"We're on good money"

You're penalized for being a single parent who earns well - extra taxes, little or no help with childcare and having to pay back child benefit. It's really unfair as a system

Has to be over 90k at least for me to think good money. But then im
in the SE

I guess it's all relative really. My husband makes out that we're destitute, but we manage to pay all our bills/mortgage/childcare costs fine, and I can still treat myself and the children and he continues with his (expensive) hobby. Do we have a lot in savings? No. But we can cope with emergencies that come our way. To some, we'd be rich and extremely fortunate, but to others we'd have practically nothing. I count us lucky that we're not in a dire financial situation at the moment and hope to continue that way.

Combined, our salary comes out as around 130k, not including bonuses. However, we both have other mediums of work (DH is a violinist, I'm an author and I make/sell something which is extremely niche) which boosts that. So all together closer to 200k. I'm 35 and he's 40, so that's likely to increase over the next 2 - 5 years. It slowed for various reasons for a while (injury, kids).

But we live in the NW, are mortgage free after renovating an old property, and debt free. So it goes a long way. We're not big spenders and are good at saving.

DH and I had some years where we were on good money, almost 90k between us, I worked PT at the time and we had zero mortgage as paid off and DS was at secondary school so no childcare. Plus up North.

Dependings on location & family type. To me "good money" is having plenty for housing costs and bills, an annual family holiday in school holidays, not having to worry or count the pennies to afford a takeaway on the weekend, clothes & gifts, the costs of christmas.

With kids:

1. London & the naice bits of the south east (plus a handful of posh bits of north & Scotland) : single income 100k, family 150k.
2. Other parts of the south/nicer Midlands : single income 70k, family 100k
3. Less naice Midlands/Northern cities:single income 50k family 80k.
4. Cheapest small towns (mainly north, wales, scotland, NI) - single income 40k, family 65k. Basically because housing costs are so low.

Surprised by people saying 40k. 40k is about the median salary for a full time job. Does average count as good?

I'd say that 'good money' is at least 70k

I'd say good money is about £50k.

I'm on £30k and feel like I'm on Ok money.

I think you get used to what you have and adjust expectations accordingly so it can be hard to feel like you are well off. I think I am definitely now on good money (£70k so 3900/month) but with mortgage (which I am admittedly overpaying), other bills, childcare, kids activities etc plus recent expenses (car fixes, boiler breakdown etc) I don't feel like I have very much disposable income

Household income of over £200k. We are on good money compared with the majority of parents at our kids school and our wider family experience.
I am the worst off of my friends whose family income varies from £300k to £2 million + a year. It's all relative.
They live down South. We moved up North.

My reply probably reflects how I feel living in the UK right now. I earn £70k and my other half about £120k. Seems a ridiculous amount of money based on where we live (Yorkshire). Don’t get me wrong, we’re very comfortable but do I feel well off? Not really.

I earn just over £30k which is very good money in the job I’m in. Most are on minimum wage.

This ⬆️ is the problem: people are not interpreting "good money" to mean "a decent salary". They are making inferences that a "good salary" means somebody is financially comfortable. All you can tell from a salary is the net earnings per month. It tells you nothing about whether someone is financially comfortable, as the many examples in the thread demonstrate: you can be very comfortable with far lower earnings or really struggling with far higher earnings because that other factors that impact your overall financial position cannot be inferred just from income i.e. cost of living where you are, how much childcare you require, housing costs (very different if you bought many years ago so have low/ no mortgage or can live in a cheap area/ have social housing), whether anybody in the household is disabled, whether you are a single parent so paying all costs alone and taxed more on your income, etc.

Nobody would purchase a business because it has high revenues without knowing its costs or whether it makes a profit. Likewise looking at income alone for a person and not considering costs tells you nothing about whether that person is comfortable financially and it's astonishing really that so many posters have made this false inference from earnings alone to believing they can ascertain someone's lifestyle or financial position from that alone.

My instinct is good money is over 60k for an individual, I think that’s comfortable but not luxurious. No idea about wealth.

No. I don't gain any financial advantage by gifting £3k except it won't be included for inheritance tax if I live 7 years. My DC won't have to pay tax on it either because it's in the exemp category as only £3k. I've already paid tax on it as it's included as part of my income.

this! When i was in shropshire and earnt 30k i felt like it was good money.

Now i live in london and earn 70k and after my childcare costs/mortgage (£1850 - 3 bed small terrace) /travel - don't have much left over. I have a smaller house, longer commute and work far more hours. However i would say it a good salary.

In my group of friends I'm the only one who still qualifies for child benefit. All the others are in 2 income families, where (at least) one person earns more than £60k.

I worked this out as they were moaning about having to repay child benefit (and some didn't know how much child benefit was because they haven't had it for so long!)

We also have the smallest house. All of these friends will inherit well. DH and I will inherit nothing.

However I still feel like DH and I are on "good enough" money. (Though our mortgage fix ends later this year and DC goes to Uni).

We've eaten away at our debt, over paid the mortgage as much as we can, save into our pensions and have some disposable income to spend on little luxuries, ourselves and our DC.

I count myself lucky every single day. I'm very grateful.

For us good enough is £80,000 gross pa.

Sorry - I was more commenting on the different perspectives here compared to how I've always heard it used, rather than disagreeing!
And I do see your point on 'luck/privilege' v hard work, as I see it a lot when office workers are discussed vs trade workers. There's a lot of division about people in 'cushty' office jobs vs being out in all weather's, that disregards the fact that office jobs cover a massive range of specialisms!

I will say that personally (as someone who makes 'good' money in one of those aforementioned office jobs) that while I have worked hard, and do not come from a moneyed background, I do personally attribute some of my (very minor compared to some of the jobs/salaries) success to privilege. I am white, found school relatively easy, am not disabled in any way, local state school was decent, and while there was some turbulence had an overall stable home life. A decent start. Not everyone is so lucky! So while I also worked hard, I also have privilege. I would (and do) disagree with anyone telling me that it was entirely down to hard work, as much as I would disagree with someone telling me it was entirely down to privilege.

@Jennyjojo5 I started working in UK when I was 35, before that, my earning was negligible (born and grew up in a developing country). So I had a lot to catch up in terms of pension, buying a house, etc.

⬆️⬆️wrong thread, sorry. No idea how to delete other than reporting

DP and I earn 90-100k jointly, and I consider this good money. We live in the north too, so cheaper housing etc.

Good post.

OP, as you must be aware, ‘good money’ is a completely meaningless, subjective concept.

I'm in an area where a matchbox is almost 2million and rentals average 4-6k. So good money would be in income of at least 150-200 each.