To believe that some people stay broke because they don’t want to make sacrifices?

[ForSharpBrickKoala]

It’s hard to save money but isn’t it true that a lot of people could improve their financial situation if they made different choices? AIBU to think it’s not always about the system?

Who appointed you speaker of everybody in the UK?

Its definitely bollocks.

I don't have an issue with private school people can spend their money on what they want and I'm not one of them anti private school people.

However I hate coming on here and seeing people insist that anyone could send their kids to private school if they budgeted hard enough. Nevermind that fees for one child are more than some people's entire annual wage, ditto if you have more than one child. Its so disingenuous either that or these people have no idea how broke a lot of people actually are.

Quite agree. Shocking how much we had for pennies under communism. A number of houses per person, Russian lada, food and clothes galore, Seaside and mountain couple of times a year

They did. Maybe we need to bring back traditional values.

It depends though- I remember a poster saying- if you get picked for a job because of your education/ area you’re from/ name/ person you know and start streets ahead of a person who is on mw, you can afford the eg takeaways and treats that will be seen as beyond the means of the mw person and they’ll be judged because they’re not scrimping together whatever they have to create a better lifestyle for themselves when really the small things they bought were hardly going to get them a deposit of a house before it was going to be further from their reach due to property values rising

Almost everyone would be better off in the future if they made small changes now.

But it's not just about "future richness". It's about life, and living it NOW.

I think some people do suggest that actually or at least the whole idea of making sacrifices for future gains. Of course there are situations where it makes sense like doctors in training who work very hard when they're young and have a better life afterwards, but the gains aren't so clear for others. I mean, you could spend years working two jobs and then get killed crossing the street.

I assume sarcasm. I’m no communist, infact I fall closer to Trump and Musk on the political spectrum than I do to communists although I did enjoy living in Russia and yes we had lovely holidays in the dacha but having to buy homeless 8 year olds a mars bar on a trip to the supermarket to assuage your guilt rather ruins it.

However I don’t think we should ignore that since 2008, the rich have been openly exploiting the average person. Whether they be middle income or poor or infact even relatively rich. They use us all against each other, this kind of sarcasm being an example, to distract from the fact that they are accumulating wealth beyond what any human can use. We need to stop the infighting and work out what to do about it because nobody needs an obscene level of wealth while others go hungry.

But living now isn’t necessarily an expensive thing to do - it’s a mindset as much as anything else. Gardening is a low cost activity and can be very satisfying but some people think it takes a lot of money and space. What you do need is the ability to see your situation as it is without getting overwhelmed - so if you are in debt then you need to see a future when your circumstances improve. I’m not sure everyone can do that - for various reasons. Also the shift we are making in understanding how poverty works to keep people poor ( abundance of take aways combined with not enough buses to a town with decent supermarket, etc) is all focused on changing the perceptions of the wealthy - it can be overwhelming when you are actually close to it as it can seem an insurmountable hurdle and the narratives just remind you of all of them all the time.

Thing is, these ‘personal choices’ are influenced by so many things… there are so many layers of privilege and prejudice which ‘personal choices” someone has open to them.

Of course there are some people who are profligate.

But right now, no I don't think it's easy to save money at all. Daily living costs are too expensive for many people to really make any headway into saving. That extra £££ going on electric alone eats into potential savings.

Your original comment of course will be true for a small number of people in a population but we have had wage stagnation, house price and rental costs rise, very high cost of childcare and high inflation particularly on the essentials of food and heating costs. So saying it is pretty offensive because whilst it might true of 1/100 for 99/100 they working pretty flipping hard and struggling, not because they spend too much on make up or fish and chips.

In agreement with OP obviously it does not generalise to everyone but I have several friends who will max out their credit card happily - buy endless takeaways, nights out etc then wonder why they are skint

Yeah, you're probably right OP. If people could just think a bit harder, and be a bit more like you, I'm sure poverty would sort itself out within a couple of weeks.

My horse and my cat keep me alive, due to permanent long-term illness. If I didn't have them, life wouldn't be worth living. Horse is now very old, but fit, and lives in luxury. I'm not well enough to DIY, so he stays where he is. I shan't replace him when he goes. Cat is a young tearaway and gives me another reason to stay alive.
I buy the cheapest food for me, don't use the heating more than a couple of hours a day, sleep in my outdoor clothes.
No close relatives or friends, so I manage by eating enough to stay alive and read library books rather than have a television.

A little off topic, but I was catching up on 24 hours in police custody today and there is an episode where they catch a guy who is helping import and supply drugs, and he gives a sob story that he did it to provide for his kids because minimum wage isnt enough to pay his bills.

Yet both his arms were covered in tattoos and when he was arrested there was a shot of his british bulldog, which must have cost £££.

People do make choices and then say that they are skint.

I think that’s a very lazy and blinkered way of looking at it.

It’s a bit like saying ‘It’s hard to be healthy but isn’t it true that a lot of people could improve their health situation if they made different choices’ without factoring in the many and varied things that lead people to choices that are not good for them.

For every feckless person there’s 100 with behaviours rooted in self neglect, poor parenting, lack of education, learning issues, MH issues, chronic illness, relationship issues, behavioural issues, social pressures.

If it was as easy as you’ve so smugly stated then everyone would do it. The same as no one would have a lifestyle related health issue.

Rather than try to win smug points, maybe have a think about how many illnesses or deaths or accidents it would take to derail your fiscally sensible life. Or what life skills or values you learned that gave you the ability to find financial security. And then think about people who haven’t been that lucky and what they would need besides judgement to make better choices.

I do think we are living in a different world now too, compared to the past.

Marketing initiatives are designed to part people with their money and to get people addicted in astonishingly sophisticated ways. Examples are social media algorithms (where a lot of advertising is), even the detailed layout of supermarkets and making electronic shopping extremely effortless with the invention of one click or paying for stuff by waving a watch or phone around.

And you can buy stuff 24/7, instead of in the old days when you’d have to wait until the shops opened on Monday (by which time you would have slept on your intended purchase and changed your mind).

So I don’t think it’s as simply as standing back and blaming people for their “choices”.

Unless they've changed it Starling offer interest on their current account as well as savings accounts 🙂

I guess being able to walk would help. Not having EDS and arthritis. Look up Disability tax, I guarantee I will be paying a significant amount more for even basic things. Eg a kettle holder, which helps you pour safely, essentially a metal strip bent to shape is 11 quid. Tin openers, mugs, clothing,rainwear.
So no, living with a disability on the state pension does not more than make me think very carefully about my money.
Imagine having to buy school uniforms for more than two children.
Imagine losing a flying job through illness but still having a mortgage and bills to pay. It’s too big a theory that you’ve posited.

It’s never the “system”!

Sure there are circumstances that impact finances. So, disability, illness aside … it’s spending that takes the money.

Cutting out a daily shop coffee snd/or making meals at home is a huge saver. Loads of small changes save £££

It's a difficult question. Some people are just bad with money and others think what is the point of living at your parents whilst working 2 jobs and spending nothing until you are 40 so that you can afford to buy somewhere to live and hope that you haven't left it too late to get a partner (whilst trying to sound interesting when you pretty much spend your spare time looking at a blank wall because couldn't afford to have interests and where you live isn't safe to walk around in your spare time) and start a family?

@Staringatthemoon

Yes, all people who have been taught no financial literacy skills or who can’t work due to illness or circumstances whilst bills pile up and they are overwhelmed to the point of despair is to ✨think positively✨

Overwhelm in the face of the crushing reality of the cost of living crisis is not a mindset problem. It’s a fundamental fact of the current economic situation that has been brought about by the greed of people who have decided that it’s not enough to be a billionaire, they need to be a trillionaire and the sweat of the average worker will help achieve that, with the aid of matey in government.

If you want to talk about who needs to change their mindset, I suggest you turn your theories to the exploiters, not the exploited.

I agree with you to an extent. There are some circumstances like illness or disability that is beyond people's control. But for lots of us it's lots of little bad decisions.

I was homeless in my teens, in large amounts of debt in my early 20s. Some of it was outside of my control, I didn't get to choose my parents. But I made stupid choices along the way. Then I chose to turn it around. Both DH and I are from poor backgrounds. We both worked 50+ hours a week for a few years so that we could get on the property ladder. Then we prioritised education along with saving and investing over material things.

All that being said I do think it's harder for younger people today. We could see how we could get ahead if we just worked harder and cut back. But the goal posts are continually moved with the price of housing.

@Over40Overdating

i’m not sure why you are arguing with me - I’m not disagreeing with you at all. I didn’t mention a positive mindset as I think that is trite but if you were referring to my comment about seeing a better future then I made it quite clear that there are lots of reasons why people aren’t able to do so.

And whilst systemic change is necessary a person’s life can disappear until the change comes and they can slide further into poor circumstances- it’s about avoiding that if possible when you can as everyone knows poverty is hard to escape from because society oils the rungs of the natural ladders that lead you out of it. Acknowledging this is not the same as condoning it.