to think that income is pretty irrelevant compared to wealth/when you got on the housing ladder/what your parents give you

[soggy14]

dh would be classed by many on here (from what I've seen on other threads) as a high earner but we can't come clsoe to affording things like private schools, non-camping holidays etc which some seem to assume that anyone on high salaries will be able to. People we know locally earn far less but do use private schools, have foreign holidays etc because their paretns help with the school fees or because they got on the housing ladder before the price hike or because they have been given or left money/houses etc. Someone quoted £70K on one thread but that will only get you a mortgage of low to mid two hundred thousands which does not get you much of a family home in many areas adn will not come close to enablin gmost to afford school fees. Am I the only one who finds this?

It just comes down to do you spend within your means or not. If you don't you feel bad. If you do then you feel okay. If you've an excess and can save a bit then it's better.

and I agree with this comment above "Ultimately the most important thing and the classiest thing anyone can do is to be respectful of others and their individual circumstances. Being nice and treating others well costs nothing."

Xenia is right - no matter how much you earn, what property you have, how many nice cars you own what really matters is whether you are healthy and how many friends you have.
You can have all the money and be really unhappy. In fact chasing money and income status only leads to unhappiness.

It's certainly my experience. We jointly earn about £60k. Pretty much impossible for us to buy in London.

We are still living in my one bedroom flat which I was able to buy only because I qualified for a shared ownership scheme.

We really need to sell (it's not suitable for family of 4) and I doubt we will be able to get back on property ladder. Due to current market I will get very little equity from any sale. I could possibly buy ex-council place in shared ownership scheme which frankly doesn't appeal to me (it's very expensive once you pay for the rent/service charge plus mortgage plus you have to maintain 100% of the property and generally the ones available are in dreadful condition & need a lot of work).

We could possibly buy in parts of SE London, but that would mean a 1.5-2h hour each way commute for me to work in West London, which as a mother of 2 young kids I'm not prepared to do.