To be fed up of being on a good income but always skint?

You're quite 'over mortgaged' for your income.

Based on what?

@fuzzybrains ”Your mortgage is high. I have friends on a similar income and their mortgage is around £1200 a month. You're quite 'over mortgaged' for your income.”

£1400 a month is £250k at 5%.

I get you, OP! We’re similar to you but there’s always a bit of a juggle and I have to plan. All essentials, including monthly savings towards next year’s big bills, amount to almost £5K. £2K of that is mortgage and council tax. About £1K each month for food/shoes/clothes/haircuts etc. The other £2K is bills, savings towards next year’s bills. Essentially, on the salaries we’re on, I would expect more spare cash. But the cost of everything has gone up so much, it’s crazy. Any pay rise is way behind the amount our bills increase by annually. We do save some that is over for holidays but again, they’re a lot more than they used to be. A £3K family holiday three years ago is now £5K! I am always creative but I’m having to be very creative these days!

I calculated with the DH on £100k, 5% pension and a student loan and got £5k, and added on £1k pm as a low average for the OP, so unlikely to be an overestimate.

We seem to have fixated on £100k as ‘incredibly wealthy’ (probably because it’s a six figure number), but this has been the case for 30 years.

I don’t know how we move past that, even the government are in cahoots with their 60% tax rate at £100k (which was introduced in 2009).

That net income sounds too high- have you checked it?
You need to do each separately- tax on the highest earner, and the lowest. I don't think it's anything like £7K net.

I bet your take home is not actually less than half though.

There are threads like this almost daily and they always end up the same- polarised.

@Justonemorecurlywurly It would be better if you listed all your outgoings and asked for advice on how to economise.

I'm in a 4-bed house and we have the heating on quite a bit (timer set at 7am-10pm and on a thermostat.)
Our bills are less than £200 a month for all gas/electric- yours seem high.

Likewise, when we had a water meter installed our bills went down from £600 a year so yours seem very high.

Your mortgage is high. I have friends on a similar income and their mortgage is around £1200 a month.

You're quite 'over mortgaged' for your income.

Can you list all your essential outgoings and that makes it easier to see this in context?

There could be things like finance for cars, subs for TV, mobile phones etc etc. that are eating up your income.

@ £100k and £20k, you’ll have a take home pay of roughly £7k pm (depending on pension cont’s)

Mortgage of £1.9k and other bills, so probably c£3.5 - £4k total bills and food. What are you doing with the remaining £3k?

We have the same bills, same mortgage @ £1,900, your situation doesn’t make huge sense to me unless you have massive finance costs / loans / car leases?

Otherwise just suck it up and be grateful that you can feed your children and pay your bills.

Yep, don't hope for me 🙄

You are basically living off one income, not ideal in this day and age and risky too ,,, when my husband was made redundant, I became the main breadwinner …the only way out of this is to go back to work full time or move to a much cheaper area?

Haven't rtft but the bottom line is we (and many other people) earn less than half of your joint income and we still manage to go away for a week every year (all be it in the uk) and save a modest amount so you have definitely gone wrong somewhere along the line. It's not a dig at you op but these threads always have reams of replies lamenting how expensive everything is. It's the same for everyone, yet we're still managing on much less, so the issue must lay with your spending.

Due to the rise in housing costs over the past 20 years, due to high taxation of those earning circa £50k+, and due to inflation, £100k just isn’t what it used to be, in terms of spending power.

Absolutely

Inflation wise 100k is the equivalent to 80k 5 years & 65k in 2010.

This^

We have a high income but the lifestyle it affords nowadays just isn't the same as 10yrs ago, markedly so.

Comparison is the thief of joy etc.

Holidays, OP most likely can afford a holiday but it probably just isn't the holiday they would expect on that income.
Rinse and repeat re house decor, car, clothes...

I can sympathise a bit... our income is 84k so a bit less than yours, I earn 20k of it through pt work but I'm on mat leave currently. One car, a 14 year old automatic Nissan which we own outright. No holidays except driving to visit family and stay with them. We barely afford our (extortionate) mortgage on a 3 bed terrace we've desperately been trying to sell for nearly a year. It's a very old house with some quirks and a pervasive damp and rat issue and it's eating me (and our house, and our finances) alive.

Childcare for our eldest eats up half my salary, when I go back to work, Childcare for our youngest will eat up the other half.

The same as you, I thought once we owned a house, earned a certain amount of money etc, we'd have it made. Absolutely not in today's economy! We've concluded that an increase in income is the only way we're going to deal with this.

I think you just need to work more - contribute more income to the family and then you'd have a better lifestyle, a pension, and you'd be protected if your marriage breaks down. I don't know why you are reluctant to do this. ime and imo spending on childcare now is worth it for the long term.

And as PP say, go through your expenditure with a fine toothcomb.

Otherwise just suck it up and be grateful that you can feed your children and pay your bills.

Definitely depends where you live, we bought in 2023 in a nice town in Lincolnshire and our Mortgage for a 3 bedroom detached house is only £600 a month, was £225k to buy, which is above the average here.

But it’s the rest of the bills that kill us off, car, fuel, bloody gas and electric is insane atm 😭

The main issue is your income, our household income is similar but much more evenly split, I earn around 65k, DH 50k our take home will be higher than yours due to tax differences and we both have good defined benefit pensions, we both work 5 in 4 so are around two days in the week for school runs, holiday childcare etc. Our major bills are very similar to the figures you've quoted, but we save £1000 a month and we've got 3 holidays booked in the next twelve months 2 weeks in Greece this summer, a long weekend in Italy for a wedding and a trip to Portugal, all 4 star plus and two in the school holidays. So there's also something amiss with your spending if you're constantly without disposable income. We don't live extravagantly but we can afford to eat out occasionally, day trips in the holidays, were out with ds most weekends although some of that is free, we are outdoors a lot beach, cycling etc.

Due to the rise in housing costs over the past 20 years, due to high taxation of those earning circa £50k+, and due to inflation, £100k just isn’t what it used to be, in terms of spending power. My personal opinion is that, given the current climate, a family needs to earn £200k+ to be able to achieve those financial milestones. The goalposts have moved.

@Harassedevictee I can't see it on my phone, Is this PAYE again?

I sympathise. We are also feeling the pinch and have a significantly lower mortgage, albeit lower income too. We just keep plodding and hope one day we'll catch a break.

But this isn’t a fair comparison at all. Partly because it’s a single person earning £100k and partly because the low earner is eligible for various benefits.

I used the entitled2 benefits calculator, using a single earner at £24k, in a privately rented house near me, with one child with no childcare costs. This hypothetical person would be entitled to over £1,100 a month in benefits. (Obviously this will vary based on housing costs, council tax, etc. in different parts of the country.)

So now the income comparison is:

£100,000 earnings = £5,700 net income monthly
£24,000 earnings = £1,700 net income monthly + £1,100 benefits = £2,800 monthly total

So the ‘4x the minimum wage’ is actually just slightly over 2x the minimum wage when it comes to money coming in each month. If you have a student loan that you took out to get the education needed to earn that £100k, you’ll take home less (depending on the plan you’re on, could be ~ £600 pm less take home).

I think part of the problem is that people hear £100k and think 4x minimum wage should be giving them a significantly better lifestyle than it is, but if you said to them that you’re actually only two times as well off, then expectations would be lower. And, yes, I’m well aware that if you’re on £24k you would be thrilled to have double your income.

Meals out for us as a family are now an extortionate luxury as is buying lunch, coffee or having a drink in a pub. I really do not know how people do this on a regular basis.

I have said it before on threads there are a number of factors why people on a good salary feel like this.

1. Place in your life cycle - mortgages, children, extensions etc is the most expensive time of your life.
2. Debt - it can eat money
3. False comparison - assuming everyone else is debt free when they have big houses, nice cars and holidays.
4. Generational wealth being passed down. I would rather have my parents than £, so I don’t begrudge people who inherit young as they have lost something irreplaceable.

OK, We possibly do slightly better than you in terms of take home when your earnings are low, but generally under earn you- I earn 25k, DH 80. But not a million miles out.

You need to seriously look at what you are spending. We are not short on cash. We have 2 cars, holidays, don't worry about what we spend in the supermarket (thankfully - 2 teens eat an enormous amount!). We have enough savings so we could replace a roof and/or a car. We put in a new bathroom last year.

We are fortunate in that none of us have expensive hobbies, and noone is wedded to expensive brands or clothing. But we go out for dinner, have days out, save, and are debt free. You are spending on something that us hammering your income - because you should be having a lifestyle more than skint!