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

This is exactly my point. Perhaps DB is an outlier but I've met a lot of his friends and many are in similar positions. The key seems to be to develop an unglamorous but vital specialism, eg compliance, risk, resilience etc.

I mention his situation to challenge the myth that everyone earning over £150k is in a Faustian pact with their employer. It's a very inconvenient truth for many people that there are lots of very high earners with a simply lovely work-life balance, and that is equally painful to hear whether you are a hard-working lower earner or a high-earner who puts in 70-hour weeks for a similar salary.

Well said!

Sadly there are still many jobs in London that do require you to sell your soul! I think it's improving but they do still exist and are more common than they should be. Any attempt to have a better work life balance means does mean a step back and forgetting any further promotions.

I work in law and am now in a senior position where I no longer work ridiculous hours / all night as was expected early in my career. I still have a great deal of responsibility, stress and an expectation that I am available if needed regardless of day / time or if I am on holiday.

You make choices in life, working conditions and pay in any occupation presumably are considered and evaluated when considering what you want to do.

What she said was that a house in the commuter belt would be 1.5 but once you’ve added commuting costs, extended nursery hours and paid help there’s not much left.

If she buys the 1.5 house in London - she saves these extra costs.

@XelaM

You don't actually have to work any harder than a paramedic or a nurse to earn £150K. It's an utter myth

totally agree. I’m a GC at a listed MNC and have a great work life balance. I drive my DC to school most days and pick them up at least 2x a week. I’ve never missed sports event or a recital, I don’t take leave for medical appointments or if the DC are sick or if I have to stay at home for a delivery. In fact post covid I work from him 3 days per week.

There are ebbs and flows of course and the odd holiday where I’ve had to take a call or two, but even where I’m doing 12 hours back to back meetings I can text the kids, take 5 mins to call the bank or do my online food shop.

I earn an embarrassing amount of money and I’m quite certain nurses, teachers and doctors all work significantly harder than me.

Even on a house costing £600/700k?! I don't think the extra costs will be add up to the equivalent of a house costing £800/900k more!!

Gifted money or inheritance - no, and still no! We worked hard and were happy with a house that wasn't massive. Didn't spend lots of money on cars or private schools. The OP's main issue is that she wants a very large flash house. I still can't see where the problem is, as someone calculated they would have about £2k per month left over after bills, which seems pretty luxurious to me! 2k for spends is not struggling. I worked with lots of people in London on those types of salary and they were very comfortable.

I mention his situation to challenge the myth that everyone earning over £150k is in a Faustian pact with their employer. It's a very inconvenient truth for many people that there are lots of very high earners with a simply lovely work-life balance, and that is equally painful to hear whether you are a hard-working lower earner or a high-earner who puts in 70-hour weeks for a similar salary.

Ime there aren't many employees on 150k plus that don't have to give their pound of flesh or suffer stress, burnout is still very common. Tech does seem to have a much better work-life balance but not sure that will be quite the same going forward for everyone.

How much are you putting into your pension?

Even if your take home is 'only' close to £90k each, that should still be close to £7600 pcm. That's £15200 pcm.

*Goingtogetslated · Today 00:08

A decent family home within commuting distance to London ~1.5 million could easily be 6k a month on mortgage.
Childcare 2k, commuting for 2 £500?
so yes, even if we earn 10k a month post tax we could be left with £1500 for bills/food/life*

Quite frankly I'm disgusted that you can come on here and say this, and calculate that to buy a house that you want leaves you 'only' £1500 after bills. Clearly it doesn't, clearly you're hammering the pension contributions which is great for future you but gives you this hideous expectation for current you.

I'm also disgusted that you've come on here expecting sympathy for your situation because you're female and are now lamenting the lack of sisterhood. Get off your goddamn pedestal.

Perhaps, but you're rather making my point for me. No-one wants to hear this!

A lot of professional couples in London seem to have noticed that it is very hard and very costly to keep two careers going once you had children. It eats up a lot of money, yet there never seems to be any time.
then usually the woman gives up her job/ starts her own business, and ends up with all the mental load and keeping everything going, just on less money….

I can't believe those arguing that those working in the NHS don't understand what hard work and stress is. That they don't know what taking your work home feels like. That you get paid for the hours you do?

I know a paediatric nurse who specialises in ITU and ecmo. There are hardly any people with her skillset in the UK - we only have a few ecmo centres in the whole country. In Covid, ecmo was something everyone suddenly learned about and valued...she worked at GOSH but had to live in the Midlands to be able to afford to live. She paid for her own commute, did 13 hour night shifts and looked after the sickest and most vulnerable children and their families. Tell her she doesn't know stress or pressure, that she doesn't put the hours in...

I worked in the NHS for 25 years. It would be impossible to calculate the percentage of my labour that was unpaid. All my cpd, all my additional training and qualifications, my registration, my debriefs, my support of junior colleagues - nothing was paid and all in my own time. All while working permanent nights in my 20s. Overtime is paid at normal (low) hourly rate. No bonuses, no perks, you can't even have hot drinks as part of the workplace.

To hear people who are paid massive wages with all the bells and whistles justifying it by trying to explain how skilled healthcare workers who look after people at their sickest or most vulnerable JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND STRESS OR HARD WORK is offensive in the extreme.

I've got family members in London law firms. They hate it, cry a lot, have awful work/life balances and it all seems ridiculous to me. But they don't complain about their wages and they certainly don't try to tell me it's because I didnt work in a high pressure, high responsibility role that I didn't get paid like them.

City workers get paid high salaries to make other people money. We understand that. They work hard for their wages. Bit it does not follow that other people don't also work hard in stressful roles and don't get paid high wages.

Just goes to show that working in these jobs doesn't necessarily mean you're well educated or have good critical thinking skills.

The truly rich don't earn salaries.

exactly & why so much of the "but you're in the 5%" or whatever is pretty meaningless.

Ignore the born losers on this thread OP and no need to be so apologetic. I know exactly what you mean, as we’re in a similar situation. I came from a developing country to supposedly wealthy UK and the standard of living you get as someone in the top 1% of income is laughable in some aspects.

Being successful is punished in this country i.e there are too many people who rely on the state in some way, which results in a huge tax burden for high earners.

Striving to make something of yourself and being competitive is a foreign concept for many here. It’s kind of funny to see how the entitled locals get outperformed in a generation or two by immigrants who start with nothing, but come from a culture focused on self-reliance.

Same issue in much Europe - people are too focused on preserving the status quo, while falling further and further behind US and Asia. I would move to a low tax jurisdiction in a heartbeat if I didn’t have family in Europe that I want to be close to.

There at least the government wouldn’t feel entitled to put its grabby little hands on half my income, while the people who my taxes prop up tell me I should be grateful to keep any excess income LMAO 🤣

The other thing is bonuses.

I genuinely couldn't understand why friends, acquaintances etc who earned similar amounts to me were able to save for large capital expenditure eg new kitchen, long haul holidays at Christmas etc.

I've always worked in the public sector so no bonuses.

However, I realised that people were getting 50 or 100 per cent of salary as bonuses on top.

So if your situation, if you were in a bonuses situation then three or four years of saving the bonuses and million pound house no mortgage.

You are definitely NOT in the middle ground.

No where fucking near the middle in fact.

I do see where you're coming from.

We are on approx half your combined salary. But we live in Scotland and can afford a large house in a nice area just outside a city, have holidays and pets and pay for the childcare we need to allow us to work. We probably have a better day to day quality of life than you and still we sometimes think of cutting our hours and moving somewhere much cheaper! We both worked hard from our early teens towards careers that allow this and continue to have worked hard through our adult lives. It's kind of what we were "sold" as kids - work your arse off, get the best grades, get into uni, keep working, you'll be rewarded. But we do feel we have something to show for it.
I look at my peers in the same career in London on v similar salary, they're living in flats or house shares and don't have anything like our quality of life and it does make me think I'd be asking "what was it all for?" If I was them.

@LudicrouslyCapaciousBag I don't think people don't want to hear it, I just don't think it's extremely common.

#OP, totally get it. If you have not benefited from house price inflation, even on 300 k the mortgage on a 1.5million place is crxy!

I am on a similar salary, but have benefited from house price inflation, as well as using bonus’ to pay down the mortgage. With the result that I am at the end game that people refer to, that is could cash out with the seven figure sum.

Conversely, if I was moving to London now, even on 300 k, I would never be able to live where I live now, or have the lifestyle that I have.

It’s all relative but you want benefits? 🙄

YANBU pack it in and move. Can you not work remotely?

Come to Milton Keynes. Good commute, loads of stuff for kids. Secondary schools not great but there are plenty of private ones if your salary keeps up.

You're only paying the high childcare costs for a relatively short time. £2k only lasts until they are at school and once they're at secondary those costs drop away significantly. So it's not quite so binary as high cost high salary low quality of life or low cost low salary high quality of life outside London.

I’m with you, OP. £300k is a tremendous household income, and really should be enough for a couple to live in a large house near work, pay for any childcare needed and leave enough for a decent car and a fortnight abroad once or twice a year. I mean, it really should. The fact that it isn’t is partly the ridiculous cost of living within travelling distance of central London and the associated commuting costs.

I firmly believe that any couple working full time on a solid basic wage (using a nurse or teacher as a benchmark) should be able to afford a 3 bed in central London near the school or hospital they work in. If they can’t, something is hugely wrong with the market. The fact that you earn so much and feel that this is the only property you can really comfortably afford shows what a mess it all is.

However, some of your choices contribute. You earn that money due to working in full-on jobs with long hours, which then means you need to pay people for additional help as you don’t have time to do things yourselves. The high salaries also seem to reflect where in the country you live and the specialism of your jobs, so again you are being recompensed for that. So, you’re right to think that the way to address it is to leave those jobs, move further away, earn less but have less job stress. That’s the only way to do it, unless you want to afford a lovely house but trim absolutely every other expense eg people you employ to help around the home, holidays etc.

Yes definitely, that's true.
I do think people's perspectives are skewed though.
Those people who tend to go for things that require high hours are like the OP - they want all the luxuries. Nice house in great location, private school, etc. Depending on when you bought your house, for the specialisms that you mentioned you can't have all of those things.
Equally to break into 'senior' level can be hard - you need a position to open up at the exact time when you're ready. I know some people who went director, then MD at 35 purely because they were in the right place at the right time. With an extremely supportive boss and team, who promoted them as soon as they returned from maternity leave.
Others who only broke into 'senior' level a decade later because there were no openings, and/or nobody was willing to give them a look in.

Personally I think all this comparison of 'hardworking HCP' vs 'high earners' is unhelpful. Two things can be true at the same time:
a) HCP/teachers whatever should be paid more.
b) That more is still not the same as 'higher earners'. Especially as the latter covers a wide variety of roles.

It's the London market that skews the discussion. Here in Manchester two 'median' earners on 30K, achievable for bog standard public service roles can afford a 3 bed semi. That wouldn't even buy you a flat in London's Zone 3...