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….

The dishonesty would rankle me massively. Especially letting others pay for the rugby camp.

I have a certain budget that I stick to. I grew up with nothing and I get (very gently!) teased by everyone about being tight.

Often my friendship group are more than happy to stick within my budget. Sometimes they don’t, sometimes they want to splash out and that’s fine. Occasionally I’ll splurge with them (the year we all turned 40 for example) and sometimes I’ll skip it.

Pretending that it was because I was skint would totally change things. Not to mention that for all those years they were outright lying about being skint - so watching their words or choosing inaccurate ones. That’s not an authentic friendship imo.

It's the dishonesty that is the problem. You have born bending.over backwards to accommodate what you believed to be their less comfortable financial position. If you have known, its more likely there would.have been moments where you all said, "right, we really want to go skiing. I know.its not.in your budget so shall the rest of us do this one?"

Basically.you have been compromising for years without the correct information.

I had a friend and flatmate who was always broke. Her job paid so badly etc. So I paid for a lot of small things - a takeaway, a movie etc. We moved out and she bought a flat a few months rha later... turned out she had learnt more that she let on but had been religiously shocking away money every month. I was furious.

This all seems so unlikely...antenatal group where not only the adults are all great friends , but the offspring also get on marvellously.

The rugby thing is awful.
Otherwise they have been very savvy with their finances. It seems like sour grapes from the rest of the group.
Presumably they must be very good company, if everyone was prepared to accept budget holidays just so they could afford to come along.

If they chose to live off only one income and have the other income go directly into investments etc then their only disposable income was their one income. So I don't actually think they have been dishonest, they have just been very strict with themselves not to dip into the second income for any reason. So yes they could only afford X per holiday or Y per meal out.

@Moreorlessmentallystable you think anyone unhappy their friends have lied to them are just jealous? Really!!

Rugby club thing is shocking and enough to end a friendship because its an out and out lie and I also think it’s a dreadful lie to plead poverty. If they had just said I do not want to spend x amount that’s different.

When I read stuff like this it reminds me of why I am not massively keen on big groups because it’s so hard to please everyone regardless of lies or truths.

I will say one thing what a couple of twats telling their children. You just say we can fund XY and Z so don’t worry.

I will regularly tell people a can’t afford to do things rather than say I can afford it but don’t want to spend my money in that way.

But why? I’m doing renovations at the moment so my social budget is much reduced & my friends know.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment. Have they actually lied? I didn't read it as that. I read that they said their budget allowed them to spend a certain amount on those holidays which it did. Because their budget put other money aside. Are all the rest of the friends in families where your own kids are going to benefit at some stage from grandparental wealth. Possibly they feel they are just evening things up. Having come from a humbler background than many of my colleagues I do feel I need to give my kids whatever help I can to give them a chance in life.

That’s not an authentic friendship imo.

This. Its about lying. Every conversation and discussion is now tainted.

They might have said “no, we don’t have the budget for that” which was true compared to “we have no way of being able to afford that” and they clearly made it clear they would only pay a certain amount for things. Therefore, the others always had the option to either respect their budget limitations and go somewhere cheaper or not want to spend the time with them. It sounds like they wanted to spent the time with them and chose that.

Because people get defensive like you are passing judgment on their spending habits. Not everyone, but enough that it’s not worth finding out the hard way.

This is it. We're the closest to them in terms of background so I get it more. In context DH and I both got grants to fund our university while none of the others did. However we were still way better off than them and I believe there were some really bad experiences while they were growing up.

The rugby thing was something just remembered by one of the other dads. Their car had conked out, their mortgage had gone up so one of the rich dads just paid for the camp when he paid for him son and I think the other dads bought his beers for a few nights out. They didn't ask.

They said they could not afford things because of their massive mortgage. That is an outright lie.
Letting others pay for their sons activities is unethical behaviour.
They are a nasty pair.

Well if they'd been upfront and explained that then the rest if the group could have made an informed choice to have a better holiday without them!

And accepting the subsidence for their sons rugby is, frankly, despicable.

Aside from the rugby CFuckery, the main problem here is that they have impacted on the quality of your experiences and memories by their deception. Yes, of course you could have all gone on more expensive excursions without them, but if what you have described is accurate, you’ve been true friends by including them in everything, even when it has disadvantaged you all.
It is at that point that they should have spoken up - either by politely declining to go or by being honest that they don’t want to go beyond X budget because they’ve saving for their children’s future.
They know they’ve done wrong and the fact they have never, ever mentioned this secret fund highlights that even further.

Apart from the rugby camp I don't really thinks it's anyone else's business who they spend their money.

Say they invested heavily in their pension rather than a fund for their kids, you wouldn't tell them this was unreasonable. Why should they change their financial choices just to please the group? I applaud them for being so sensible and trying to create generational wealth.

It’s up to them how they spend their money BUT the group believed that they genuinely couldn’t afford a lot and therefore made decisions based on this. If they had known that it was a choice not a need then they would not have felt guilty if the tight couple didn’t want to come.

Everyone sounds jealous of them being better parents and more financially savvy and using the "we could have had nicer holidays" line to keep them out of the friendship group. Not that good friends after all.

Im pretty sure others in the group can help their dc so this doesn’t make sense?

And it’s completely normal in the real
world to dislike lying.

A frank talk will work wonders.

Get everyone together, explain that the kids will suffer if the awkwardness isnt addressed and that everyone needs to say their piece.

Going forward, I expect it is salvagable if rich/poor couple accept the impact that the secrecy around finances has had on the group and the group acknowledge why they budgeted the way that they did but going forward the group will be voting on activities which will likely have more costs e.g. skiing and rich/poor couple can join or not.

I expect that will give rich/poor couple the chance to bow out if the group and everyone can move on.

We were accused of that and often we were probed by condescending remarks

"oh you need moeny to build your own home... buy a second home... buying that car you need money to look after it.."
It was a walk of this relative trying to work out what/approx we were worth that was years ago but I guess they can now tell by the cars we have - ie have a bteer idea but we are not rich bit comfortable-ish

I have a relative who always says they haven’t any money. She isn’t including her savings. It’s very common that people think not to count their savings because they are for a rainy day…

I come from a total poverty background. That is not an excuse. I would never behave like this. Either you think behaving ethically matters, or you do not. I happen to think it matters.

It's true. There was a somewhat uncomfortable conversation between a few people plus the couple that I wasn't involved in.