To think £100k pa is NOT 'the squeezed middle'?

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The article is very confidently attributing the definition to Danny Dorling, but did he really name this figure?!

These women are fools.

YY and arf@ My FairyKing at 16:29!l

I don't get this obsession with material wealth - we live in a shoe box in t' middle of the road and eat roadkill while working 72 hours a day and we pay for the privilege of coming to work

BUT I have the love of my three beautiful children

so we are happy

...well someone had to up the sanctimonious levels

dh earned 1 million gross last year. We do not consider ourselves in any way wealthy

Well you are fucking wealthy. Who gives a shit if you are starting from not much and putting that £mil towards a house? That's a fuck of a lot of money to earn by anyone's standards. That's wealth, right there. So you're wealthy.

You're absolutely off your head if you don't feel wealthy, fortunate etc. with a household income of 1 million pounds.

My husband earns around 1.4m, and we want for nothing. No school fees here, as the local school is great, and I understand that there's alimony involved in your situation, but you must be pissing it up the walls at Hermes if you don't feel wealthy.

Just the fact that you can purchase a house on a year's salary starting "from nothing" should tell you how wealthy you are.

A million quid a year can get you a mansion in St George's Hill/Virginia Water/similar exclusive area and live in-staff.

It doesn't make you a billionaire oil despot, but it is still fucking wealthy.

"Just the fact that you can purchase a house"

Just the one?

Sorry but 100k a year, with a family, two cars isn't much at all in an area in the south east with decent jobs.

I used to earn 80k in London, and I felt poor coming back to my tiny one bed flat each day in a semi decent area.

I now earn 50k live in an area of high unemployment and commute to work 2 hours a day, live in a nice 4 bed and feel comfortable.

Anyone on less than 150k in London is poor.

dreamingbohemian where are you finding the nice places for rent under £1500 in Brixton Hill/Streatham Hill/Herne Hill? We used to live there a couple of years ago paying £1250 for a three bed, which was way under market rent. I agree they're nice areas but cheap they aren't. And not all the schools are great and the local rents and house prices reflect that.

A search of Rightmove for Streatham Hill & 3 beds at under £1500 per month brings up this gem at £1400 a month, which is actually in Mitcham.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?searchType=RENT&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E85276&insId=1&radius=0.0&displayPropertyType=&minBedrooms=3&maxBedrooms=&minPrice=&maxPrice=1500&maxDaysSinceAdded=&retirement=&sortByPriceDescending=&_includeLetAgreed=on&primaryDisplayPropertyType=&secondaryDisplayPropertyType=&oldDisplayPropertyType=&oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType=&letType=&letFurnishType=&houseFlatShare=false

There's a house share in Brixton and nothing in Herne Hill.

There's a bit more choice if you look for 2 beds but those won't be big enough for many families.

We earn £100k, we have dc in the southeast but not London. If we sent them to private school that would mean no foreign holidays, no eating out and no home improvements. Not the end of the world certainly comfortable, but not wealthy.

Oh btw we both studied for 5 years post 18 and have post grad qualifications. 2 dc, I would have liked more, but we decided it would be financial suicide.

This thread is almost as funny as the article (which, I agree , did sound like it could be on brass eye). The very idea of 'only £500k' a year after tax not being wealthy.

It is quite worrying how determined people are to assert that £65k after tax is not a lot of money to live off. That's nearly £5.5k a month. It's insulting to all those who do live off far, far less than that, many of whom are in the south east. You don't need to have family money behind you or bought a house in the 90s or something for that to make you perfectly OK, even in London.

Some people need to have 'live within your means' drummed into them. The only people who are going to feel sorry for you not having much left over after two lots of private school fees, mortgage on a big house, holidays abroad and a German 4x4 in the drive, are people with as tenuous a grasp of reality as you do.

It's absolutely not a failure of empathy from those either sniggering or annoyed (or both). It's actually a complete lack of awareness and empathy from those who absolutely cannot grasp that they're not struggling in any meaningful sense at all. I really do empathise with those whose incredibly limited means give them very little or no choice so they're stuck struggling. I have no sympathy for those whose troubles are pretty easily rectified and all because the have eyes bigger than their bank balances.

Other people have to move their children away from schools they love for all sorts of reasons. They might have to move for work (my DS1 has attended 6 different schools so I know that it is disruptive); they might be forced to move like all of those hit by the benefits cap in London. Most people have had to compromise on house size/area etc (some people have had no bloody choice in either). That's just life.

We earn just over 100k between us and live in a nice bit of Home Counties. We're very comfortable - enough to tithe our incomes to charity and save some money.

Secondary school is the worry. Our local one is of good, the one in the next town is brilliant and fully comp. however, house prices in the catchment area for the school start at 700k. This isn't affordable.

I do wonder wtf is going in with house prices. I know we're earning more than 90% of people, we can save and we have some equity and we still can't afford it. Who are these people who can pay millions (other than probably 10 years more on the housing ladder than DH snd I!)

A million pounds would NOT get you a mansion in St George's Hill in Weybridge and live in staff.

Anyone on less than 150k in London is poor.

Ffs, really? Are you really that dense? No, no, they're not poor. They're not living in fucking Dubai on their own island!

Poor would be all the examples given throughout this thread, such as not having money for the gas/electricity meter, having to choose between eating and heating, having to rely on a foodbank, not having the money to buy your kids new shoes.

Under £150k is not poor anywhere in this country.

And you're talking like an absolute arse.

They are living in London,a place many would love to live in and which like New York is expensive for a reason.

£150k is rich wherever you live even if you choose to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

I didn't even know there were jobs that paid a millon!you could work for a year then retire!

I'm not even sure what jobs other than chief execs or stockbrokers pay 100000.

"I used to earn 80k in London, and I felt poor coming back to my tiny one bed flat each day in a semi decent area."

Are you insane?

I don't think it's sanctimonious to recognise what a good life looks like. The people in the article seem to epitomise the kind of bourgeois lifestyle which makes me shudder.

cheers op, I needed a laugh

Plastic We are looking for a 2BR. We only have one DC (yes, because of financial reasons) but tbh most people I know with 2 young DC are living in 2 beds anyway. They have nice roomy old houses, some with gardens, so it's not really a huge deal.

Wasn't that long ago kids sharing a room was normal, now everyone thinks they need a 3BR house with a garden. And that's fine but to me it's not worth going into debt, counting every penny, commuting for hours a day and feeling poor on 100K.

You can feel poor on a fortune if you want all sorts of extravagances. You have two choices if you feel poor; increase your income or reduce your expenditure, it's simple.

My DS lives in London, newish graduate in his first home and managing well because he budgets and cuts his cloth according to his means. When he was born DS and I lived in the SE but were struggling so we moved further North. When DCs were at school and money was tight we did without holidays and meals out. Now they are grown up we are more comfortable and can have more of those things. It really is very simple. I have no sympathy for these idiots at all, but then it is the Daily Mail

I think some people on high salaries are confusing being wealthy with being super rich.

There is a world of difference to being poor.

Lady, I disagree with you. 100k for a family in the South East can get you loads. My DH earn more than that but when our salary it got us a 5 bedroom detached house near very good state schools, 2 cars, 3 holidays a year plus DH goes skiing each year, gym membership, any school trips our 3DC want to go, eating out every week, coffees out whenever we want, money to charity, really good Christmas', birthdays without having to think about the cost, never having to check the price of food, pension contributions of around 1.5k a month which is mixture of employer and us, savings of 500 a month. I can't think of anything I need that I don't already have.
I think all the squeezed upper middle lot could have all the above if they didn't choose private schools. I know lots of people don't live near good schools or can or are prepared to move for them but I do think who actually gets to benefit from the education. The DC may go on to be the next 100k earners but then they spend a massive percentage of their salary on school fees and it goes on and on.
Where's the enjoyment in that?

The women in this article banging on about health spas and beauty treatments. This is not essential. I have never set foot into one of these places in my life. As for private school, also not essential. Most of us don't do this and manage perfectly well with state schools. The world will not fall down. They haven't done themselves any favours with this piece. Let me live on 100k a year and I'll come back and tell you if I felt poor or not!