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

For many years most middle class women stayed at home to care for children. So although a professional couple may still be able to afford a similar property to that which their parents bought in the 60s or 70s, it's now taking 2 salaries instead of one.

People would be a lot better off if they got rid of the idea of classes, property 'ladders' and that debt only happens to those who spend frivolously.

I think 'class' is all in the mind - it has very little to do with the job that you do. Some of the most common people I know are loaded!

class is rarely about money and certainly not about disposable income. as i am sure many titled gentlemen in country castles will testify

The property ladder felt so unusual when I first encountered it. I think it's because people move around for jobs so much that they never buy with a view to living there long term, always with a view to moving and making a profit.

The concept of a "property ladder" is accepted unquestioningly now - I can remember when it was always cited semi-ironically and/or in inverted commas.

I think that is an out of date concept now Custy. I think class has to a considerable degree been replaced by income & the spending thereof.
Years ago, conspicuous consumption was considered very "nouveau" & vulgar - but nowadays there are only a few wrinkly old ladies who still think along these lines.

I think it depends on context, bugsy. If I saw a blinged-up gold Rolls cruising through our suburban close, I'd probably still think it was nouveau and vulgar!

I'd think, 'Drug dealer'.

Well all I do is trot out the old cliche that life is what you make of it.

So our generation of lawyers, accountants, teachers and so on can only aspire to a very modest property into which they sink all their wealth. They are priced out of private schools and the sort of lifestyle that they may have thought they were heading towards.

So what? It doesn't mean you can't have a happy life, just because you are priced out of a 'prosperous' one. I think the biggest waste would be if you let it get you down too much, and waste the advantages you have got.

I am grateful for my education, that was denied to my predecessors. I am grateful for a roof over my head, however small. I am grateful for not having to worry about whether I can put food on the table.

I am grateful for the fact that if my children or family get ill, they have a better chance than ever before of getting better. If they have educational needs, these will most likely be addressed, albeit after a huge battle.

I can get childcare to go out to work, even though it is expensive. I can get a job and reasonably equal opportunities, with the potential to work flexibly. I can probably go on a cheap holiday each year, something none of the previous generations took for granted.

My husband does expect to do some housework, even if it is not as much as I would like. He doesn't go out to the pub every night, which I thought a lot of men did while I was growing up.

We have freedom to move around for jobs, which has its downsides, but at least we have the freedom.

It is easier than ever to emigrate, if so desired. I do agree that the skill is to see the good things we have, rather than moan about how things have shaped up compared to expectations.

Umm yes. I find quite a bit of conspicuous consumption vulgar. Must be my inner wrinkly old lady....

The way I was brought up I suppose - lived in a largish house that almost always needs a lick of paint and had no mod-cons at all, but was stuffed to the rafters with books and antiques. My parents always had old cars and all our clothes were hand-me-downs or home-made. I can't help feel residual guilt that all our clothes are bought... So I do find myself tutting at big 4x4s .... But it's not my fault....

cloudhopper - "I am grateful for a roof over my head, however small. I am grateful for not having to worry about whether I can put food on the table"

That is true. I do find myself reciting that as a kind of mantra when the house suddenly feels too small for the 5 of us and when all my friends are planning yet another holiday somewhere hot and exotic.....

And I wouldn't spend £80 on a pedal bin even if I had it .

Not even one of those soft touch stainless steel ones?

I'd be thinking drug dealer too Expat!
I'm hugely wrinkly inside. I think that everyone who buys a new car (as in off the forecourt) is being conspicuous (not to mention daft) - but I am aware that I this would be pereceived to be ridiculous by most people!

Bugsy2 - when I read 'hugely wrinkly inside' just for a min I thought you meant your fanjo!!! oops!

I think a lot of people try to avoid the footballers' house etc set up/spending. So I'm with the little old ladies here in teh League against Vulgar spending but even that is amusing that we look at others and say Rolls Bad but XYZ (buying a cow for India or whatever) good.

Perhaps we just move around in cycles and that at one stage XYZ person was well off (might be the salt mine owner or whatever) and another a different set of people. It just comes and goes.

However I do think there is a general desire to do better or the same as your parents and that many generations want to improve on the last which many have managed (financially I mean). My siblings and I just about have managed to get the house, private school etc on one income similar to what my parents did. Our children might indeed not find it as easy to do so but we'll see.

Do you know what I've just thought - we are all laughing at the 'let's assume 100K' comment - but wasn't the average salary on MN after that survey about £50K? So a fair few posters are probably not that far off £100K are they? Hmmm.

Still not denying her comment was daft - but on MN, there are probably plenty on somewhere close to £100K.

I'm middle-class, DP and I both work f/t, and between us we earn nowhere near £100k. We're not young and at the beginning of our careers, either.

I'm sure there are plenty on 100k, and plenty well above it, but it's the way she takes it as if it's some kind of basic starting point that's so annoying.

She's the worst kind of joke - an unfunny one.

Oh I agree! It was just a though I suddenly had and I thought I'd share it. Pointless though it is!

'thought'

You know, I worked out how much our annual income is the other day. £24000. We live in London (Zone 2), one parent stays home, I have a 'middle class' job, as did dh before he retired to be a daddy. OK, so we don't privately educate the sluglet, or live in a 3 bed semi (a 2 bed flat actually) but to my mind we are quite comfortably well off.

What planet is this woman on?

Cloudhopper, you have expressed everything I wanted to say so eloquently.

I firmly believe it is not how much you earn but how you spend it that matters. I personaally find the comment that £100k is not enough to live on in London risible.