Avoiding the childcare trap

[Difficultquestionplz]

hi! I know there are a lot of high earners in this group so maybe other mums can help me. I am caught up in the 100k childcare trap.
back in the days when my salary was around the 100k mark, I was able to top up the pension, but that was before my child was born. Now my child has turned 3 and was hoping to finally get a little relief but it looks like it’s not the case…
currently my salary is higher, almost exclusively due to sales commissions and I am going to finish the fiscal at 260k. My husband is livid that he loses on benefits because of my salary and I am actually wondering if there is anything I could do in terms of investments that can be deducted that could bring me below the threshold.
I am not using any financial advisor because honestly when I looked into it they wanted to take 3% management fee just to manage the easy bits (pension, isas) and it obviously compounds.

thank you for helping
(please be kind, I don’t come from money, my job is paying well now but also highly at risk due to performance management or constant layoffs mixed with the joy of nepotism, unconscious bias/ blatant sexism of a male dominated environment)

such a great justification for introducing a higher rate of tax for the wealthy.

You know, to pay for benefits for those living in poverty. Not to provide free childcare for those "earning" more than a quarter of a million annually.

Only you don’t do you. Because you’ve not kept that pizza. You’ve used it to purchase food so that you can survive. Redistribution of wealth is not giving people at the bottom less than they need to live whilst they live in rental properties owned by the pizza giver.

This.

Livid. Benefits versus a huge salary , ate you real

Well done you. Let us know what you do with your extra £5.6k saved from childcare costs and other benefits your husband will claim, on top of your £300k income. We're on the edge of our seats.
Or maybe we'll see you post one of those "Where can I holiday with a family of 4 for £30k?" 🤣🤣🤣

Well, if you're going to take financial advice from AI, I don't even know what to tell you. 🙄

But this whole thread is based on a ridiculous premise. Your husband is livid because your household isn't entitled to something. Livid, I tell you! It's soooo unfair that we make toooo much money! Foot stamping included, I expect.

@ChicaWowWow being stressed for cost of childcare and then spend 30k on a holiday? If I were to save 5k I would probably save for retirement or for medical needs of my parents not covered by the nhs or any unforeseen repair work…the only luxury items I indulge are childcare and therapy

@TickingAlongNicely that’s how my husband probably thinks about it and you are right, thank you for being open minded

How can you be stressed about money when you earn over a quarter of a million pound in a year? It'd take me the best part of a decade to make that. I don't understand how you worry about benefits and tax relief on that income. I must be clueless.

Well said. It seems that people who work loads of hours (probably more than forty), worked hard to achieve a great job and probably gave up a lot on their way to the top, get punished for their hard work with taxes that are just ridiculous. Jealousy is ugly, no matter how you look at it, and wanting to benefit from other's hard work is disturbing.

So, you abuse the system but have convenient excuses as to "why you do it". Got it. 🙄

So, by earning 110K above the 150K, she should be happy that the 110K is reduced to 50K? Really?

C'mon @Difficultquestionplz --work more, work harder! Earn more, so those who don't want to work as hard as you can benefit from your toils. Try to get it up to 500-600K, so more people can ride your coattails. In fact, tell the government that they can have everything about 150K, because, why should you benefit from your hard work when others could?

I would hazard a guess that HER tax payments would more than cover HER childcare costs. So, she wouldn't be riding anyone's coattails.

Baffled by the number of people on this thread who seem to think that how much someone earns is a direct reflection of how hard they work

Maybe they should tax high earners until they make no more than the average Brit. No matter how much you make, everyone earns the exact same amount, not a penny more or less.
That should help take care of everything and no one can be jealous because someone has more than them. Then the high earners can just become SAHPs and work just enough to make them eligible for the "Brit salary cap". That will end up working well.

How about, because in many cases, MOST cases, it does? High earners have usually gotten better grades, studied harder, did not do a lot of the "fun" things others did. They knew what was needed and filled that niche. And all of it could go away with a poof. They put in more hours, have less work/life balance and have a lot more stress.

I am baffled by the number of people on this thread who think high earners got there because of a lottery of "who will we pick to be high earners this year" and not because they worked and studied for it. 😆🙄

dear me how utterly naive

Oh sweetie, in my eight decades on earth, naive is not something I have ever been. I just recognize that most people who are high earners worked hard to get there, since most high earners are not the ones born with a silver spoon in their mouths. They are the go getters and workaholics.

It's quite silly to think otherwise.

No that’s really really not how the world works. Have you noticed who the US president is recently?

If you don’t think he works hard then you really are naive.

Oh right yes because trump got where he is by virtue of his hard work and good character. Nothing to do with privilege or extreme wealth inequality or anything like that. Such a hard working man. I can’t anymore with this thread, I truly can’t. What a cesspit of utter nonsense

To be fair your household is paying a huge amount of tax each month

I didn’t say anything about good character. It’s more than possible to be utterly abhorrent and hard working.

That isn’t what I said though, is it?

I said the loss of childcare at £100k is brutal.
But I also said it is confusing that her husband is livid at their net better off position.

It’s kinda like people who say they don’t want a pay rise because they’ll pay more tax. At the end of the year, OP’s family have c£50k more in their pocket when all is paid for. Why would you be livid at that?

Pissed off the tax system doesn’t smooth earnings across multiple tax years? Of course! Irritated that childcare isn’t a universally available provision like education is? Absolutely.
But livid at your wife for having a successful year at work? Why?

Trump isn’t wealthy because he’s unusually hard working FFS. He’s widely known to be one of the laziest presidents of all time.
(There will be any number of poor people who in the world working 10x harder than Trump).

Trump is wealthy because of a combination of (the main reason) obscene privilege, and to a lesser extent the fact that he is unscrupulous, manipulative and corrupt (eg has used the legal system as a tool) and because for some reason people (who are idiots) are attracted to his enormous ego (shoves his name on everything and has created an image/ brand for himself). This is what the world is like- nothing to do with rewarding the hardworking.

In other words, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, hence me WRITING; "since most high earners are not the ones born with a silver spoon in their mouths". They are a minority.
NOT the subject of my post, which you know. But congrats on bringing in politics. It's not a "fun" MN thread without someone bringing it up. 😆🙄