To have expected more in life from working to reach this salary?

[grethrow]

I’m early forties and earn 75k. I know this isn’t huge money but it’s well above average salaries in the uk. I worked hard to get to this point (I’m not saying people who earn less don’t work hard).

I guess along the way I always thought I would be able to have a really comfortable life on this salary. I have one ds who is 11 but his costs don’t really factor in much as his dad pays for most stuff (ds lives with me so dad pays a decent amount).

I assumed going on holiday would be easy but renting a cottage in Devon in a nice area for a week is around 1,500, then there’s travel costs and food etc when you’re there! Going abroad long haul is extortionate. I guess these things are just about doable for me but it’s not easy.

I am having a privileged whinge. I know that. But I do feel sometimes like maybe at 18 I shouldn’t have bothered. My parents had a similar income (taking into account inflation) and me and my brother both went to independent schools, grew up in a large home and parents had very nice cars. It wouldn’t be possible for me to go and buy a nice car outright. I know people have it much worse but I still feel cheated and like it is a slog for very little, fair of me to feel this? Do others feel this?

I think people know that tax is payable and how to use one of the many take home pay calculator freely available online.

Yes the problem is wages are too low and house prices are too high.
But too many people have wealth tied up in second, third homes to support the obvious solution of successive governments stopping propping up house prices. They need to fall.

Lifestyle creep.
You'd be surprised how easy it is for the "oh, I can afford it" mentality to creep in. I think I'm lucky that way; I'm not that person. My outgoings are the same earning 100k as they would be earning 25k.
I'd examine your outgoings. It's easy for the random Amazon purchase, that pair of shoes, the "I'll treat myself" at the supermarket, takeaways, "I really love my smoked salmon", "what's the harm on a taxi", a million TV subscriptions, etc to add up.
My best friend is on 22k and spends all his disposable income on takeaways and clubs. I literally spend £20 on my monthly gym membership.

This. I'm needing to review what my outgoings are. Good income but money doesn't seem to stretch. I'm going to monitor spending over the next few months. One of the big expenditures is indeed the supermarket shop (again so much is bought from here). However, picking up this and that (no particular large purchases) does stack up and I am taking a closer look at this.

Also if OP had described it as a lot, the thread would've gone completely the other way and be teeming with people ready to tell her it's peanuts and wouldn't cover their Ocado bill.

So true!

what does it do for productivity for the UK?

Nothing, hence why productivity has been shit for years.

I think people know that tax is payable and how to use one of the many take home pay calculator freely available online.

Many don’t actually.

It’s less about your income and more about how much disposable you have at the end of every month. What is that?

It depends on where you live doesn't it? I've helped people on similar money budget and they save 1-2K every month - that's after essentials and lots of 'fun' expenses.

So if you've been on that money for a while and maybe own property, you should be able to pay 10-20k aside every year and potentially use that for things like school fees or buying a car outright.

However, life is more expensive now, very few people can afford a luxurious life on PAYE. Money for those kinds of things tends to come from elsewhere - family wealth, working for yourself with a high turnover and profits etc.

I hesitate to say it given some of the comments on here, but I earn more than you op and feel very much the same. Mortgage and bills are three times what they were a few years ago, and an expensive divorce that I’m still paying off is also in the equation. That’s life I guess and you just get on with it, but it does depress me how hard I have worked, and do work, to just squeak by every month.

Expect more. Demand more. If you don’t, we’ll just keep getting less and less.

Amen.

I know people on £75000 + who have disposable of around £500 or even less each month. I also know someone on £34000 who has disposable of £1100 per month. So your outgoings and what you spend your money on matters just as much as the salary

It really is not.
Someone on minimum wage may have more disposable income than someone better off, but they are paying rent on a room in a shared house, own very little other than clothes, and use public transport. Whereas someone wealthier may be paying their mortgage on an expensive house, own a few cars, and have a house full of expensive furniture. Who do you think it is better off?

They might be paying for a shared room, yes. Or they might own outright a property they bought for bugger all in a cheap area a few decades back, or have social housing. Due to where I grew up, I know a lot of people who fit into both of those categories.

But their kids increasingly don't, even in the same areas. A lot of this is generational. It used to be much easier than it is now for people on low wages to have secure, decent housing. Which is why we need to talk about wealth and assets as well as income. They are not the same thing.

We paid £3.5K for two weeks in august for a 3 bedroom cottage (6 people) in the heart of St Ives (downalong) - a very beautiful, very desirable location. I'm not sure where you're looking but I'm pretty sure you could get a two bed cottage or apartment in Devon for significantly less than £1.5K if you're not too fussy about being in the "best" places. We rent out our own holiday home in a beautiful holiday location for £1.5K per week in the summer and it sleeps 6. You'd be able to get something much cheaper there for 2-3 people - where on earth are you looking?

I don't really understand the "unable to afford a holiday" line - don't you put money aside for such things?

My dh is in the top 2% but we can't just buy whatever we like - our outgoings are huge, kids in private school etc. It's all relative. You have to prioritise what's important to you.

My DP and I earn that between us. We are ok but don't feel rich. Living in London.

Modern life just costs more. So these days you almost need a smartphone to function when I only needed 2p spare for an emergency call. 😂

@SoiledMyselfDuringSomeTurbulence I have already said that the government needs to bring house prices down.
Although you can still buy houses on one low or average wage. Look at the person upthread who said their ex council house is worth the same now when adjusted for inflation as over 20 years ago. Not everyone has soared in price.
And having to move out of where you were born has been an issue for years. My DH and his siblings moved out of the area they were raised in as ex Londoners bought properties and sent prices soaring. His parents lived in a rented place where the rent was protected, so there was not even a house to inherit. I too moved away from where I was brought up as unemployment was sky high there. It is much better now, but for years it was hard to get any job there.
It is not right, but it is not a new situation.

I get you op. A £75k income shouldn’t be synonymous with shopping at yellow sticker time and buying from jumble sales. You’d expect to be comfortable and be able to afford a week away in the uk without thinking about it on 75k.

If the people with, in theory, more disposable income cannot afford to spend then the country is fucked. We don’t need all these shops and services if no can afford to go anywhere other than Lidl and Primark.

Doesn’t add up, from going by your previous comment, more like at least 30 years ago.
Theres no way an ex council property in a northern town, where property prices have always been substantially lower, than the rest of the UK, would have cost you £100k!
You made a good profit, an opportunity that people wouldn’t have today, which got you higher up the housing ladder, as did many people, at that time.Not saying it’s wrong, but just be honest about it.

@SoiledMyselfDuringSomeTurbulence also you are assuming that there are no younger or middle aged people paying rent in shared houses. There are a lot. My friend only managed to buy a terraced house by having lodgers for years, most were in their thirties or forties. She at least has an asset building. They have nothing.

I agree. Housing (or lack of it) is the cause of so much misery and poverty it the UK. I read a study recently that we wouldn't need to build a single new home in the UK if housing was distributed according to need. Being under occupying is classed as 2+ spare bedrooms. In my area alone there are 34,000 spare bedrooms, just in council properties. So instead we try to build, except, new developments are held up for years by objections from locals, all of whom are comfortably and well housed themselves.

Also agree with this! I know people on high/good middle salaries who, like the OP, are working really hard but do now think that the trade off just isn't worth it at all.

Some are choosing not to have holidays and to work less for a better balance/spending more time with kids etc.

And they wonder why those who CAN afford not to work eg some over 50s are choosing to step away. Costs are high and salaries are far too low.

Productivity will tank until there really is something to aspire to.

Yup. Similar salary to you, single parent, no child maintenance as we're 50/50. I'm significantly less well off than I was in my early 30s (in the 2000s) when I was on a salary only a little above average but never thought twice about putting the heating on or buying a coffee or lunch out.

I’ve been completely honest, that’s how much I paid for it. I sold it two years later for £105,000 so not an enormous profit. You’re confusing ‘ex council house’ with ‘right to buy’ where a tenant buys it on the cheap. There is very little difference in price between a two bed ex-council house and a two bed non-council house in the same town.

I now live in an £800k 4 bed house - in the north. I’m sure southerners all think houses here all cost £3.60. 🙄 Yes, there are slum areas where you can still buy a house for buttons, but anywhere decent costs pretty much on a par with a lot of the south (excluding London and the Home Counties).

If you care about this, lobby government to stop propping up house prices. Houses used to fall in price when they got too expensive for first time buyers. That no longer happens as the market has been deliberately distorted.

All this assumes " stuff" and holidays and spending makes us happy?

No I'm really not.

I said that as well as an NMW worker being in a houseshare, it's also possible they're an owner occupier in a property bought for not much, or SH tenant. This is undoubtedly true. It's not a full picture, but then neither is what you said.

There are also a lot of younger NMW workers still living at home, and in many cases that's only possible because the parent was able to buy or secure SH when access to both was better. And this is also part of the point about it being generational.