I am just dumbfounded these days as everyone around me seems to be able to effortlessly afford big houses and multiple holidays a year. Two years ago, dh and I went through blood, sweat and tears to buy our tiny maisonette, we knew it was small but it was close to a station that gets us to London easily and we knew we couldn’t afford to move out further and then have to pay for expensive trains. We used all our savings for this place and even needed a small loan from MIL (retirement savings) which we now pay pack monthly on top of a mortgage. I’m now on mat leave and have zero disposable income, we both struggle to buy treats or a takeaway for a nice break. If something needs to be done to the house we need to use our credit cards, we are trying to build up our savings for emergencies but it’s so hard. Yesterday we went to a new couple friends house (we know them from NCT), we thought they were quite normal/ working class people and expected them to be living like us. I was wrong, their place was huge, with a huge garden, there was so much space, they also have been away on lots of trips this year. This is the same for the rest of the NCT group, we live in a relatively working class area so none of us are super wealthy but everyone seems to be doing better than us. We can barely afford to run our car. I think I find it depressing because we worked so hard to get this place, we had no inheritance or gifted money, we were proud of our place until we started to see what our friends were buying. One of my non NCT friends was complaining about her small four bed house recently, she has a huge place with a big garden in zone 4 London, she earns less than me but married quite wealthy 🥹 it makes me sick and I don’t know how to just overcome this. I know we should be grateful but it’s hard. I’m just envious that others seem to have been dealt a better hand than us, neither of our parents owned property so there’s no generational wealth at all.
Sorry big rant but feeling quite low today and it affected my sleep. In the grand scheme of things I know we are lucky.