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.

Then it comes back to the fact that they’ve got more money than you, for whatever reason.
We have a high income and low mortgage (live in a cheap area of the country). We have savings and investments, and money leftover for 7 foot Christmas trees and other luxuries.

Oooh very true, my cat was very sick last year and cost an absolute fortune in vet bills so we didn't go on a holiday in the summer. A friend said to me that she'd rather have a holiday than a cat. We love having pets and would much rather have a cat than have a lovely holiday every year (as nice as those are).

I worked in a personal lending department of a High Street Bank in a former life and believe me its often a case of the higher the salary the bigger the debt. Maxed up to the overdraft limit with not care for paying it off, then asking for more.

Got it in one.

I can afford to have my house and garden renovated because I'm working 6 days a week and extra evenings to pay for it as optional weekends and evenings are double time.
I'm single so it's the only way this work is going to be done. At 61 I'm not taking out any loans.
I'm knackered though. After the work is done I'm going to have 3 weeks off to enjoy it.

you've no idea how much others earn though!

We bring in over 100k but I'm not sure who would even know this information other than us! We stuck with 1 child as we enjoy to go on a lot of holidays and another child would add a lot of expense to what we want to do and make it more difficult! also nursery fee's are insane

We chose to not have a car as it's too expensive and would rather keep the money for travelling - we get around fine on trains/buses

stuck with a 2 bed flat - never going to get a bigger more expensive house as we don't need it!

Neither of us are into clothes or stuff really so don't spend money on things like that - i don't even get nails done or anything and dye my own hair rather than paying 200£ at hairdresser!

I'd never pay £50 for a tree every year - I just spent 150 once years ago on a good artificial one and we take it out each year!

Because of all this we have a lot of holidays each year - go to all the music festivals as that's what we priotitise spending out money on

What do you class as a high income?

Dh and I earn about 110k between us.
Both 40
No mortgage
No debts (apart from a little on CC)
1 child (not having any more)
1 dog
Several holidays a year (our biggest annual outgoing)
Cars owned outright
Savings
Lisa's and ISA's
No family money or inheritance (parents still young)
Lots of concerts/ eating out/ shows/ beauty treatments/ dc activities etc

We don't worry about money
We're very fortunate.

This thread is every bloody week at the moment.....

Do people like the op really have such poor critical thinking?

People earn more, have inheritances, buy on credit, live beyond their means, have access to things (eg I can borrow a marquee, tables and chairs from work for free)

We put over 50% of disposable income into pensions/savings so we don't look overly affluent but I think I'm unusual

Yup.

It's not curiosity. It's just eant for botching and hearing how they totally must be in terrible debt and their spouse is probably cheating woth whole local cricket club so overcompensating on credit cards.

@BHRK

Exactly, I spend £10-15 a bottle on wine for everyday use (well not everyday, I'm not an alcoholic but you know what I mean) it's not a lot relatively. Mine generally comes from Lidl though

I don't get it either but I can cite two examples. One woman I used to work with had expensive clothing, shoes, holidays, lived in expensive places, expensive car, constantly had something new. She was single and childless but earned well. She is broke, renting (because she cannot afford to buy), lots of credit card debt.

A relative of my bf looks like he has money. Nice expensive clothes, good car, eating out alot and holidays. But he and his children lived crammed in a very small 2 bedroom rented flat. He lurches from feast to famine all the time.

But people don't see that do they?

There's only a few possible answers - more income, less outgoings or less kids are the obvious 3.
We have a similar family size but no mortgage and have the odd trip to NYC over winter, a hamper sometimes and enjoy a few of the 'finer' things - but I certainly won't be buying DW a Land Rover for her birthday!

For me, whats enabled me to afford this stuff is my Mum dying young and so inheriting a load of money. I went from saving maybe £100 a month, to being able to pay off my mortgage, buy somewhere new and keep the old house to rent out.

As a result, I'm now saving around £1000 a month and thats without living particularly frugally.

Obviously, I'd much rather have my Mum back, but it's certainly made life much easier.

You can only spend it once!
Either they have investments , family money, their work is better paid that you realise? My husband has several forms of investment. He makes more money than I do before he gets out of bed.
You sound sensible with your money. Financial security is worth so much more than large Xmas trees or new landrovers.

Incomes vary more than you think. People rarely tell you their actual income.

Mortgage and childcare also make a huge difference.

Full time childcare is around £15k a year. 1 less child or 1 day a week of grandparent care frees up a lot!

My mortgage on a 3 bed semi is £500 per month. A mortgage on the same house bought now with the same deposit would be around £1500 per month.

Priorities. People might wonder about me 'How can she afford that fancy restaurant / gym when she has a small house / old car?' but really the answer is in the question 😉

In our local posh pub they al try to keep up with the Jonses. My DH grew up with them all but is so different to them, he had his own construction business and earned a lot. He was the only one in the pub that ever paid in cash every time. His mates in the pub either used credit cards or ran up tabs of hundreds and had to borrow from my Dh. All of them had flash cars, ski holidays, expensive meals out, all were in debt up to their necks My Dh retired at 50 they are still having to work their backsides off at 65 and have no chance of retiring anytime soon.
So much you see on SM has been paid for by credit card.

It's really down to priorities, as well as of course income. It's probably more rare to see the SAME set of people over spending in all areas you mentioned: big presents, luxury holidays, nice food. Generally speaking, everyone tends to spend more on one thing they rate higher than others to bring them happiness.
I guess from the outside someone could ask how we afford our cars. Yes, they are expensive and we can afford them, but we rarely go out preferring to cook/eat/entertain at home, we are not into shopping and tend to wear the same clothes until they need replacement vs buying new to chase fashion, we are not in the habit of spending 100s for presents even for Christmas.

I have a friend who does the same. It's because we are in our 50s and were lucky to be able to save in the good years. I don't know what I am supposed to say though. We spend it on DC's uni education, which is worthwhile for us, but it's really uncomfortable to constantly have to defend myself.

Often people who appear flash of social media etc actually dont have a lot and are drowning in debt. The glossy fake image portrayed of the amazing life style is often very far removed from the reality- drowning in debt etc.

How do you know this @sotired2

These threads ALWAYS go the same way.

People have varying amounts of money. People spend on different things.

One family I know locally who looked like they had it all, father had his own business but lost loads of work recently, was depressed and ended up committing suicide last year.

Others are high earners with good jobs/own businesses, one paid off mortgage already.

Neighbours seem well off but huge mortgage wife has a 1.5 hour commute with delays every day and husband WFH but has a health condition.

Relatives, wife works, husband too but his job, lecturer the contract will end end of year and their “nice” holiday recently was mostly cheaper hotels/air b n b, train, coach etc.

They earn a lot of money?

All my friends have household incomes of between 250- 400k. I see myself as the 'poor relation' as our income is about 70k between us. We are well off compared to a lot of people though.

I think this is what the OP is hoping to hear!