To feel poor even though we earn well?

[erte]

We live in London and have to for our jobs. Even though we earn what most people would consider a very good household income, maybe top 5% nationally, we still feel poor.

Yes we can afford rent but can’t afford much more than a one bed and save. Whereas if you told me 10 years ago how much I would earn, I’d have imagined a far more comfortable existence.

Until recently our joint income has been about 26k. I’ve never felt poor. It’s about to go up to 46k and I feel we’ll be rolling in it. But childcare and rent costs are low and I don’t buy things for the sake of buying things. I’ll use thing until they’re fit for the dump.

I hear you- and knowing the feeling well of being really on the bones of your arse- I know why it irks.

But I also know that I’m not still poor but I very much still feel it. So I can see the OPs perspective too.

with all sympathy and empathy to poster who are genuinely struggling right now - I think the anger those posters are feeling is misdirected. They’re taking out an absolutely systemic failure of economy, social care, the social contract etc. on one poster on MN- who actually is just a case study for how far and wide the destruction of the last 15 years has spread.

I get why, but I also get the OP.

Having a high salary and high outgoings is not what poor means though is it.

Poor is having a low income .

It means that you not only cannot dream of affording studio flats in London but you worry about how to pay the rent on whatever crappy housing in whatever shitty area you live in. And you worry about how to eat and pay your basic bills. In winter you sleep with a hat and coat on because you can't put money in the meter. In the supermarket you look at the meat and the fish and wonder who can afford to buy them because it certainly isn't you. You stress about your kids growing because you will need to find money for new shoes and clothes. Your heart sinks when one of your children asks if their friend can stay for dinner because you don't have enough food to go round. You have to get a pay day loan from some dodgy people when your fridge breaks down and needs replacing. You actually consider not replacing it because you can't afford the heating on anyway so do you really need a fridge? You cut your own hair because you not only can't afford the hairdresser but you don't have the bus fare to get there. You buy everything secondhand and are really grateful when your friend gives you hand me downs of hand me downs.

And on and on and on. With no light at the end of the tunnel. You are constantly thinking about money, doing sums in your head, and figuring out ways to rob Peter to pay Paul.

That's what poor is in the UK.

It's not earning 6 figures and living in property (even if it's small) in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

What all these tedious and tone deaf people mean when they say they "feel poor" is that they don't have as much in their account at the end of the month as they would like because they've spent all of their very large salary on expensive things. And if they think they are poorer than people living outside London on a third of their enormous salary then surely the obvious answer is to move. And if they don't want to move than perhaps they could stop complaining to the rest of us who can't afford a train ticket to London let alone considering living there.

I'll believe these people have money trouble the day they start a thread asking which budget pasta from which budget supermarket is the least nasty. Or on how to cling film your windows to keep out the cold in winter.

To be honest I feel pity for anyone who's a high earner (the secret is in the name!!) and is unable to be happy with their very fortunate lot.

It doesn't matter how much you earn, if you love beyond your means and have fixed costs that are not low enough to provide disposable income you will feel poor. £200k income with £1k disposable income you will feel poor.

You need to move to a cheaper area and commute or earn more.

That's a great way to phrase it.

I understand why people who struggle to pay the bills would feel possessive over terminology, would want to gatekeep something to describe their specific situation.

It's also true that the OP is, as you say, a case study for the last decade or so of shit. Especially if she is, as I suspect, a millennial or even Gen X.

You're not poor, you're making choices of where to put your money. If you were poor, saving anything would just be a pipe dream.

I've been poor, I missed meals (food banks weren't really a thing back then) so my children could eat. I've had no heating for 2 years, and it was snowy and freezing for one of those winters! I've had to beg, borrow and rob Peter to pay Paul to manage bills.

I get what you're trying to say though, but you made those choices. I always assumed that an income like DH and I have would mean were are holidaying in turks and caicos in 5 star hotels twice a year. Instead we live comfortable, can pay all our bills but have little left over. But this is because we chose to buy a bigger house, in a London commuter belt and have two big cars. We also don't skimp on things like heating and food shopping and DH pays a lot into pensions etc.

Please dont misuse the word poor, that word means something and it doesn't apply to you.

The problem is that Liz Truss and her bright ideas were so catastrophic that the rates exceeded bank stress tests overnight - and then you have to throw in the enormous increase we had in fuel costs which pushed up energy bills, food prices, commuting costs, at exactly the same time. Alongside a backdrop of Covid meaning building supplies and car parts increased insurances by about 30%.

We don't really have a contingency for that, even if everyone stress-tested themselves to 7% rates. Hence the mortgage scheme of 6 months interest-free and the government paying a chunk of everyone's gas and leccy.

Well, quite.

It was a crass choice of words.

I think what OP should have said is, my salary does not afford me the kind of lifestyle I expected it to.

I understand that: DH and I have worked hard in our careers and both earn over the average salary, with a total household income of 100k pre tax. (Is that in top 5%? I'm not sure)

That's a huge chunk of money, and we are thankfully very far from the actual definition of poor, but it certainly doesn't go as far as I thought it would.

I don’t even think this is specific to London anymore (although even worse in London). We live in Manchester with a combined income of £200k and feel the same way. We thought moving back here from London would make us feel much better off but expectations are different - in London we lived in a 2-bed flat, in Manchester we expected to move to a nice house with a garden. Our small 3-bed, 1-bath terraced house cost £760k in a nice part of Manchester, which means a huge mortgage for us, even though we struggle with space. I wouldn’t say we feel poor because I know how lucky we are to even afford this house (we chose a smaller house in order to live in a lovely area) but with the cost of childcare and bills there isn’t much left at the end.

Similarly to you, as a student if someone told me we’d be earning this much I would have thought we were rich and I’d be buying designer handbags and jetting off to the Maldives! No chance!

We’re in our mid-thirties and our work colleagues who are 15-20 years older all used nannies and private schools and live in huge houses that we could never afford it.

I’m not complaining because I know we are much better off than most of the population but it makes me wonder how this country has got things so badly wrong that lifestyles for people in the same profession have been downgraded so much and even people on our income don’t feel well off.

I understand what you mean BUT unless you are one unexpected bill away from serious financial trouble/homelessness you are not poor.

We have a great combined income as a family and haven’t been on a holiday since 2018, bought our cars second hand one of which is 10 years old, rarely eat out or buy clothes and definitely feel that money doesn’t go as far as it used to. Sometimes I feel the same as you do. When I was a student I definitely imagined this level of income would involve some luxuries.

However, I try to remind myself that what we do have is the peace of mind that we could afford an unexpected bill, we have some savings (not a massive amount but enough to get us through a rough patch) and we live in an expensive area by choice. Sure, lots of our neighbours drive range rovers and go abroad every other month, so by comparison we have a ‘poor’ lifestyle. But the truth is we really aren’t. I’ve been poor (eating pasta with ketchup, taking a second night job on top of other full time work, crying when my £10 earphones broke because I couldn’t afford to replace them poor) and this is not the same.

I get it OP. I earn a decent living and had a decent pay rise a couple of years ago (20%). But due to the increase in living I feel like I am in exactly the same
place financially. It’s frustrating and OK to be in grump about!

You know youve had effective tax cuts in recent years, right?

I'm not angry.
I'm not poor, definitely not wealthy either, more 'our income covers our outgoings' iyswim.
I get that lots of people are struggling, even on good incomes.
I just feel that it was an insensitive choice of words by OP.

It's about using terminology correctly, nothing about being 'possessive'.

Yeah but once childcare costs finish you will be well off. It is a short term thing. Those who are genuinely poor have no end in sight for their situation.

Well if you feel poor @erte, it’s an interesting thought experiment for you to imagine how the remaining 95% feel.

Especially the lower 50%.

I wonder what your life would be like on a fraction of the money you earn? What would you have to sacrifice in order to live on the average wage, around £34k I think.

Isn’t it interesting how out of touch your concept of “poor” is, compared to most people in the country?

Wealth and poverty are always relative. But you don’t have anywhere near the same frame of reference as most people. The things that you take for granted and without which you feel “poor” are not things that are normal for most people in 2024. It’s a sign of the huge inequality in this country.

I think it is, and don't see that as a bad thing either. I have been poor, I'm not any more, and I absolutely felt possessive about language and people who I thought were touristing.

Combined income of <70k. We don't live in London. We seem to always run out of money before the end of the month and cant really save.
A close friend of mine commutes to London, I think living in London is too expensive!
Maybe you could save less if you feel poor?

It’s all relative, you might feel poor compared to those around you, but I think poor is inadequate housing and insufficient food and clothing. We need to be more appreciative of what we do have in this country, look around the world and realise that is poor. Iu

Exactly. It's not taxes that impact you. If you go into a higher tax bracket it means you're earning more! It's housing costs in London. In fact everything costs more in London: cinema, theatre, restaurants even sporting events are more expensive (taking the big Prem clubs the cheapest season ticket for Man Utd is £551, for Man City is £385, for Spurs is £807, Arsenal is £974 and Chelsea is £750).

If you're doing a job that involves having to live in the capital it'll take an awful long time before the higher salaries in the capital make up for the higher costs of everything if that ever happens (maybe once you've paid off your mortgage?) .

Using a word in the correct way isn't being possessive.
OP isn't poor.
OP is probably/potentially (over)-stretched, over-committed, struggling (to budget), not living within her means, finding things challenging.
Lots of other posters have explained how they relate to OPs situation but also how poor isn't the correct word to describe their situation.

As you can see from the multiple replies, it doesn’t make any sense, unless you meant something different and didn’t explain yourself well. No one is claiming to know anything about your circumstances or your family, but the simple fact is that you are earning more overall, and therefore will only be seeing a massive change in affordability of you have also started spending more as well. In which case the affordability factor has nothing to do with the tax, but your increase in outgoings/spending.

Always one who comes in with the 'heart bleeds' comment. Completely unable to open your mind to the situation of other people. All you see is figures.

You won't like this by my heart also bleeds for high earners claiming they're poor.

Not interested in opening my mind. It's been said a dozen times, having less disposable income than you hoped is not poverty.

Absolutely agree with you.
Housing is the Central issue - definitely in London. But housing costs have gone up everywhere it seems.
Either housing costs have to go down (which would cause a whole lot of other issues) or salaries need to go up.
Salaries should not be included in inflation figures.
I think we all agree that inflation is bad, but salary increases are good (and needed)

Often in these situations, posters are servicing debts from spending beyond their means in the past. This might not be you, but I see people here a lot outlining their expenses and debt repayment is one of their highest outgoings. It’s can be hard, but living within your income at all points of life is really important so you don’t drag down future finances.