100k+ salary, is it worth it?

[Goingtogetslated]

For the record…Not trying to be insensitive…

partner and I both earn approx 150k each. Working long and unpredictable hours with high levels of stress and responsibility.

Yet here we are living in a 3 bed terrace in the east end of london, a basic car, neither of us into high end expenses/dining out/clothes. We used to holiday a lot pre children, I guess would classify as our major expenditure in the past.

But is it actually worth it? A decent 4/5 bed house (with kerb appeal I admit) in the commuter belt seems to be coming in at 1.5 million minimum. Add the commuting costs/ extended nursery hours, paid help required theres barely anything left - relatively speaking.

Would we not be better off sacking it all in, moving to the countryside and earning enough to pay the bills?

We appear to be stuck in this middle ground where we earn too much to have any allowances from the state, contribute a lot to the government yet not enough for any real benefits in lifestyle

We have a combined salary of £250/300k. I work locally but my husband works in central London.

It's very different when both work central.

Obviously not, just that people seem to think you have to live in the middle of nowhere to get an affordable house.

£10k a month?! We have literally just £2k a month and our outgoings are nearly all gone so we have no spare money for luxuries... yes, we aren't going to be totally destitute but we live in a 4 bedroom detached house in Norfolk and the property is only a 8 years old new build. We have a good quality of life yet a fraction of what you have. You are so entitled and deluded, this has to be a joke, right..? £10k a month... but can't make it work?! 😕 😳🤬

We live in a nice part of Kent in a 5 bedroom house with 0.2 acres and our house is around 550k. It is 55 minutes on the train to London. Our mortgage is £1000 a month. So I don't really see why you need a £1.5 million house. That is just something you desire.

Where are looking for houses? We are in a very nice area, detached, 4 bedrooms, kerb appeal and our house is probably £600k now. An hour from London with regular trains.

DH was earning over £100k. He missed a lot of the kids lives, he ended up with a massive tax bill, and he had to give up his job due to stress, and will be taking AD’s for life. Not worth it IMO as you only have one life, he can’t do it again but differently.

It’s a shame he was so unhappy but I’m pretty sure more people end up on ADs because they are skint than in good jobs.

I would say for me no it's not worth it. I earn a similar amount, moved to a big house in the suburbs (but commutable to London) and love my house / neighbours/ Community. But I hate my job most of the time and would LOVE to work less or do something less stressful or enjoyable and spend more relaxed time with my kids. But I have a massive mortgage and don't want to leave my community or make my kids move school, so I'm stuck and it is what it is. In hindsight, I would have have moved somewhere cheaper and smaller and had more career choices.

I honestly don't know what you are grizzling about. Myself and husband have never earnt as much as a third of your salary, lived in a nice part of Tunbridge Wells, had child in day care, and still happily had holidays and meals out. So you really need to check your privilege - do you both have massive drug habits or something to waste all your salaries?

my husband used to commute to London from Berkshire, technically a 30 minute train journey. But the actual journey took him at least double that time door to door, and we live close to the station.

This does my head in all the 30 mins journeys, well only if you live on the platform & work at the platform on the other end. And obviously it involves train times lining up perfectly with school drop off times & no waiting.

OP I get where you are coming from. I think you moved to London due to the wages but didn't properly consider the living costs. Ultimately, your wages are so high to compensate for the extortionate London living costs. So your income sounds a lot higher than what it really is. I believe you that you have made great sacrifices to get to where you are and no doubt work long hours in stressful roles. Only you know if this is worth it.

I personally think it sounds like a terrible life which is probably why I have empathy towards your situation.

I live in a cheap part of the UK, live in a 4 bed detached house that we absolutely love in what we feel is a great area. We have less than the £1500 you mention each month (after childcare, mortgage, commute costs) but that is adequate for us and we are very content.

If I were you, I would look at moving and getting jobs outside of London.

When we lived in London we also found it shocking how hard we worked and how much our lives costed. So we packed up and moved to Wales. I became a SAHM and my husband took a large pay cut. Guess what? We were bloody minted in comparison with our London lives. Holidays, husband finishing work at 5, cheap childcare, new cars, lots of savings. We feel sorry for our friends still chasing promotions in London, on huge money and living in crappy flats in , allegedly nice areas. You have been sold a lie! We don't even like visiting London now.

@Goingtogetslated this was never going to go down well on Mumsnet, but I get where you’re coming from.
The problem is all location. The properties you want in your desired locations are too expensive.
Do you have to work in London? Would there be jobs in your industries elsewhere, even if you have to take a pay cut for non London working, it might still make sense if the property market is much cheaper and lifestyle in general better? Can you work remotely?

Try further East along Central line
I used to live Z 2 Central. It eats your money,
'Tough it out kid' It's hell in Dorset after that.

I think that's very true.

Sometimes you can't see it when you are slogging away at work in your 30s and 40s and a huge amount of your salary is going on the mortgage and childcare. But these things don't last forever and when your children start full time school & become more independent and then later again when you have paid off your mortgage, that's when people living in expensive houses in London & the SE and with high salaries really reap the long term benefits as at that point they have lots of choices with all their disposable income.

I think someone who bought recently and is looking to move now, with a reasonable commute, it will mean that you might not have the lifestyle you expected to have. Particularly with kids the age yours are.

@Goingtogetslated reddit personal finance UK is probably a better place to chat about this. People are really supportive and practical, there is very little judgement of situations.

Why are you complaining about £1500k left over after you’ve already paid mortgage, childcare and bills? That’s more than lots of earners take home. As a teacher my take home pay is £1800 and that has to cover everything.

£2k childcare bills won’t be forever and you knew you would have to pay childcare when you chose to have children? I don’t have children in part because I know I can’t afford to.

Honestly, you come across as hugely entitled. How can you come on here and complain you only have £1500 left after major bills when so many make less than that in a month!?

Hi OP @Goingtogetslated . I actually understand. Im not sure why so many can't. I earn about a third of what you do. You're on 150k and a decent house where you live is 1.5mil. I earn 50k and a decent house here is 500k. So about 10x more for both us. Youd be astonished if you heard what I do for a living, how old I am or how many years of education/training it has taken and is yet to take.

Unless youre born into wealth, I dont think anyone with a normal job (i.e not minting in business) can really become wealthy nor poor in this country. Thats because theres benefits for those on low incomes and hefty taxes for those on high incomes. So in reality we all live a similar life, irrespective of stressors.

A typical UK household (excluding the very rich/very poor) feel entitled to be able to celebrate christmas, do gifts, and for birthdays/mothers days etc too. They feel entitled to be able to afford the odd takeaway and an annual holiday (whether thats a UK staycation, week in France or further afield).

We all have TVs and mobile phones and internet.
The divide is far far wider abroad.

A nurse or teacher here takes home the same as somebody who doesn't work when you take into account state benefits and student loans/childcare for the professional.

As weve seen with the latest strikes, we dont value our doctors at all. The amount of blood, sweat, tears that goes into it and upheaval of personal life, for the same as a barista.

No YANBU to think a simple life in the countryside would be easier.
So what are we doing it for, prestige? progression one day? to satisfy/stimulate intellect?

I really dont know.

I think you have to think about what's important to you. I moved out of London when I had young children thinking that it was the lifestyle that was important to me, that I'd be much happier with a bigger house and garden. But actually I wasn't.

I moved back and live in a scummier area in London and am infinitely happier. I love living in London. It turns out the size of my house isn't important to me, but the short commute, having everything I need right around me, does make me happier.

I'd also say that although it doesn't seem like it now, but the paying for childcare years do come to an end. And then you will have extra thousands each month to spend on stuff, it that's what makes you happy. I realised spending money on stuff (and the nice house) wasn't really making me happy.

I also realised my job wasn't making me happy, despite its high salary, so I now work in a different sector which I love but which doesn't pay me as much, but which means I can spend more time at home, less time in meetings with people I didn't like and feel that I'm doing something worthwhile with my life. I used to outsource most of my life to other people, so I could spend my time working out of the home, and now I don't have to do that.

Think you’ve had a hard time on here OP even though you will be fully aware you earn far more than the vast majority

we are in Manchester suburbs and our combined income is less than half of yours. 5 bed house, very manageable outgoings, nice car (one not two), ideally we would have more money for holidays but it’s totally doable. We both mostly wfh too (visit london occasionally for work) so not a particularly stressful life. We used to be based in the South east, so know how different the lifestyle is, it won’t suit everyone but is a heck of a lot less stressful

We are on a similar income and in a similar situation so I get where you are coming from (though bringing up other, less fortunate, people’s benefits was probably unwise).

We live in a five bed terraced house in zone 2. We are very lucky to have it but I agree it’s not what I pictured people who earn what we do living in - it’s small with only 3 reasonable sized bedrooms. The “garden” is perhaps 10square feet of paving slabs. The area is “on the up” but it’s still very close to some fairly dangerous estates (stabbing a and mugging are not uncommon). Our mortgage is just over £3k per month.

When we moved in it was only three bedrooms (one of which can’t fit a double bed), the kitchen and bathrooms needed replacing and the decor was 20+ years old. That was the only reason we could afford the deposit and why our mortgage payments are “low” considering what the property is now worth. We still need to do the kitchen but just can’t afford it. Is their scope to extend your current property either to let you live in it longer while you save for the next property or to up the value to give you more equity?

Our childcare costs are currently £1.8k per month and that’ll go up as our second will be starting nursery at the beginning of 2024.

That said, in our current property we are very comfortable and I have no complaints.

However, we constantly have the debate of whether we are living the best lives for ourselves and our children. As we are they won’t want for material things but they don’t get our time as much as we’d like because our working hours are so long and we could have an as nice or nicer house, with a garden for them to play in, if we moved to a cheaper area and took lower paying jobs.

We are hoping to move out of London into the commuter belt in a few years to try to get a house a bit closer to what I pictured and for the kids to see some green. We are looking for a house that’s a project to stretch our budget and eventually end up with what we want - is that something you could do?

Obviously we are very lucky to have these options, however, it is a bit of a shock to see the reality of how people with incomes like us live against the expectation - I thought I’d have a lovely big house in a safe area with this income, instead I have a small terrace in a not-particularly-safe area. Hopefully we’ll get to that nice house eventually but it’ll involve sacrificing even more time with our kids on commuting.

We feel sorry for our friends still chasing promotions in London, on huge money and living in crappy flats in , allegedly nice areas. You have been sold a lie!

I have felt a bit like that looking at friends who live that life and don't seem to be reaping the benefits of it. It's ok if you love it but different when you don't.

There's an awful lot of jealousy on this thread. If you had a joint income of £300k would you all be expecting to not have spare money for lots of luxuries? I bloody would, we earn a 3rd of that salary between us and certainly arent living a life of luxury but thats mostly due to covid problems with DHs job. £1500 a month is not a huge amount for a house of 4 gas/electric/travel/food/phone bills and everything else. Way above average but certainly not would I would want if earning that much.

I don't understand the thought process of only being able to ask questions on MN if you have a tenner left over before paying bills and food FFS.

TBH it doesn't sound worth it to me OP. Depends what sort of long game you are looking at. Childcare is such a short term cost I would be looking at what we would have left over after that. Also do you actually analyse your outgoings properly. Without sounding rude, some people are really crap with money and quite wasteful.

I have a spreadsheet with our income/expenditure for the next few years as once we stop paying school fees we will be considerably better off So it's good to have that longer term view. DH lost his job when DS1 was about to go into Y10 so we felt we couldn't move schools at that point, plus DS2 has learning difficulties so to move him would be awful for him so now have no savings at all and lots of credit card debt. In less than 2 years we will be ok so playing the long game. I never discuss money in RL as no one would really understand our position. We totally get we are privileged but things are awful at the moment and we keep having things go wrong (old cars/old house etc). We are looking ahead though and know things will be better soon.

I don't take un ridge with your post but I think you're being very pessimistic/exaggerating. For example

A decent 4/5 bed house (with kerb appeal I admit) in the commuter belt seems to be coming in at 1.5 million minimum.

Not true. Somewhere like Bishops Stortford or St Albans is maybe £1m in the nice areas. Yes not the very best houses there but also above 'average family homes'!

OP - look for a book called ‘uncomfortably off’ maybe - it’s coming out in may. You might find it interesting. I didn’t write it 😀 but it explains why people in top income brackets are not feeling all that rich (while in no way suggesting they are not).