To finally admit I’m so jealous!

[Jealous1n]

It makes me sick to say out loud but I am…

My friend (who is lovely) just has it all…and I’m finding it increasingly difficult.

stayed home with her dc on extended mat leaves. Works a flexible 8-4:30 role. Wfh 2-3 days a week. Is paid over 50k. Her dh has the same hours and is paid more. Good pensions and private healthcare.
Brand new house- gorgeous super efficient and warm new build!
brand new cars (bought outright)
all the mod cons, robot hoovers etc. every weekend off.
She always looks great and put together (always has i suppose)
I have never heard her say, go we at broke/skint etc. money just never seems to be an issue. We were talking about houses and I asked how much deposit they used etc as we were going to try to purchase over the next two years. They save over 2k a month. She wasn’t boasting I asked the question. We are lucky if we can save 500per month. The only difference I can see is they do go on less holidays than us. (But they go in peak time)

we have been friends since we were 8. She has never had a credit card. I know this. So no debt only mortgages.

meanwhile I’m here busting my ass in 8-12 hour shifts as a nurse! Minimum mat leaves when I had dc. My dh works long hours too. Still renting…I’m desperate to buy a new car but just can’t justify it right now.
what did we do wrong!?
I just needed a rant really.

Role and company still make a big difference. OP says she's working as a nurse, presume NHS. That's very different in terms of salary and policy to a private finance company, for example.

I'm very lucky (read: worked hard to get here but appreciate the fact I got into a good company) to work for a fantastic company and boss, which makes life so much easier. The salary doesn't hurt either.

@Jealous1n if they earned and saved pre kids and go on less holidays because they've prioritised saving, as well as earning more, that's the difference.

Just take a step back from her if she makes you feel bad. And a lot of folk can't even save £5 a month never mind £500. So there's lots of people worse off than you.

I will tell you exactly where you are going wrong. By spending precious time comparing yourself negatively with your friend. Do you ever compare yourself to people who have less than you and feel grateful as a result? if not, why not?

The way I see it is- you have two clear choices here. You can marinate in jealousy and bitterness and spend your life feeling irritated and bitter that she has more. You can allow this to drive a wedge in between you and end up losing a friendship and feeling generally more and more shit about yourself.

OR, you can choose radical acceptance that this is her life and that it does not diminish yours in any way. You can use her as an inspiration to your own life and use it as a spring board- if she can do it, so can I. Then, you can spend your energy looking at ways to improve your own life, planning, researching and taking action.

Choose your path carefully because one of them will only lead to misery in life and that responsibility is entirely yours.

hi op, I hear you, Also a nurse. Have you any ability to add on agency? Or think about ways to move into a day time only role, (before the community nurses come for me, I am not saying it's less work, I've done both, both equally exhausting in their own special ways!)

I get it. I do. I have a snowflakes chance in hell of getting on the property ladder.

She sounds annoyingly perfect :) (I bet she doesn't have dry cuticles from all the hand washing either amiright)

A lot of nurses I know are on over £50K a year band 6 OP not in the south before anyone comments. It all sounds like life choices- you could go into a nursing role with more flexibility/ move abroad there are plenty of options with nursing.

Saving 2k a month is the key here. It's how they've bought the cars and all that.

It's not just about the income level, it's the money management.

I know a couple - immigrants from Poland. He is a pizza delivery driver/labourer and she a dinner lady. They bought a house in a rough area and lived there for a few years. Then they bought a much nicer house in a much better area and kept the old house to rent out and have as an investment for their kids.

I see them on Facebook now, several holidays a year, a couple of weeks in Cornwall every summer and another one abroad.
Then there's pics of city breaks and weekends away, shopping trips , the lot..

My and my OH earn multiples of what they do and we can't afford any of this. They never went on a night out in all the years I knew them , they must have saved every penny.

I am amazed at how two immigrants with no qualifications were able to move here , learn the language from scratch and achieve all this. It's 100% about the people and not about luck.
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Don’t be jealous of someone’s financial situation as you don’t know what’s really going on. My husband earned a fortune but never helped with the kids or the house and was quite abusive and we’re now getting a divorce so he’s going to enjoy his lovely pension (I know I technically could claim half but I don’t want the aggro). Point being you don’t really know people’s lives, my friends didn’t know mine.

Do you ever compare yourself with people in worse financial circumstances. What about care workers or retail workers who won’t have great pensions nor do they earn much but they still work really hard. But unlikely to have new cars or buy houses on £22k a year.

Also are there promotion opportunities for you? Could you train to be a nurse subscriber or a breast care specialist? Knowing you’re working towards a better lifestyle might help you feel better in the present.

What are the jobs though?

what did we do wrong!?

Firstly right/wrong puts a moral judgement on wealth which is not really the way to go.

But things they may have done differently:
• chosen different careers - perhaps you work in the NHS because you want to do something worthy/help people. Maybe they chose their roles for the hours or the money. Sorry to say I would never work in the NHS because I don’t want to.
• bigger tolerance for risk - maybe they take financial risks that pay off or have built business up which takes a lot of faith
• having a more long-term view and setting their lives up in a certain way is starting to pay dividends

There is no point in comparing yourself to anyone else.
Nobody knows what's around the corner for anyone, divorce, ill health, death to name but a few.
Try to be grateful for what you have and put things in perspective.

You didn't do anything wrong. You chose not to work a bullshit job. Some days it's hard to remember why we make the choices that we do. Says a lot about our society that nurses feel so undervalued.

Comparison is the thief of joy! Whilst I get it's really hard to see someone else with so much more than you, sometimes it is much better to focus on what you do have a practice gratitude. It will make you much happier in the long run.
But I appreciate how hard it is to slog away working with very little to show for it. Your time will come

They earn more than you , it’s really that simple.

I’d be surprised if they have brand new
cars bought outright? Just saying… but that’s really expensive.

I have asked this. Got a feeling the OP isn't going to tell us somehow.

Or if she does, it will be in 'finance' or 'consultancy.' 🙄

I don't think it matters what the jobs are.

They're paid more than the OP and her DH and that's the end of it 🤷‍♂️

lol how do you know their jobs are bullshit jobs? they might be NHS consultants earning 150k a year

its ok to be jealous, its how you deal with that emotion and also how you deal with your own life now.

I have friends that are nurses, earning a decent wage through bank shifts, agency and beauty industry businesses

set your own goals out and how you are going to achieve it over a 5 year period.

@Jealous1n we know a lot about how your friends finances work but little to nothing about yours and your expenditure

because your problem is that you haven’t been able to save so why is that?

also credit cards are a very useful financial tool IF managed correctly. We shop in Sainsburys and have a nectar linked credit card that generates money for us a month. People get flights if that is your think. Using credit cards wisely is a good tool that maybe you should look at

but you need to overhaul your finances you should be saving

Exactly. How do you know the OP's friend and her DH have bullshit jobs @ProudCat ?

What is a bullshit job?

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Your feelings are perfectly normal OP especially when feel you work really hard with longer hours without the same reward. Nurses are worth their weight in gold & should be paid accordingly but that's for another thread.

A distant relative of DH was like your friend & seemed to have it all. Her DH was a CEO of a large company. They had everything you describe and more. When covid hit, the company had to go in a different direction. Long story short the more staff they had to let go the worse it got & eventually they lost everything. They are now in a rented property in a beautiful location close to the beach. Their children are no longer in private school & are thriving in the local public school. They still holiday abroad once a year and generally spend more time as a family. We recently met them at a wedding & I felt embarrassed wondering what to say expecting them to be devistated at their loss. I gritted my teeth & said I heard what happened & I'm so sorry. The wife replied there is no need to be sorry. It was dreadful at the time but if you asked me if I would change anything now my answer would be no.

Her DH is still self employed & earning just enough to enable his wife to work part time. She mentioned they will probably buy a property in the distant future but is loving the fact if they ever have issues with anything in the property the problem is solved without the stress of finding trades etc. It's someone else's problem. My DH who had met them the previous year couldn't believe it & said they were changed people, far more relaxed & happy.It certainly makes you think

Agreed ! The majority of my friendship circle got a LOT of help towards house deposits which means a smaller mortgage and lowery monthly repayments etc. So despite our household earning more, my friends have more disposable income a month as their mortgage is substantially lower

Op I really really hate to by that person but I work in retail and 500 a month savings is like a dream. At the moment our heating is broken and we can’t even afford someone to look at it until the end of the month so we’re dragging two old electric heaters around the house (and they have to end up in the kids’ rooms do we’re sleeping in a room that’s like a fridge) which means our electric bill next month will be out of control! You didn’t do anything wrong, you chose a different career and a worthy one. I hate people saying count yourself lucky but in this case you really should!!

How can you say they earn significantly more than you (£30k+) and also say you can’t see why they are better off than you? It’s hardly right science to see that more money coming in means more money to save and spend! They have higher earning careers and therefore they have more money! There’s no use comparing in that case, unfortunately as a nurse you are never going to be a high earner, probably not fair but an unfortunate reality for working in the public sector (I’m a teacher and also had to come to terms with fact I will never earn as much as some of my private sector high earning friends).

Comparison is the thief of joy. You mentioned you're lucky enough to save £500 a month, I'm lucky to save £50! I know this won't help how you feel and it's only natural to look at what she has but perhaps take a step back and see what you have 😊 and I don't mean this in a mean way! But it's really easy to get swept up looking at other people's lives with rose tinted glasses on x