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

It is, but I do wonder who's left to do all the lower paid jobs in London.
When I was at uni there restaurants etc were mostly staffed by people from the EU happy to live in flat shares well into their 40's. I was a PT hospitality worker too. Lots of students like myself, but not many.
Brexit's certainly scuppered that.
There's also a shortage of housing. Anecdotal of course but a friend's daughter having just graduated from medical school had a rough time finding a London flat. LL's didn't want 'NHS' as the salary was too low? She had to bid on flats and her parents stepped in to top up in the end.
There's no other city like London. The only other comparable is maybe New York. Forget city, it's a metropolis. And things like public transport etc are just better. Probably that's why people are willing to pay a premium.

Well firstly my take home is literally nowhere near that. I take home almost 2k less after deductions (admittedly my pension is 13% but I’m in a pension scheme where we pay according to tier so my pension will be the same as someone contributing far less but on the same tier).
So circa 5.5k take home.
£1.5k mortgage
£1.5k childcare (I need long childcare hours, far longer than my friend who also gets contributions to her childcare)
£1k professional fees and loans (friends profession does not involve this)
£1k aprox commute (season ticket/tube and parking- friend works from home)
Plus- the things I pay for to allow me to do my long hours - ironing, cleaning, gardening - friend clocks off by 4 and has an hours lunch and freely admits she has time to do all of this. £500

Friend in addition gets additional income or her salary from child benefit and child maintenance.

I barely break even. But I’m ready for the argument that I need to cut my cloth. I don’t deserve my £350k 3 bedroom house and should cut my cloth and downsize.

Boo hoo you're crying cos you want a bigger house 🙄 you want a 1.5mil house cos a 1mill house isn't big enough, or doesn't "fit your lifestyle" what a shame

in fairness that house is featureless and ugly, Massive doesn’t =tasteful. I wouldn’t chose, it is nondescript by box basher house builder

That's an assumption. You have no idea what any poster earns here. Not everyone wants to share.
I opened the thread because OP asked, is it worth it? I really don't think it is, but that's my perspective based on my own priorities.

i understand this. Dh and I could earn lots in London but neither want that life so instead we earn just over £100k between us and live nicely in the West Country.

The house that OP wants will be extremely harder to pay for than 3 bed terrace... council tax, energy bills, cleaning, maintenance, possibly CCTV as it is a burglars dream... its not pnly about the mortgage, it is also everything that this type of house will cost monthly...

ignoring the competitive poverty,the digs,the rebukes.High earnings Men never get a mn pasting
I've read multiple posts were women will breezily discuss their six figure earning dp and nowt is said, Nadda
A woman posts she’s a high earner and posters are frothing with indignation

I am surprised no one has mentioned the mn chicken and how they can feed 6 people for 18 days make soup,stew,Risotto and sandwiches from 1 chicken that cost tuppence

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

Consider a career change - you can earn that salary in a stress free role and have your choice of living in the city countryside. It's a myth that highly paid roles are all stressful, involve long hours or require living in an expensive city. Those days are long gone.

@Alsogoingtogetslated "She is on 35k, with a take home of £ 2,318.54"

My top line salary for March was £3884. I took home £2670.57 after tax NI and pension deduction. Some sums don't seem right here. My salary per year is just short of £47K. Though I do pay quite a lot into a pension.

@Goingtogetslated

I think that what needs to be realised here is that a higher income doesn’t necessarily mean an easy ride because comparatively, due to your work, you probably socialise in higher earner circles and this changes your aspirations and expectations, and the expectations of what others expect you and your children have.

You aspire to a detached residence in a nice area with sizeable garden and living space. Just because you are a high earner doesn’t mean, in the current climate where prices are very high due to low housing stock, that you can have the big house, fancy holidays and shoes all together. Particularly whenever you have children and their associates costs, namely childcare and possibly later school fees.

If you want the big house with big mortgage then sacrifices have to be made. And everyone feels the pinch whenever a lot of money is being spent on childcare, but this is time limited to a few years.

I’m presuming you don’t have any relatives at hand? If you are in a nursery could you consider a child minder as this is cheaper?

If it were me I would try and keep the original property and rent it in order to help fund mortgage costs of the second property (if in a decent enough area) and would consider two jumps to get to the largest house.

All in all, I think there needs to be recognition that you have a high earning job, but to attain that you have to live in a high cost area (for what you want).

It isn’t attainable to live anywhere London, with a family, and “have it all”. Unless you are on millions.

Rethink your priorities, look at the financials for various scenarios (both change job/you go part time etc/different location) and go from there.

Any ways to legally use tax avoidance methods to lower your costs?

I find it difficult to believe that you feel stuck in the middle ground when you're in the top 1% of earners. I say you find this ludicrous. How do you think the other 99% feel?

as nice as the country side is, I'd say better the devil you know.

*You say you find this ludicrous.

To everyone it's all relative, so to speak

Villages & countryside aren’t necessarily nice,it can be cliquey and isolated
I’d not chose that over London. Plus long commute

It's not beyond your reach at all. My brother and his wife live in London. They both have good jobs, but a combined salary of under 100k (so a third of yours!) They have a lovely flat for them and their son. They go on holidays. They go out. They seem pretty comfortable to me.

You are on three times that salary, blimey! don't understand why your money wont stretch!

It depends what you both want and what you do. Can either of you work remotely?

Do you want your dc to go to public school or state.

Do you want to enjoy family life and not define yourself on your earnings but on your daily cheerfulness and happy dc?

Do you have a hobby or like long walks?

Where do your families live and do you want to be near them? It would be nice and give you a head start on finding friends and having a social life.

Decide where you would like to live. Find a house within walking distance of best secondary school. Dc could be there until they are 18.

One of you goes part time or packs up work. other works hybrid/ remote. Do this after buying a new house so you get good mortgage rates. Dump childcare and get to know your own dc. Stay off social media and just live your life.

Write down what you'd like it to look like. Then do it. Install YNAB and use it. Embrace family life.

But why does the family home within easy commuting distance of London have to cost £1.5m? It doesn’t. I know a couple who purchased an amazing 4 bed in Oxford that cost less than half that amount.

Hey OP. I'm in a similar position to you although earn less. I think something is going wrong here. We have a 4 bed in east London too but still going on lots of holidays. Do you need a car? Zip car is available and excellent public transport. Childcare costs won't be forever. Are you managing your money well?

The reason we earn less is because we have deliberately chosen roles that are not high stress. I earn just under 6 figures and can do my job in my sleep. If I stepped up for a more challenging role I'd be working much harder and longer hours.

I do 4 days a week - is that an option for you?

Sounds as though you want to leave London which is fine but of course as you know commuting time and cost will shoot up so less time with kids and more spent on travel and childcare....

You have choices which is a wonderful and lucky place to be

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

buying in London not only saves money on commuting which is basically money down the drain , it saves time and stress too,

I think @ilikepinknblue is just pointing out that the thread has degenerated into a pile-on, although I see the knowledgeable posters are starting to show up.

Which is ironic because the pile-on posters and the OP have the same mindset - '300K is a fortune, so I should be able to afford the moon, right? RIGHT??'

In London you're competing with people who can drop £100 on cocktails in an hour without batting an eyelid. Until you've lived among people like this it doesn't really hit home.

Those of us with experience telling her that it's not worth it (or otherwise) are actually helping the OP. Me, I want the decent sized house and chill life, so I moved. My compatriots (without significant family help) are happy to live in flats or small houses. Fair does. We've picked our tradeoffs.

Unlike people going 'omfg you greedy pig ur rolling in it NHS and benefits people starving blah2 can only dream'. Posters for whom this is the only contribution should stay off the thread if they have nothing constructive to say.

The link between income and quality of life is broken, completely so in London. 2 NHS consultants won’t be a million miles away from earning this kind of money in London, and you can bet your bottom dollar that my colleagues would actually expect a bit more than a 3 bed flat in London after the slog through medical school and training to get to consultancy.

You can have far more wriggle room in your budget if you work in lower paid jobs where you don’t need mad hours of childcare and have flexibility to work remotely - even more so if qualify for shared ownership etc.

The social contract was such that if you went into a job that paid well but was demanding, then you got the bells and whistles that went with it, such as the big shiny house, private schools and holidays. Now there’s no guarantee of any of that - you can earn well on paper but not be able to have any of the trappings traditionally associated with that wealth.

As a PP said, we need a wealth tax, not more income taxes.

Also what is with this countryside obsession~/ There are other cities in the UK y'know!