How much did you earn before you felt you had enough to relax a bit about money?

[uradg]

I am in my thirties and feel constantly worried about money despite earning more than average. Is this normal? When will I feel more relaxed about money? It’s a constant source of stress

I always had the capacity to earn well, but only stopped seeing destitution just around the corner when my expenditure dropped, firstly when we downsized and cleared off the mortgage, then when all my children were self-supporting, and finally when my pension calculations showed that DH and I could have enough to live on without working. From my early thirties until my early fifties I lurched from one month to the next hoping that the money wouldn't run out.

At the moment I’m the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been. The £3k mortgage is the reason. The rate hikes have really stung us ( increase by £1k per month)

I think I need about about another 15k PA to feel ok.

I am not stressed about money, despite us usually ending up in the overdraft at the end of each month. It is what it is, and doesn't really matter as come payday we have some money again. Husband earns about 38k, I'm a SAHM. We haven't really added to our savings since our child was born (but we have about 2k saved that we try not to touch). There's a bit of concern about how much our mortgage will go up when it is renewed in a few years, but there's no point stressing too much about the future

I don’t think I’ll ever feel totally relaxed or comfortable no matter what comes in or goes out.
I grew up very poor and although things have turned around for me now, i’ll
always have that niggle in the back of my head saying not to relax, you could lose everything at any time.
We have a really healthy income, a lot of expenses too but aren’t in debt to anyone (other than the mortgage lender), save every month, always have money left at the end of the month.
And yet I still don’t feel completely relaxed about finances.

I’m relaxed about money now. Have been for 10 years since my 20’s. I run out of cash completely about 3 days before payday and have no savings. Do have credit available if needed though. We have holidays in the U.K. which are booked at the last minute so we can trust the weather, I don’t drive a car, we grow some of our food and school is literally across the road. Because of all this I only have to work part time . My parents are wealthy, own huge properties outright and have travelled the world. They are not happy people and I’ve never taken a penny from them out of principle, they mock me for enjoying my life the way I do. I choose to live in the moment and not think about money. Our homes lovely though and very chilled.

For me it was more about savings than salary, having enough saved to know that I had a decent buffer if I lost my job for a while, or to be able to replace things like the boiler or the car if they broke.

I’m going to guess it’s when you have enough savings and a low enough mortgage to know that even if you lost your job, you could afford your life.

Once I was earning 60k I felt comfortable. I like to save at least 1k a month.

I earn above average, yet can only save 200 a month. It feels awful, but that's the reality of being single and being responsible for every single bill in my household.

Weirdly, though I am earning more than ever before and am back to full time after working part time through kids being small, I am more stressed about money than ever. We have been mortgage free and were comfortable and very relaxed about money at that point. Then we moved to a bigger house, spent all savings renovating and I think that’s left me feeling very anxious. It feels weird after having had such a cushion of savings and low costs. I constantly check bank accounts and project how much I will be able to save by when. Some of this is driven by house maintenance stuff needing doing and us not being able to, also having older vehicles that we own outright, so we often have bills, and I feel the need to save towards the next cars. I don’t know how much is also an irrational stress response to my job (which I hate but can’t walk away from as I won’t earn as much elsewhere). My hope is that if I save hard for another 2 years we will have that cushion for house and car issues and then I can look at lower paying less stressful jobs again, or simply going part time. I really feel like I could do with someone banging my head against the wall though, as we have a good joint income and nothing to worry about compared to others but I can’t shake the money anxiety!

I don't think it's about how much you earn, but more about how much debt and disposable income you have

The last mortgage payment was 8 weeks before we retired. Only then did we relax

Depends whether you are asking about being “not relaxed” or “not worried”. We are not relaxed but also not worried.

DH and I are FT working equal earners raising 2 smalls in nursery and primary.

We put away a combined total of £2490 each month as a combination of mortgage overpayments + savings, not including sinking pots and pensions.

Despite this very sizeable amount being put away we have reduced our outgoings (groceries, meals, disposables) to a degree of frugality which is almost automated now to the extent that we don’t even notice the frugality. For example we are regularly surprised by the amounts people we know spend on their weekly groceries, or the number of takeaways had.

I wouldn’t say we are worried about money but rather that the appeal of savings + overpaying fitting around a calmly controlled lifestyle is much higher than spending.

so in some ways we are not relaxed about money at all despite that figure being out away. But not relaxes does not mean “worried”. And we are very grateful and aware of that.

How come you don’t channel most of the extra £1,500 into overpaying the mortgage? Suspect you would be much better off that way.

We already overpay on the mortgage, we can only overpay by 10% each year and on such a small mortgage it's manageable. We don't reach the full 10% overpayment but it's not far off.

If you're a worrier, you're a worrier. DH and I earn combined around £160k. When we met 13 years ago it was about half that although I had a DB pension then which was worth a lot.
We had more disposable cash then as we had no DC and we holidayed a lot, and saved. We're about to start paying school fees so I worry about what if we lose our jobs etc even though we can save in addition to school fees. It's impossible to put a number on it.

You have described my situation down to a tee. Very controlled about money with a good whack in savings and pensions and live well within our means. Like you I've now conditioned myself to the point I'm aghast at what others spend on things that I penny pinch on. I'm a control freak though and it helps me function! School fees will kick in next year though as we're living our eldest so there's a big element of us living now as we'll need to live in the future.

Ah ok, we used to be in a similar boat (could always use that cushion to reduce the capital sum when the mortgage comes up for renewal).

OP, my answer is that I only really relaxed once we paid off the mortgage. Admittedly, I can be pretty extravagant now but I do make sure money is channeled into some sort of savings/premium bonds and pensions each month. I’m not worried though as we are high earners and there is a lot of fat that could be trimmed in the case of job loss etc.

I got a pay rise when I was 31 from £26k to £51k.

I was OK on £26k but when I went to £51k I felt a massive relief!

I'm mid 30s, have always had huge money anxiety from being raised in a poor family. I got a bump to 60k this year, which finally feels kind of OK. I have a bit of money to save and play with each month. I live in Surrey for reference and rent with DP, who earns 70k. I seem to be surrounded by people who earn MUCH more than me (for jobs that require fewer qualifications, training, responsibility etc. than my career) so I often have to fight the feeling that I should be earning more.

Also for context I have no debt, and I'm pretty controlled with my spending.

When incoming outweighed outgoing by a comfortable margin. In other words, being able to save and spend easily (and reasonably) on wants, not just needs, after all bills are paid.

The actual figure isn't important since this is the principle, regardless.

10 years ago, I marvelled at the thought of a 50k joint income and how comfortable we'd be.

Now our joint income is c.£100k and feel as skint as ever. This is due to a house move, running an additional car, two kids, extracurricular activities and a mortgage which has gone up by £400 a month. General CoL stuff. Oh, and wrap around childcare.

Someone once said that comfortable/well paid is someone earning £10k more than you and I tend to agree 😂

(Though you could now say £20k to adjust for inflation)

This thread has just made me feel worse off than I did this morning.

Why?

I guess because I’m a recently divorced single parent, had to remortgage past retirement age, very unhappy in my job for which I commute two hours a day, and currently a few hundred pounds in savings which won’t touch the repairs still needed on the new house.

Would’ve loved to be mortgage free and socking away thousands by this point but here I am, a professional of 20+ years in a respected job having had to apply for UC to try and make ends meet (and will probably not get it but that’s another thread).

Sorry, just feeling pretty junk about it all.