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.

Why are you spending £14 a day on the train when your family home is in central London? I assumed when you said you worked for an investment bank it would either be in the City or Canary Wharf.

A brand new car loses a lot of its value as you drive it off the car dealer's forecourt. It also depends on what sort of car you are looking at and whether you see it simply as a means to get from A to B. You certainly don't have to pay upwards of £60k for a new car if you don't want to.

Not a Londoner are you @OhamIreally

Zero savings in any form for your children

But presumably you and DH have extensive savings? and it is from this that you plan to assist them as adults?

Yes. That’s why I know it doesn’t cost £14 a day to get to the City or Canary Wharf from zone 1.

You live in London @OhamIreally ?

We have resources.

About £150k

So zero savings for your adult children living with you … you just pay for them out of your monthly income.

and then you save for your DH and you, but will draw on this if and when your adult kids need it.

Yes. Nice holidays are expensive.

Yes. Live in zone 2. Single tube fare to zone 1 peak is £3.60.

I wonder if @MaggieMop will be back to clarify…

Agree not a representative sample.

Why would anyone get a 25 year mortgage in their 40s?! That means you'll still be paying off as you get close to retirement.

Not yet..but will be FTB. My situation is a little unique, as I wasn't renting, and not many FTBs in 40s (from my experience).

Why do you think?

Because they need to pay for somewhere to live and this is what they can afford?

Jesus wept, do you live in a bubble?

I'm not arguing about it, appreciate everyone's situation is different. Just the people I kbow got on ladder in 20s, typically small terraced properties, then moved up, and most and getting close to finishing terms. Think everyone within next 10 years.

Presumably you have children so have to take these holidays during school holidays? I think most holidays, excluding skiing, can be done cheaper..and remember OP wants a single big holiday, and has no mortgage.

This

What's the issue with paying off mortgage close to retirement? I expect my income to peak reasonably close to retirement, plus if you've had it 25 years by then it'll be inflated away enough to be not too much of an issue.

There's some terrible advice about mortgages on Mumsnet. It's not at all the case that the sooner you pay it off the better. I've always managed to get a better rate of return on my investments than I'm paying on my mortgage. So overpaying or under leveraging would be silly.

You have very rigid thinking. Taking out a 25 year mortgage doesn’t mean paying it off for 25 years. Lots of people plan their mortgage in different ways, our mortgage is due to run until 68, that’s to keep the payments affordable for us right now while we have children. We will over pay when they have grown and likely knock at least 10+ years off the mortgage, we may get inheritance, and we are due lump sums through workplace pensions (DH is military so one will be very early). I have a mortgage until 68 on paper but have no intention of paying it off for that long, but if I need to, so be it? With house prices and wage stagnation as they are we will be seeing people paying mortgages for longer than people have done before.

Your assumptions are quite limited and out of date. Is that why you haven’t bought before now?

I agree with this.

I got a loan for my accomodation and tuition. If I wanted to eat I had to work. Those given money by their parents still live with them. I had no choice but to work hard and own a home

Because quite a few people think state education is as good as private, and also some kids will do better in state (same as some will do better in private).

Appreciate my thinking is probably outdated. Many people overpay and lots of people (unfortunately) get inheritances in 40s & 50s.

My situation was always complicated by caring responsibilities, so who know how that would have panned out if things were different.

We have only been tied to school holidays for 1 year.

Yes, of course you can holiday for cheaper, but OP wants 1x long haul + 2x European and she hasn’t asked what is the least amount of money she would need to achieve that.

I feel like you’re being deliberately dim, same with the PPs who claimed to be astonished that OP would pay £60k for a car when cheaper cars exist.

People who live the kind of life OP aspires to spend 8k-15k per holiday, they are not going to a 3* hotel in Benidorm.