AIBU to be baffled by colleague on same wage living lavishly?

[Cherryred2]

AIBU to think that some people are so unaffected by the COL and to find it strange. A woman at work is just living a life that seems so alien to me and the others. She is just back from a weekend in London (not for any reason), went to a show, had dinners, shopping spree etc. last year bought a new house and a new car!! Is doing a Disney Paris and Paris holiday this summer! Is going on another trip to Budapest with her sister,spa weekend with her mum and sister, a few days to Rome with her DS because “he loves history and would love to see the colleseum and is thinking of where to go with her dd because she has to make it fair. I asked her if she had plans this weekend and they were out for dinner Friday night and Saturday night for two different celebrations. I’m constantly thinking WTF! The crazy thing is we earn the same which is approximately 50k, I mentioned a credit card last year and she said “oh no I don’t do credit cards, never had one, I hate them, I’m so fearful of debt, mortgage is my only debt and I overpay on that!” I’m baffled!

Also not uncommon for grandparents to leave bequests either. If one of colleague/husband's GPs happened to leave them 10k in 2005 when they were 23 and they used it for a deposit on a crap flat, that's the sort of decision that can have significant downstream implications after a couple of decades like we've just had.

I feel similar. I am in the same band and hours as several people in my office. However, none of them are the main bread winner, so whilst their wage goes on nails and holidays and little treats, mine goes on food and mortgage. And they have the cheek to question why I can’t afford a new car

Sounds like a certain teacher I know who is married to a bloke who is worth millions and has a €20k per month income from his trust fund. Also their huge home was bought outright by his parents as a gift to them so they only pay bills on it. They took out a small mortgage on it so they could build a second home, a beach house which she regularly moans about how hard it is to find the time to supervise. Their children are in private schools. They frequently jet off on expensive holidays across the globe.

She often says they live modestly on her wages as a teacher while he is a post-doc researcher earning peanuts, but her lifestyle is more like Kate and Wills slumming it as normals when Wills was working for search and rescue as a helicopter pilot and Kate was a stay at home mum. Acting like they were living modestly like any armed forces family but actually in a giant Norfolk mansion with servants.

I have never discussed stuff like this in over 35 years of work. I was always told not to mention salaries anyway.

My colleagues and I will chat about fairly personal things but it’s considered crass to discuss money

I know someone who is a bit like this. He has all the latest things but everything is on credit. He drives a brand new Audi and complains that he can’t afford to buy a house but his colleagues can. The colleagues drive bangers, don’t have expensive things and some have second jobs. I think some people don’t mind living in debt and would rather that than not have trendy things or go to trendy places. If she genuinely does have the money, maybe she has an inheritance or money coming in from somewhere else

Edit - rereading the OP, £50k is not a bad wage and I think actually many people could afford to live like the colleague if they had a partner earning a bit more than them and no kids or debts other than mortgage, as long as they were very careful day to day and didn’t go on a trip literally every weekend. Probably depends on where they live in the UK though

why can’t she just be wealthy enough to afford these (fairly basic) treats?

when people cat understand that others aren’t the same as them it’s a big marker of your naivety and lack of diversity/ life experience. Take it as an opportunity to try and meet some different types of people

It’ll be her partner getting a good wage I expect. My dh got himself a very nice car last year. His boss had the cheek to ask him how he afforded that on his wage. Dh took great pride in telling him that his wife bought it for him lol

Is it jealousy perhaps?

I have a friend like this - her H sold a business he had for just under a million - but then still works for them as a consultant on a good salary. enabled them to have a very low mortgage, no debt and still get about 20k a year in interest that they count as part of income and they both still work him full time , her around 25 hours.( they have 2 primary aged kids) - there can be many reasons over and above someone’s salary

My husband's sister has a lower salary than us but my in laws choose to subsidise her house purchase, cover all her childcare costs, and do repairs to her car and property themselves or paid by them. They also pay for a family holiday a year for her, her husband, and their kids, plus additional things like meals out. If you added the financial gain to her you'd understand that she's not living on her salary.

Our salaries are very open and transparent.we don’t discuss what we earn. It is just known because of what we do

you really shouldn’t assume

Possibly a lottery win 😁 I know 3 sets of people who hit the jackpot of a couple million and one lady who won the millionaire maker on euro millions. It’s not enough to retire on these days so I think all have kept working (1 started their own business).
patiently waiting for my turn 😂

Either she has a wealthy husband, a good settlement in a divorce, a inheritance or she’s lying. my parents were like this, my dad had a very good job in the forces and my mums wages were basically fun money for them.

Yeah there's loads of jobs where it's all done on a generally available grading system. I've had some where they didn't even have spines, iyswim. Everyone doing X job was on salary 1, everyone doing Y job was on salary 2 and so on.

I was thinking exactly this!

OP, £50k is a good wage - so the question really isn’t how does your colleague manage to spend on all these things but why can’t you? What are your expenses?

coffees from Starbucks every day?
gym membership?
new car on finance?

Whereabouts do you live?

We live in the Midlands, which has a great income to COL ratio. We bought our house when we were both on 35-40kish each at a good rate, overpay, and pre-kids went on lots of trips abroad.

People assume that you're pushing the boat out travelling, but we would just spin the wheel on Skyscanner and get flights for less than 75pp usually.

You don't know that!
Perhaps she spends less.on other things than OP. And prioritises holidays and meals out.
Maybe her mortgage is smaller, maybe her family help . There could be all sorts of reasons why she spend as she spends without assuming she is lying or in debt.
I actually think 50k is a good wage.

Why would anyone ask this kind of thing on here? How is anyone supposed to have the first clue about some random woman at your work, OP? What are you actually looking to achieve with this thread?

She probably has a high earning partner or money you don't know about and don't need to know about. The end.

When I inherited a significant sum of money at 25 I didn’t tell anyone! Well apart from close friends. There was one woman where I worked who was baffled I was able to afford designer clothes and bags. Yes I did spend some of it!

I do always find these threads odd- the assumption everything is on credit does seem to come from an idea that while the poster accepts the concept that some jobs pay significantly more than others, it’s almost like they think the sort of person who holds down one of those jobs is not a “normal” person. So they can’t comprehend the idea their colleague’s DH might be earning 2/3/4 times that their dh is earning, and still seem “normal”.

It's true, none of the things mentioned are necessarily particularly expensive. A new house last year means bugger all, there'll be people who moved house last year who are paying a few hundred a month. Or who downsized to be mortgage free! New car, could be a lease a couple of hundred a month also. Again this is accessible for many.

And of the travel, most of the things listed are pretty broad. You could spend a lot on them but also a little. Even the Paris and Euro Disney holiday, they might be doing 1 day there, staying in the cheapest youth hostel they could find and using Tesco points for LeShuttle. You'd need a certain amount of disposable income to do all of them, yes, but I'm not sure they constitute 'lavish'.

Partner
inheritance
bank of mum and dad

Just a few suggestions

No point trying to figure it out, one thing I realised years ago is never underestimate just how much money some people have.

Her husband earns more than yours I presume, pretty obvious really no?

Grandparents. My kids have had a huge amount from grandparents.

I've always been poor so now I have more money nowhere near 50k I can afford all these things because I know how to live poor I don't really spend money in day to day life. I couldn't tell you the last time I bought new shoes or clothes I bought a new handbag about 6 months ago for £3 second hand. We don't have the newest phone contracts or cars on finance my car is 10 years old, I don't buy expensive coffees or pay for nail, eyebrows etc. When I get my hair cut its a dry trim. We don't have sky TV. Kids aren't in loads of clubs. All our tech is old and 2nd hand. We have no childcare costs, low mortgage. We buy basic food not always the healthiest but lots of pasta and potatoes.