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 personally think it is all relative and depends on outgoings etc. Our joint income is around £125,000 a year in the South East. DH, however, is very "careful" with money. We haven't got decent cars. I zip around in a little Kia Picanto and DH drives a Ford Focus. We do overpay significantly on our mortgage monthly and have childcare bills to pay too. DH also pays almost £400 a month in fuel to commute to work.

Yes!! For me personally anyway, myself and my partner make 23K each per year so that kind of salary is dream money for me.

It’s not that extravagant though..

Ours is £100k jointly, per month we spend:
£983 mortgage
£900 childcare
£450 2 x cars (1 paid off in 6 months)
£500 savings
£250 debt (finishing in 8 months)
£700 household bills
£550 food

It goes….. we go camping for holidays and have old phones/cars. Admittedly once debt is gone, car is paid off and we don’t have the massive childcare bill we will be much much better off.

But now.. we’re not

I think it’s a lot. We’ve only had a joint income of £130-140ish for the past 2/3 years due to dh getting a couple of promotions/pay rise. However we still basically have the same life we had on a joint income of around £50,000 (out of choice). We decided to stay in our normal 3 bed house instead of upsizing, so mortgage pretty small and all bills same as before. The only childcare we have to pay for is breakfast and after-school club for 1 child. So for us it is plenty. It means the children can do whatever clubs they choose. We like going away as a family so dc can see different places/things which is what we’ve chosen to spend money doing rather than bigger house etc. We also save plenty and obvs pay more into pensions. We do live in the South West however, in a city which isn’t expensive to live in.

Ok but those are outgoings some people can only dream of. Owning a house, 2 cars, saving £6k a year- lots of people don’t get to do any of those things, let alone all 3!

The whole “it depends on your outgoings” thing winds me up. Totally get that it costs more to live in London than the NE, but it’s daft to complain that your much larger than average salary doesn’t make you well off because you’ve chosen to spend it on cars or a nice house. Yes poor people’s outgoings are smaller because that’s all they can afford

Some of these comments are off. In London the average salary is 53k. So two people earning 100 is very very common. The median salary is 39k. So for two adults again not far off. Of course many on less. Many on more. but 100 is a common family income for two working people in London.

www.plumplot.co.uk/London-salary-and-unemployment.html

The Office of National Statistics has gross household income figures for Greater London. Most households have income much less than £100,000. Only about 1-1.5 million households are over £100,000.
About 3 million households in London have income below £30,000.

ONS

Avg salary in London will be skewed by significantly large salaries, so saying a joint income of 100k is 'very common' is very misguided.

Even if you go by the median salary you're comment is incorrect. 39k x2 does not equal 100k. Being off by 20k a year is not 'close'.

Not liking it doesn’t change it, eighty to a hundred grand a year as a two working adult family is very very common in London.

I didn’t say I didn’t like it, I said it’s not reflective of the majority.

simply saying something does not make it so

the average does not mean the most common. That would be the mode. 😇

You can say it doesn’t feel like a lot to you or that you need more to sustain the lifestyle you want, but objectively £100,000 is more than double the gross income of the majority of households, even in London. It’s a hugely fortunate position to be in.

i don’t think a joint income of 100k is a high salary for London at all. 50k each is not a lot.

Exactly! Massively overpaying your mortgage or saving hundreds of pounds a month means you are very well off. Most people can't do that. Just because you're not buying expensive cars or holidays it doesn't mean you don't have a lot of spare income.

Of course it’s a high salary. I’m in London and neither DH or I earn anything like 50k; nor does anyone else we know. Average London salary is higher than the national average, but not by much, and that average is skewed by the proportion of very high earners.

Do those of you saying it is not a lot of money even see how many people are around you in lower paid jobs or not able to work? Retail, catering, childcare, school support staff, care work, cleaners. There are so many shockingly low paid jobs.
I just really hope you’re not making the decisions about how to help those worst hit by the cost of living crisis, because we really shouldn’t be targeting help at the people with a household income of £100,000 who feel like they’re less well off than they ought to be this winter.

I didn’t say it was the most common; I said it was very common. Please reread. Factually this is entirely correct. I specifically said many would earn more, many less. But the mean and median is between forty and fifty grand for one earner in London. Pretending everyone is a low earner is nonsense.

In addition median is the mid point, so as many people earn more than less. Which shows that the majority are not below. Again factually.

Actually, factually, in addition: you’re discussing average/median individual incomes on a post about household incomes.

If you search the average household income in London you will find it much below that six figures. Household not individual incomes for London

But there might only be one person earning £100,000 per year in the household

or

2 people earning £50,000 per year and coming out with £755 per month more

These type of threads don’t look at net pay.

£100,000 per year is gross income. Dh worked mainly in the US but was based in the U.K. and was paying US health insurance as well as other deductions that reduced his salary to £4450 per month. I didn’t work (2 children with ADHD and other SENs)

Compare that with 2 people who earn £50,000 per year with a monthly household income of £6240 less any pension.

There is a huge chasm between how much one persons gross household income and what a £100,000 gross household income means to someone else.

But that’s irrelevant. Either one person earning 100k or two earning 50k are both high income households, even in London. Look at the link @NippyWoowoo posted about household incomes in London. It’s broken down by borough. The average is about 32k per household and the stats are from 2019, a little out of date but not massively.

@Kennykenkencatalso two working parents usually mean childcare cost and they can be easily over £755 a month. Just look at all the threads here about how expensive it is.

I mean its only 6k a month we take home between us with 100k - but our mortgage is 1600 & Nursery is 2050 in zone 3 London...so more than half is already gone on that before we even get into bills and all the other crap you have to pay for.

“Only 6k”? That’s well over double the London average, though, which is about 2.7 a month.

There are a lot of households that will see almost 50% of their take home pay go to cover their energy bills. Forgive me if I don’t have too much sympathy for someone with £3350 to cover their bills and other “crap”.

I live on the Surrey / South london border and agree it’s only a lot if you already own a property that you bought years ago. I earn 58k and cannot afford to buy anything other than a 2bed flat. Given I need 3 beds right now I rent. In my native wales I’d be loaded on 58k salary. It’s a decent amount but you’re not loaded on 100k in london, definitely not