To wonder how people are coping?

[CobbleWobble]

We are very lucky, I know this.

We are "Mumsnet rich" both have professional jobs with good salaries (£170k household income) and yet this last 12 months:

• removed children from private school
• changed how we do the weekly shop to reduce costs
• cut subscriptions (like Disney+ etc)
• reduced what I bought in the back to school shop
• decided against a holiday in October half term
• concerned about our usual Christmas food order

What is going on? I just don't understand why or how prices are rising as they are or how people on less than us are coping!

I'm extremely grateful we have the things to cut that we have but we've also had to remortgage this year which has doubled our mortgage payments and then our utilities have increased and the food shop has just got insane.

We have other things we can cut - a holiday in the UK, Netflix, the monthly takeaway but its just miserable to think we may need to do that just not to be living.

Happy to post spending particulars if people are finding it hard to see where I'm coming from.

So AIBU to think that as a country we cannot go on with prices rising like this? How are others coping?

If you can’t afford £10 a month for Disney+ on a household income of £170k, I don’t know what the fuck you’re spending your money on. I’m going to hazard a guess that you run two expensive cars and have a colossal mortgage or, for some reason, a ton of debts? Because otherwise I can’t see the issue. Our household income is only just over half of that and we manage fine.

If your kids are at school and you work from home how/why are you spending £950 on childcare?

Moving our childrens school was not a decision made lightly and one we really struggled with.

Last year we struggled to afford it and made a number of changes in lifestyle and used savings, but the 25% vat was something we couldn't afford, no matter how much we cut things.

The same year our (only) car died a spectacular death and had to be replaced, which we did from savings, buying a second hand car, again the price of cars has gone up a lot as well. That plus some essential home maintenance decimated our savings - I'm just so glad we had them to fall back on.

So what, you can’t voice concerns about changes impacting your lifestyle unless you’re in food bank territory? People have financial concerns at all levels of wealth, not just those who are worried about where their next meal is coming from.

OP we earn a fair bit more than you and I am definitely noticing that things have increased where I’ve never noticed before.
if you’re in London in a bog standard £1.5m Victorian terrace (yes that’s how much a bog standard house in parts of London costs) I am surprised on your salaries that you could afford private school in the first place or that you had much left over post tax/NI/mortgage payment/school fees. Where I am, prep schools are now £30-£35k per child.
Get the streaming services with ads! They’re about half the price.
Also sign up to giffgaff instead of an expensive monthly phone plan. I pay a tenner a month and have never exceeded my data or calls.

There is a marginal rate of tax/NIC on income between £100 and 120k that is 62% - its because the personal allowance is clawed back at that level of income. Quite a good explanation here. financial-advice.co.uk/2025/06/stay-away-from-the-edge-tax-traps-for-the-unwary/ Its actually worse than that if there are young children in the mix due to the loss of the free hours. The really stark differential is between a couple on £60k each and one earner on £120k as the couple get child benefit as well as the free hours whereas the high earner pays the marginal rate of tax and loses the CB as well as the free hours - so both households have the same gross income but one has a significantly better disposable income than the other.

Agreed rates are at a more normal level now, but the average rate almost tripled in the space of a year, so I’d say that’s pretty “mad”!

@Londonmummy66 I'm aware of the tax cliff edges but that doesn't explain why @CobbleWobble has less than 7k. 115k is still 6.1k take home.

This £900 for day today spends, adult hobbies and savings/ Christmas/ birthdays/ holidays etc covers too many things. You need to separate it out to see where it's actually going.

Wrap around and holiday clubs.

I'm not sure what jobs allow you to do the school run in the school days and have kids at home whilst you work, but ours certainly don't! When I'm at work I can't be looking after kids. It wouldn't be safe for them or appropriate for my job or DHs job.

Do people seriously do that!?

There isn't one. That's not how UC works.

The threshold for any given household depends on their childcare and rent costs. That means a family with a higher income than you could still get UC when you don't. It's absolutely possible to get some UC on more than 40k, you just need high childcare and probably private rent costs.

Sounds tough to me @CobbleWobble Thats not much left after a high salary. I would have thought you’d have much more disposable income and tbh you deserve to have more. Seems very little point grafting and studying etc to earn that sort of salary then not be able to have fairly basic “nice” things like a Disney plus sub.

private school was only going to be tight on 7k

You might already know this, but if your employer doesn’t reimburse your professional membership fees you can offset it against your tax for the year. See here - https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/professional-fees-and-subscriptions

Thing is though- whether down to overcommitments, debt etc, someone on a high income shouldn’t be feeling the pinch. I think you need to look at the amount of people on these sorts of threads cutting costs at all incomes. It isn’t good for the economy if high income households reduce service costs like cleaners or gardeners. It isn’t good if they reduce going out to restaurants etc. it’s easy to scoff at these sorts of threads but you want higher earners to be confident spending.

@CobbleWobble do you stuff your pensions because your tax bond doesn't make sense.

take home!

My predictive text is wild

Large pension contributions maybe?

Get cheaper broadband and no subscription you can get iplayer channel 4 itv all those for free. Plus YouTube has a lot of shows. Bye bye cleaner.

Student loan and pension contributions I imagine.

This is true. OPs cleaner might really be relying on her hours with them. If your position that it doesn't matter that the likes of OP are feeling the pinch because they're rich anyway, then surely it matters when people who earn much less suffer because their livelihood rests on OP and co spending their disposable income.

Student loan and pension contributions I imagine.

Which is why I asked re pension. OP said student loan was under £200

I would say less holidays, state school, cheaper housing and generally being mindful of how they spend is how other people are coping.

Agree - but she said her student loan was under £200 we don't know about her DH - if he is eg a lawyer he might have a loan for a conversion masters or debts for pupillage.

DH does because he didn't have a pension at all until about 5 years ago and is trying to make up for it.

He earns significantly more, it's about an 80/20 split, so the tax burden falls on him but my salary isn't low enough for us to split it.

I pay 5% in to my pension because I've been paying it in longer. I do also still pay a student loan.

We do think DH is owed tax back, but he needs to do a self assessment which he's applied for.

Well mine does but that doesn’t help you. I have flexi time so I can log on early and then drop my dc off to school. They Stay in afterschool for an hour or so and I nip out to collect them.