To think there must be dodgy financial activity going on with this couple?

[TurkeyTeethLookAwful]

A couple that we know (but are not friends with as such) both seem to have a very extravagant lifestyle that is totally at odds with the jobs that they do.

The husband works as an assistant manager at a shop; not a superstore or anything like that, just a small branch of a chain store in the local town. The wife works two days a week as a hairdresser. They have four children aged between 16 and 2.

In the past five years they have:

Totally renovated their semi detached house to a very high standard. They have an instagram account about their home (not many followers, less than 200 so are not earning from that) and have tagged many high end products and tradesmen, such as a bespoke bed and 2k chandelier type light for the bedroom.

Taken multiple luxury foreign holidays per year; not budget holidays but five star holidays. And regular weekends away at Disney Paris, too.

They, and the kids always have very high end designer clothes; the woman wears dresses that cost £400+ when she goes on nights out, and on the holiday they are currently on she has posted on social media that she and her two daughters are all wearing matching swimsuits that cost £100+ each.

The woman has hair extensions, brow lamination, lash extensions, botox, fillers, nail extensions, and probably loads more stuff on a regular basis. All done at high end salons.

They have very regular expensive family days out and weekends away, such as travelling on the train first class to London to see a musical and then staying overnight in an expensive hotel.

In the past, I've known of a few other couples who live that kind of lifestyle and it's turned out that they are earning money drug dealing. This couple both absolutely do not have rich families; both of their families live in council housing. I feel like they probably have not had a lottery win as I feel that if they did, they'd buy a massive house, seeing as they like extravagance. I can't imagine a mortgage could be obtained or a house bought on drug money...

And yes, I know it's none of my business, but I'm curious.

AIBU to think they must surely be doing something illegal to have this lifestyle?

So interesting I love stories/ anecdotes like that.

There are many millionaires amongst us in society but they generally live extremely frugal lives and are visibly low key.

The Millionaire Next Door is a good book (although American).

Which bit of her post sounds specifically jealous rather than curious?

@horseyhorsey17 I worked in a company where this happened. I was HR manager too - all very odd- gambling habit it seems

Not being 'holier-than-thou'.

There's being interested in other people's lives and there's drawing conclusions, as the OP has suggested, that the people she's talking about are involved in dodgy financial dealing or possibly drug dealing.

If that's not being 'holier-than-thou' I can't imagine what is.

The OP's post is the online equivalent of her peeping through her net curtains, spreading nasty gossip and casting aspersions on the character of these neighbours.

You can almost hear the OP tutting and opining, in regard to the neighbour, 'she's no better than she ought to be' when in actual fact she has absolutely no idea where the money this person is spending comes from.

Nah, she just sounded curious. It's not like these people are identifiable from what she's said so really it's just an abstract discussion about how some people seem to be living a much more expensive lifestyle than they look like they can afford. It's interesting. I know a couple of people like that too IRL (not that I think they're criminals, just that they seem to live way beyond obvious means) so was interested in the comments. If there's a (legal, non-sex-work) get-rich-quick scheme going in the background, god knows I'd like a piece of it!

But people on Mumsnet love nothing better than judging other people on Mumsnet so the post obviously brought all of those to the yard.

Yes - gambling habit with at least one of the crooked accountants too, my friend said. He owed thousands and was not even being that subtle about stealing it from the company so got caught quite quickly.

It's not just nosey though is it, its accusatory. I think it's unpleasant, you don't and I guess that's ok.

Who is she accusing though? They're unnamed people off the internet who may or may not exist IRL. It's not a witch hunt if nobody knows who the witches actually are or where to find them.

I knew a couple like this and wondered how they funded their lifestyle as they had top of the range cars, expensive holidays to the Maldives and just have a really luxurious life. I would say to DH how can they afford all this whilst our salaries were much bigger at the time and we could not even remotely do these things. We soon found out when the man was arrested for fraud. Stealing money from his company. Falsifying invoices and set up a limited company and pocketed the cash. He went to prison, story in daily fail and she left him.

So what if it’s accusatory? We are allowed to have a discussion if we want.

we are talking about people whose identity we have absolutely no clue about. We could call them Mr. Mrs Smith. The fact is we do not have any idea who these people are so whatever we say will have no impact on them.

Without sounding rude, is it any of your buisness ?. You sound very jealous and bitter. Just accept that they have more money than you and let it go. If they are up to no good, it will catch up with them in the end, it always does. If they are in debt, then thats up to them. It dosent effect you 1 way or the other.

Knowing the prices of all these high end clothes and thinking they must be up to something dodgy because they have nice things and going on holiday.

Just kinda screams jealous and bitter, if it was pure curiosity there wouldn't be any nasty accusations

The only other couple I know like this get money through selling drugs. She has a part time job she does a couple times a week to legitimise money.

My cousin's family lived like this: fancy house, fancy cars, fancy holidays, took extended family on holidays, etc. Cousin's husband was the CFO of a finance type of company ... and is now in prison for fraud for stealing quite a bit of money from said company. It all came crashing down and my cousin and her family, who had to know, likes to pretend otherwise.

https://taxscouts.com/self-employed-tax-returns/what-tax-do-you-pay-if-you-sell-on-ebay/

Business also buy items to sell. It doesn't matter what price they sell it at whether more or less than purchase price, but they still have to declare. Why is an individual any different?

You may find that once you get into all of it properly you don't need to pay anything. But that doesn't mean you don't need to declare.. just like a lossmaking business still needs to file a tax return

This is exactly the sort of anecdote that proves the couple OP is talking about are almost definitely not "millionaires next door". Genuinely self-made millionaires who choose to keep a normal job are usually humble and keep a low profile. They don't want to draw attention to themselves and their money.

The couple here sound like tacky, Instagrammy, show off types who want to make people notice their wealth but they are not quite smart enough to create a believable back story. You could almost add poorly-educated there as well because slightly smarter people who have illicit income will know better than to flash it around until acquaintances or total strangers start to question it.

Debt, drug or inheritance. Either way, 2 of those are not your business but definitely curious.

So is it the well educated types who assume the income is illicit, without having any proof and belittle strangers on the internet, because they have an inflated sense of their own self worth?

I wouldn't worry about what others are doing it doesn't concern you where there cash comes from

They sound a bit like some parents at my sons primary school (he’s now at secondary)
Turns out they were doing low level porn (you really wouldn’t look twice at them) and only fans and are making £10k a month!!

It concerns us all if it's from tax evasion, money laundering, drugs dealing, cons, etc., as we're all affected by the black economy tax evasion, street crime, etc.

And similarly it concerns us all if we turn into a nation of busybodies prepared to shop our neighbours to the tax man with absolutely no proof of wrongdoing. Other peoples’ finances are private and should be treated as such. It’s akin to people shopping benefit claimants to DWP because they think they ‘don’t look disabled enough’. If you aren’t personally involved to the extent where you know all the circumstances best to mind your biz.

I haven't read through the whole thread, but they could have been lucky with investments. There are people who invested in things like Bitcoin and sold before it tanked. It was very cheap and even given away when it first came out. The problem when it first came out is many did not take it seriously and didn't "keep" their account or p/w and then when it took off, couldn't access it and BC was no help. Other stocks etc. have had some real winners in the past.
I knew a nice lady that babysat. Her DH earned an okay amount but the one thing she did, every two weeks, is invest a bit of their money. It paid off for her.
Not saying it could be income from nefarious enterprises, but it's really not a given.