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.

@Drogosnextwife not to be nosey but what do you do working from home?

I remember when my sister listed her outgoings whilst we tried to work out if it would be worth going for a promotion. She regularly complained about being skint.

I was really surprised to see how her can’t-do-without items added up to a decent chunk out of her income.

She bought a pack of cigarettes each day and sometimes more if her partner needed some, that came to over £100 per week.

She and her partner enjoyed several cans of coke per day too and weekends involved mandatory takeaways and crates of beer. This came to around another £100 per week.

So her ‘basic’ outgoings were the equivalent of my mortgage payments and it made sense why she was always struggling. I’d have never known had she not listed it though.

No, we don’t get any subsidy for private school. We pay full fees, no bursary or scholarship. Our three children have always shared a bedroom. No idea what a younger couple would have to fork out on a mortgage. Why would I know that? We don’t have a car, we don’t have foreign holidays, we’ve never stepped foot in a Waitrose. Our position is the same as many of our friends. Some earn more than us, but many earn less. We pay towards the higher end of parental contribution for university, compared to DC’s friends, so the student loan company doesn’t think we’re badly off at all.

Mortgage, utilities, train season tickets & childcare come to £4k per month. We have to earn around £70k pre tax just to pay for that.

Then we save probably £1-1.5k a month (So another £15-20k income pre tax pa).

We own two cars paid for outright & spend probably £100pm on petrol & car costs. Another £1.5k pre tax pa.

Supermarket food shopping is c £300 pm. Another £4k pre tax pa.

That's not far off £100k and I've probably underestimated the tax. And that is not including holidays, clothes, treats like takeaways or meals out, stuff for the 2 DC, socialising, days out.

I think spending even a tiny amount of time thinking about how other people spend their money is odd tbh.

The only time you should look in someone else's bowl, is to check they have enough.

Not to judge them.

@daisypond you yourself said you had more than enough money & are not poor at all however you are paying £500 a month mortgage. I'd wager that plenty of younger families would be paying a lot more than that for their housing costs & that's why people often have different disposable incomes. I mean it's not rocket science that my younger neighbour who earns 90k but pays 3.5 times the rent that my mortgage is has less disposable income than I do even though I earn significantly less.

Morningdread
You've got it. Everyone I know here in South East commuter belt has a mortgage of about 500k (So at least a couple of grand a month), then at least 1 child in childcare so £800 a month, and a couple of travel season tickets, another £4-500 a month. I know absolutely no one under 45 living comfortably on household income under 80k.

@daisypond you can survive on so little in London because you’re mortgage is so low. So you have property wealth. Good for you but not everyone has that

Having grown up in the South East I made a deliberate decision to live in Glasgow after graduation as I knew I would have far more disposeable income after bills and subsequently enjoy a better standard of living.

The money that I could have spent on a pitiful studio flat in Reading instead went to a stunning 3 bed bed flat in Glasgow with beautiful corniced ceilings (same price).

That was the best decision I made in terms of anticipating life expenses and enjoying excellent standard of living, but then I have gone into a a career that earns broadly the same throughout the UK, so there was no particular advantages to staying close to London for eg.

Our household income is between £60-65k, in Wales, and we aren’t flush. Certainly not when I compare our lifestyles to my friends locally who usually have at least a skiing and 2 week decent summer holiday each year, as well as running two new cars. They aren’t in debt but I think their mortgages are lower than ours - although that would only account for a few hundred a month.

I have no idea where our money goes, the kids are expensive to fund (increasingly so) but we live month to month. I feel poorer now than when we took home about £20k less 😐

I think a lot of people are so used to a certain lifestyle they start to see the “nice to haves” as necessities. IME that’s especially true for those brought up in well off households. They’ve never known anything else so it’s just the norm and not something to particularly appreciate.

Our net household income is equivalent to @ £125k. Please bear with me, it’s not a stealth boast! Both DH and I grew up in working class, “disadvantaged” areas. We’re very comfortable now but that wasn’t our experience for the first 30 odd years of our lives so to us it’s perfectly normal to do 50% of our shopping in Aldi, to buy mostly high street and supermarket clothes. When we eat out it’s mostly in fairly inexpensive restaurants, a bottle of wine from the supermarket is fine and the staff at the local hair salon are perfectly capable of trimming my hair. We didn’t jump from having very little to “must have the absolute best of everything” and we know how good we have it.

On the other hand I know people who have always been well off and they expect to live a certain lifestyle. There’s one particular couple I know who are easily earning 250k between them but they don’t feel well off because they simply must live in one of the most expensive parts of Dublin, her highlights can only be done by a particular lady @ over €300 a time, they’ll pay over €100 for a winter coat for a 3 year old who’s being ferried to and from the CM by car (only Beemers of course ), have I suspect never set foot in Aldi, only go to the type of restaurant that has a tasting menu starting @ €100 per person and despite living in one of the swankiest parts of Dublin (so good schools, trust me) have decided the local school won’t do and they must put dd in private !

They’re always stressed, under pressure and complaining about how expensive everything is yet they’re so focused on living a particular lifestyle (or at least giving her snobby parents that impression) that they seem incapable of reevaluating. There are other options, they could both stay in their chosen fields but do jobs that pay a bit less and allow them a work life balance while still being very, very comfortable but they choose not to.

So yeah, I can see why people get pissed off when posters suggest household incomes like mine are just enough to get by. Money buys you choices, you don’t actually have to keep increasing your financial commitments to match your income.

All the younger people I know, at my work, in London, say, have nowhere near a combined income of 80k. Even people my age, I know no one with that sort of salary between them in London. My work colleagues earn around 25-28k, perhaps a little more. They are in their 30s, with degrees from top universities. The highest paid will be teachers. People tend to rent, and live in house shares or own one bed flats with their OH and children. I’m aware that house prices have gone up, so of course I couldn’t afford my two bed if buying now. That’s the same for all of us. But I also have school fees and university costs to pay for, so I might guess it might offset to some extent. It’s not normal in my world to own a house with bedrooms each per child and multiple bathrooms, or own a car. Don’t know anyone like that. A friend of mine has retrained in his 30s and he is very glad to have found a job paying 23- in London, but it comes with a great pension so he’s very happy.

It’s not about how much you earn, but what you do with it.
Dh is an accountant and is shocked by how many of his well heeled clients spend on items which are not necessities.
Some of these people are taking home 6- 8k a month but are overdrawn because they drink, smoke, eat out daily and constantly buy designer clothing.
Too much money is spent on keeping up appearances.

Btw-Foreign travel can be quite cheap and in fact most of my foreign holidays have been cheaper than the holidays I have taken in the UK

Another friend of mine, single and in her 50s, (Oxford degree) bought her first flat a couple of years ago-in London zone four under a keyworker scheme. At that time she earned 27k, but last year she took another job that only paid 23k. She took this new job because she was worried about redundancy with her previous job, which also had a brutal shift pattern. We sat together and carefully worked out if it was manageable for her, which it was.

Daisypond I am actually a bit mystified as to how you do it I must admit. Private secondary school presumably doesn't give you much change from 20 grand then you say you have high contributions to university, plus 6 grand in mortgage. Add in council tax and bills and food and clothes, with three teenagers, and well...I couldn't make that add up!

We just reviewed our spending as I was struggling to understand where all our money goes and realised we are spending £6k a year just on kids activities ( drama, gymnastics, tennis and additional tutoring etc. ) We were quite shocked when we added it all up. Going to cut it down a bit from now on.

I dont know how daisypond does it either.

Mortgage 500
School fees 1500
Uni maintenance 400
Council tax and utilities 350
Insurances 50
Phones, broadband, etc 50
Food 500

That's 3350 not accounting for birthdays, cars, christmas, emergencies, clothes, haircuts, holidays, etc and I'd say those figures are conservative.

@duckyandbunny

Childminding. It can be unpredictable but right now I'm bringing in a good income. DP also works 2 jobs.

Good god!! Some of you seem to put yourselves under a hell of a lot of financial pressure to live up to perceived norms/expectations. We don’t even have a tv , we live rurally, we grow our own veg etc and have chickens. Our car is 12 years old, our dc go to the nearest village school (there is NO private primary school in our city! I don’t get this social standard competition. Who gives a shit!? As long as you are happy, fed, warm and healthy the rest is all nonsense!!

Dh is. On 26k for. His work. This is fairly good. ( helps his employer is amazing with time off. No sickness policies to Worry about. If he wants time for a trim he goes during work. They all do)
I'm currently not working so less income. But we get some top up and I get cm for ds etc
But our rent alone is 1k.pm.
2 cars.. Can't live with 1 due to our lives.
So 2 x insurance etc.

After basic bills we have 500pcm for. Food and fuel etc, unless we've used card then pay that off.

When I return to work and the childcare and travel etc is taken out our joint left over will be 550! So 50 for being out the house 3 days.

A young couple on 55k combined in London now, would probably get a 2-bed flat in outer London and have a monthly mortgage payment of £750-800. So not that much worse off than daisypond

It’s the sundries that add up. I cut my DC hair myself and always have done. I’ve never go to the hairdresser either. We never buy any new clothes. We never “go shopping”. We don’t do Christmas presents as such, or birthdays, even in the entire wider family, and have never done so. We do token gifts only. We spend tops 50 quid a week on food, less if DC are away. We don’t have a TV or smartphones. We don’t have a car. Teenagers have jobs. They bought their own laptops. We’re in a low council tax area and are in a two-bed. Our bills are small. No need to even put the heating on yet. My teenager will swap schools for comprehensive school sixth form after GCSEs soon and that will make things easier. One child did an expensive hobby but had a full talent scholarship so no need to pay for the hobby. We have worked to cut costs where possible, as soon in the future our income will be much reduced and we are going to have to manage.

Would you like to move to Geneva?
Nursery: £2750 per month per child. I have two kids so that’s £5500
Rent: £4600 per month for a 3-bed apartment
Health insurance for family: £1500 per month
So that’s £11600 before you buy a single bit of food or clothing or petrol, or pay any utility bills.

@GenevaMaybe how do people manage? Is there a lot of poverty or are wages high and government subsidies? (Genuinely curious!)

Daisypond I take my hat off to you but I couldn't do it. Well I suppose I could but I wouldn't want to and I think I'm quite cautious with money. If you have teenagers, how can you never buy clothes? DD needed a new coat for uni and a few other bits. Would you just not buy for her? And glasses and dentist.