High earners - how do you spend your salary?

[Citygirly]

DH and I earn just under £140k combined.

We do maximum pension payments (his is 9% as NHS) and we also give about 10% a month to charity.

Other than that, we plan to start overpaying the mortgage. We invest £1k a month (so £500 each) and save £1k for holidays. We of course do general/specific savings but then have a good chunk left over for disposable income.

AIBU to ask other high earning households how they tend to allocate their money? Just want to see if we could be using it better or this is about right for comparables.

I am old enough to retire but still do a relatively high pressure job that is pretty well paid. Earning a decent amount allows me the luxury of being rubbish with / seldom thinking about money. I spend my disposable income on horses. And vets bills. And buying services so I don’t need to do things that I don’t enjoy and can outsource. If household outgoings regularly exceed income, I look for work that pays more. I have savings for emergencies but don’t find it important to save more because I have reached an age where delayed gratification no longer feels sensible.

It doesn’t matter what her profession is. Or her level of intelligence.

OP does not have the advantage of a wide social circle of affluent people (family, family friends, own friends potentially too if they were state educated) to draw information from. Which matters a hell of a lot more than book smarts.

People don't fall into high paying jobs it often takes years of study and hard work.

@hattie43 this is quite offensive actually.

Nurse’s/Teachers for example work very hard to attain a Uni degree, and many have postgrad as well but no matter how hard they work they cannot hope to achieve the same salary as say somebody in finance.

Also some young people have caring responsibilities or have to go out and work to support their families rather than pursue other routes. Or there is some reason their parents withhold funding to support them and they can’t get a grant due to parental income, so options are limited. Those who are able to swan off to Uni footloose and fancy free with financial support at 18 are incredibly fortunate and privileged.

I wouldn't say high earner, but I'm comfortable. I spend a fair amount on private healthcare - go on, MN, be jealous of that. Plenty of people earn lower than me, but don't need to spend any money on healthcare because the NHS actually looks after them and/or there's nothing wrong with them.

I’m pretty crap with money, but I’d definitely echo what someone else said upthread. Your mortgage will likely be the most cost-effective way of borrowing possible. I would fix for a longer term, at a slightly higher rate, just to know that that element of outgoings isn’t going to change for a number of years.

I hate the way these threads go. I have no one “senior” in my family to get good financial advice from. There’s nothing wrong with seeking info from a forum. I’m not rich, never will be, but I’m not going to mock those with queries outside of my lifestyle.

I definitely think that part of the school curriculum should be dedicated to household finances/budgeting/pensions etc. Way more useful than remembering how to work out the circumference of a circle!

It’s an extremely conscious decision to not put teaching finances on the curriculum the whole idea is that the masses never get out of debt, debt is the enslavement of the free take that away and why would people go to work ?

It’s an extremely conscious decision to not put teaching finances on the curriculum the whole idea is that the masses never get out of debt, debt is the enslavement of the free take that away and why would people go to work

seriously? How else would they buy food, clothing pay utilities have a home? People don’t work just for debt, they work to feed and house themselves.

Sounds like an elaborate conspiracy. However, there’s no doubt the government wants us all to spend, spend, spend - our economy relies on it, and inevitably that will lead to debt for a lot of people.

Okay I’ll rephrase it then lots of people need to get into debt just to survive to buy the basics, washing machines, cookers, TVs and to enjoy their lives to go into debt for a holiday or some days out of a car to take them there.

Ive even known people use their credit card to buy the bus pass to get to work, lots of people definitely go into debt to buy cars to take them to work.

if it was actually explained to them that by using a credit card/loan they will pay 1/3 extra in interest on average on top of the initial outlay then lots of people would have no choice but to suck it up and deal with it and pay and some other might choose not to do it.

And that’s why there’s very little encouragement from the educators to explain this.

Just to cut in here - home economics used to be on the syllabus more prominently prior to the 90s. Giving children guidance on household management, child development, budgeting and economics, cooking, sewing, health etc.

It has been cut back due to funding restraints on education, much like the arts and geography actually, to make way for predominant STEM related subjects.

Now the syllabus is much more nutrition/health focused, which I don’t agree with. And fewer classes are offered.

As I say much of this is due to funding constraints and expansion of other subjects (such as economics, expansion of health for biology, integration of textiles into art and design), but also students are given a choice and they are not choosing HE as it doesn’t lead to career roles people want.

To my eyes it should be a mandatory subject and they should go back to the way it was in 50s/60s with children learning life skills such as sewing in primary.

It’s ridiculous most have no clue about financial management, child development and can’t darn a sock!

To my eyes it should be a mandatory subject and they should go back to the way it was in 50s/60s with children learning life skills such as sewing in primary.

Sewing is a life skill?

I was in Primary School in the early 90s and I had a lesson every week on how to sew. It was completely pointless.

Secondary school children are not going to have sewing as their hobby……and by the time it comes to having to having to actually sew a button onto something they aren’t going to remember anything from sewing lessons they had 20 years ago.

If parents are so bothered about their children learning to sew then they should teach it themselves and let schools focus on what really matters.

And as for economy lessons at schools…..I imagine it will just open up a whole new can of worms and the classes will go just like this thread has…..those from very wealthy families making those from poorer backgrounds feel like shit. I imagine the class will provide a great platform for bullying.

Finance, budgeting, learning about pensions etc should be provided by the children’s parents……people who’ve probably experienced what it’s like to need to budget and struggle with the battle between their incomes and their outgoings, as opposed to a twenty something old teacher fresh out of Uni.

There is many many life skills not taught at school. School focuses on academia, not life skills, which is down to the parent to teach. Finance management is no different. There is no huge conspiracy here, it’s not like the teach everything else and leave this one out. They aren’t in there teaching you how to clean, navigate conflict, care for others, garden, parent, that’s not what school is. School is teaching children academics, English, history, maths, geography etc.

Actually School does teach children to clean up after themselves from a very early age, they’re taught to put away things after painting to clean up the brushes etc, they also garden from a very early age at kindie they grow their own fruit and veg, conflict management is almost instantaneous the moment they enter the school system they are forced to share, I don’t actually particularly agree with that.

caring for others and parenting well again yes there is the home corner in every nursery up and down the land. Most three-year-olds know which end the bottle goes into the baby doll and which end it comes out of.
so as I say it is a conscious decision to not explain what the annual predicted rate of interest is to people.

if people knew that it was going cost them a third on top of the capital that they will repay back to purchase a car to drive to work they might potentially decide to take a job where they do not have to drive to work and therefore they wouldn’t pay tax on the additional 1/3 income and support the financial services industry by taking the loan and support the automotive industry by buying the car. additionally they will pay VAT on all the fuel that they will put in the car.
did anybody ever sit down and explain to you that when you look at the overall picture you would be financially better off and have a higher quality of life by taking the local job that you could walk to that pays 1/3 a less ? Of course they didn’t.

did anybody ever sit down and explain to you that when you look at the overall picture you would be financially better off and have a higher quality of life by taking the local job that you could walk to that pays 1/3 a less ? Of course they didn’t

And parents can’t do that because?

Not at all. School teaches RSHP (relationships, sex, health and parenthood). It's a fairly large and well established part of the curriculum. Also home ec. etc. This has been the case for quite some time now.

'Finance, budgeting, learning about pensions etc should be provided by the children’s parents……'

Well, maybe, but for the many children whose parents don't teach that? It's exactlly the same argument as for sex ed/relationships ed.

OP at your age I would concentrate on getting on the property ladder asap and then overpaying the mortgage to build up some breathing space.

You might find that your jobs aren’t compatible with young children. Unfortunately you probably have more flex than your DP to move to a less intense firm/go in house, but that will mean a pay cut.

I’ve been very poor and very rich. Now comfortable due to joint savings that helped me/us during two patches of ill health.

I find that like water, life adapts to fill the amount of money you earn, so even when ‘rich’ we didn’t notice it due to the money being taken up by HMRC, better cars, bigger charity donations, cleaners, gardeners, private school fees and other things. I think that unless you’re a billionaire, there will always be someone with more than you and aspiration is unending if you’re someone who suffers with comparison.

This kind of thread always goes the same way. Despite the fact most of MN seems to be high earners, most of MN seems to hate high earners.
I am sick of every thread being hijacked by well-meaning virtue signallers talking about those who can't afford to buy a loaf of bread. The OP can - so what?
I am not a high earner, but I don't hate those who are and I don't think being a high earner means posters have a free pass to be as unpleasant and snarky and spiteful as they want to them.
And one last thing - LOL at the reference upthread implying teachers and nurses are low earners. The unions have done a great job to brainwash people into thinking this. For info, a newly-qualified teacher starts on nearly £26k and a newly-qualified nurse starts on just under £25k. Both can rise to a lot more. There are plenty of professions which need a degree and training - mine included - that start on less than that, so spare your sympathy for those people not the 'poor' teachers and nurses so often trotted out.

I am sick of every thread being hijacked by well-meaning virtue signallers talking about those who can't afford to buy a loaf of bread. The OP can - so what?

If you're referring to me as a "well meaning virtue signaller" then you are extremely rude and also wrong. I genuinely felt saddened by that poster's situation. I know it might be hard for some to believe that a person can feel and express genuine as opposed to virtue signalling empathy, but - it really is. ^^ And I hardly "hijacked" the thread to express this, ffs.

If that wasn't aimed at me, as you were.

@Katypp well said.

I find that like water, life adapts to fill the amount of money you earn...

I think this is the problem for some people. They spend whatever they have, so once tougher times come they're in trouble.

I know quite a few people who live like that. I can't imagine doing it myself.

Nobody in any country, developed or not, should have to go without a loaf of bread. However DH and I both grew up in a developing country with no social security, no benefits, no food banks, no housing, no safety net, no nothing. We have no family money. DH was so poor in his childhood that he went without all the time. Poverty in the UK is nothing like poverty back home. Many of our friends come from similar backgrounds.

It has made us realise how important money is and choose high earning professions- collecting multiple degrees- to avoid being in that situation. DS working similarly hard to do the same.

@lancsgirl85 i didn't mean you specifically, no. But what's the relevance of posting about people with no money on a thread about high earners? If a high earner posted on a thread about someone struggling saying they had no advice because they had plenty of money they would be torn apart.

But it's apparently OK to attack high earners for some reason.