Jealously about lifestyle

[heyho2023]

I know this is ridiculous, however, I can’t help but feel jealous of others lifestyle.
I live in a nice town in a modest but nice 3 bed semi. I have a middle management job as does my husband. We drive old cars and don’t do fancy holidays.
Most of my friends are in very nice large houses with two brand new cars. I know it’s not my business but I just don’t understand how they can afford it.

We do have some spare money which is nice but I am desperate to keep up with the Jones and have a nicer house……
We have our health and Im grateful for that but I’m finding the jealousy overwhelming at times!

If you maintain your present approach you will never ever be satisfied with what you’ve got and will always compare yourself negatively, regardless of whatever you have.

I know someone that had a flashy expensive car
He used to drive the last week to work in his girlfriends car, because he could not afford the fuel in his car !

I know people that had brand new lease cars, but didn't sign up for enough miles per year. Then had to ride a motorcycle instead to cut costs

I know people that have moved up the property ladder & have mortgages until 65+
Compared to myself being mortgage free in my early 50s

Everyone has their own lifestyle

Am I jealous ? No

I do what I want to do, currently travelling abroad

Op sorry but you need to get a grip. You have a great life and the grass isn’t greener on the other side.

Live your life, not someone else’s.

Many people live in debt. Debt has become so normalised in our society that people buy that big house they can't actually afford, take out loans on the flashy cars, on iPhones and computers, and put everything (including their expensive holidays) on a credit card they may or may not pay off I'm full each month.

Then their debts keep them up at night.

Definitely be grateful that you and your family are sensible and living within your means.

Money doesn’t make you happy, in fact, some of the most unhappy and unpleasant people I know are extremely well off. You will always have more than some and less than others, but the trick is to be grateful for what you’ve got and appreciate the small things.

You really need to get out the mindset. I live in a three bed semi, we drive old cars. We have good jobs and we have spare money (no mortgage for a start), we could afford a bigger house or new cars if we wanted. But there is a lot to be said for being happy with what you have. Especially if moving up a rung in the property ladder or getting new cars would be a stretch. I’d rather have spare cash in the bank for a rainy day. My house is big enough for us, my car gets me from a to b and is reliable and big enough. I don’t need anything else.

On a practical note, whenever I feel like this I do something in my smallish home that makes it nicer - a bit of DIY or decorating, decluttering, or even a nice scented candle. Over time that makes a difference both to the house and the mindset. Also there's lots of 'small space' inspiration online that's very positive. I also remind myself that large houses = more cleaning.

The cars might be company cars, costing them a fraction of what it would cost to buy it themselves. We have a company car costing us £200 a month and it's worth £35,000 no way would we be able to go into a dealership and purchase one privately

Same here, my company car costs me £20pm for a £45k electric car.

The people with the flashy cars and big houses aren't satisfied with them either. They also want bigger and better.

As @officeparty has posted, you have no idea what people might be struggling with behind closed doors and wealth isnt an automatic indicator of happiness. I am so sorry for your loss @officeparty

Agree that envy is a complete and utter waste of time and energy. As Baz Luhrman wisely says in the song "everybody's free": "sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long but in the end, it's only with yourself".

In life, you will always find people who are wealthier than you and also people who are poorer than you. Think about all that wasted time you've spent comparing yourself to others and what you could have been doing instead- you could have been working on a side hustle, you could have been thinking up creative ideas to start a new project, you could have been thinking about changing jobs etc etc.

This really is all about the lens through which you are viewing your life - change the lens, change your feelings. Gratitude meditations are really helpful for this.

Honestly if you don't know how they can afford it, they are probably up to their eyeballs in debt.

There's a post over on the mse forum about a family with a great lifestyle who have just realised they have 75k of debt.

The grass isn't greener, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Really surprised about all these threads about people being envious of their own friends and even the comments on here about debt and the like, I genuinely didn’t know that was such a common thing, that people feel and behave like this. Wanting what others have, being bitter and resentful and saying it’s debt or the like as a way to make themselves feel better.

its just really sad that people are like this,

My household income is over £100k. We can’t have children. Want to swap?

You can use those feelings to figure out exactly what you are discontent with in your own life and make active changes if you need to or help you see that what you have is enough. It isn’t wrong to feel like you are being left behind, but what would you need to do to change things? Would that price be higher than you want to pay?

For example, having an affordable smaller home is much better than having over stretched and have money worries about losing it all. Having a paid for car is better than finding money for monthly payments for a more expensive, newer car. Many of the people you are looking at will be in that situation, they just won’t be telling you that.

It is always disconcerting not to have achieved what you might have expected to but so long as we have what we need it is enough.

Or it could be no one else's business including friends

Op there is something missing in your life that is on no one else

The irony being there are probably quite a few folk out there jealous of your set up. As they say envy is the thief of joy. Just focus on things that are within your control and forget what others spend their money on. I am probably in a similar situation to you and have a few millionaire friends (large Central London Town House, Aston Martin cars, exotic holidays etc) who have both retired early. Their lifestyle is quite frankly astonishing and now and again I think 'wow I wish I could be like them' but it's a pointless exercise and on the grand scheme of things there are plenty of people out there who are having to choose between eating and heating their home and that brings some perspective back as to how lucky I am.

The envy will destroy your friendship. All the fancy stuff will probably be on tick/debt - unless they have very well paying jobs. Would you want the worry of overstretching your finances?

My BIL drives a fancy car and has a fancy house, but only shows up round ours if he wants to borrow money. He's probably only a month or so away from losing it all.

As my dear old gran would say he's all fur coat and no knickers!

This is just such a resentful little post. It really is. People get in debt for all sorts of things, and live in all different sizes of houses. Assuming as someone has a bigger house, cars etc that it’s all debt is silly, as you need to have the base income to be able to even get the debt, they don’t just throw you a huge mortgage. Sure some will be in debt, but so will some in small houses, some in rented and some living with family.

My SIL is the same as you. She is constantly comparing herself to others, decorates her house every 4 years because she wants to keep with other friends who have much bigger houses. She is never happy or satisfied with what she's got and it looks bloody exhausting.
I find I have little in common with her, we live in a small 3 bed semi and she always looks down her nose and asks why haven't we got a bigger house etc. We actually have a much higher combined income than her and her husband but we just have different priorities.
It really isn't good for your mental health to constantly compare yourselves,maybe look into some form of therapy to try and find the root cause to address your feelings.

That is one explanation, and some people do indeed carry a lot of debt.

But there are other factors too. Some things can cost less than you think, such as the company car example upthread. Some people have more money than people would be aware of if they don't know them very well.

And the early 40s age cohort OP is can have wildly varying wealth depending on when they got on the property ladder. Most people born in the early to mid 80s didn't have chance to get on before things went completely awry, but a few did. If the couple next door are 43 and 41 and one of them happened to buy a cheapo flat in 2005, for example, they could be in a hugely different position to an otherwise identical couple who didn't buy anything until the last few years.

I do understand OP but it's all relative isn't it? If I were your friend, you'd be the Jones I was trying to keep up with. We can't afford to run a car at all, live in a tiny terraced house in a shitty part of town, no spare money ...

I totally get the feeling as all my friends are doing way better than me and I constantly feel like a failure, but I guess I'd be the Joneses to someone else too...?

Or they simply earn more than the op and her husband. Peoples finances are their own business.