Take home pay

[Chickenandstuffing]

Hi,

i was having a debate with a friend at work today regarding household income. Her household take home income is 7.5k per month. I think this is huge. She disagrees and thinks it’s just slightly better than average! For context, we’re West Midlands based.

surely not many houses bring in such amounts?

It certainly sounds like a lot. We have just under 6k a month after tax and with 4 kids a mortgage and childcare we spend every penny of it 😢

Last year uk average monthly salary was just over £2400. I would say its huge

Ours is around 3.5k per month. DH full-time, me 1.5 days per wk. No young children though, mortgage paid off. Both 50. I guess it's all relevant to individual situations.

I mean yes, it’s higher than average - £150k single earner or 2x ~ £60k.

If she has high fixed outgoings it may not feel as comfortable as it sounds however.

If she’s got a high LTV mortgage + childcare costs it adds up.

Of course it is huge.

DH and I don't have that net income between us and we are both right at the top end of our careers.

Not difficult for her to look it up on-line if she needs a reality check.

It's massively above average.

https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in#tool-results-section

Guessing at 2 adults, 2 kids and popping in our council tax gives her a higher income that 85% of similar households.

Doesn't sound huge once you consider all of the probable outgoings and life costs.

"Huge" to me would be something like 20k a month!

Lucky you

Some people are just so clueless on this site I swear.

Yeah, I’d say that’s very high. We’re a high earning household but after pension contributions bring home approx 5k a month. Big mortgage. No childcare costs. It’s a lot of of money and I realise how lucky we are. 2.5k more a month would mean lots more luxuries / holidays

@CutthroatDruTheViolent

🙄 £7k a month is hardly "huge". Huge to me is extremely large / giant / enormous - £7k doesn't fit that bill! I'm not clueless 😂 I'm just saying that huge is something like £20k, £7k is just a high income. Not enormous!

Assuming 2 adults work though, the average for the household would be £4.8k. 7.5k would be slightly over 50% more ~ so definitely noticeable but not HUGE or enough to push someone into very high earner territory?

Depends how much her outgoings and bills are surely

Higher than average, but if it's from two full time salaries and so they're paying full-time childcare then I can imagine things feel tighter than you may think.

We earned a bit more than that when we had two in nursery and there wasn't much left at the end of the month, and that was in NI where things are cheap.

It’s definitely a really good amount and I can’t see how people would struggle on it, but it’s not huge. We take home more than that and actually a lot of families we know earn quite a bit more than we do

Of course it is.

I know MN is very London / SE centric but the OP said this is in the West Midlands.

Two of my dc manage mortgage, bills, cars, holiday, hobbies, some treats on (gross) incomes in the low £30K.

How can anyone say that that income isn't huge.

As @CutthroatDruTheViolent says, there are too many posters on this sight that seem so far removed from the real world the vast majority live in.

It's massively above average.
https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in#tool-results-section
Guessing at 2 adults, 2 kids and popping in our council tax gives her a higher income that 85% of similar households.

the problem is housing, pop in 2500k for rent or mortgage & that puts you in the. 60% bracket.

Ours is similar to that and I do agree that it is a substantial income in comparison to the average UK household, I also know couples whose monthly joint income is £10k+ so it's all relative, however I do feel very fortunate to be in the position we're in