Income brackets: PERCEPTIONS of low and high?

lostinrates

BillJones wrote: »

In touch with what, then, that you can claim that you are in touch with it, but I am not?

I've lived in London on £6k a year, I've hd to choose between eating and heating, and I'm from a mining village in the North, so I honestly don't understand what you think you "get" that I don't.

Keep calm bill,


I do understand your frustration but my feeling is that we can only hope to appreciate each others viewpoints ever if things are calmly and clearly discussed in an amicable way.





Its been interesting to me too, commenting 'out here ' for the first time in a long while, how important perception is, and how people forget there can be a 'before' or an 'after' or an 'I between'

Or even just a different.


I genuinely have learned a lot from this forum in the past, but forgotten more:o.

lostinrates

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Yes, I do.. because I have experienced people who isolate themselves in social circles away from 'others'

Super, that's great answer. ( again I am reiterating, in 'my thread' on perception there are no wrong answers if they are polite and engaged. All are of equal worth here:D. )

wotsthat

This thread shows the gulf between perception and reality. Don't really want to say what my household income is but it's in a similar bracket to Tancred (highish 5 figures). What strikes me as odd is that Tancred paints him/herself as a somewhat downtrodden worker being shafted by the rich whereas I'm absolutely delighted with my standard of living on a similar income.

We manage to live on about 75% of what we earn more than comfortably and early retirement is becoming a distinct possibility. In the meantime we eat well, drink well, have hobbies, see plenty of the world and can afford a second home.

Couple of thoughts..

- Both of us came from, by UK standards, poor backgrounds and once you've been there there's a driving determination not to go back. By comparison to when I was a kid I live like a king.

- People's natural inclination when they earn more is to spend more but my spending increases have always lagged the pay increases so my wealth has increased which is how I judge how well off I am rather than what I earn on a monthly basis.

- I'm comfortable hanging around with people who are better and worse off than me. I know two people with decent sized yachts moored in the Med and tend to think 'good for them' - I have no interest in 'keeping up' but assume that if they can build up that sort of wealth then there's opportunity for me to do the same. On the other hand we're equally happy camping with other long term friends who have to be more careful with money than us. We're all united in that we're grateful for what we've got - more would be better but that's life.

- I avoid the 'neg heads'. I can't bear to be around people who get themselves on a downer because they can only afford a BMW 3 -series when their neighbour drives a 5-series when by any other measure they have riches that most people in the world can only dream of.

lostinrates

wotsthat wrote: »

This thread shows the gulf between perception and reality. Don't really want to say what my household income is but it's in a similar bracket to Tancred (highish 5 figures). What strikes me as odd is that Tancred paints him/herself as a somewhat downtrodden worker being shafted by the rich whereas I'm absolutely delighted with my standard of living on a similar income.

We manage to live on about 75% of what we earn more than comfortably and early retirement is becoming a distinct possibility. In the meantime we eat well, drink well, have hobbies, see plenty of the world and can afford a second home.

Couple of thoughts..

- Both of us came from, by UK standards, poor backgrounds and once you've been there there's a driving determination not to go back. By comparison to when I was a kid I live like a king.

- People's natural inclination when they earn more is to spend more but my spending increases have always lagged the pay increases so my wealth has increased which is how I judge how well off I am rather than what I earn on a monthly basis.

- I'm comfortable hanging around with people who are better and worse off than me. I know two people with decent sized yachts moored in the Med and tend to think 'good for them' - I have no interest in 'keeping up' but assume that if they can build up that sort of wealth then there's opportunity for me to do the same. On the other hand we're equally happy camping with other long term friends who have to be more careful with money than us. We're all united in that we're grateful for what we've got - more would be better but that's life.

- I avoid the 'neg heads'. I can't bear to be around people who get themselves on a downer because they can only afford a BMW 3 -series when their neighbour drives a 5-series when by any other measure they have riches that most people in the world can only dream of.

thank you for response.

I'd appreciated it if in this space no further comment directed at a particular poster in a negative way were developed.


I very much agree with your social comments, life is a tapestry of many threads, or a table of many foods. A meal of just sugar is not a pleasant one.

BillJones

ringo_24601 wrote: »

...But I know that's no where near reality

I don't get this view (and it's a common one). Life is no less "real" for an oligarch like Abramovitch than it is for a widow on benefits, a young child, or a junior doctor.

"Reality" includes rich, poor, and everyone in between. Life is better for some, worse for others, for a whole host of reasons both do do with money and completely remove from it, but we often see the view expressed on here that the wealthy don't count, don't matter, should somehow be excluded from in any way counting just as much as the next person.

It was similar with the "out of touch" comments. The implication is that the rich are not just "out of touch" with the poor (as the poor would then be just as much out of touch with the rich), but that the rich are out of touch with reality itself.

[Deleted User]

When I first moved to London, to a flat share - one of the first questions my new flat mate asked me was "What do you earn?"

He then got in a bit of a huff when he found out I was earning £2k more than him

It's funny how people perceive others because of their salary sometimes.

One of my relatives just got made a Vice President of a large American firm. He's 34, same as me. I honestly don't want to know what he's earning as I think I might end up feeling jealous.

edit: By "reality' I mean 'nationwide reality' - where MOST people aren't Russian billionaires

SingleSue

lostinrates wrote: »

Sue, I want to be really clear I have no judgement for sahp. ( or working ones). As someone who isn't one it would be a cheek but as part of society I think a sahp producing results ( school attendance, law abiding, and even achievement is a valuable investment in our futures, any form of child care that produces content, productive, healthy people with aspiration is good for all of us in the country). I'm simply playing with figures for the idea of 'income' and perception and reality. As it is my lack of knowledge sees me hit a wall, as I don't know reasonable figures for childcare for example, and to make up unreasonable ones defeats the point of the exercise:D

Oh goodness no, I didn't think you were judging. I suppose what I was trying to show was that even without a high wage earner, it was still possible to have a stay at home parent if people were careful with their money, alongside the fact that in a two income household, there are ways to get around the expensive child care problem but that sacrifices have to be made.

I suppose in a way, we were lucky in that I came from a household where money was tight in my young childhood (dad had a bad accident which meant a year in hospital and 3 years before he could return to work), so things like taking out finance or loans were alien concepts for us and making do and mend was the norm. This worked in our favour as it meant that we had more disposable income on a smaller income than a lot of our peers as we didn't feel like we had to 'keep up with the Jones'.

We didn't feel as if we were going without, we just used things until they needed to be replaced rather than replacing perfectly good items with life left in them with new ones. We still had a holiday every year (caravan holiday in the UK), still had occasional meals out, I indulged in my collectable books, had reliable, albeit second hand, cars and we had what felt like a comfortable life.

So our preception of what incomes were high, medium and low were probably a lot different to other couples as our lifestyle was vastly different to some of our peers. An example of this was once at work, we were discussing disposable income and a few of my colleagues were moaning that tax credits were paying for our annual holiday (at that point, we were only getting a very small amount, it was just before we tapered out), yet when we added up all that we got, it was still less than what just their husband's were earning and we had more children.

We were receiving almost half jointly what they were earning (even with tax credits included), yet we had more disposable income to play with as they insisted on having new kitchens, sofas, cars etc every 3 years and an expensive holiday (5k+) every year, all on credit, which meant that every month, a huge wodge of money had to be paid out to service their debts...we didn't have any as we lived within our means.

I've only ever had one brand new sofa suite (£400), never had a new kitchen (my current one cost £50 for the units second hand almost 16 years ago) and never had a brand new car, the youngest one was 7 years old, my last one was £461 and lasted nearly 5 years!

That said, we did occasionally splash out.....Disneyland Paris, first class all the way, including the hotel, so we weren't completely miserly.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

What does upkeep include? 800 is a 3 bed semi on a good road in a commuter town. Maintenance is 100 a month, utilities and council tax 400?

Really? I'd hope for something like this from my old stomping ground:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43402466.html?premiumA=true

That's a decent sub-mil house IMHO.

lostinrates

ringo_24601 wrote: »

When I first moved to London, to a flat share - one of the first questions my new flat mate asked me was "What do you earn?"

He then got in a bit of a huff when he found out I was earning £2k more than him

It's funny how people perceive others because of their salary sometimes.

One of my relatives just got made a Vice President of a large American firm. He's 34, same as me. I honestly don't want to know what he's earning as I think I might end up feeling jealous.

edit: By "reality' I mean 'nationwide reality' - where MOST people aren't Russian billionaires

. Ringo I like your posts very much now. You warm up beautifully.

Your flat mate was jealous of you, you might be of your cousin, its a funny old world, and I genuinely appreciate this candidness because you are the closest to the bone of the thread I believe.


( on a personal note I also feel very lucky that while I might envy 'things' sometimes, its not that lingering, and while I am convinced I'd be an excellent billionaire :DI'm not jealous of the friends we have who are richer than us. It just doesn't really occur to me to be tbh. I'm not blind to 'worth' any more than I am hair colour or height or incredible artistic ability but, ...I cannot be taller either nor a great painter, so what's the point comparing.....just be us....?)

wotsthat

lostinrates wrote: »

I'd appreciated it if in this space no further comment directed at a particular poster in a negative way were developed.

Not really intended to be negative. It's pertinent to the thread - two people with similar incomes but very different perceptions.

Actual income is only one factor in people's perception of income - I'd argue it's only a small part too. Generali's got it spot on - you might think earning £1m is a lot but if everyone you hang around with earn £1.5m and have a Swiss ski cottage your perception may change.