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'.

Here we go again with this dreadful divisiveness. Those who are well off expressing resentment at "having to pay for" those who are more vulnerable and less fortunate and those who are not so well off expressing resentment at those who earn more than most of us can even imagine.

Maybe I've got something missing, but I hardly ever pay attention to other people's wealth. I don't care about it, am not impressed by it and don't resent it, but I do care that those who are less well off receive the help they need. Otherwise we are barbarians.

The problem is that these are the people who then blame poor/poorer people who say they’re struggling because MW is too low with ‘you should have planned better’

id have no issue with being supportive because they have to pay more (whilst, for a change, actually approving that increase) if they were people who happy to support those on lower income struggling (let’s say when they introduce the 2 children limit etc….)

You can’t tell people to get their acts together and then expect to be told ‘oh poor you’ when it actually happens to you.

You could also say the same for low earners then? They're to blame for their poor life choices and bad planning which is why they're 'poor'?

That's very goady. It's their fault they are poor? That's a complete nonsense and you know it

I think it’s fair to expect people to live within their means at a given point in time but as we’ve seen over the last few years, things can rapidly change (Covid, energy and food bills, mortgage rates and rent etc). I am by no means smug and accept we all have free will to spend our money as we see fit, but when the going was good in the years of such low interest rates, we focussed on overpaying our mortgage like crazy. Things don’t last forever, that’s both the good and bad times so things will improve but for us we’ve weathered the storm by our actions.

@pocketpairs With the upcoming budget seen many "poor me" posts, particularly from high/middle earners.

I agree with you in that regard, but the issue is that she did not just hit higher earners.

She hit people on average and below-average salaries with the £2000 a year pension cap.

£2000 a year into a pension pot by salary sacrifice is an extremely low sum of money to be paying into a pension. That's equivalent to just a 5% salary sacrifice for someone who earns £40,000 a year.

If she's seriously expecting people to save for their pensions by saving £2000 a year or less, then she is psychotic.

Pay more than £2000 a year and get taxed. And where does that money go to? People who made poor life choices and who think they are entitled to having a large family.

£60-80k IS a high earner, not a middle ground earner.

I'm not sure we do live in a civilised society, that might be what some object to.

This might amuse someone here, if you're already familiar with the meme https://nicksimulator.com/

Claiming tax break for supposed charitable status was disingenuous.

I know, and have known, quite a lot of people that would not work more than 12-16 hours a week as it would mean they’d effectively be working more for the same pay. Why would anyone work full time for the same money, or only ever so slightly more, that they get in benefits and can have a nice life sitting about and seeing mates. That is what is massively wrong with our benefit system.

Shafted..how? Which tax exactly?

This is a bit disingenuous. Anyone should be able predict that inflation would increase post massive QE, and even if they couldn't interest were never going to stay at 0.5-2% forever. If a tiny change, such as yesterday's £2.5k surcharge on £2m homes put them over the edge..they probably need to attend a money management course (in most cases).

One big problem is that people tend to compare themselves with people with more money. If we started looking at how the vast majority of the world's population lives, we might realise that we are mostly very well off and have a high standard of living in a first world country. And one reason for that is that we pay taxes which benefit society as a whole.

Sure some, but they have less dials to turn down. If you're earning £3k p/m there's less they can cut. While someone on £10k can stop private schooling..no a choice they'd like, but maybe something that'll stop them falling over.

But our high ACCUMULATORS often pay a lower effective tax rate than the folk who clean their offices & homes...

There's no shortage of money in this country - go hang around the shopping malls of Canary Wharf or Mayfair over the next month if you don't believe me! But for decades we (as a country) have facilitated the hoovering of vast quantities of money offshore without being properly taxed for the UK Treasury.

The EU was working quite effectively towards finally closing the net on this, which is one of the main reasons (along with it suiting Putin) that we have ended up with Brexit.

Which is the single largest factor in cost of living increases (followed by Putin's war on Ukraine energy costs and Liz Truss's disastrous 'borrow from the world to cut UK taxes' budget) we are all paying for now.

I don't think Labour have been brave enough!

Everyone is a taxpayer!

Agree this was very short sighted of her, especially when people are not saving enough into their pensions. Also think that the marginal rate of taxation of 62% between 100-125k is ridiculous.

You also assuming that the careless parents that have many children while being totally reliant on benefits make proactive family planning decisions. The reality is that they will have children regardless of their benefit situation, and by limiting it the faultless children bought into this world suffer.

Dividends for a start… and his business relies on other small businesses which may or may not survive given minimum wage increases, ergo, he could lose his income. The little graph below explains a lot. But it’s typical of a socialist government so not surprising really!

You'll have to pay tax to have an opinion soon, 50p a time.

Well yes. If I over stretch myself financially, it’s my poor planning. No one is coming to “save” me, I never imagined they would. I stand and fall by my choices. Shouldn’t it be that way for everyone? And is it?
And no, not everyone is a tax payer.

I think that when people make decisions to push their finances to the limits without bearing in mind that taxes can change, living costs can rise, and other unforeseen circumstances can hit, they are being incredibly foolish. Just because you can just about afford that massive mortgage and private school fees now doesn’t mean that it’ll still be affordable next year. Build in a buffer and stop being so greedy right now.

It's really nothing to do with a socialist government. It's as other poster have said, we are a rapidly declining nation overly reliant on financial services. We have no vision or strategy, partly due to the way politics is organised in this country. Get elected, raise taxes, try to do as much as possible in first 3 years, then cut taxes before election.

The Conservatives increased taxes significantly during their time in office and only cut NI as a re-election bribe.

@pocketpairs You also assuming that the careless parents that have many children while being totally reliant on benefits make proactive family planning decisions.

I'm assuming they don't.

I'm saying they should.

I think your dear sister's biggest mistake was discussing financial and personal matters with you. That was a really poor decision on her part.

Here’s a piece of advice for anyone reading: don’t share personal or financial matters with others. Instead, consider chatting with AI platforms, which can be more helpful and won’t judge you.

I live well below my means so I have some wiggle room. The people complaining loudest seem to have not considered doing this.