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.

Not much on here about charity giving. Interesting. There is research to show that the more people earn or the higher 'status' they are, the less generous they become.

No, for high earners it’s only £4,000 each per year. If you’ve been putting more on than that then you’re likely to be taxed on it but not be able to reverse the decision to pay it in, so you end up tying it up without any benefit.

Some of which will be explained by the fact that for very high earners the state is already taking 47% of most of their pay each month for the benefit of the rest of society.

It’s not surprising that many think that that’s enough to be getting on with.

Again pull the other one, it’s absolutely nothing to do with their PAYE salary. The company that I work for at the moment as a stopgap, The directors wouldn’t wipe their arse with what they pick up on a month-to-month basis its everything else they actually fund their lifestyles through.

Nothappy I think you’re confusing salary vs bonus with taxed vs untaxed. I presume the directors’ earnings outside their monthly salary are also taxed. If not then please report them!

That’s a very detailed childcare plan when you aren’t planning on having kids for a few years!

I’d love to know what ‘luxury items’ you have your eye on - a Faberge egg? Ivory backscratcher?

Swan drumsticks, solid gold toilet seats, Van Gogh paintings and lots of noodle doodles, you know, the usual stuff.

Anything that goes through the books as PAYE is obviously taxed, no way to avoid that. Relatively though it’s buttons.

However they have outside interests where they do not pay anywhere near the same level of tax because they don’t have to, it’s called tax avoidance not tax evasion. These are the directors of the big four, not stupid, certainly not going to get caught with their pants down.

You seem very keen to make généralisations from your personal life. That’s rarely advisable.

Everyone I work with in banking and everyone I know in law and accountancy are paid via PAYE.

I think so too. Bonuses of course are taxed exactly the same as salary, they aren’t some kind of tax dodge.

And of course they are happy to give the details to the junior at work who clearly hates them…

You need to stop being bitter about others finances and take responsibility for yours.

Well I was shagging one of them so yeah they do get quite loose lipped after a couple of gin and tonic‘s. You can hate the system without hating the individual, the game not the player.

Of course they did.

I am not sure the thread was supposed to be about tax really. Someone said capital was not taxed.... I wish! It is taxed to the hit and 40% is stolen from when you die for starters via IHT and most gains taxed at 28% ( property) and 20% other again, not even these days allowing for inflation.

So for higher earners yes vast amounts of their money go on income tax, national insurance contributions, student loan "tax", VAT, insurance premium tax and all the other taxes

This post is not insensitive. Just because you are skint doesn't mean a rich person can't discuss high earnings and spare cash. Scroll on. There are plenty of topics I don't want to read about and so I avoid them.

I wonder if the unpleasant posters on here go on posts about exercise saying “don’t you know some people are disabled!”

The vitriol displayed at people who have a good wage because they have done what it takes to have a good career is so unpleasant.

The two worst posters on here make me think of the crabs trying to drag back into the bucket any other one that started to climb out.

Xenia this is nonsense. “40% is stolen when you die” There are so many loopholes in the inheritance tax system is might as be a pair of fishnet stockings!!

For a start there is circa a million you can pass on to kids with no inheritance tax at all. And if you use your noggin and set up a trust/company or transfer assets to children in life before you are geriatric then you aren’t hit at all!!

This is why many families have joint interests - pass the buck…

Agree other taxes high but seriously IHT is not an issue if you plan for it and have descendants…

Not to mention it’s not “stolen” but taken legally obvs and it’s not taken from “you”, you’re dead, it’s taken from your heirs who didn’t earn it.

But that's how staying rich works. The poor help the poor, the rich keep the money in their pocket.

"For a start there is circa a million you can pass on to kids with no inheritance tax at all." that is incorrect. If you are single as I am and if you do not have a property you can only receive £325,000 free of IHT. If you own a property and are single as I am you can pass on £500k. that means my children are homeless if I die because I moved to London for work from NE England and house prices are higher in London whereas had I stayed in the NE in a similar house they would not be homeless if I die. Also for people with higher valued homes in the SE most of their life's savings and earnings much of which is already taxed at 40% (every penny of equity in my house unusually has been taxed at 40% plus already) with only that £325k or £500k IHT free.

The OP stated in the opening post that they give 10% of their wage to charity, and we have a heavily redistributive tax and benefits system.

90% of the thread has been about how to maximise tax avoidance and yet its unbelievable that IRL anyone would discuss tax avoidance… er ok

😂😂

Yes we can see how well the "heavily redistributive tax and benefits system" is currently working when so many are currently struggling to feed their families, many more being pushed into poverty as we speak....