to wish people would stop the competitive woe is me.....

[toccatanfudge]

and actually try having a little sympathy for others? And support each other?

I don't care whether the squeeze means you're going to have cut down your number of foreign holidays from 3 a year to 1.

Or whether whether you're going to have to cut your weekly food budget from £60 to £40.

(well ok I do care - but I don't have any less sympathy for the former than I do for the latter)

Having to make changes to the way you used to living is hard - and it sucks.

Surely the least painful way to get through hard times is to support each other rather than rip each others throats out and try to make our situation/understanding of how hard things are any worse than anyone elses?

What a nice woman you are T&C.

Oops - T&F

I'd presume Catherine Zeta-Jones also has lots of expenses so I can see why £1 million would not be a lot to her. I don't think it is crass, it is just the way it is.

haha booboo - many would beg to differ

(and I didn't even noticed you'd called me T&C )

I'm always impressed by posters who manage to come across as warm without being all hun-ny.

Good trick if you can pull it off.

I shall stop brown-nosing now, and go and do something useful.

awwww - thanks hun xxx

I need to go and do something useful as well, I've wasted an entire morning so far

Here here. . i agree
There's an awful lot of slating on mumsnet and people can be so cruel and very rude. As for the fowl language. . . . . .. (so common).
.you are called names and goodness knows what !!!!
Its disgraceful.
I honestly think some people look for OP;s in order to attack them and have a laugh, when the OP needed understanding and help.
When people post about something sensitive to them they should not get a massive onslaught, obscenities and hard debate.

Oh, but toc, you forgot that people in Africa have it much harder .

I really don't think we can moan when there are so many people having a really hard time. By having been fortunate enough to have him earning a decent salary before we have enough to keep going for a good few months. I have a small business which brings in a little . Hopefully we will be having students (cleaning and waiting to hear !) but again we're lucky enough to have enough space to be able to do this.

Yes things are uncertain but having has a friend lose her DH to cancer less than a year ago I'm still at the count your blessings stage and we are far from in the shit at the moment. Yes it is a pain and I could do with out it but that is life.

Now in a few months I may well be back about to lose the house and struggling to feed us. At that point I'd like some sympathy but don't need it now. I'm half German so this is only hal British stiff upper lip !

Damn expat - how could I forget

lol wyken ad only half British stiff upper lip.

I still think you're allowed to maon without having a verbal slapping.

Even when counting your blessings (and I sure as hell do seen as though I was seconds from death less than a year ago!) you're allowed to moan as well. Life for everyone has it's ups and downs, one persons mountain could be another persons molehill and all that.

I moaned once (in RL)abu having to find the money for dd1's school fees (dd1 is ASD, there was no suitable placement avaialble for her within state provision) -we had to pay £35k per year.

Yes, we are very lucky we could even consider it, but that took quite a lot of belt-tightening, I can tell you.

And when I said as much, it was met ith a very snappy "well, that's more than a lot of people earn, and you're lucky ot have it spare!

errr, it wasn't spare. it was much needed income. but yes, we were lucky ot be able to juggle around it. still a bloody lot of money to find at short notice...