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AIBU?

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Original poster

To consider £60-70k a high salary?

403 replies

rebsemmie · 05/04/2018 15:10

Just that really, I just had a general chat with a few friends about work and salaries (not talking about our own salaries, just chatting in general). We are all in our late 20s, unmarried and childfree, so we were not discussing in terms of household incomes, just in terms of single people's income.

Much to my surprise, some of my friends did not consider a salary in the range of £60-70k (for one single person) to be very high, they though it was "alright". One of them said you "come on, you can barely afford to rent a place on your own with that income!" Shock

I was a bit surprised as my salary is well over 30% lower than that, and I considered myself quite fortunate and well-off! Granted, we are in London which is very expensive, but still..

AIBU to think my friends are a bit detached from reality if they think a salary of £60-70k is just "alright" for one person??

OP posts:
swingofthings · 06/04/2018 08:20

A single figure means absolutely nothing, even forgetting about regional differences because people have totally different priorities.

My family income is higher (maybe even much higher) than any of my friends, yet our lifestyle is not obviously better. The big difference is that we are/have significantly investing(ed) in our future. We pay a lot into our pension and agreed to overpay our mortgage.

This means that in a few months, our mortgage will be paid. We have another property that doesn't yield much income at the moment, but hopefully will be repaid too by the time we retire. We hope to retire as early as possible whilst still being able to generate a reasonable income.

One of my friend lives in a gorgeous house, go on nice holidays, loves shopping etc..., however, she and her OH are both self-employed and don't have any pension. She says that their pension will be the equity build in the house which they will sell when they have too. She says that she sees herself still working on their businesses in their late 60s.

We are all different and use our money differently.

fruitcider · 06/04/2018 08:34

you only have one income of £70,000 and have a partner on about £18k and have to pay out for nursery, after school club and a mortgage, then there is not going to be as rich as you think you are - forget having two bmw cars or holidays to Maldives, unless you live in a less desirable or cheaper area in uk.

Ummm... I live in an expensive part of the south west, our joint salary is £50k, we've just bought a 2 bed house (£260k), have 2 BMW's and another work vehicle, have 1 kid in breakfast/after school club and have well in excess of £500 a month to save so unless you are wiping your bum with your money instead of banking it I'm not sure how you can think an income of nearly £90k a year is low. You can mortgage £400k on that income!

However still not managed the Maldives...

Againfaster · 06/04/2018 08:39

260k is about a third of what a 2 bed house would cost near me though. which is why it would be easier to afford the rest of those items.

MsAnnThropic · 06/04/2018 08:42

Well. It's more than DH an I earn between us. Both professionals with degree only vocations. YANBU!

3stonedown · 06/04/2018 08:43

To be fair we live in the south (not London) and me and DP earn that combined and it doesn't leave loads after bills so maybe your friends have a point

fruitcider · 06/04/2018 09:37

260k is about a third of what a 2 bed house would cost near me though. which is why it would be easier to afford the rest of those items.

Well I'm assuming you live within the M25 then?

Travelharder · 06/04/2018 10:57

I think the answer is nearly dependant on the interpretation of the question.

For me it is a very good salary (even in London), as in, it is not that easy to achieve (you can't just walk into a £70k job, you need the right experience, qualifications, sometimes a bit of luck). I earn more than this, but still don't see a £70k job as easily achievable, so I think of it as good salary. I have seen the payroll in my company and salaries over £70k are not the norm.

Is it also a pretty good salary as "a salary you can live on".
£70k is £4k a a month. You can find a 2 bed flat in zone 3 to rent for £1.2k, say £1k will cover council tax, food, travel and utilities, you are left with £1.8k to enjoy/save a deposit.

With a £70k salary and a £20k deposit you could get a £350k mortgage that would be enough for a 2 bed flat in zone 2, the mortgage would cost under £2k a month. £1k for bills and you are left with £1k.

If you were a couple on £140k, then I think you'd be in an excellent position but of course it depends on the luxuries (children being one of them in my books!)

DiegoMadonna · 06/04/2018 12:35

TravelHarder

But what people are saying is that it's not a good salary because you can't buy a HOUSE in a DESIRABLE area. Only the lowest of the low would live in a flat, and if you live in Ilford or Deptford or somewhere like that, you might as well just give up on life now

BarbaraofSevillle · 06/04/2018 13:15

And that desirable area must be in Zone 1. It is unthinkable hardship to have to live in Zone 5 or even worse, live somewhere that doesn't have a designated zone number at all.

I can't think how much distortion of the time space continum would be needed for the much coveted Zone 1 to accomodate everyone who insists that for life to be anything more than bearable they simply must live there.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:31

Who said they aspired to live in zone 1?

Why is it unreasonable for someone likely to be in their 30s/40s & potentially with children earning 60 or 70k to aspire to live in a house in a decent area (Streatham, Tooting, Herne Hill or West Norwood for example) with decent schools?

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:34

After all it was fine for previous generations to aspire to & achieve this on much less.

LaurieMarlow · 06/04/2018 13:36

Why is it unreasonable for someone likely to be in their 30s/40s & potentially with children earning 60 or 70k to aspire to live in a house in a decent area (Streatham, Tooting, Herne Hill or West Norwood for example) with decent schools?

Well exactly

LaurieMarlow · 06/04/2018 13:38

To live in a house in a decent area (Streatham, Tooting, Herne Hill or West Norwood for example)

It's not like any of those areas are exactly ritzy.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:41

Yep well Streatham was a bit back in the day, home to the first ever Waitrose don’t you know.

BarbaraofSevillle · 06/04/2018 13:42

Why is it unreasonable for someone likely to be in their 30s/40s & potentially with children earning 60 or 70k to aspire to live in a house in a decent area (Streatham, Tooting, Herne Hill or West Norwood for example) with decent schools

Is there enough housing available in these areas for everyone on £60k+ to be able to buy one, even if the prices were right for their earnings?

London is beyond full, hence the ridiculously high prices. And yet people still feel hard done by if they can't afford to live there. Ridiculous.

As a country, we need to spread the demand around the country. Stop cramming all the jobs and opportunities into one tiny overcrowded area of the country.

It is no more possible for everyone who wants to live in Tooting to be able to live there than it is for everyone to be able to holiday in the Mediterranean in the first two weeks in August for £300 pp.

DiegoMadonna · 06/04/2018 13:43

Why is it unreasonable for someone likely to be in their 30s/40s & potentially with children earning 60 or 70k to aspire to live in a house in a decent area (Streatham, Tooting, Herne Hill or West Norwood for example) with decent schools?

There's a difference between aspiring to live in the perfect house and area (you can aspire to live wherever you want, nothing to do with me!) and claiming that 70k is a low wage just because it doesn't allow you to live in said perfect area. That's my point.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:45

London is beyond full, hence the ridiculously high prices. And yet people still feel hard done by if they can't afford to live there. Ridiculous. It might be full, I don’t know but should all young people just leave London & I have mentioned a number of times of this thread where should nurses, bus drivers, teachers, police etc live?

I agree demand does need to be spread around the country.

BarbaraofSevillle · 06/04/2018 13:49

Demand should be spread around the country.

Nurses, teachers, police, bus drivers etc in high cost areas should be at the front of the queue for social housing.

I don't know what to do with born and bred young people who grow up in London and want to continue to live there, but if we stopped treating London as the centre of the universe, maybe some of them would be quite happy to live elsewhere and there would also be more room for the ones that wanted to stay.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:49

claiming that 70k is a low wage just because it doesn't allow you to live in said perfect area

I’ve never said it was a low wage, I said it’s a good wage. Unfortunately in these day & age it doesn’t go far in areas that pay that wage.

My aspirations are different from my dreams which would be a semi detached with off street parking in say Wimbledon. Not going to happen though which is fine.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:51

Im born & bred & luckily my parents owned their home so this in turn has helped me. Plenty of my friends families didn’t & they have had to leave which isn’t great when you have kids or a parent becomes ill.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:53

Nurses, teachers, police, bus drivers etc in high cost areas should be at the front of the queue for social housing

That would be great but unlikely to happen I should think.

LaurieMarlow · 06/04/2018 13:55

just because it doesn't allow you to live in said perfect area

None of these areas are what most people would describe as 'perfect'. If you're from anywhere other than London you'd be mightily unimpressed by them.

What they have going for them is 1) not horrifically far out 2) reasonably family friendly houses (though small, old, shabby by most of the country's standards) 3) OK amenities.

That's it. It's not like people are whinging about not affording a town house in Chelsea.

bbpp · 06/04/2018 13:55

Anyone else reckon there should be different corporation tax depending on area?
Ours is ridiculously low anyway compared to most countries, inc. US of A. (20% (!!) compared to France's 34%, or America's 39%)

Maybe if we bumped it up for the big corporations both the NHS & schools would be doing better. And if it was different by location, so 35% in Newcastle but 55% in London (same as UAE), you might see stuff shared out more fairly around the U.K., reducing pressure on the South East.

puppower · 06/04/2018 13:56

We need more tax to fund the nhs, social care, education etc. Therefore we need aspiration.

BarbaraofSevillle · 06/04/2018 14:04

Different corporation tax rates would be great but presumably big companies would do the same as what they do now where they would do some financial jiggery pokery to claim that somehow all their profits are generated in a low tax area, just like Amazon, Starbucks etc do now.

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