’s salary has doubled in the five years together through sheer hard work. We both earn good salaries, I’m part time as we have a baby, combined salaries make us pretty well off. I work in the city and make good annual bonuses which have paid any debts off and also our company was sold and I got a big payout. We used this to set up a savings account with a decent wedge. That’s how we are able afford a good quality of life. Your bottle of fizz would be out of reach for some, it’s all relative. I’m poor compared to my boss 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yup.
I get cashback + cashback via apps + offers. You could even win your shopping bill back at some point.
Plus they can get money back if something goes wrong.

You have some fancy spending friends! DH knows people like that, but they live on a financial knife's edge.

I wasn’t assuming anything. I was talking only about my friends, who I know aren’t doing both.

Don't know if this will help anyone, but I'll share how we deal with money. So pay day comes - put money aside for food, pay bills and then leave it alone in savings. If we want something, we write it down and put it in a jar. The day before next pay day, we get all the little things we wanted out of the jar - if we still want them, we get them. If we don't want them anymore, we don't. Of course we often dip into it for emergencies or things popping up (school dress up days for example) but the majority of the time it all adds up and we get to buy more expensive things after some time.

It seems unlikely friends are actively admitting to being completely irresponsible with future planning and if the mid 6 figure salary range it seems very unlikely giving the tax implications etc.

I can afford to spend my money on nice things because I don't have kids and don't intend to.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

So is a second child these days. I know many young women who are planning to have one child as it means less outgoings.

We probably look quite poor. I WFH, slob about bare foot in shorts (I wear a smart top for Teams meetings). Our hobbies look quite frugal (allotmenting, home brew and home made clothes).

We are actually quite comfortably off.

DB is convinced we must be up to our eyes in debt as he doesn't have any idea what out household income is. He is believes he is 'the wealthy one' out of us three siblings based on nothing more than his assumtions

What’s your household income?

Your ‘splurges’ are extremely, extremely modest.

Is it really worth rehashing this utterly gormless question every week?

😆

The way the TFR is going, I can well believe it.

But yeah, more DC=more expense. Even if you reuse everything etc, it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that an extra child means less money for holidays, cars etc unless your income also rises to cover those costs.

Our third child was just proof that nothing in life is 100% reliable!

So is a second child these days. I know many young women who are planning to have one child as it means less outgoings.
I find this really sad if they want more than one. My cousin always said she only wanted one but ended up with two. She said she gave up every luxury in her life, says she hasn’t had a decent haircut, holiday, car or coffee or worn anything other than penny’s clothes since a few years after college but it was worth it

How do you know that?

surely it's obvious...the people with the new car and regular holidays perhaps aren't having cleaners and takeaways?

£30 a week for a cleaner, 2 mid range meals out for a family of 4 per month = easily £250 a month= £3000 a year = a family holiday!

Alternatively your combined income is £100k a year, theirs is £104k = they have (after tax) £3k extra to spend on a family holiday - fairly minimal wage difference (you wouldn't see any huge difference in you earning £52k and your friend earning £54k) is sufficient for a key expenditure.