6 figure incomes and can't afford a load of bread?

[LemonyFresh]

Is it just me or has there been a influx of posts about household incomes of over 100k or similar and complaining or wondering how they're skint at the end of the month and struggling? Is it a stealth boast or do these people actually struggle?

Am I really in the minority with a household income of less than half of this?!

I know we tend to spend to our means but even when DP and I are having a flush month I don't see the point in over spending for the sake of it.

People tend to live to their means. And its also very common to look at those around you and compare your situation to those you mix with.

DH will sometimes have a private whinge about lack of posh car/gardeners/expensive clothes/luxury holidays. We're very well off compared to most but when you regularly mix with people worth millions it is possible to forget that occasionally. I think much depends on your outlook on life. DH would spend a lot on "stuff" given half the chance. I'm very cautious financially and still shop the offers and reduced items each week in tesco.

But the number of kids you have is partly dictated by your income. As is the kind of house you buy or rent.

The difference is, when you can't work any more hours, and you still can't make ends meet. When you are on the cheapest possible rent/mortgage/bills cut back in every way possible. Eat Tesco value food, save every penny possible, don't have a phone, don't have sky, don't buy non essential food/drink. That's when it's tough. Because you can't cut back any more.

When you're on 100k and things are tight, you can cut back in more ways (don't have that luxury holiday etc)

We don't have that luxury. When things are tight, they actually are.

Mamushka I know. £38k household income is a decent income. But I was replying to a poster who was talking about having £100k, and assuming they had the same level of disposable income as someone poorer, because poorer people get help with childcare and housing.

Housing is dictated by a great deal more than your income, though. I mean yes, someone who has never earned more than 20k won't be in a manor house and someone whose family have millions won't be in an ex-council flat. And a 31 year old on 100k in London with no parental help is likely to have better housing than a 31 year old on 27k in London with no parental help.

But beyond that, your age, if you had the opportunity to access SH and when you bought are more significant. Housing has been a generational lottery. Especially in the south east. In that area, a couple in their 50s on 27k combined who've paid off the mortgage are likely to have a lot more money after essentials than a couple in their late 20s with two young kids on 100k combined. And indeed, there are people who've never earned much at all sitting on goldmine houses because the modest house they happened to buy in 1979 is in an area where prices have ballooned. This is why income alone is never going to give us the answers: the reality is that if you have no or minimal housing costs on a low income, you may still be better off than people earning much more than you who have no choice but to pay a lot for theirs. That's just how it is.

And tbh number of kids isn't necessarily income dependant either. You don't see a higher number with each income decile.

Tax on £100k is nearly £35k a year. (Take home £65k)

You don't earn that sort of money easily. Usually you need to live in a city, look the part, do long hours and you are time poor. You also have to pay full time childcare.

You get no discounts on anything. No free school meals or free entry to places. Nothing

As the others have said it isn't just your choices - it is part of what is expected: what you have to spend in order to do the job.

When you're on 100k and things are tight, you can cut back in more ways (don't have that luxury holiday etc)

Again this will depend on circumstances though. Clearly there are plenty of 100k earners who have all sorts of luxuries, but they don't all. As I said upthread, if you're paying SE housing, commuting and childcare costs, I can see how there wouldn't be loads left at the end of the month, especially if you have debts too.

My hypothetical London couple earn 60k and 40k working full time, and have two kids. Student loan repayments, 5% pension. 60k brings home £3050 a month, 40k £2030. No CB or TCs. That's a monthly income of £5100. Let's say housing is £1700, council tax £150, 2 commutes is £250 and the childcare for two preschoolers is £2000 a month (could be a lot more but let's assume some vouchers). That's £4100 already, before anyone eats anything, heats anything, wears anything or washes anything. Now clearly there are loads of 100k earners who won't have anything like these expenses, and clearly there are also lots of people who don't have 1k a month for food, electricity, gas, non-commute transport, water, phones, clothes, insurance and entertainment.

However, that is not luxury holiday money either. Especially not if our couple have any debts. I agree that there is still likely to be wiggle room in a way that there's not when you're on the breadline. The 100k couple probably get a few takeaways and new tops and a cheap week away in the summer. Equally though, my family, also contains two small children and two working parents. We have quite a bit more left over than my example couple after housing, commute, childcare and council tax even with less than half the household income.

Not a journalist, just someone on a low wage entering maternity leave and wondering how can I manage when people on very high incomes don't!

I apologise for the exaggeration on 'influx' of threads, it was quite daily mail sensationalist of me.

Interesting reading though, I'm going through the comments at the moment and beginning to see how those on high incomes are indeed time poor, have high mortgages and childcare costs, plus commutes and of course higher taxes. I don't have any of these problems really.

Of course OP, people on low incomes may have many of the expenses you list too.

Please stop trying to argue that those on 100k are hard up. Especially using a hypothetical family. It's ridiculous and annoying.

As has been explained a few times on this thread, those earning less than 16k often don't get any help with anything either. If they do get help it's often very little. Poor people and rich people have most of the same expenses; less the expensive car, expensive house and private school fees. Those things are a choice and not a necessity.

Out of my 13k wage I still pay tax and national insurance, plus I pay a third of what I earn on childcare.

Hahahahahaha.

I always have an eye roll at them. 26k salary and 4 kids in the South East...we manage! 100k is an insane amount of money!

Cost of commuting, childcare and housing will quickly reduce a joint £100k salary.

Two train commutes from Home County location: 10k.

Nursery fees/full-time nanny for two DCs: 20k?

Mortgage on 3 bed property: 12-15k?

So certainly not poverty by any means but it adds up to a fairly normal lifestyle

Exactly.

People on low incomes do have those expenses too. True. And they have been the most betrayed by the government I think.

Below a certain threshold though and you get CTC and WTC and CB. It adds up to a lot. And you pay v little tax.

I am not a high earner BTW.

I would think that you get CB and WTC on 13K. (Might be wrong - just asking).

No-one is trying to say that earning £100k is poverty levels but what they are saying is that it isn't £100k pocket money to spend as you like. Once you factor in certain things the differential isn't as big as it first seems.

Fucking hell, this is just annoying me now. Do you really think poorer families don't have childcare costs, commuting costs and mortgages?

Do you really think poorer families don't have childcare costs, commuting costs and mortgages?

This.

And if you earn enough to get a big mortgage on property you are paying out each month for a long term accumulating asset with a cost which over time goes down relative to income. If you rent the money is into a black hole and goes up largely ahead of inflation.

The difference is that a family on £100k will happily spend £50 on lunch out when shopping for no occasion whereas the actually skint family have that as their whole entertainment for the month, if they're lucky and the car doesn't go bang

I think people with higher incomes tend to have more finance? They might be paying off credit cards, overdrafts, car finance, high mortgages and all sorts of stuff that they took out because they thought they could easily afford it but then hit slightly harder times so are now struggling even tho they still earn far more than the average person.
We have a total family income of 27 grand and we occassionally struggle to buy bread but not often. We dont really have any debt just one credit card.
My dad earnt a phenominal amount when i was a child but my parents were permanently in debt and a thousand deep in overdraft at all times.

Nothing you have said in your post refutes anything I've said in mine namechanger. The fact that people on lower incomes often struggle makes no difference whatsoever to the situation of families on high incomes with high fixed costs. And given that I'm not in a 100k family with south east living expenses, a hypothetical example is the only way for me to illustrate my undoubtedly correct point. Expenses are as significant as money coming in and there isn't necessarily a correlation.

People are constantly coveting what they don't have.

Person on on 20k looks at person on 100k and wonders what they do with all that money. Person on 100k looks at person on 500k and wonders what they do with all that money. And so on and so forth.

People are really bad at doing that in the opposite direction.

What is a luxury to someone on 20k becomes a necessity to someone on 100k. Except it's not really a necessity: trouble is some well off people can't see it, and are never satisfied with their lot. You have to feel a bit sorry for these types if you think about it: never happy, always moaning. There's a lot to be said about being finding a happiness that's not connected to money....

I guess mortgages on larger Yachts are more than they used to be.

I'm of the generation that aims to live within it's means, whatever they are. Is it a generation thing?

Influx of High salaries but no dough.no haven't seen those posts

People doing well paid jobs are on the whole much more likely to have moved away from family support though. They are more likely, on the whole, to be shelling out for childcare. People doing more run of the mill, less well paid jobs are more likely to be near family and friends and have help that reduces childcare costs. This does not apply to everyone of course, but is a definite tendency.

All my Uni friends live a long way from their home towns and pay for childcare. Lots of us have siblings living in the same town as our parents, who then provide a lot of free childcare.

I guess mortgages on larger Yachts are more than they used to be.

I'm of the generation that aims to live within it's means, whatever they are. Is it a generation thing?

What generation is that? If, as I suspect, you're referring to the older ones, it's to a great extent a generational housing thing.