This is the kind of article that really has me spitting feathers

[emkana]

how awful not to be able to afford school fees and foreign holidays

"Let's assume the middle class family has a combined income of £100000" - who are these people?

grrr

I can see the answer to this person's problem glaring me in the face from the first paragraph

Stop going to Waitrose.

CHURCHMICE!!!!!!!!!!!?????

they just dont live in the real world do they??

I was half expecting that piece to be a jokey type thing. sadly not.

Poor lambs, forced to go to Sicily.

Hmm, what was the point of that piece? she cannot afford school fees and a yacht...

valid point about house prices however, but this is a pointless 'poor me' piece that will be greeted with yawns and disdain by many, i woud think

shop at lidl , half price fruit and veg today !

my heart bleeds

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

God almighty it is not often I do a poor me on Mumsnet, but we are going to Caister this year, to a static caravan near the beach, we are going for a whole week courtesy of my dad. (Christmas present to me) And my God are we grateful, we really are grateful, because otherwise we would be going nowhere.

But hey, it's a good job it's getting cheaper to be poor, isn't it!?

I have no sympathy for Rachel Johnson (though to be fair, I don't think she was actually asking for sympathy) but things have definitely changed. Reading even stuff like Agatha Christie you realise that a bank manager, GP or vicar would have a large house and a housekeeper, educate children privately etc. The biggest change has been house prices. Remember all those childhood stories where incredibly poor people (I Capture The Castle) live in vast, freezing, houses or even castles (!) but have no hot water, no heating, no new clothes. Now clothes are dirt cheap, we expect heating, hot water, carpets, TVs and computers, but houses are these extraordinary luxury items.

Er, so she's famous Old Etonian, Boris Johnson's sister is she? Or did I misunderstand?

I want to 'send my view' in, but am finding it hard to string a coherent sentence together through sheer frustration.

Oh, and I don't believe it was normal in teh past to go on luxurious foreign holidays.My friend whose dad was a bank manager did go on family holidays abroad and stayed in a hotel but that was exceptional.

Yes, she's Beano Boris's sister!

that's bleeding hilarious

It is the housing. My parents bought a four bedroom house at a time when we all ate mince and shopped at Oxfam.

Dp and I eat mince and shop at oxfam, but we gat the occasional bag of chips in too, and the odd beer, but we can't afford any property, none at all. We have to rent. Which my parents didn't.

Aloha, I agree, times have changed - but this article is pretty pointless - it's just "I can't afford a yacht" as far as I can see.

An in-depth look at society, with a comparison of costs for various things, plus a discussion of what we spent/spend our money on would have been interesting. This is just get-people's-backs-up junk, IMO.

This article does seem to have been specifically designed to piss me off.

Yes, that's what I meant. And she's right about school fees shooting up too, though that doesn't affect me and my parents were always far too poor to do anything like that, or buy a house come to that, or have enough money for food even. My mother eventually bought our council house though, when house prices were low and discounts were massive!

I think she's saying that to have a sort of middle class lifestyle of yore - the kind in Just William or Agatha Christie or even Peter and Jane etc - you do now to be as rich as croesus, which I think is true. Not that I ever came close to that as a child. As I said though, the middle class lifestyle of old did often involved private school and a big house, but often didn't involve a car/telly/central heating/hot water/new clothes/toys etc - a point she does not address at all.

It has successfully pushed all my buttons.

LOL Colditz - you think she's stalked you and written it with you in mind?

I had to write a comment to her, she from another planet really.

"Oh gosh. Life is tough isnt it?

Sharing a swimming pool? Heavens forbid.
Mother having to go out to work? Good Lord
What are we coming to????????

Do you actually live in the real world?

God only knows what you would make of my working class existence."

She also doesn't address the point that now women can have proper jobs, they don't need to char for a pittance, so the price of cleaners has rocketed in affluent areas too.

I don't know what class I am [floundering]

How do you tell? Is there some sort of tick-box index?

I mean, I always thought I was middle class, but I don't appear to be able to afford to be now

it is all relative though, isn't it? if the vast majority of your friends are super rich, have their kids at private school, exotic holidays, yachts, £1000 coats etc...then you would feel like a churchmouse as she ridicolously puts it , in comparison

what annoys me about this sort of article, is when someone patently well off, pleads poverty....when in comparison to the majority of families, they are wealthy ...can;t see past the end of their noses, to see what real need is all about

Yes, Munker. Yes I do.

She has been secretly listening in on all my converstations and rant-points, and carefully composed a detailed psychological profile, and then with a team of experts, put together this article to see how long it takes me to access the Big Red Button at Downing Street and train it on her house.