What is your household income, how much is benefits, and how are you coping?

So what is the solution?

There isn't one. We already over more over 65s than under 15s and we know immigration isn't particularly popular!

I feel like I’m missing a trick

I’m afraid for the children because surely this is just going to get worse? We can’t afford to prop up housing prices, low productivity and low wages with the benefits system forever?

Dc will likely only get on the ladder through inheritance (although I think the gov will have to come for that in some form).

They haven't fixed the productivity puzzle in 17 years, low interest rates just masked a lot.

A lot more people than you might think earn more than that.

I earn more than the PM and am nowhere near the top earners where I work.

The brutal levels of tax at the higher level does mean that the net financial position whilst good is probably not as much as you might think due to tax rates and loss of pretty much all other beneficial schemes.

For example, a single earner on 125k with nursery age children is no better off than a couple earning 38k each who also use nurseries.

Once salaries increase further you lose tax free personal allowance, 30 hours funded nursery, tax free childcare. You get a zero allowance for tax free interest on savings and eventually your pension tax relief is also removed.

All of these hit you one after another until you reach a point where you feel you might as well work less.

@Gabrilla You're not going to gain anything here.

All you're getting is a kind of competition about who earns what, jealousy over your income, and loads of comments about house prices across the UK.

How is this helping? It's not. It's all meaningless.

As a couple, your income isn't bad but it's not mega bucks either. Not when £500 a month is whizzing out the door for his other children.

If you feel angry and resentful all you can do is try to encourage him to change jobs and earn more, or do the same yourself.

In time things will get easier when you drop the nursery fees, when his kids are 18 and, with some effort, you might both earn more.

You might be better off posting in the money forum to ask for ideas on budgeting because there are bound to be some things you can cut or change.

We are on about the same OP. 3 kids. Live in the South. We get by just fine but do need to watch what we are spending and can’t afford some house renovations that need doing soon, or fancy holidays. 90k seems a massive amount of money but we don’t exactly live in the lap of luxury. DH and I both came from nothing and worked bloody hard for the jobs we have.

Lot of ridiculous posts about deleting your OP and being tone deaf. We are allowed to discuss our finances on an anonymous forum.

I think I’d be ecstatic on 90k. That gives you choices.

£1100/ month
no benefits anymore which added £400 ish a month.

Commuting £300/month
really struggling.
mortgage and bills £700

😂😂😂I'm laughing my ass off here. My take home is £2k per month and I'm single. I still managed to save for a deposit on a house which I'm now in the middle of buying and my car is 15 years old. Absolutely laughable.

I have saved for holidays, but I will concede that my kids have grown up but £3k for nursery fees and a mortgage??! My Mortgage will £967 p/mth and I still have enough to enjoy life with. I would look to employ a nanny or find cheaper services if it's that expensive.

I do understand where OP is coming from. My own household income is much higher than I ever thought it would be (though significantly ower than OP's, to be clear!) and yet I'm still scratching around for pennies at the end of the month. My mortgage is low – I live in a cheap area of the country, have a modest 3 bedroom semi and have 50% equity – but by the time I've added in the bills it's over £2k a month gone as soon as it hits my account, then add £700+ on groceries and it really doesn't leave a lot to play with.

Tax bands have been frozen pulling far more people into higher tax which again people forget or don't understand.

"In 1991–92 just 3.5% of UK adults paid the 40% higher rate of income tax. By 2022–23 11% were paying higher rates, with that figure set to reach 14% by 2027–28. Of that 14%, 3.1% of adults will face marginal tax rates of either 45% or 60%"

"As a result, while in the 1990s essentially no nurses and just 5–6% of teachers paid higher-rate tax, income tax thresholds failing to keep up with average wages means that by 2027–28 more than one in eight nurses and one in four teachers are set to be higher-rate taxpayers"

Yes, there are a few people on this thread who are on half my salary but whose household income is twice mine. UC does make work pay, but only for those who also receive UC. If you don't receive UC, then you earn less from working than many people who do and are considered wealthier than they are, to boot.

That's the real issue, so someone sitting in a mortgage free house worth 500k now but who has never earned over 30k thinks the neighbour who is renting on an income of 90k is loaded. And so many do not understand how tax works.

Wait until you hit 100k and then you get no personal allowance, no child benefit, no 30 hours funded nursery, no tax free childcare, no tax free interest allowance and to top it all off you pay a marginal rate of 60% income tax + NI + student loans meaning your effective marginal tax rate can easily be over 100%. You are literally paying to go to work at that point.

Income is no longer a real signifier of wealth.

How patronising.

I said 90K is a high salary (though I stand corrected on it being as high a household income as I first said).
You keep saying "oh but OP has children so it's not high".

You said it was like the top 1% or similar when it isn't.
And when you compare to families with dc it isn't as high vs no dc, that's a fact.

But you can't argue with stupid so knock yourself out 😆

Yes. I can't really understand why you are entitled to it when on UC but that amount is the same as a full time minimum wage job that doesn't qualify.

Household income is about £120,000. Only get the child benefit too. I wouldn't say we're penny pinching. We're comfortable and I'm very grateful indeed. However, what surprises me is that we don't save as much as I'd like and we're not really prepared for university fees etc which will come in the next few years.

I think those stats are collected, no?

A better way to put it, I think, is that OPs clearly higher than average household income is only one of multiple factors. It's not actually particularly useful to tell her that a population who mostly aren't fully exposed to current housing costs also mostly have less income than her. Hence she's living on a road with people who likely have never had as much money in real terms, but have greater wealth than her that they got for much cheaper.

The more appropriate comparison is with people who have to either privately rent or pay what sounds like 2020s prices for their bought homes, and who have the same childcare costs.

my DH earns 97k and I earn 11.5K. 6k between us I think. No child benefit or anything.
Bills are about 3k including mortgage. I’d love to maximise my earnings but i also don’t want to pay for childcare.

Monthly
Wage - £1800 (net, Husband 45hr p/w)
UC - £1300 (1 severely disabled child element, carers element, 3 children)
Carers allowance - £327
Child Benefit - £257.
DLA for child - £434 after Motability deduction (Higher rate Care and Higher Mobility

We are doing ok.

How patronising.

I said 90K is a high salary (though I stand corrected on it being as high a household income as I first said).
You keep saying "oh but OP has children so it's not high".

I say that it's still a high household income and that OP is spending a lot on housing and children.

@rosemarble I have no words...

Why when you are looking at where your income fits within the country would you pretend to not have dc & compare to families without dc? That makes zero sense!!!

That would be nice. Apparently our £800 extra a month here in Scotland is to ensure those on benefits get a Scottish child payment to top them up to £80k.