£85k per year

[pondfresh]

In the course of a conversation with my cousin, she disclosed that she earns £85k per year but said she does not consider herself especially well off. She lives in the south east but not London, has young dc. She said she has no problem paying bills etc and they have a family holiday each year but she does not consider that they are wealthy. He earns less than this as he is a teacher. AIBU to wonder how well off someone is actually is on £85k and what would be classed as wealthy.

In my opinion, it sounds like she's come to expect this to be the 'norm' and it really isn't.

Perhaps she doesn't feel well off because they live to their means, and maybe don't have a lot of disposable cash after bills?

Does she have any assets or is everything she has rented or on finance? To me, I would feel a little less wealthy if this was the case. (Nothing wrong with this, but I mean less security)

Either way, the average salary for a UK women is around £25k per year... so I would say she's doing more okay!

500K-1M per year to be wealthy, with about another 2M worth of assets.

I would advise to forget about comparisons or deciding who is wealthy. It is a rabbit hole.

They could have debts, high childcare costs, cars on HP, supporting elderly parents and cc debts. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

I am sorry OP, I never worry about what anyone else has or earns. Leave it.

85k is wealthy even by Central London standards, but my guess is she’s a contractor and so has to either commute long hours or work flat out to keep her contract. Contractors earn a lot, even in professional jobs, but don’t often get much in the way of job security.

Thing is you become used to a certain amount of income, the more it goes up the more you adjust your lifestyle. Not saying she isn’t doing well, nor is she mega wealthy. Yes she’s a hell of a lot better off than most people but it’s all relevant isn’t it?

85k is wealthy even by Central London standards

No it is not.

That's not wealthy. It's comfortable certainly, but not wealthy.

Depends entirely on their mortgage/rent other bills doesn't it?

I am in SE and a standard 3 bed semi in my area would cost around £650k. After pension contributions/tax/NI, £85k is about £4,500 a month. A £600k mortgage would have repayments of around £3,700, leaving £800 for other bills plus the husbands net income.

Comfortable, yes, but wealthy? No.

Not wealthy - very comfortable but not super wealthy

You live to your means. I have found that I feel no wealthier on 70k than I did on 30k. In reality my spending habits have just changed

@Rosehip yeah and your taxes hiked up.

Of course you're not wealthy on 85k a year. Quite well off, yes. But you still wouldn't be able to, say, go on luxury holidays all the time or fly first class everywhere. You just don't have to worry about money and can save a decent amount, which is great, but doesn't put one in the wealthy category.

What does she do? ( I want to take notes)

Goodness, I live in central London and earn about £34K. I don't consider myself to be wealthy but on £85K I would.

They could have debts, high childcare costs, cars on HP, supporting elderly parents and cc debts. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors

This. We shouldn't really care. It's not our place to judge.

A lot of deluded people on this thread. The average salary in London is circa 37k. 84k is more than double this. Go to the link below and regain your perspective.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43729508

Mom point in comparison. There’s a saying by Buddha that health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Wealth is about having money for luxuries when the essentials are paid for. It will vary from person to person. A moderate earner living amongst the very wealthy on the Wentworth estate will feel poor. The same person living in Malawi might feel much wealthier than most.

That's about what my brother gets for his annual bonus but it's also double my husband's salary (and I think that is a good salary) so it's all relative but it's definitely a very good wage.

It’s certainly well-off, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it wealthy - as a PP says, it depends on their outgoings. Childcare costs, travel costs, mortgage costs, etc.

My DH earns that in Scotland and I earn about half of that. We are not wealthy we sometimes have no money at the end of the month. We are comfortable and have holidays and two cars and a dog one DC.

I would imagine someone in London would feel even less comfortable than us.

50% of Londoners earn less than £26,000 a year
50% of all UK households earn less than £25,000 a year

Anybody on £85,000 a year is in the top 10% of incomes
the fact that they choose to have high expenditure does not take away from the fact that they have a LOT more money coming into their home than 90% of the country
including the vast majority of Londoners.

I was in London at the weekend and my thoughts turned to mn. As we were served in the restaurant, by the staff in the shops etc, if you believe mnetters then everyone in London earns 6 figure salaries and the poor are on £85k. Unless McDonald's, TGI Fridays and all the shops pay high salaries them I'm calling bs! £85k earners are wealthy. Just because they may not spend it wisely doesn't mean they're not wealthy it just means they have poor financial judgement.

Why are so many of you so concerned with what others earn 🤷🏼‍♀️

Wealthy to me is someone with a high net worth. I don’t know what the standard definition is of “wealthy”, but to me it calls to mind multiple homes, race horses, yachts and the like.

Rich and well-off seem more open to interpretation.

For me ‘wealthy’ implies some sort of assets or inherited wealth - my former boss who sold his central London property inherited form his father for 5million is wealthy! 85k is definitely ‘well off’ though. However, does she have savings? If she’s spending everything she earns then it doesn’t matter how much she earns cos that will never turn into wealth iyswim