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.

silent

As if the older generation (well, depends on how old, I'm thinking of baby boomers...) didn't have a lot of financial advantages...

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.

^ So 55k left?! So poor. Hahahahaha.

There has been rent lot of those types of thread, lately.

Here's the last one that I was on:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2825766-Frittering-money-away-irresponsibly

100k is not a lot in London. We have one (very) old car. Still rent as we can't save enough for a deposit. Have one (one week) holiday a year. Children at state school although they do both do activories. We still struggle to pay everything each month. It's all relative. If we earned this in the north of England (we cant) we would have a good lifestyle but right now we are just getting by.

100k could be a colossal amount in London if you've managed to pay a lot of the mortgage off (don't want to turn this into a high earners SH thread, there aren't many of those anyway). There must be thousands of households with that income level who are still living in the house they purchased in 1998 and paying £600 a month for. That would be a very comfortable lifestyle indeed.

Waitrose
Two salaries of 100k comes to about 70k after tax. So expenses of 45k will leave you with about 25k, not 55k.

Why do people always forget the tax? £100k income is about £65k after tax. Full time child care for 2 children is about £30k of after tax income i.e. half of what each of you earn goes on child care. Th atl eaves £35k for your mortgage on your 2 bed flat which may well cost you £20k a year. That leaves you with £15k for clothes, food, transport to work - not surprising if that £288 a week mostly goes no food, clothes, train to work though is it?

I don't understand how 2 people with qualifications can have a combined income of 15k

Is it by both working part time? Surely 2 minimum wage full time jobs would have combined higher income?

But if it's solely 100k, then yes it would be 65k. But then the partner would be stay at home, and then no childcare costs?

OR if both earning 50k each, then after tax that would be around 72k, so bit more to play with.

I do think it's insanely different depending on region.

OH and I moved from zone 2 (London) to rural Scotland about two years ago, and managed to kept the same salaries. The difference was mind blowing. We spent years in London being broke by the end of every month, no holidays, ten year old car, regular financial crisis, mostly because of the price of housing.

The difference when we moved north was mind blowing.

Well yeah, the key is to get a London or at least national scale salary in somewhere lots cheaper than London!

Inniu I presume part time working, or perhaps one is full time and the other getting a SE business off the ground, or studying, or caring. There are a lot of permutations.

I don't understand how 2 people with qualifications can have a combined income of 15k

Don't get this either - I only work a few hours a week now and am on £18+ K

And I don't get how intelligent mumsnutters can have so little concept of how other people live, the lack of opportunities there are in many parts of the country, the unfortunate circumstances some people are in and the poverty some people have to live with.

We have a joint income of 30k and we manage just fine we can quite happily do a Weeks shopping and not look at the prices but our rent is quite high and council tax is high plus the other bills so the majority goes on that with a couple of hundred left over each month.

Thinkingofausername

I have never smoked and I don't drink alcohol either and there is still nothing left at the end of the month

Yeah that post by sanity was not especially insightful...

No people on low incomes don't get discounted electricity or anything like that

Currently £140 credited to your dual fuel bill in the winter if you are on certain benefits. It's not advertised and you have to apply, but it exists.

Was this me? I work part time, four days a week between school hours. OH is on a zero hour contract so although he mostly gets full time hours, there's weeks he doesn't. Shit hourly pay. Both came out of university and started out on good career paths, but then serious ill health and family tragedy happened. Such is life. It won't be for ever, we have both had to take slightly round about routes to get to where we want, but within five years, all going well, we should be back on track and be earning a good bit more.

The thing is, we don't owe anybody a penny, we pay our own way, we are happy, and we don't fuck up our budget by pissing away good money on things other people tell us we need. So in some ways, maybe we're doing better than the 100k people

Tinkly...even 25k is still an enormous amount of money!! Sorry, I can't feel sympathy for anyone left with 'only' an average wage after expenses. It's actually very insulting.

brasty GBP38k a year for a household is well above the benefits cap of GBP20k/GBP23k for a family living outside/inside of London. In the vast majority of the UK that household income is above average.

I know we are well off because we actually earn far more than that but choose not to spend more. We have continued to live off $1100 a month (about GBP750 a month) and it is not a lot (pay for everything except your mortgage, property taxes and childcare) when you are working 80+ hours a week and on your own, because your OH is away with work, with 3 kids aged 5 and under. If that was our income after tax I would feel poor. As we earn more we have a huge savings account that will catch us if we fall.

I've seen a couple. One woman asking if you expect to be skint as a Sahm, though DH earns £100k. Can't remember the other, but a few people commented on it being tricky...

I'm really not getting the posters saying we earn 100k + and I'm baffled how people can manage on less

How can it be baffling to understand that people manage to live on less when any were near 100k is clearly no were near the national average

It's all about the choices you make, imo. DH is on £120k and we're very comfortable and are able to save loads and overpay our mortgage every month. We're in London, but chose to have a small family (1 dc, who goes to the local state school) so we chose to buy a 2 bed flat, hence our energy bills and council tax are small than if we had a 3 bed house, and we don't pay out for a car or pay commuting costs (DH walks to work). No gardening costs as we don't have a garden! I'm a sahm so no high childcare costs, and I can take dd out to lots of free activities on offer in London. Frugal food shopping - I'm happy to shop at Lidl and browse the discount section of Tesco, and we aren't big drinkers and don't smoke. I'm not interested in expensive gym memberships (I go running or workout at home for free) or beauty treatments (all my toiletries come from Aldi). So we have plenty of money left over every month and can't imagine struggling on our income.

I come from a poor background (parents were on benefits and in a rented council flat most of my childhood) so I went without things that a lot of wealthier people consider 'essentials', which is probably why I am fine doing without them, and know lots of frugal/cost-cutting tips.

The median household income in London is £39,100. So half of households in London have less income than that. Only about 22% of households in London are in social housing. So most people in London manage to live on far less than £100k in housing that is not social housing.
So paying a large mortgage in London is a choice.

Waitrose I agree, £25k is a decent amount of money. But it's not a fortune. You wouldn't be counting the pennies, but you wouldn't be changing your car every year and having loads of fancy holidays.