Thanks daveherne for your original post. I have come back to the article quite a few times and printed it off. It is a curious thing about what makes us feel rich or poor. And how that has changed in my own life. Sometimes from my circumstances, sometimes from a change in thinking.

The first couple of pages of comments afterwards were also thought provoking reading. (After that it turns into a bit of a bun fight between Guardian readers. As it sometimes does and can be quite entertaining, on occasion.)

The pictures were very good. My eye kept on darting to them as I read each piece.

Especially the picture (by Richard Saker) of the supermarket checkout worker, aged 50, from Derbyshire. Combined with her comments, they were so overwhelming. My heart broke reading her first couple of sentences…

"It's payday tomorrow, and I'm rich for a few hours. Then that's it.”

It felt like she was hopelessly trapped in her life. And I was quite despondent until the last sentence, where she mentions her dream of working in conservation.

The businesswoman, aged 45, from London certainly raised a lot of comment. But I think she was probably slotted into the article for precisely that purpose. I chuckled at someone’s comment that she made a really good baddy.