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.

I can't get my head around what a difference earning a basic teaching salary will make (fifteen months! Just need to train first!) to me.
In the past 8 years my highest income has been give or take £11k. Most of that time I've had £7k a year (mature student), though there was that six month stretch where I had less than £5 per week to live on.

I can't even begin to think what £200,000 would be like, even with tax!

I would never say anyone is a bitch as I loathe the word and the sentiment behind it.

And I do know the article is pure click-bait.

But I really struggle to articulate just how much I despise people like those in this article. How clueless can you be? She may have an absolutely massive income but to have no concept of what it actually is like to "struggle" financially is hateful and unforgivable.

I remember a Polly Toynbee article at the time of the last GE. A group of city bankers were interviewed about finances/income/wealth/poverty etc. They were astoundingly ignorant about life for the 99% of UK citizens who earned less than them. Shocking stuff.

What I don't get is why they have a mortgage at all - let alone one that high?

Doing the maths she was 40 when she had her child, her house only cost £200k when they bought it - why the hell didn't they overpay on the mortgage pre kids.

We have a lovely lovely lifestyle earning a bit under half what they do. Not least because we have got our mortgage paid off. Admittedly we live in the North but we paid more for our house than they did theirs. So we had a big mortgage but no kids and a high income. So we overpaid on the mortgage. Hardly rocket science.

What nonsense. When you move into the higher tax brackets you only pay the higher percentage rate on the amount you earn over the limit, so you still get a tax free allowance and the amount you pay the base rate on before starting to pay the extra percentage when you move into the high earning bracket.

I don't think that's true. I found out the hard way when the IR made a mistake with my tax code one month and my employer deducted far too much tax. When I investigated, it turned out IR had given the wrong code to my employer, and my personal allowance had disappeared. Apparently, once you're in the top rate (over £100k) your tax-free allowance decreases gradually, to zero if you earn more than £122k. www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/income-over-100000

They pay £76,100 in tax. A huge amount.
But that still leaves £9700 a month to live off!
Wow I would be thrilled,

Should have said, I don't earn anything like £122k! I consider myself very well off on my just-over £40k salary - I had over a decade on shitty jobs for shitty wages as well as growing up in a house where money was genuinely tight so I know what it means to struggle to get by. I hope I never forget, or start taking my good salary for granted.

What I don't get is why they have a mortgage at all - let alone one that high?

That's one of the reasons I think the article is based on fiction. The numbers don't add up. It seems to me to be purely and simply a piece of spin to persuade people on high but not multi-million pound incomes to seek the expensive advice of 'wealth managers' as described in the second half of the article.

Mornington I think you are right.

Although who is the photo of????

Although who is the photo of????

My bet's on some random picture downloaded from t'internet and photoshopped to avoid a lawsuit.

They can truly, truly fuck right off! I'm sure this is click bait but has riled me beyond measure!

Try joining the rest of us in the shitty real world and see how hard done by you are you fucking arse faced morons

I'm so cross!

It's click bait. Please don't rise to it.

I think there is a certain amount of naivety about how much of her income she will actually see.

I don't earn as much as her, but I still earn a good income: ~£75k. After tax/NI (£25k) and pension contributions (£10k), I actually see around £40k of this.

I'm not complaining, and I have a nice lifestyle (much nicer than the one I had growing up). But I'm not as well off as I might seem to be from my headline salary.

SemiNormal - I think school meals are free for all 5 year olds. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I wrong on this). So no-one would no any different. I do understand why you feel the way you do, kids can be very cruel.

the article is a thinly disguised plug for wealth management companies and examines how even this amount of money doesn't bring you great freedom and reserves of cash. We are on a similar income and we don't bring home 9k a month unfortunately, as some are suugesting upthread. We pay a huge amount of tax, which I think is fair and right as i value living in a society that supports and gives opportunities for everyone (or at least it did).

I realise we are incredibly lucky, not just hard working, but I would add that we don't have any of the lifestyle things you would expect, it's state school and ten year old cars here, I would worry if we had to add these sort of things to our outgoings.

Neither of us are from money and we are friends with the same sorts of people we've always been friends with, I wonder if this helps because we've never had 'rich people' aspirations for things that this kind of money just can't buy you now. plus unlike people from rich backgrounds we know that there is no one but us to pick up the pieces if we overspend.

It is easier to spend less if you have money as well which is very unfair. We can buy cars in cash and get better morgage rates etc.

Whoops, sorry, I forgot to refresh the page.

No-one is under any misconception about their take home pay, which is 'only' around £9k pm or just over £100k pa.

We are all well aware that they lose nearly half of it in tax, NI, pensions etc.

But we are all well aware that £9k PER MONTH is 3 or 4 times more to play with than the average family and they are basically moaning about being a bit entitled, crap with money and having a poor grip on reality.

9k a month for us would mean

£2000 k on living expensives covered easily

Can now afford x2 private school fees at £3k a month

I still have £4K left - plenty to upgrade my house to another £2k a month mortgage

I still have £2k a month left to mess about with! Fantastic

As someone who has earned much less than £200k and who now earns much more, I can assure you that no one on such a high income is being squeezed in any way shape or form!! Her expenses and appetites have simply grown with income, and her expectations are just ridiculous.

Does she not remember how it felt to be on a starter salary, just starting out in life? Or was she barely out of university when a £100k job was handed to her on silver platter?

Astounding lack of insight!

A nanny and private school fees. For a four year old .

What a waste of space!

DH and I are the squeezed middle. Literally just of the threshold for support, cost for everything going up etc. You know what. We still realise how lucky we are to have our home, health and happiness. We've cut our cloth and will be ok.

I'll happily swap with her though. What I couldn't do with £200k a year!!

Or even just £300k

Poor you
It must be tough.

I read the full article to see how good or bad the FT were at wealth management recommendations. They suggested looking after your own finances first before considering how best to promote the interests of your offspring.

An alternative strategy for the couple might be to half their working hours and both work freelance from home. ( I know a lot of homeworkers in IT and marketing earning in the same brackets as them). Doing this they could drop the cost of the nanny (£40k in London as per the MN oracle) and save £10k worth of 2 annual commuter passes. They then earn £50k each or £40k net each, so £80k as against their current £50k. So £30k richer working half as much. (The big loser in this would be the government as their tax contribution would decrease by £80k plus the contribution the nanny currently makes). As an added bonus I don't think earnings of £50k attract quite so much vitriol as salaries of £100k.

I don't think there is any such thing as the "squeezed" middle but to the extent that it does exist I think it is perhaps arguable that with children there is not much difference between earning £50k and earning £200k.

But it's not a lazy generalisation. I said most very well paid l people I know - this is entirely true. They have an accountant who sorts them out. That is factual, whether you like it or not. They claim for all sorts of things to get them under the higher earning tax bracket. I'm pretty disgusted at one of my colleagues who earns way over £80k but on paper earns less than my childminder. And it's the tip of an iceberg really. I earn a decent amount - I'm higher tax band - but I don't fuck about pretending I'm broke.