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.

Like how?

Can't ask strangers - no going to FAs
Can't talk about it online - no being able to research

What an utterly tone deaf, pretty stomach churning thread.

Lots of people struggle to have children, should threads involving pregnancy/parenting also be banned from AIBU

It's not for you to decide if OP wants their thread moving!

I've enjoyed this thread. Mainly because we have never been particularly high earners but we've still managed to achieve everything we've wanted financially and even better than some of the high earners on this thread.

We've had two or more abroad holidays almost every year plus UK breaks.
Eat out/takeaway weekly.
Own our mortgage free home in great location plus rental.
Have lots of savings and investments.
Lots of disposable income for decent clothes, theatre, good lifestyle.
Nice vehicles including motorcycles.
Have been able to pay into pensions and retire early.
Never had childcare/school fees or big mortgage or debts or lived SE. Never had the stress of a high up job or missed out regards family.

Comparison is not the theif of joy after all.

@Useranon1 who said you can't go to a FA? There are also many financial forums online. High earners by their very nature usually interact and/or work with other high earners IRL I'm sure they would be more appropriate to approach around the subject. Don't be so pedantic.

Whist it is a bit boring to me, I don't get why it is "stomach churning". Surely you realise that some people have money? There are always people better or worse or in many ways (not just money). Don't read the threads if it upsets you.

That’s how life is and how society wants it.

You can go to Tesco and have inequality… someone buys value and someone buys premium.

OP in your situation I would definitely save as much as you can. I was chatting to my cousin recently and he and his wife are both City lawyers. They work ridiculously long hours but he told me that they can’t justify a nanny as their other outgoing (mostly mortgage on a London house) are too big. They have no idea how it will work once her maternity leave ends and they have to work around nursery. He’s very much regretting not saving more earlier.

It may not be detailed financial advice, but op is quite clearly trying to get a feel for ways in which people like her are apportioning their earnings to different things. Are other people prioritising pensions or mortgages? What about fun stuff? How much does someone in her salary bracket splurge vs save? It’s not something that is spoken about openly, and we are all curious about how we compare to others.

When I was younger I thought I was doing really well with my savings. And I probably was compared to people around me, but hanging about on the MSE forums told me otherwise - I wasn’t among spenders on there, but people who were allocating proportions of often modest salaries towards savings that were very impressive. I upped my savings game as a result.

Likewise, this forum has opened my eyes to how people are stretching themselves on mortgages. It’s made me wonder if I’m playing it too safe.

So, no, I don’t think it’s all about boasting.

Why justify yourself to some random peasant on here?

I wouldn’t even bother.

We have no mortgage. So holidayed a lot when the the DC were younger, top up pensions and ISA's now so can retire at 55.

You criticised talking to strangers about how to spend money, I was extending your example.

We have a similar household income.

• pensions - approx £900 a month (pretax; inc 1 public sector pension)

We have around £7k net pay each month combined:

• mortgage and household bills - circa £2000 a month
• car payments - £700 a month (2 cars)
• food and drink - circa £800 a month
• childcare - circa £500 a month
• savings - £1500 a month
• payments toward a couple of pre-booked holidays - £400 a month

The rest goes on eating out, day trips, clothes, beauty treatments, hobbies...

I don't know why anyone would think it's not high earning; we feel very comfortable (and very lucky).

Urghhh🙈 - why did I click on this!!! Sooo f-ing depressing😒

@Useranon1 so FA who's job it is to talk about errrr finances are strangers? Or fellow high earners who you work with are strangers? Come on now, pull a few more teeth.

Lol that people think these sorts are threads are genuine requests for help.

Lol all you like Orwell, I’ve given some concrete examples of how threads like this one have made me reassess my own finances. I would assume others find them interesting / helpful in the same way.

In my experience, people don't really discuss how they spend their disposable income at work in any detail.

Our financial advisors advise us on protection and on our investments. They do not advise us on how to spend our disposable income.

Also on just under £140k per year combined.

Approx £15k of this comes from bonuses which get saved. Previously this has paid for our wedding and is now stacking up for a larger house deposit.

We currently live in a small house with low outgoings also so are saving up for a second deposit- the plan being to rent this house out (most likely to a family member) and buy a larger one for us. We’ve also just spent £10k on a honeymoon to the Maldives and will spend a similar amount on next years holiday to South Africa.

We have 18% pension contributions each (6% us, 12% employer) plus buy a couple of hundred worth of shares from our work scheme each month.

The plan is to have plenty of pots across multiple ways of investing/saving so we should have
pensions, shares, cash savings (Stocks and Shares ISAs) and an investment property accumulated over time and hopefully can use some of this to retire early.

we will be taking on the bigger mortgage at some point in the next 1-2 years so this will mean we calm down on the holidays a bit and work on re accumulating the cash savings etc.

basically different things at different times- the past 2 years have all been focussed towards wedding/honeymoon savings and it was amazing to be able to have whatever we wanted and also treat our family and friends (we covered accommodation for 2 nights for most people) target is the bigger house but we always keep the other pots slowly increasing as we go.

we give ourself £350 per month each as spends which covers individual socialising, hobbies, clothes, hair and beauty treatments etc. we are trying to balance enjoying having this much disposable income as it may never happen again versus securing our future.

no kids and currently no plans to have any!

In my experience, people don't really discuss how they spend their disposable income at work in any detail

And you've not worked out why that is? 😄

Pay 30% of salary into pension
€3000 childcare per month
€2000 mortgage per month (incl overpay of €400)
Save €450 per month to kids university fund (already have their school fees saved)
Save €100 per month into prize-bonds

Not much left after the above.

This is super helpful, thank you!

We spend a lot on holidays. 2 this year both SE Asia and 4 next year too, 3 in Europe and then to the Maldives. We do a few staycations too.

We are saving for our next house too but don't plan to move for like 8 years as we currently live in a spacious 3 bed semi. When we move (we hope to self build) we want to rent this house out too.

We get c. £300 allowance each too, but my yoga is paid separately (£90 a month) and my hair, nails, lashes etc are also separate. DH thinks this should be absorbed into my allowance but trying to resist on that!

My bonus is separate so will just decide when paid what to do with it.

Most significant single outgoing is the taxman who takes four-figures a week, give as much to charity as I spent on my car. Spending habits otherwise are the same as when I earned a third of what I do now.

As other PP have said, this is fine to discuss. Others are engaging but unfortunately, you don't seem to have anything profitable to add. If you don't feel the discussion is fruitful for you, no one is chaining you to the thread.

Bearsan
How are you able to live so well on average incomes?
We are above average but not high earners in the SE.

We have one take out a week costing no more than £10.
We cannot afford one holiday/break per year. Last family holiday was five years ago - short haul too.
Mortgage will take us to retirement age in a house that is far too small.
Minimal savings - trying desperately to build up emergency fund
One decent vehicle
Pay the minimum into pension
No childcare fees
Food shop in Lidl
Bring lunch to work, no random coffees out
Buy clothes from H&M, Next, New Look, Dorothy Perkins