What it's like to be rich and poor
I've been both at various points in my life. Here's what I've experienced
I had a rags-to-riches childhood, though that’s an exaggeration. I was never dirty and covered in rags, and I never dripped in diamonds and furs. But until halfway through my childhood, our family of four were living in a flat in shoddy Willesden Green, NW2. It was all bunk beds, hand-me-downs and no car - my mum had given up work to care for me and my sister, so we were limping along on my dad’s salary, and we were poor.
Then, in 1988, my dad’s mother died. His father had died four years previously, and my dad was an only child, so his parents left everything to him.
So, when I was eight-and-a-half, we were able to move from the flat in downmarket Brent to a semi-detached four-bedroom Victorian house with a stained glass window in upmarket Pinner, Harrow.
The monetary differential was lost on me at the time. I hated both homes: the first one was full of 1970s brown and orange decor, the second was huge and austere and draughty and full of antiquated 1800s decor.
I sometimes wonder if I’d have developed my love for modern, bright, futuristic interiors had I not been forced to live in such drab surroundings. But I also don’t think any amount of opulence would have made up for the family dysfunction and abuse.
My ‘house-poor’ years
The thing about living in the big four-bedroom house was that we were what’s called ‘house-poor’ - we had a huge mortgage and next to no disposable income. Everything went on the mortgage and bills.
It’s common to look at people who live in big houses and think they must be rich, but often that’s not the case. A lot of the time, they’re asset-rich but cash-poor, which is the situation I’m in right now.
A lot of the time, people in this situation end up downsizing. I’m not going to though, because I love my house too much. And we didn’t downsize as a family either, though my mum went back to work when I was 12.
But before that, we had a rattly old banger of a second-hand car, holidays (only ever in the UK) in youth hostels, touring National Trust properties in the banger as I tried not to throw up in the back from carsickness. Grim memories.
Worse, for me, was being kitted out in my cousins’ hand-me-downs and being bought unbranded trainers and jeans from Zoo Club at Tesco - absolute suicide in the playground on Mufti Day. Naturally, I wanted whatever my peers had.
“Mum, why can’t I have Nike Air Max trainers? Mum, why can’t we have Sky TV? Mum, why can’t I have a Game Boy?”
My mother would turn the full force of her glare on me, and say through gritted teeth, “Because we have a nice house!”
When you’re ten, though, you don’t really care about houses, because having a nice house doesn’t inoculate you against being bullied at school.
My music money years
At the age of 17, in 1997, I started belly dancing fully-dressed in Asian men’s clubs. The men would typically throw £5 notes at the dancers, but occasionally these would be £10 or £20 notes - and, on one memorable occasion, £50 notes!
Being a music-obsessed teenager who wanted to be a pop star, I spent all this cash on studio gear, hi-fi separates and CDs. I also saved £4k of it, which I put towards my first flat deposit. At the time, still living at home and in education, I don’t think I fully appreciated the entirety of my earnings being disposable income.
I spent precisely none of it on Nike Air Max trainers, Sky TV or a Game Boy.
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