What household income supports this lifestyle ?

[Drealifegoals]

If your lifestyle looks anything like this please share with me what yearly household income you have!

please share mumsnetters, this is where I want to end up for my 40s and there are people around us living this kind of lifestyle but I can’t ask them how much they earn IRL!

dream lifestyle is:

3 holidays a year - one long haul two smaller European city breaks type
1 nice car bought outright - nothing majorly expensive around the 60k mark
coffee out for both adults x5 a week
lunch out for both adults x2 a week
dinner out every Friday - whole family two adults two kids
good Christmas every year
money for regular hair appointments for whole family
enough money for both kids to do sports and music out of school
nicely decorated house
monthly shopping treats for all family members maybe £50 each
Food shop from M&S
clothing to be mainly high street with the odd designer item thrown in for whole family.

no mortgage, no childcare fees, both children in state school.

They are more sociable and have better people skills and interpersonal skills. That's all it is.

I don't really understand why you are confused by this. In your own workplace, you will also have seen that the management and most highly paid people are not the people who are most academic. So why are you pretending to be confused?

Yet, I have gotten nowhere, because the system has been designed by the elites to trample over working class men like me.

oh don’t be daft @shuggles . You describe yourself as “anti authority and anti establishment”… you’ll be a massive pain in the arse to manage and that will be a major contributory factor to you not progressing as you think you deserve

They are more sociable and have better people skills and interpersonal skills. That's all it is.

yep. So good people to manage and direct people.

Literally what I just said then?

So you haven’t been short changed or robbed.

You are “anti establishment and anti authority”

that is going to be a very serious hindrance to a career 😆

A bit creepy to dig through old posts.

Regardless, you are wrong. Obviously, I don't broadcast those opinions in real life, so that's not why I don't progress.

Also, not being a pain in the arse to manage has absolutely nothing to do with not progressing to the next job role.

Thanks! Very very helpful! 🙏

Also, not being a pain in the arse to manage has absolutely nothing to do with not progressing to the next job role.

conversely being a pain in the arse to manage most definitely does have an impact on career progression!

And somehow, people are magically able to link anonymous posts on one internet website with me as a person in the real world?

Thanks for everyone’s input! Especially those who came forward with their own income and lifestyle. I now have a clearer picture of how much extra we’d need to earn.

I’m not going to read or comment anymore as in predictable Mumsnet fashion the thread has been derailed by the ins and outs of car prices and other ridiculous bickering.

I look forward to my second hand 40k Volvo and 5 coffees a week! 👍

sorry?

either way… you constantly post about your dissatisfaction with what you believe to have been you’re not where you deserve to be in life because you’ve been trampled on as a “working class man” (who is anti authority and anti establishment)

I wouldn’t broadcast you’re a Reform voter at work

Ours is similar to this give or take. My husband earns just over £100k and I’m an upper pay scale teacher FTE so just over £50k:

3 holidays a year - one southern Europe ‘beach’ holiday; maybe a European city break; a couple of UK weekends away (whole family), plus a few nights in 4 or 5* hotels (separate occasions) for my husband and me

1 nice car bought outright - we have a BMW and a smaller runaround. The BMW we are paying off (but will own in a couple of years; the small car we own outright

coffee out for both adults x5 a week - we don’t do this because it’s a waste of money, and we like our own coffee so I bring that to work mostly, but can afford a coffee out if we fancy it

lunch out for both adults x2 a week - again we don’t do this as it’s fairly unhealthy so my husband might eat lunch out but I always bring my own

dinner out every Friday - whole family two adults two kids - again for health reasons we don’t do this, but if we fancy a pub tea or takeaway, we will have one (maybe once a month out of choice rather than financial reasons

good Christmas every year - gifts, I cook for the whole family, no real budget, but equally we don’t spoil our children with lots of ‘stuff’ and my husband and I don’t really do big gifts! We do a nice meal out and a 5* hotel stay just after Christmas in a nearby city just the two of us

money for regular hair appointments for whole family - children & husband barbers every 3 weeks or so; my hair is highlighted twice yearly and cut every 3 months

enough money for both kids to do sports and music out of school - tennis, football, gym membership whole family

nicely decorated house - our house is beautiful but not fully ‘done’: these things take time. We had the bathroom done recently and want to convert our garage into a guest room so maybe in the next 12 months. We need a new kitchen but not for a few years

monthly shopping treats for all family members maybe £50 each - £300 weekly shopping from M&S or Waitrose: I’m a good cook so we spend a lot on shopping but rarely get takeaways; meals out often aren’t as good as my cooking! Shopping includes nice wine, treats for all of us and sometimes candles etc plus nice toiletries
Food shop from M&S

clothing to be mainly high street with the odd designer item thrown in for whole family. - shop mainly on vinted for children as they like sports brands, but school stuff and shoes brand new; I like H&M, Zara, Ganni and Adanola. I like quality clothing that lasts like wool and cashmere but do buy bits fairly frequently.

our outgoings are quite high but we try not to waste money on things like coffee and lunch out. We try and do lots with our children but big fans of free stuff like walks in the woods etc; their main costs come from sport!

We're on about 160 combined, but paying nursery and living in an expensive city. We do 6-10 foreign trips per year because we're immigrants with lots of immigrant friends. We don't do them terribly cheaply and normally eat and sleep well, but do know how not to get ripped off. Otherwise, I can't imagine eating out that much! We did that when we were younger, and when I lived in France I'd eat in a restaurant every other day, but after kids my waistline just can't handle it! I guess we do coffee 3 times per week, but we buy good beans at home mostly instead, which still works out at least 50p per cup. I can't imagine spending that much on a car, I'd rather use the money to work one less day or retire a year earlier.

I paid my mortgage off at 40. Bought at 26, originally taking out a 35 year term. Then when interest had dropped by the end of my fix, I reduced the term from 33 years to around 23 and overpaid, and kept reducing the term as interest rates decreased and income increased. So instead of doing what most people do and paying less than what they paid at the start, we paid 3x more. Borrowed more for a two story extension 9 years ago, or else it would have been paid off much sooner. And that was on one income and with many short and long haul holidays every year (my kids have been to over 60 countries, some several times), and no windfall or inheritance.

I would never spend £60k on a car as it's a depreciating asset. I wouldn't buy/rent a depreciating asset with finance either.

You are correct - no one is really interested in people being very academic, they are interested in bright people being able to do the job and a significant part of doing the job requires excellent people skills - if you don't have excellent people skills that will certainly hold you back.

@Snipitpls sorry?

Apology accepted.

Mumsnet is not bat shit.

Op hasn't asked what's the cheapest way she can do x,y,z. She's asked what income would required for a specific lifestyle.

No one is saying £60k is the cheapest you could get a car, that it's normal to buy a brand new car or that £60k is not a lot of money.

Where does 10k a month come from? How on earth does 120k gross per annum translate into ten thousand pound per month after tax, national insurance and pension contributions? Perhaps you think we live in Dubai.

In fact I bothered to ask AI and for 10k a month you’d be on a salary of around 215k annually. I do wonder whether people forget there’s such a thing as tax 🤦🏼‍♀️

That OP is clearly confusing net and gross, but I don't think they're off with the £120-160k figure. We would definitely be able to have that lifestyle if we didn't need to save or pay a mortgage on £160k. The mortgage is what stops us. We now earn more than that between us and are looking at that lifestyle next year, even with the mortgage.

What do you mean, ‘you don’t think they’re off?’

Im literally telling you we have that sort of income and no way would we be holidaying three times a year and whatever other nonsense the OP wanted. We have two kids and responsibilities. We need to be thinking of the kids extra curriculars, their futures and putting money aside for uni fees/being able to afford driving lessons/purchasing a car for them, maybe even house deposits. We need to pay off the mortgage, afford all the bills and any house repairs/renovations. We have to be thinking about pensions.

The only people that are fucking money around are the ones who are earning a fortune/have paid off their mortgages, know the bank of mum and dad is going to provide a big payout/have no kids. Everyone else is just peddling wildly hoping that AI won’t be coming for their jobs in the next few years.