AIBU that our friends are much richer than they've let on?

[richmanpoorman]

Long and weird one, that has completely split a friend group.
18 years ago we attended antenatal classes and met a lovely group of people. Out of 8 couples in the class, 5 have stayed in the same location and we’ve all become super close. We see each other all the time in big and small groups and go on a holiday once a year. The children are all very close.

Now all our oldest are 18 they’re all looking at university. The kids were all out having a drink and the subject of funding came up. They’re all doing a combination of loans plus parental contribution except one lad who drunkenly admitted that his parents have a fund for him and his younger sister, for university and house deposits, of around £850k.

Under any other circumstances this would have been none of our business… except for the last 18 years they’ve pleaded poverty. As a group we are all in a relatively comfortable situation, with the exception of this couple who despite quite impressive sounding jobs were very open about struggling financially with a big mortgage etc. Therefore we’ve all been really careful. Every time we’ve gone out for we pick a budget option. Every holiday has been planned based on the fact that they could only pay half what others could afford so we’ve spent 18 years staying in some pretty grim self catering places. In context, say they paid £500 for their share of the accommodation- another £500 (or even £250) from each couple would have been a nice upgrade holiday wise.

It turns out that they made a decision to only live on one income, and to totally save and invest the other income. Apparently they have just therefore never factored it into consideration as it went straight into various investment accounts, so they were technically broke as it wasn’t then easily accessible. One year we all actually paid for her son to attend rugby camp as they didn’t have the cash. It wasn’t a lot of money (£20 a day) but the audacity feels huge.

3 of the couples have stopped speaking to them. (Tbh it might have landed better if the last holiday self catering place hadn’t had been so totally grim, with the younger daughter of one of the families injuring herself due to some shoddy maintenance….)

DH and I are more on the fence. While as a group we all earn roughly the same we do come from different backgrounds- DH and I a more modest teacher/ nurse/ bookkeeper/ florist combo compared to some of the others who did have significant financial help early on in life. This early financial help is clear in the lives they live- with similar earnings we have a much smaller house, state schools etc. Family help early on has made a massive difference to the lives of some in the group. The couple in question have explained that they both come from very impoverished backgrounds, with a lot of financial insecurity. Good degrees and careers landed them in a group of friends where it was obvious the impact money had early in life (eg house deposits, no loans etc). So they made the decision to do that for their children. They’re not materialistic themselves so didn’t miss skiing/ nice clothes/ smart cars/ home decor etc, so they just decided to “hack” their kids into a fantastic start in life.

Our other friends argue that the impact of another £1-2k a year on a few nicer holidays and dinners etc wouldn’t have materially impacted the fund, and would have meant that we could have had better group experiences, plus there’s all the intangible stuff like not suggesting we stop for coffees because it felt uncomfortable that they wouldn’t get anything, and being careful talking about other spending in case it seemed insensitive.

I’m so upset. We had such a lovely group with such a strong bond and now it’s all a mess. We’re the only couple still talking to everyone which in itself is causing problems. I’m posting here because we’ve just been added to a group called “Skiing 2025” with all of the group except this couple, which seems pointed (because we’ve never even suggested skiing before because of the cost.)

The kids are upset. The son is deeply depressed that he started this and they’re trying to stay friends separately.

I suppose my AIBU is “am I being unreasonable to be pissed off that my friends were richer than they let on?” and more broadly what would people do?

Ps- I’m aware some of them are on Mumsnet….

I can see why you’re annoyed - I don’t like dishonesty- but I do wonder how much of the history of scrimping is self inflicted?

We have a group of families who holiday together - one family often choose to have a packed lunch rather than eat out for lunch. The rest of us don’t feel like we need to have sandwiches just because they are. I don’t know whether they can’t afford the lunch out or whether they are just making different choices. But I don’t feel awkward about it. Same for coffees - some people buy coffees, some don’t, no big deal surely?

On the holiday itself - did someone suggest a pricier nicer option and this couple said they couldn’t afford it so wouldn’t come? Or did you all just assume it had to be a cheap option and so only offer that?

Saying, oh actually we'd prefer to not spend that much this year because we are trying to save, is completely different to pleading poverty, and not being able to pay for a £20 football tournament, or a coffee.
That's how I feel about it.
Saying £X is our holiday budget is fine. The friends can make a decision based on that and they're under no obligation to spend more on a holiday than they want to.

Creating a fake poverty persona, pretending to be broke to the point where your friends spend 18 years tailoring group activities to include you because they feel they can't suggest things that you might not afford, and inevitably being subbed the way PP mentioned (eg don't worry coffee is on us, we'll get the wine, let's have dinner at ours rather than going out which is probably not reciprocated) is the sort of thing some people will struggle to come back from.

They just have different budgeting and priorities than others.

That's like one couple having a large house and huge mortgage and therefore disposable income being less and everyone telling them to just get a smaller house so the group can go on fancier holidays

That's how they have chosen to budget their finances. I don't think it's anything to do with the rest of the group. Their disposable income they have assigned themselves is low and they are prioritising their children's lives over fancy holidays and days out

@saltinesandcoffeecups I think I just have different relationships with my friends plus everyone can see what you pay for your house these days!

What I’m hearing is that if you’d all known the state of their bank balance, regardless that you couldn’t force them to spend it on more expensive holidays, you would have decided that an expensive holiday was more worth it than leaving them out of your group.

imagine the reverse: “are we unreasonable? Our friends want us to spend an extra £500 on a holiday so they can all have a nicer room in a shared holiday home. We’d rather get a cheaper house, and use the money for things that will benefit our children in the long-term as they are unlikely to get any inheritance and we want them to have a good future. Besides, we would have to go into debt to spend the extra as all our savings are tied up in accounts you can’t access and we don’t have that cash going spare“.

I’d be more pissed off tbh if I had a spendy friend who always insisted on us going out to expensive places when I couldn’t afford it. If they didn’t insist on cheap places so they could be included, but everyone else decided they wanted to include them, then you either liked them for who they are in which case what’s the problem, OR there is an element of smug ‘oh we are so kind and generous for slumming it so John and Sarah can come too’. And now they feel deceived that they have somehow been tricked out of a flashier time just because your friends are sensible!

I agree @Foxblue (apart from all of the ‘like’s).

This!!
The couple lied. Do not lie to your friends.

it’s not cool to cosplay poverty…

@Iwouldlikesomecake they have been lied to. Do you not think lying to your friends matters?

Yeah, it’s really the dishonesty. But….. it can be really hard to explain this sort of thing, especially when other people are living life differently. They maybe would have felt pressure to spend more than they were comfortable with if you’d all known?

I don’t really understand the avoiding coffees out thing? I rarely buy a coffee out but will happily meet a group of friends and just bring my water bottle (in a relaxed playground cafe - not somewhere smarter).

I prioritise school fees so we absolutely can’t join in with very expensive group holidays etc. but that’s ok. I would feel bad if I was in a group who curtailed their holidays to me though.

I think grace is needed here. If you’ve all been friends this long it’d be so sad to fall out now.

Do the other couple’s who have fallen out with them got a fund for their children?

Aha apologies, very much a local dialect quirk where I'm from!

Apparently the issue is that they paid once (in 18 years) for a rugby club at the tune of £20 a day, unclear whether they were pressuring the frugal couple to send their son or if the frugal couple outright asked the friend group to pay...OP hasn't said.

Compounding interest is a powerful thing. It’s totally doable and not very hard for that timeframe.

(5% is a super low rate)

I would find it far easier to explain my finances than to accept charity from friends when I knew I had plenty of cash in the bank.
Who on earth lets others pay for a rugby camp when they have plenty of money themselves? I am astonished anyone thinks this is ok

Thing is, I have way less disposable income than my colleagues on the same salary with children in state schools. It’s a choice.

In the same vein, some of my friends have taken on mind boggling high mortgages - so they have much less.

Its ok. People prioritise what is most important to them.

I can smell a whiff of privileged outrageous from your other NCT friends. People who have come from wealthy families sometimes really don’t get it.

My husband has family members who are similar, stash the cash but plead poverty. She actually allowed a supermarket employee to pay for some of her shopping once because she had 'run out of money"! I don't care how people spend or don't spend their own money but don't lie!

Compounding interest is a powerful thing. It’s totally doable and not very hard for that timeframe.

It’s doable if the other earner is a high one because mortgages, rents, maintenance, childcare, dc are not cheap. To maintain that regular commitment for so many years is impressive.

@ComeAlongPeggy or maybe they just do not like being lied to?
I come from a poverty background and would not speak to anyone who lied to me like this.

I think you are hugely overinvolved in each others lives and business tbh, and your children sound even more so. They are 'upset'? Why on earth are a group of teens upset that another family have large savings? A bit envious of their children maybe, but thats life isnt it? If they were mine I'd think they were long overdue a lesson in myob.
You must have had a pretty good idea of this couples income and outgoings from their jobs and assets, yet you chose without question to go along with the budget they set and pay for their DS. What did you think they were doing with their money?

I get different financial priorities but they were very silent on this. With knowledge we could have made a decision about where to go and not felt bad giving them the option to attend or not based on their financial situation

Genuine question, do you think that with full information the group would have decided to take a more expensive holiday without this family? Especially as you say they are great fun, nice people, organise lots of stuff etc? I wonder if actually you would have made the same decisions?

This is a really really good perspective. I honestly think if they'd have been honest we'd have all stayed friends and carried on doing things their way most of the time. They're that nice! However we might also have done the weekend away, suggested some posher meals etc which they could have made a decision about.
We'd probably have also paid for the rugby as he's a good lad and it was £100 in the great scheme of things (although there might have been an eyebrow or two raised!) and the other kids really wanted him there.
It just feels dishonest

Genuine question, do you think that with full information the group would have decided to take a more expensive holiday without this family? Especially as you say they are great fun, nice people, organise lots of stuff etc? I wonder if actually you would have made the same decisions?

They probably would have mixed it up.

Have you, or the others in the group, spoken to the couple?

I'd want to see the whites of their eyes whilst they explained how it's ok for you to subsidise their childs rugby.

If you like them, then it's forgivable, but I imagine the whole friendship would be tainted after this.

@CassandraWebb a £20 per day rugby club is something I would accept from a friend who know I’d struggle to pay it. One of my friends paid for music lessons for one of my children for a year because I was financially pinched. I have way more equity than her (and she knew that) but so much less disposable income at the time. I would do the same for her child (I now have more disposable income than her).

I read the rugby thing as “oh, I’ll get this” and if it was say a week, £100 isn’t actually that much for lots of people as a one off kind gesture.