I hate headlines like this.
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@afewbugs I've been having packed lunches for 9 and a half years. I'm pleased to hear that a million pounds will somehow appear in my bank account in 6 months.
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To angrily overthink this further, it really does illustrate how people in the UK (and probably the wider Western World) are so completely isolated from one another by income bracket we don't really understand each other's lives. All of this couple's friends are presumably in finance or life coaching so to them making lunch instead of buying it sounds so outrageous they presumably approached the BBC and got themselves interviewed about it because they think they've done something so unusual. When really the unusual thing is that it worked.
They also mention not putting on the heating in winter and using jumpers and hot water bottles instead, during which they presumably continued performing well enough in finance and life coaching. I'm guessing their house is high enough quality that it retained some heat and didn't immediately get covered in damp and black mould. Meanwhile during the really cold winter we had a couple of years back I was really worried about how exhausted one of the cleaners at work was getting, who admitted he couldn't afford to heat his house and it was too cold to sleep properly.
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I hate headlines like this. You read the article and discover she works in finance, he runs a life coaching business whatever that is, and they retired once their savings hit £1 million which didn't come from making their own sandwiches.
Meanwhile out in the real world most of us have been bringing packed lunches to work since the 2010s at least and are still one unexpected vet bill away from a couple of months of home haircuts.
@afewbugs so let's do the maths. 253 working days or so in a year, a fancy lunch is a tenner (I spend less if eating out for lunch but let's go with it). A cheap packed lunch can be a pound (probably not realistic it's quite that cheap but let's go with it) over 10 years they save £22k ish. It's not exactly money to retire on. So this article utter nonsense
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To angrily overthink this further, it really does illustrate how people in the UK (and probably the wider Western World) are so completely isolated from one another by income bracket we don't really understand each other's lives. All of this couple's friends are presumably in finance or life coaching so to them making lunch instead of buying it sounds so outrageous they presumably approached the BBC and got themselves interviewed about it because they think they've done something so unusual. When really the unusual thing is that it worked.
@afewbugs This sort of thing is the bane of society. Oh, you could be rich too if you just made your own sandwiches and stopped buying coffee (or avocado toast, remember that one?)...and oh yeah, have rich parents and a high-paying job. But it's the sandwiches that make the difference, sure.
I think instead of packing our own lunches we should start eating the rich.
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They also mention not putting on the heating in winter and using jumpers and hot water bottles instead, during which they presumably continued performing well enough in finance and life coaching. I'm guessing their house is high enough quality that it retained some heat and didn't immediately get covered in damp and black mould. Meanwhile during the really cold winter we had a couple of years back I was really worried about how exhausted one of the cleaners at work was getting, who admitted he couldn't afford to heat his house and it was too cold to sleep properly.
But I think the thing I really hate about these type of headlines is how they feed into victims blaming. People aren't poor because they don't have enough money for a decent life and it's really hard to claw your way over life's obstacles without money rather than having them knock you back further. They're poor because they spend too much money on sandwiches instead of making their own, the lazy idiots
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I hate headlines like this. You read the article and discover she works in finance, he runs a life coaching business whatever that is, and they retired once their savings hit £1 million which didn't come from making their own sandwiches.
Meanwhile out in the real world most of us have been bringing packed lunches to work since the 2010s at least and are still one unexpected vet bill away from a couple of months of home haircuts.
@afewbugs "life coaching" — a totally unregulated area which is mainly a scam feeding off of vulnerably stressed out and anxious people... IDK, maybe some folks get something out of it. Mostly it's just confidence scam trickery IMO.
Stupid headline, stupid "news", generally ridiculous all round.
Paying for Tesco value meals is why other millenials don't own homes. Obviously. (And avodados, lattes, etc of course.)
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@afewbugs so let's do the maths. 253 working days or so in a year, a fancy lunch is a tenner (I spend less if eating out for lunch but let's go with it). A cheap packed lunch can be a pound (probably not realistic it's quite that cheap but let's go with it) over 10 years they save £22k ish. It's not exactly money to retire on. So this article utter nonsense
@PJPaints I realise I don't actually know how much a meal deal costs anymore because it's so long since I bought one
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But I think the thing I really hate about these type of headlines is how they feed into victims blaming. People aren't poor because they don't have enough money for a decent life and it's really hard to claw your way over life's obstacles without money rather than having them knock you back further. They're poor because they spend too much money on sandwiches instead of making their own, the lazy idiots
@afewbugs Grrrrr. This exactly. Without recognizing the privilege they started with.
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But I think the thing I really hate about these type of headlines is how they feed into victims blaming. People aren't poor because they don't have enough money for a decent life and it's really hard to claw your way over life's obstacles without money rather than having them knock you back further. They're poor because they spend too much money on sandwiches instead of making their own, the lazy idiots
@afewbugs the old spectre of the Victorian "deserving poor and undeserving poor" haunts us yet again. Much easier to assume poor folk are lazy/frivolous/stupid than to blame the real enemy, right?
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@PJPaints I realise I don't actually know how much a meal deal costs anymore because it's so long since I bought one
@afewbugs I work in Manchester and I would generally spend like 8 quid if buying lunch in the city. I guess would be a lot more if I ate at a proper restaurant but who's doing that every day for lunch?
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I hate headlines like this. You read the article and discover she works in finance, he runs a life coaching business whatever that is, and they retired once their savings hit £1 million which didn't come from making their own sandwiches.
Meanwhile out in the real world most of us have been bringing packed lunches to work since the 2010s at least and are still one unexpected vet bill away from a couple of months of home haircuts.
@afewbugs “The two rarely had takeaways and always took packed lunches to work. ‘We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit," says Alan.’”
Works out that between them they were spending over £75 *a week* on lunches before going DIY.
‘Aside from their good incomes, their extreme saving habits meant they were able to retire early.’ Though the article doesn’t mention their salaries outside of ‘good’ so it kinda renders the whole piece redundant.
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@afewbugs “The two rarely had takeaways and always took packed lunches to work. ‘We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit," says Alan.’”
Works out that between them they were spending over £75 *a week* on lunches before going DIY.
‘Aside from their good incomes, their extreme saving habits meant they were able to retire early.’ Though the article doesn’t mention their salaries outside of ‘good’ so it kinda renders the whole piece redundant.
@afewbugs It’d be more meaningful if it talked in terms of % saved perhaps, and a further explanation of FIRE. As it is, it leans towards the ‘ner ner, look at us’ puff piece.
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I hate headlines like this. You read the article and discover she works in finance, he runs a life coaching business whatever that is, and they retired once their savings hit £1 million which didn't come from making their own sandwiches.
Meanwhile out in the real world most of us have been bringing packed lunches to work since the 2010s at least and are still one unexpected vet bill away from a couple of months of home haircuts.
@afewbugs see, that's the problem, you read the article. You're supposed to read the headline and go on with your day, with a reinforced opinion that the Poors deserve to be Poor because we're too stupid and/or lazy
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@afewbugs "life coaching" — a totally unregulated area which is mainly a scam feeding off of vulnerably stressed out and anxious people... IDK, maybe some folks get something out of it. Mostly it's just confidence scam trickery IMO.
Stupid headline, stupid "news", generally ridiculous all round.
Paying for Tesco value meals is why other millenials don't own homes. Obviously. (And avodados, lattes, etc of course.)
@afewbugs "avodados" — typo, lol... maybe new terminology for whatever the term "dad bod" is supposed to mean (terminology I just see around far too much lol). Millennial avo-eating dads confident & comfortable in themselves, probably have man-buns and ride fixies. (Is that still a thing, I've no idea at all really.)
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To angrily overthink this further, it really does illustrate how people in the UK (and probably the wider Western World) are so completely isolated from one another by income bracket we don't really understand each other's lives. All of this couple's friends are presumably in finance or life coaching so to them making lunch instead of buying it sounds so outrageous they presumably approached the BBC and got themselves interviewed about it because they think they've done something so unusual. When really the unusual thing is that it worked.
@afewbugs it's not just them - all the people they spoke to at the BBC must also have thought "this sounds likely and unusual" because they have sufficiently similar lifestyles and incomes to that couple that they don't realise the utter lack of everyday perspective it confers on them
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@afewbugs This sort of thing is the bane of society. Oh, you could be rich too if you just made your own sandwiches and stopped buying coffee (or avocado toast, remember that one?)...and oh yeah, have rich parents and a high-paying job. But it's the sandwiches that make the difference, sure.
I think instead of packing our own lunches we should start eating the rich.
I'm, more for the guilotine myself... can you imagine how unpleasant narcissism, bitterness, entitlement and superiority would taste.... especially with the racist, white supremacists seasoning.
Off with their heads and burn the remains... and even that's too good for them.
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@afewbugs the old spectre of the Victorian "deserving poor and undeserving poor" haunts us yet again. Much easier to assume poor folk are lazy/frivolous/stupid than to blame the real enemy, right?
@therivercrow @afewbugs except when you scratch at it, it invariably turns out that the "deserving poor" are the ones live an ascetic lifestyle because they want to, and the "undeserving poor" are the ones who don't have any money, any choice or any power.
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To angrily overthink this further, it really does illustrate how people in the UK (and probably the wider Western World) are so completely isolated from one another by income bracket we don't really understand each other's lives. All of this couple's friends are presumably in finance or life coaching so to them making lunch instead of buying it sounds so outrageous they presumably approached the BBC and got themselves interviewed about it because they think they've done something so unusual. When really the unusual thing is that it worked.
@afewbugs to reiterate, saving £40k over 10 years is over £75 *a week*. Just on sandwiches between the two of them.
Edit: they *saved* over £75 a week, so the initial lunches were higher
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I hate headlines like this. You read the article and discover she works in finance, he runs a life coaching business whatever that is, and they retired once their savings hit £1 million which didn't come from making their own sandwiches.
Meanwhile out in the real world most of us have been bringing packed lunches to work since the 2010s at least and are still one unexpected vet bill away from a couple of months of home haircuts.
@afewbugs
I saw this headline on the BBC website and didn't read it cos it would just make me angry. Just knew they would be incredibly privileged who did 'just one thing' to let them retire but had no relation to the real reasons why they could do it. -
@therivercrow @afewbugs except when you scratch at it, it invariably turns out that the "deserving poor" are the ones live an ascetic lifestyle because they want to, and the "undeserving poor" are the ones who don't have any money, any choice or any power.
@mewsleah @therivercrow this is a big problem in sustainability circles too, there's a bit difference between how buying secondhand hand clothes, not holidaying abroad and riding a bike are seen if you could afford them but are doing it for the planet vs if you can't afford new clothes, holidays or a car
