Imagine if Betty lived near you

[Aserena]

Inspired by another thread.

Meet Betty:

• Betty earns £50k (pre tax) per year, with a stable career.
• She is mid-life and single with no children.
• She has no wealthy relatives.

What living conditions and lifestyle would you expect Betty to have, in the area where you live?

Tell us where she’s living and how she spends her dosh. Feel free to be imaginative!

Have you read the post in entirety? It’s a “what if”, yet you have totally bought into it. I think you need to look within!

I'm originally from Liverpool - when I move back in 5 years I'll hook with Betty and we can go out on the lash!

Please excuse all the missing words and letters - when I am tired my ability to type vanishes

As long as you like a good thrashing out of politics and thinks a protest sounds fun and goes wherever the night takes you, you'd have a good night out.
It's amazing how no-one on here thinks of older women having an active interest in politics, take note on the next televised march, we are out in numbers.

I might be Betty with a better wage.
Cheshire townhouse bought when i was on 50k
2 adored nephews visited as much as poss
Big dog dedicated to
Really good job that i do just enough to get through
Benidorm 4 times a year
Go out when i want
Stay in when i want
Buy what i want
Close to family
Make the effort with my lifelong friends, my uni friends, my work friends etc etc
Try new things
Generally appreciate what ive got

I guess you're Betty OP.

Why otherwise start a thread about her, if not to get strangers' input?

Are you happy with your life? Wondering what to do with it?

Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick.

It's amazing how no-one on here thinks of older women having an active interest in politics, take note on the next televised march, we are out in numbers.

My single, London-based, middle-aged SIL is very much into politics, as are all of her friendship group.

Well £50k is about £3k take home? 1 bed flat rental near me around £1.2K per month plus bills - another £450 say. Doesn't leave a lot left over for food, transport, socialising, holidays. Betty would lead a bit of a frugal life if she wanted to save or purchase big items. Mortgage on a 1 bed (at £325K say) would be even more.

Oh yes - been involved in politics since I was 13 - stood on picket lines, I was at Greenham (weekends only), marches against section 28, poll tax etc - still very active. I like nothing more than putting the world to rights of a bottle or two and wine (good stuff because, you know, us oldies have disposable income!)

I agree with every single word of this. My Betty is the same.

Ok, making an assumption that she sticks 5% into a pension, bringing her take home to 3K a month.

Rent on a one bed flat: £1450 in SE London Zone 4
Council Tax: £120
Utilities £120
Internet: £40
Phone: £60
Subscriptions Netflix Spotify etc: £40
Gym: £55
Insurance: £10
Travel (Hybrid role, working 3 days a week in Zone 1) £200
Food: £250 including wine

She sticks £200 into a LISA in a vain attempt to try and get herself out of her renting hell as a single person.

Leaves her £455.

She goes out once a week with her colleagues on a Thursday (its the new Friday). Two for One cocktails £25, a new pod for her vape £5, and a Big Mac meal on the way home: £8
£152 a month

Nails done monthly at trendy shoreditch salon: £45

Train ticket home to see her mum in Kent: £18

Flowers for mums birthday: £20

Dinner with shit Bumble date in Soho inc drinks £55

Uber home: £25

Lunch at work when sick of leftovers - £10 x 4

Toiletries: £50

£50 on credit card debt for the overseas wedding of her best friend last year.

Betty will have had her mortgage for years, she’s probably close to paying it off.

Betty would live far from me.
There are maybe two areas, on the very edge of town where she might have a home, but she'd be rattling around in a three bed detached so she would probably just live somewhere much nicer.
Somewhere with a low(er) crime rate, less feral drug addicts, less litter, and less antisocial behaviour.

Betty lives in a small, one bed flat in zone 5. It's a cute flat in a Victorian conversion, but not the greatest area. She's saving to move, hoping to get a 2 bed flat in zone 3. Her mortgage is a reasonable £600 a month, and she doesn't have any debts, a car or a pet, leaving her plenty of disposable cash for holidays (usually c.3 foreign trips a year), a wide range of hobbies and socialising with friends. She didn't grow up with a lot of money and considers herself very fortunate to be in the position she is. She still has the potential to earn a higher salary, though she prioritises the nature of her work over salary.

It would depend where Betty worked.

If she worked in London then she would rent a 1 bed flat cause she would have no savings due to train fares but would live reasonably comfortably.

If she worked locally as one of the very few local professions that earn that (vet, doctor, high level nurse, head teacher) then she may own a 2 bed terrace and again be reasonably comfortable.

She couldn't be trade because she couldn't afford anywhere with parking for a van.

in my area, on that income, Betty would share a 2 bed flat, but she’d have her own bathroom. And a small dog. She does use the on-site gym and pool regularly, meets up with the dog group, and is a member of the book and film clubs, as well as the gardening club.

Betty is the female version of my brother:

Lives in a mortgaged one bed flat.
1.5 hour daily commute into London.
10 year old car.
1 city break a year, sometimes 2.
Friday night drinks after work.
Once or twice a month to the theatre or cinema.
Shops at Tesco, frugally.
Charity Shop clothes.
Weekend hikes.
Enjoys own company and reading.

£50,000 pa pre tax is conservative for Betty despite her modest lifestyle. Courtesy of a torrid affair with a rock star a few decades back she replaces her comfortable static caravan with super fibre connection, every three years. She reads tarot and gives lifestyle advice to wealthy clients and it keeps her very comfortable.

She's vegetarian, is naturally attractive, so spends nothing on beauty products and keeps fit because she takes very long walks twice a day, enjoying nature. She purchased a half acre woodland plot and charmed the parish council into giving her permission to live there off grid. Locals have noticed that the Chair no longer meets her in the eye.

Any resemblance to a living person is purely coincidental.

Weirdest thread yet

Your post isn’t a ‘what if’.
It’s objectionable, whatever MNHQ decides.

Other threads are available. Nobody’s forcing you to read or post to this one.

Research for something !

She'd be living in a 4 bed new build.
She'd have to catch the worlds slowest, most unreliable and most infrequent train 30 miles into the nearest city to earn that salary.
She wouldn't be seen dead in the town centre by day or evening, so shopping and socialising would be done 10 miles away.
If she didn't fancy dating a 1970s throwback identikit potato she would give the local talent a swerve.
Every day she would be scouring right move in despair as properties in other areas moved further out of reach while her own lost value.
Every day she would curse herself for not realising that if you get 'a lot for your money' in terms of a house, there's a reason.

I’m actually finding your behaviour towards me, one of a nasty vindictive bully. You haven’t had a pop at anyone else on here, just me, and that, shows to me and others that you are the meanspirited, awkward, and objectionable individual here.

Oh sorry. I thought we were supposed to be supportive and inclusive like decent human beings. My mistake.
Crack on with your ageist, sexist nonsense. Incidentally, it isn’t the thread I don’t like. It’s a few specific posts.