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 don't understand why you didn't always do mental calculations and think they must have had an income that would have supported rugby camps etc. I also think blaming them for less salubrious holiday accommodation is unfair. If anyone doesn't want to go to holiday accommodation because it's not up to their standards they could just say no? They agreed to go? Another one that thinks jealousy is part of this. Where do savings become disclosable to a group? Should I tell my friends I put £500 away every month when I say I'd rather a train than a taxi?

I had a friend that constantly pleaded poverty, I always ended up taking cakes when I visited. She wouldn’t do a birthday tea for her daughter so I ended up taking more and more until I was providing everything for her daughter’s birthday celebrations. Constantly subsiding her when we all went out. Then discovered she’d paid off her mortgage. I felt exploited and the relationship never recovered.
I didn't come from money, she did.

I didn’t have driving lessons till my 30s because I moved abroad after graduating and started my own business. I then paid for driving lessons with my own money when I needed to drive. If given the choice at 18 years of age between driving lessons … or access to £425,000 to spend on a property, travel,a year of living like a rock star etc I wouldn’t have chosen the former. As for pursing talents, again with the assumptions …

Hmm … the grown ups having a ton of fun holidaying for years and years with best mates group which includes “the poorer ones” (as opposed to going on normal “boring for the grown ups but fun for the kids” family holidays like most people do). Then pissed off on discovering that the “poorer ones” were in fact the “richer ones” all along.

It's interesting the different interpretations of "afford" on this thread.

"I can't afford xyz" means, to some, I don't have any money left.

To others, it means "I am choosing not to spend my money on this". Both can be true in different circumstances.

I'd be interested to know how much the couple deliberately made out the former, or how much was interpretation. As I said before, if they're choosing not to spend on other things others would consider essential (and some luxuries) like clubs, I can see how either interpretation would stick.

The holidays wouldn’t bother me. They budgeted an amount for it and the spending as based on that.

Letting people think they were so skint that you needed to subsidise their children’s activities is a different thing and would really have annoyed me

Yep. They made a budget and stuck to it. And they presumably assumed that the other couples were doing the same…

the rugby incident does sound fairly bad and they probably should have refused that kind of “charity”. But the other couples apparently aren’t even angry about that! Which really is quite telling.

They aren’t upset to have spent money on somebody who wasn’t “genuinely” needy. They’re upset that this other couple didn’t spend more money!
They’re essentially upset that the “poor couple” didn’t budget the way they would have wanted (or expected…) them to!

They are upset their friends lied to them for 20 years. Spend your money how you want, that is not the issue. Do not lie to your friends.

The OP has not actually clarified that they lied though.

I have a suspicion a lot of this is around assumptions that were made 18years ago and the group have remained fixed in these positions for all this time.

They did lie. They said they could not afford things, rather than saying we want to budget for less than that. One is a clear lie.

I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.

They’ve made the decision to put aside a lot of their money into a fund for their children, and therefore live frugally.

They’ve let you know their budgets for activities. Presumably the important thing was you all spending time together rather than doing expensive activities?

Unless they’ve been trying to pay less than everyone else, or getting other people to subsidise them, I don’t see the problem. If you wanted to go and stay somewhere really posh sometimes you could’ve done so and they could have decided whether or not to go.

“They didn't ask” (others to pay for the rugby and post match drinks)

But they didn't say “no thank you” either, and declined.

Its one thing making choices as to where to spend your money, but its another to have others make up for the impact of those choices on your children.

To be honest, no school trips, no driving lessons etc - it sounds totally miserable for the children. They could have kept a very small % back in an accessible account for “treats” and it wouldnt have made much of a dent in £850k. They didn't want (to pay for) their child to have those experiences but were happy for others to pay.

Wealthy people are wealthy because they're greedy and stingy. I'm surprised anyone is surprised here. It's morally contemptible but it's totally sensible.

It sounds like it was one activity in 18 years and they didn't ask for it. In that context it doesn't seem like such a big deal

@fuchsteufelswild can’t agree with that, some of the most generous people I know are wealthy.

It sounds like they’ve got the balance wrong somewhere and been too bloody minded to not let it impact occasions. On the other hand, well done to them for pumping a salary in to an investment vehicle for the benefit of their own.

Surely this can be navigated to not waste the years of friendship.

I would also say that it sounds like the group are possibly over invested in other people’s affairs.

This couple are entirely in the wrong. It is of course up to them how they spend or save their money but what isn't right is to lie to friends that they are broke, so that decisions about what to do and where to go are based on that. The group seem like kind people making sure that the 'skint' family are never excluded from things because they can't afford. When the reality is that they weren't skint, they were choosing to do other things with their significant amounts of money.

If they choose to save so much money, they have to accept their choices come with consequences - shed loads in the bank but miss out on doing some things that they aren't willing to pay for.

They are making the choice to prioritise saving but by being dishonest about their financial situation they have taken choice away from the rest of the group.

Of course they don't have to go into detail about their finances but to close friends could just say 'we choose to save quite a lot of money so we keep our budget very low for holidays/socialising and we understand that will mean there are things we can't do'

Rugby Camp Gate would piss me off. Bloody outrageous of them to accept that.

Their financial decisions outside of this, I would be shocked but also accept their choices. You all chose a budget for holidays etc, you just happened to chose their finances as your base level.

This

on some level I’m impressed how strictly they have kept to this budget for 18 years for the benefit of their children

This is so interesting. My first thought was that I’m surprised the friendship with this couple had endured such a long time when it’s meant the other families have had to compromise so much.

I think they’ve been quite disingenuous actually, with things like the 50th weekend away, saving up mum should have said, I can’t make it but you guys go ahead without me.

The rugby camp thing is just embarrassing, they should have repaid that immediately.

The accident in the holiday rental isn’t really their fault, they should be putting the blame at the door of the holiday letting agent or owner but I can see how people have joined the dots on that.

@ItsAllAboutTheDosh I just think that is such a slippery slope argument. Most of the time when people are not in poverty, they are making choices about money.

I once told a friend I couldn't come to their wedding abroad because I couldn't afford it. What I really meant was "I don't want to dip into my savings for it". But am I obliged to explain that level of detail to them? I don't think so. My money, my choice, no explanations needed.

All holiday budgets are choices because they are discretionary. Presumably the other couples could have afforded even MORE expensive holidays if they had made different choices elsewhere and yet they didn't. Are they at fault for that?

True. Most wealthy people are so because they are careful with their money . OP and her friends are I think just jealous more than anything

there are quite a few things I “can’t afford” even though I technically have the funds to cover that expense.

I could buy that lilac Gucci bag and go on a spontaneous trip to the American SW (a reference to that other thread about the new handbag).

But that currently wouldn’t be in my “clothes / leisure activity” budget. Which would mean that I couldn’t do / pay for something else.

so if a friend were to ask me wether I’d want to go on a 2 week trip to the American SW next week, I’d have to say “no, I unfortunately can’t afford it” (and I wouldn’t have the time either).

And that would be the truth. because that money is meant to be spent on something else.

That something else was their children’s funds and investments.
Your something else might be your horse’s vet bills. Or a new car. Or your mortgage payments. Or a cleaner. Or wine, whiskey, massage therapy sessions…

Isn’t the fairly normal as soon as there’s some discretionary income?

I disagree - saying I can't afford £100 for champagne doesn't mean I literally don't have £100. As I posted earlier "affording" means different things at different times to different people. They see that money as 'gone' into the savings so they don't have it.

I'm not saying they're right, but saying 'we want to budget for less' is different from 'we can't afford it' isn't always true - the two are often synonymous.

I don't think they've done anything wrong. They've done something fantastic for their kids, good on them.

I'd suspect a few peoples noses have been put out of joint as they now have bigger nest eggs to set thier kids up, and their kids are going to be sorted better than theirs.

Really? Do you do this? I have savings, I don't tell someone I can afford this, but I'm choosing not to. Does anyone really do this??