To wonder where all these peoples spend there money?

[choiceofwords]

I have a household income of around 50k. We eat out regularly, nice and quiet neighbourhood, DC always in nice clothes, run a nice car, save a little.

I am quite a big spender and not great at watching what I spend so I don't feel comfortable because I'm careful with cash.

Yet people, multiple people on MN, often seem to start threads suggesting anything below much more than this is poor?

I really don't understand it.

I have friends on much less that still do nice things like go out and on holiday every year. Obviously the same won't be true for everyone on similar incomes but I just wondered where these 'anything less than 100k' tribes are coming from.

Some people waste a lot of money when they’re high earners.

We bring in just over 100k a year and save half of that. I have friends with a similar household income who have no savings or pensions. They prefer to spend their money on expensive monthly subscriptions, clothes, cars, wine etc.

That's way below private school and pony level.

Not private schools but I know lots of relatively stretched for cash/low earners who have horses. There are cheaper ways of keeping them (my own horse wasn't that costly given he was on DIY livery, discounter farrier that came to the local stables, basic diet etc). Couldn't keep him now as I'm far too busy with other social stuff and DC (still very young) but could if I wanted to financially

Can't understand these posts about money.. Is it just to brag about each others lifestyles? Wondering how other people spend there money is now something to discuss? It's not like you have a problem you want advice on

I’m a SAHM and DH is a very high earner. When I compare my current spending to when I was a single teacher saving for a deposit, everything we buy now is just nicer and more expensive. Eg Maldives vs cheap Turkey holidays, massive house vs a rented room, mixture of designer/very nice high street clothes vs shopping in Primark etc.
Even things like getting highlights done every few weeks vs colouring hair at home + a cheap haircut twice a year.
Things quickly add up. We live in London so the sky is the limit on how much you can spend on stuff (but we’re in a cheap part so that keeps us a bit more down to earth + restaurants and services are cheaper here).

It simply must be very area dependent.
We have a gross income of 49K, my DH is a SAHD and we have five children.
Due to circumstances such as no childcare, relatively small mortgage (£850 pm for five bed semi should be payed off in the next seven years as we choose to overpay) and the fact that I can walk to work so no need to use our eight year old car too much I feel quite well off.
We only eat out once a month and I do stick to a food budget. However, we have a lovely big house which is well furnished and always warm, one holiday per year, usually UK and costing about 4-5K for the seven of us and can afford everything the DC need.
Lots of people on MN would possibly consider us impoverished on my salary, in that case I don't feel poverty to be that bad all things considered

I agree with you. DH and I are both on £30K and people on here are always saying it’s a low wage. We feel perfectly comfortable though, we can easily pay our mortgage and bills and save plenty. And we’ve even been on exotic holidays the last few years shock horror. Tbh though I think we are lucky to be fairly content living quite simply. I don’t have expensive taste for anything - most of my wardrobe has come from eBay and I’m more than happy spending my Friday nights with a couple of cheap bottles of wine and a supermarket pizza either with friends or DH. Our car is small and cheap to run and we don’t covet anything flashier. We aren’t in London (in a nice coastal town in the south west) though so housing/travel doesn’t suck up quite as much of our income as it does for others. London seems so expensive!

@choiceofwords horses for courses, pun intended 😁

I'm the opposite of you and rather than wondering where people spend their money I wonder how people can afford things eg families on less than £50k running 2 luxury cars that would each cost more than a year's salary to buy so I can't imagine monthly payments are cheap either. Whereas on a much bigger income I still baulk at that expense and we have a modest car that we own outright. I see people trying to sell things for a couple of pounds on Facebook and wonder why they don't just have a cheaper car. How many things would you have to sell at £2 to fund car payments? I just don't get their financial set up at all, but thankfully it's not my concern 😉

Three dc,one no longer living at home so not financially dependent however we do hep with the odd thing.

Neither dc in private education and no childcare fees as flexible work hours for me although more than full time some weeks. Dh works many hours but between us before tax we bring in £55 k ish.

Low mortgage (under £500 per month)

Not always been this way. For around seven years we had one wage of under £25k and a family of five so no holidays or treats like coffee out etc and don't think we had a meal out on our own in them seven years.

Fast forward to now and we have one family holiday abroad a year,me and dh have two short uk breaks away together a year,we have the occasional night out and kids have good hobbies.

I've fed upgraded on laundry stuff and some food quality items etc etc but still like to be careful and eek things out longer.

I'm always looking for better utility deals or phone deals etc etc and run a tight ship where spends are concerned however although we both have pensions we don't have a decent savings pot as yet.

And we could pull in a lot of what we spend.
Some months I pull it in and others I don't.

We've gradually lowered birthday and xmas spends over the last couple of years mainly because I've spent the last couple of months having a mass clear out and selling a lot of old stuff so why buy more to fill it up again.

There were times of hardship and we never forget it so will always be frugal with some things

It's all relative and some are more easily pleased.

I recall a family at school: v posh mum, tons of clothes; v loud, posh dad, range rover, nice sw london house, dc dressed in the best, activities, 2/3 holidays. Talking about moving dc to prep.

I was behind her in Waitrose once. She had three or four cards declined and wasn't in the least surprised.

None of us know what's behind the facade.

Living in London it’s just so expensive!

OhTheRoses
Good point, there's an awful lot to recommend being easily pleased.

Both DH and I work part time as we have a pre school son and want to spend more time with him. Our current income is around £50k but will be closer to £70k when we both go full time. When we go back full time we will probably save the difference or overpay mortgage.

But honestly, we live well. We haven’t been many foreign holidays lately, but that’s not been our priority. We eat lunch out a lot, do lots of day trips and activities, have a 3 year old car (fully paid), so I don’t think we are in any sort or poverty

Food and holidays. I dread to think what we spend on food, when you factor lunches, snacks, meals out, the odd takeaway, we are incapable of budgeting, I've tried so many times. And we spend a disproportionate amount of our salaries on holidays, we spend more on holidays a year than we do on our mortgage. This has to change though as we really need to upsize.

I live in London and we earn about 55k between us, with three DC, older teens. I’m always shocked at the number of people who say you can’t survive in London on less than x amount. We are not poor at all. We have more than enough money. And no, we don’t have family buying holidays for us, and no, we don’t get any benefits. And yes, we are highly educated with top degrees, so no need for comments about getting a decent education to transform your life prospects. We aren’t going to earn any more than this at our age either. The mega-rich or merely rich just don’t realise they are rich. They think they are on average incomes.

But @daisypond what is your mortgage?

With no mortgage/rent and taking dc out of private school, we could manage on 50k in London. Our lifestyle would change dramatically, but we wouldn’t starve. To suggest you need 100k plus incomes to simply survive is bloody ludicrous.

ohtheroses I know someone just like that, they’ve just lost their house and entire fake life has come crashing down.

I manage on just under 13k a year my rent is 6,900 per year but I don't work so don't need to pay childcare my youngest has only just turned 3. I could only imagine having that kind of money. Hopefully when I finally get accepted for an interview I can work myself towards that kind of salary.

we were close mates with a family who were raising many children on total annual income (including benefits) about £15k. You have to get below £20k with dependents before I think "poor", tbh.

Our income actually is massively higher than £15k. One DC is draining us via school fees, plus I expect to put £48k towards her Uni education (after she gets all loans available). By the time we pay out about £80k, too, to other DC, we won't have much left.

morning our mortgage is now £500 a month. We have a two-bed place. One of our dc is at private secondary school, which we pay out of our salaries too. We have to pay the parental contribution to our DC at university too, which is high as well.

Child with borderline special needs - local school provisions is awful for him (its great for neurotypicsl kids, and kids with massive special needs, but nothing in place for the milder SENDs). so we pay for private school...

@daisypond so how much would it cost a younger couple earning 50k for your property now?

sorry 55k

Also do you not get any subsidy for private school as plenty do if your income is less than 80k?

We have a household income of around the same. Don't have high mortgage repayments, no childcare costs as I work from home. We are comfortable, eat out quite a bit, I spend far too much money on nothing, don't know where it goes. DP is the same.

My rent and basic bills (not food or anything) come to £2400. Nursery two days a week £710. That's well over £3k on basics. It depends where you live