To think that 60k is a lot of money to earn a year?!

[MinkSlink]

I think it is a lot of money to earn per year but it seems a lot of people on mumsnet don't think so, am I in the piss poor minority here or what?!

I know. What I mean is that many women with DC work part time. Their wage of eg £22k for part time work is added to the stats with people working full time for £22k. It's misleading. For the purposes of looking at average income it would be better to see it as pro rata.

It's a privileged position to be in but very relative. Its not that well off in terms of disposable income after mortgage on standard ish house in an ish area & bills childcare etc. No fancy hols or fancy cars or significant savings. That salary will go much further in the north. It also means you're required to work really hard and make sacrifices: travel, give up eve/weekends, deal with high stress. If you bought your house pre-boom you'd do a lot better off it. Still must seem like the high life if you earn half that. I just think good on people who have set themselves up to afford to live for less and manage money well. Money doesn't equal happiness. Some people seem to want more the more they have.

Doubt you are in the minority at all but this is Mumsnet.

This
' if you earn 60k you spend 60k everyone spends to their means.' i don't get. Someone once said similar to me and i thought - why? You live in the North West, you earn good money. It was your decision to buy an expensive car and a big mortgage. Your decision to get into debt. If i earnt that i'd move up the Housing ladder and live according to my means and very comfortably indeed.

There seems to be a lot of people on here that think a four-bed house is average. I dream of a 4-bed house

corygal those graphs do not - they look at all types of taxable income. Gifts and inheritance are not income.
vivienne half of London lives on a third of that - look at the data
narked what people COULD earn if they were full time is irrelevant - because for each person moved up to full time on the tills at tesco, three other part timers would lose their jobs.

Just so people know........................ rent "up North" isn't tuppence ha'penny a month. Even with an indoor loo.

This suggestion that we can live like kings on £20 a week because we get free dripping and people will look after our children for nowt but a barmcake and a whippet pup really nobs me off.

It does rather depend on the area.

Oh I can't be doing with threads like this!

Why can't people answer the pure question?

£60,000 is a lot of money to earn per year. This is for one person only, the op is not talking about two incomes adding up to £60,000.

If it puts you in the top 5% of earners in the country then it is a lot of money!

Stop it with all your ifs and buts and childcare costs and detached houses and mortgages in the south east.

It puts you in the top 5% of earners in the country and God knows where globally - probably top 0.01% or something like that.

mine is a small 4 bed two tiny boxes and two double rooms, 4 bed does not always = big

mintyy
and then they object when I use cold hard data to show they are in la la land!!

mmmmmmmmmmmmm everlong

Did tha have gravy on them as well?

DHs family looked at me like a zoo exhibit when I asked them for gravy with my chippy chips

Yanbu.

omg dripping chips (drools) i didnt know they existed

We grew up in a 4 bed. You could sit with your back against the wall and rest your feet against the opposite wall in a lot of rooms :)

That was in a very cheap region of the UK btw, with a very low & insecure family income

Wait till you try a butter pie

whats a butter pie?

toddles off to google it.

It is a lot of money - I earn slightly over that and I'm very conscious of how fortunate I am. I can buy all the things we need and a fair few of the things we want, and I feel slightly ashamed when I read threads on here about people faced with a choice between eating and paying the bills. We don't feel rich, exactly (London mortgage!) but we know how lucky we are to be in the position we're in.

I don't begrudge my tax. At all. It's a basic necessity in a civilised society, and I couldn't earn and take home the money I do without the social structures that are paid for by taxation.

It's heaven in pastry MrsB.........that's what it is

We are in the North, Scotland in fact! Again, we can't get a mortgage!

nom nom catgirl.

dam my diet im really hungry now.

You shouldn't feel the slightest bit ashamed Downandout, it's refreshing that you know you are fortunate. You work for it.

It's when people come on and grumble about school fees that i realise they haven't got a clue about how the majority of people live in this country.
Of course 60k is sod all if you want to go to Eton.

But relatively, out here in my world it is a lot. Why can't some people just grasp that?

I agree Catgirl but a house similar to the one we live in in SW London would cost about 75% in the most sought after part of Harrogate for example so it is relative. Not to say that 60K is anywhere close to the poverty line but when your neighbours are 30 something corporate financiers in a bank leased house with double your income, you feel comfortable rather than wealthy. When the other side are elderly and with no outgoings and remember servants in India, etc., you do feel that you are merely rather ordinary.

£60,000 is far from the poverty line but I work with people who are on that income combined in London, who are in negative equity, in one bedroom flats, with a child and who are more or less out of funds two thirds of the way through the month; who haven't had a holiday for years, and who are really struggling.

It's not relative. It doesn't depend. It IS a large single salary and a fairly large dual income. Way, way more than national averages.

Whether people can afford to live on it or not is mostly choice. London house prices notwithstanding.

It is less than £3500 take home