..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?

You buy more expensive stuff. Private schools, healthcare. Posher holidays. Second homes. I guess eventually you get so rich you cant spend all your money but for most people I think they just move up a bracket in terms of what they buy - so the more expensive car brands or versions, the bigger or nicer houses. I could spend it I think although I would like to think I would be more sensible.

Most people earn more very gradually as they go up their career ladders, so it’s not the same as going from £1k a month to a lottery-win feeling of £5.5k a month. Generally standard of life goes up incrementally, with little luxuries that once were treats becoming the norm/necessities, and as other people have said, you’re usually spending more on a more expensive home/car(s)/clothing/food/experiences. Over £100k is definitely a lot of money, but I can certainly understand why many people earning it don’t ‘feel’ rich. They’d soon feel very poor on less!

@DrSK2

Better education and better life. Not difficult to understand imo.

That about sums it up.

I'd be curious to hear what thought was given to work/career path at school age?

Mumsnet can be pretty judgey about people who earn a lot. Frankly it’s dull. The price of a bloody cup of coffee in a nice part of London is almost £4

Most of MN seem to be high earners on the threads I read!!
I think the aspect people get fussed about is when high earners try to minimise their salary and say its a struggle or not enough.

Its expensive in London, its expensive to rent or have a mortgage, childcare is expensive....but often its almost as if people don't realise those on low or moderate wages have these expenses too.
London needs teachers, social workers, nurses, police, hospitality, cleaners, retail staff, delivery drivers etc, all of whom also have to pay rent or mortgage (and potentially childcare) out of a much smaller pay packet.

One thread about cleaners recently had people insisting a cleaner was an essential if 2 parents worked ft. I completely get an individual believes a cleaner is an essential to their household but to say it as if everyone would have one IMO is pretty short sighted given the wage discrepancies that exist.

And paying £4 for a coffee is not essential even if you live in London! If enough people are willing to pay £4 for a coffee then thats what some shops will sell them for, but I'm pretty sure there are cheaper alternatives.

Sorry but this doesn't make any sense. 200K household income and you spend what you earn?

I don't understand how you can scrimp on heating on that income, crazy!

My DH earns over £100,000 but we are by NO means "rich".
I'm a SAHM, we have 3 children and live in a modest 3 bedroom house that is entirely too small for us now. We cannot afford to move tho.
Tax and national insurance, bills, school uniforms, car insurance, home insurance, food - that's where it all goes. We haven't had a holiday in over 4 years. We are on a budget, just like everyone else.
No one takes home a big salary and just gets to spend it all. That's not how life works.
I imagine some people live very well on that salary. If we had no children or even just one; we'd probably be very well off, we'd have a smaller house and smaller mortgage. Bills would be lower and there would be more disposal to just spend. Its all circumstantial. Not everyone with a big salary is rich.

I'm doing my shopping at Aldi and always worry about how I'm going to pay the next school and livery yard fees

Do your diamond shoes pinch too? How frankly dreadful.

My OH, with whom I don't live, earns far in excess of thst as owner and CEO of a private card issuing company.
He has an ex (but bought her a house from some of the proceeds of their former home abroad) and his two children went to public schools although one was taken out due to their standard of previous education abroad being too low to assimilate into the age level here.
They're now both over 18 and one at uni. He bought a house for himself in Surrey for 603k 6 years ago which he then sold earlier this year for 1.23m and bought another together with a cottage and barn for 2.45m.
I think money begets money but he and I have at least o be thing in common. We make whatever money we have work hard for us.
I have far less but retired although still solvent, whereas he is not yet of retirement age.
I pay my own way when we go out, much to his annoyance. He does dress well and never wears baseball caps, hoodies, joggers or football gear or white trainers unless playing tennis, which is not often. His current car is a BMW and he's a fan of the brand.
Apart from having a beautiful home, he invests in art and wine although he doesn't drink much at all. He's given up buying me clothes it jewellery as I don't wear any but a stud in each ear sometimes but it's only paste stuff from M&S or Zara...and my clothes are mainly from M&S and Primark plus odd things from Zara as I don't like to be 'bought'.
He's just very ordinary...like me but not as outgoing.

I’m on a decent six figure salary, husband slightly less but he has an amazing valued pension.

I’m finding these justifications of it not being a lot slightly tiresome.

Yes, you have nursery fees but these disappear when child is 4/5.

Yes, you have big mortgages but your disposable income is still much higher than many on here, and will be able to invest / make overpayments.

I am very careful to save significantly so that I’m not just spending!! I’m keen to give child a home deposit so gets on the housing market.

But even with this saving, I still lead a good lifestyle! I live in a decent leafy suburb in London, I have home help, a PT, membership at a few decent clubs, my child does everything she wants to - sporting and arts wise. We have lovely holidays.

It upsets me when there are threads on here about people not being able to afford milk for porridge and heating and those on six figure salaries are moaning they have big bills and are being taxed- it’s just not comparable.

Life is very unfair - it’s not about how hard you work, it’s about opportunities, confidence and a bit of luck.

I also don’t work masses of hours - I could and earn double but I like my lifestyle and I’m
fairly content.

The biggest gift having more money than average is I bought my house when young and had my child in my late 20s (although wasn’t earning six figures then had a good Associate salary). That is what I’m most thankful for (most mums around here are 10years older than me ).

My DH earns £95k and I earn £10k (haha, what a difference but I chose to focus on the kids and run the house. I enjoy it). I'm guessing our monthly income after tax is £5,500 ish. I realise we are extremely fortunate. I grew up in poverty so just not having to worry if the boiler breaks down or something is amazing to me. We live in a nice house in a nice area but nothing too luxurious. It's an extended semi. I feel we are very comfortable but not rich (although of course we are rich in global terms). So out of £5500 per month, the mortgage is £1500. Our credit card bill is usually around £3000. I know this is a lot. We don't buy many clothes or gadgets. We drive an old Skoda. Our children go to state school and I wouldn't send them to private school even if I was a millionaire. I think a lot of our money goes on buying nice food. We both love to eat well. We also go out to restaurants and cafes a few times a month. My husband has an expensive hobby so will often spend a grand here and there on various bits of equipment. His family all live abroad and they're very close (emotionally not physically) so we spend many thousands every year visiting them. So with mortgage and credit card bill we spend £4500 each month then another £500 on council tax, heating water etc. That doesn't leave a huge amount left each month - although we're lucky to have any money left over I know!

£100k a year could get a big house and expensive holidays etc, but perhaps they work really long hours so they don't have time to enjoy the nice things they have? But I think one could easily spend that sort of money each year on themselves and their loved ones and have a very comfortable life.

I can't get my head around how Billionaires can live with themselves? There is no way on God's good earth that they can spend all that money they are earning on themselves and their friends. They could make a real difference to other people's lives, but they would rather use billions of pounds to shoot themselves and their chums into space. I don't get it.

@CecilieRose - look at the user name - I think it goes on champagne!

@Lifeisaminestrone surely buying a house young helped you a lot?

Ours goes on a second home. Well, it was our home for 10 years in a remote beautiful area and then we moved to the city and kept that house. It gets let out some of the time and we spend a lot of holiday time there. Dh is self employed (GP) so can take as much holiday as he can get cover for. That's another big expense, but it's better than him burning out like he did a few years ago.

We've kept the house because we love it, we made it our own and when he retires we will move back. Without building our own, we'd never get such a perfect place again.

We also give quite a lot away.

My DH and my joint income is about 9k a month take home.

We put about half of it into our mortgage (meaning we're due to pay it off within 10 years total). We save about 2k a month, which we use for holidays and home improvements, making sure we always have a fair chunk in savings.

We don't live particularly extravagantly (definitely not two 100k cars or a massive house) but that's because we don't necessarily want to. We do tend to spend a fair chunk on food and hobbies though as that's what we enjoy.

Were fairly risk averse and having this much money means we never have to worry financially, which is a great feeling. As we have children I suspect more of our money will go on them.

I also think the thread is a bit confusing as some people are referring to a joint income of 100k & others are talking about both partners earning 100k or more each.

Over 100k before tax is definitely conformable but not rich in my opinion; but I am sure it sounds like rich for people who have to live on an income of 30k a year or less

I won't say what I earn. I'm responsible for the livelihood of quite a few people.

There's a lot of freedom.
Some weeks I work 10 hours, some I work 70. I do what I want.

I don't spend a lot of money.

@balonsz - absolutely but I ate Heinz soup for my deposit, and have since upgraded! My mortgage etc was high then comparatively, and so was childcare but complaining about mortgage payments is just not reasonable when some people can hardly afford food.

@SallyWD

My DH earns £95k and I earn £10k (haha, what a difference but I chose to focus on the kids and run the house. I enjoy it). I'm guessing our monthly income after tax is £5,500 ish. I realise we are extremely fortunate. I grew up in poverty so just not having to worry if the boiler breaks down or something is amazing to me. We live in a nice house in a nice area but nothing too luxurious. It's an extended semi. I feel we are very comfortable but not rich (although of course we are rich in global terms). So out of £5500 per month, the mortgage is £1500. Our credit card bill is usually around £3000. I know this is a lot. We don't buy many clothes or gadgets. We drive an old Skoda. Our children go to state school and I wouldn't send them to private school even if I was a millionaire. I think a lot of our money goes on buying nice food. We both love to eat well. We also go out to restaurants and cafes a few times a month. My husband has an expensive hobby so will often spend a grand here and there on various bits of equipment. His family all live abroad and they're very close (emotionally not physically) so we spend many thousands every year visiting them. So with mortgage and credit card bill we spend £4500 each month then another £500 on council tax, heating water etc. That doesn't leave a huge amount left each month - although we're lucky to have any money left over I know!

You do appreciate that people on an income of around £2000 a month also have to pay a similar amount for a small rental in some places? And because they can't afford to save, they can't afford to buy or move away to rent one of the often quoted £500/month houses in places with few job opportunities?

All it takes is illness/disability/bereavement, redundancy or divorce and your kids are right back in the poverty you grew up in. And if you lose access to his money for any of those reasons, homelessness, too. You need to change the spending to protecting them.

It's not so much private schools as it is getting a degree that works for that individual in the area they want to be.
Don't get me wrong the 'old boys network' is alive and kicking (old boys n girls now mind) but that shutters offspring to more likely have certain characteristics that I'd rather they didn't. We strained to educate and 3/4 it worked... the 1/4 still benefits as they have more family to help.
eg ds2 has a salary over 4 times my meagre one and the rate he's going when he hits 40 he'll be 100k+.

Tangent sorry..... like others have said more earnt then more spent... though I agree apart from really high expenditure areas 100k is pretty rich.

What do you do OP? I have a fair few friends who were equally penniless students when we met but who now earn big bucks, same for my husband. Up to a certain point it just means everything is a bit nicer, car, house, holidays, treats, etc. But there definitely comes a point where it suddenly goes next level and you’re sending all your kids to a 30k p/a school, buying up ‘investment’ property, etc. Still wouldn’t be able to tell them apart at our parties though!

DHs best pal has a good job at 40k+ ( good in his social circle, as not one of them even finished a single college course and they all used to work in crap jobs until their thirties)
He’s single. His mortgage is £400 a month. He’s no car ,,,
He told DH he doesn’t have any savings.
We have no idea what he does with it every month?!
He eats out a lot. Orders up woman from Tinder a lot - takes them for meals etc.
Madness….

@Oreo78 with all due respect we have paid around £250k per annum in tax since about 2005. We have hardly shot ourselves into space. As well as that we use private health care and our dc were on the whole privately educated so for the two main expenses, we have paid twice.