Meet the Henry- High Earner not rich yet

Oh come on, they're getting a take home of nearly £70,000. This is more than most households are bringing in with two people.

So yes the sympathy is low.

Someone with a great degree from a good university, working long hours and weekends in the city in their early 30s with no dependents, you’d expect them to be able to afford to go out for a beer on a Friday or afford Itsu for lunch

But he can. He just can't afford to do that at the same time as living in an expensive flat on his own rather than a house share or further out as well as spending loads on tech, holidays etc and save for a mortgage deposit.

You’ll get all the diamond shoes comments but sadly this is the case for a lot of people who work really hard and get a great salary, but are then taxed to death. There is starting to be no point in promotion or bettering yourself as you get bashed by tax after the higher rate threshold is too low. This is why anyone rich or skilled is leaving the UK

Well quite @HasTheBinManBeen

He seems to have the same attitude to money as many Mumsnetters. 'I have loads more than just about everyone but I don't think I'm well off because I spend my money on the most expensive version of everything yet seem surprised that it doesn't go very far'.

CityAM is a morning rag produced for those that work in the City. It’s audience are people like Henry commuting on the tube and wondering why they are climbing the greasy pole but don’t feel any better off than they did five years ago.

whilst the numbers are different, many of the issues are the same that hundreds of other posters on MN have complained about over the past few years: we’re working hard, doing well, getting promotions etc but we don’t have any more money in our pockets than we did. Of course “Henry” could make economies but like all of us as you get promoted and get older you feel like you should be able to enjoy a better standard of living; you’ve “earned” it you might say. Someone with a great degree from a good university, working long hours and weekends in the city in their early 30s with no dependents, you’d expect them to be able to afford to go out for a beer on a Friday or afford Itsu for lunch.

The point isn’t the solutions – of course there are solutions. The point is that this salary should see someone able to comfortably (not luxuriously) live in our capital and it doesn’t.

Am I the only one who took an instant dislike to Henry?

Surely bills for a flat aren't that much? How many streaming services do you need?!

Nor does anyone need £500 worth of new clothes and shoes, even including barber visits (cleaning products and toiletries are not that expensive either).

"Expensive discretionary stuff" er it's discretionary so stop spending it! The occasional new laptop or phone is all you need. And that's not even needed once a year! Holidays don't need to be that expensive either, even going abroad.

If he was a real person, he should be forced to live somewhere else and survive on minimum wage for a bit to get some perspective! It's basically "man who throws money around wants even more".

It is simply comparing him having had the exact same lifestyle 6 years ago, with today. To illustrate that he has not had a gain in lifestyle from doubling income due to inflation and tax. He could have saved money 6 years ago too, yes. That wasn't the point of the article.

I'm questioning the point of the article.
London is unaffordable on £100k because of Henry's lifestyle. As others have pointed out, many manage on much less, so Henry does have options to improve his financial position. The article is one-sided because it doesn't even attempt to look at solutions.

Even the minimum workplace pension contributions take him under £100k, so he definitely would be. He wouldn’t need to ‘up’ them.

What is your definition of "normal" pay? And, perhaps more importantly, what is your definition of a "normal" lifestyle??
If it's someone on a teacher's entry level salary who is hoping to live in Kensington in their own home by themselves then clearly that's not going to happen. But that's also unlikely to happen even if they earn a Magic Circle entry level solicitor salary.

It's nothing new for people to have housemates/flat mates for many years. What has changed is that people these days do seem more inclined to think that they are "entitled" somehow to live either by themselves or with a partner in a lovely non-shared home in a lovely inner city building on an entry level salary. Sadly this is being stoked by the dreaded influencers who live fake lives.

Most of the single (non-parents) in their 20s/early thirties I know of who live in the nicer parts of London who and have decent jobs ALSO have housemates. Not only does it save a heck of a lot of money, but it's also much more fun.

As for people who are living with a significant other: often times in London they will also still have a house mate or get income from a room via AirBnB depending on the situation. This isn't unique to London - I can think of plenty of friends in other similar cities who have this sort of set up.

I think people need to stop feeling so entitled or hard done by because they can't afford to live by themselves in the higher end areas of London. That's nothing new. And the situation shouldn't be a surprise to someone who has done their research prior to choosing a career or a profession. Moroever, someone who doesn't like that situation can live in a cheaper part of the country (there are many) and can - certainly at a young age - alter their career path. Heck, lots of people in middle/later age alter their career paths: there were a number of people in my law school class who had different professions before deciding to become a lawyer: one woman was in her sixties and had previously worked as research chemist. The opportunities for further education have never been more varied and easy to access. Point being: if you want to be able to afford to live in London then having rich parents or a trust fund etc certainly isn't a pre-requisite.

That's got all the hallmarks of a rage bait AI written article, just there to farm engagement and clicks.

I wonder if the photo of him is AI too

It should have been broken down more to be useful. This would be my guess:

• Bills will be £750 of that (council tax, waste, water, gas, electric phone, broadband, streaming).
• Travel £250
• Toiletries, cleaning products, new shoes/ clothes for work, barber visits etc say another £500
• only £300 was on groceries, so chances are he's getting lunch out at the office at an extra £250/ month
• Expensive discretionary stuff - new tech, holidays etc £500/ month
• Weddings mentioned, plus there will be birthdays, drinks out with his girlfriend, family Christmas gifts etc say £500/ month.

If he was really trying to save then no holidays even within UK, no drinks out etc. That isn't really the point of the article though, this isn't someone asking for advice they are stating that today's £100k lifestyle is only a £6k improvement on the £50k lifestyle of 6 years ago.

YY to needing to go through austerity at times in life( which this isn’t).

We have had really shit times but are now near to paying of our mortgage.

Also who needs to be rich? Seriously. All a human needs is safety, clean air, food, preferably a garden and access things like green spaces, libraries etc. that is rich enough and what I’d be focusing on as need for all not the Henry’s of this world who want to be flying round the world adding to global warming.

The £625 a month is groceries, beer money and eating out.

But after tax Henry now gets £5800 a month.

Even with rent at £2k he has masses left over and could easily save £2k a month.

He is spending more in Aldi on food for 1 person than I am spending in Waitrose online for 3 adults.

Article is ridiculous.

Am I sad that someone who aspires to be rich might have to go through a period of not being rich before he gets rich? No. And most of us will never be rich.

For those that haven’t read the article, Henry is a fictional construct to illustrate a principle! He isn’t a real person that spends too much on his groceries or should move back into shared accommodation.

The cold hard truth of it - and this article illustrates how - is that standards of living are going down. Swathes of the UK are in the unusual and unpleasant situation of being worse off than we were five or ten years ago, and it looks as if the next generation will have it even worse. Wait till our spending on defence moves from 2.3% to 5%.

Then there’s tax. Henry now pays £2,868 per month

So he’s paying the above in tax and has this massive section as other which will be a similar amount.

I suggest Henry looks at where he’s spending 3k each month if it’s not food, eating out or housing.

A lot of London fire fighters live miles away and some commute 2-3 hours for their shifts and sleep over in shared lodgings when time between shifts is too small to justify going home and back.

It says his salary is £103,500 so he would lose taxfree childcare and funded hours unless he upped his pension contributions to take him below £100,000k adjusted net income.

I think some people struggle to understand impacts of tax and inflation, and the article wasn't well written. Let me try a breakdown.

• Harry used to pay £12.5k tax and now pays £35k tax. The extra £50k is now only worth £27.5k.
• He's also had increases in rent of £16k per month for a mildly better flat only, but a huge housing increase on top. That brings his salary increase down to £11.k.
• His bills, food and other spends also went up with inflation so they cost £5k more than before (this one is debatable, I would say £3.5k is more realistic). The extra £50k is now an extra £6k (or at most £7.5k) that he can choose to save or spend.

The point though is that he never received an extra £50k at all, his true received income only went up by £27.5k, and he spends most of that on his increased housing cost plus inflation. You can argue he should go for a smaller shared accommodation, but he's on £100k, it's reasonable that he wants to be able to rent his own small place for that.

The issue is definitely the £100k cliff edge and if you havent already got on the housing ladder.

We bought around 10yrs ago, a 3bed house in a rather undesirable part of south London for around £350k. Mortgage currently around £1500. Plus we have two DC in childcare - one with 30hrs funding and one with 15hrs funding. Total childcare bill £1900.

We have a joint income of £120k between DH (FT) and me (PT) - was probably more like £150k when i was FT. We have a comfortable life and appreciate how lucky we are.

But if I was a single earner of £100k, my take home pay would be around £5.5k and I would lose all my childcare benefits.

To buy our house today, you'd be looking at a mortgage of £2.2k+, plus once you lose TFC and funded hours, nursery bill would be around £3k min, maybe even higher. So thats already your entire salary before we even get into bills, food, necessary spends etc.

It does seem very unfair to me.

Back to the article and "Henry" should probably give up his flat and find a houseshare to be able to save a deposit for a flat rather than paying so much in private rentals. And probably reassess which part of London he lives in (like we had to.) But its understandable why someone in their mid 30s doesnt want to houseshare anymore. In the end, he cant have it all though so he would need to decide whats more important.

That was me. I rented a room in a festering turd of a house because it was cheap with bills included and got a second job, and saved up enough for a 10% deposit on a flat over two years (£20,000). If Henry had done that and was to try Rightmove and to search for London - flats - up to £205,000 or so - he’d get himself on the housing ladder. Not an amazing flat or a prestige area but something.

The downsides:
mortgages more expensive than when I bought (but still cheaper than rent)
market for flats not as buoyant post-COVID
any property repairs and potentially service charge being your problem rather than LL’s

But doable and what I would do again today in Henry’s shoes.