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.

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

Why would they be homeless? are they very young?

wouldn't they still have 500k plus 60% of anything over that?

@dillydally24

High earners in the UK pay a disproportionate share of tax (30% of income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners).

How is it 'disproportionate' ? Given the amount that 1 % earn? Seems quite low to me.

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

If higher earners weren't so greedy and stopped exploiting others to make money then maybe those youre subsidising could earn more?

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....

Exactly. Hence my original comment about someone on this thread who couldn't even afford a loaf of bread. Why are people in such an unbelievably shit situation if our benefits system is so amazing? 🤔

Sign the house over to the kids and retain right of residence? Or become joint tenants with them?

Then nobody is homeless.

Drama averted.

Rich people are very rarely rich from their own efforts so I'm not sure where the smug we subsidise all you plebs is coming from.

The reality is its us who subsidise you

You wouldn't be able to make money without the hard work of others

Most (as shown by the PE discussions) start off wealthy and use their parents money.

What about those who do work hard and come from modest backgrounds and become wealthy/rich? Do you show such venom towards them also?

@Citygirly

What venom?

I haven't shown any venom.

The fact remains that wealthy people are only wealthy because others are poor.

If you're ok with being vastly over paid while others are vastly under paid and thinking that tax is stolen from you while people freeze and starve then thats between you and your conscience I suppose.

Literally I don’t get this attitude towards rich. I think my Grandfather arrived here with less than £10 in his pocket in the 50s. My parents both barely illiterate. They built up a business. Worked in factories and foundries! Instilled a strong work ethic and valued education above everything else!

we all worked hard, there has been addiction, ill health - hours and hours of work. Night and day.

Technically we are well off now about a £120k net household income. But we work so hard for it and know how hard our parents worked too!

Barely literate.

For those that think people only got rich because the poor are exploited , well it is a free world , you can try to be in the 'rich' category and see for yourself if any hard work and top mind is involved. I am not rich myself I dont disagree a cashier earning now nor I disagree tesco's top ceo earning millions, the responsibility are different

*earning nmw

@Topgub OP comes from humble beginnings. My grandparents were brought up in council houses.

You seem to think that everyone going to private school comes from a long line of toffs…. There aren’t enough families of toffs to populate the schools. Many of the children are from regular families who worked hard and want to spend their money on helping kids. I know roofers and plumbers who send 1-2 of their children there for goodness sake. They have to work like maniacs but they feel it’s worth it.

You seem well-balanced, what with having a chip on both shoulders.

You could have done what I did, and be earning what I do, but you chose not to.

If you are poor it’s not because others are rich, it’s pretty much a certainty that it’s down to your own choices.

@Madbamboo

Cashiers work hard too.

The responsibilities are different.

Is the ceo really working a million times harder?

Course not. There are roles that are more important in terms of responsibility and harder work that dong earn much more than the cashier.

Things could be fairer with drifting into communism

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

I'm not poor.

I doubt very much you've gotten where you are entirely on your own or that everyone could do the same

No one choses to be poor. Much as telling yourself that makes you feel better

Youre not rich. Basically. Youre the squeezed middle. Sorry

Hear, hear🙌

Just about everyone could do the same, but few choose to, and yes, of course a great many people do choose to be poor.

People will choose an easier job over a higher paying one, people choose to gamble, people choose to spend money on credit, and so on.

I’m from a pit village, and the kids from school who always bunked off for a smoke, or didn’t come in at all, the ones who got out at sixteen for a job in a factory, they are pretty much all struggling now relative to the ones who stuck in at school, and then worked to get themselves into a good career afterwards.

I don't understand why you are spending so much time on a thread that clearly isn't meant for you. It's clearly upsetting you.

It is disproportionate as the top 1% of earners earn 14% of all wages and pay 30% of all income tax.

That is the actual definition of disproportionate. If it was proportionate they would pay 14% of all income tax.

That's an interesting point about capitalism, I suppose. There have to be the poor, otherwise there would be no rich. The system is built upon it. Of course, those who are doing well believe it's the result of their virtue and the system is fair. It would be against their interests to think otherwise. Malthusian ideas, such as poverty being a result of moral and personal deficiencies, also are popular. It's a sad system that sets people against each other, that is what keeps it going.

They seem to get pleasure from being unpleasant at people who’ve gone out and made something of their lives. There are always people like that around. Fortunately you’re doing well enough to not have to live near them or work alongside them.