..to struggle to comprehend huge salaries?

[missbunnyrabbit]

I was reading the thread about how much people earn having been to grammar/private schools and I just cannot get my head around how much lots of people earn. My head just cannot imagine such huge salaries. People earning over 100k, what on earth do they even do with that money? Do they buy everything gold-plated? That's a joke BUT I have no idea what anyone does with that sort of money or what it could be needed for. This isn't a bashing thread or anything like that. I'm just a bit stunned.

Does anyone else's brain struggle to imagine such huge amounts of money?

When I was a paralegal on a very low salary I remember seeing lawyer jobs advertised for 50k which seemed an incomprehensible amount of money. A grand a week! But as others have said a lot goes in tax. A lot of higher paying jobs are in expensive areas so a lot goes on mortgage/rent. And then you save save save because you are aware it could all disappear tomorrow.

Now we are higher earners a lot of our money goes on the house, school fees and a nanny. A nanny costs a minimum of £30k a year, paid out of taxed salary. We spent well over 100k on childcare before our daughter started school.

As others have said, the best thing about having some money is the comfort that if the boiler breaks or you need expensive dental work or whatever you can just deal with it. We don't live particularly extravagantly. We have a nice car that was bought second hand. We buy our clothes in the high street but tend to avoid fast fashion. We both have phones that are 3+ years old. Our biggest extravagance before corona was holidays. We get lots of pleasure from foreign travel and so spend on that.

100K is not a high salary particularly if it is meant to support a whole family. And to those who doubt that you work harder or need a higher level of skill to earn high salaries obviously have no clues at all

@Subbaxeo

Love these people saying they’re not rich! Of course they’re rich! They’re in the top 1% of global income. How can you not be rich when 99% of the world’s population is poorer than you? What you mean is your friends earn the same and you want a certain lifestyle-but please don’t pretend you don’t have wealth. Our household income isn’t anywhere near that but I still feel well off.

Nearly every adult in the UK is in the top 1% of global income, so it is not a good comparison. In India you can pay for housing and food for around £200 pcm, so an income of £3,000 pa whilst low by UK standards is actually quite well off in India. Comparisons have to be made based on the cost of living as well as earnings.

*I don't think it's about feelings tbh. Everyone on this thread is "richer" than the poorest in other parts of the world but that doesn't mean

Its all relative but while on MN loads of people earn 100k + and don't feel its enough to live on London, in RL earning 100k in the UK puts you in the top 7% (iirc) so it's not unreasonable for some of the other 93% of people to consider that rich.

A lot of people are listing their outgoings to "prove" that 100k salary isn't a lot. But (outside MN) the vast majority of people actually dont earn that much and still have to pay for
Housing (rent/mortgage)
Childcare
Commuting costs
Transport (whether that's bus or train fares or a car)
Bills
Food

I think it depends on your outgoings too though. We are very lucky to have no mortgage and earn a household income 110ish
So with no mortgage, car payments etc and very little childcare we have a lot of disposable
I can't understand why ppl increase their outgoings when their income increases. We have always aimed to increase income and decrease outgoings. It makes for a much less stressful life and less to lose as such...

[quote Peaseblossum22]@CSJobseeker in the UK the marginal effective rate of tax on higher earners can be 60%. You lose the personal allowance. The higher rate boundary also falls in line with the personal allowance, also don't forget NIC.[/quote]
Yourt marginal rate is not your overall tax rate. If you're in the UK, you were talking absolute shite when you claimed that you are paying over 50% in tax overall.

Talk about first world problems!! Get a grip, you only had to watch the news last night to see what poor really is- people in Madagascar starving because of climate change induced drought and having to sell their cattle to buy food.
Yes I know I sound like your mum saying "you don't know how lucky you are, people are starving in Africa"....blah, blah, blah So no I don't see how you can be skint with a salary of £100k you need to change your ways

I don't earn anywhere near £100k but a friend of mine does. They live just outside london. Based on fag packet maths she must come out with £5.5k a month. Her husband also works and has similar salary but just on a brief convo she has:

£3200 a month nursery
£2000 mortgage.
£2500 council tax a year
£200 after school clubs for older kids
Then food, bills, fuel etc

Her disposable income at the end of the month is probably less than mine!

@DillonPanthersTexas

CSJobseeker

Well said. People talking about pony's, high end cars, school fees, gardner's and £8k+ holidays as if they are essentials. It's quite laughable really. I am on a decent salary myself but the idea of spending (or expensive hire purchase) an 80 grand car or spending huge sums on holidays makes me wince.

This post sums it up perfectly.

In my view ‘huge’ is more than 400K household income.

It is not hard. I started full time in 1983 as a trainee solicitor in London on £6250 a year (about £20k in today's money and those jobs today earn about £35k to £40k a year by the way so that is one career where wages in real terms have doubled over that period.....)

As your income grows you spend more. Eg we could not afford things like hair conditioner or orange juice only squash. I did not buy deodorant. 50% of our net salaries went out in full time childcare for the 2 week only baby (yes 2 weeks not 2 months).

Also as you earn more tax gets much higher eg I bet some people on here don't even know you get no single person tax allowance at all over a certain level. You also don't get child benefit. No one is going to cry for higher earners but it does have an impact on the salary. Eg to earn £100k when a year or 2 qualified at a City law firm you probably need to live near the office so might have £2k a month rent. £100k after tax is £5557 a month but there is the extra 9% graduate tax for some on earnings over £26k or so.

So let us ask how does anyone spent £5557 a month? First about half might be your rent. Cost of childcare in a good inner London full time nursery (and remember the parents may be working 9am to 11pm every single night and every other weekend so need additional childcare too)... is about £24k a year per baby and the state pays about £2k a year of that.
So rent £2k, childcare £2k x 2 (divided by 2 as shared with a husband) that is still £3000 a month of the £5k just on rent and childcare. that leaves you about £2500 a month left for bills, food, holidays etc etc

As you earn more at one point my mortgage was £90k a year interest only (£1.3m mortgage). I also paid five sets of school fees. Even just now I worked out the other day I will have paid about £230k since the twins went to university in paying their university fees and then 2 years of law school fees and allowance each. (I have no savings and own a mortgaged house and am in my 50s. When I am 67 I will get the state pension but have no other pension. I will work until I died. I have helped all 5 children buy a first property. That is where it all goes. My council tax is about £5000 a year. My heating and electricity is over £5k a year.

Despite all that I am actually relatively careful with money. I always buy a second hand car outright for cash. I do my own cleaning and gardening these days.. I haven't had a night away from home since 2019.

@Crabapple04

Talk about first world problems!! Get a grip, you only had to watch the news last night to see what poor really is- people in Madagascar starving because of climate change induced drought and having to sell their cattle to buy food. Yes I know I sound like your mum saying "you don't know how lucky you are, people are starving in Africa"....blah, blah, blah So no I don't see how you can be skint with a salary of £100k you need to change your ways

Nobody earning >100K has said that they’re skint. Nobody.

The OP has accused us of living in unimaginable luxury, and we’re all explaining why it’s not like that.

I earn £60-80k, fixed bills about £1600/month + food. DW had a low paid (£6k) but stressful/satisfying PT job that enables my job which has irregular shifts and travel.
I work with people on comfortably over £100k and can't believe how much they worry about money. I'm considering going PT in a year or two. I've no interest in paying more and more tax, spending more time with work colleagues and planning my retirement when I could be spending time with my family.
A lot of high earners always compare themselves to millionaires to justify their spending/moaning/expectations.

@fuckyourpronouns

I don't earn anywhere near £100k but a friend of mine does. They live just outside london. Based on fag packet maths she must come out with £5.5k a month. Her husband also works and has similar salary but just on a brief convo she has:

£3200 a month nursery
£2000 mortgage.
£2500 council tax a year
£200 after school clubs for older kids
Then food, bills, fuel etc

Her disposable income at the end of the month is probably less than mine!

You say she has around 5.5K after tax. You then say her husband is on a similar amount so also 5.5K after tax.

Net household income of 11k

Laughable when compared to NMW and so out of touch. People make choices how to spend and if the choices make them poorer (school fees and ponies) then comparing with people unable to make those choices is ridiculous and frankly insulting.

^ A lot of people are listing their outgoings to "prove" that 100k salary isn't a lot. But (outside MN) the vast majority of people actually dont earn that much and still have to pay for
Housing (rent/mortgage)
Childcare
Commuting costs
Transport (whether that's bus or train fares or a car)
Bills
Food^

Yes, but they’re probably not paying as much tax, NI and student loan. As an earlier poster pointed out, when you go into the higher tax brackets, the extra deductions can mean that your take home pay doesn’t actually increase that much. Add on things like more expensive housing due to needing to live in certain areas for work and childcare to cover long flexible hours and it can end up that you don’t actually have that much disposable income even with a high salary.

It depends on your age as well. Obviously someone in their 50s could be earning a lot more than another in their 20s. Dh was earning £6k when he started work. I was earning a far more princely £7.5 !!!

@antsinyourpanta but the house prices are very different. In london, my 2 bed flat cost 400k (£1k mortgage). for my MD who commutes from Buckinghamshire (cheaper house), his commute would cost him £510 per month and even on flexi season tickets, his day ticket is like £50. Quite standard for people who live outside London and commute even if they have cheaper house prices. So if you work in London, your expenses would be higher even if you earn more.

I posted earlier about how the GRP (total value of goods and services) of inner west london is similar to Monaco but some of the poorest area in the UK in the north east like country durham has a lower average income than Bulgaria. So its like different countries. if someone from a poorer country and said that you were living like kings cos uk salaries are so high in comparison to the rest of the world, that wouldn't really be very fair because in the uk, we have higher costs and higher taxes. While we are overall very lucky to have universal healthcare and a welfare state , we do need to earn more than someone in bulgaria for the same standard of living.

Thanks @TuftyMarmoset . I have a few charities in mind that I've come into contact with through work, I'll look into it.

We have a joint salary of around £230k. We obviously pay a lot in tax and NI. We have a large mortgage (>2k), enormous childcare costs to enable us to both work the long full time hours that mean we earn what we do, bank loan repayments (house renovations), monthly energy bills of around £500 since the price increases. Even after that we still have a large disposable income and feel very lucky that we don’t have to think about money on a day to day basis. We go on nice holidays, drive newish cars (on lease), the kids get to do all the clubs they want. If we decide to educate the kids privately we will have to cut back on lifestyle for sure, but it’s totally doable. Equally we could obviously live on far less - we’d have a small house, older cars, private education wouldn’t be a possibility, we’d not go on holiday etc etc. We work hard for what we have but I’m not stupid enough to think anyone who works hard can have what we have.

People's outgoings often immediately rise to match their incomes - huge mortgage, home renovations, nanny, private school fees (maybe even boarding). Expensive foreign holidays multiple times a year. Expensive food.

I can see how it happens. I earn very little now post children so it's never going to be a problem I wrestle with!

These threads never go well.

Anyway, everyone's different, some people will earn £100,000 and spend all of it, others (like us) spend no more money now really than we did when our household income was about £20 000. BUT, we were lucky enough to buy a house when they were (relatively) cheap and so are now mortgage free and we have one child and we could afford for me to stay at home when she was young so had no nursery fees.

We don't pay school fees, don't have a cleaner or a gardener, never go on foreign holidays (we tend to either go camping or have a few days in a Premier Inn somewhere we've never visited in the UK) and we do have the luxury and expense of two cars. But the biggest biggest benefit of this income for us is peace of mind. We know that if the boiler or car breaks down we can get it fixed without having to think too much about it. DD would have to wait 3 years for orthodontic treatment on the NHS but we can afford for her to have it done privately.

Anything left goes into savings. DH's mum is in a nice care home and her large savings pot has made things so much easier for DH. So we're saving for our old age to hopefully make life nicer for us and easier for DD when we need some kind of care and it will mean we will be less of a burden on taxpayers.

But I'm sure this will still attract the usual 'I have less than what your daughter's teeth will cost to live on for a year' type comments. I'm very glad we have the household income that we have because of the peace of mind it brings for now and the future but the question 'I don't know what people even do with their money' is mad. My MIL's care is £1100 a week, that uses a lot of savings.

Our household income is marginally over £100k. We are, by any definition, ‘comfortable’. We don’t have to scrimp and save, we can eat, pay our bills and we have money for ‘extras’ such as swimming lessons for the kids.

We also pay £2.5k a month in childcare, which vastly reduces our available pot. We can only afford to holiday abroad as our family live there so we get free accommodation, and we recently sold our second car as we couldn’t afford to run 2 cars.

Bills don't have to increase but here's my outgoings as I have posted before

We Take home monthly
Approx 6200

Our bills are approx 1500 = 4700 left

We pay house and car insurance and car tax annually.

No mortgage/rent

• Well...a lot of tax.
• School fees for 4 children is 60k a year alone (after tax that would be the entire salary of someone on 100k!)

- Living costs - A lot of people don’t realise that these large salaries are mainly earned on the sob east, where the cost of living is very very high. A normal 3 bedroom detached house with smallish garden in a normal street costs around 800k on our village.

• The odd day out or treat. Theatre, theme park tickets, zoo, restaurants, babysitters.

And that’s 200k a year gone!

I have a relative who works in the city, not sure of exact salary but I assume a joint income of over 400k. They seem obsessed with how much tax they pay and said they’d move abroad if a labour government got in at the last election, depressing really as they were educated at state school and brought up on normal salary. I don’t particularly envy them as their outgoings must be huge and the thought of needing to maintain an income to cover that stresses me out.