I admit it, I’ve become a Mindi: millionaire with no disposable income

Surprisingly, nearly half of the new millionaires live outside London and the south-east, and every region is better off than it was five years ago — even parts of Scotland, apparently, where my millionaire’s row is.

Like many middle-aged, middle-class homeowners, my husband and I were fortunate enough to buy into a property hotspot some years ago and now find ourselves with an asset beyond the wildest dreams of our parents.

The perfectly decent semi-detached house I grew up in cost my father £6,000 in the late Sixties, a time when millionaires tended to be pop stars, or tennis players, but never wage slaves like us.

But now I am one, I think (although my husband, the spoilsport, points out that the Halifax’s share of our home precludes us from the club).

Perception is everything, however, and being perceived to be loaded would certainly explain the entreaties we receive from innumerable good causes to “support” their fund-raising efforts.

I wish I had £100 for all the people we hardly know who urge us to attend their drinks parties or charity dinners on the assumption that we will fill in the “I enclose a cheque for £ . . .” part of the invitation.

Arts companies announce their forthcoming seasons with pleas for us to give generously. “There are many ways to contribute,” a recent missive from the Edinburgh International Festival said, “from adding a small donation to your ticket order to joining our friends and patrons programme. Your support [that word again] really does make a difference.”

I’m sure it does, but do they mean me? They obviously hadn’t checked my name against their box office database or they would have seen the large number of £8 “very restricted view” tickets I buy.

For although flattered — in a rather odious way — by the millionaire tag, I cannot live up to its expectations.

It may be a badge of honour to be sent a begging letter from your alma mater, as a friend was on turning 60, imploring him to “include us in your will”, but a sizeable asset like a house does not necessarily translate into a sizeable disposable income.

According to Barclays’ prosperity index, the rise in affluence is likely to continue, with almost 880,000 millionaires by 2025. But how many will actually feel well off?

Without wishing to sound ungrateful, there is little about my way of life that screams “millionaire”. I save up my “£1.87 off your next shop” Tesco vouchers and fill the empty Fairy Liquid (or the Tesco own-brand equivalent) with water to eke out the suds.

I am much more familiar with Travelodges than Hiltons and fly easyJet — without the hold luggage surcharge, of course.

Our car is my husband’s company one, my computer is creakingly old and the television, the children say, is vintage. We don’t own iPads or particularly fancy phones. The house itself is big but its charms are fading fast. Two years ago the ancient plumbing packed up and three floors were flooded. Three floors? I know, it sounds millionaire-ish, but the paint is peeling, the carpets are fraying and mice live under the floorboards.

My sister is also a millionaire. Based in London — where your chance of having millionaire friends has jumped by half in the past five years — she is driven around (by her partner, not a chauffeur) in a 13-year-old car. He gets his clothes from Primark, and they send their daughter to a state primary.

“It’s not unusual to be a property millionaire in south-west London, but it’s so expensive to live here that a million doesn’t buy a millionaire’s lifestyle.”

Of course it isn’t fair when the richest 10% of households in Britain are estimated to own 44% of the state’s household wealth. But “millionaire” is misleading if it suggests liveried staff and private planes.

There is nothing special about my circumstances, or those of many other families sitting, almost by accident, on piles of positive equity. Today you can be a millionaire and still not have any money.

Corbyn’s southern discomfort

Jeremy Corbyn must never have ventured aboard the TransPennine Express to Manchester airport, or the Virgin Trains East Coast line between Edinburgh and Newcastle. If he had, the next Labour leader would not have proposed female-only carriages to protect women.

He has rightly incurred much ridicule and feminist wrath for insinuating that the sexes should be segregated — as if we lived in the Dark Ages. But perhaps his idea addresses a southern problem.

While some women may feel threatened by some male passengers on some journeys, this is certainly not the case on the routes mentioned above.

The hens bound for northern cities from other northern cities are so legendary that there is a long-standing booze ban on Fridays on the East Coast line.

That would not inhibit the female package tourists on the Manchester train. Reports of harassment are not unheard of, but they tend to come from the male guards or the male commuters.

Thanks for the memories

If you think you are losing your mind, do not despair. A doctor in Chicago has discovered that misplacing your spectacles or forgetting why you have entered a room is not an early warning of dementia. As long as you notice that you are having a memory lapse, there is nothing much wrong with you.

People with dementia, said Dr Robert Wilson of Rush University medical centre, tend to lose awareness of memory gaps two to three years before the condition develops.

“Unawareness of one’s memory problems is an inevitable feature of late-life dementia, driven by a build-up of dementia-related changes in the brain,” he said.

The next time my husband leaves his glasses in the omelette pan and accuses me of hiding them, I shall tell him about Wilson’s theory. If I remember it, that is.

India Knight is away