To think people who live paycheck to paycheck on high salaries are just bad with money?

🤣🤣🤣 with a mortgage that suddenly shot up from 1200 to 2200 and nursery fees going up 7% this year - yes I should have budgeted for that better and earned some extra imaginary money.

or just sell my house and move to a different cheaper part of the country and somehow find moving costs and stamp duty money and then find new jobs locally (or commute for hours back to London..

or what other suggestions do you have to help me budget better…

£50k isn't a particularly high wage anymore and I say that as someone who earns a lot less dh does earn more

Most people live to their means the higher the salary the bigger the mortgage which is also area dependent I am in the north west and it shocks me on here people's mortgages or rent payments

And a lot peoples circumstances have probably changed over the last few years mortgage rates / rents gone up food utilities etc so people who were previously ok are finding themselves struggling

Obviously some people low or high income are poor at money management but I don't think that is dependent on their income

Nearly anyone (sans illness or disability) who is living paycheque to paycheque is bad with money/life choices, regardless of income level.

£50k is higher than average

50k is not a high salary. It's not much more than average for full time work.

I earn more than 50k and live in the north so it's ok, but I wouldn't want to live on that salary in the south with a mortgage to pay.

We are just over the £50k in greater London. One child still at nursery and mortgage is £1,300 a month, one car and consider ourselves comfortable enough if we are sensible. But I'm always looking for deals on things to cut costs, and the buffer at the end of this month is going to be about £100 as we've needed to buy a few things for the kids like new shoes. Haven't got any savings, but could cope with any emergency costs on an interest free credit card. Kids do a few paid activities. Holidays are often just time staying with relatives as the cost for four of us to fly and stay somewhere is a bit hard. When our car packed up last year we bought a new one using a bank loan, so we have a couple of hundred a month going out for that. A lot of our main shopping comes from Iceland, topped up with other supermarkets now and then. I've had inflationary wage increase every year but now those increases are into 40% tax they make very little noticeable difference. Sadly, £50k is really not rich in London.

We earn double that (£75k and £25k) and struggle to balance budgets because of mortgage, childcare, cars, food, bills etc.

It goes out the door as soon as it comes in but we have a very comfortable life.

Got a 10 day holiday booked for May and same again in June 2026, would rather spend money making memories on a beach with my two kids than own a Gucci belt or Michael Kors handbag for my wife.

I could probably get a new job paying £10k more as there's a real shortage of Quantity Surveyors right now. If I got a promotion and a reasonable bonus where I am I'd easily make 6 figures a year.

When is my pity parade?

Except it’s not twice as much when tax allowances and benefits are taken into account. Take home on £25,000 is roughly £1,800. Take home on £50,000 is £3,300.

Anyone with young children on £25,000 (paying child care and/or renting but without savings) will get hundreds a month in UC. The actual amount available to each person to spend each month may be very similar.

I see what you're saying, but my whole point is if I did have those couple of children on £25k and struggle (needing top ups) it's because I'm making poor choices. Not because the cost of living is too high.
If I have those children on £50k and struggle, it's because the cost of living is too high, not because I chose to have those children.

It just seems to me that now the COL crisis has hit the 'middle' and their outgoings exceed their income, the narrative has changed. If you struggle on less it's your own choices, if you struggle on more it's because everything is too expensive.

Absolutely this.

Will continue reading the thread and hopefully the OP will provide some context to how they have reached that view.

Yes I think that there are a few meanings to 'living paycheck to paycheck'. One would be spending all your income each month, with no savings or assets. Another would be spending all your income each month, but having assets. I think you could easily be in either of those situations depending where you live/what your responsibilities are, without necessarily being bad with money. I suppose I think if you're 'living paycheck to paycheck' but have a mortgage, you might simply be investing in your future (although it would be quite risky to get into this situation intentionally)

Ok, but if you had small children you would (or very likely would), if there were no other earners in the house.

That’s why comparing a family on 50k with a family on 25k doesn’t really work. Because the latter would be entitled to loads of UC and therefore their income on paper would be very misleading.

You won’t get rich off benefits as a single unemployed adult, but as a mum of 3 working part time, you would be fairly comfortable as benefits for families are very generous.

50K isn’t a lot.

I am a lone parent of one and just got a promotion to a 39K job and I only just lift myself out of getting Universal Credit when I do overtime. Unfortunately the cost of wraparound childcare and rent is astronomical and my childcare costs are small compared to young children and the fact my mum has my child during school holidays. Childcare during holidays would be £45 a day and I work 4-5 days a week.

The more you earn the more tax, NI, pension and student loan has to come out of your wage.

You didn't ask me a question though, you said -

If you earned half that, and had a couple of kids, you would likely be entitled to a very generous UC top up (£600 per month according to a generic calculation I just did).

So I'm not sure what I was supposed to answer when there wasn't a question to start with.

But no, I don't receive any additional benefits.

And that doesn't change the point I was making, either cost of living is too high for everyone under a certain amount, or people are making choices they can't afford.

As an aside, someone should make a calculator that lets you compare what your equivalent salary would be if you weren't on any benefits/subsidies etc. I think some people would get quite a shock.

That doesn’t really answer my question. Do you receive any additional benefits?

I agree there are different definitions of struggling. It depends on what the purpose is, I think: if you're trying to count how many little children are starving in London you obviously shouldn't count little Olivia in Hampstead whose parents are annoyed that they're paying £4k on a mortgage and £2k on nursery fees to get to live in a tiny 2-bed flat and have to both work 60h a week for the pleasure.

But it might be interesting to consider little Olivia when looking at, say, why birth rates are falling. Because it's the parents' perceived level of financial anxiety that matters.

Actually, even in this thread there are people repeating that you just shouldn't have children you can't afford, as if they're an unimaginable luxury! Not even private school or horse-riding lessons or whatever, simply having them at all! Someone on £50k is in a respectable middle income job - it's a massive problem for society if they're thinking it's financially irresponsible to have a couple of kids! Yes, £50k is not that much money, and that's a problem. But it's not that the £50k person is being frivolous.

I'm on just over £50k and DH is on around £40k. We've only been on these salaries for around 3 years, previously it was lower. We have no savings.
I don't think we're bad with money, we've just prioritised other things. 3 children, a house big enough for a bedroom each (it's not fancy, and it's not been decorated since we moved in). A safe, big enough car. 2 holidays a year (one camping in the UK, one European city break). Music lessons and sports clubs for all the children. Private dental cover. Family days out and nice Christmas and birthdays. Pension, good health and life insurance, good breakdown cover,
We shop at Aldi and get clothes off vinted. We hardly eat out but we do occasionally. We prioritise using our hard earned money for living, not for saving.

meh, we earn £110,000 and we aren't swimming in cash. Mortgage is £3k a month for starters

Ouch

You do realise that mortgages have gone up hundreds of pounds for some people through no fault of their own? Coupled with the cost of living increases on everything else. People can easily have bills of £500-1000 more than they did a couple of years ago. My partner is incredibly financially astute and so far we've fixed our mortgage at the lowest possible rate as far as possible but we have one element due for renewal this year and it all easily jump £300+.

meh, we earn £110,000 and we aren't swimming in cash. Mortgage is £3k a month for starters

You’d also have had to save the deposit … lower income families (especially those who rent but don’t get benefits) really can’t get ahead, especially in the SE due to stagnant wages,ridiculous housing costs, and astronomical childcare prices on top

plus our tax system is broken

Yes, I’m terrible with money. However, I live paycheck to paycheck because: mortgage is £1,400 a month, gas and electric is £488 a month (very badly insulated house - trying to save up to sort that), my commute costs me around £1,200 a month (cheapest I can get for the 5 hour round trip a day and no, I don’t want to stay away from my family for multiple days), I occasionally do have to stay where I work, which is another £200 or so a month. Then there are the water rates (I switched to a water meter which saved a lot but still not cheap), council tax on Band D, food for the household (I batch cook and take food into work - rarely eat out, don’t drink and don’t smoke), cat food, healthy pet club, pet insurance, buildings/content insurance, critical illness cover/life insurance, plumbing and drainage cover, home emergency cover, boiler cover, breakdown cover, car insurance, MOT/servicing, membership for my professional body and CPD courses so I don’t get kicked off, monthly dentist payment (spent 10 years on NHS waiting lists before cracking and going private because my teeth were going to fall out), mobile phone (only £22.50 a month with unlimited data which I need to work effectively on my commute). Phone/broadband at home. I don’t have a gym membership - I work out at home in my living room or go out for a walk. I do splash out £27 a year on a Private Eye subscription but I feel like that’s not the worst vice 😂

Take home pay for two people on just over £50k is around £5,500 when you take student loan and pension contributions off. Enough to pay the bills? Sure. Enough to save money? No, not really. Money saved goes on Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family, and occasionally getting my hair done, going for a meal with my other half or buying some new clothes when they fray/shoes fall apart (cats are hell on clothing 😂).

Love to sell the house but we’d go into negative equity - really can’t afford it. Love to get a job closer but none have come up in the last couple of years, despite looking.

Sorry for the essay - but this is the reality for where the money goes, and we don’t even have kids. If we did, we’d be screwed as we wouldn’t qualify for child benefit. And I’m permanently welded to moneysavingexpert.com. I had way more disposable income when I was on £27k a year, living in a flat in central Leeds working an admin role 😂

If I was on 50k and struggling with a couple of kids I chose to have, then it's because the cost of living is too high, not because of a choice I made.

On just over half of that I'm not supposed to have those children to need the generous top ups because that's my choice to do so, and irresponsible.

I can well believe people are struggling on 50k in the current climate, but let's not pretend that their own choices haven't contributed towards that struggle, in exactly the same way someone on half of that does.

Either the cost of living is too high for everyone under a certain bracket, and that's the problem, or people are making choices they can't afford and that's the problem.

It's one rule for the 'squeezed middle' and another for those below it when it comes to the root cause.

Out of curiosity, I recently looked at what it would cost me to buy a 3 bed maisonette in zone 2. The mortgage would have been 3.5k a month!!!! So you'd have to earn more than 50k for that. And it's really hard to imagine what you'd have to earn to pay that, and have much disposable income - but if you did it you would in theory have an asset that would make you loads more money down the line. I can imagine some people would do that. But that version of "struggling" is very, very different to someone who is "struggling" without a million pound asset and no way of ever getting one!