"We're on good money"

Beautiful post

Hugs 🥰😍🥰

Your kind of post makes me wish there was a '♥️' button.
Lovely x

Although I actually also think it depends where you live.... recently saw an NHS Dr on the news who also does private work, and he's on a staggering £600k, and admits he couldn't live a comfortable life in a nice area of London without that kind of salary.

I live in Hampshire and our household is over £100k and we are comfortable (to me, that means not worrying about the heating and lights being on, not worrying when filling up trolley in Sainsbury’s, kids can do all the clubs they like), but we are certainly not rich compared to others in our city, there's no way in a million years we could afford private school for instance.

However, the city im from, with our income, I'd have considered us 'rich' as a kid.
FYI - I was a very poor kid.

I think it's £100K for a household.

It does always make me laugh though that everyone is minted apparently, but then when people post photos of their Christmas trees/shellac nails/ dogs etc, the house always looks like my very very working class grandmothers

I take it to mean that they are comfortable enough that they don’t have to worry about every purchase. Since housing costs and expenses from number of children can vary so much, I think of it more as not needing to think about grabbing an impulse purchase when buying groceries and knowing that you still won’t have to worry about money at the end of the month.

East Midlands; 63k single income with 1 teenage daughter.

I earn in the early 30's, and to me this is 'good money'. I find my job worthwhile and I feel I'm making a difference. I'm a single parent, yet I can pay all my bills, and I have a good work-life balance. I spend a lot of time with my daughter and though we don't do extravagant activities, and have only been abroad twice, we have a nice life, I think. I'm actually really grateful!

That post by @SweetBirdsong exemplifies perfectly the type of cluelessness I was referring to!

I'm not telling people mine and DH's joint salary, but my DC are on two and a half times our salary. They have done really well for themselves. They have higher outgoings though. And we are mortgage free. But they have cut their cloth, and they have small mortgages and don't squander money, and have decent savings. They are doing well and are sensible with money. They will be in a position to pay off a big chunk off their mortgage in 3 or 4 years. AND if they decide to have a baby, they have plenty put by to weather the maternity leave period.

I must admit it boils my piss when someone is on £100K+ and they claim they still struggle financially. 🙄 and bleat 'oh but our outgoings are soooo high.....' This usually comes from people who have a house with 2 or 3 bedrooms more than they need, (in a swanky area,) and a brand new car, loads of overpriced luxuries, and name brand everything. Unless you live in London, don't try and convince ME that you are 'poor' when you have a household income of £100,000 a year or more. Just stop it!

(Actually even living in London, you will be doing OK if you're on £100,000 a year!)

I always find it astonishing that people can't recognise how subjective this situation is and constantly tip up to post daft questions about people's income. Obviously the definition of "good money" varies massively according to context. Principally your outgoings and where you live.

If you live in a deprived part of the UK £35k pa could be "good money". It certainly wouldn't be good money if you lived in Mayfair and worked in hedge funds. Ditto you could live rurally with no mortgage and no children and £35k will go a long way. If you have six children and a large mortgage on a townhouse in London it will be eaten up in a couple of months.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

Totally depends. We have a high joint income 150k ish but have a very high mortgage gone up a lot since we have just had to remortgage which is just over 3k. Very high bills and 3 teenagers who all do lots of extra curricular clubs which takes a lot of our money. We are very fortunate we have food and a roof over our head. However we can't afford holidays and have very little spare each month after all the bills and outgoings which include high commuting costs of about 6k per year for train plus large petrol costs. Children with SEN needs and specialist tutors are expensive etc.
Absolutely realise we are lucky with the high income but it doesn't go as far as I imagined having an income of that level would when I was younger
Totally situation dependent.

So much is dependent on housing though. Lots of people didn't get on the ladder years ago & some of help from family which makes a huge difference to disposable income.

We're coming up to retirement so for most at the top of our careers. Good money for us would be about £100,000.

DS'S friend's first job from university was over £35,000 which I think is very good money.

it depends
MN world = 300K gross, 400K London (obvs) total household income.

Real world - 70K total household income.

Per year.

Above 100k

@Foxblue the point I've made is that outgoings are not always based on "life choices" in any meaningful sense i.e. they are outside the person's control (illogical tax systems, being a lone parent, costs for a modest home in the area of the country they need to live in for work, costs of childcare for an average family size of one to two children, whether anybody in the household is disabled).

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance also that when people earn a higher than average salary they are deemed "lucky" or "privileged" rather than generally that being achieved by working hard at school, doing many qualifications and/ or years of working long hours for career progression and being wise in their career choices. Whereas for people who earn low incomes as a result of having not done some or all of the above, it is always apparently not a choice and "no fault of their own", not "life choices". And their outgoings aren't "life choices" either. 😆 A slightly illogical and internally inconsistent world view.

This is such an interesting thread - 'good money' to me and everyone I know is always in reference to a salary of probably 35k+, 60+ in London. Like, I'd never say two people on 40k weren't on 'good money' because they chose to have a mortgage, two kids - it's still good money, because basic wage isn't.
Obviously your outgoings based on your life choices change how you experience that money, but its still 'good' if its approaching double minimum wage. Never ever come across the idea that it could not be considered 'good' because of your outgoings! Very interesting discussion.

There was an interesting opinion piece in the Grauniad recently that the richest 10% don't feel 'well off' as, as many have said here, their outgoings still feel massive, and it depends who you compare yourself to:

You cannot judge it by Mumsnet. This place is a massive contradiction in that most people seem to earn or have household incomes of £200k plus, but if you admit to spending more than 37p on non essentials, the shrieks of “read the room” are consistent. I earn “good money” by my estimation, it provides the life I want, which is a different life to the life that lots of other people want or need. So be it, I’m happy with it.

60k+ as a couple (we are definitely not on that but hopefully once I've finished retraining)

For example, a single parent with two children using childcare who earns £99k will have a lower net income after tax and childcare than if they earned £150k

Sorry, I meant a HIGHER net income. It's so ridiculously unfair (and counter productive for raising tax revenues for services so not just affecting that individual family) that my brain didn't even let me type it out correctly because it makes no sense.

The lone parent earning £150k with two children who need childcare has a lower net income after tax and childcare than a couple each earning the average full time salary of £38k.

Headline salaries are totally meaningless when one household has to earn twice the headline amount as another to have the same net income.

I think it depends on if their mortgage is paid off. DH is on a little over £60k plus some income from his 2 btls but since we finished paying for mortgage last August it's made a really big difference and now he feels much better off. I'm on about £75k from a mixture of Fostering allowance which most gets spent on FS but still counts for self assessment, I come from my btl portfolio and PIP. From next tax year fostering tax free allowance gone up a lot so will result in me paying less tax. I feel quite well off. I gift each of my 3 x DC £1k a year and DH does the same.

Depends where you live, what your outgoings are, any debt etc etc.

Where live, if you earn £25K as an individual, you are on "good money!"

Any more than that, you are rolling in it!! 🤣

You are right to a point. Our income pre tax is just over 125k, with my husband earning 100k and me working part time. When I return full time, this will rise to 150-60k household. We don’t feel ‘well off’ although objectively we can see we are: large house (it’s still a semi though!) in a great postcode, and we were able to move further into catchment for our chosen secondary school; two cars and holidays - although we will go away in the UK this coming summer (we had two foreign holidays last year). We cannot afford private school, and any change to my husband’s bonuses causes, ‘We have to make this month stretch’. We have a safety net but I couldn’t afford to give up work as an example, and we don’t have a cleaner. For us, our income means we can pay for clubs for our children and go away or eat out occasionally, but we still have to watch our spending!