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.

Regular poster of 10 years on MN but have nc for this thread for obvious reasons.

150k here.

Private school for DTs, large interest only mortgage, some savings (not much), pension, 1 ok car, 1 completely crappy one, 2 dogs.

Nice holidays though, it's all I care about - not bothered at all by cars, jewellery, handbags, spa days, pedicures blah blah.

No 'staff', I clean, cook, iron, garden, decorate, drive (a lot).

Have cut back so much in last couple of years as lost all personal allowance plus child benefit (quite rightly in child benefit instance I believe).

Shop at Aldi, rarely eat out, always worrying about money as we stupidly have credit card debt too.

I know we should have loads of money in the bank but due to poor management over the last 20 years and some crap decisions I lie awake at night worrying an awful lot. I know we are 'rich' in theory though just not sure where it's all gone.

I did not mean to offend anyone earlier. Dh is in the kind of business where next year he could earn nothing, completely unpredictable. As for the pp who said something along the lines of me blowing it in Hermes.. that got a laugh from me. It's top shop with my dd if I'm lucky because our money is going towards a home amongst other things. Sure that's our choice, but how can you possibly make assumptions about people's lives? Just got back from dinner with a couple- private jet, helicopter etc- we're piss poor to them I guess! But as many posters here have said, as long as you are warm, have enough food and are clothed, appreciate everything you have including the non material like your health, you are wealthy. My kids are my rubies.

Party, I'm not sure where you got 2k a month mortgage costs on a 300k house? Our mortgage is 275k and we pay £1300 a month (repayment) with a 10% deposit. Does an extra 25k mortgage really add £700 a month extra? If so, that's huge.

Marmite you really are a bit unbelievable. TopShop if you're lucky and your DH took home a million quid last year??

You are not 'poor' anywhere in the world just deluded.

Sorry, just realised my error. The mortgage is for 245k on a 275k house. Even so, the person buying the 300k house would presumably have to put down a 10% deposit too, which would bring their mortgage in at 270k. I can't believe that would be 2k a month. I'm shocked!

We looked at a flat buying near family in Sussex. Brighton - London season ticket was in the region of £400PCM (each). London travelcard was in the region of £100PCM (each). Buses not reliable to where we were looking, so £100 PCM station parking charges, plus costs of needing to acquire and run a car. 1K was a round guess - but certainly for us the 'cheaper' house prices came with quite staggering hidden costs.

The mortgage costs I googled and took the 5% interest rate figure. Most of what you pay in the initial years is interest rates - which can add a lot of volatility to people who are buying without a hefty downpayment or inheritance to cushion them.

Monsoon School fees must be £20k a year?

But you were giving a single earner example when you quoted £1k pcm commuting costs Party

If you really have to compare (and do you, really?), then for your own happiness, compare down. And be grateful, not smug. Comparing up only leads to much misery.

That's a big problem with London, I think. You have to be an oligarch to be near the top of the tree, so measuring up is nonsensical. Every time you move up a notch, there's always someone ahead of you.

It's odd, though. I work in a field where we get some pretty wealthy people popping into our office. You would never know, though. Maybe it's the industry - very bricks and mortar. Or maybe it's the region-very God's own. Yeah, we have our flash harrys. But they get found out pretty quickly. And looked at through narrowed eyes.

The private senior schools round here are about 20k a year. Then factor in school trips and things. I know a few families whose children are at private school and they say they have school trips that cost 5k!! It would terrify me. So, two children at private school could cost 50k a year. Still, it's not essential and no one absolutely has to do it. If I had that amount of extra money, I'd rather spend it on family holidays and fun experiences.

You can get a £350k mortgage for about £1600 a month right now. Doesn't need to be £2k.

I'm utterly ashamed to admit that my parents' pay for the private education MyFairyKing. We are just completely crap .

Monsoon Don't be ashamed. You can see you need to make major changes. Spreadsheet - write down all outgoings and incomings. I'm sure people on here would help you.

Monsoon you don't pay the school fees and have £150k a year coming in?

What do you spend your money on? I find that quite shocking.....

£400 season ticket
£100 travelcard
£100 station parking

With the rest being on needing to run a car if you're somewhere without effective public transport - and on sundry commuter costs.

My point is that if you are fixed to working in London - 3K is a starting figure to house a family - regardless of your chosen balance of being central/commuting.

is there any social group for which the DM cannot dig up a few unattractive/naive/misguided specimens, lead and misquote them a bit and foment more hate and division, and get everyone judging, frothing and clicking

seriously, if angels became manifest in the UK tomorrow I would be disappointed if the DM didn't manage to find some expose on their foul habits

My two DS go to private boarding schools (one in a well known one) and I have never in 15 yrs of experience of the private system heard of a trip costing 5k!!

Another fairy tale regarding private schools.

I'm a lost cause Fairy. Have been on some threads before and tried to follow Talkin Peace's spreadsheets and advice etc but always fall off the wagon.

I read about how people are living on a fraction of our salary and manage to lead comfortable, sensible lives and just want to bury myself under the duvet with shame at being so bloody pathetic.

I heard once on the radio that if you took all the money from everyone in the country and divided it equally between the population that within a decade all the people that were good with money would have saved and made good investments and all the people rubbish with money would be back in debt again!

Calamotously basing calculations on a snapshot when base rate is so low is exactly how apparently wealthy people get into serious trouble. It can't get much cheaper unless the bank starts paying you to borrow their money - but it can get a hell of a lot higher - whether due to base rate moves or due to coming to the end of a fixed rate/having a problem with your credit rating.

I do agree Party, commuter costs are high. Dh commutes to London 3 days a week and he probably spends in the region of £500 a month commuter costs in total. He never gets a seat either!

Marmite: if you can only afford to shop in topshop 'if you're lucky' because you're ploughing so much of the £45k your household have to spend after tax and NI each month on a mortgage, you must be buying a property (or properties) that absolutely make you very wealthy. Fair enough if that's what you choose to do, but it's incredibly disingenuous to say that you don't feel wealthy.

That might be how people get into trouble, but the fact is that no one needs to be spending £2k on their £300k mortgage right now.

My children have been in private schools for years and they never want to go on the school trips - they regard them as theft of their time - even though I would be more than happy to pay for trips abroad (the trips would never cost anything like £5k). I think in 25 year of paying school fees one child only went on the school ski trip and that cost around £1k.

I spent £90k a year on the interest only mortgage after the divorce which was quite a lot and the way to keep the children in their home and pay off their father who presumably is in the same position as the ex wife of Marmite - lower earner with financial claims.

I don't agree that people who spend a lot on a property do that to make them wealthy. I will live in our house until I die. I have not had years of price growth because of the divorce etc so these suggestions that everyone in a house worth £2m has £2m equity in it and are rich are just not true for many Londoners with mortgages.

However I do think if people can ensure those around them earn less you tend to be happier. For some reason that tends always to be the case for me although I would hope if the people I knew earned 10x what I did that it would not bother me. All studies show that given the nasty jealous nature of man kind if those around you are less pretty and less well off than you are you feel happier. Surround yourself with the impoverished and the path to happiness will be yours.

What crotchmaven said. I have lost count of the times I've argued with friends who claim £500k is the "bare minimum" you need to live in london. When you're surrounded by people with hundreds of millions of dollars I suppose it's all relative. And it has been ever thus.

On the other side, though, there's something in the gap between expectation and reality. If you earn £100k you are fed a message from the media that you are rich/need to be taxed more/are parasites etc. It's hard to square that perception with living in a 3 br council house in zone 4 and having to watch your weekly shop.

My point is that if you are fixed to working in London - 3K is a starting figure to house a family - regardless of your chosen balance of being central/commuting.

I see, got it.

But that seems to assume a) home ownership and b) nice area

Both of those are luxuries in themselves now, sadly.

You are essentially costing up a 'nice' MC life, which is fair enough. But that's aspirational rather than survival.