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'.

Was just talking about this exact thing! I suppose if you're that rich, you're constantly surrounded by other rich people, so your perspective gets skewed? It's still quite ignorant though imo, when you can literally take two seconds to look up the average UK wage, then realise you earn more than double it. I've been wondering what jobs some of these people do, to earn £90k but not be able to use a search engine, calculator or basic logic 🤷‍♀️ Sadly I think I must have made some poor life planning decisions myself, to be so woefully out-earned by them.

Who doesn't claim their state pension?! Bizarrely irrelevant to the op.

Go live in a country without public services then, if you don’t want them and would rather keep every penny to yourself. Go enjoy all your hard earned money in Somalia! No functioning police force, public education or health system. Right up your street, you’ll love it.

I suppose you class me as a benefit scrounger since my (completely unforeseen and devastating) divorce has left me on universal credit to top up my pay. You'll be relieved to hear that I don't have enough money for holidays abroad and have therefore not had any since ex"d"h left. I save up all year for a Monday to Friday in a caravan or cheap apartment at a localish seaside town. Or we have a few days camping.

how is that relevant? Just because you earn a bit more than others doesn't mean you shouldn't get just as much help.

"Earning more than double" when you get no help anywhere, when your lifestyle is not subsidises and when you pay a lot more tax doesn't mean you end up with double the money... that's the point.

The resentment is that people who have made good life choices need to subsidise even more people who have made poor life choices and it's going to be horrific when Reform get in.

It's mainly relevant because what they're saying, is based on a fantasy. They're not middle earners, so to talk about themselves as such, is nonsensical. Middle earners aren't being taxed more. High earners are being taxed more. It's like me saying "as a disabled person, I should be entitled to a wheelchair", when in fact my legs are both fine and I have no disability.

Also, just because you don't have double the disposable income, you will still have a lot more. Fair enough. But don't whinge on, when you are a high earner, paying slightly more tax than you were before, and still having a lavish standard of living compared to most. It's really not that bad.

I would disagree and say conversely it’s those who planned well and made good financial choices that are being penalised and it’s THAT that’s pissing people off.

There’s nothing wrong with those holidays. I’ve been on the exact same type of holiday and had loads of fun

Both DH and I are very high achievers and we went to really awful comps.

It's relevant because if you earn enough that you don't receive child benefit then you are in the top 10% of earners. If you don't qualify for free childcare you're in the top 1%

If you are in this position you are not 'middle earners'. You're nowhere near that: you receive well beyond the reality of almost everyone else in the country. If you think 'the rich' need to be taxed more instead of you, get real. YOU are 'the rich'.

Part of your take is absolutely appalling - "those not bright enough". Part of your so called intelligence is simply due to genetics..so those not able to lead a team or become a director are unworthy??

Additionally, one so intelligent should presumably be able to anticipate that changes in government policy are a constant and interest rates go up and down..

Right, well done? But the data on social mobility suggests you're in a minority and are very lucky.

Seriously? Even the most perfunctory of Google searches will tell you exactly what is meant by that in the public (i.e. non-clinical) domain.

If you are well into the top 10% of earners (no child benefit) or the top 1% (no free childcare) you are demonstrably not a 'middle earner'. You are fucking rich, beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. To convince yourself otherwise, and that 'the rich' should pay more instead of you, is literally the definition of financial dysmorphia.

They are not LUCKY!!!

FGS, they are intelligent, hard working, driven, resilient, whatever, but it's not luck, they worked for it!

You must represent all people then. That's A Science.

No salary is worth wasting your youth for. ‘Insane hours’ jobs shouldn’t exist. You’ll never get your 20s back.

Do you know them?

My point is, if you're born into poverty/lower socioeconomic group, you're very likely to stay in that group whether you possess all the attributes (you've just mentioned) or not.

The UK is far from being a meritocracy. So yeah, lucky.

Yep, some people are totally out of touch with reality on here. There was a post a couple of weeks ago where someone was saying her sister was pleading poverty on £70k and being hammered as “that’s not a lot for a single mum”.

I don’t think there’s a violin small enough for me to express my sympathies for the plight of people struggling on £14k a month. Squeezed middle my arse

YABU
Everyone gets to have an opinion.

We bring home £5K a month between us and I feel we are pretty comfortably off. We have a modest 3 bed house, 2 old cars etc. Things were hard when kids were small and our income wasn’t at that level but we’ve made choices not to stretch ourselves too much

We can be all those things, and still be lucky.

You’re lucky if you have an IQ higher than average. You were lucky to be born where you were, and not on the streets of Mumbai. You were lucky if you were raised by loving parents. There are a million and one ways that we can be lucky, and cumulatively those things will have an impact upon our success.

This. When the stress and compromises to be a higher earner in terms of time with your kids, stress illnesses and exhaustion from juggling everything is worse in a high earning job.

Yes working in a 9-5 in a supermarket or low entry admin role takes you away from your family and is tiring but it's not the same level of pressure as the higher earning roles.

I think what it boils down to is that if you get used to a certain level of expenditure on anything (food, housing, tax) when it goes up it does not feel good. Who wants to pay more?

But I have limited sympathy with people blaming this government when they inherited a terrible economy.

Your problem is society allows men to get away with not paying for their children. This should be a priority.