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.

Clearly the school fees are the issue.

They're a choice, not a necessity. You do have choices. If you want to pay school fees it's your prerogative but that is the reason you are struggling and you do have the privilege to afford them in the first place.

About double of what you are on, in all cases.

There was a recent thread asking how much people earned / felt they’d need to earn to feel comfortable paying for private school fees in London and the answer was £3-400k.

Thats also nonsense though.

I'm happy with our income now in terms of our lifestyle but when I was paying school fees I was skint all the time. If I hadn't sent them obviously would have been fine but I lived with skint for the choices I made.

Our combined income is 87k. 4 children in south Essex. In our situation around 100k would be better, as our outgoings are very high and we make a lot of cut backs.
It really depends on where you live and your outgoings!

But I bet you couldn't continue doing it for 15 years or more comfortably - which is what the OP is doing by choosing private schooling from primary level

My children went to private school, my Grandchildren will attend the local state schools. They live in an excellent area where the children do just as well as the private school children & they have the same compliment of extra ciricular activities, sport etc. If I was to start again I would go through hoops to move to an area with excellent state schools, even if it meant changing jobs.

You could save a lot of money by using state schools and private tuition. Private schools are not alway as good as people think but equally some state schools are horrible.

Life isn’t going to get any cheaper, taxes will go up, food, energy etc.

Just to add, if I was doing it again would have gone private from secondary and saved a fortune. But I was and am very happy with the education they had.

I agree with this. Our take home income is higher, we have no mortgage and will be tight to pay secondary fees (but also have two kids). I wouldn’t have committed to paying from primary but moved to a nicer area. Especially as it impacts your life so much. We spend lots on holidays, cultural trips, things like theatre tickets, kids hobbies and sports.

You have a good income, just not perhaps good enough for luxury things like a private education.

Same boat as many of us.

State primary, spend £200-£300 a month on activities, trips, experiences, clubs etc and you still have another £1400 a month that you can save for holidays and secondary school.

I would say £80-100k but it depends on age etc. we are fifties, met late in life, no kids and can't get on the property ladder currently at that salary as where we live is very expensive. If we were in my home town is Scunthorpe we would have a four bed detached easily. It's not as simple as how much you earn

This. Even if the state schools are “terrible” most people just have to make do with them and it’s still a choice and a privilege to be able to afford to send your child to one.

Our income is c£6k one child about to start nursery. In the South West so relatively expensive living costs and we still save a fair bit maybe £1000-£1500 a month.

I would consider anything above 80k a decent wage. Over 100k is very good and I would see the family as being comfortable.

It's all dependent on your situation and location.
We have about the same as you coming in between DH and I and pay £1200 a month in nursery fees (Scotland haven't rolled out the funded hours for under 3s here) but we know it's short term and in 6 months time will have 3 year old 30 hours kick in so our bill will drop by over half.
We still have holidays but our other outgoings are low.

In your case it's going to be tight for a very long time so find other ways to cut back in order to have some rest bite. Even skipping a coffee a day for instance or taking lunches quickly adds up over a month.

@Greenlp Like a lot of people you are looking at this from a very narrow lens of today. You are at the point in your life with the most demands on your money e.g. mortgage, nursery, school fees, university.

Think about 15 years time and an income of £5k with no school/university fees and no mortgage.

Why?

Noting it’s ‘comfortable’ not ‘possible’.

If your child is in primary years then I think private is a luxury. I do however think private education can be a benefit for secondary school years but it completely depends on your local provision. I know state grammars that far exceed private schools.

@SallyWD Wow! That's really cost effective. I suppose everywhere isn't the same. For example, when our son plays cricket, he has a coach that charges £30 an hour privately but gets this as part of school. Rugby would be a registration fee of £120 per season and then a weekly match fee which is approx £5 per week. Cricket match fees for his out of school club is £80 for the season and then £5 match fee per game so adds up quickly but he also gets the opportunity to play matches and have 2-3hours of coaching weekly with school so gets a lot from it. Football is similar but he only plays this for 6 weeks of the year at school and there is no specialist coaching given for this. Squash courts are £20 per hour near us but again included as part of his weekly sports at school.

15 years is a long time though.

but how do you know that?

how on earth do you know my outgoings? mortgage? supporting any other family? i mean could go on and on

point is… there’s an “average” income
but there is no “good”

2 people working full time on minimum wage shouldn't be miles off 50k. 60k is not a 'good' household income for a couple with a child. You'd hope people would have at least spent 4-5years, ideally more like 7-8, trying to get a rung or two up the career /income ladder before having a child?
60k as an individual salary id say is good outside London.

I think you need to be hH income £180k+ for school fees in our books. We are £120k and no school fees and it feels okay right now