“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. 🤯

You can moan all you want but the point is that a 100k salary is actually nowhere near what people think it is. Thats the real issue and anyone earning less doesn’t want to see than and thinks 100k gross makes you a millionaire.

We don't all live in London and the south east.

Ultimately a pretty irrelevant statement. Many people do, in fact most people do.

The cost of living in some little northern town doesn’t matter.

Could you be a little more patronising

It matters to the people who live there.

it's heartbreaking to think of the daily hell that they have to navigate, the brutal choices they must make, the sacrifices that they endure as they valiantly stuggle on with life's fiscal challenges.

Who can tell? One person's insufficient and tiny is another person's wow.

I make about £25k. But I'm single, I'm mortgage free, my kids are all adults and earn a lot more than I do so don't need me to 'help them out'. I've only got to keep me and the dog alive so I earn plenty for my own needs. But I can almost feel the gasp inrush of air from people reading my post and imaginging living on £25k which wouldn't even touch the sides for them.

I imagine people think a £100k salary is a £100k salary, what with it being £100k...

They have no idea how most people live. Ignore them
Most people won't ever earn anything near that

I spent just shy of 40% of my income on direct taxation last year ( 60/140k if anyone cares). Between £100-120K the marginal tax rate is 63%, we should all care about this because these are the people who largely fund public services. If it isn't worth it for them and the standard of living is comparable on half that wage, they simply won't bother.

the average salary even in london is well under 50K and they are not all starving and homeless, 100K is a lot it's not a millionaire it is not buy whatever you want without looking at price ticket but it is not skint or broke by any stretch

Now sometimes people with large salaries have large expenses but these are a choice they are not living in the smallest possible house in the very cheapest area and buying the cheapest food, nd using relatives as childcare; they have opted for better housing better food more energy costs, they could downsize living space they could cut utilities they could reduce food budget etc, they have room for manoeuvre

yesterdays figures say there are 38 million tax payers in this country approx 13 million are under 19 so obviously are not earning ( well a few may be)so that leaves around 18 million that do not earn enough to pay tax, most of these will be pensioners, some SAHP some unemployed or disabled

of the 38 million paying tax approx 7.5 million pay some form of higher rate tax ie roughly 1 in 5 tax payers but only 1 in 10 of the population, now to pay higher rate tax you are on just over 50K not 100k so which ever way you look at it those earning over 100K before tax are in the richest 2% which means about 1.4 million people and the other 67.6 million people are managing on less

anyone not managing on 100k has either taken on more bills than they can really afford ie overstretched themselves or is simply spending too much, it is not that the necessities of life can't be paid for on that salary. There maybe a few that took on expenses with income of 150K + and someone has lost a job or become ill so they have short term difficulties, if these short term difficulties look like becoming long term they have options to downsize lifestyle to cope unlike NMW who have nothing left to cut

unfortunately when people whinge even in London and SE about 100K not being huge ( well maybe it is not huge) but it is still double the area median I just think they are lousy with money and have lacked foresight when times wer egood to have savings, not have savings when you earn 100K is just plain foolish

Surely the majority of higher rate tax payers simply increase salary sacrifice pension contributions to avoid it?

Yes not all employers run salary sacrifice schemes, I don't know of any that don't though.

I’m in Ireland and broadly similar here. We have a household income of 120 K.
Our monthly take-home pay together is 7200 if we don’t do any overtime.

The take home pay of someone on 120 K on their own is ~5900.

It really isn’t a lot in London. You have no chance of buying a modest family home without an enormous amount of family help.

It’s all relative isn’t it. I get fed up of threads about how people who work part time can increase their benefit potential. You could say that if you’re a low/mid earner, higher tax payers are essentially paying to prop up your free childcare/other benefits etc for those for earn insufficiently. Public services are failing because mid/low earners don’t contribute adequately, hopefully Labour will address this in the next budget.

There is such a thing as an annual allowa ce for pension contributions. Only up to 60K is tax deductible, the accurred interest and employers contributions. I m already over this as are most highly paid public sector employees. BTW the above figure doesn't include the tax paid on my pension growth.

There are hundreds of one bed flats that cost significantly less than £350k in London (I know, I live here and own one) but people conveniently
discount this because they’re not in desirable areas. Just because childcare is expensive (and it is too expensive) doesn’t mean that isn’t a huge salary - it means you’re choosing to spend it on things that cost a lot and probably living beyond your means in other areas. People earning that much have something poor people will never have: choices. If it isn’t covering all their outgoings they have the choice to make changes.

London makes a huge difference, and so does whether the household is one earner or two.

Two adults, two children.

A) Two minimum-wage parents, outside London. Post tax and benefits: £39k/year. A bit below the Joseph Rowntree Foundation benchmark for “a minimum socially acceptable standard of living in the UK today” (£44.4k for non-London couple with two children).

B) One £100k parent, in London, one not working. Post tax and benefits: £60k/year, at the bottom of Joseph Rowntree benchmark range £60-85k (for London couple with two children).

Neither is swimming in money.

Yes that is correct. Well said.

I’m sick of people having chips on their shoulders about people who may or may not be wealthier than they are. I’m sick of people thinking it’s ok to slag off people who may or may not be wealthier than them, because apparently, it’s ok one way but not the other. I’m sick of it. So pre vat on school fees, where labour did a good job of highlighting and exacerbating social differences and divisions, I didn’t mind. Now, I mind. Because the bitterness and nastiness, ‘shone’ through. There’s no nuance or grey areas, it’s black or white, apparently.
So I’m not patient with people any more. Some people are richer than others. Some people are poorer. Such is life.

100k after tax and childcare with London living cost is ok but really not that much. And the actual problem is that that kind of salary also involves 12 hour working days, working on weekends etc. So there is no balance.

15 years ago someone on 100k could afford a nanny and luxuries that made up for the horrible working hours.

You were too late! Makes me laugh really, I’m earning about average for the UK now but I feel a lot richer than I ever have done in my life as I was earning minimum wage then living wage before this. If people are feeling the pinch on above the average wage then their expenditure is too much. A lot of people have two incomes too, they don’t have a clue.

In London it’s really not a big salary.

I work in London and don’t earn anything near that, the median salary of London is less than half that.

So if only 5% of the population, as quoted on this thread, earn £100k how do you think the rest of us manage? We manage by making different choices.

A teacher in London at the top of main scale with Ups3 in London earns slightly over half that.

No, these threads are often proof that many people, particularly those topped up with UC, or child benefit, or funded childcare actually fundamentally don’t understand the tax system.