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?

It always baffles me that people on such high incomes (intelligent and educated?) fail to understand such basic things.

I don't have children in private school, but have done all the others things in OP's list of doom. The difference is I was made redundant a month ago so I am working out how to may a few months pay last in case I don't find work (work that pays a heck of lot less than your income).

We will be fine. I will be able to pay my mortgage and other bills and if need be I will take any work to keep things secure. I have not cancelled Disney+ - it's a fiver a month.

Is the £170 net take home or are you then taxed in that?

because £170k net is £14.1k a month.

So if you’ve cut school fees (average round here is £1-2k per child a month dependent on school choice) I cannot see how £6.99 monthly subscription makes a difference from £14k!

Your mortgage must be huge? Your pension payments are large? Travel expenses? Debt?

I live in a cheap property (£580 a month) but my take home is £2.5k a month and although - yes - money is tighter with CoL we aren’t having to cut subscriptions etc and still can afford some luxuries.

I seriously think you would benefit from some financial advice. Even if it’s just you are use to having so much more spare to save/spend you’ve lost sight of what you can actually afford!

! try £24k household with zero benefits.

We used to be well-off so it’s a massive come down. Cost of living is excruciating

I know many people who work extremely hard and earn a fraction of OPs salary. It's not true that people with higher salaries work harder or make more sacrifices than other people.
And they care just as much as anyone else about their children's education but would never be able to afford to pay so their children can be taught in smaller classes with more resources.
And your mortgage is only higher because you chose to buy a bigger/nicer house . Similarly your insurance is only higher because you have more expensive belongings.

I’m guessing you have seriously overstretched yourself when you bought your house. That’s a huge income 4x average after tax, so if you are struggling to the point of cutting groceries i suggest that perhaps you need to consider your house situation in the medium to long term. Our income is a fraction of yours but no money issues.

And if say you have a mortgage of £600k your monthly payments are going to be over £3k. For a 3 bed semi in a not too nice area. Housing costs for the young just buying their first place are insane! And there’s lots of people with no comprehension of £3k leaving your bank account each month immediately as they are lucky enough to be in social housing or have bought many years ago.

It’ll be the mortgage - ours going from 1.75% to 3.25% a couple of years ago was an absolute shocker even though we have always been super careful around borrowing ratios etc. If they went from sub 2% to over 4% on an 80% LTV I can well imagine the sort of impact being described.
Throw in the OP probably being in London where a 3 bed house somewhere well connected and not stabby will set you back in excess of £1million and £170k joint income really doesn’t look that great at all.
Yes lots of people manage, indeed thrive on much less but assuming the OP is real that wasn’t the question.
As an aside I don’t care how much I earn, I will never be ok with spending over £6 on fucking mince!!!

170k puts you in probably top 2% earners, I was in top 5% fora while, if you can’t manage on that I’m amazed. If I thought someone I employed was that bad with money and had such poorly joined up thinking I would be questioning my recruitment process.

@Outsideitsraining exactly, of course we never paid that but i'm young enough to understand the impact.

We have a similar income and whilst we’re still comfortable we cannot afford private school. That’s with a relatively small mortgage vs our income of £1300 pcm. It goes up soon by £1100 so definitely can’t afford private school then either. Fees around us are around £20k per year that’s £1600ish pcm, per child and that’s before uniforms etc.

Exactly 💯. It will be a huge mortgage payments .

I have a few friends who have insane mortgage payments because they wanted the perfect house in the best area . But realistically they have pushed themselves to the limit.

OP isn't coming back..... They are obviously taking the piss

Yep. Classic hit and run. Amazes me that people are still asking her questions as if this was thread was intended to foster a genuine discussion.

Happy to post spending particulars

@CobbleWobble I think this would be helpful, unless your not coming back?

Exactly. I’m in the NW. People work professional jobs AND can afford reasonably priced property.

We’re at the point where mortgage payments of £2,500+ are the norm for fairly average housing in good school catchments in mid sized cities for young buyers with no equity. The OP was not looking for sympathy, she was just saying that you’re not well off when you’re on £170k anymore, and she’s right. Take £2,500 then council tax and bills off your wage, then childcare if you have kids you will be budgeting quite hard to get by.

I think there is a real mentality in London of people overstretching themselves financially to get the most house possible. I never make a financial decision without asking myself how it would look if all of my outgoings (and the cost of the thing I am considering buying or investing in) doubled. It doesn't do to take what the bank will lend you as your starting point for what you can actually afford.

fake post

I need to know what food order this woman is doing? Is it Harrods’s and feeding 500?

Indeed - with a 10% deposit, earning £170k household income, it would be 50% of your take home to pay the mortgage.

It’s very strange - the salary numbers sound so high… but the housing costs mean people’s lifestyles look nothing like they (or others!) might imagine.

This is why there are so many threads about income and living standards where the posters can’t understand each others point of view at all - the cost of living is so wildly different based on age, stage and geography.

I can manage and earn way less than you

Well al lot of people came off their cheap mortgage fixes three years ago. Right at the time energy prices were going through the roof too.

I guess it is true that people only notice things when it begins to affect them.

Presumably you have known about the significant cost in mortgage increase for a long time (since 2022) and have been putting money aside to cover it.

🙄 and here we go.

OP isn't wrong in the sense that everything is seemingly going up
We've taken note of the increases and are "adjusting" spending accordingly.
That's life unfortunately and we fully own our spending choices - past, present and future.

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