What do you think is a ‘good’ income these days for…

[Greenlp]

Two adults and one child?

I am constantly being told that our income is very good (from online sources, media etc, small talk with friends who don’t know our earnings but make general comments on income/standard of living). I feel like our income is not good enough for a good standard of living. We constantly have to cut back.

60k

Income is less important imo because of housing and childcare. What is your situation? Do you have a home, high mortgage?

Without knowing your income and outgoings it's impossible to answer.

£60k would mean i have to withdraw my children from their schools

60k in the outer Hebrides is probably a good income. Kensington, not so good.

You need a very high income in some parts of the country to have certain things you would expect working to afford.

Someone on 30k who has a house paid off and older dc is going to think the person on 100k earns loads not realising that the 100k doesn’t go very far this days.

What aged child? I'm very happy with our income as a family of 4 with teens, but I know we'd be much less satisfied if they were preschool age and we were having to pay childcare for both again. (I don't buy into this idea that teens are more expensive than pre schoolers, certainly hasn't been my experience and I say that as I sit and wait for my son's £1300 PC to arrive, that isn't anywhere near what our monthly childcare cost was even 10 years ago!)

Our take home is 5k. Mortgage 1k and schools fees 1,700 a month (needed as state schools are terrible round here and we can’t move due to our jobs).

Equally some would argue they need 300k to afford nice house and private education.

@Greenlp its because of school fees, your mortgage is quite low for your income but 1.7k is a big whack

Median average household income is around £38k, so anything more than that really is above average, so almost by definition is a "good" income.

We earn more but have 2dc, don’t live particularly lavishly (2nd hand car, etc) but could not afford 20k on school fees.

@Badbadbunny by definition yes, but not in reality which is my point!

I think for a decent standard of living 5k is plenty per month. But a decent standard living and private school obviously not.

But I don't think private education is what I would class as a decent standard of living.

Median average household income is around £38k, so anything more than that really is above average, so almost by definition is a "good" income.

But this does not take into account housing so pointless.

not even by definition

“average” quantitative
“good” completely subjective

@New2thisshizzle surely if you earn more you could theoretically pay for one set of fees?

@FiveTreeHill fair point!

I don't think that when people talk about a good income they are thinking 'enough for private school fees' - so perhaps that's where the disjunct is?

@Greenlp not without huge cutbacks in other areas. Eg extracurriculars, savings, etc. I wouldn’t feel I had anything left which is how you feel. Granted I don’t work f/t so could earn more.

Plus it’s not just the fees which go up every year it’s everything else eg transport, lunches, trips.

@thestudio Maybe not but this is literally an expense we have to have due to where we are based so it is a factor for us

And I wouldn’t pay for 1dc to go private but not the others so we would have to afford both.

@New2thisshizzle really? This has made me worried! Do you have a larger mortgage than 1k? We thought we had planned it ok but perhaps we have been reckless committing to it.

@New2thisshizzle yep totally get that and we would be the same if we had two

DD fees £24600 per year
DS fee £26200 per year