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.

Supply and demand, which is linked to entry bar, and how easily replaceable it is. Almost anyone can be a a cashier, a carer/firefighter will require couple years of qualification but the entry bar is not as high as getting into Oxford University to study law and then bagging training contract in a city law firm.

@Topgub ok, but you prioritised presumably a passion over practicality and chose to be in a position where you are overworked, missing out on time with your kids and husband and underpaid.

You would have known what the prospects were for you from the outset.

Other people chose to spend their time working towards brighter financial prospects but arguably you may feel more fulfilled in what you do, who knows.

But it was your choice to pursue the course of action taken. It is not something high earners are in any way responsible for nor should they have to be apologetic for their salaries.

@Madbamboo

Whats the private school ratio for Oxford /City law firms these days?

Agree, wages are never based on deserving, if they were then some of the lowest paid work would be the highest.

it’s a mixture of complexity of skills set, qualifications required, training required, revenue generated, Amount of folks who can do it, complexity, and in itself it’s complex and covers many things but it’s not based on who deserves it the most.

@Robinni

I've never said otherwise

It doesn't mean higher earners work harder or deserve their wage because they made a different choice

Being apologetic is debatable

Especially depending on how they make their money/how much tax they avoid and how the vote

@Topgub www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-culture-wars-have-crept-into-oxbridge-admissions

Bloody hell OP we earn more than you are and we don't have the dumbassery to call ourselves high earners. What planet are you living on exactly? Are you living in shitsville where everyone else lives in a mud hut?? FFS

@Robinni

Did that link give the actual stat?

How many Oxford graduates came from inner city deprived schools?

I'm also not sure i can take an article seriously when it says it feels most sorry for the white males from 'outstanding independent schools' forced to go to st Andrews instead

@Topgub did you read it?

Yes

It said something about Eton having halved the amount they sent but I couldn't see an actual ratio?

Cba reading it again

@Topgub I don’t think you will take anything seriously unless it is 100% aligned to your world view which is clearly set in stone.

@Robinni

Nothing posted as altered my view, no.

Thats not the fault of my views though

Why should people be apologetic for the way they vote?

• The number of offers given to Eton students has halved between 2014 and 2021

• The selection of state school candidates in place of well-qualified competitors from private schools has been going on for a long time

• In TSA exams lately successful candidates from private schools scored 73 on average, nearly five points higher than candidates from state schools…. candidates from one type of school with better scores are being turned away in favour of those from another type of school with lower scores.

• The university’s target figure for state school candidates has slowly crept upwards beyond three-quarters.

whichschooladvisor.com/uk/guides/which-state-schools-get-the-most-students-into-oxbridge

Between 2015-2020 state school intake has increased from 62.3% to 70% at Cambridge and from 55.6% to 68.7% at Oxford – and the number of Oxbridge offers is reaching double figures at a growing number of state secondary schools, grammar schools and sixth form colleges. Are these figures high enough, though, when you consider that 93% of UK students are state educated?

While these statistics certainly mark an improvement for state-school applicants, they do only apply to UK applicants. Looking at the broader picture, Higher Education Student Statistics (HESA) show a reduction in UK student numbers at Oxford and Cambridge, as well an increase in offers being given to international students from 2018/19 to 2019/20, mainly from non-EU countries (the Brexit effect). Currently, 21% of Oxford undergraduates and 25% of Cambridge undergraduates are international citizens.

At least part of the reason for increasing state school success is not social engineering, but just hard work and better preparation.

There you go @Topgub as for your “cba” - says it all.

It's like I said, job values are often based on generated revenue, not how valuable they might be to society in general.

Footballers and the Kardashians generate huge TV revenue. If none of us watched it, they'd be worthless but sadly it's not like that. I don't agree with it any more than you do but it's impossible to argue against market forces.

The sad thing about carers is that care homes generate millions but they receive nothing for adding the most value. But I'd argue that owners of care homes don't actually care much for their residents and just see them as cash cows.

We've learnt relatively little from the pandemic as people forget too easily.

Thanks @Robinni

How many of those state schools are from deprived areas?

Not great stats considering the state/pe ration on numbers though eh

@Topgub One in six (15.9 per cent) students admitted to Oxford last year were from the most socio-economically disadvantaged areas, up from 12.2 per cent the previous year.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/oxford-admissions-record-deprived-areas-b1845433.html?amp

@Robinni

Not great is it?

@Topgub

How many people are in poverty?
Around one in six people in the UK are in relative low income before housing costs (BHC), rising to around one in five once we account for housing costs (AHC).

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07096/

So the number of “deprived” people admitted to Oxbridge appears to be proportional to the number of people actually in poverty in the U.K.

@Robinni

You cant use whole population figures to compare to school goers

Anyway

Pp tried to make out like it was as simple as higher earners being the only ones capable of doing those roles therefore deserving the wage

Supply and demand.

Except the supply is being constricted by a large number of other factors like not having access to a PE.

Clearly you have no understanding of the role of lawyers. I agree that carers should be paid more though.

Well hardly I grew up in a deprived area and I can tell you precisely the number of people that went to university never mind Oxford or Cambridge was a big fat zero.

I went to 6 form in a slightly better area where I would say the number of free school meals students was around about 25% and out of a class of 30 in the six form 50% went on to university but when I look back through friends who were in the 25% category not one of them went to university.
there are lies damn lies and statistics, but just amongst my peers only 1/3 of the overall cohort went to any university and I remember one of them looking at Bradford 🙄