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.

arsenic I agree. The life style that, for example, the fist family aspires to, is not in the middle.

The cost of school fees and housing have sky rocketed.

Having the choice of where you live and what type of home is now the province of those on far more than 100k. As is private school for two DC.

The last woman is very indicative of a certain type. Her expectations are not so much formed by traditional middle class mores. Hers are formed from celebrity culture, where the latest diet/facial/bag are discussed as if of interest to all.

Just because someone is well off now doesn't mean they have no idea of what it is to struggle. You don't know where anyone came from, or started as.

Oh I don't know. I'm prepared to hazard a guess that anyone posing in the DM with a sad face, whinging, has never had reason to know the value of a pound coin, for a start.

People who have known hardship generally don't say the things that make one's eyebrows shoot past one's hairline.

Also yes. If you can save £500 a month claiming poverty is laughable.

Took a good long while to get to 'designer clothes and gadgets'. Yawn.

I'm not saying I'm not well-off and lucky. I'm just pointing out that the median income in one place bears no similarity to the median income in another.

I live in the suburbs and commute, by the way. It's not a panacea - poor sods wanting to be able to rent the sort of house I live in would pay around £24k a year, plus commuting costs.

As I said, we're comfortable but careful and not spendy. Once DS is no longer at nursery life will be a doddle, assuming our current failure to have a second kid continues. But a lot of that is down to having been able to buy our first flat when we did, and being lucky that one of our jobs is really well-paid.

We're absolutely fine and have no cause for complaint. But a lot of people on this thread show a complete disregard for statistical fact, and one of those facts is that what constitutes 'the middle' varies hugely depending on where you live, and how old you are, and your background. Basing it solely on salary is quite silly.

What these people are complaining about is not being able to afford a whole host of lifestyle choices. They aren't squeezed. They are just unwilling to compromise. They are ridiculous - clearly the point of the article.

That is the most sensible comment so far IMO Arsenic!

I wanted to add to people saying you should move for better state schools/availability of state schools that having recently done the numbers on this, it's pay a large amount up front for the move or pay per year for the fees. In the long run moving should be cheaper, but in the short run paying fees is cheaper, especially if you've been paying for nursery. Also, private schools offer wrap around care as a given (at a cost, obviously), whereas with the state ones provision seems to be random. So if you want/need to keep a professional job, it is more complicated than just move (which might mean you went from two salaries to one).

I would also worry that the problems with shortage of school places and unaffordable housing are spreading out from London, so it could be out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.

So while it's ridiculous to say people on £100k are poor in any absolute sense, they could certainly be relatively poor compared to the past/other countries/their peer group who bought housing 10 years ago.

100k is nothing in the south east.

People earning £100,000 are not poor by any measure. They might be less well off than, say, an Oligarch. But no, not poor.

Embarrassing that people can even use the word poor in this context. Clueless.

Really lady? If £100,000 is nothing, what about people working in Tesco? Or on benefits?

No way is it "nothing"

It might buy less than it used to but some things are not a right but a luxury

cpatain though some compromises/changes aren't always doable.

I know a family who are trying to lower their outgoings as their finances have changed through no fault of their own.

They applied for state school places for their DC and were offered places so far away that my friend would have had to give up her job to facilitate them getting to and fro.

They've considered moving nearer to the state school, but the houses there are no cheaper.

Very inflammatory lady

ladygingina and that is why those of us not living in the SE feel so disconnected from it. London and surrounds is actually like a separate country. it bears no relation to the lives everyone else in the UK lives. ridiculous salaries to pay ridiculous mortgages on overpriced properties and all this "but we have to send our kids to private school/have a foreign holiday 3 times a year/drive a new car, because everyone else does". can you guess? we moved. couldn't stand it. yes I miss the public transport ( we have one bus a week to our village), the easy access to culture, the diversity. but I don't miss the competitive nature of everything - how much you sold your house for, paid for your new one, which drama group, how many after school activities etc. Ultimately it was just so shallow. and sorry Phineyj these people are not relatively poor. they need to come and see rural poverty.

Don't be silly lady, it's not nothing. Yes house prices are insane (ours is now worth £1m - it's a three bed terrace without a garden!). No we couldn't 'stretch' to private schooling for three kids even if we'd wanted to (we didn't) but we have a house with lots of equity, we can afford to run a car, go out to eat, buy new clothes etc etc etc. We have friends earning 'only' 50k who manage to live in London and have a good lifestyle. It's really not 'nothing'.

Ha! I am in the south East.....can I have "nothing" please?

I live in the SE. I've just given up work as childcare costs were too expensive so DH & I will be getting by on less than £30k a year. So we may not live a life of luxury & our eldest has just started a state school but you know what, we get by. These people moaning about struggling on £100k just make me cross-they have options, private school, holidays are luxuries not essentials.

Saying 100k is not much, is such a dagger in the heart of the real squeezed middle.

Clearly, money is wasted on the rich in the way that youth is wasted on the young.

If you cannot make your life work out with 100k you are doing something wrong.

That sort of money gives you choices, like, you could choose to move to Guildford or Winchester, st Albans, whatever commuterville, buy a house in the catchment of a fab state school, live well.

Or you could afford a nanny so both parents can work full time.

Or live very small in or close to London and send them privately.

It is options and choices that you have, that the real squeezed middle don't.

If personally you think state school is not an option, does not mean that sending them private us not a choice. It is a choice. That the squeezed middle don't have.

And that is not even talking about the poor.

I would have some sympathy for people in that situation Word. But a lot of this article, and posts on here, are more about people saying they need something that really they just want.

mummy I don't think the rest of the country is immune to unreasonable expectations TBH.

Up north where I'm from, there still seem to be very high expectations; owning a house, nights out, holidays. And the young people are coiffed and tanned and out in their high heels .

100k is nothing in the south east.

You see, vermillion, case in point.

Amongst the many assessments I am now making re ginga , I am thinking she knows the value of nothing.

I agree captain.

There are a lot of people who could make their lives work well, but simply cannot give up on their vision of how they think their lives should look.

Visions based on their parents, or people earning three times what they do, or even more absurdly, people earning millions.

That's why they get picked for the DM- for the ridiculous bit, it's so easy to change.

Someone who truly is in a difficult spot isn't as good a story - in terms of provoking people.

I'm in the South East, we earn less than half of £100k. We manage and have afairly comfortable life so that's rubbish to say £100k is nothing.

It takes us months to balance the books though if something goes wrong though. We have to cut right back and watch our finances like a hawk.

I know many people who earn less than us here. They survive but it's really hard.

We'd love a £100 k salary.