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

[ABCD1000]

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?!

However, there are huge swathes of London where you would not be able to buy a studio flat for under £500 k. If a 4-bed house is £5 million minimum, you can see how on £250 k, people would struggle to get a family house

Huge swathes, really? Where a 4 bed is a minimum of 5 million pounds and a studio is over half a million? Funny, because even a cursory look at rightmove shows you can get a one bed in Belgravia for half a mill.
there are not many places in London where a 4 bed is a min of 5 million. You don't need to lie to justify your mortgage.

Queen - of course it's a choice. I grew up in a different country where there was no income support. Yes people can move out of central London and many /most do, but for those who don't, this is where the money goes.

We have a joint income of around 300k. Of course, we pay a massive amount of that in taxes.

We have largish outgoings with 3 children at Independent school. We'll get no help if / when they go to uni.

There are hidden costs of non-state schools like trips (3 children going ski-ing!) as well as doing things their friends do.

I think higher salaries bring happiness to a certain extent. It certainly brings choice and safety, I guess.

Is it churlish of me to find all these people telling us how they earn hundreds of thousands of pounds a year but watch a black and white TV and drive a milk float really annoying?

Nicely put.

Those who say 'we drive 24 year old cars, buy only expired food, our television has a coat hanger as an antennae, and I've never had a manicure' - firstly, I don't believe them, and secondly, what they really wish to convey is 'I'm an eccentric aristo'.

I've known a fair few people who've been higher earners and having the seen the stress, marriage breakdowns, etc., I'd rather not bother going there.

As for living in Central London, some "top" jobs need it as it's not 9-5 - there's evening events that they have to be seen at - if you've got to attend 2 or 3 evening events in a week, you certainly don't want to be living an hour or two away from the City. If you're a senior person (you'd have to be to earn that), you'd be required to host dinner parties etc for prospective clients which means you need an appropriate home etc. Going to sports events at the weekend is also usually part and parcel to "smooze" current and potential clients etc. People just assume the "party scene" is just for fun, but when you're trying to do deals it's pretty much essential. You don't land a multi million pound deal by just posting an A5 flyer followed up with an email!! It's all about image, and sadly some potential clients are more likely to give you their business if you pick them up in a Porsche and host Summer barbecue's beside the pool in your garden.

I'm not saying the high earners have a harder life than the poor, but there are swings and roundabouts and to some extent, the "lifestyle" is a vital part of the job. The few "millionaires" I've known have scaled right back to pretty modest lifestyles when they retired (yes, still very good, but the "party scene" was the first thing they all stopped and most downsized their homes).

Hot - Something like a 5 bed Victorian semi in reasonable condition somewhere like Fulham, Chiswick, Putney or Barnes or even as far out as Richmond will be at least £3 million. Further in e.g. Chelsea, Notting Hill, Kesnsington, Bayswater, etc more like £5 m. Mayfair and areas like that are yet more, though mainly apartments. You can possibly get a one-bed flat for 500k, but it will be the same area per square metre as a studio, or some other factor, e.g. over a shop, weird layout, block needs maintenance, busy road, etc. I know this because we just bought a flat for a relative.

@karriecreamer there are plenty of places in striking distance of central London which are cheaper albeit out of reach of most!

Hot - Something like a 5 bed Victorian semi in reasonable condition somewhere like Fulham, Chiswick, Putney or Barnes or even as far out as Richmond will be at least £3 million.

That's absolutely not true. You can easily still get a house in Fulham or Putney for £1.5 or even less. The 5th bedroom is a bit of a red herring because there are relatively few of them, but you can reconfigure the internal space.

Whilst I've never been close to earning that kind of big money, I was once offered a partnership in a town centre accountancy practice, on about £100,000. (Quite a lot 20 years ago!).

I refused once I found out what I'd be required to do outside the office. The office work was absolutely fine - long days, working lunches, etc. I'd seen partners do that in previous employments, so was under no illusions.

The parts of the job I didn't want to do was joining & attending all manner of clubs, groups, societies and charities. I'd only just got married and the last thing I wanted was to be out virtually every evening attending meetings etc. It was a huge disappointment when it was made clear that I was expected to do that in order to bring in new business, and that part of the proposed £100k pay was linked to the amount of new business I generated.

I too think don’t be jealous, it must come with so much stress.

I’ve never earnt that, but if I’d been more set on my career I could have earnt half. I had a choice at one stage,

leave my useless DH, move house to smaller, be considerable poorer, be able to walk and collect child from school, take part time jobs, have fun and a social life, travel.

Or... stay in stressful but good job, stay with useless DH, keep house, have money, send kids to worse inner city school or take even biggger mortgage and job to nicer area for schools, not travel, not have fun through terrrible work/life balance, keep kids in all those expensive after school etc clubs / child care.

I chose the first one. And never regretted it. Although would love a BIT more money!

The only houses I have seen for £1.5 are the cottages. Often when they say 5 bed, the fifth bed is a tiny box room. Or there is no outside space. We have a very ordinary 5 bed Victorian semi on Rightmove now for £3.3 million (in that area). Its the kind of house you would find in any town up and down the UK. It's not extended, but 5 good size bedrooms.

Anyway sorry to derail

I grew up in a wealthy family. My dad earnt a lot of money and my mum never had to work. He travelled a lot for work and we never saw him.

I missed him so so much as a child, it hurt like hell sometimes when he would leave for a trip overseas...

But - we had an amazing lifestyle, skiing every Christmas, holidays on yachts cruising the med every summer and much more ... he bought me a house for my 18th birthday present.

My dad died relatively young, he was only 60 when he was diagnosed with cancer and we lost him 3 yrs later. During his illness I did finally get to spend time with him, but it was undoubtedly the hardest most stressful period of my life. He travelled abroad for private treatment and spent a huge amount of money on trying to beat the disease. The money made no difference to the outcome. I remember him saying to me towards the end of his battle with the disease that he was going to be the richest man in the graveyard... that stayed with me.

I am a stay at home Mum, my husband earns a decent wage but we struggle on the one income. We have debts and money worries. But we get to see the kids lots. Is it worth it? Yes. Did my dad leave me any money? Yes. But not much.

I am happier then I have ever been in my life (but I wouldn’t mind enough cash for a nice holiday now and then, the material stuff doesn’t bother me)

We have a reasonable household income. Now.

Ultimately, your money's just your money. Numbers on a screen. And when you factor in VAT, fuel duty, council tax etc 60% of it goes back out the door in taxes, just like everyone else.

There are two big benefits, I'd say. The roof over your head is less likely to leak, and you don't go hungry. I've had times in my life when I've had to skip lunch in order to have enough money to buy bread and a tin of beans for dinner. It's a relief not to have that worry any more, and I am grateful.

But the other problems in life that really matter - illness, family shit, people who lie and deceive, being a victim of crime - are still there. All the money in the world doesn't make cancer cuddly.

We are well off. We live in a road that's deemed one of the best roads in our town and you pay a premium for it but we are in one of the smaller houses we were going to buy an incredibly beautiful large one but the survey was crap so we have just stayed here. As far as I was concerned I sleep in one bed and sit my butt on one sofa, I can only be in one room at a time.

Best thing about money is the security, DH and I seperated at the start of the year. Of course people were what will you do about housing etc. I knew I could just go out and buy a house but it's not something I shared with people, especially not in the current climate.

I am one of those that doesn't look like I have money but that's more because I'm lazy at grooming, I don't enjoy it and I genuinely don't care, I'm always clean btw. I do love jewellery, people probably think it's costume jewellery though.

I have helped my sisters out. I take them on hols and have bought them white goods and sent them food shops. I'm the only one that escaped our humble roots. The difference in lifestyle is vast it's caused some issues I'm incredibly careful telling them what I have done as don't want to be perceived as showing off. One got massively offended when I offered to buy her a cooker as hers was condemned. Mutterings of me being Lady Bountiful. It hurt to be honest.

DH did grow up wealthy and has never ever known what it's like, to be hard up. He said he had to live off porridge oats for a week when he was a student once to try and say he and been hard up. I gave him a bit of a roasting for that one and told him to get over himself

I don't have manicures nor do I like having my hair done but I have issues with being touched and have a giant personal space.

Reading posts like airbiscuits I do wonder, why do you do it? Are the nice clothes and hair cuts and big houses really worth it if you have to send your kids to boarding school and never see your family?

My DH earns well and could have earned a lot more if I’d encouraged him to take job opportunities abroad or that meant more input and time from him but I’ve always asked him to put our family first and he has, he’s always home for the kids bedtime, takes time off when he needs to and is around for every school concert, play, parents evenings etc. I wouldn’t have it any other way tbh.

Similarly if I’d decided to go back to work while the kids were small. I guess this illustrates how different peoples priorities are!

A truly depressing thread.

I'll say it - all of you earning megabucks and both of you working all the hours god sends whilst you stick your young children in childcare or boarding school FFS....take a long , hard look at yourselves.

What kind of life are you leading and making your children lead?

I’m not sure why anyone would be scandalised that a successful woman would have children in boarding school.

Not in the slightest bit scandalised, just saddened.

faraway We have paid off SILs mortgage and bought PIL a flat and car. We live abroad so pay for his PIL to fly business when they visit us.

Our home isn't big or nice. We bought the building and rent half of it out. I didn't feel safe living further out. The commute also exhausted me plus I missed the DC. The higher income gave us the choice to live closer. We don't send our DC to private school because where we live has better provision for disabled DC in publicly funded education.

We have demanding schedules which get hard to coordinate sometimes. I have a sick father and fly out to him every 3 weeks or so. It's incredibly stressful. In my previous job I worked insane hours and had no time for anything or anyone outside of work. I didn't make much by the time childcare was paid for but it did lead to better things so was worth the sacrifice. DH earning as much as he does has enabled me to continue working post DC.

It takes some amount of crassness to claim that you aren't much better off on 200k than on the average household income because you're paying off a mortgage on an 900k property in 5 years or because you are shelling out thousands for private schooling or building up a big pension. Or because your nanny, cleaner, gardener and expensive clothes for work cost you so much. Those things are what make you rich FFS

This sums it up for me. Lots of ridiculous posts on here.

I also don't believe quite a few posts on this thread tbh...one or two in particular who have the most horrendous written English yet earn £100k +. Mmm, if you like

careless that's a bit unfair. My DH works 9-5 and we live a five minute walk from his office and I'm a SAHM. DS sees loads of DH as he often comes home for lunch. We are incredibly lucky with the quality of life we are able to lead, but not all high earners are monsters who never see their children and work themselves into the ground.

Faraway we would happily pay university fees for our nephew if needed. We don't give to our siblings as they either don't need it or would be funding a drug habit.

DH grew up in one of the most notorious estates in London, one of six children in a three bedroom flat. He's hugely aware of the stress of poverty and gives a lot to charities supporting children and the homeless as both causes are close to his heart.

careless Fuck off. You have no idea.

200K income with 150K bonus on top is not my world. My personal peak was about 100K. Peak household income was about 180K, but only for a short period.

I think of myself as generally having lived on housing cost + 20K. Housing has a been a modern flat, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, small garden and garage. (So more like a small modern terraced house really.)

As a contractor, I've never assumed that my work income would last more than at most the year of my current contract, and believed that afterwards I might have to live on savings for an extended period. I could therefore never justify spending much more than I could get by on. My luxuries have been a home I like and a week skiing each year.

From my first day of my first job, my main financial aim was not to be in a position to increase spending, but to to be in a position to cover my bills without working, for the rest of my life.

Having done that, and then saved more, I've bought a nice car. A new medium-spec Golf. And that's about it. I'm used to my life and can't think of anything else to spend money on. Could afford to send DD to private school, but not sure that I will, unless it actually suits her abilities. I suppose it will depend on what the alternative is at the time.

My life is easy, but not especially happy. I don't spend much. If there was anything I could spend money on that would make me happier, I would. But there isn't anything. Except possibly a divorce. But that would be too expensive.