£150k salary aged 35 AMA

[RaeS345]

Mum of 2
Married, 35
AMA

Presumably she pays quite a lot of tax which funds your family's jobs. 🙃

She pays very high taxes which pay your family’s public sector salaries. Would you prefer to work for free?

Is your job ever stressful ? Do you ever feel like you can’t cope with the demands on your time ?

My job is so difficult at the moment and in over 25 years this is the first year I am really not enjoying it at all. I long for a job which doesn’t involve me eating my lunch in 15 mins. Peeing on demand and retreating to a dark room when I get home for an hour so I don’t take my frustrations out on my family.

It’s so refreshing to hear of women earning super salaries. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Don’t listen to those who are jealous. Also look out for yourself and your family first. Get your mortgage paid off and invest your income. Build wealth for the next generation.

Do you think you're worth the money you make?

Start pensions for your children.

You mention you are ‘up north’ and commute, I am looking into this right now so am really curious about how far north you are and how you find the commute. Do you have a direct train into London or have to change, and do you have much of a drive to the station or tube journey at the other end for example?

This is what I thought, it's less than what I earn but I don't feel wealthy with kids in nursery. And certainly wouldn't feel like putting up an AMA. It's in the top few % of salary. But even if you aggressively save, you won't be wealthy on that, because those who are wealthy are so far ahead

I find it so odd that people automatically think that private sector jobs are not fulfilling. Like paper pushing for a council is fulfilling just because it’s public sector but dreaming up John Lewis or M&S Chrismas ad is not? 🙄

Why are you not paying 50k into a pension to bring your salary down to just under 100k?

Not doing so means you are paying at least 62% tax and NI, possibly 71% if you have student loan, and are also missing out on funded childcare.

You would barely be a penny worse off doing that while at the same time accruing far greater pension sums.

I was earning a bit more than you while DS was in nursery but salary sacrificed around 75k each year to get below 100k. It’s crazy not to do the same.

When you say you live ‘up north’ where do you mean? And how long is the commute to London ‘most days’?

Does that size of mortgage not terrify you? I know the multiples are not huge but the absolute amount is so dependent on both of you continuing to earn well above average for the next 25 years.

There is a limit on how much you can pay into pension which I think is 40K a year. Plus she’s getting the benefit of remaining cash, not everyone can just go down by 30%

Does your mother approve of what you do?

Can I ask what you do? I have a very similar upbringing and I'm knocking 40 and earning 23k a year with no prospects. I'd love to retrain but I have no idea what or how to do it.

You are new to this salary, once you get used to it. It won't feel much. You got a good deal on nursery though. Mine costs £3k for 2 kids got 4 days

To explain, I spend 40,% of my salary on child care at that rate. I don't feel rich.

Lol at your AI written reply - your rookie error was not removing the em dash.

😆

This is an observation not a question, your annual salary is more than my house is worth, funny old world isn't it?

Congrats and fair play.

Two questions if you don't mind:

1. Why on earth are you not finding the pension a lot more whether it's matched or not? I find that very unusual

2. Do you think you are under or overpaid? Or have you ever questioned that?

The annual limit is 60k plus you can back fill any shortfall for the last 3 years.

On top of that you can also salary sacrifice a car if needed to bring the amount under 100k.

The point is that her pay wouldn’t drop anything like 30%.

If you took 150k as entirely cash you would take home 91k each year. If you salary sacrificed 50k to your pension you would then take home 68k. So that means your 50k pension contribution has only cost you 23k cash.

You then need to factor in the loss of funded childcare which is taken away at 100k. This is worth around 8k per child, sometimes more. Add on a further 2k for the loss of tax free childcare as well and you’re looking at about 10k per child.

That means that if you have 2 nursery age children and earn 150k you can salary sacrifice 50k into your pension at almost no cost to yourself. Taking the 150k as cash is just about as bad a financial decision as you could possibly make.

Assuming your children are in nursery for 4 years that means you’re giving up 200k “free” pension contributions. That’s a huge sum to throw away particularly when you consider it will also benefit from maybe 20+ years more growth.

is this a stealth boast

What is the answer to life, the universe and everything? Oh, and shouldn’t you be working now? That £150k won’t earn itself, you know.

… which are also important. Why the upside down smiley?

Would you mind posting about your career path so far (with as much detail as you feel comfortable with)?

Do you feel you use too many exclamation marks !?