This will probably get me into trouble... but how can you have money worries...

[emkana]

... when the wife is a full-time GP and the husband a solicitor? I'm just reading "What about me?" by Kate Figes and the narrator in the book is the GP and she moans about not having enough money to buy a decent car or to fix the roof. Now, I estimate that the combined salary of that couple would be about £150.000 a year, wouldn't it? How can that not be enough????????
I know, I know, the woman is the narrator of the book and so it's subjective and you spend what you have so it never feels enough and all that...
but still it puts my back up, am I supposed to empathize with the narrator now over her troubled lot or what???

Personally, I'd love to feel that "horrible"

...and roofs are bloody expensive!

im not sure i understand why my post has caused so much emotion.

a mortgage is to put a roof over your head. if you are both working, and have kids, and it is a big house, then it isnt possible to clean it all yourself, and a cleaner is necessary. a nanny is necessary for both parents to work, just because you have a nanny doesnt mean you are much better off, as it could be that 80% of your earnings are going to pay for the nanny. i cant afford to work as a nanny would cost me more than what i would be bringing home, so i should know.

two cars. well, sometimes the set up is such that you NEED two cars. for example, my dh cant get to work without a car, and i cant get the kids to and from school, (state school ) without a car. atm we are stuck at home without one and it is driving us crazy, but it wasnt essential during the summer holidadys, so we chose to leave it till school starts.

an indifferent partner, well, i think i may well win the competition for that one.

lol Mud its my own fault me and daddycool have been missing our litracy lessons

oh, and im sick to death of mothers on benefits claiming they have no money, whilst holding a cigarette in one hand, and fake nails on both.

a pack of the killers is five pounds burnt a day, and fake nails are forty pounds a month. thats two hundred quid a month. wish i had that sort of money to spend on myself.
mortgage and lifestyle choices, well yes, i choose to get a roof over my kids heads, than burningit on killer tubes

here's my POV (formulated while cleaning the fridge):
we are currently living in "reduced" circumstances, on about 30% of our old income, since I gave up work to look after dd.
it has been hard to readjust but frankly I don't give a toss about all the things I have "given up" and that lots of my contemporaries/friends still enjoy. And I certainly don't judge anyone on the size of their house/how much money they earn/holidays/whatever (in fact when I meet someone with a big house I tend to think- god I bet this mortgage is crippling you...)
BUT (there is a point here) I feel this way because I have a choice. I have all the benefits of health, education, a dh with good health and an education and a healthy dd and a stable marriage and while you might say that I have worked hard for it nevertheless I am not kidding myself that quite a lot of it isn't just pure luck. And for people who don't have the luxury of choice, well it's not so easy to take such an attitude because their situations were chosen for them. And so other people complaining about their choices might stick inthe throat a bit, I would imagine.

But stitch plenty of people do and can manage to bring up kids in small houses. Through choice or necessity. So having a great big house and then moaning because you haven't money for a cleaner is really going to piss off those people!

oh, and i dont mean anyone on mn, or at least noone knowingly. i am speaking generally of somepeople i have met in rl who are like that. havent met anyone on mn who is obvioulsy like that.

omg

DC - 'they're are mummies on this site who aren't even on the property ladder and live from one paycheque to the next so when there is talk of private schools, nannies and cleaners, i wonder what they think'

As one of these mummies it makes me feel really really crap!!! I don't for a second begrudge people the money they do have but to have it shoved in your face does make you feel worse.

Some people are obviously fortunate enough to have never worried about finding a tenner to get their kids some decent dinner and therefore don't understand.

No money to buy a car??? My car was £100!!!!

At the moment me and dp have 10 days to find 1000.00 or we are going to lose the house we gave up everything to get only 3 months ago, so people worrying about their 'extra' car etc really grates. At least they know they'll have a roof over their head next month.

but franny, how many people really mean it when they moan like that?
often, its just something to say. meaningless conversation.

stitch - well yes . they are a different kettle of fish all together. I'm talking more about the hardworking folks who don't necessarily make a big paycheque.

agree stitch, we have 2 cars, dh cant get to work without one and I cant get anywhere without one, we live in a small village with one bus a day. dh and dd go to playgroups in the closest town and I need the car to get there, do shopping, go to the doctors, everything in fact.

I also dont work, as I cant earn enough to justify having a nanny.

Cant believe that so many people are slatting anybody that is wealthy, yes some of those people do rub it in, some dont, they have probably worked hard to get where they are. I feel for people who struggle, sometimes we still do, and in the past we did a lot, but why can we just not admire people for who they are, regardless of finances, type of house, holidays, nannys, education, job etc.

expat, come on, its not a lifestyle choice to have a mortgage surely?

often it is cheaper than renting.

Here we go again! The ol' 'mums on benefits who smoke and spend money on frivolous luxuries' . . .

Sigh.

We are a working poor family with no chance of ever getting near any sort of property 'ladder' except maybe as hired hands to mow the grass under it.

The myth that all those who can't afford to buy property or hire staff to clean their homes is b/c they blow all they have on fags and drink really gets my back up and make poor lifestyle 'choices'. Since when was buying food or paying council tax a 'choice'?

'Oh, if they just saved more'. Saved more of what?

blank, my car has just died on me. and this despite dh having poured what i consider too much money into it. at the moment it needs a new clutch etc which will cost 500 quid. the car is only worth 200 quid. does it make economic sense to fix it?
and a second car is not an 'extra' car. i dont think a four year old should be expected to walk two miles to school, attend school all day, and then walk two miles back. hence i need a car.
yes, his big brothers cubs could be considered a luxury, but since when is school a luxury?
oh, and we bought this house here, so we wouldnt have to pay school fees, which if we had continued to live where we used to, we'd have had to, either that of home educate.

I think we all know the syndrome of the more you get the more you want. We are currently loads better off then we were 5 years ago and I am trying not to get used to it IYSWIM. It's easy to start wishing you had more money for things and to forget what it's like to be less well off. My sister and her family are so loaded. Her dh earns a completely crackpot amount of money but she is constantly moaning that her latest in the long line of new houses is not big enough. I once had a moan to her when working as a nanny because I was disappointed with my £5 pay rise. She said "Well I wish I had an extra £5 a week to spend on myself." This is a woman who pays £120 for a haircut (and yes I am being a bit bitchy and jealous!)

Should point out when I say "we are currently loads better off" I mean me and dp.

Isn't all moaning relative to experience though? Plenty of people on here moan about their Mums - mine's dead, I'd love to be able to moan about her IYSWIM. They're not even being thoughtless, they just don't know what it's like, so I say nothing. If someone is moaning about the cost of running two cars or the size of their mortgage to someone in a similar position, I don't see what the problem is. If they're saying it to someone who lives in a Council flat, they're thoughtless, tactless and insensitive.

Yes, having a mortgage is a choice, Enid. B/c no one says you have to own your own place, even if it's cheaper than renting. And it's a choice many people don't have.

Sure, it's cheaper than renting. It'd probably cost us half of what we pay in rent alone - £500/month - to pay a mortgage on our flat. But you have to have had enough of an income to save for a deposit and fees and enough of an income to qualify for a mortgage in order to obtain one.

That isn't possible for millions of folks.

I agree with you expat (about the fags thing - although it does annoy me when people smoke, full stop)

but you can't have the entire moral high ground you know, this is mumsnet after all

I insist you agree with me that mortgages are not that much of a big deal