To wonder what it's like to earn £200k per year?!

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Friend's husband earns just over £200k per year, with an annual £150k bonus for the last few years! No jealousy (much!) just wonder what life would be like?!

I just did the sums and that is £9k odd after deductions. Which is about 3 times our net income, despite being over 4 times our gross income. That's apropos of nothing tbh, but interested me. It'd be nice for sure, but only if it didn't come with much more work than we currently do.

My income is not as much, half that. But nearly three times as much as it was a couple of years ago. I can honestly say my life hasn't changed dramatically. In fact i'm probably more tight with money now i earn a good salary.

Other than my little flat, I haven't got massive fancy tv's or the latest gadgets. My cooker is 20 years old and on its last legs but i refuse to replace it until its definately dead.

I do have two horses but i've had them years and when i was skint, so they aren't a result of my earnings now.

I guess my treats is a holiday once a year

Now i feel i need to go and buy something!

not as amazing as you'd expect. Different pressures, different expenses and for most still a fair amount of stress and worry about money.

Without the bonus i must add

I suppose it depends if you grow into it. If I earn thst and stayed with state education and my current house I’d be rolling in it. If I scaled up the house, went private ed and started a pricy hobby I suppose I’d feel like I do now.

A bonus of £150k. Think how soon you’d pay off the mortgage!

That's the thing, more often than not your expenditure goes up with your income. We have earned £15k between us and £50+ k. Life hasn't felt all that different.

I earn, not quite 200k, but a lot more than most people, and honestly its brilliant. I have lots of money, I dont have to worry about finances, I can treat my friends and family. I'm grateful for it every day. I work really hard but I'm lucky that what I work hard at doing earns a lot of money rather than, say, teaching.

That said I'm a happy person, and lucky to have my mental and physical health, so the money is just a bonus really, and if I didnt have those things, the money wouldn't buy them, iyswim.

Great, I don't worry about money at all. It does not make me happier but it makes life a bit easier... at the end of the day though the only inportant thing in life is health.

Does his work take over his whole life? Lots of client entertaining? Deadlines/stress? It's rarely easy making that amount of money. I know people who earn that and more and some of them seem to enjoy it and others not. I have certainly noticed that buying very expensive things doesn't guarantee happiness .

So £350k per yer before tax, must be a lovely life, or a very highly stressed one working to ensure he gets the bonus

Witsender I totally believe that happens but it still frustrates me to hear it.
You don't have to increase your outgoings. Its a choice to enter into financial obligations. So it kind of annoys me to see it talked about as if its something people have no control over.
I guess because I've worked as a debt and benefits advisor and seen loads of people cope really badly with a sudden drop in income- I'm personally really careful to keep my fixed costs low.
Its more important to me than saving (which I also do).
I'm not on anything like £200K though. I can't even imagine it.

I earn a similar amount.
I don’t worry about money particularly as such, but I work so hard to earn it I worry about burning out. We have children in private education (my husband works too, though earns less, and we both have international travel) so boarding is a necessity and I worry that if I collapse under the strain, which is huge, that will mean massive disruption for them.
I can’t spend willy nilly either. My husband is a spendthrift and is always trying to spend a lot of money on cars and holidays which I think is wasteful. I can’t even go on half the holidays as I don’t have the time off.
That said, I have nice shoes and handbags and coats and expensive haircuts, but I kind of have to for my job as presentation is a big part of it. Face lift probably too, in next 5 years.
I have about 2 more hours of work to do this evening now. And back in the office at 7am. And I don’t see my family all week. Every week. It’s really not easy.

It sounds like a lot but I guess tax would eat into a sizeable amount of that. Combined my husband and I bring in 6.3k per month, two children in state education, live in a flat which we own (in London) feel much better off than when we had a baby and earnt 2.8k per month combined (used to struggle to feed ourselves after rent and nursery fees and formula) but literally can't understand why we don't have more money now, although we are still paying off debt we accumulated when we were struggling which is £500 per month and that will be finished soon. Christ a bonus of that size makes a huge difference though! Do they have an extravagant lifestyle?

I early not that much closer to half and the stress and pressure was enormous. h was earning similar and our disposable income was fantastic. But I can't begin to imagine how much stress at work you'd be under for that kind of money. Not sure I could cope.

That said I'd put a lot more effort in for a bonus of £150k.

Based on personal and friend/ex's experiences - great for the obvious reasons but usually it comes with a v stressful job so you are constantly fluctuating between relaxed and off the charts stressed depending on what's happening. the money is also a bit of a trap as you can't see yourself without it and that can worry you about whether you can actually do your job and whether there is a way out etc.

What is the tax at this level? 40%? More?

I earn next to nothing.

If I did earn that much money I would save 90% of it and retire after 3 years; then travel the world for the rest of my life. I can live on less than 6k a year here and abroad.

It must be frustrating. You have to work hard for that money but after tax you would have so little left that you would hardly feel rich. Unless you didn't have children, then you might feel a little bit rich.

Sod that.
I'm jealous.

Tax: www.netsalarycalculator.co.uk/200000-after-tax/

I'm not convinced it would be worth the stress, hassle and potential travel tbh. Depending on the job obviously, but generally if you're being paid that kind of money you have to work hard for it.

We always joke my boss has the lowest hourly rate in the department

Our household income is substantially more than that. It is great. Of course it is. We don't have to worry about paying bills, we have a nice newish car and a house that's bigger than we need.

We still shop at Aldi and ASDA, buy lots of stuff in the sales and from charity shops, furniture from IKEA etc. I don't feel like our day to day lives are all that different than when we were first together and lived on a joint income of £20k. Of course in some major respects it is - we have a much more expensive house and newer car than we did back then and much much bigger bills each month.

The main thing is I suppose we don't need to deliberately save up for anything. If we're going on holiday, or buying Christmas presents for example, it just gets paid for. Also I only work part time and didn't have to consider whether or not we could afford it, I just decided that's how much I decided I would like to do.

I'll try again!

www.netsalarycalculator.co.uk/200000-after-tax/