To think people’s idea of what ‘a rich’ person is, is totally skewed?

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For example:

Who do you think of as rich?

When the government talk about wealthy people who do they mean?

Tax the rich. Who are ‘the rich’? Etc

My household income is higher than this and we don't have most of those things. Don't even have children, let alone privately educated children.

And yes, we we pay a huge amount in tax. We have 1 (regular) car and 1 bike on salary sacrifice between us. Which is an option available to all tax payers, not just higher earners.

Not if you’re earning a gross salary of £150k on PAYE; you lose nearly half of that in tax and NI.

If you’re talking about net income, I would 100% agree.

@childofthe607080s your response doesn't make any sense.

when you bought you home does make a difference and its not the same as saying everyone bought their home decades ago...

Millionaires and more.

The replies on this thread show you that the frog has well and truly been boiled. The tyranny of low expectations is like a plague in this country. People thinking that sending your kid to private school or earning £100k makes you rich.

Thats why this country is doomed because people want to pull others down and lower the bar. Crabs in a bucket. (sorry for so many metaphors)

This race to the bottom is fast turning this country into a third world hellhole. This Labour government is putting the final nail in the coffin. Get out while you can folks.

Interesting debate

I'd love it if all the public money wasted on the Teeside freeport going into the pockets of local 'businessmen' and their family members (see Private Eye's special report) and all other public money wasted on stupid vanity projects by various governments was reclaimed.

I think there's levels of richness or wealth and it can be relative.

For example we earn a joint income of about £70k but have a house worth £700k (mostly due to luck of house price increases since we first bought in 2012) but over £220k mortgage. We live in an fairly expensive bit of the North (think South Manchester, Cheshire or York)

Early 40s, one primary school aged child, with joint pensions of about £150k.

I consider ourselves very comfortable, we have one second hand car that we own outright and go on a foreign European holiday once a year. However we will probably need to work until pension age to pay our mortgage off and won't be looking to inherit that much.

However a redundancy and no work would probably see us screwed in 6 months.

Its fair to say many would consider us rich and I would have 15+ years ago, when I was renting, broke and on my knees after the financial crisis made us both redundant, (not worked long enough at our junior roles for redundacy pay) signing on at the job centre with my partner with zero emergency fund.

However I consider rich having millions at your disposal (even if they're tied up in stocks and shares and multiple properties) rich to me means you'd always be able to cash in or sell something and have years of income that could even take you to retirement say on £50k a year whilst still having a decent roof over your head.

I think I could take on a little extra tax for the sake of a functioning NHS but I get pissed at PFIs, dodgy private contracts for mates, tax loopholes for billionaires/corporations and weapons of war (not talking about genuine defence) sucking the coffers dry.

I do believe that they should tax the fuck out of the genuinely rich though, my wage hasn't gone up in years and those fuckers at the top are just multiplying their already stuffed wallets at our expense! 1 or 2% is fucking nothing, considering inflation my wage is actually down 20% in real terms! So quite frankly they fucking owe it to us to give a few crumbs back as a God damn thankyou. Christ they'll make it back in interest in months!

I also don't think billionaires should exist and if I was queen of the world I'd tax personal wealth at 100% over 100 million because noone needs that much money (and power, since you can bloody lobby/buy political influence and your own propaganda platforms). And anyone who says noone will work if they can't be billionaires, show me one billionaire paediatric brain surgeon, rocket scientist or cancer biologist actually doing the fucking work, who is a billionaire from hard work/innovation and who is completely motivated by money and I'll change my mind.

Rant over. 😅

I don't agree with that WildLime. I get whst you mesn about some ideas of 'rich', but that has always been so. People have often thought someone with good job or profession, big house, cars and kids st private schools are rich and of course they are not, They are just better off, more comfortable, but they have limits. Being rich is way beyond any of that.

It's all relative (and there is jealousy sometimes), but I don't see anyone wanting to drag them down, if anything people want to rise up financially and materially, and they strive to do so.

Well that’s us, though still paying a mortgage for another 6 years. Will be paid off when we’re early 50’s but we’ve had to scrimp and save for that situation. DS salary is just shy of £60k in the north so we are certainly comfortable but rich? You must be fucking kidding!

Rich is when you don’t need to work physical hours because money makes money. Investments, several properties, family wealth, a career like a footballer where you get paid millions to do something you love. That’s true wealth, not a solicitor who works overtime and shops at Aldi to save money!

Rich is something that isn’t in the grasp on 98% of the population regardless of how much effort they put it etc. Being a solicitor or the like is opened up to a much higher percentage of the population. A good tradesmen could also make £60k…

Chris Rock had a great joke in one of his old specials.

"There's rich, then there's wealthy. If Bill Gates woke up in the morning with Oprah's money, he'd jump out the fucking window"

It's definitely skewed. My brother thinks me and my husband are rich. The reality is that although my husband earns well, I don't work due to ill health and we have a big mortgage. We didn't buy till our 40s (last chance!) and need to work on paying it off early so that my husband isn't working until he's 72! I'd say we are comfortable - we have enough but don't have the latest tech or expensive holidays and only eat out on special occasions.

@lalalapland My household income is higher than this and we don't have most of those things. Don't even have children, let alone privately educated children.

Do you mind telling us then where all of the money is going?

And yes, we we pay a huge amount in tax. We have 1 (regular) car and 1 bike on salary sacrifice between us. Which is an option available to all tax payers, not just higher earners.

Salary sacrifice is an option to everyone, but the point is that the tax savings are much higher for high earners. I only save 20% on the part of my salary that I sacrifice. High earners save 45%.

Ah, another person who doesn't look at their pay slip and is unaware of salary sacrifice.

Personally i think if you can afford to buy one of those queue jumping passes at theme parks (the ones you pay for, not the ones that some people with disabilities get for free) and you can go on more than one holiday a year then you are rich.

On mumsnet if you both work full time and save madly to send your kid to a private school, you're rich. The politics of envy on rule this site.

I think rich is enough money in the bank to live off the interest comfortably in perpetuity.

Totally agree. And I guess by taxing the rich, they won't be raising enough tax, so average earners will be taxed more.

I don't know what I'd class as rich. Probably someone with a house paid off worth a couple of million, plus a large income and investments.

Im hideously lefty. People think I'm mad because of it. I always say tax the rich.

My friend owns a sea plane. I don't mean him.

I don't mean uncle tom in his 3 million estate who rarely leaves his house.

I mean people who act as corporations. People who buy and sell on a whim. Destroy others lives for an extra one percent of income. I mean conglomerates.

I firmly believe corporation tax and capital gains should be taxed in exactly the same way as PAYE. I also believe PAYE should have more bands at ever higher increments.

I am absolutely not about coming after people on £200,000 a year.

😂😂
I'm a single mum with a ds on a scholarship at a private school. Rich I certainly am not. I've not had an evening out this year and currently trying to wrestle my food shop back below £55 a week for two.

I supplement my heating by cutting and drying wood, I'm in my 60s and still working full time. I think you need to visit some private schools.

The school car park is filled with 9yo beaten up family hatchbacks. People at our school are not all rich. A fair number are service families whose places are paid by the govt so pupils can carry on their GCSEs when their families get posted.

I think what is pertinent now is the significant increase in people caught in the upper tax bracks, since these have not moved with inflation. As highlighted in this article below, many more people in ordinary professional jobs have been dragged into the 40% and above tax bracket with time (once reserved for a small % of the population), and with the cliff edges to various childcare benefits, this essentially represents even more:
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/deepening-freeze-more-adults-ever-are-paying-higher-rate-tax

I live in the South East and everyone's talking about taxes all the time at the moment, I think because it disproportionately affects the area (people tend to have larger salaries but also house prices are also much higher so people are trying to balance everything).

Personally I'm a single parent on a high salary with a child in nursery, so it's something I think about all the time. I'm currently thinking of cutting my hours and giving up my work benefits like private health cover, as it's not worth the extra tax I pay.

I know I'm much better than many others, but I don't feel rich. I certainly couldn't afford private school. I don't even have a car as I don't need it often enough to justify buying one - mostly I'm saving up to move as I own a very small house. I pay over £30k a year in taxes.

Read my post above. I think you'd be surprised what those on £100k plus are actually doing. Also many salaried people are taxed on company benefits that don't lead to increased actual take home - personally I'm taxed 40% on around £2000 in benefits like health and dental cover (important as I can't actually get an NHS dentist where I live for me or my child). I earn in that bracket but I have a very small house, couldn't afford private school, don't have a car etc. If you live in the South East it doesn't get you much at all. Yes you're better off than the average but I think people overestimate what you can afford, especially when it comes to housing and when you consider childcare.

the thing is money is different to different people. I have a reasonably good income but on mumsnet I often see that people with a better income say it doesn’t go far in London.
we do absolutely fine and are extremely lucky.

we live in London - 65k a year
I don’t worry about bills and I never take out credit. I don’t drive a car and established not wanting to drive a long time ago.
we have 1 abroad holiday a year and 1 uk holiday a year.
ny children have access to west end shows / concerts and attend music / sport and dance lessons .
I pay for medical health insurance.
I also still manage to save !

I have 1 in private school
2 in state schools.

Sorry but this doesn't add up to me.

Do you not have a mortgage to be able to afford private school on that salary? Do you mean jointly in London you earn £65k before tax? Private schools are usually upwards of £20k a year from what I've seen so even if that was after tax that would be close to 30% of your combined salaries which is a crazy amount to spend on one child's education when you have 3 👀.

I don’t post full fees for the 1 child - which is why the other 2 are in state because of diff circumstances.
we have a flat we don’t need anything bigger an excessive large kitchen etc we have a nice flat but excesss space is not something I deem important same as car
I don’t drive because it’s not important to me vs the cost here.
a while ago we survived on 30k we didn’t move or up our monthly costs due to a higher wage it did however give us more financial means to do more as a family. As I said 2 people can have 65 k live in the same area but have different priorities on what to spend money on.