AIBU - We’re struggling to get by on £200,000 a year

[BreakingDad77]

next.ft.com/content/d6f1e58e-20c9-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c

Just actually gobsmacked by her comments -

“In theory, with our household income, we are in the top 5 per cent of the UK population and yet it does not feel that way,” she says. “If you’re earning millions of pounds, then you’re OK — and at the other end of the spectrum you get everything paid for. We are caught in the middle where we are paying for everything.”

Yeah because you know those on benefits get such a cushy deal...WTAF

Just all feeds into why UK is one of the mist unequal countries in Europe.

Its ironic as with the EU ref Brexiters going on about how all the other EU countries are crap and yet we have some much bigger problems closer to home.

Are we still talking about the original couple in Croydon? Why is their mortgage £3,500 per month?

I've promised the children an all out no expense spared trip to Disneyland when they are 6 and 7 (3 years time).

Isn't that a bit meaningless to them? (Both the timeframe and 'no expense spared'?)

UK salary calculator suggests one person with a salary of £100k would take home around £65400 after tax and NI, assuming no pension contributions, student loan repayments etc. So a joint income of £131000 if their £200k was equally earned between them. A single earner on £200k would take home around £116500 again before pension contributions etc.

all i see with that breakdown is that they have enough to pay into a pension, enough to cover their childcare and mortgage and with more than enough left over to not be worrying. I clearly live on another planet if i'm meant to feel like they are in any way hard done by.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the average gross pay in the UK is £25,948 (March 2016). In London I understand it is more like £34,000.

No I don't agree with the poor on 200k line but it's not simple.
If she works long hours then a nanny costs around £50,000 in London - without overtime.
So that's £90,000 salary gross for the mother gone just paying the nanny.
Add in longer hours and commuting costs and actually that well over £100,000 salary, probably much more just to pay the nanny and commuting costs.
With not one penny left to pay for food, utilities, clothes.
Some jobs take longer hours and nannies cost a lot more.
It's like running on a hamster wheel.

I did not say I couldn't afford it, but why take a child who won't remember it on a holiday? Will that make me a better parent, or give them a better childhood?

Today we fed ducks in the park, had a picnic, bounced on the trampoline and played in the paddling pool. Should I take them on holiday just because I can?

When they are old enough I'll take them on holiday. Right now they are happy with a day trip to Peppa Pig World or a day getting muddy in Epping Forest.

So I earn good money, does that mean I should buy a flash car, go on expensive holidays and lead a lavish lifestyle? My children seem happy enough just hanging out with mummy and daddy at the park.

I will do the all out Disney thing for them, but that is when they are old enough to enjoy it properly, not from a buggy pushed around a park. Obviously I have not explained this to them in monetary terms, just 'when you are big enough to go on the rides we will go'. My four year old understands this, surely an adult can?

Oh I'm sorry, I thought you were offering it up as a reason for why you are not well off on more than £200,000 p/a. Otherwise why mention it?

I will do the all out Disney thing for them, but that is when they are old enough to enjoy it properly, not from a buggy pushed around a park. Obviously I have not explained this to them in monetary terms, just 'when you are big enough to go on the rides we will go'. My four year old understands this, surely an adult can?

That's not quite what you said in your earlier post, but anyway.

Why do you feel you have to do it all? There are more 'magical' experiences to spend the same money on (Northern Lights? Some wonderful wildlife somewhere?). Telling a 3 & 4 yr old about something lavish you'll give them 3 years hence sounds more about some sense of guilt or obligation on your part TBH.

Read my original post about doing Lapland next year. That's the Northern Lights.

I give up, I've not pleaded poverty, I've been honest about my income and the hours I work.

Some get it, some don't. Thanks User!

But guilt, no way. If you were a SAHM and your DH earned 30k and you promised your children a trip to Disney when they were old enough to experience it, would it be out of guilt or as a very special family holiday?

When I started working in London I earned £16000 pa. I worked very hard for 8 years and managed to get to a point where my salary was £65000 pa. Then I had twins and went down to four days pay per week. My take home after cost of childcare was around the same as when I earned £16000. You'd automatically assume that someone on £65000 was very well off and someone on £16000 was more financially challenged but it doesn't necessarily work like that.

I posted earlier about how lucky we are that we are financially secure atm and someone responded that some people get rich through luck and some through hard work - in my experience the two aren't mutually exclusive.

My DH and I have both worked very hard to live as we do today. But no harder than hundreds of thousands of other people who do not enjoy the salary my DH does. If your life path leads you to teaching/nursing/charity work you can work as hard as you possibly can but you probably won't end up earning 200K a year. The good luck I referred to was the good fortune that when we left school back in the olden days the 80s the job agencies we went steered us into jobs that suited our skills and talents and (unbeknownst to us at the time) also had great long term earning opportunities. At age 16-18 we were just happy to be working and had no idea what the future might hold.

So we are comparatively well off now as much through luck as hard work. I am grateful everyday for what we have.

You weren't on £65,000 if that was your full time salary but you had gone down to 4 days pw. You were on £52,000 if it was done pro rata.

Yes, I can real ate to you. You get no help and your paying for everything. Yet on paper you have loads of money. I'm the exact same. I have no idea where it all goes. Our household is $380,000 so that's like £280,000. People just think your being stupid when you say it but it's really hard.

"You get no help and you are paying for everything".

In this country people "get no help" when they are earning a hell of a lot less than £280,000. I'm not sure what the threshold is? Probably something like £45,000 - £50,000.

Please try and understand how absurd you sound!

Are we sure this isn't just a wind up. I find it almost impossible to believe that anybody could be that unaware 😖.

Yup - fair point. Although I would only have been £20 a week better off if I'd been working 5 days a week (higher rate tax and travel costs plus the additional nursery fees).

I'm not even sure my point's relevant, but I remember a woman at work in a lower salary band always trying to "borrow" money/drinks/etc and getting very offended when I asked for it back. I guessed that she assumed that because I was on a particular pay grade I must be rolling in it, but my disposable income would have been significantly lower than hers.

T1mum - before I had my first maternity leave I was working in a perm job on 75k. I had a bonus, overtime, car allowance and annual leave.

When I returned I asked for reduced hours, just 4 hours per week less. It was agreed. When the new contract came through I found out that as a 'part time' employee I'd lost my car allowance, overtime rights, they had (as I expected) pro rated my leave and bonus. Add in the child care and I was 20k worse off a year while still doing the same job (I just worked my lunch hour to compensate).

I only asked for reduced hours as I may have been 10 or 15 mins late if the nursery run went wrong! Other employees were consistently late but not admonished. I was naive and shot myself in the foot. Anyone applying for reduced hours should ask about benefit reduction before signing anything.

I do think that anyone who earns over 75k and quims that 'life is hard', means, 'LIFE IS HARD BECAUSE I CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING I WANT AND FEEL I AM ENTITLED TO BECAUSE I AM A HIGH EARNER WHO DESERVES THINGS THAT POOR PEOPLE DON'T'

That's what it comes down to. Really.

Really.

"Yeah but in London".

London isn't the focal point of the universe.

Salaries decease according to how far from London you are.

Wales is "cheap" to buy property in because the salaries the inhabitants earn are correspondingly smaller.

People I know aren't on the kind of salaries where they can afford to employ nannies; plenty can't afford a childminder either. But they need two incomes, unless they have been very lucky about accommodation. So many work in shifts: one parent in the daytime and another in the evenings and weekends. I suppose these are the people that the "You get no help and you are paying for everything"-brigade are envying. Because that is what life is like in many low-paid jobs.

The people who complain that you have to have a high income to live in London forget that there are plenty of people with very moderate incomes who work in London. My dh has a 2.5 hour commute each way for this precise reason: because he is one of many moderate earners whose job happens to be in a place where we couldn't possibly afford to live. None of his colleagues live in London either. So again, London house prices, like nannies, may seem a terribly high part of your income- but only if you are rich enough to afford them in the first place.

If 45-50k is the threshold over which you receive no benefits, somebody needs to tell the government. Because our household gross salary is just under 21k and we are not eligible for anything.

I did post earlier about my high earning family and many, many people I know who earn high salaries in the North, I hate the perception the people in the North scrabble by on the scraps thrown away from London.

There are people all over the country who earn huge amounts of money, and there are people who earn average amounts of money, and there are people who earn minimum wage, actually there are more people, statistically in the South who earn less compared to house prices than there are in the North.