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?!

Me and DP have a net joint income of 40K, I think that's flippin brilliant and consider us really well off (😳😳), £200k must be amazing!

I don’t understand why anyone on that kind of money is driving around in 6 year old cars or doesn’t have a big tv etc

Because they don't want to waste their money on that sort of stuff?

Both DH and I have second hand cars. DG's is about 5 years old (he bought it last year). I've had mine for four years and it was three years old when we bought it. The cars work, they're not so old that they're costing us a fortune to repair. Why would we not drive them?

DH's not DG's

I don’t understand why anyone on that kind of money is driving around in 6 year old cars or doesn’t have a big tv etc.

This is bizarre. Just because you have plenty of money doesn't mean you have to spend it on things you are not remotely interested in! We probably earn a shade under 200K between us (it's a bit variable). Our last car (a very boring and practical family estate) was about 13-14 years old when we dumped it. We replaced it with a 3 year old SMax (3 years is the sweet spot for prices). Neither of us care about cars at all. Buying a new car is a boring chore which we will avoid as long as the current one is still going. And we only have one because we commute by train.

Same for tvs. Until very recently the only tv we had was teeny tiny by current standards. I don't like big tvs in the sitting room. Again, we only have one - I don't like tvs elsewhere. Recently built a home office annexe and put a pretty big tv in their for occasional film nights/sleepovers, but wouldn't have otherwise.

We do have a nice house. Spend a fair bit on travel (but not fancy hotels) and the occasional very expensive meal out. But lots of stuff (jewellery, gadgets, designer clothes, cars, fancy hotels, private schools...) I'm just not interested in spending money on. We save money without trying because our natural spending rate is a lot less than we earn. The upside is that whenever we do want money for something, it is always there.

By contrast many of the very wealthy people that I know DO buy brand new cars and swap them every couple of years. Most of them aren't exactly on an annual salary though; they own the businesses. Personally I buy a new car every few years because I love cars and I love choosing what I want from scratch.

I think it's just about what you want to do with your cash.

If I earned £200k year, I'd want to just work for few weeks a year and live on £30k, tbh.

I'm at an age where time means more to me than money.

their/there error - ugh!

Clearly don't deserve my salary.

If I earned £200k year, I'd want to just work for few weeks a year and live on £30k, tbh

I'm at an age where time means more to me than money.

Very rare to find a job that would cater to that.

It’s usually either all or nothing on that type of salary

Wealthy people who are driving new cars tend to lease them and they are down as company cars.

DH drives a Q5 and it's a company car. If we were buying it would be a Toyota Sienna AWD minivan 5 years old.

I don’t understand why anyone on that kind of money is driving around in 6 year old cars or doesn’t have a big tv etc.

I understand your line of thought. For many people on average/standard incomes things like new cars and big TVs act as signifiers of wealth. They're luxury items that people like to have and part of the appeal is that they're easily recognised by others as a sign that you're relatively well off.

For more affluent people, they become less important (unless you're particularly into cars or whatever) simply because they're more achievable. Signifiers of wealth are different, things like the restaurants you go to, types of holidays you take, schools your kids go to.

Where I grew up a brand new car is super aspirational. My husband's friends and family (who are much, much wealthier) wouldn't give two hoots about a new car. It would be a slightly weird thing to spend money on.

I often wonder what kinds of jobs these people do, I drive past a row of multi-million pound houses on my way to pick my DD up from Childminder and see the families coming and going and I wonder what their lives are like! (I am on a low wage given the figures on here - auxiliary nurse in nhs - but we budget well and feel fortunate to be able to get by with relatively low stress)

I don’t understand why anyone on that kind of money is driving around in 6 year old cars or doesn’t have a big tv etc

I'm not into cars at all. I'd get the same amount of pleasure out of a 6 year old golf as I would a brand new top of the range Audi. If it goes when I turn the key I'm happy.
However I'd be quite happy to splash out on first class flights And 5 star hotels.

Not that I'm anywhere near that income bracket, and never likely to be either.

I don’t understand why anyone on that kind of money is driving around in 6 year old cars or doesn’t have a big tv etc.

Because I couldn't be less interested in TV's if I tried. In-fact if we didn't have one at all it wouldn't bother me and if there were 1000 things on my list to buy a TV wouldn't even begin to feature, neither would music systems, Sky TV, upgrading my phone or anything like that. A few months ago I bought a second hand Macbook because I couldn't see why I should spend £1000 on a laptop when I could get an A grade secondhand one for £400. Same with cars. I have a new car because my old one was starting to cost more in repairs than it was worth but DH's car is 6 years old and he hasn't mentioned changing it and I don't imagine that he will until loads of things start to go wrong with it.

I agree with a previous poster who said that it's more about experiences than material possessions. We travel loads, that's where most of our money goes. We try to do a summer European holiday, a Christmas longer haul holiday, a city break with the children in Feb half term and a weekend away without the children once a year. We also eat out a lot, both in chains like Nando's and Wagamamas with the children pretty much every week and we don't think twice about booking somewhere quite swanky for the two of us on a regular basis or with friends in a similar bracket. DH doesn't even blink at a restaurant bill for £200 a couple plus £50 babysitting

Likewise, we rarely say no to school trips, we buy in help such as cleaners, shirts going to an ironing service, weekly babysitters, gardener every couple of weeks and the children have tutors or extra help with their work as and when they need it.

We're bloody lucky though and everything we spend is on nice to have rather than have to have because we want to make sure that if it all ends tomorrow we can still meet our monthly commitments.

I think if you used it wisely you could make yourself feel very safe and secure - not worrying about mortgages or redundancies. I'm sure you can still decided to mortgage yourself to the hilt, make big payments on cars and school fees, but you don't have to.

Expenditure doesn't have to go up with income.

I don't have a car now, wouldn't have one even if I had the money to do my lessons and pay my insurance etc.

The only expenditure that would go up would be the rent, as I'd like a 2-bed...

"I understand your line of thought. For many people on average/standard incomes things like new cars and big TVs act as signifiers of wealth. They're luxury items that people like to have and part of the appeal is that they're easily recognised by others as a sign that you're relatively well off. For more affluent people, they become less important (unless you're particularly into cars or whatever) simply because they're more achievable. Signifiers of wealth are different, things like the restaurants you go to, types of holidays you take, schools your kids go to."

I do agree with this. But I also want to say that there are differences amongst the wealthy, too. I have a friend who works on the super-rich (i.e. high net worth individuals, those with far, far, more wealth than is being discussed on this thread), and one of the things he notes is a divide between the tastes of the globally wealthy in London (which can sometimes be towards fast cars, conspicuous consumption) and the tastes of the very wealthy tier just below them, who tend to see that kind of stuff as awfully vulgar and uncultured. (A kind of parallel to the big screen/big cars versus "experiences" narrative playing out on here with top 10% people). It comes to a head in a lot of battles over architecture - old arts and crafts mansions in Hampstead being controversially ripped down and replace with modernist architecture, battles over mega-basements etc. etc. etc.

I earn about half this and took it for granted when all my friends did. Now I have broader range of friends ("mummy" friends) some of whom are on minimum wage and i realise how lucky I am not to have the additional budgeting stress.

But I also want to say that there are differences amongst the wealthy, too.

Absolutely. I think what's playing out on this thread are the differences between working class/lower middle class sensibilities and upper middle class sensibilities (towards the top end of the upper middle class to be fair).

What you're describing are the differences between a new global wealthy elite and a more established wealthy elite (British aristocracy I guess). And it seems to be that the more long standing/established that elite is, the less it buys into very obvious signifiers of wealth, like flash cars.

Expenditure doesnt have to go up, but I suppose it creeps up on you. If my income was £200k I wouldn't be trawling round Aldi once a week, when Ocado could deliver. I wouldn't be standing in the pouring rain waiting for a bus, when I can afford a taxi. I'd be at the hairdressers more than once every 3 months, I wouldn't be dyeing it myself. Lots of little things, which make life a bit easier and add up.

It's not all flash BMWs and huge TVs.

To be fair, people who are making these amounts emphasise the fact that they work a lot, are under a lot of pressure and don’t see their families. Well, I am a bit under £40k and the pressure is so bad that I wake up most nights 5-6-7 times/night & spend a shitload of time at work. It’s not really how much you earn...

We have a household income close to that. Most of it went on buying a house in London. We've not stretched ourselves to our max budget, but it's still close to £2k per month on the mortgage. Everything else we do is relatively modest. We have nicer than normal holidays (e.g. 4/5 hotels instead of 2/3, though we do AirBnB sometimes), but we only go away once a year. We bought a £200 buggy instead of the bugaboo. We do shop at Ocado, but we also do Iceland deliveries too. We don't have a car. When buying things, we aim for the best budget brands (e.g. M&S for DH's suits)

Love the idea, which is still on here, that big salary equals hard work. I've a mate who works in the futures market and he says most of it is a doss - it's just who you know...

I work for a charity and don't earn a massive amount of money compared to some on this thread, but the people I work with (people with learning disabilities) often work very early starts/long hours/weekends for not massive amounts of money...

sahknowme

This is what confuses me about this thread. If your pulling in 9k a month (could be more depending if its 1 or 2 people working) a mortgage of 2k is 22% of your salery, so it's not really all going on your mortgage.