"We're on good money"

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When a poster says they are on good money or a good salary, what figure comes into your head? For me it's £70k for an individual, and £100k for a household.
For what it's worth I am not on good money!

If your net starts with a 3 each month.

It’s so area dependent though. A household income of 100k in the south, with childcare bills and high property prices, would probably leave a family without an enormous amount of scope for big holidays and cars and luxuries.

We have friends on a similar income to us, but even with more kids, because they live in a cheaper area up north they have an absolutely massive house and loads of expendable income.

I do take the point that technically someone earning six figures is still "on good money" if that phrase is taken to mean "earns a good salary" however, it is a mistake to infer from that that they are financially comfortable, or must not be managing their finances sensibly if they are not. This thread and many others demonstrate that many people make that false inference. The assumption that someone's financial stability/ living standard can be roughly determined from their income is wrong. You see it all the time here when a higher earner posts about financial worries and lower earners pile on with sarcastic comments and attack them.

It's very toxic and seems to be the result of this inability of people to understand that a high salary does not necessarily make someone well off. Being "rich" is about assets, not income, and because of the way the UK economy and tax system functions this is increasingly the case. I look at colleagues in my industry 20 years older and the lifestyles they could afford were entirely different: children in private schools, huge houses, luxury holidays. The reason? Salaries haven't risen in real terms in 15 years but costs for many things have more than doubled. We are all being slowly impoverished like boiling frogs, even the apparently "successful", in relative terms.

I don't really have a set figure in my head. As others have said very much depends on your age/stage in life, location, average amongst people you spend most time with and to a lesser extent your outgoings.

A 19 year old on £30K and living at home will be on good money, but by the time their 25 it won't be. Likewise a 28 year old in the midlands on £50K will be on good money but in London, not so much.

Earning £100K+ (anyone, any age) was considered very good money when I was 30 ish but now it is more like £200K+ twenty years later at 50. I would still say £100K is good money though for most individuals but less so for a household with dependents.

Anyone referring to themselves or their spouse as 'making good money' I would think as a big braggy/insecure/crass though.

To put some perspective on it have a look at stats for income in the UK.

The ONS talks about after tax income (which they call disposable income).
If you have £32k per year, or £2666 per month to spend including on pension contributions, you're at the midpoint / median of household incomes. So, in some ways, you might say anything above that is 'good money'

If your household has is £66k per year, or £5500 per month, you're in the top 20%, and I would call that 'good money'.

If you're a single person, you will need to earn £96,890.52 to take that home, which is definitely good money. For a couple, £41755 each gets you there.

Of course, if you've got that, but are paying off a London mortgage, you may not feel that its good money.

ONS Average Household Income stats and a useful Salary Calculator

@FredtheCatsMum unfortunately the spread of UK salaries is no longer a good benchmark of what constitutes a good benchmark for a decent lifestyle because UK salaries have been stagnant for 15 years while costs have risen so standard of living is determined far more now by wealth (and therefore age cohort). Being less poor than others in the UK does not make someone "well off": The average UK citizen is now significantly poorer than the average citizen in what used to be our comparator countries e.g. Germany, France, the Netherlands etc. and is poorer than those in every US state except the very poorest (Mississippi). As you noted, due to these effects and the current UK tax system the kind of lifestyle that used to be achievable on £100k even 15 years ago now requires £200k. The Times published a good article on this a couple of months ago with all of the costs, tax effects etc quantified.

Of course a large part of that effect is obviously the tax problem: that between £100k and £150k families using childcare make no gains (losses!!) on net income, therefore only £50k of the £100k "increase" in earnings between £100k and £200k actually increases net income after tax and childcare when the tax rate drops back down to "only" 45% plus 9% student loan plus pension (say 15%) therefore they get in net pay to spend (31% x 50k)/12 = £1291 extra per month for doubling their salary from £100k to £200k... I am sure most people would assume that £100k increase in earnings would equate to far more disposable income than that!!

I think that's very accurate. Lots of DHs friends started apprenticeships at 18 and in their late twenties are on £70k. This is a world away from us but I doubt they think themselves rich compared to their bosses.

In my head a decent wage per person should be 60k to 100k . For most qualified middle aged adults .

If you are brining in 100k+ per person into a household , I would have thought that you should be more than comfortable. Eg. Be able to afford a nanny for the kids , a decent property in a decent postcode , able to educate the kids at decent schools etc .

I classify most people , who earn 50k and below as struggling. Although I appreciate entirely on our goings and area and whether it is a 2 parent home etc .

For reference I earn 50k and classify myself as poor . Not because we can't afford to live etc but we have no assets.

You are right to a point. Our income pre tax is just over 125k, with my husband earning 100k and me working part time. When I return full time, this will rise to 150-60k household. We don’t feel ‘well off’ although objectively we can see we are: large house (it’s still a semi though!) in a great postcode, and we were able to move further into catchment for our chosen secondary school; two cars and holidays - although we will go away in the UK this coming summer (we had two foreign holidays last year). We cannot afford private school, and any change to my husband’s bonuses causes, ‘We have to make this month stretch’. We have a safety net but I couldn’t afford to give up work as an example, and we don’t have a cleaner. For us, our income means we can pay for clubs for our children and go away or eat out occasionally, but we still have to watch our spending!

Depends where you live, what your outgoings are, any debt etc etc.

Where live, if you earn £25K as an individual, you are on "good money!"

Any more than that, you are rolling in it!! 🤣

I think it depends on if their mortgage is paid off. DH is on a little over £60k plus some income from his 2 btls but since we finished paying for mortgage last August it's made a really big difference and now he feels much better off. I'm on about £75k from a mixture of Fostering allowance which most gets spent on FS but still counts for self assessment, I come from my btl portfolio and PIP. From next tax year fostering tax free allowance gone up a lot so will result in me paying less tax. I feel quite well off. I gift each of my 3 x DC £1k a year and DH does the same.

For example, a single parent with two children using childcare who earns £99k will have a lower net income after tax and childcare than if they earned £150k

Sorry, I meant a HIGHER net income. It's so ridiculously unfair (and counter productive for raising tax revenues for services so not just affecting that individual family) that my brain didn't even let me type it out correctly because it makes no sense.

The lone parent earning £150k with two children who need childcare has a lower net income after tax and childcare than a couple each earning the average full time salary of £38k.

Headline salaries are totally meaningless when one household has to earn twice the headline amount as another to have the same net income.

60k+ as a couple (we are definitely not on that but hopefully once I've finished retraining)

You cannot judge it by Mumsnet. This place is a massive contradiction in that most people seem to earn or have household incomes of £200k plus, but if you admit to spending more than 37p on non essentials, the shrieks of “read the room” are consistent. I earn “good money” by my estimation, it provides the life I want, which is a different life to the life that lots of other people want or need. So be it, I’m happy with it.

There was an interesting opinion piece in the Grauniad recently that the richest 10% don't feel 'well off' as, as many have said here, their outgoings still feel massive, and it depends who you compare yourself to:

This is such an interesting thread - 'good money' to me and everyone I know is always in reference to a salary of probably 35k+, 60+ in London. Like, I'd never say two people on 40k weren't on 'good money' because they chose to have a mortgage, two kids - it's still good money, because basic wage isn't.
Obviously your outgoings based on your life choices change how you experience that money, but its still 'good' if its approaching double minimum wage. Never ever come across the idea that it could not be considered 'good' because of your outgoings! Very interesting discussion.

@Foxblue the point I've made is that outgoings are not always based on "life choices" in any meaningful sense i.e. they are outside the person's control (illogical tax systems, being a lone parent, costs for a modest home in the area of the country they need to live in for work, costs of childcare for an average family size of one to two children, whether anybody in the household is disabled).

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance also that when people earn a higher than average salary they are deemed "lucky" or "privileged" rather than generally that being achieved by working hard at school, doing many qualifications and/ or years of working long hours for career progression and being wise in their career choices. Whereas for people who earn low incomes as a result of having not done some or all of the above, it is always apparently not a choice and "no fault of their own", not "life choices". And their outgoings aren't "life choices" either. 😆 A slightly illogical and internally inconsistent world view.

Above 100k

it depends
MN world = 300K gross, 400K London (obvs) total household income.

Real world - 70K total household income.

Per year.

We're coming up to retirement so for most at the top of our careers. Good money for us would be about £100,000.

DS'S friend's first job from university was over £35,000 which I think is very good money.

So much is dependent on housing though. Lots of people didn't get on the ladder years ago & some of help from family which makes a huge difference to disposable income.

Totally depends. We have a high joint income 150k ish but have a very high mortgage gone up a lot since we have just had to remortgage which is just over 3k. Very high bills and 3 teenagers who all do lots of extra curricular clubs which takes a lot of our money. We are very fortunate we have food and a roof over our head. However we can't afford holidays and have very little spare each month after all the bills and outgoings which include high commuting costs of about 6k per year for train plus large petrol costs. Children with SEN needs and specialist tutors are expensive etc.
Absolutely realise we are lucky with the high income but it doesn't go as far as I imagined having an income of that level would when I was younger
Totally situation dependent.

I always find it astonishing that people can't recognise how subjective this situation is and constantly tip up to post daft questions about people's income. Obviously the definition of "good money" varies massively according to context. Principally your outgoings and where you live.

If you live in a deprived part of the UK £35k pa could be "good money". It certainly wouldn't be good money if you lived in Mayfair and worked in hedge funds. Ditto you could live rurally with no mortgage and no children and £35k will go a long way. If you have six children and a large mortgage on a townhouse in London it will be eaten up in a couple of months.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp?