To not feel that well off with a household income of £100k?

[phalendrina]

Live in London. Both of us are on £50k. We work 9am-7pm. Sometimes longer. Can’t afford to buy yet.

When I was younger I always thought a household on £100k would feel well off. We don’t. Obviously we are fortunate to afford food and rent etc, but we can’t afford long haul holidays or nice clothes.

I've only read the thread title and I'm predicting
another round of, why don't I have any money when I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and I'm completely inflexible about changing anything in my life?

Right, off to read the thread.

I would imagine a very part time one.

In London, it really isn't surprising that a salary like this is a squeeze. We're on the same income, in London, and we can't afford foreign holidays, we don't eat out or order take aways, and we can't save anything. It all goes on mortgage, bills, transport, car and childcare.

Can people reel it in?!!!

We don’t know the OPs detailed outgoings before you guys start judging her.

She has every right to vent her ‘own’ problems. Ofcourse there will be always someone who is on a lower income who would find the OPs income like winning the lottery…. But that’s because again their outgoings would be completely different (lower rents, no children, no pets etc….)

I find this post totally relatable, with high London rent rates, transport costs, childcare bills, cost gas/electric, running a car…. Example 2 x people on £50k roughly £2900 each including a 10% pension each. Total £5800

Based on personal experience this is what it could look like
per month
rent 2 bed flat (I used to pay £1750 with partner back in 2016) say now £2200
council tax £200
gas/electric £150
car insurance + petrol £100
phones x 2 £40
internet £25
1 x kid child care full time £1900
food £350
tv licence £13.25
public transport x2 £400

Total £5378.75 before savings, holidays, meals out, fun money, presents etc….

you can see how it ‘could’ be getting but not affording luxuries….it’s all relative

I can well believe it. For some reason many people refuse to recognise that it's not how big your income is that makes you well off, it's how small your outgoings are.

It's known as the Micawber Principle.

I think you may be right!

Between private rent and childcare in London (£1700 full time nursery - per child, or £700 wraparound care (for two)) money really doesn’t go that far.

There are many changes you could make if you seriously can't manage on 100k
Relocate for starters

Our household income is a tiny bit over twice that and we don’t consider ourselves well off. If and when we think about it, I suppose we just think of people with less money as poor. Which sounds awful, but it is what it is.

Also live in London. We own our home, and it’s perfectly nice, but nothing earth shattering.

🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻

I get what you are saying OP, if you had told me my household income would be what it is now I would have felt like I would have been loaded, but yeah it doesn’t feel like that.

What actually is the point of living in London if you have to work ungodly hours and with the money you earn from all that work you can barely afford to do anything except keep slogging for no reason? Like honestly, can someone genuinely explain it to me. What's the point? Just so you can say you have a London post code?

We're on less than half your income and feel pretty comfortable, can afford holidays and clothes etc. I'd feel incredibly wealthy on 100k.

Talk to us about your outgoings, people are usually good on these threads to help stretch money further or work out where you can cut back.

Peak MN 🤣

We're on £200k and don't feel rich so we just imaging the poor people struggling 🤣🤣

I absolutely fucking hate this crap!!!

When I started my working life (yes, I accept, after no uni fees/student finance - but not a full grant by any means - I also had to work to support myself), there were fuck all jobs. I did a really crappy low wage job for a year then went back to study a course to help me get into employment. Still didn't earn a lot.

Moved to London on what was a pretty low salary even back then but overtime was freely available. Very nearly bought a £80k flat, and thank god we didn't because interest rates then went to 15%!! (ya think interest rates are bad now???!)

We moved out of London, and bought our first house. I was unemployed. Bought a £29k house on DH's salary of £12k. Got approved for the mortgage but our estate agent said we couldn't afford it...

Anyway I got back on track; we started a family and bought a bigger house. And yes, it's worth a lot more than it was when we bought it 25 years ago, but ffs salaries and everything have increased too in that time. Both DH and I are public servants - salaries have been pretty much stagnant for maybe upwards of 20 years?

Childcare cost us in excess of twice our mortgage for years. And then when the kids grew up and went to uni, who the fuck was there to subsidise and pay for them but parents???!

I expected, when I started working, that I would receive my state pension aged 60. Only to have the rug pulled from under my feet, and now have to work to 67...

Adult children living at home because they can't afford to move out....

Yeah it's fucking great to be a boomer...!!!

@BeingATwatItsABingThing
Minimum wage is actually £18,964 not 25k I believe. That's quite a substantial difference between the two and makes a big difference when your struggling with the cost of living.
My DH who works his arse off just got promoted from minimum wage to a management position (still only 25k per annum)

@phalendrina it’s shit. Outside London and it’s a struggle. Definitely not the life I imagined given it’s so much higher than average income.

I think the problem is London prices? Dh and I have a similar income, but we don't live in London, so we live comfortably and support 2 dc.

I was watching some crappy channel 5 life-swap programme the other day where they had a rich family and a poor family. The rich family were clearly millionaires with a proper luxury lifestyle but the programme kept describing them as “the top 10%”. This is complete nonsense - they were probably top 0.5%. Someone at the bottom end of the top 10% would no more recognise that lifestyle than they would the lifestyle of someone in the bottom 10%.

I totally get where the OP is coming from. I feel the same on an even higher income.

I know I’m not poor. I know I earn more than most. But I don’t feel like I lead a luxury lifestyle at all.

Part of that is because my mortgage is £1600 a month, and there’s some cognitive dissonance going on where the pay-off of living in and eventually owning a nice house doesn’t feel luxurious even though it should.

Part of it is cos we have two kids who do activities every night of the week. Again, that’s a luxury even if it’s not what I imagined one would be before having kids.

But part of it is also cos bills are fucking outrageous. Despite driving a Dacia and literally never buying clothes other than occasionally from a charity shop, my £4K a month take home pay disappears down to less than £500 once all the bills are paid for.

I have been to France, on Ryanair, to stay for free at a relative’s, once, in twelve years. No other foreign holidays.

I absolutely don’t have the kind of ‘go shopping and buy whatever and don’t even look at the price’ lifestyle that I imagined someone on my salary would have.

I also don’t have much in the way of liquid wealth. Just the 30% or so equity in my house.

That's for a single salary of 100k. THP on single 50k salary is £3100 so two salaries will be £6200.

@VeridicalVagabond It's a good point! I think it's gotta be prospects. There is a lot of opportunity here. If you're 30 and making £50k you could feasibly hope to make a lot more as your career progresses and then, with the money to enjoy it, it is a wonderful, stimulating, rich place to live. I love being able to pick from world class historic cinema any night of the week at the BFI and the like, with Q&As with directors and actors, see a brilliant exhibition every month, go to amazing theatre, wander around Liberty of a Saturday, have the opportunity to see every band that tours the UK, get to go to lovely launch events for brands and products I love...the multicultural nature of life is so rich, and if you have certain kinds of job you get to work at the peak of your game globally, on world-class clients etc, it can be thrilling. That said, I love other cities like Glasgow which are incredibly culturally rich and much cheaper, so I know London isn't the be all and end all. But it can be glorious!

Then you’re spending as much on commuting as you are on housing, assuming you’re not fully WFH.

Not really! Our commuting ticket p/a is £4k, but houses are much cheaper here!!

You don't feel able to have DC because you're only on 140k ?? I've heard it all now.

Not true I live in the north east and our joint income is significantly more than 100k but still dont feel well off. It depends on your outgoings ultimately and as others have said, your lifestyle adjusts to your income.