How best to handle friends who earn more than you?

alditoharrods

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I earn more than all of my friends and more than my partner.

re: the wedding - I'm getting married in less than 2 months and I really don't care about presents. People being there IS a present, with most of them needing to travel.

Eating out...can you go somewhere on Tesco clubcard vouchers, or take a 2 for 1 voucher? Prezzo, etc?

If I want to do things above my friends' budgets then I usually cover it myself since I'm the higher earner
 

caledonia1972

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Agree with everyone else who says friends will understand. We are off on holiday next week and I am planning on meeting up with a friend and her kids for the afternoon. I know money is tight in their house and so therefore we've already said we'll go to the park and let the kids kick a ball around or just run wild rather than doing something expensive.

If it's a good friend, they will understand. If you say "I'm sorry, I can't afford it" people will be OK with that, and if they're not, they're not much of a friend. If a friend said that to me I'd either pay for the lunch myself or agree to the supermarket sandwich. I also agree that I would much rather have a friend without a present at a wedding than no friend at all.

Everyone has people in their social circle who are better/worse off.
 

sparkleandshine

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I definitely got the impression she was annoyed with me because she wanted to eat at a restaurant and I couldn't afford it. Maybe I just caught her on a bad day.
 

katykicker

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Maybe she was having a bad day, maybe you were because you're under a lot of pressure at the moment.

I'm in a similar position to Emma and handle things in a similar way.

I only know two people in our family/friends who earns more money than my husband and I, I feel happy for them that things are going so well and they are able to buy a big house and have the finer things in life. They don't look down on us for earning less.

In the past when we earned a lot more than our friends we did lose a couple of friends, but really just because they looked down on us. Now things have changed for us I don't flaunt our good fortune to friends and I try and invite different friends to different events based on money.

With the wedding side of it when we got married we had friends who came who couldn't afford gifts. Well, who I knew would be worried about it. I told them beforehand not to worry about it and the others who didn't buy presents made efforts with cards or to come and see us beforehand or just after, for a few drinks and a meal, and this was more than enough. I don't know now how many people didn't buy presents, it wasn't that many, but to be honest I haven't remembered those that didn't, but I have remembered those that didn't come to the wedding!

If you can't afford a gift why not make something from your sparkle and shine business? And get a nice card, or even make one. I loved the handmade cards we got and have kept all of them in a nice wedding box.

I would have occasionally been jealous when a friend had a big holiday or bought a better car than I had, but I no longer care about such things. Now I'd rather have 10 friends who are genuine friends, and who were there for us when we were skint, money doesn't really matter much anymore. I do try and be thoughtful to friends who I know earn less. They come for dinner (which we cook/buy), we have board game nights, we go cinema and I just happen to have a free ticket etc, doesn't take much effort to be a nice friend to someone when they are down on their luck.

If you feel you have a friend who relishes earning more than you then I would say life is too short and sack them off!
 

fivecats

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I had friends who cancelled their invite to my civil partnership because they 'couldn't afford to come' - they then spent their money sending me a present instead, and I felt gutted because it would have meant so much more to have them there.

At the moment, I have one friend who is avoiding me because she is in a bad financial situation. I have done everything - asking if I can come over to hers and bring lunch for us both, offering to treat her to coffee/cake - but no, she won't accept a thing and so I have not seen her for a year. Again, it is upsetting, because she is putting her feelings about her finances before our friendship.

I would suggest doing whatever you can to find a way of keeping the friendships going no matter what you can or can't afford. A good friend would always rather have your friendship.
 

RickyRaj

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Real friends will understand and appreciate your honesty. To cushion the blow I would probably send a hand written personal note as an apology and presents to the couple for the weddings.
 

sparkleandshine

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I think you there is no excuse for ever not buying a present however small it can be done for a couple of pounds after all. My daughter only gets £5 a month pocket money because that's all I can afford to give her but we expect her to buy birthday and Christmas presents for people out of that even if they do all come from the pound shop :D
 

busybusy

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I can cope with no gifts, it is lack of thank you notes/emails/text etc that I can not cope with.
 

sparkleandshine

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yes I agree with you there busybusy :)

it's sad about your friend fivecats :( although I must admit I have done the same sort of thing myself too sometimes, sometimes it's just too hard to spend time with people who it feels to you like everything is great in their life and yours falls a long way short by comparison. I think this can be true with all sorts of aspects of people's lives though and not just money.

There are issues with my friend I saw recently about me having a partner and her not, me having a child and her not, so maybe that was why I felt like she was being off with me, but I jumped to the conclusion it was about money because that was the issue that was foremost in my own mind .

I think she is very impressed with herself that she has done so well for herself careerwise and without a degree and so she should be and I don't begrudge her it at all, I know she works far longer hours than I would want to as a mum and I know her job takes a toll on both her personal life and her health and is very stressful. so no, I really don't begrudge her the money. it would just be nice to be slightly more on a par with her so I could also do the lunches, the shopping, the nights out and so on with her, as we used to be able to do when we were younger and on more of an equal footing earnings wise
 

fivecats

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sparkleandshine said:
yes I agree with you there busybusy :)

it's sad about your friend fivecats :( although I must admit I have done the same sort of thing myself too sometimes, sometimes it's just too hard to spend time with people who it feels to you like everything is great in their life and yours falls a long way short by comparison. I think this can be true with all sorts of aspects of people's lives though and not just money.

There are issues with my friend I saw recently about me having a partner and her not, me having a child and her not, so maybe that was why I felt like she was being off with me, but I jumped to the conclusion it was about money because that was the issue that was foremost in my own mind .

I think she is very impressed with herself that she has done so well for herself careerwise and without a degree and so she should be and I don't begrudge her it at all, I know she works far longer hours than I would want to as a mum and I know her job takes a toll on both her personal life and her health and is very stressful. so no, I really don't begrudge her the money. it would just be nice to be slightly more on a par with her so I could also do the lunches, the shopping, the nights out and so on with her, as we used to be able to do when we were younger and on more of an equal footing earnings wise

I think there may be an issue here with everyone thinking everyone else's life is better or more sorted in some way. For example, the friend I mentioned is keeping me at arms' length because she feels bad about her financial worries, but in the mean time there are a million things I've wanted/needed her support on - worries and nerves about my PhD, my partner going through spells of unemployment etc - she probably thinks all is rosy but that's because I can't get a chance to speak to her!

Likewise, you may be right about your friend feeling her life doesn't measure up to yours because you have some of the major things she'd like. I read somewhere that we have a problem with comparing our 'insides' to everyone else's 'outsides', if that makes sense!
 

sparkleandshine

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I know when I was a single mum it caused me a lot of hurt seeing everyone else happy with boyfriends and husbands...and yet I had a wonderful daughter and a great job so I bet there were people who were envious of me for that...the trouble is you can't see it when you're in it you can only see your own situation and your own problems and you can get so bogged down in your own stuff. I hope you manage to reconnect with your friend soon. Maybe you could show her this thread?
 

sparkleandshine

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wedding invitation number 1 just arrived and actually it's not as bad as I thought :) it's not down South as I thought it was going to be, it's actually in Leeds so it might even be doable just for the day with no need to for an overnight stay. And I might be able to cadge a lift with another friend and go halves on the petrol. And we can just not buy new clothes and take a small present.
 

Jon

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sparkleandshine said:
wedding invitation number 1 just arrived and actually it's not as bad as I thought :) it's not down South as I thought it was going to be, it's actually in Leeds so it might even be doable just for the day with no need to for an overnight stay. And I might be able to cadge a lift with another friend and go halves on the petrol. And we can just not buy new clothes and take a small present.




PARTY!!
 

Jon

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sparkleandshine said:
And it's at Harewood House and I absolutely love it there! :)


oh man, the posh end ;)
 

sparkleandshine

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I went to meet up with my friend who's on holiday in the peak district yesterday and we had a lovely day :) we came to a compromise and as i had shelled out for train tickets she and her husband paid for lunch :) as it turns out they aren't really doing any better than us financially , so that was just down to me being paranoid and thinking everyone is doing better than us
 

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