“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. 🤯

If you attach negative connotations to living in flats or having one (or no) children then you might feel like this. I don’t think a flat = a bad standard of living. I’m not sure if it was you who described a 3-bed terrace as an average/modest home but in my book a 3 bed house is by definition not average or modest - 2-up, 2-down maybe.

If your kids were still in nursery and you were paying full time fees for them you would feel very poor!

Personally I also agree on your last point that people shouldn’t have kids they can’t financially provide for either.

@Honon you can't live in a big house in London on 100k that salary will only get you a two bed flat or a tiny house in zone 6

I agree

Yes, I think they should!

But the places where you can earn these kinds of salaries have a high cost of living.

If everyone moves to somewhere with a lower cost of living and earns less, who is going to be paying all the tax to fund the state? 50% of tax is paid by the top 10% of earners - you need people pursuing these kinds of incomes to keep everything else afloat.

If it’s not worth bothering to do so, it suggests a problem.

No one is denying it’s a salary higher than 95% of the working population, they’re just saying it’s nowhere near as good as it sounds.

And - a mansion in 1964? Houses on my street are selling for 5-6x more than 20 years ago, the difference in affordability in housing is very dramatic for younger adults today vs people even ten or twenty years older.

There’s no negative connotations, I live in a flat, it’s just the reality that it’s a very cramped space to raise a family in and very little or no direct access to outdoor space. Culturally in the UK neither of those traits are seen as ideal for raising a family.

Get off of (anti) social media. It's largely just trash and manipulation anyway, designed to keep you on as long as possible while they serve you as many ads as possible.

Your mind and your time deserve better.

This is wrong the teacher on 5OK will take home around 3,000 pcm, they will also get child benefit and free nursery hours. The person on £100K will take home £5K not get child benefit or the nursery hours. So not double if they only have one child or school age children they might see £800 or £1,000 more each month, but definitely not double.

What would you do with it?

To me not knowing if you can feed yourself for the week is being absolutely poverty stricken. Struggling is getting by day to day, but any extra bill like the washer breaking down would scupper you.
Both are poverty though. Anyone working full time should be able to pay for all their necessities with some left over, less than that is poverty.

For most people ‘struggling’ on 100k it’s the mortgage and childcare surely. When I bought a 450k house in zone 4 in 2016 with a 10% deposit my mortgage was 1300 / month (we overpaid each month). Now I would conservatively estimate that I have 60% ltv (40% equity) but the mortgage is 2300 / month.

when my friend lived in Glasgow more than 10 years ago childcare for 1 child f/t was 2k a month. I’m sure it is more now, particularly in a London but let’s assume 2k

If I still lived in London in 100k now with one child, even assuming I had paid off my student loan, and assuming I made no pension contributions my take home pay would be 5713.

to live in a dirty and crime ridden part of zone 4 (albeit in a good sized 3 bed house) I would have 1413 after tax for

council tax 154
utilities and broadband (say 300)
home and car insurance (say 85)
mobile (say 30 cos I’ve always done sim only)

leaving me about 843 for food, holidays, clothes, MOT, road tax, petrol (and remember I’m paying nothing into ISAs or pension in this scenario which would be foolish given I am unlikely to qualify for state pension in future).

for me and one child I could absolutely do OK on 850 a month for all living expenses and if I had a partner also earning i’d be doing great.

but 100k is not a luxury salary for a household in London.

And your estimates for the bills are quite modest.

Yes I have likely been conservative with my bills, haven’t lived in London for a long time so I’m looking at things through a 2018 lens tbh!

This thread is a reminder of how much people hate poor people and also why many don’t discuss their finances with others. On this island people feel entitled to grill you on how you afford things they believe you shouldn’t be able to.

@MotherPuppr Most won’t have paid off the student loan if under 33. Your council tax is very low! Lambeth is much much higher even for a flat.

Yep.. where we live a simple 3bed is 500K minimum. That’s a £2500 monthly mortgage minimum.. council tax + bills = £500, taking the cost to just have a roof over your head to £3,000 a month. 2 kids in childcare…. I take my absolute hat off to people who can live on minimum wage

This x 100.

if someone is bleating on about how hard done by they are on 100k that’s tone deaf and silly.

but once you break 100k down it’s really, really not as much as you think and it does not allow a luxury lifestyle in London, you’re only going to get that if you have 2 x working parents.

Yes our CT is low and weirdly we are a low band but I checked our council (I won’t say which as maybe too outing with the other details given!) and it’s correct

Oh behave. No one hates poor people at all

Re:childcare, in Quebec, their low-fee childcare programme ($7-20/day) increased female workforce participation to around 85%, among the highest globally. The fiscal benefits (from increased income, sales, taxes) were 50% higher than its net costs, effectively paying for itself.

I’d save up for a deposit on a house, something, which on my wages at the moment, I can only dream of doing.

But unless you have a household income comfortably in excess of 100k you’re probably also going to be struggling to save a house deposit at any pace. In my example above, remove the 2300 mortgage (on a house valued at 525k in a not very nice area of zone 4) and replace it with 1800 in rent for a simple 2 bed flat in zone 4. You now have 1350 / month for all groceries, petrol, car costs (MOT, road tax), clothes, toiletries, entertainment and holidays etc.

that is way more disposable income than the vast majority of people have but if you live frugally you might save 600/month or 7200 / year. It would still take you about 15 years to save up a 10% deposit and stamp duty for what is today a 500k house. Yes your income would rise in that time but so would house prices.

I can tell you what a 500k house in London looks like, I own one. It has a spacious garden and it’s semi detached but it has a 1980s kitchen, a 1990s bathroom, damp in the bay window. It is not luxury. It needs rewired, replastered, insulating, redecorated throughout (not in a “I fancy a change way, I mean in a “that silver floral and black wallpaper looks like a cheap Thai restaurant” way). 6 houses on my street are HMOs, there are home office raids from time to time. It’s not what you think someone on a 6 figure salary lives in, trust me.

If you live in many parts of the country with one child in f/t nursery 100k is not going to give you anything like a flash lifestyle. Stable and secure but I repeat you need two parents both earning high salaries (not nec 100k each but together a lot more than 100k) to be doing well and to not have to micromanage a budget in London.

no one is saying others don’t have it much tougher (well I’m not), but 100k is 5713 after tax (assuming you’ve paid off your student loan and make no pension contributions at all). Unless you’re living in a low COL city and have no kids, you absolutely still need to cut your cloth with rent (or interest rates), utilities, and groceries the way they are today.

Just say you don’t because this is absolutely a problem in this country and present on this thread.