175k salary and all gone

[175allgone]

This will ruffle some feathers, but after tax, mortgage , childcare, living expenses….there doesn’t seem much left. SE London, commuting, wrap around care. Whilst I appreciate I’m not having to watch my bills I’m hardly living an extravagant lifestyle.

I think you need a reality check not a big pay cheque.

They think they're subsidising lower earners because they pay more tax but the lower earners are actually subsidising higher end take home pay and profits by having no choice but to work for poverty wages.

Low wages is 100% the reason why billionaires exist. It's redistribution of wealth to the upper and middle upper classes. And they still complain about the amount of tax they pay even though they earn 10x that of a pediatric nurse or a scientist.

Does it matter how old / tired the argument is if it stands? If a person isn't planning on and capable of being entirely self-sufficient or relying on their own children for all of their needs, then that person plans to depend on other people's children for numerous things. This is such a very simple and, I would have thought obvious, observation, that having to explain it at any sort of length seemed unnecessary, but perhaps that's not so.

Tax is utterly awfully far far far too high particularly for women in this kind of bracket £100k and over who usually didn't work for years whilst getting qualifications and have massive student loans too and then have expensive childcare. 2 in a nursey can be 2 x £2k a month = £48k and if you have a daily nanny as we did (we had 3 under 4 year at one point ) you have to pay your tax and NI, then the nanny's tax and NI< then employer NI (we had to do that years ago too) and these days also nanny pension and employer pension for the nanny so a £35k net nanny salary (not unusual in London) is almost doubled in terms of cost due to the state being so unfriendly to working women.

Instead in my view they should allow mothers to pay nannies without tax/NI and allow the entire sum paid to be set against their tax. We should restore child benefit to everyone who works full time. We should restore the personal tax allowance which has been stripped from these women.

None of that will happen under labour or the Tories so my advice to women is just try to earn more and more if you can.

Also for those saying childcare costs stop in these high paid nobs when children go to school that is not really quite right as you tend to have to work very long hours with no overtime and sometimes all weekend or even all night, and need someone to take the child to school and back. Also if you are paying £60k a year for childcare out of after tax income you might as well when they turn 5 pay school fees as they will be cheaper than the childcare was...and then it continues... I paid their university fees too as might as well continue as that is about the same as school fees were.

I think you’ve hit the nail on th head.

we’ve seen from a post above working £175k salary vs £33k salary topped up with benefits of £60k evens out at the same net take home monthly income.

its the problem of billionaires are governments allowing them to accumulate vast hoards that’s the problem.

Were just arguing amongst ourselves while there are no billionaires on here who are the real problem.

Of course they’re not. They don’t live in our world but it’s them and governments that are the problem, not OP or lower wage earners.

Thr current system is set to fuck us all, bar the 0.5%.

Bosses become wealthy by keeping the surplus business revenue generated by the workforce for themselves, calling it profit.

So workers subsidise everyone else, essentially.

Where is OP?

I'm not sure the poster was being serious when they said their salary was topped up by 60k benefits..

I can't applaud this comment enough. Thank you!!

Those who are well off sometimes can't seem to get their head around the fact that everyone has a different set of factors going on in life that contributes to whether they can "strive" or not, career wise. They trot out "choice, choice, choice". Like it's all so simple.

I also feel that in a better world, people would feel it was a privilege to pay tax, especially as the wealthy are often blabbing on about "contributing to society" with all their job generating and wealth creating. Paying higher tax means you're contributing more to the world around you. I'm glad to pay the tax I do, even though it's not loads. I want to give to and improve the world around me.

I don’t think that’s a fair assessment

we should be paying people so that the government isn’t paying £60k a year to people who are working 2 jobs.

the work they do should be paid highly enough for them to live, and comfortably.

when I moved up to London in the 90s, I rented a flat in west Ealing for £650 a month, split between 2 of us.

my salary was around £20k. I ran a car, tube fares for work was like £80 a month.

salary for job with a couple of years experience would not pay that much more than what I was earning, but everything has rocketed. The private rental sector is out of control, companies are paying the bear minimum and the state is forced to pick up the pieces.

Probably gone to treat themselves out of their 1k spending money on something to make them feel better for getting roasted on this post.

Absolutely but they've also chose to live in one of the most expensive places in the country.

Here we go with the idea that only high paying workers work hard

Absolutely this.

I strongly suspect that lots of minimum wage jobs are extremely physically demanding.

As I said, I am not sure the poster was being serious when they said they said their salary was topped up by 60k in benefits.

Would it not be cheaper to employ a nanny?

Bollocks.

I grew up poor. WC north east. I know what poor looks and feels like. I also went to uni in London, married and lived in NW London for many years.

For 8yrs every penny (and more) I made in salary went to childcare. 8yrs. We talked about me not working but that would have driven me doo lally. My mother's choice at that same point in her life was to give up work - I saw the consequences of that decision and frankly it was not for me.

It's a shitty situation OP, but it will get better as your dc get older. Make sure you stay plugged into your own career networks and keep your career on the boil.

We made the decision to leave NW London for a town within commutable distance for dh. While I think it was probably right at the time I now can't afford to ever move back to London and I'm gutted. I had one SIL in Islington and one in Hackney ( both sadly deceased) their lives were so much richer than mine in terms of things happening and opportunities for work, socialising and making friends. I'd move back to London in a heartbeat if I won the lottery - and yes, to Islington!

Why are you living in south east London and your kids are in childcare in Islington? I imagine childcare in N1 is much more than SE.

I don’t know your full circumstances but maybe stopping work for a while longer is actually a good idea, save the money on childcare and get to spend time with your children that no amount of money can buy back.

I agree, £2500 a month isn’t enough to buy anything decent in Islington, even the less expensive parts - it’s a mortgage of between 400 and 500k! Very little detail, ?two salaries, not first home.

A never said they did. The rhetoric from some posters suggests they believe we should live in some kind of communist society where this would be the case. You kind of prove my point with your response

It's short sighted though. It might save money on childcare but it would also be a financial hit on OP's earning potential, pensions etc so may not actually save anything at all.

It will be financially beneficial in the long term because the expensive nursery years are short.

You got me.

I feel bad for telling a lie but thought it would seem so outlandish that the government would just hand out over 60k to us that it would show up the "low earners get topped up so much" brigade.

We actually get child benefit for 1 child and that is it. We don't get free school meals, free prescriptions or free unicorns.

We have a mortgage. Our place is small. We don't have a garden. We have had to cut our cloth.

We still have to pay...deep breath everyone...council tax, electric, water, gas , commuting costs, food, school uniform, dentist costs etc etc. It isn't all magically cheaper for low earners.

The government deems 30k a year enough to live on for a couple with one child. If 30k is enough then 95k is enough.

I applaud you for not overstretching yourselves. You’re living a financially sensible life within your means and not frittering money on holidays. In the long run you’ll be fine and pretty well off.
We lived a life like yours before retiring and never regretted staying in the home we had in London rather than moving into something bigger. It’s sad to hear about so many people who’ve done the opposite, they run a lot of financial risks.

@YesHesAPlonker I don't really understand what point you are making.

£1k pm disposable income (£12k a year to spend on what you like is not a salary 'all gone') is a lot. It's not poor, not worth anyone's sympathy, and not struggling in any way.