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.

Combined gross salary is £220k. It goes on large pension contributions, DS’s school fees, savings and investments, holidays, we have people over for dinner quite often, eating out, a whopper of a mortgage. We are very fortunate and privileged to be able to do all of these things though, and I’ll always be thankful that we don’t have to worry about money. It wasn’t the same for either of our respective parents.

Exactly. I can't walk very far so should I complain about any thread where people talk about running or nice walks? If people don't want to read the thread they can just not read.

Sorry, this actually made me giggle so much I pee'd myself!

Knowing how other people spend their money is massively important for social mobility

I totally agree. When I heard how much Brooklyn Beckham's wedding cost I actually went up two whole social classes! I was languishing as manual unskilled before but now I'm a professional!

😂

Would be interested to know the ratio of self employed to PAYE high earners

Oh and just a thought I'm off out in a minute to buy the cat his luxury cat food.

@Merryclaire I agree with you there, I think it's more for Money Matters - don't get what's the aibu bit... Perhaps 'AIBU to post we're actually quite well off?'

@CockSpadget why not? It’s something she wants to discuss.

Should we not discuss children as people with infertility could be upset?

Or not discuss partners in case someone looking for one is upset.

having money doesn’t make people insensitive to those that don’t - often far from it - but it also doesn’t mean they are not ever allowed to discuss it.

School fees

🤣🤣🤣

I am living your future life.

Someone on this thread can't afford to buy a loaf of bread today, whilst another person is buying luxury cat food.

Why is there such inequality? 😓 (probably a rhetorical question really. Just saddens me).

@Woundabout looking for advice on parenting or relationships is one thing, asking strangers how to spend your sizeable disposable income is another.

I've the philosophy there's always folks richer than me and folks poorer. Fretting about it doesn't achieve anything

I didn't understand that comment either

how does reading about how other people spend money change the readers situation. Tbh I was just nosey but I'm not expecting to find myself any better off from knowing the info!!

In the same way I also dont understand the "how much are you spending on your DH/toddler/teenager for xmas?" If I've got £130 to spend between all 3 of them, knowing someone else is spending £800 doesn't help!!

@justasking111

True. I get that. Just find it incredibly sad not to be able to even buy a loaf of bread.

For you maybe @CockSpadget but what if someone else is rich but devastated they can’t find a partner or have a child…

Why?

My dh is paye and a 45% tax payer
I am self employed and a higher rate tax payer on dividends

Don't see the point of this thread. And yes seems pretty insensitive to me during a widely publicised cost of living crisis. How does it benefit the op exactly to get lists of spending from well off people? The info listed here is not exactly helpful for financial planning or in any way at all is it? Is the op going to go shit! horses! I forgot to buy a couple of those. What about regular donations to causes or charities etc?

We are no longer high earners due to the recession and will always be grateful that when we did have money, we paid off our mortgage. Our family income was 150k. The only other significant outgoing we had was holidays in far flung destinations.

@Woundabout this is Mumsnet. There is a very high possibility if someone is on this site they are going to come across posts that mention children. Not so much possibility of, "I have more money left over at the end of the month than I know what to do with, anyone give me ideas?"

Can people please stop bitching about the thread topic? If you are likely to be upset or annoyed by the topic (which is a completely valid discussion BTW) then keep scrolling.

DP and I are not high earners. A million miles from that but we're not on the bare bones of our arses either.

High earners, by the vast majority, get to where they are by working extremely hard at their chosen career. That's not to say lower skilled or manual workers (I hate talking about 'social classes') are not exceptionally hard workers - of course most of them are and they are crucial for society to function as well as it does!

If you're in a situation where a loaf of bread is unaffordable then chances are you've had some extremely bad luck in life but only you can change that. Yes it takes time but there are ways to improve your life and finances that don't involve bitching at others who are in a more privileged position than you/I/we are. I hope things improve for everyone struggling to get food on the table or keep a roof over your family's heads - the situation with the rising cost of living in the UK is at crisis point and many are clinging on by their fingernails through no fault of their own. Attacking high earners who've worked hard to EARN (note - not inherit, steal etc) what they do is not going to change things for people in a less privileged position.

@Fizbosshoes how does reading about how other people spend money change the readers situation

Well, quite. It doesn't. It's just something that people tell themselves to justify their vulgar behaviour..

'Of course it's all right to boast about my wealth! It makes poor people less poor! I'm actually doing something for the good of society!'

We have a take home pay around £100k and don't pay rent or a mortgage.

We don't have kids yet (infertility), but once we do we'll probably try and keep our day to day living costs the same (so live a bit more sensibly).

We live off under half of our take home pay (maybe around £40k), which includes:

• Takeaways multiple times a week, foreign holidays a few times a year (we live abroad and fly back to Europe to see family around 1-2 times a year as well as one trip just for us to somewhere new)


• We pay a portion of DH's father's care home costs


• Used some of our money in recent years for cosmetic work (hair transplant, braces), also a Masters, driving lessons etc.


• Charity payments (10%)


• Paying off my student loans (DH has paid his off)


• We don't own a house yet, so half of what's left goes towards our house budget as cash savings (I know this isn't the best in terms of interest rates etc but we want it to remain easily accessible to us as we may move back to the UK quite soon)


• The remaining half we've invested in Index Funds, ETFs, a bit of Crypto etc - due to our current setup we're treating this as our pension fund (but don't have an actual traditional pension setup as we're abroad). Once we're back in the UK we will contribute as much as we can towards a proper pension fund whilst continuing to invest at least £1k a month into ETFs and Index Funds)