JUST 21 per cent of the UK’s top earners actually feel rich. The other 79 per cent, heartbreakingly, don’t. How can we all rally round to support them?
Share your bank statements
When you’re earning six figures and have 200k in investments, it’s easy to feel everyone does the same. Intrusive thoughts about inadequate portfolios can be banished by the buoying financial records of a desperate individual who only has a positive balance for four days of the month and whose student loans are mounting. It’s the least you could do.
Tell a tale of woe
No need for mournful tones or exaggeration. Just recount, in perky, cheerful fashion, that you only have 16 years left on your mortgage so you should be able to retire at 63, assuming your parent’s house clears enough to pay for their care and there are no medical emergencies. When they ask ‘And this is your life?’ incredulously, smile and nod.
Reassure them they had to go private
Though they’d never admit it, inside every high-earner there’s a nagging voice saying ‘Am I a twat for paying £70,000 a year for school when others obtain it for free?’ Stories of your children’s daily beatings, illiteracy and failure to make a single friend whose father is a bond trader will console them immeasurably.
Crash your car into theirs
Sailing along in a Jaguar, inside a bubble of leather seating and Classic FM, the rich can fail to appreciate how good they have it. Running right into the back of them at the lights in your 2009 Fiat Punto will jolt them out of their misery, and seeing how much worse your ‘little runabout’ is for the collision will be a salutary reminder of how fortunate they are.
Mug them
They say you’re never as thankful for what you have as when you’ve suffered a loss, so snatching a watch, a phone or even a handbag from a wealthy individual might seem at first cruel but will soon have them counting their blessings. As they collect a crime number to claim twice what the item was worth on their insurance, they’ll feel richer than ever.
Post a copy of The Sun through their letterbox
There is no un-leveller greater than the tabloid of the lower classes. Horrified by its appearance on their doormats but obscurely comforted by its proletarian focus on ITV, boobs and each-way bets on dog races, even placing it in the recycling will make them thankful to be divorced from its a hateful world, and rich. As they deserve.
