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 don't think it is fair and I think a certain amount of luck is involved in becoming wealthy. But having lived under a former communist/socialist government in a developing country where we queued up for hours for the most basic foodstuffs or services, I am not sure there are many better, fairer alternatives.

You won't catch me complaining about taxes though or saying that people choose to be poor.

Regarding charity donations, I do donate to charity, though not 10% of my salary. Mostly in my country of origin.

I hear what you are saying about socialism, but it's such an old idea it's a wonder we have not come up with any new perspectives. I do not think capitalism has done better, not when the right to eat is now based on whether you were successful at playing its system.

@Robinni

Whats humble?

Anyone who can afford pe isn't poor or struggling and is absolutely giving their kids an advantage that keeps the wealth with the wealthy

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

It's not quite that simple is it.

I said previously on this thread that I went to university 3 times and did a PhD recently to qualify in my field. Most of that study took place as a single parent, but with a lot of support around me from family. I now earn 50k in my 30s. Ok, it's not 80k or 120k.... but it's above average, right? It's a a "good" salary. Do I believe anyone could have done what I did and followed my path into my particular career? I actually don't, no.

I came from a background of poverty and a one parent family, but I had a parent who pushed me to do well. Who hammered home the value of education from a young age. Who encouraged and praised my school based achievements. Who loved me and didn't abuse or neglect me. I am able bodied; I have my health. I am relatively intelligent. When I needed childcare for my DD so I could meet university deadlines, it was there. I had a lot on my side from the start.

Others aren't so fortunate. That's why I don't believe "anyone" could have followed my education and career pathway. Because I recognise that my childhood and what it offered provided the necessary foundations for me to do it. If I'd been abused, not encouraged to do well, if I'd had a lower IQ, if I'd had no childcare for my DD while I studied... do I think I could have achieved all that I have? No, I don't.

I don't look down my nose at people who have a lower educational attainment or who earn less than I do. I have the humility to realise that, whilst I worked fucking hard to get where I am in life, many people who earn less have worked just as hard as I have, but possibly without the resources and opportunities I had at each stage of my life.

So, my relatively good salary doesn't make me a better or harder working person than a lower earner. It makes me in many ways luckier.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 you’d be surprised how many walk amongst you mwahahaha

@Citygirly

Politics and wealth inequality and attitudes to both are fascinating?

I'm very much not upset. Why would I be?

Why did you start a thread that no sensible person would need to start?

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

Fortunately you’re doing well enough to not have to live near them or work alongside them.

And yet you've the cheek to call others unpleasant? 🤣🤣

You have seemingly no ability to refute any thing I've said so are resorting to getting personal.

The people you went to school with may have had any number of reasons for being unable to do better at school.

You clearly had advantages they didn't. Choice is an illusion that others buy into to feed their superiority complexes

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

Nah double what they take from others in earnings seems about right

Yes, exactly @gotthis

Capitalism is literally destroying the planet

Yay for capitalism the system that keeps 99 % poor and fucks the planet

Two children at Uni. Don't get student finance as it's means tested. Swallows up all our money supporting them to pay for accommodation, they both work to support their living costs.

Hopefully in the future we will feel quite comfortable but certainly not feeling it just yet!

@Topgub Indeed. Naomi Klein wrote a very good book on this, called 'Capitalism vs the Climate.' In general the poorest people have the lowest carbon footprint, also. I suppose they are getting shafted all ways.

lancsgirl85
👏👏👏

If I was earning that much money, there is no way it would be just sitting in the bank earning a pittance. I'd be looking for assets to invest in, to give me a better return.

Fortunately you’re doing well enough to not have to live near them or work alongside them

Get in the ghetto, poor person!

Reminds me of a documentary I watched about Kensington, one of the most unequal boroughs I believe.

The rich mum drove her kids around the poorer bit saying look at all these awful people, you must stay away from them.

She didn't come across well either.

💯 you have just summed it all up.

It really amazes me how many people on this thread cannot seem to imagine that not everyone grows up with the same opportunities in life and that will impact on their education going through life and their chances of financial success. Humility does seem to be lacking by many on this thread 🙁

They came from humble beginnings, if they went to a state school and were self funded through Uni - that would mean collective household income would be pretty low.

I realise this because I had to fund Uni myself too - parents paid for prep but later fell on hard times… as I say not always a silver spoon.

The education system needs an overhaul to make it more equal.

But I have to say those on the very lowest incomes do have massive reductions on rent and a chance to buy a house at up to 70% discount. Not to be sniffed at.

It’s the people slightly above this bracket - don’t get a council house on 10-20k a year and paying full rent who will struggle most.

Yet still better than you.

This thread...I went to private school at 14. Prior to that I was in a school where we had 100 on a class. A state school in a developing country were there were over a thousand in a year and our end of year results meant you were given a position in the year group. I remember coming 340th. If anything it gave me the drive try to crack the top 200. Anyways I digress, I went from that to full boarding in Essex and was fine. Made friends and went to university. Not starting private school from age 4 did me no harm and did not hinder my ability to achieve. The period of adjustment was similar to going to university. I did not feel out of place. I knew why I was there.

I think having gone to private school in the last 20 yrs, I understand that parents forking shed loads of cash into a child's education does not guarantee definite success. Even though some people like to think of that investment as a fruit bearing security blanket. Trust me several of my classmates in school barely managed A levels let alone degrees despite the grounds, the pastoral care, the hockey and netball teams, the socials, the trips aboard, theatre trips, horse riding clubs, voluntary clubs etc etc. It is very dependent on the child. So a child wanting/supported/able will do well in private just as they would in state school in my personal opinion.

Who can but a house at 70% discount?

If you mean social housing it isnt 70%. It is 35% plus 1% for each year to a maximum of 70% but the maximum discount is £87,200 across England, except in London boroughs where it is £116,200. So where are houses less than 120k?- virtually nowhere.

Flats in my block sell at a million. So not much of a discount!

SlightlyGeordieJohn
god your gross. I hope you teach your kids better manners and respect than your posting on here.

@Robinni

I'm not sure very many people on the lowest incomes will be able to afford to buy a house at even 70% discount

Going to state school and self funding uni doesn't equate to humble either

Plenty of those well off plumbers use state schools. Most consultants I know use state schools

Your post just sounds completely out of touch tbh.

Hey, I know you cant afford to eat or heat your heavily subsidised house but at least you can buy it at 70% off.

Never mind the crack den next door and the sex trafficked brothel down the street. Great investment

So a child wanting/supported/able will do well in private just as they would in state school in my personal opinion.

100% this. I was always academic and motivated by learning. I got my A* and A GCSE grades at a crappy state school but I'd have got them at a ridiculously expensive private school, too. Because I wanted them, I was bright enough to achieve them, and I was supported and encouraged to achieve them.

@StuckonanLNERtrain I did clearly say “up to” and if the London areas/SE England are too expensive transfer to a different estate. It is 35% for a house 50% for a flat btw.

Friend of mine got an enormous discount as had sat in the house several yrs - while studying!! - had the house virtually paid off in 5yrs the cost was so low, then made further substantial profit off it. Now sits in very comfortable detached property. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

People who can’t access these advantages - due to not getting a house (it’s bloody hard), or not being willing to move do really struggle. I think they are certainly going to come up with a substantial package to support people through the current crisis.

When I was a young adult starting my first grad job, I used to lodge with a nice family in one of the most expensive part of the country. The landlord's father lived nearby in a council house. Though a council house, it is one of those regency town house in an conservation area. He has lived there for decades, carers (Council provided) and my landlord attended to take care of him. Now this father had been an abusive drunkard his whole life, never done an honest day of living. Not only he gets to live in a house in a prime spot rent-free, enjoyed free care, the best part is, he was offered to buy this house for £90k because he has been there for so long, 90k is about 30% of it true value. Now how is that fair? Why is honest hard working family not come across this opportunity.

In the end my landlord bought it for his father and inherited it. At least the house goes to a deserving hardworking family in the end

*Reminds me of a documentary I watched about Kensington, one of the most unequal boroughs I believe.

The rich mum drove her kids around the poorer bit saying look at all these awful people, you must stay away from them.*

Dreadful. What is wrong with people.