“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. 🤯

Nail on head.

It doesn’t make me feel shit. Good on them for doing well

I think the point is that you expect £100k to be a high salary and your money problems are over, but it’s pretty underwhelming these days. When you first hit that 60% tax marginal rate, it’s a bit disheartening.

Sorry, but that’s an absolute joke. My DH earns £28,500 gross and I’m disabled so receive PIP. We manage to have holidays and savings. I’d be embarrassed to pretend I was poor on your sort of income.

But you presumably receive substantial PIP (and/or get other types of assistance / benefits) to be able to save and have holidays if your husband is only earning a little more than min wage (assuming he's f/t). I'm guessing (apologies if I am wrong) that you may also own your house outright, which most people earning 100k won't. Ignoring some outlying professions like City law and investment banking, most people earning 100k won't hit 100k until they are mid-late 30s and 40s (just my experience) and very few people in that age bracket will own their home outright, because they probably didn't buy until they are in their 30s.

So respectfully to say your family manages fine on 28,500 is neither here nor there because that's not what your family is entitled to once your PIP and any other assistance are taken into account.

I never said we were poor.
Again you are jumping on me as your circumstances are different.
As mentioned it’s all relative.
Great for you if you save and have holidays, an I begrudging you this? However we don’t save as we’re too busy paying 40% of our income in taxes and then living and then having people jump down our throat because we’re a higher earning household.
You think it’s a joke that I have to wear a jacket in my house in winter? Or that I can’t go to the supermarket as I’m crippled with discomfort from the cold even in summer?
Your anger is justified if it was directed at the system.

You only pay 40% on the amount over £50,270 so it’s slightly disingenuous to make out you’re paying 40% on all of it.

@MotherPuppr yes we own our house, which we bought young and worked our arses off to pay off early when I was still working. Even when both of us were working full-time, we were both paid so little, we were entitled to WFTC. We worked opposite shifts because we couldn’t afford childcare. So no, I don’t get masses of other benefits. There’s no extra money for people with adult children and who own their house.

Okay, nonetheless when tax statement comes through at the end of the tax year it’s over £30,000. Is that enough for you? Or would you like us to pay more?
As I said it’s all relative, where you live and what your circumstances are. You’ve mentioned that you have adult children therefore you’re not raising children currently in this time where childcare fees are extortionate for many young couples. We also do not have any additional child support so have to use wrap around if needed but we aren’t complaining about it as it is what it is.

We aren’t begrudging you or feel hard done that you were able to purchase a property and were entitled to support due to your circumstances.
Your current circumstances are no where equivalent to what ours are and therefore you will not be able to compare what you have achieved or are entitled to, to what we have to spend or how we manage our finances. I came from a single income household and am very grateful and fortunate to what we have but that doesn’t mean we are living a lavish life. As I outlined in my original post.

As previously stated you have a right to be angry and frustrated at the salary disparity but your circumstances are wholly different and not comparative.

I'm not suggesting you didn't work really hard for your home. But even ignoring the PIP you receive (you still haven't said how much that is, and that's your right), and ONLY taking into account your partner's salary of 28500, that is a take home pay each month of £2,024.41. You're at a stage of life where you have paid off your mortgage and have no more childcare costs. Someone on 100k takes home 5713, but if they have to pay rent/mortgage, and f/t childcare (3.5k - 4.5k depending on how cheap the area they live is / how tiny their mortgage is) then they will have less far than the same take home pay as your partner (and again, we are ignoring your PIP here). That is why people are saying it doesn't go far / feel like much!

Apologies i don't mean "far less take home pay" (evidently they have more than double take home pay) i mean disposable income for bills, groceries, living.

How high is your mortgage that you don't feel well off on that much money

Did your high salary perhaps induce you to buy a big house in a more expensive area? It's all choices at the end of the day.

You can live a more ordinary life in a more modest way and have a lot of cash left over.

ByGreenHiker my mortgage on a spacious but run down 3 bed semi in zone 4 in a (tbh really quite depressing area) of London is 2300 and that is with 40% equity. House worth 525k. By London standards it is very inexpensive.

I agree people could live further out, we make choices, which are not wholly but in large part offset by huge whopping rail costs.

I decided against that, when I bought that place my logic (apart from hope that the area would generate and it being all we could afford if we wanted a 3 bed) was that it was only 25 mins home in a taxi every night from the office. And I can promise you 9pm was an early finish for me, anything from 10pm - 1pm was not unusual at all when i worked in the City. I would have been miserable sitting in a taxi for 1 hour 4 nights a week just to crawl into bed.

I'll admit I didn't research it and can't speak with any authority, but to live in Kent/Surrey/Sussex/Hampshire etc etc I honestly don't think i would have been able to buy a 3 bed house for less than i did in 2016 (450k).

@MotherPuppr Ignoring some outlying professions like City law and investment banking, most people earning 100k won't hit 100k until they are mid-late 30s and 40s (just my experience) and very few people in that age bracket will own their home outright, because they probably didn't buy until they are in their 30s.

You're acting as if being late 30s or 40s is a really late stage of life to hit a high income. Some of the replies in this thread are so out of touch that reading it is just very embarassing more than anything else.

@MotherPuppr You're at a stage of life where you have paid off your mortgage and have no more childcare costs.**

People choose to have children. Childcare is a voluntary payment.

What is holding me back is being ugly, not being part of a "clique" which would make me favoured during interviews, and a lack of opportunities to move into senior roles due to the pyramid structure of basically all companies.

If you have no kids (or are past childcare) and no mortgage/rent, you're doing great on 100k. If you have one kid in childcare and a mortgage, you very likely have faaaar less disposable income than someone on 28500 whose mortgage is paid off and whose kids are grown up. I am not sure why you can't accept this.

also, yes having children is a choice. I don't have any, btw, because i like my DINK lifestyle tbh. I'm just interested to know if you would tell someone on benefits that they shouldn't have had children and it was a choice they couldn't afford to make, or if that just applies to higher earners.

You didn't research it clearly and you can buy 3 bed semis in Orpington for £525k now.

So in 2016 it would have been much cheaper. Orpington is zone 6 and as you currently live in zone 4 the the travel card would not have been considerably more expensive than what you currently pay.

But you made your choices and thats why your 100k won't go far. You chose an expensive lifestyle.

You've lost touch with reality.

First of all, you haven't factored in pension payments. Pension payments are tax free, so it will be extremely easy for the person on £100k to make sufficient pension payments compared to the person on £28k.

Second, mortgage and childcare combined does not cost £3.5k - £4.5k. Childcare costs about £1k a month... but just to be generous to you, I will assume childcare costs £1.5k. That means your mortgage costs £2k - £3k, but that's only your half of the payment, so the total mortgage is £4k - £6k.

A house with a £4k - £6k mortgage is likely to be a palace. So do you really think that you are worse off than someone on £28k, because you have a high mortgage payment on a palace, when you CHOSE to live in that house, and when that house will likely be worth more than £1 million by the time you sell it, or you family inherits it?

go back and look at my previous posts! 5713 take home does not include any pension contributions. it’s based on one person on 100k with one kid in f/t nursery living in a house with a mortgage of 2300 in London suburbs - I’m just using 2300 because I think it’s fairly typical for a London mortgage. We are not talking about a palace I have no idea where you are getting that from?!

I don’t have kids so will defer to others but I sorely doubt childcare is only 1k / month for full time care.

I’ve said, repeatedly, that if there’s 2 incomes, it can be a whole different ballgame. But the discussion is whether 100k is a high salary for one person to make, and the answer is: yes, but it doesn’t go as far as people think if you are in that pinched stage of life (mortgage/high rent/childcare).

@shuggles I think the idea that a monthly payment of that size would allow anyone to live in anything vaguely resembling a palace is part of the problem. The monthly payments on this three bed terraced house in zone three would be over £5k, for example:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/163444610#/?channel=RES_BUY

I know it's insane and hard to get your head around, but the reality is that lots of these 100k jobs only exist in London, and this is what living a life that really isn't very affluent in London costs.

Tbf Tooting is quite desirable these days and $1m is still a lot to pay for a London home! It’s also a nicer than average house, but I agree not a palace

@MotherPuppr go back and look at my previous posts! 5713 take home does not include any pension contributions.

Yes, I know. That was my point. You didn't factor in pension contributions.

You have to be realistic about this. Everyone needs to be paying something into a pension pot. You can't just leave that out, because not paying into a pension pot would just be silly.

So my point was that pension contributions hit someone on £28k much harder than someone on £100k.

Please do the following calculations:

1. Take home pay of (a) 28k and (b) 100k with a 10% pension contribution paid by salary sacrifice.
2. Take home pay of (a) 28k and (b) 100k with a 20% pension contribution paid by salary sacrifice.

Once you do those calculations, you can see why it is much easier for people on colossal salaries to save money.

it’s based on one person on 100k with one kid in f/t nursery living in a house with a mortgage of 2300 in London suburbs - I’m just using 2300 because I think it’s fairly typical for a London mortgage. We are not talking about a palace I have no idea where you are getting that from?!

Your comments are confusing.

So the £2300 is the total mortgage cost? Or just half?

Wouldn't the partner be paying the other half? So the mortgage payment then should be taken as £1150, not £2300.

I’ve said, repeatedly, that if there’s 2 incomes, it can be a whole different ballgame.

Yes... obviously there are two incomes...

Even if the other partner isn't working, they will be claiming unemployment benefit... ...

But the discussion is whether 100k is a high salary for one person to make, and the answer is: yes, but it doesn’t go as far as people think if you are in that pinched stage of life (mortgage/high rent/childcare).

If a £100k income allows ONE person to afford a mortgage over £2k, along with expensive childcare, then yes I think it is fair and correct to say it is indeed a colossal salary!

Yeah all the people on here who claim to be wealthy just take the piss.

We are £90 a day for nursery fees for one child in full time nursery. It’s paid on a 51 weeks a year basis so £1912.50 per month.