By Sonny Johnson

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The Telegraph wants you to know that a £345k-a-year family is suffering. Not from a medical bill. Not from eviction.Not from losing childcare or access to school meals.

No. They're cutting back on their fifth holiday. Because private school fees rose… and now they shop at Sainsbury’s.

There’s just one issue: the family is fake.The names don’t check out. The photos are stock images. The story which has since been quietly taken offline appears to have no basis in verifiable reality.

This now-removed Telegraph article follows the familiar script of a soft-focus financial hardship narrative this time centred on the so-called sacrifices of a high-earning banking couple. The numbers are staggering: £345,000 annual income, £70,000 in private school fees, £20,000 in holiday spend after cutbacks. The ‘impact’? Fewer transatlantic breaks and the occasional dinner at Gaucho replaced with something more modest.

But what gives this story particular resonance and concern is its source base. The claims about rising costs and parental ‘adaptation’ draw heavily on a report by Saltus, a financial planning firm that specialises in wealth management for affluent clients. While there is no explicit promotional content, the boundaries between editorial coverage and brand positioning are notably blurred.

The article, notably, illustrated its subjects using stock photos. The family - named, but unverifiable - appears not to exist in any meaningful, verifiable public record. This raises legitimate questions about authenticity, consent, and editorial standards in pieces that purport to reflect the lived experience of UK families.

Ir raises questions about why such an article should be published such as, who benefits from this kind of “poll”? And fails to provide a balanced perspective about the  struggles many families face due to the cost of living crisis, at the same time as ignoring the key economic and political factors that have given rise to it.

This isn’t journalism. It’s class cosplay. Stories like are a worrying form of propaganda which fools readers into thinking what they are consuming is news when in reality they are being sold a lie to further the agenda of a newspaper's commercial interests.

The original story is archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250525122142/https:/www.telegraph.co.uk/money/earn-345k-soaring-private-school-fees

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