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?

I'd disagree with this, except for housing costs.
I found living in Central London much cheaper. Council tax much lower than many parts of the South East at least, being able to walk many places etc. I sold my car and put what I used to spend on just having it on the road (before petrol) in a 'transport fund'. I didn't spend anywhere near it even with the occasional taxi. Also more likely to live in a flat or terraced house, so heating is cheaper.

I know many people who live on much much less money than £100k in central London. However, they have owned their properties a long time.

Not everything about London is more expensive.
One of things I found when I moved to London as a student was that if you had to have a Travelcard anyway for commuting, you suddenly had huge scope to get to loads of free museums, galleries and events all over the city. Housing in London is undeniably more expensive, but it’s much easier to have a nicer lifestyle with low disposable income there.

My income is around there. My household is me. I suspect loads of you wouldn't pick me out as a high earner.

Small central one bed flat. Needs a new bathroom. 6 year old car. Never flown anything other than economy. Not been on a long haul holiday for years. Clothes mostly middle of the high street ie. I think hush/ mint velvet/hobbs are pricy but still buy there.
My one indulgence is a fancy gym and PT.

Central london is expensive.

Just to be controversial, old BJ our stb ex PM, called his £250k pa side hustle, "Chicken Feed" in 2009.

I used to think 100k was a lot but then I was exposed to an industry where people everywhere seemed to earn considerably more. I now think that 100k is far from being a large salary. I think it might be difficult to always retrieve the tax on really large salaries, so I think they may be under reported.

This thread is fucking hilarious!

£100k is way way more than than the UK median and also considerably more than the London median.

Will it go as far as it did 20 years ago no but who doesn't what that issue.

If you are on £100k+ but have high outgoings that doesn't mean your salary isn't good it means you have high outgoings. Newsflash a high earner with high outgoings has more ability to cut spending than someone struggling on a low income.

So you live in an expensive part of one of the most expensive cities in the world, in a property that meets your needs, have a nearly new car, buy clothes in expensive shops, go on holiday, have a fancy gym membership and PT and you don't think that people won't think you have a good lifestyle and earn a lot of money to be able to afford it? Talk about being out of touch with the day to day reality of the majority.

£100k NET family income is large.
£100k Gross is what my DD and her partner earn - £50k each which sounds like a fortune but DD pays almost half her salary in Tax/NI, Student loans and Pension ( Teacher so pays 12%) and her partner pays £400 child support plus they have his kids every single weekend and half the school hols.
They manage fine but don’t have much spare income - the £300 a month she is about to save on Nursery fees (DGS now 3) will be swallowed up in bills. Yes I know she is lucky in that respect but their mortgage fix also ends next March so she is desperate to lock in a new fix before rates increase even more.

"What jobs do you guys do to be on an income like that if you don't mind me asking?"
I am a lawyer in London doing business law (as are 4 of my adult children although 2 do not qualify until 2024 but hopefully they will earn a fair bit then). Have a sibling who is a doctor so similarly is on a high income.

It depends if we are talking about £50k each in a couple or one person on £100k.

For the very few lawyers who can get good first qualified jobs in London (after minimum of 6 years of exams including 2 years of paid training) that first year when they are about 25 years old can be up to £100,000 a year gross. In fact this law firm starts newly qualifieds off on £140k, although you will have to work many hours of unpaid overtime and weekends if you want to do that deal with the devil and hope to earn £1m+ if a partner in due course www.legalcheek.com/2022/08/jones-day-nq-lawyer-salaries-rise-to-140k/

Lots of other jobs have high pay in London too - investment banking is well paid. My sons' friend is a trainee accountant at big 5 firm. Basically from mid teens if money matters to you you need to plot quote a complicated course if you want these kinds of jobs.

Equivalent rates are commonplace amongst IT contractors (and have been for 20 years or more)

DH and I bring about that much in gross. We don't have a mortgage or childcare costs. We do have to have pay rent for DS' uni room. But we're very comfortable. It is a lot of money and the reason people say it isn't is because they want a more expensive lifestyle than they can afford. No doubt if they had a joint income of 250K it still wouldn't be enough.

No doubt if they had a joint income of 250K it still wouldn't be enough.

Someone (who’s strangely not returned) posted exactly that on this thread. Apparently £250k isn’t enough not to feel “squeezed”. 😂

In London if you have kids and are concerned about schools or have to pay for childcare, 100k should still be okay. Assuming 50k each, that’s a take home income of ~70k. You can find a 2 bed flat near good schools (not in the city, but not in zone 6, either) for 2k a month, you’d probably have a trek of a commute and a biggish childcare bill until kids were old enough to be left on their own after school, but not unmanageable. Kids who couldn’t share a bedroom would upset the balance a fair bit.

I think it’s, as people say, a bit of a disconnect. You aren’t really squeezed on that sort of salary, but you won’t be living the sort of lifestyle you and many around you might have expected from it.

Yes, £100k is 5 years wages for me. It's a lot.

No. Hobbs is an indulgence. Fancy gym is not your only one. In my experience, high earners just stop noticing what the rest of the world call indulgences.

For me, Asda and H&M sales are clothing sources. Hobbs is well out of my league.

We also have a 6 year old car and we consider it quite new.

Small central one bed flat.

Uh, yeah, this would definitely mark you out as a high earner 😂

Oh was meant to be quoting this

Plus you have a car and live in central London where almost no-one does because its too expensive, too slow and you have excellent public transport anyway. How much must the insurance, parking and congestion charge cost?

That's shitloads of money.

You are a low earner though. It’s more like 3x average than 5x, and once you’ve taken off tax it’s probably barely twice the average take-home.

We have a household income of 140k we live up north with very low outgoings mortgage is £300 a month childcare is breakfast we drive small cars fully owned outright not expensive with one fun car. I'd say many households get used to larger salaries and the outgoings become larger. Bigger mortgages , more expensive cars and lifestyle.

We used to have a household income of 40k and our lifestyle hasn't changed that much apart from we shop at Sainsbury's instead of Lidl go on better holidays and get my hair done in a salon.

It used to be easier to drive around in Central London. But I gave up my car as I didn't use it enough. It didn't cost much more in insurance than outside London (and was cheaper than living in say some parts of South London!) and parking permit was under £200. Parking permits are cheaper nowadays if you have a lower cc car. Not all of Zone 1 is in the congestion-charge zone. If you do live within the congestion-charge zone you get a 90% discount.

If your lifestyle hasn’t changed much, you must be putting a huge amount of money into your savings @Fififelix.

It was just about enough for me to break even and it's just me and my daughter. Certainly not enough to save anything. But my daughter is in private school and rides, so if we didn't have that it would be enough 😒

Yes we are overpaying mortgage massively and have savings.

He wasn’t saying that, he was saying that he doesn’t project the Instagram lifestyle people believe people on £100k plus have because he doesn’t.

If you don’t know about money, it’s probably why you don’t have it.