People on good wages saying they are struggling

[ChopSuey2]

Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed by people on good wages saying they are struggling?

I am not talking about people who have good wages but are paying off large debts or whose childcare leaves them broke, but people who say they can't afford to live on a certain amount but actually have a decent or even lots of money left after essentials. Equally, people whose essentials (food shopping and heating particularly) are ludicrously high (not including those with high costs related to disability).

I really feel like people need to read the room. People are genuinely struggling and saying you can't afford to live on a good wage is insensitive.

I'm not sure if it's relevant but I would consider myself to be on a good wage (not a higher tax payer and in London).

YABU - people can say they can't afford to live on a good wage because it's all relative
YANBU - people need to think about what being unable to afford things really means

There also needs to be a discussion of what money is.
Most people sell their time for others working endless hrs for less than £67 per day. People need to understand money is all about value, the less valuable your skills or ability to solve problems is the less money you will have.
You have to find your niche. When you understand something, you understand its market, that's the key.
Ownership is the key, an idea, a business, a specialized service, a niche, be a Ferrari, not a Ford. The next level is actually owning property that others use.

There's a stark lack of consciousness around money and what it actually is, and how to manage it. A prime example is remortgaging the home to renovate the home, a silly idea.

@Tomorrowillbeachicken I'd not heard of that before, looks like a great idea. The monzo bank accounts are brilliant also, they have 'pots' you can move your money into.

But surely you should totally be 'reading the room' if you're on a good wage.

Good wage and struggling to budget because let's say you've booked a few too many breaks and needing to hold off a bit, or went wild at Christmas so feeling the pinch a bit now, or feeling the pinch running both decent cars in the household to the various out of school clubs and events that have been attended.

Or struggling to put a meal on the table so needing a food bank.

You wouldn't 'read the room' in that situation no?

I said YANBU because your thread reminded me of someone I know who constantly moans about how poor they are. She is a SAHM and her husband earns around 750k/year I expect, which is obviously healthy even for tier 1 global cities. Last time she said it, I (slightly naughtily) asked very sympathetically if they were struggling with the COL crisis, to which she immediately replied they weren’t and seemed almost offended I had asked.

I can’t tell if she actually thinks they are poor (based on whatever ‘poor’ means in her social group), if it’s a wafer thin attempt at faux humility, or if it’s some kind of twisted power trip way of putting everyone else who earns less into their place. Whatever the reason, it is patently ludicrous and does elicit eye rolls from us whenever we have to listen to it.

I don't disagree with that - "read the room" is a horrible expression and just aims to suppress dissenting opinions. But I do think those who are well off and just not able to afford as much need to stop moaning. Asking for advice on how to save money in certain areas is fine, moaning isn't.

There's a stark lack of consciousness around money and what it actually is, and how to manage it. A prime example is remortgaging the home to renovate the home, a silly idea

I disagree. If you take money out of your home eg to put in a new kitchen and bathroom and that adds to the value of the house by more than you paid (including interest on the loan) that is surely worthwhile. I wouldn't do it because I'd be concerned about redundancy and being able to afford the loan if I lost my job (also why I pay for cars outright from savings), but if you have a "safe" job, I can't see the issue.

Is it though? The 30k will still be entitled to child benefit and probably UC if renting. So actually who is better off?

I don't think it is silly to remortgage to decorate. I have never done that and in fact my house is pretty much as we bought it in 1997 as I was more interested in over paying mortgage (I still have one but I hope to get it paid this year (or next)). It is just another choice people make. Just as I chose to pay school fees and indeed university fees for all my children - I am sure a lot of people think tha tis ridiculous in London where there are so many good schools and given student loans are available.

Luckily it is still a free country where you keep at least some (but not much before the state steals it for tax) of your money and decide how you want to spend it.

Comparison is the thief of joy is an old saying which is pretty correct in relation to any of us comparing ourselves to others. I always think my best thing (other than the children) is that I am not often ill and usually happy. I couldn't put a price on that - it is so valuable. Obviously it partly comes from not drinking or smoking and being well off enough to get enough sleep, etc

Don’t be daft. Benefits won’t double your net income. Especially on 30k.

I’ve just run 2 adults 2 children, renting, in the north through entitled to. Overall income 34k, one child in childcare.

£400/month in UC.

not really doubling income is it?

UC isn't life changing amount of money, especially when you rent.

Benefits don't make a £30k income into an £80k income........ You can't seriously believe that is the case?!
The person on 80k still has a significantly higher income than the person on £30k, even with UC and CB.

For those saying people overstretched ... no one knew how things were going to go. When we bought our house, the mortgage was just under 50% of one of our wages, and to rent an equivalent sized house was 50% more than our mortgage. We borrowed only about half the amount the bank would have lent us. Thats not mortgaging up to the eyeballs.

Now, interest rates means our mortgage is hundreds more expensive (still cheaper than renting though), gas and electricity has more than doubled. But our wages haven't really gone up, with the industry citing they can't afford it. Now one persons wages just barely covers the basics. Childcare takes up the second wage almost entirely.

We got a house we could afford on one person because we knew we were planning on having children and maternity leave and childcare early days would be expensive. Then 3 years later here we find ourselves not unable to afford food, but we have nothing left over each month, which is insane when we are both above average earners with postgraduate degrees.

Bit confused by the idea that people in their 40s were so easily able to buy houses.
I'm still friends with my groups of friends from school and university, aged 48-51, and the only ones who own their homes had huge deposits from parents or were given their houses by parents or through inheritance. None could have afforded one otherwise. Nearly all have postgraduate degrees from good universities. Same with families I know locally. Nearly all are renting.

@Ceilingplaits I'm 42 and got a 100% mortgage. We didn't have a pot to piss in, but we were able to buy a house. It was very easy for us.

@Ceilingplaits that seems insane. Are you from an insanely expensive area?

That really seems odd, I live in an expensive area and most of my friends bought houses on their early to mid 20s (I am early 40s). I was 22. Couple of grand deposit and fees I saved by living at home, i did buy with my husband, all my friends were in LTR too and bought ada couple. We bought I 3 bedroom house but I could have got a 2 bed flat alone. I bought XH when I was 25. I wasn't a high earner at that point, maybe £22k, i wasnt earning that much when we first got the mortgage.

I did my professional qualifications at work rather than going to uni, something I am really glad about as uni wouldn't have been of any benefit career wise and obv meant I could buy a house sooner.

Another 40 something who bought before prices rose quite easily.

In our case both DP and I earned under £10k pa and saved a 2 grand deposit over a year so we could get a 95% mortgage on a 2 bed terrace for £32k. The mortgage was £180 pm compared with renting a similar house for £350. A lot of people did the same due to this.

My sister bought a 1 bed terrace for £25k on her own but she earned slightly more. Neither of us got any money from our parents.

In Yorkshire prices were low until about the mid 2000s so lots of people in their late 20s were buying then. Your peers must have lived in much more expensive areas or not bought by 30 to have missed the boat.

We moved in 2006 and it was only then starting to become unaffordable but by then you'd have to have not bought by your early to mid 30s to have missed the boat.

Wow thats a huge difference on prices, a 2 bed in SE around the same time was £90kish i guess, salaries probably higher also though. That was 2002.

It would be an interesting comparison to look the disposable income of single parents of two preschoolers after rent and childcare costs.

The £80k earner will get no help at all and pay 40% tax plus likely student loan repayments and possibly significant childcare costs.

Lower earners will get CB and UC to help with rent and childcare.

The gap in disposable income is likely to be far less than £80k vs £30k suggests.

@PugInTheHouse we were FTBs in the mid 1990s. In 2002 those houses were probably worth £40-50k.

But the price difference is probably much larger now, ours likely around £120-150k.

I bet your £90k 2 bed from 2002 has risen more than 3 times in value now?

Why shouldn’t high earners complain that they can only afford one foreign holiday this year, for example? They’ve done nothing wrong, just as those on lower incomes have done nothing wrong. They are allowed to feel aggrieved that they have been negatively impacted by things that are out of their control.

Like other posters I think it does depend on what is a 'good' wage. I earn a reasonable amount but I'm struggling because my mortgage has gone up and everything else has. It's very hard.

I am a single parent earing above median average, around 43k, late 30s.

I was only just able to get my mortgage on a 150k terraced house, with a 10% deposit I managed to scrape together from the pitiful amount my ex allowed me to have from the ex marital home, and savings when that was still possible. I could not afford the drawn-out battle between solicitors it would have otherwise meant. One child is still in childcare, ex pays 50% of that.

April is going to kill me financially. If it was just the energy bills, that would be doable. But it's an increase in energy bills, an increase in food bills, an increase in water bills, an increase in mortgage rates, an increase in phone and internet bills, an increase in council tax, an increase in fuel bills and an increase in childcare.

None of those are non-essentials. I have very little in non-essentials.

Yesterday I also saw what life is like without a car, which I considered giving up when I move jobs closer to home. I live in a big town and needed to get to the city we're about a 30min drive away from. Three buses, one after another, cancelled, before one finally arrived an hour after we were supposed to get on. The train we needed not running that day (no announcement made online when I looked up the journey, we only got informed at the ticket counter). We were supposed to arrive at a venue at 2pm, left in good time, and got there at 4pm. The journey back wasn't much better, bearing in mind I had an infant school child with me. And due to the cost of bus fares between different companies I paid more than it would have cost me in fuel and daytime parking. So now the car is an essential, too, for work and all appointments, because while a 2h delay was possible with a leisure activity, there is no way I could do that with work or appointments. Outside of major cities, public transport is a shambles.

So yes, I'll happily moan, even if I earn more than most of the people around me. Because life over the UC limit can be shit, too, especially when you're not partnered up. Reading the room goes both ways.

This "read the room" stuff that everyone trots out on here these days is tripe.

People are completely justified in having a moan about a lifestyle that they have had, worked for, and that's been snatched away from them by this Government ignoring soaring energy bills and a cost of living crisis.

Personally speaking, joint income of £50k before tax and N.I with a child and 2 pets, we have cut down every month for the last year..no money going into savings, very few nights out, home improvements posponed etc ...but we are still O.K. Doesn't mean we can't be angry about the state of this country though and complain about what we have lost.