Would you class this family as average, comfortable or well off?

[Greyorcream]

Curious what people would class as “well off” these days?

Couple in late 30s with 2 dc (late primary/early secondary age). Not in London.
Partner A earns £52k and Partner B earns £74k. So fairly average wage. Neither majorly stressful roles. Both work full time. Home by 5 each evening. Both can wfh 2 days a week.

Both get annual bonuses of around 8% and usually salary increases of about 4% each year.

Mortgage outstanding is £339k on a house worth around £500k (5-bedroom house).

Pension contributions (employee + employer combined):

• Partner A: 17% (this will be increasing)
• Partner B: 21%

Savings:
usually save a third of income each month.

• £130k joint savings
• £40k saved separately for the dc.

No inheritance or family help received. No loans, car finance, credit card debt or student loans.
No childcare or private school costs.
Lifestyle-wise, usually one big family holiday a year plus a couple of weekends away.

Would you consider this comfortably well off, average, affluent, or something else? Genuinely interested as perceptions seem wildly different depending on area and social circle.

Then why do you need our external validation. You've got good paid jobs, a nice hoem, a comfortable life. Be happy without needing people to tell you that.

Something that was said that irked me if I’m being honest…

When the UK median household income is £37,400 (at the end of 2025) and their household income puts them in the top 10-15% of households in the UK they are clearly wealthy. They might not feel it, but that’s down to the choices that they make.

God this is so boring. Apparently 2% of UK women earn over £70000, so if you earn so much, I'm sure you can work this out for yourself.

The average salary is £39k. A top 10% salary is late sixties to £70k. So you have one person earning in the top 10% and the other well into the top half of earners. So as a household you're likely to be in the top 10%-20% of the UK. So definitely in the "comfortable" bracket but probably not in the "wealthy" bracket. You'll certainly have a good chunk of wealth by the time you retire if you carry on like that though.

Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £39,039 in April 2025 so their combined salaries are 60% above average before bonuses so they are doing very well.

More than triple average household income...

I earn 47k and am average. You are well off.

Those savings are pretty impressive with dc

Yeah we never had childcare costs. We had good maternity and paternity leave too. And my mum helped 1 day a week.

Well off. You have a very good work life balance for such high incomes. £126k income is well above average. A years income in savings is flush af. We are average on 50k and not really struggling, can't imagine not feeling loaded with nearly triple income for no more work.

Id say you’re well off.

Not LOADED- you’ll still have a budget and have to think carefully about cars, holidays and other big purchases.

But you’re not going to be walking around Aldi with a calculator or worrying about the electric bill either. I’d imagine a job loss would be more of a small setback as opposed to a disaster.

This is pretty similar to our income and mortgage situation. We save a it less than you but do have 2 kids in nursery. We also have a bit less in savings but are younger than you.
I'm actually a bit surprised at the responses, I would say we're not average and definitely comfortable but also we can't just spend money on whatever, we don't have beauty treatments or new cars or fancy holidays during peak season. I know plenty of people much more well off than us.

Average salary for 30-39 year olds is £48,500. As they are in their LATE 30s £52k would not put A as unusyally high.

Not rich maybe but well off and living an affluent lifestyle.

No point looking at median salaries. Look at median salaries in their age bracket. 30-39 is £48,500. As they are LATE 30s, person A is not far off what would be considered typical.

I would say "very comfortable" . I don't think I'd say wealthy because we earn more than that and have no mortgage (we are older though and our kids are older) and I would still describe us as "comfortable" . What I mean is I still don't think of us as "wealthy" because that to me is people with private jets, high passive income without working etc.

One of daughter's friends refers to us as "rich" though (just because our house is bigger than hers I think, we obviously find discuss our income with her) so it's relative.

Is this your own family OP? And why you are asking, out of pride or because you want to know the real opinions of the strange women ( and few men ) ?? on here

give us some insight into your thinking to start with...

I'd like to know how you managed to save £170K with that mortgage, 2 children and a big summer holiday, plus weekends away?! Genuinely would like to know?! You definitely never had any big help? Inheritance? Grants/scholarships? Did you go to uni or was it straight to full time work after school? Do you have cars?

Assuming it is you OP we are talking about?

That is far more than average. More than twice as much in income between you as I had when I retired from teaching. (Including my husband's income)

That's a huge mortgage that I wouldn't want to have - but between you, you earn a huge amount.

£52k and £74k are not average wages by national average standards!! I earn in the middle of those figures but only support myself and I'd say I'm comfortable, as in I can do my supermarket shop without having to check my bank statement first, can agree to a night out whenever I fancy, do more than my fair share of travelling etc, but I am definitely not affluent! You have proportionally more savings between you than I do and you're younger than me.

I supervise a small team and earn roughly half that. You're completely out of touch and I dont know what you want from this thread except possibly to wind people up. It's not a case of 'oh everyone on MN hates the rich' but surely you can see how it comes across? People work hard for a fraction of that in jobs that are much less flexible and far more stressful - I'm not even talking about 'unskilled' type positions - many of us have qualifications and years of experience but dont have a hope of earning that much - and if I did I'd be bloody grateful not whinging online about it!

Well off but financially a bit ignorant. Pay off more of the mortgage rather than adding to already decent savings pot. If they can pay off a decent chunk of it over the next five or seven years they will still have time to build up a savings/pension pot and support DC through university.

Definitely well off by normal standards to be honest.Maybe not too rich but very financially comfortable.