to be annoyed at the smugness of people living on a shoetsring

[headlessandclueless]

i probably am.
mumsnet is full at the moment of people going on about how little money we have and how wonderful we are. or at least it seems that way to me.
what so superior about that? and even more so if you are a single parent? unless you are a widow, you made a choice to be a single parent, knowing full well that meant less money. yes, i know that in some cases of domestic violence, its not really a choice, but, it seems that in most cases i have seen on mn, its simply a case of, 'not being happy' with the partner.
whatever, if it makes you happier, fine, but stop harping on about how skint you might be, and how other people have too much money.

rant over.

I think the OP might be referring to the thread on taxes for the higher earners.. there were some nasty vicious opinions being put forward there (which was also raised in the thread).

love it captain.

I think it is a more humorous way of what OP tried to say!!!

YABU
and stupid
and mean
and ignorant
and entitled
and just.....stupid. But I'm sure after ten pages you either realise that or are beyond help.

thats the longest SM post I have ever seen!

Posy its funny what you said about £30K, in RL I feel poor. On MN I am Ivana Trump clearly

or maybe the OK off people keep quieter? Its soooo Guardian on here

I am proud of the fact that we are quite well off. DH and I have both worked and studied hard to get where we are. We have taken the opportunities available to us, aimed high and got there. We have never relied on anyone else, what we have we have earned and though we are not rich we have a lot more than some people. I don't think I should feel guilty.

Rudeness about single parents aside, I do agree in part with OP.

On MN the prevailing view is mostly that people who earn more then 'x' random amount should never complain and don't have problems.

It can seem very 'I'm poor, therefore I am right'.

Also as I have said many times on here before, you aren't supposed to be proud of any of your hard work or achievements if you are reasonably off, but if you are poor and you make any good progress jobs or education wise it's all 'wahay you go girl' etc.

That to me is unfair. As is the tiresome belief that most people could save money each month by moving to a smaller house.

I have been struggling to articulate what I mean but will try ( as this is annoying me)

Yes. There is an attitude on MN that people cannot have problems over a certain income. And there are a tranche of seriously dull posters who chirp up with 'well if that is all you have to cope with, I had to eat my dog last week...'

But the OP is symptomatic of the response to that - which is just to be bitchy back and complain about single mothers and all that benefits shite.

I get annoyed that there is a tone of being welthy means being selfish, being fine regardless, being indifferent to anyone elses life.

But I get really fucked off that this kind of OP just vindicates the resentment.

I don't like being attacked for having cash but I tend to think that I would rather be rich and indignant than to feel 'chippy'.And I think you have to be a special kind of idiot to think that people on ebnefits, single mother etc are not allowed to complain. Or to feel proud for how they cope in situations which are often one short step from depression and hopelessness.

It is just so unbecoming, so ungracious.And it makes me wonder what is lacking in your own life that you need to react. When people have a go at me I try to point out they are being unfair and remind myself that I have many many compensations for their rudeness.

By all means complain about how we keep defining each other by our incomes but stop throwing more shit on the pile.

I agree that there are problems that money just can't solve but there's no escaping the fact that poverty takes away your choices.

(I think that the OP is a journalist looking for a good quote.)

That wasn't in response to anyone in particular....

Just as an aside... I once knew a lovely lady who found out after about 15 years of happy marriage and 3 children that her husband had another life and 2 more children. I think I would have 'chosen' to become a single parent under her circumstances too.

It's not always black and white is it?

at Captain!

Sometimes I feel proud of myself for how well DH and I manage on a small income, but I don't think I feel smug about it certainly. Am a bit about this, OP, to put it nicely.

Glad you feel better Pag!

I have a friend who is rich and gorgeous , and the sweetest woman in the world. And people assume she has no problems, when of course she has! Grr...

Off course people with money still have problems. However I am sick and tired of being blamed for these problems just because I am a single mum. It does not make me evil personified. If anyone believes that one of their problems may be my fault please be specific and don't make sweeping generalisations.

BTW OP, is it OK to feel smug about being poor if you aren't a single parent?

Just for clarification.

Riven, normally I agree with a lot of what you write but:

"I don't think its smug as such but yes, a bit of 'you don't know you've been born'
If you are struggling on 15k or 20K it is mind boggling to hear someone on 45K or 60K claim the same.
And the 'well I have a big mortgage' makes you think 'yes, and it gets you a decent house in a decent area. At least you have that. One day you will own your own house.'"

This really irritates me. I grew up in poverty despite both my parents being teachers, because my father was an alcoholic who frittered away the family income on booze. I've posted about it elsewhere but it doesn't define me and I have no interest in going on about it, but it includes getting evicted etc, etc. Salary does not necessarily define quality of life.

Riven, you challenge the assumptions people make about situations they haven't experienced e.g. re: disability and this is a good thing. However, I think you need to challenge your assumptions of how those with bigger incomes are living e.g. all equally well. I really don't think it's fair to assume that anyone whose joint income is over 45K is doing absolutely brilliantly. My 'big mortgage' is on a 2 bed steel-framed ex council with paperthin walls - we had a 30% deposit saved and this was still all we could afford. As a professional, married to a professional, I don't think I should feel tremendously lucky to have this property (mortgage still cheaper than rent etc). I will wager there are people with substantially less income than I have who are in bigger homes in nicer areas because they bought at a different point in the economic cycle, purely because they were at the right stage of their life to do so. This does not mean that I think that others aren't substantially less well off. I don't particularly like being lumped in with the 'wealthy' because apparently according to some governmental figures I am..

The sunscreen song has it: "whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's"

I tend to think that I would rather be rich and indignant than to feel 'chippy'.

Moi aussi..now who's this Chippy bloke?

Oreo Chocolate Pie

8 oz. of crushed Oreos
2oz. of melted butter
(for the crust)

2 standard sized bars of dark chocolate, broken into bits
2 regular tubs of mascarpone cheese, room temperature
More crushed up Oreos. As many as you think won't make you sick.

Crush the Oreos up. Melt the butter in the microwave and then add to the crushed Oreos.

Press into the base of a butter pie tin and up the sides (you may need a few more Oreos and melted butter to go up the sides).

Melt the chocolate in a small bowl. I put it in for 1 minute in a 750W oven. Then stir it to see how much is melted. Then go in 10 second intervals till it's all melty.

Put the cheese in a large bowl. Stir in the chocolate until no white streaks remain. Add in more crushed Oreos.

Spoon into pie crust.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour until firm. Or cover with clingy and refrigerate overnight.

Superb with squirty creme!
Melt the

I'm not a fan of Oreos usually but (as a smugpoorloneparent) god that sounds divine!

I make either that or Misssippie mud pie (which isn't really a pie but brownie with marshmallow melted on top) for my birthday.

I make two pies if I do that, though, because everyone knows, I'm the birthday mama so one of them is all mine.

I think Mrs bean has a point and also the housing lottery thing has a huge impact on quality of life with earnings.

My dp earns the same as a colleague. His colleague bought his house years ago with help and has a miniscule mortgage so lives the life of Riley compared to us.

We bought our house recently with no help so have a stonking great mortgage and very little after bills are paid.

When you bought your house and the mortgage you pay makes all this quibbling over living on a certain income is pointless. You could have somebody earning a smaller amount enjoying far more in their actual pocket than somebody earning a bigger amount.

Quoting earnings of this K that K is pretty pointless when you don't know what is actually left as disposable income after necessary bills.

expat that sounds fantastic - just one question, what is a butter pie tin? (or did you mean a buttered pie tin?)

YABVU - and for what its worth all this SMUGNESS crap on MN is pathetic.

I mean what is it all about - everyone constantly accused of being "smug" - ie "irritatingly pleased with oneself". Yes I had to look it up - accusations of being smug is thrown around at MN'ers willy nilly. If you post something positive about your life, you get accused of being SMUG - its stupid, nasty & pathetic.

Why shouldn't people (single parents or otherwise) be able to discuss their financial situation here? That you find their comments "superior" is a joke. Do you really feel that INFERIOR to everyone? I doubt it, but if you do you really should sort it out. Sounds to me like you've got a huge chip on your shoulder and can't bear to hear of folk keeping their spirits up & finding creative & successful ways to make their lives as good as possible on whatever they have.

Riven,

RE: "Once the children go to school and the £££££ are freed up though, aren't they then well off? "

I suppose that might be true for some and not others also. I don't know that we'll be brilliantly off but we might be able to move to a nicer area and get a nicer house.. but it's speculation at this stage as both our industries are volatile and we might be working in much lower paid jobs by then

I often wonder why we're not doing better than we are and I assume it must be when we bought property. We know others who have larger homes but they would have bought property before us and for less money. Yet we're not even as badly off as some of our friends - I think of a couple living in a very tiny townhouse that they paid 425K for (should never have been given the mortgage for it) when it was a shell of a place, had to gut it and refurbish it BY hand over a long period of time as they didn't have additional money for renovations etc, who are in negative equity with one of them almost certain to lose their job in the next year or two (this is not in the UK, mind you). Right now, they're probably on about 60K, but they could go from that to bankrupt overnight (and most likely will, actually).

Similarly, my irritation with my own situation is that my mother strongly wanted me to be financially independent given our family circumstances, so that I wouldn't ever find myself in the same situation again. However, for many reasons, I'm the only one who can afford flexible working so my income will plummet during these years and if dh ever did sod off and leave me I would be right back where I started off, like the single mums who have posted here. In fact, even if I went back full time on my current wage, I would most probably struggle if I had 2-3 kids. That ANNOYS me and stresses me, too.

So, even though I like the fact that, every month or so, we can buy fancy pants ingredients from Waitrose to make nice thai chicken curries and it's all lovely and wonderful to have a luxury shop every once in a while, it really doesn't make the huge difference you might think in terms of stress or security. It could go in a flash.. my husband is an engineer working in a niche specialisation and half of his company have been let go in the last few months, with no other companies in his sector hiring when he has limited transferable technical skills.
We are grateful we still have it, but apart from our naughty Waitrose shop, we live pretty frugally because we are not rolling in it and as someone who came from nothing, I don't want to go back to it..

Which is why it does my head in when people say.. 'oh you have a 'mere' 45K, what I would do with a 'mere' 45K?' as if everyone on this income is clueless about stressing about money and/or struggling and merely lamenting the loss of a sun holiday. I'm sure some are.. but I'd bet there are a lot like me who aren't.

I think we can all have a right old moan in the current economic climate, actually.

i think i could sumarise the two main points on this thread with two old chestnuts -

1. appreciate what you have and
2. Don't make a virtue out of necessity.

although that doesn't include Pie, or Baklava, and is therefore sorely wanting.

i just made a 7 egg victoria sponge though, and it rose and tastes all yummy.

drool

I'm really liking your posts, Mrsbean. And I think pagwatch makes some excellent points, too.

I do have to say that many of the posters on here have made me realise, deeply and properly, just how many 'middle class' people are really struggling to make ends meet. It's not as bad in Australia I don't think, although the property market has hit a bubble here too in recent years and salaries are lower, so maybe it is? We bought in 1998, a tiny place but before the bubble, so by the time I was 30 (2008) we were mortgage free. I'm incredibly grateful for that, and I know how ridiculously privileged that makes me. Both my husband and I come from poor families, and made sacrifices very young in order to buy property, and I'm not ashamed of it. But luck and privilege play their parts.

There's no harm in having some perspective. If I post about who gets to lie in on a Saturday, I want to put a 'First World Problem' alert on the post, because really, who cares? I deserve the same support and kindness for my actual problems as anyone else - and I've always got it here - but it would be ridiculous of me to pretend that it's not easier because of the finances.

I hate my job at the moment, and for various stupid reasons I'm no good at it and I hate myself for being no good at it (it's a lack of motivation not talent) and today I finally got an official warning and I am wreathed in shame that it got to that point, and it's giving me ulcers and I drink too much and I am not as nice to my family as I should be.

And that's a real problem. I don't know how I got here and I don't know how to get out and it seems very black today.

But it would be much more of a problem if my wage was the only thing putting food on the table and there was no buffer. As it is, although I'm the breadwinner, if it gets too horrible I can afford to lose the job and spend a while finding a new one. We'd have to eat the savings, but we have savings to eat. So no, my problems are not the same as the problems of a skint person. It would be insulting and naive to pretend that they are.