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

As a father, when does ones financial assistance to their children ever end? I grant you maybe never, it will likely be an open ended commitment for many parents.

Even so, there does come a point where you might have to question these commitments, especially when you are getting near to retirement age, as I am.

I defo live in what has now become a bubble area. Ime it's very common for a certain sphere of society to have loads of parental help eg private school/tutoring. Then it's a car, house deposit, help with gcs schooling, help moving up the ladder, etc.

Hasn’t he had a letter saying they are closing all accounts so will have had to move (misses point of thread)?

There will no doubt be exceptions, but I agree OP most don't have a clue, there's a path alot of wealthy families go down to perpetuate wealthy generations. Private schools and good contacts are 99% of the battle for getting a head start in life.

Get your hard hat on though OP there's a concentrated amount of 6 figure salary MNetters on here that will assure you they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and that everyone in the country should retrain to work in the finance industry (instead of being an poverty stricken educator or health professional) and contribute nothing of real value to society except an increasing wealth gap... ;)

I agree & definitely a refusal to see it as anything other than hard work.

I'm self employed. My terms are payment 24 hours in advance. First time clients have to pay at the time of booking.

The OP would be wise to insist on payment in advance in future.

OP I’m sorry you’re struggling. Life in general is not fair. I personally think all jobs contribute to society, income taxes get paid, VAT gets paid on purchases and people employ others. We are very lucky and work very hard, we are paid well. If you hadn’t asked me for cash payment I would always do a bank transfer, in post Covid days we simply don’t have cash apart from an emergency pot for if the banking system goes down.
Maybe you did pick the wrong career.

Maybe they are not as well off as they first appear. Some folks live beyond their means and then can't afford to pay others so delay payments.

This is so enormously strange. This isn’t how bank transfers work these days at all…:: standing orders sure, but not actual one off transfers which occur in seconds or minutes including weekends. How curious….

Another thread where many MNers are so desperate to stick the boot in they don't bother to read even the OP's posts.

For those who are still arriving to explain to OP that she's definitely well paid because teachers get plenty:

SHE IS NOT IN THE UK

HTH...

I pay my cleaner by bank transfer the day before she comes. As I said - my own service operates under those terms.

I'm saying this nicely, but I really think you should have said something like, it's fine to pay by bank transfer but please can you do it today as I have a bill I want to pay as soon as possible?

I pay my gardener by bank transfer and hands up, I sometimes forget to do it for a few days after he has been. But we always have a chat before he leaves and if he said something like the above, I would get on with it immediately. I know it's my fault for not always remembering to pay straight away, but equally I think these people maybe needed a gentle hint.

RTFT?

OP is NOT in the UK.

In Spain, for example, bank transfers are generally 'next day' and many/most have a cut off time after which it would take an extra day - i.e. send a payment at 9pm on Thursday and it would be Monday that it arrives.

And if I said what I think your attitude sounds like I'd be banned.

So I won't.

Never compare yourself to other people, you never know what is going on behind the scenes.

I am very comfortably off and my cleaner will probably assume the same you do of your baby sitting client. What she doesn't know is I grew up in poverty on state benefits. My mum was a cleaner and baby sitter to make ends meet and she would have to leave me and my siblings in the evenings on our own to go and do those jobs. She would sometimes have a client forget to pay her and it'd mean bills weren't paid and we had no food.

By the same token I have (once!) forgotten to transfer my cleaner her pay straight after she'd finished for the week and she texted asking me to pay it straight away. I was mortified, apologised and have never forgotten since. She was totally right to insist. Don't worry about it feeling awkward, THEY should be the ones who feel awkward. For very good reason. Do you think they wouldn't be getting straight in touch with their company if their salaries didn't go into their accounts one month? You can be damn full sure they would!

It sounds really tough OP. Your salary also sounds very low for a qualified teacher anywhere in the world! Do be careful of making assumptions though. I am fairly well spoken and live a nice life in a nice house. It would be.very easy to look at me and assume I had always had a charmed life and have no idea about financial struggle. That couldn't be further from the truth, it just isn't currently the situation.

@Martinisarebetterdirty I think because it’s all offset he doesn’t have too? but I am going to ask as it does my head in. So many other banks!

Well, the obvious way to avoid this is to tell the people you babysit for in advance, when they hire you, that you need to be paid cash on the night. Don’t be passive and expect them to divine that someone they have no reason to believe is on the breadline needs the payment to buy food. Are you not paid during the holidays?

I know it's my fault for not always remembering to pay straight away, but equally I think these people maybe needed a gentle hint.

Do you have to give your employer a gentle hint to pay you? I think part of the issue is the assumption that people doing babysitting or cleaning or gardening are doing it as a side hustle rather than this being or contributing to their household income, paying for essentials.

I have a small business, if every one of my clients needed a gentle hint to pay me I’d be chasing 10 people for money every week, which takes time (that I could be working and being paid) and honestly it feels like crap to have to remind people who have happily used your service that you actually do need to be paid for it.

For you it’s one small fee that you have forgotten, for them it’s chasing people who think it’s ok to pay on their timescale rather than when the work was done.

What

This

There are people that will look at you in the same way.

Dear X

Due to rising living costs and occasional late payment, I have had to raise my rates by X%, effective from X Y 2023'

An example was me relying on one parent paying me last week and they had no cash, so apologised and said was it ok if they transferred it to me.

We are wealthy (well, my husband earns shedloads more than I do, but we both earn well).

There is NO WAY if i didn't have cash that I wouldn’t have transferred the money to you immediately. I always pay babysitters directly after they leave and am mortified on the rare occasions I forget.

Clearly, money can’t buy manners.

Pretty much the only reason I get cash out these days is to pay my cleaner. On rare occasions I've forgotten to have some in my purse, but when that happened I got my phone out and transferred the cash while she's still here.

And yes, the insular attitudes of many posters who assume that everyone who posts here must be from the UK, is really depressing. Even if you can't be bothered to read someone's posts about their location, you surely know that it's called the world wide web for a reason.

I was absolutely broke as a divorced single parent of 2 and working as a supply teacher ( no pay in holidays, no pay if you don't work, days cancelled at last minute, paid for the work the month after you've done it, no UC in those days). Cash flow was a huge headache. Met my second husband. He grew up with money and earned a very good salary. He said he simply didn't think about money. It was always there and if he needed to sort out an issue or wanted to buy something he just did it without a thought. I had hand me down clothes from very kind ( and much better off friends) . He took me shopping. I spent £25.00 on a new pair of trousers in Next. To me that was huge because I hadn't shopped for anything new for years. We were talking about it recently ( been married for 20 years this year) and he said he had expected me to spend £1,000 that day. That would have been an unbelievable amount of money for me. I just couldn't have done it . We hadn't known each other for very long so communication about things like that was at the awkward stage and I would never have wanted him to think I was after his money.Hes a wonderful man but he has no concept of thinking about money 24 hours a day ,worrying how you are going to manage and dreading school sending you a bill for yet another thing or your car( given to me by my younger brother when he traded up) making a weird noise.