To be shocked that a man in his mid-twenties does not work for a living?

[queenofsheep]

DD's boyfriend, older than DD by a year, does not work. He got his degree, now lives off rental income and an allowance through a family trust fund. AIBU to be shocked that there are men/boys in their twenties who are allowed to do this?

He and DD seem happy. DD isn't concerned at all. He insists that it is work because he has to manage his houses. He and DD go on nice holidays and attend parties.

Surely it depends on the scale - half a dozen flats managed by an agent, or the Duke of Westminster (with a £9bn property and investment portfolio), as to whether it constitutes “a job”?

i mean, an income without effort, does not “a job” make

i mean, an income without effort, does not “a job” make We have no idea if he purchased these properties himself, whether he uses a management company or manages them himself, the number he has, whether he's bought properties and done them up etc etc. Plenty of people don't put in the effort for their income - I've got friends who are bankers who don't work particularly hard to earn an obscene salary. Difference is they're playing about with other people's money rather than a job which involves their own assets.

But even those awful bank people have to show up and be accountable to someone in their day to day activities. There’s a difference between “having a private income” and “having a job”. Managing assets of your own, however acquired, is not a job, because the locus of control is not external.

Who cares whether or not he has a job? Talk about misery wants company.

No one is obliged to use their assets "for the benefit of society." FFS, many people on this thread are living above bare subsistence, meaning you have room in your budget to pare down to rock-bottom and use the rest of your funds/assets/goods "for the benefit of society." Are you doing so? If not, why not?

He's a young man with perhaps 65 years of living ahead of him. More power to him if he can make it on his investment income, pay his taxes and actually enjoy life from day to day. He has plenty of time in future to "benefit society."

At least he's not ON benefits.

Think of it this way, OP - he's one less person competing in the job market!

It's his own money, he's not sponging off anyone.

But even those awful bank people have to show up and be accountable to someone in their day to day activities. There’s a difference between “having a private income” and “having a job”. Managing assets of your own, however acquired, is not a job, because the locus of control is not external I don't agree, otherwise anyone running their own business would fall into the category of not having a job, as at the end of the day they only have to be accountable to themselves. If he was getting an income just from his trust fund, I'd agree, but managing a portfolio of properties is a job. He has to pay taxes, ensure that the properties are maintained and profitable. My parents were property developers and landlords. They didn't inherit anything, they fixed up the properties themselves and managed them too and it was definitely a job, one that made them a shit ton of money.

The OP is obviously bitter because she’s got a sh1t job and wants everyone else to suffer too. Misery loves company eh? I say good luck to him.

Because it's not really about men in general it's about her daughter's boyfriend

I know a male, brought up three children in last 12 years, never done a day’s work, all you hear is them whinging about cold or flu.

Fibroid single woman seeing gynae if as it hasn’t quite ruined life 🤬never had to go for a sleep at 1pm before now, never had to worry urine output doesn’t meet input, this country is disgustingly unjust. (Whether that’s another thread Mumsnet promotes in hiding) but manhood supports.

Lots of people with loads of properties also manage them themselves like a job. Not everyone spends money on agents - especially if the have the time to do it.

Actually I was brought up to live like that, yes, and I have friends who do so also. It's called living ethically rather than taking more than your share.

It's true no-one is obliged to use their assets for the benefit of society, but that's a legal question rather than a moral one. We will always exist in a world where there are rich people, and the rich will only ever exist because someone somewhere exploited the poor. The point is whether we just go along with that (as I've often done, I was born into privilege but I'm trying more not to waste it all on myself now) or try to change things. And we can change things and that's a good thing. Dismissing people as "jealous" for recognising that one person has a big pile of stuff while others are suffering, however many people you can get to agree with you and laugh at them, is a dark sign. You'll find it's not a wise concept to pass on to your kids. This planet is about to hit a point where we all get thrown back into depending on one another and your money won't matter. People will remember how you handled it, though, and that might make all the difference.
Tl;dr: THINK for God's sake, this isn't a game

Well put. A thoughtful and brave post. This has been a nasty thread and I couldn't put my finger on why but you've articulated it brilliantly.

Good for him. Why waste your life in corporate slavery if you don't need to. It is better to do something you enjoy with your life if you can afford it.

The "protestant work ethic" has very much fallen out of fashion but it used to be that living an unproductive, non-useful and non-contributory life of leisure was seen as just as immoral as many more "active" forms of immorality.

But I approach it more as a physicist - in any system, entropy increases (that is, the world tends towards chaos and disorder) unless work is done to combat it. This is demonstrated in microcosm in every teenage bedroom on the planet. However, on a larger scale most jobs are in some way about creating order and rationality out of chaos in one form or another. People who do no work are creating chaos for some other bugger to clear up. It's intrinsically exploitative. Those with the fortune to not need a job to live can do their share of fighting against chaos by creating art, volunteering for charity, publicising good causes, all sorts of worthwhile things. Most of us have to do more work against chaos than the chaos we create because we have to in order to earn a living and run our households,so most of us are net forces against chaos. Some people are net creators of chaos through no fault of their own (especially kids) if they can't work. Those who could be a net contributor against chaos (which ultimately leads to destruction and collapse) but chose not to, are not on the side of good.

@JaukiVexnoydi

Hear hear.

No one is suggesting that the boyfriend - or indeed anyone with independent wealth - should go out and graft 50 hours a week in Asda and I'm surprised that people are supporting a young man with a lifestyle of doing buggar all.

Everyone should do something productive and meaningful otherwise what is the point?

How can you enjoy life's pleasurable experiences if that is all you experience? Surely if you spend your life yachting around the Caribbean and going to parties it just becomes meaningless and mundane. So then what?

I understand what the OP is saying totally. Whether this young man needs to work or not is not really the issue; it's that his life has no purpose, aim or goal.

I’ve read some pretentious, pseudo intellectual twaddle on MN but that wins the highest accolade. Top marks @JaukiVexnoydi.

I'm surprised that people are supporting a young man with a lifestyle of doing buggar all.

Given the OP has been very sparse with details about him, not even saying if he has one property or a few or loads we have no idea if he does bugger all at all.

People are just assuming. He says managing his properties is his job and the op has actually said nothing to contradict that. Just that they don’t agree.

Whether this young man needs to work or not is not really the issue; it's that his life has no purpose, aim or goal.

And that’s a massive assumption on your part made with very little information

I think it makes good sense.

I don't care whether it's a "job" or not. What I care about is whether he's paying his "fair share" of tax. It's employed workers who are currently shouldering more than their fair share of the tax burden with student loan repayments, frozen tax thresholds, increases in NIC, workplace pensions, tapering away of child benefit, etc etc.

Those living on "unearned" income as defined by HMRC, such as rental income, dividends, interest, trust funds, etc pay less tax overall, because those "unearned" incomes aren't liable for NIC and those "unearned" incomes are more flexible and can be shared amongst family/spouses etc to save tax by using otherwise unused personal allowances, basic rate bands, etc., which an employed worker simply can't do.

So, yes, I would judge someone who's basically living on "investment" income, either from their own efforts or inherited or trust fund, because they're not paying as much tax as an employed worker. If the guy in question has an income of, say, £75k, his contribution to the country is a lot less than someone earning the same £75k as an employee. And that is completely wrong. It's almost a certainty that the guy in question (or whoever set up the trust fund for him) have taken steps to minimise the taxes payable - by lots of different ways that aren't open to an employed worker.

Sounds fantastic. Isnt that the dream?!

That’s not down to an individual to change though.

you can’t seriously be suggesting he should be living a different life simply because the government have a taxation method in place that isn’t fair?

The ire for that should be aimed at the people that can change it. Though given he benefits from it and paid a smaller percentage of his income then many of us Mr Sunak is unlikely to be looking for it to change.

We have no idea if he bought these properties himself

Seems likely he inherited them. But Yes maybe he saved up the money he earned doing a paper round in his teens to buy them with his own money.

He'll almost certainly have organised his affairs to pay less tax, because he has the flexibility to do so. That's flexibility that most people don't enjoy. He won't have been passive, there'll have been regular meetings between him (his parents etc) and various tax specialists, solicitors, etc. It, 100%, won't be an accident that there's a trust fund in place - the main reason for them being set up is tax avoidance. Pre-tax and post-tax returns will also have been a significant consideration when it came to deciding how to invest his money - he has chosen to invest in assets that give him a relatively low tax burden. He and his family won't have been passive in any of this - they'll have actively sought out tax exemptions, loopholes, reliefs, etc that simply aren't available to normal workers.

Yes, to a large extent, that's the fault of the politicians and vested interests, but I'd be happy to bet that some of his wider family are (or have been) influential in politics to some extent, to influence tax policy to their advantage.

Entropy always increases, that's why it's called the arrow of time. The work done to remove disorder in one system creates more disorder in another.