Poor life planning..

I believe it does earn NI credits 👍

What are you on about!? The state can only be there because of ordinary people working their asses off and NOT the other way around. Jobs will always exist with or without the state!!

I get a carers allowance, I should probably be wiser about these things but I assumed that would keep my NI and pension going?

Totally agree. Everyone knows someone that works the minimal amount of hours as it affects their benefits. To those who say it doesn’t happen it does and I know a fair few of them.

Your post makes no sense to me. It seems to imply that the only purpose of earning more money is to anticipate that money being taken in tax. The whole conversation is about the wrong thing. It should be about how we can grow our economy and raise average incomes, which would include raising the tip incomes and would increase the tax take without increasing the % tax paid. Instead of which you seem to be saying that people with money to spend shouldn't spend it. Ok, well, enjoy Cuba.

You need to be claiming, and setting your amount of child benefit to receive as £0 (so you don’t have to pay it back). You are not working, therefore not earning National Insurance credits for your state pension. Claiming child benefit earns you a National Insurance credit for that year. If you continue not working/not claiming CB, you will have a huge hole in your state pension.

Agreed

People live to their means, if they are working and doing everything right of course they are going to be upset when the goalposts change and their chosen lifestyle becomes unaffordable. The way that any high earner in a household excludes child benefit is very unfair though, my husband is above the threshold so if I were to claim it we’d have to pay it back. However I’m currently not working as we have a child with a disability and I need to be available for them (I tried going back to work for a while and it wasn’t sustainable). So although my husband is in the high earning category if you were to divide it between us it’s a very average income. Households that bring in much much more are receiving the payments.

I’m not the only one moaning about benefit scroungers - read the whole post! But this is where the system is wrong. I have managed an organisation where people refused to do more than their 16/18 hours a week (even on a once off basis) because it interfered with their benefits - and they are paying minimal if any tax. So they are being paid to work a few hours a week, plus benefits and not putting back into society!

The majority of benefits to working age people go to those in work. But don't let that fact stop you ranting about benefit scroungers

Ok. So I am one of the squeezed middle classes. Yes I shop in Waitrose because I care about where what I put in my mouth comes from (ie not shit meat from countries with no animal welfare standards); yes my ONE son plays football and we pay for him to be part of the local club; it’s good for his physical and mental wellbeing - he does go state school so I can’t get bashed for that. We do drink wine at the weekends and bloody well enjoy it! We have had one holiday abroad in 3 years. When I buy clothes I buy a few key pieces from reputable UK brands or Vinted. Clothing and shoes are bought to last.

We don’t have Disney +, Sky Sports etc. Our cars are about 15 years old. I don’t buy shed loads of shit off Temu and Shein that is the discarded after Halloween/ Christmas/ Easter or after a couple of wears because it is going out fashion or falling apart.

I pointed this out further up post to the OP who then didn’t respond. If we - the despised middle classes - stop spending in the high street (rather than supporting cheap shite from China), the hospitality and entertainment industries, the housing market and tourism, the economy will take a downturn. Basic economics - you need a thriving economy to drive growth.

So yes, we are pissed off that we are carrying the can for the benefit sector of the country (as in those who are just too f@cking lazy to get off their arses and work) but we can also see that by us spending less in the economy as a whole, the situation is just going to get worse!!

Totally agree 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Er…someone obviously didn’t watch Labour’s autumn budget on Wednesday!

Not only that, but you can see that achievement, self-reliance and financial responsibility are actively sneered at! For some reason these things are seen as negative, as 'privileged,' as a target for exploitation because they deserve it. A person on benefits is seen as morally superior to someone who works hard in a skilled profession. It's completely backwards.

My parents were from immigrant families who both worked (and still work) incredibly hard to give their children a good life. Further degrees from Oxbridge, insane work schedules, mental and physical stress, the sacrifice of freedom and family time.

I think we will suffer massive brain drain from those who still want to achieve, and those who stay here will just choose not to.

Do l hear to he so called "Squeezed Middle Classes" whingeing again?

Ttry to cut down on wine, after school clubs, cleaners, shopping at Waitrose, local delicatessens etc Before you started whingeing about money

Yes you may do work hard. But then again so do lots of decent working class people who just earn normal wages.

And don't have money from Welfare benefits thrown at them and getting everything paid for them. You know the ones who have loads of kids they can't afford to keep and expect the state to look after them.

If your can't afford them don't have them.

But it seems to be their god given divine right.

Was really let down by Rachael Reeves to see that the two children UC limit had been scrapped in the budget. Taking children out of poverty my arse

Very cynical. Just another vote winning attempt to get former Labour Voters back from Reform?

If you earn £14k per month then you already pay alot of tax at the higher rate.

I think that people tend to budget so they have little in reserve which means they are more vulnerable to the economic downturn. That is poor budgeting agreed, however they are living within their means and are entitled to be worried about additional taxes. Equally those who are the breadline often make choices - having many children is one of these which causes initial strain.

Umm the absurd triple lock… most elderly people at some point need care of some sort and they have to pay for it all themselves if they have any capital meanwhile they get no tax relief whatsoever for doing that ( even if they have terminal illness like dementia) this money is generally being paid to private entities and not to state managed care organizations, so that might be worth looking into but in the meantime leave them their triple lock they’ll need it if they live long enough

I think this is very true

Taxes are really high on any objective basis now.

It is true the ‘middle’ are getting hit very hard to pay for a massive welfare state, whereas the properly rich weren’t meaningfully touched.

At the bottom end there was no tackling of the absurd ‘triple lock’ or any real attempt to get to grips with the epidemic of mental health incapacity.

And, at the top end, the house tax was the only meaningful extra tax. They left CGT unchanged, which is how the rich generally get paid, and they left EIS and VCT reliefs unchanged.

There was a big sigh of relief amongst the wealthy.

Of course wealth is mobile and maybe real measures would have been counterproductive, but if you are on 200k and taxed at 45% income tax plus a raft of other taxes, it must be hard to see people paying 24% on share option gains, and that is before real avoidance, such as offshore trusts kick in.

It does seem like it's the norm to live right at the edge of your means. Have friends who are financially very similar to you, earn imo an insane amount of money yet are very cash poor.

Large reason of why DH and I just moved to a cheaper part of the country, as we both WFH so income isn't reducing, just going further. Given that we're now about to pay more in tax it feels like a wise choice.

Doing work during the weekend is normal, and working during holidays is not particularly unusual either.

I did not have a social life in my 20s either. You said that you don't go for a drink between Monday and Friday (again, that's normal), but the difference is that I never drank during the weekends either because I was busy working.

The only thing I will give you that's unusual, and particularly hardcore, is working Christmas days.

Yet, despite the fact that I made all the same sacrifices that you did, I make peanuts compared to you. I would love to work 50 - 100 hours a week for a £100k salary, but I have never landed that job role.

This is what £100k earners don't seem to understand. You seem to think you have a freakish work ethic that's above and beyond the general public, but this is not the case. There are lots of people who are hard working and you are not special in that regard. The only difference is that you went for an interview for a £100k job and you got it, whereas that opportunity did not arise for me.

The thing is no one knows other people’s financial information or what goes on in their lives. There does seem to be a lot of resentment toward high earners (and no I’m not one of them unfortunately) without seeing how these people got to these positions in life. I wouldn’t dream of calling out anyone on how they spend their wages be they’re high or low earner and o wood to expect someone to ask me, but this is happening on the various threads and it’s become vicious which I don’t like either. I agree that it’s even more important people vote and I suspect the next election the turn out will be huge, but who is first past the post is anyone’s guess but I doubt it will be Labour.

@Umbrella15 If I was to get a pay raise, I would be put into the higher tax bracket.

Does your workplace have a salary sacrifice scheme for a pension?

If you are slightly into the higher tax bracket, the most sensible thing to do is to salary sacrifice the additional money into a pension pot. Then all of your income will only be taxed at the 20% rate.

I think unless I was a highly skilled surgeon saving lives ( maybe that’s your job?) or extremely passionate about my field I wouldn’t work that amount of hours for that or any amount of money really. Life is just too short, in my view of the world we need enough to have a nice life of course but it has to be a balance. I’ve worked in France nearly all my life ( and am happy to pay the taxes that give us good public services) and even in Paris you could bring up a family in zone three with a stay at home parent on that salary. You mightn’t have the biggest house in the swankiest area or be jetting off for all inclusive holidays every couple of months but it would still be nice and doable . Very select private schools are expensive but others are very reasonable ,probably about 250 a month.Good luck in your move !!