To wonder what a ‘good wage’ is?

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Not really an AIBU but something I’ve been pondering on, and posting here for traffic and opinions.

I often see people mentioning that someone earns ‘a good wage’ or indeed a high wage, but what that means in practice is clearly dependent on many factors, not least the area someone lives in but also their dependents.

I work in an industry where I talk to people on very high wages all the time about their jobs, which I think skews my view of what’s normal. I was involved in a discussion in another forum recently where it was mentioned the average salary at the moment is £27,000. Of course this is a mean average, skewed by a few very high salaries, and most people are below that. But many people were commenting that they didn’t know anyone who earned that much and had never earned anywhere near that themselves.

I’ve also been fascinated by this calculator from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that shows where households fall in the stratification of the country www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/
I think a lot of people would be surprised by it. When DP and I each earned the average salary (no kids) we were still in the top 25/30% ish of households which seems mad, and we live in an expensive area.

I’m wondering - what do you think a ‘good wage’ is, and at one point does something become a high wage?

I'd say a good wage outside London was around £50k and over. In London around £150k judging by the posts on MN about not affording even to buy a house or even rent.

Anything over 30k

Ah great, I'm currently in the bottom 1% according to that link

If I complete it for my previous wage when I worked FT in what most people said was a 'decent' job, I earned higher than 46% of the country (£30k). That is a pretty high wage for people where I live unless they commute a long way, as there's few career type jobs or major employers here.

If a friend told me they earned a decent wage, I'd guess how much they made dependent on where they lived and how far the money had to go, really. Someone in London with two kids and their own home, I'd be thinking 60k+ for a couple . Someone in Morecambe with their own 3 bed semi and two kids, I'd be thinking more like 40k between them.

It's all relative. When we were SW London in a house twice as expensive as our Surrey one we felt pretty ordinary. Out here, not so, and our house is worth half as much as before.

I'm in the SE & would LOVE to earn 27k! I'm on a LOT lower than that. However, most of my friends are on same as me, or NMW. The only person I know who earns 60+ is the husband of one of my colleagues.
So bearing that in mind, I would deem anything 25k plus to be a high earner, even though I'm in the SE. I can't imagine being able to afford rent for a 1 bed flat, and am hoping a house I can afford that's right will appear for me this year.

Of course you are loaded compared to the rest of the UK .

We are just saddled with incredibly high outgoing. Technically I’m rich too but I don’t feel it because of the cost of my lifestyle and living in London

ChickenVindaloo2 are you sure? Did you put in after tax income? I’ve done that calculator multiple times and that doesn’t sound right to me

£2500 a month mortgage, £1200 school fees, going out, bills, sports clubs, car payments, life insurance, household bills, investments, food, petrol, clothes, Sky, takeaways, red wine.

We are probably in the top 5% both in good jobs but we don’t really feel rich just outside London. It always gets spent.

I think anything over £30,000 is a very good salary (take home 2k pm after taxes etc)
Again location makes a difference, 30k doesn’t go nearly as far in central London as it does elsewhere.

My salary is £13,500, I work 28hrs per week. I am 34 in the SE, single mum with two kids. Right at the bottom of the barrel it seems.

To be honest, I consider a good wage to be any wage that means you can:

Pay your bills on payday
Afford the food shopping
Still have money left for extras, like a couple of nights out/meals out/activity days and whatnot - say £200 a month.

That obviously means the actual salary would vary around the country, but that is what I would define as a "good wage"

MrsP That number doesn't include housing costs.

All measures of household income for the UK given in this article are calculated without taking into account housing costs. The measures have been deflated to FYE 2017 prices using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH), excluding Council Tax, to give a better comparison of households’ standards of living. These deflated measures are referred to as “real” in this publication. This contrasts with “nominal” measures, which have not been deflated.

So £27k a year not including housing benefit is extremely misleading when you are talking about income. DH and I are top1% and even we watch our housing costs because they can easily sink us. A household making £80k a year is expected to fully pay for their housing whereas someone making £40k isn't. Nothing wrong with that but you have to add back the housing benefit to make it a fair comparison.

If you live in certain parts of London, it may well be that the "basic" income is at least £100k with many on much more due to bonuses, investments or other enterprises. Many people live in areas where private education is more common than not and houses cost 2 million upwards. A one bed flat with no outside space will be at least £500k. A garage is £80k. So you can see where the money goes.

But it’s all choices - you choice to pay for private school despite paying for schools out of your tax etc .

In London, I'm not sure private education is necessarily a choice. If families can't stretch to it they very often move out. It isn't the same as elsewhere.

*£2500 a month mortgage, Luxury

£1200 school fees, Luxury

going out, Luxury

bills, do they get paid without a worry, or do you cross your fingers every time a direct debit is due
sports clubs, Luxury

car payments, Luxury

life insurance,

household bills,

investments, Luxury

food, petrol, i bet you aren't spending £60 a week on groceries in Aldi and having to think befor you fill the car up

clothes, where from? supermarkets and charity shops or John Lewis and Karen Millen?

Sky, Luxury

takeaways, Luxury

red wine. Luxury

Just because you spend all your money on things many people couldn't dream of affording doesn't mean that you 'aren't rich'

We're in the North East and have a household income of about £84,000. We are certainly not rich. We have a large mortgage, the running costs of our home are higher than average (listed property) and we have 1 DD and 1 on the way. Although our bills etc are paid each month, we don't have a massive disposable income. My DH and I have discussed this afew times and think we'd need about £7000 a month net income to live really comfortably - our net is just over £5000pm currently.

You have chosen to have a large mortgage presumably though. It would have been possible to buy a house in the NE large enough for a couple with two children without particularly stretching yourselves if your income is £84k.
Often the reason some people think they 'need' a high income is because of choices they have made and the lifestyle they want to maintain, which is fine if that's what they want, but they should acknowledge that rather than wonder why they don't feel well off.

Want you are a little out of date. The benefits cap has come in and those numbers do include housing benefit.

Most people in this country are quite poor. People who earn £80k plus and complain they are poor, need the Daily Mail to harangue them for not managing their money properly.

Hahaha @ people listing school fees and investments saying they "aren't rich."

Some people really need to broaden their social circles.

@Jozxyqk I agree with you to not owe anything to anyone is something to be proud of now, this is the mentality that my grandparents always lived by.

They never got anything if they couldn't afford to buy it outright. Anything they did buy was well looked after & used until it gave up the ghost. Never had any debt, never had holidays abroad or anything like that. My grandad worked all his life but only ever in manual roles (labourer etc.) my gran was a housewife.

My parents & now DH & I have always worked & had good wages, but also had mortgages, car finance, credit cards and do you know what over the years GP's have bailed us all out on numerous occasions.

WTR to the original post, I think you spend to your means, DH has a good salary for our area (North East), I don't do a lot of hours but have a high hourly rate. Before having children when we both worked full time we earned around £60k each & still didn't have a pot to piss in. If we had an annual income of £1million we'd manage to spend 1.1

We are on about 45/50k between us with two teens. retiring in 5 years and just worked out we should have about 35K then and hopefully no mortgage. So long as the teens are earning we should be alright!!

It's a choice to live in an extremely expensive area. No one is stopping you from living in a cheaper area and commuting or seeking work locally.

Or do all of you with 'big jobs' have no transferable skills that would allow you do do something else instead?

A household making £80k a year is expected to fully pay for their housing whereas someone making £40k isn't

Well I earn £40k and no-one has ever helped me towards my housing costs.

riled If only it was all choices. We have two DC with high functioning autism. If we lived in the Uk we would send our elder two DC to a private school because the state schools do not do nearly enough to help my DC succeed. We looked at moving back and decided against it because the LEA were very clear that no help would be given until the DC were failing in their setting. Quite frankly that is wholly unacceptable and while I continue to fight the system I would not subject my disabled child to what I consider an abusive environment. Going to a private school would cost us upward of £30k a year after taxes. If living in the UK its cheaper to pay the fees than move to a better area with a more supportive LEA (if that even exists!). We live abroad and decided to remain abroad because quality of education here is far above what is available in the Uk.

I wouldn’t say we lead a luxury lifestyle. We enjoy an ok lifestyle but don’t throw money around. Going out watching sky tv over a takeaway and a bottle of red is not exactly the highlife. We have a large mortgage on a modest house. I just completed the survey.

Your income is so high that you lie beyond the far right hand side of the chart.

We drive a Vw Passat and a four year old Astra son goes to private school as the schools are poor in our area.

Apparently we’re in top 4%. Although I know we’re technically well off we live in a small 3 bed with a large mortgage and aren’t rolling in money! That’s London for you