“100k isn’t a big salary”

[cadburyegg]

I’ve just logged onto instagram and YET AGAIN a post comes up headed “100k isn’t a big salary, here’s why”. I’m so sick of seeing it. Most of us earn nowhere near 100k. I don’t spend my time moaning on instagram about how hard done by I am and there aren’t news articles about it. I don’t even feel like I AM hard done by. I feel lucky to be earning less than half that and to have a reasonable flexible job. I’m not going to the press saying poor me poor me because I don’t feel sorry for myself. Yet there seems to be shitloads of “awareness” posts about how shit it is for high earners and how it’s so sad they don’t have free childcare. I know people can have high expenses and I know it’s all relative and I’m probably overreacting but I seriously do not care anymore. It doesn’t mean the salary isn’t high. I’m so sick of seeing these out of touch posts. 🤯

Scroll past them as quickly as you can! You must be stopping on them which is why your algorithm keeps showing them to you. I'm on instagram and I've never seen a post like that.

i earn nowhere near that much, but I do get it for some of them tbh, the one person earners that get fucked more than a couple on like 50/50k. And just with the cost of living it’s not as much as it used to be. But if it’s bothering you as pp said just block them, I never see this type of stuff on my algo

It’s not a lot after tax, NI and all the other bills that might be included if you have childcare and a mortgage to pay for.

I earn over £100k and I don’t feel particularly well off. I do completely understand why you find that statement infuriating. But it is what it is.

Depends where you, when you bought your house or if you only have to pay council/housing association rent.

It's quite a familiar topic on Mumsnet to complain about how hard it is to live on [insert increasingly high salaries well beyond the reach of others] without a shred of self awareness. I'm sure they'll be along shortly if they haven't already before I post this.

It’s not big

its massive

Well it’s not huge, these days, especially with a london/south east mortgage and childcare etc

But anyway these accounts aren’t for you so just hit block and it should stop serving it up

It's silly Probably folk in London with kids at private school. In which case the probably need to go to a food bank they're so broke.

It really comes down to housing and childcare costs I think how rich people perceive themselves to be.

I can definitely see how a family on 100k in London can be struggling.

100% agree. Less than 5% of the people (working) in the UK are on that amount, or more. To say 'it's not that much' is an insult to people on NMW, and genuinely struggling!

Not sure I believe many of the posters on here though, who say they're on that kind of money. What makes me laugh is the ones who say they're only on £95K, but their DH is on MUCH more. 🙄 Sure Jan!

Depends where you are the country too. 100k in the south east is not the same as 100k in the north east.

or your circumstances. 100k with no kids in childcare is not the same as 100k with 2 kids in nursery with no government free hours as you’re over the threshold (that’s 4k a month for childcare plus a mortgage and bills as your basic costs).

It’s not a lot if you have an expensive life. I do now earn just over that and I feel very well off but I have a cheap life, I live in a house we bought when I was earning £25k a year so we have a tiny mortgage that I’m overpaying to reduce the term as much as possible. I have zero interest in cars so drive something that I bought outright for £5k, I have no debts except the mortgage. We also like cheap holidays and do not have any luxury tastes in clothes, shoes or whatever.

So for our household my salary is huge and enables us to do what we want and have the comfort of a healthy savings fund.

It’s all relative, I earn over £100k, and so does my DH and we don’t live in London. So we feel well off, not rich, kids go to state school but we’ve nearly paid off our mortgage at 40 with no help off any parents.

If you’re in London and only one of you is on £100k, after tax, it’s really not rich at all.

I'm.a single parent, worked part-time when my DS in nursery, primary and first few years of secondary. I'm now full-time, and with a significant promotion, I'm on about €100k.

It's loads - while I don't spend recklessly, I have no money worries, which after years of tight budgeting, is amazing.

I was never food bank broke, but definately short by the end of the month, we didn't have many holidays, outings were to parks and museums, not soft play or the cinema etc.

Someone who feels hard done by on £100k is not living in the real world. I'm very aware of my privilege.

But the point is surely that the money allows you to choose an expensive life. People can't live in London, choose to have a big house, and nice holidays and then complain that £100k isn't much money. It is a huge salary, they're just choosing to live a life that burns through it.

People use the word ‘struggling’ with a 100k income even living in London/South East need to have a serious word with themselves. Struggling means not knowing if you can pull together a weeks worth of decent meals or have the heating on when it’s freezing unless absolutely needs be. It’s living day to day, praying that you don’t get an unexpected bill or even minor financial inconvenience. If anyone is counting literal pennies with little to no luxuries in life, that is a struggle. When people on big incomes say they ‘struggle’, it’s usually to keep up with a lifestyle they imagined on that wage rather than than actual one foot in the poverty line many do actually live with.

I think it depends on life stages. I earn just over that and net far more than I can spend but we have no mortgage, the children are grown up, etc.

However, if I were 35, and had a stay at home partner looking after, say a 2 year old and nearly four year old, I'd have no personal tax allowance, would have to repay child benefit if claimed for my partner's pension contributions, no free nursery hours and student loan repayments.

I'd like to see the net salary once cost of the nursery hours has been taken I to account for so.eone on, say, £47k and £103k. Also where two parents work and each earn £47k. It will be surprising I imagine.

turn off SM OP

You are going to get a whole heap of people on this thread saying how they earn £100K and because of what they have decided as choices once they have paid out all these bills of their own choices it's not a lot.

Whereas it is very much is a lot for one person's salary.

SM is there to make you jealous and depressed for some reason. What does instagram do that actually helps or makes people feel better (on the whole)?

And you can't believe anything you read online anyway, if it's not AI it's made up, if it's not made up it's just there to show off.

Just log out and uninstall the app.

You will be much happier!

£100k in London doesn't buy a big house and nice holidays. Between them dd and bf earn £120,000. If they had to buy a flat, they would be hard pressed to find a one bedder for less than £350k and they wouldn't want a mortgage bigger than that if DC are on the horizon within a couple of years.

It's all relative. It's totally possible to not feel rich if you're on £100k but your bills / outgoings take up the vast majority of it. In absolute terms of course £100k is a lot of money but people cut their cloths accordingly and could technically end up with the same amount of money left at the end of the month as someone who earns a very different amount to them. Obviously they are not then truly comparable because of other factors but in binary fact someone on £40k could have £1k left after bills and so could someone on £200k. That's where the rub is - in what you've got left.

To me, that sounds immense. We earn 40k between us!

Outgoings have a nasty habit of expanding to cover income. The bigger house, with more council tax, then higher utilities. Or the more expensive car needing more fuel. Salmon and steak instead mince or beans on toast. Saying yes to the school trip. Shopping at John Lewis instead of Primark.

It is a big salary, but its very easy to spend it.

It is a big salary (top 5%), but it doesn’t go as far as you’d think after tax.

£100k after tax and student loan is less than £5k.

One nursery place can cost you £2k a month (no free hours).

£600k mortgage (three bed semi in some parts of the country) would currently cost you £3k a month.

So… already in the red.

I think the point of those £100k posts (the ones I’ve read on here) is that it doesn’t go as far as people might think. This makes sense to me as COL is so high, services are poor/stretched etc. More and more people are struggling. I’m not saying those on high salaries are struggling to eat etc and it can seem time deaf, but I think just as someone on £30k or £50k may see that their salary used to go a lot further, those on £100k are saying the same. Too much money has been squeezed upwards to the uber-rich I guess. I also think that so many are on the absolute breadline or below now that someone saying they’re not can seem even more tone deaf. In reality, high COL and difficult choices people are making in cutting back essentials, shouldn’t be normalised as a baseline.

Presumably you aren’t working full time though, as full time on minimum wage is now ~£25k