What is your household income, how much is benefits, and how are you coping?

[Gabrilla]

Genuinely curious after so many threads on here about benefit changes. Please feel free to name change!

I’ll start:

Salaries for both of us total 90k. Only benefits are £102 month child benefit, though we also get tax-free childcare and 15hrs free at nursery.

Total income is about 6k a month, mortgage and bills 3k, nursery 1k, commuting costs £500, groceries cost £500, husband pays CMS and other bits to his children totalling about £500 leaving us about £500 for everything else.

Feels like we’re constantly penny-pinching.

Where did you get that figure from?

@1apenny2apenny falls on deaf ears.

Joint income of £149,000. No benefits

@JHound use the IF calculator

Low income high tax country…….

OP is supporting children.

I don’t get how you can feel poor on 90k. We have a combined household income of approx £65k (self employment for me, and disability, so this varies), one child, 3 cats and a dog, mortgage in the south east and I feel we’re doing well for ourselves! I’d certainly like to be able to afford cool holidays, but we don’t struggle for necessities. I grew up in poverty so this feels like good money.

@JHound I know! but the poster I was responding to didn't understand why dc should be included in the comparison. I was trying to help her comprehend the difference housing & children make.

Low income high tax country…….

with little to show for the high tax

£2643 benefits.

I looked up my street the other day and found most of the houses are owned outright (there’s a lot of people here who’ve been here for decades, mostly in their 50s-60s). We’ve got to know the neighbours and they’re mostly middle-aged tradesmen and a SAHM who does a bit of childcare for the grandkids.

No way a tradesperson and a SAHP would be able to afford to buy on this street now unless they had a gigantic inheritance. But it would be possible if the same couple were renting because housing benefit pays for it.

I don’t know what the answer is. Not having kids? Leaving the country?

I don’t know what the answer is. Not having kids? Leaving the country?

The recommendation is that HR taxpayers move to one of the Scandi countries. You'll likely still pay lots of tax but you'll actually see the benefit of it by living in a society where you can access things that work properly. At the moment, you just pay loads of tax, get nothing back and nothing works properly because it's all underfunded.

I don’t know what the answer is. Not having kids? Leaving the country?

I'm encouraging my dc too definitely. The UK is fucked, all of the west will suffer due yo ageing populations but we are in a particular bad spot.

Well of course, if you have a pot of money and spend it all then there won't be much left.

I'm struggling with your line of argument.

If I earn 90K and have no children and no mortgage, that number still sits at the same place on the chart of household income as someone who earns 90K and spends it all on housing and children.

I understand that having children and a large mortgage makes a difference to how far your 90K goes.

Don't keep telling me that OP has children and so therefore her 90K isn't a high household income. It might not be high enough for the things she wants to do, but compared to the income in the country it is higher than average.

That would be nice. Apparently our £800 extra a month here in Scotland is to ensure those on benefits get a Scottish child payment to top them up to £80k.

@rosemarble I have no words...

Why when you are looking at where your income fits within the country would you pretend to not have dc & compare to families without dc? That makes zero sense!!!

How patronising.

I said 90K is a high salary (though I stand corrected on it being as high a household income as I first said).
You keep saying "oh but OP has children so it's not high".

I say that it's still a high household income and that OP is spending a lot on housing and children.

Monthly
Wage - £1800 (net, Husband 45hr p/w)
UC - £1300 (1 severely disabled child element, carers element, 3 children)
Carers allowance - £327
Child Benefit - £257.
DLA for child - £434 after Motability deduction (Higher rate Care and Higher Mobility

We are doing ok.

my DH earns 97k and I earn 11.5K. 6k between us I think. No child benefit or anything.
Bills are about 3k including mortgage. I’d love to maximise my earnings but i also don’t want to pay for childcare.

A better way to put it, I think, is that OPs clearly higher than average household income is only one of multiple factors. It's not actually particularly useful to tell her that a population who mostly aren't fully exposed to current housing costs also mostly have less income than her. Hence she's living on a road with people who likely have never had as much money in real terms, but have greater wealth than her that they got for much cheaper.

The more appropriate comparison is with people who have to either privately rent or pay what sounds like 2020s prices for their bought homes, and who have the same childcare costs.

I think those stats are collected, no?

Household income is about £120,000. Only get the child benefit too. I wouldn't say we're penny pinching. We're comfortable and I'm very grateful indeed. However, what surprises me is that we don't save as much as I'd like and we're not really prepared for university fees etc which will come in the next few years.

Yes. I can't really understand why you are entitled to it when on UC but that amount is the same as a full time minimum wage job that doesn't qualify.

How patronising.

I said 90K is a high salary (though I stand corrected on it being as high a household income as I first said).
You keep saying "oh but OP has children so it's not high".

You said it was like the top 1% or similar when it isn't.
And when you compare to families with dc it isn't as high vs no dc, that's a fact.

But you can't argue with stupid so knock yourself out 😆

Income is no longer a real signifier of wealth.