Poor life planning..

[pocketpairs]

With the upcoming budget seen many "poor me" posts, particularly from high/middle earners. I find it frustrating that rather than blame themselves for thier life (& financial planning) choices, they blame some arbitrary government policy changes, such as upcoming introduction of new council tax bands.

Example: Sister & hubby earn £14k net p/m. But their choice to buy a nearly £x.xm house in SE & send DCs to private school means they have £3k (approx) to spend on everything else. They could have taken different choices...£1m houses &/or move to grammar school areas.

Clearly this is an extreme example, but I really don't understand why a family can't survive on £4-6k p/m, especially outside of London. Up until recently, I survived on much less and managed to put myself a firmer financial footing in 40s.

Sure this means some sacrifices, but it seems everyone wants to 'have their cake and eat it'.

@Benjithedog you are not the opinion police and anyone can have an opinion on anything. Are you really saying only tax payers get a say in politics? So working people and well off pensioners yes, people on benefits, pensioners on state pension and students no.

100% agree with you. We all have to live within our means. I guess to some extent the point of this thread was to highlight that this also applies to the more affluent in society.

im not misinformed at all. I have seen and heard that people don’t work longer hours as it affects their benefits

Yep that’s what I’m saying. I don’t really care if you agree with me

I don’t know how much you earn, but you’d have to be earning £70,000 a year just to cover the tax cost of your 2 DC’s state education. Your tax isn’t paying for other women to have children. You won’t even be covering your own tax costs.

As an aside, I believe that’s exactly how it should be and we should all bear the cost of educating children, but it’s unfair to make out that you’re subsidising others.

Thats the problem with tax, everybody thinks they’re paying it for somebody else. We should change our mindset and take an honest look at our own tax burdens, and then hopefully we’d not begrudge paying towards it.

It's not just about some people making better life choices than others - if only it were that simple. We live in a pyramid system and people at the bottom don't get to make the same life choices as people in the middle or at the top.
It's why the overwhelming majority of people in prison come from the same demographic - the lowest socio-economic groups in society rather than from the top echelon who do far worse when it comes to white-collar crime but the government doesn't do a lot to stop this type of crime and the few who are caught usually get off because they can afford the best lawyers in the land.

Agreed, Regardless of what you earn.

Higher rate tax payer here, and even higher because I live in Scotland. But I'm happy to pay into a system that provides healthcare, benefits for those who need it etc. I'd rather that than a system where the very poor and the very needy were left without. I know there are still gaps in the system and thankfully there are charities that fill some of these.

I recently had a falling out with a neice. She works in IT in London and earns very well. Her dh is a GP and also earns well. My dsis and her husband (neice's parents) live in a house which has risen in price and there will therefore be IHT to pay. My dsis has a healthy pension. From 2027 this will be included as part of IHT. Neice is bitterly angry about this. She sees it as 'losing' 40% of her money. I see it as being fortunate enough to be in a position to earn more than most people and to also benefit from parents who have been fortunate enough to do well in life. Neice also complains bitterly about the lack of funding for the NHS where her dh works. But who does she think will pay for it?

I've not read all the posts but I do think it's ok if people want to be able to enjoy life, have nice things and not just survive but without taking the pi**. I actually think it's very hard to build wealth in the UK at present vs 40 years ago due to high cost of living, high tax and stagnant wages. I say this as someone who did move abroad 6 years ago to a country where I earn almost triple what I did in the UK, pay less tax, and have a much better quality of life. I feel sorry for alot of people (low and middle earners), the state of the UK and prospects for most is depressing. We were unable to save much in the UK whilst we lived there but in the space of 6 years of being abroad we have been able to save approx 80- 100k per year(inc bonuses) and have relatively average jobs. There is a better life out there.
I do find it frustrating when the baby boomers come along and tell me they made 2million just by buying a house 40 years ago and selling it present day without doing anything.
That said I have friends in London who earn 300k per year and spend on designer clothes for their kids, private school but when they faced hardship during covid they leaned on their parents for financial support - there was a sense of entitlement and I just thought if you hadn't been spending £100 on a kids sweatshirt etc and expensive holidays you could stand on your own two feet. I see this alot.

I’m sick to the back teeth of it. They’re just whingers

Exactly

@pocketpairs I think you are over simplifying a very complex situation. When you speak of your sister’s situation for example - it’s not as easy as move to a grammar school area. People have jobs and commute and also the kids need to be a the top of their game which is stressful because they are still quite young and it entails a lot of parent involvement. Not saying it’s not achievable but it can be incredibly stressful and time consuming.

I also don’t agree with the “have their cake and eat it” feels a little bit like you are trying to get a raise out of people - could be wrong. People want value for money. Which is fair. People want their hard work to be rewarded. Which is fair. What people don’t want is policies such as lifting a 2 child band for benefits in the same breath as taxes are going up - which again is fair. The reality is higher earners pay more and get less or in some cases nothing out of the tax system and whilst in concept I agree with, I don’t agree with the removal of personal tax allowance and a 40 and 45% tax rate and I understand the disillusionment with the UK. Been there done that.

People resent tax increases that reduce their quality of life if they don't have confidence in the government to spend the money competently, basically. The objections would be far fewer if people saw that increases in tax led to a fairer, cleaner, safer country.

But @pocketpairs you could argue your point other way as well. Why give benefits or support to low earners because of their poor planning. Why did they not study harder/pick a higher paying job/etc. Do you blame life and economics on the poorer in society. Is it their fault for having a job that then made them redundant? You could argue on and on at all points that everything is personal planning.

Where do you think our future population is coming from? The birth rate is very low, well below 2 children per woman. Someone has to bump up the average, it's that or immigration or you don't get your pension.

my local parents group is flooded by the single mums on benefits exchanging holiday recommendations. And that's just ONE example. Of REAL people, in real life, not some made-up bot. Of course it's true.

I'd be happy to pay taxes the day we all pay the same proportion. Not when the higher rates pay half in tax, when everybody else is subsidised.

What's grabby? It's MY money, I am earning it, I am not taking it from anyone.

What's embarrassing is being so entitled to be happy for everybody else to work to subsidise you.

Of course we should complaining that 50% of our working life is basically wasted. Or 6 months of the year, because that's what 50% means. WHO is happy to give away half their wage, in real life? 😂

Yeah and if you tax the fuck out of the average family they won’t want as many kids. Maybe if they were t getting destroyed by the tax man people would have more kids

It’s called entitlement. Absolutely rife.

@Summerhillsquare also the ai is about to take out masses of jobs, are people aware of that when they try to say we need mass immigration or unlimited benefits for people to have a multitude of children for the future workforce?

@Calamitousness If only it were that simple. Times have changed alot over the last 20 years. It's not so easy to find a well paid job or any job. University tuition fees are alot more expensive and even if you do go and get a 1st class degree there's no guarantee of getting a job - it's not like it used to be- far fewer grad schemes out there. Higher competition. You only have to read the posts on mumsnet from parents who's kids have applied for hundreds of jobs and can't get anywhere despite having a top class degree.
I'd find it pretty depressing if I was a young person in the UK starting out in life. And I say this as someone who has worked since the age of 16, spent summer holidays juggling 3 jobs, worked 25 hours per week whilst at university, and came out with a 1st and managed to land my dream job albeit a poorly paid one. Not a brag post but more that I do recognise there are alot of young people who are apathetic and not willing to work hard to get somewhere- i don't know where this has come from but I do see it. I suppose there's a feeling that even if you're really smart and work hard and do everything you're supposed to do theres no guarantee of success and you have a greater financial burden with cost of tuition fees being so high. Not an excuse just an observation. I think life feels harder, alot more of "what's the point".

@Greyrock2828 I don’t disagree with you that things are harder now but there are still choices people make that determines likelihood of having lower or higher paid jobs etc. it’s disingenuous to think that poor planning only works one way. I don’t actually agree with the statement of poor planning which is my point really. It’s changing economics for the worse which affects everyone to some degree and to disregard the effects on a family or individual because their basic salary is higher than yours is ridiculous. We all want to live to a good standard and we have all planned for that in some way.

Exactly...I really don't understand the willingness of people to say middle earners didn't plan well so don't deserve what they have (even though they couldn't have foreseen future events), but it's not fair to say that about low earners or those on benefits. (And I am a low earner myself.) It places all the blame and responsibility on those who worked and planned well, and none on those who didn't.

The entitlement of low achievers is incredible

they are most certainly not. And this is the essence of the issue