To think people with money would never understand

[Canfeelamozzieflyingaround]

I live in an affluent area, we have a nice, but average house, I’m from a middle class background (I think!) but one parent from a working class background, all very down to earth.
I have a good job, degree educated, but it’s not a well paying job. In the holidays I supplement by doing some childcare/babysitting. I often babysit for wealthy people. Just being in their homes and everything about the way they are and the things they have is so different.
They would have no idea, for example that we live basically month to month and these little nights working for them pay some small bills or afford a small treat for my dc…to them it would be nothing.
Even the things they fill their fridges with and the sun creams and toiletries used (not snooping! Some on tbe coffee table, on the toilet etc)
I don’t know..I always feel less of an adult when I leave and wonder why my life didn’t go like this and theirs did

@Bacon88 You are wrong. All plans write off the loan after x number of years. You DO NOT have to pay all of plan 1 back. It’s either 30 years or when you are 65. See the government web site. You clearly made decisions on poor research. Am I surprised?

Also one imagines with your poor job choices, according to you, you won’t be paying off anything anytime soon!

You weighed up degree or apprenticeship. Financially you are wrong about the loan repayments. Just accept you are wrong. Are you a Chartered Accountant?

@TizerorFizz

I am not wrong. Do you really trust the govement that they will write off all this debt after 30 years when the small print says they can change it??

I weighed it up on the basis that when I started looking for jobs my retirement date was 2056. By the time I had left school that was now 2062. Trust in the government to write the 60k in debt off was the main reason I didn't go.

I think that is a mature decision.

Fyi I have zero debt and a comfortable life. I am just saying people seem to think it is easy and also others get paid big bucks in corporate careers. It's just not the case. Some of us just spend the money better even if we earn less. So point for OP..

You learn things from being broke (or on the edge of it) that people who've always been comfortable never will. I know it sounds a bit like putting "went to the school of hard knocks" on your FB profile, but it's simply true.

I'm not sure I'd like to be the sort of person who's so sheltered that they feel threatened or disgusted walking through the sorts of places I've lived, even if they do have nicer things.

Look at those below you in money and other simple things in life and you'll be much happier

I mean you could always explain it to them...I know that conversation can be awkward and uncomfortable but you also can't expect people to be sympathetic to a need they don't know you have.

When I worked as a contract copywriter for my previous employer I was paid on the 1st and 16th of every month. There were times when money was tight and I needed to be paid before those days so I would be able to buy food or take care of important bills. And so I would say to him, I know I get paid on X day, but I have something I need to take care of tomorrow/this weekend can I send you the invoice and you can pay me today? I never gave him the details of why things were tight, but I did communicate to him that I had an immediate financial need and needed to be paid early. My boss was always ok with helping me out in that way. Since this is a babysitting job you should be able to set how you get paid with them.

Again, you don't have to disclose your entire financial situation to them, but you can at least let them know that you're depending on this money for certain things in your life and so you need to be paid in cash right away. That way they know there's an issue and they can be prepared for it. If they don't know they can't help you and you're not really in a place to complain about it because you're not communicating what you need with them.

I would also say that while they may not understand everything you go through, there are also things in their lives that you probably wouldn't understand either. I get a bit tired of this idea that rich people have no problems or that they don't struggle or that they can't understand what the rest of us go through. You don't know everything about their lives or how they came into their situation. Some may have been born into it but there are probably some that worked really hard early on in their life and earned every penny they have. In the same way that we shouldn't look down on or judge people in poverty for their situation, we shouldn't judge rich people either because we don't know their whole situation.

Bacon, since Covid it is ia bit of a whole new world for accountancy (and for my family legal) careers because most places are letting people work from home at least 2 days a week, some more. It is making London higher paid jobs available in a way they were not in the past so may be worth looking again at a London accountancy job particularly if you could work your way up to the £1m a year partner earnings some earn there, even if you have to commute to London for 2 nights a week.

On the issue on the thread some richer people will understand the position of the less well off and others will have no idea at all. 1 in 4 people in the UK have zero savings and live month to month.

Accountancy and Audit is brutal for the first 3 years. You basically work 60+hrs/week while you also do exams.

The reason salaries even for qualified accountants seems so low (compared to cost of living) is that the supply of students going into accountancy has increased. They also have to deal with many people from India coming in for the same roles with sponsorship.

I always advise people that with AI there is not much future for the industry. A big chunk of them will be automated away.

Bacon88 did the AAT route so she is very vulnerable now due to a lack of degree. It will be difficult for her to switch careers as the lack of degree will be a problem.

I always look at situations like this based on the moniquer "adapt or die". Thats how it works in the US. In London, its not as bad but the company politics tend to be a bit worse.

@Bacon88 What the hell are you on about? I didn’t take a job from a local, you had to be British trained. It also doesn’t mean I have to be middle class to move to Portugal, when does class factor into travelling and moving to new places? I moved when I was young and travelling around, I got a crappy job at first and rented a tiny apartment.
There’s something really wrong here and the whole thread has been derailed by this pointless arguing and insults to people.

Bacon88 explained things to you but you seem unable to process what they are saying.

Details matter.

The Government told Plan 1 folks that the duration of the loan was 30 years. And the income level was B

It then unilaterally decided to change the terms of the loan retroactively. From 30 years to 40 years, and from B to A. With B > A.

Effectively, Plan 1 folks are now paying a lot more £££ for their loans.

And that is illegal for consumet loans. But because its students, people like yourself dismiss their concerns.

I am not even remotely surprised by how angry students are in the UK. They have been shafted at every turn.

And that should concern you a lot because its those same people that will eventually be paying your pensions, social care, and NHS.

Dd1's best friend has a first in maths from Warwick and is now high up in the European Space Agency ( aged 31). Dd1's ex bf got a third in Maths at Cambridge and is doing very well teaching at a prestigious public school. We need to make the best of our opportunities (speaking as one who made mistakes at every turn).

This is MSE chart on when loans finish. I assume these dates apply to the poster. Where is 40 years that apply here? Unless she’s way older than she says? The latest loans are over a longer period. The interest rates can change based on base rate.

British students do not need to pay off their loans. They are not required to. Loans replaced grants given by LAs. Many grants didn’t cover living expenses and were means tested. Loans have allowed upwards of 40% of young people to go to uni. When DH went, it was 8%. The sector has expanded. Loans are funded by taxpayers. The debt held is huge as only around 50% pay off the loans. Most people pay the graduate tax and get on wit but. MSE has a full explanation of each loan plan.

The loan system in England is a mess because they keep changing the rules. The link below is for when your loan gets written off or cancelled.

For plan 1 there are two options.

Post-2006

25 years after you were first due to repay.

Pre-2006

Until 65 (Effectively this is 40 years)

I always tell folks now to reduce their loan size ad much as you can because the interest rates will effectively make this a graduate tax of 9% for all of your working life unless you are able to break earning £60k/year (about top 15th percentile income).

www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/when-your-student-loan-gets-written-off-or-cancelled

I used to work at an international school in Cyprus and the pay was shocking in comparison to the UK. Can you do any private tuition after school to top your wage up? I started doing that in my second year and made more money that way than I did teaching in the school.

OP has a wage and covers bills with a top-up job; the issue arose because she couldn't wait a weekend for money to clear. This wasn't someone refusing to pay, nor even paying late, the Portuguese banking system added the delay. The majority of the thread people have spent talking about earnings, which aren't relevant in this case. It is a problem OP can expect more and more these days when most don't carry cash and prefer to use cards.

The issue OP had is cashflow rather than earnings. This shows she doesn't have credit cards, has no overdraft facility, has nobody to borrow from, doesn't keep food stocks in the house, ran out of money before trying to get a top-up job instead of planning ahead to do it a week or two earlier, and doesn't keep any savings buffer. Any of those options would have helped. It is usually easier for wealthy people to build a small buffer, but it is possible and very important for everyone to do that. Back in my youth, I had times with nothing in the bank, and quickly realised that I needed those buffers. We still always keep stuff in the cupboard and freezer, have credit cards available, keep a small stash of emergency cash; all just in case. I'm self employed, so when my invoice payments were delayed for 5 months one year and we'd only just covered maternity leave, we really needed it; we knew the money would come eventually, but timing was a massive issue, so I absolutely understand the situation.

Short term OP, find your voice "I'm really sorry, but I needed the money in cash today.". Medium term think about credit card to tide over a late payment gap. Long term do one or two extra top-up jobs just to create a food/ emergency cash buffer and rebuild if it's spent when money is late, don't spend it on one emergency and leave it, make sure the next pay sets up a buffer again. If you aren't happy with your earnings and lifestyle then that's a different point to address, but don't be distracted dreaming of wealth when you can get your cash flow secure now.

Degree apprenticeships are a potential way out of this situation. A lot of companies will put their existing employees through them fairly readily.

@TheThinkingGoblin Bacon wasn’t talking about pre 2006. She says she’s young! MSE has great advice on paying off a lien, or not. If you don’t work for years or are part time, you might pay £0. The payments for most are low. My DD had pre 2012. Paid it off last year. But she earns a lot. The whole system was designed to allow far more to go to uni. However no 40 years. A few are to 65 but not at 9%.

(I don't think my son's friend is having a particularly brutal time as a young ICAEW accountant in London. He is often here at my house chatting (he and my sons still at home close to each other) although he certainly has worked vary hard including for what I think was recently the hardest and worst of the exams. I think the right to work from home 2 days a week (particularly if you are in a nice parents' house rather than a room share in a flat) these days makes life quite a bit easier for new graduates than in the old days.

I think your response is exactly what the OP is talking about.

I’m guessing it’s embarrassing for her to say that she is relying on that money. Why should she have to reveal her personal and private financial information because someone hasn’t paid at the agreed time?

As the OP points out, she has been put in a difficult/ embarrassing situation because someone doesn’t have the awareness to think that someone babysitting on minimum wage might need that money!

And you can bet your bottom dollar that the OP’s rich client isn’t comfortable sharing her financial situation with anyone either.

OP has already said they are not in the UK - are you accepting that teachers are poorly paid in other countries too, and it’s not just a UK thing or the Tories?

You don't know what is behind their wealth. I would probably be seen as one of those people..large detached house we have just renovated. Lots of cocktail cabinets filled with booze ( we like to entertain). Currently.sat on balcony of cruise ship in Mediterranean. Our shopping Is over £800 a month. 2 hungry sons living at home. I was homeless at 16 and again in my early 30s. I have worked very hard to be who and where I now am. I remember very much having to add up when shopping only using cash so I didn't overspend. My sons clothes were bought from charity shops for a few years. I refuse to worry about money now and spend what I like. I have been in poverty and am now enjoying not worrying about money. Not everyone has always had money. Some of us have had it hard..

A cruise ship in the Med? Wow!