To ask what you think a reasonable lifestyle is for this income?

[Momeymoney]

They have a DS (11) and a DD (8). Mum and Dad both work full time and when combined their income is £155,000 before taxes. What is a reasonable lifestyle for them to live? How much can they afford to spend on cars, can they afford private school, holidays, etc?

I would sanice holiday plus a few shorter breaks, capacity to save, clubs and activities for children, occasional meals out etc. I would say private school would be quite difficult for 2 children depending on mortgage and how other finances were arranged. In short, a lovely life but it wouldn't go as far as one might imagine!

How long have they been earning those salaries? Do they have additional income from property or other investments?

What a bizarre question. The answer is...non of your business 🙄

Why is it a bizarre question? If an investment portfolio is generating a decent return that could pay for holidays or private school fees.

Depends how much cocaine they do or how much the husband spends on sex workers?

Are they FIRE or is the wife walking around with more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers?

I have never known anyone who earns that sort of money, maybe know of a few couples who have a joint income of around £90k which seems loads to me. I really want to know what jobs these people do so I can see where I went wrong in my life! Most of my mates are/were NHS, teaching, social work, and did not reach those sorts of salary level. It is silly of me but I sometimes feel such an inadequate failure when I read about the lives some people have. But my house is paid for, i have a small amount of savings, I am healthy and the sun is out so it is not all bad

My thoughts would be you could do private school
now but as your income isn’t increasing I’d be concerned as to whether you could cope with fee rises especially in this climate.

Don’t neglect your pensions and any other investments too.

I don’t think private schools are affordable on this income- unless the family wants to scrape by OR doesn’t have rent/mortgage

the rest entirely depends on which part of country they live in and their property situation and mortgage cost. Eg if they don’t already own a family home they might not afford one in London and so on

I doubt if private schools are an option on that level of income

Pretty sure you could work it out for yourself. It's a bit under eight grand per month in the bank.

What could you do with that?

Why are you asking?

The people who I know on that sort of income choose to live in places were the state schools are good. Not all private schools are the best choice. One relative goes on a good main holiday outside the UK and rent luxury cottages for weekends away. They have cleaners.

It honestly baffles me how someone could be experienced enough to be earning that sort of salary and be asking strangers a question like this.

My guess would be that there is a row going on between OP and her DH as to what to spend their income on, specifically private school, and she wants validation of her POV.

Absolutely! We also live in Southwest London and with a combined income reaching almost £200k and two babies in nursery (each of them £2.2k a month) plus mortgage for an average 3 bed (£3k) we are fairly squeezed!

Or they don’t believe someone else’s income and lifestyle match up!

when I was at uni I worked in a call centre for what was then working family tax credit. People used to ring in and give their neighbours or friends rough income and ask me to calculate what they would be getting. Lots of ex husbands too!

it was I. The days before online benefit calculators😂

How much do they have in savings and investments ? Do they own other properties? Are any rich relatives about to pop off and further contribute?

@SaltyGod

a 5k holiday can be done on a low income, we got around 35k a year coming in and having 3/4 holidays abroad a year and we also have a few local holidays a year, our abroad holidays are around 4/5k depending where we go

I'd say private school could just about be done on that kind of salary, depending on what other outgoings there are. We have a joint income of around £3500 per month. We have a mortgage, car loans, probably spend about £4000 on holidays per year, and have three children. But we don't spend all that much on going out, clothes (much more likely to buy clothes in Sainsbury's or Next than high end shops), and no longer need any childcare.

So if we had an extra £4500 coming in each month, then we could just about send the children to our nearest (and well respected) private school.

I agree with lots of previous posts. It completely depends on outgoings. Me and DH earn around 140k before tax between us. We both pay a massive amount into 2 pensions each. Depending on the months work we have around 6.5k left after tax. Our mortgage is 1k and we have around 350k equity in our house. We go on one holiday with DS a year costing around 5k. Then we go to centre parcs twice and Alton Towers mini breaknonce a year all of which come to about 5k with spends/activities etc. We both have a couple of uk nights away with friends usually. Wouldn't say we had a overly nice car but we do own that outright. I would say we have a very comfortable life style which we've worked hard for but I definitely wouldn't say we had masses of money left at the end of each month.

If this is about yourself OP then I'd say have any lifestyle you choose rather than asking whats "acceptable" to others. If its about someone else then why does what they do affect you how another family lives on their income? Is it that you feel their kids are spoiled brats or that you feel the kids don't get much considering the parents earn a very good wage?

We have a combined income of about £150K which gives us around £6.5K net a month after pensions. From this:

-outgoings approx £4.5K a month

(including £2K mortgage, £750 petrol costs as we both commute, childcare, groceries, bills...)

-save £1K a month

-£500/month "spending money" for the whole family (meals out, takeaways, clothes, hairdressers etc)

-rest goes on 1 holiday a year

We have a 3 bed semi in Surrey, two fairly average cars. Private education would be too much for us.

I reckon 8k net/month (which is about what they’d have after tax) would get:

• a mortgage on a normal 3/4 bed house in London
• organic shopping
• a cleaner
• 2 nice annual holidays (say skiing in winter and abroad in summer) plus a few scattered mini-breaks
• nice quality (but not high end designer) clothes and house furnishings
• an extracurricular or two per child
• one average car
• small occasional luxuries like theatre trips, meals out, day trips, etc

I’ve just realized I haven’t taken pensions into account, so if it’s more like 6.5k you’re working with, then I reckon just one nice holiday instead of 2 and maybe the cleaner only occasionally. What it wouldn’t cover (comfortably, at least) is private school fees.

.