Do you think £100,000 a year household income is a lot of money?

[SleepDreamThinkHuge]

I think it is a lot of money even in London where I live. When I hear people say things like "£100,000 is not enough to live on even in London" I think to myself what are they talking about. I have a family of four and we can only dream of earning that amount. The maximum I can see us earning is about £60k if we are lucky. Currently on over £40k combined income with still a relatively high rent and everything does go on bills and other necessities. But sometimes we are lucky and manage to save some money a year. Luckily no debt. I just think to myself £100,000 would be life changing even in London.

What are your thoughts? What do you consider to be average and above average in London and the city you are from?

TopGub - The richest people in the UK are mostly there through exploitation.
I'm not sure we should be 'grateful' for their contributions to the economy

What a daft thing to say.

How many taxpaying jobs have you created TopGub?
How many millions in tax do you pay per year?

The main point the lower paid need to remember if £100k salary a year is £65k after tax - yes, still a huge sum (£5400 a month if earned by one person) but may have 9% graduate tax taken off it for those with new student loans too.
£5k a month when £1100 is the average UK rent now is clearly a lot of money even after £2k a month for full time child care (london assuming rent and childcare not shares with a spouse) - leaving £2k for all other bills.

There's so many factors.

A single person on £100k with student loan would bring home around £4800 a month. They wouldn't be entitled to any help with childcare.

Two people on £50k each without student loan would bring home around £6200 a month. Plus be entitled to help with childcare.

Then you bring housing into it. Rent in London can easily be £2k+ a month, rent in some northern towns can be £700 a month.

Even worst case scenario. £4800 a month with London rent and childcare. You'd have disposable income. But you might not be going on yearly holidays and driving a Range Rover.

@aquatastics

What I've done is irrelevant.

The richest people cause more problems than they solve (on the whole)

If you're earning billions through exploitation then damn right you should he paying millions in tax and no, we shouldn't be grateful for it.

TopGub - you sound like you have a massive chip. You seem to approach life from a very narrow perspective and you sound very angry. Of course life won't always seem fair, but it takes all types as they say.

Threatening ? Where do you get that from?

Okay this is making sense now.

Your oldest child must be in their 20s or at least 18 as they have left home.

So you bought a property either on your own or 20+ years (ish ago), sold it and make a shedload of equity. That now allows you to live in a home that most people on £40Kpa could never afford.

You may earn less that but not much less! I think you are being very cagey. If you were honest you'd come along and say 'Oh I had £100K deposit having bought a flat years ago, I earn £35K, get reductions as a single occupier...' etc.

Which would mean you are considerably more comfortable than @SleepDreamThinkHuge

Just be honest!

Yes, I had equity of about £200,000. Don't want to give specifics.

My point is that I could afford, and treated myself to, a house with a garden because I could afford it.

It wasn't my 'basic living conditions'. DD1 and DD2 shared a bedroom in a 2 bedroom flat' for years without feeling deprived

EdgeOfACoin · Today 09:23
stuntbubbles · Today 08:56
It’s because they mean “we don’t have enough for a baby and to continue having the holidays, meals out and other trappings we have already

If you have to choose between a baby and a holiday, it's not really a life of luxury, is it?

most families I know go camping for their holiday.

children are expensive. In all likelihood if you are having a child you will have to cut down on ‘meals out and other trappings we already have’. 3 people cost more than 2, it’s simple maths.

My income is below £40,000.

and the reason you could afford the house was because of equity gains which is fine. But it's disingenuous to pretend it's the same for people now even if on a higher salary.

@aquatastics

Thats a very odd take from my comments.

I dont have a chip. I'm not angry.

Life isn't fair.

I'm not defending those who make it that way

@Topgub If some people didn't earn millions, there would be no welfare state.

where do you think that money comes from?

The government has no money. It's taxpayers' money. Millionaires pay more so YOU can pay less.

And if you regard being employed as being 'exploited' I feel sorry for you.

Give your head the proverbial wobble.

Otherwise I would buy the £250,000 flat, and my DDs would share a room. As they did until DD1 went to university.

As I said, £100,000 is considerably more than most of us. If it isn't enough then you need to have a look at the choices you make

It's a bit of a daft question because it is affected by so many things. A couple on £100k would be doing fabulous, the more kids you add the more cost and of course it stretches less. Also depends on where you live, rent or mortgage and how high, any debts, how many if any cars you run, private schooling, gym membership and how much you spend on activities, food, childcare etc.

We are a family of 5 on £70 k combined. We have our own home but shop at Aldi and I buy the kids clothes in sales, haven't been abroad for 7 years but do smaller trips in the UK. We go to softplay or similar once a week in the winter, autumn months and cinema with kids a lot. They have no paid for hobbies yet. I go to one free baby group and pay for the other.We have no childcare costs as I am part time and dh will have baby once I'm at work. We live a comfortable life but need to save for things like going on holiday or doing up our bathroom just as most people do. A £100k is a lot of money but depending on people's outgoings might not stretch as far as they would like.

I think it depends. Yes it’s a lot of money, but if you have an extortionate mortgage, drive the latest Jaguar, have expensive hobbies, holidays and live beyond your means etc then maybe it’s not so much! It’s all relative.

Where does money come from is an interesting question

It's not a fundamental particle or a scarce resource , it's a man made concept around which we have built society

So there is no reason why you need millionaires to pay taxes to fund a welfare state

The easiest alternative is to have a more equal wealth distribution- no millionaires and no paupers

But other set ups are possible / imaginable

@SunniestSunshines

I'm not exploited.

And millionaires don't pay more tax so I can pay less.

They pay more because they earn more.

They should pay more.

Well thanks for clearing that up @Runnerbeansflower

You have spent most of your day ( not working?) posting on MN telling people that they can get a lot for £100K when in fact you have done very nicely yourself by accruing a deposit of £200K through inflation, towards your current home.

and your no-car circs is a choice not a case of not affordable.

Hardly the same as someone struggling a bit on joint £40K pa.

@Topgub Oh dear, basic economics is not your strong point.

You know the middle classes pay more tax collectively than anyone as there are more of them?

So if the millionaires you clearly despise didn't exist, everyone else would pay more to meet welfare needs.

Topgub - you can't argue that anyone who has ever created a company and created job opportunities for others along the way is by definition 'exploitative.' I mean, some will be sure, but it doesn't need to be a given by any means. What an odd thing to say. I know people who have founded '.coms' and all kinds of businesses. They create flexible work for graduates to gain experience and be able to move on, but also the chance to grow with the company. 'High earners' these days need to be flexible and adaptable. As I said, work hard, but also work smart.

You've proved the generational inequality point pretty effectively there, then.

Some of the comments are really strange. 100k is statistically in a top %, however if a theoretical 30yo couple earning 50k each with no parental support starting now in London and aiming to have your standard 2.4 kids and a modest 3 bed place (600k in outskirts of London) would need to save up over 150k on deposit+stamp duty whilst paying rent and bills.. Before having children + taking into account compatibility of future mortgage payments +childcare. It is not impossible, but is most certainly not a luxurious lifestyle people imagining.

@SunniestSunshines

And reading what I've written clearly isn't yours

Or yours @aquatastics

🤷‍♀️

Bizarre

@Runnerbeansflower So you live in a £300K+ property that you were able to buy because you had equity in a previous property that you bought at a time when your salary was sufficient to allow you to do so (most likely because house prices were substantially lower in comparison to wages).

Someone wanting to buy your property now, who had saved their own 10% deposit would need to earn £68,000/yr. Or perhaps they should save £200k deposit instead? How much would they need to earn to save 200k in 5 years? Maybe £100k - save 40k a year and live off the remaining £30k? And don't forget trying to rent in your area while saving the deposit, which is around £9000 a year for a house share or £12k for a studio!

And yet you keep telling us how much £100k is, despite living in a property that you would need close to that figure to afford if starting out today.

Yes, of course there are cheaper options as you keep pointing out - but not everyone can live in them. If there are 10 properties available, by definition only 5 families will be able to buy the ones below average price.

I think a simple summing up is that you cannot ascertain how rich a family are based on a headline figure of gross income.

• Single income households pay a huge amount more tax that dual income households;
• Dual income households often have more childcare costs;
• Some people get help from parents and other relatives, others don't;
• Some people have to pay a fortune to commute, some people live next door to work;
• There is more help for people on lower incomes which often make actual net differences in the £20k to £40k bracket barely perceptible (this was a really interesting one when I divorced because my wife's income was only about £1k net a month compared to £4.9k net for me but by the time all her benefits had been added and the child maintenance and essential work costs - mainly commuting - had been deducted the difference between us fell to around £800);
• Some people earn a decent wage their whole lives, some only do very late in their careers and won't earn anywhere near as much over a whole lifetime. Compare an accountant with someone in the creative industries for example;
• Where we all live matters because housing is such a huge part of living costs these days.
• Etc

We can debate the fairness until we're blue in the face but ultimately the question "are people on £100k rich" is flawed because there are so many variables.