Poor life planning..

[pocketpairs]

With the upcoming budget seen many "poor me" posts, particularly from high/middle earners. I find it frustrating that rather than blame themselves for thier life (& financial planning) choices, they blame some arbitrary government policy changes, such as upcoming introduction of new council tax bands.

Example: Sister & hubby earn £14k net p/m. But their choice to buy a nearly £x.xm house in SE & send DCs to private school means they have £3k (approx) to spend on everything else. They could have taken different choices...£1m houses &/or move to grammar school areas.

Clearly this is an extreme example, but I really don't understand why a family can't survive on £4-6k p/m, especially outside of London. Up until recently, I survived on much less and managed to put myself a firmer financial footing in 40s.

Sure this means some sacrifices, but it seems everyone wants to 'have their cake and eat it'.

But if they were talking about the complaints of a much lower earner, they're quick to sneer at the 'poor choices' those people have (allegedly) made! The fact is, for both groups, they merrily live up to their income. Experience tells me that the much lower earner has far fewer choice than the higher earner. I read a whiny thread from someone who whinged about how hard their life was on £5 a month & I laughed because I was the dreaded single mother with 2 kids, earning a quarter of that + child benefit. We got by, it was a bit of a struggle but nobody died. By god, what I could I have done with the equivalent of £5k a month! Maybe I would have over extended too - who knows.
Everyone should contribute to our society. It's what ensures that we have the nice things & not a few ridiculously wealthy people + an underclass of under educated, resentful rabble. I know it's what people have been enthusiastically voting for this last decade & a half but it hasn't turned out well so far, has it? I don't bear a torch for Labour but they don't stand a chance if the electorate just squawk like hungry baby birds, beaks agape for More.

I do agree with this. There is not a huge amount of incentive for continuous education, aspiration, saving so the dc have a better life than if we didn't, saving money into a pension only to see it decrease in value and taxes go up!

What on earth is the point, if I can't enjoy it? I don't mean swan about living the life of Riley. I mean go out for dinner once jn a while, take the dc to cinema. Put petrol in the car and have a day out and not have to take cheap snacks.

Charity begins at home, not at the treasury.

I'm also saying same thing. Regardless of whether the 2 child benefit cap exists or not, they'll probably have another child if they decide.

I'd sort my 3 year old's sleep out, not because of my husband but because my child is 3 and should be in his own bed. But then I never had my kids in my bed, they were in their own rooms from 12 weeks and slept through from 6 months 🤷‍♀️

Agree most private schools are better and have better pastoral care, but the differences (imo) isn't worth £25k+ pa.

The education that your tax pays for benefits you indirectly by producing an educated populace? It's quite obvious if you think about it

It's debt. In our case, anyway. We're (suddenly, due to both a really fortuitous change of circumstances and a massive amount of hard work) better off than we've ever been. More money than we'd ever hoped to earn. We were desperately skint before this, though, and scraped by with debt coming out of our arseholes, living in a financial hole we never thought we'd climb our way out of.

The debt hasn't disappeared, we still have it. We're just able to actually pay it off now, which leaves us with nothing despite a nice income.

Not gonna moan though, it is what it is. I'd still rather be in this position than our previous one. It's about perspective I spose.

I just think most people live beyond their means. Lifestyles inflate to match and then eclipse increased salaries, and then it's too easy to become entitled and lose touch with reality a bit.

It is also arrogant to assume that tax payers should pay for all your supposed “basics”! Where is your own sense of responsibility?! If you want nice things, get off your butt and work for it like the rest of us. Not take from those who have slogged hard all their life and give it to those who can’t even be arsed to get up and get a job!

So if the idea is that everyone should get identical lives, where is the incentive to improve one's lot, why did I slog through an OU degree when I was at home with two young children if not to be able to get a better job once they were in school? No country, however left wing, has ever successfully applied this, in fact the gap between haves and have nots in these countries was far greater.
The OP talks disparagingly about her family's life choices, what about her own life choices?

Sorry, wrong thread!!!

I think you mean any voter can have an opinion. A lot of people pay tax but don’t vote, they may as well write their complaint on a piece of paper and chuck it in the bin!

Im sick of all the high income families complaining that they don’t want to keep libraries open and keep OAPs off of trollies in between bragging about their expenses lifestyles.

It is completely true that the poorest get told to put up/shut up/batch cook/take in ironing when they complain about struggling.

Also, this is what happens when you vote to pay less tax and deplete the system for 10 years. The system crumbles and needs putting back together. There was a time, maybe before the 80s, when people were happy to actively contribute to society. Although there are always peaks and troughs. Children dying in mouldy slum housing in the 2010’s is very comparable to people dying of poor conditions in the Victorian slums.

Totally understand why you feel frustrated. If you were to eat more, it's only the additional amount above £50k that would be taxed at 40%, so you'd be financially better off.

Also obviously I don't know the person you mentioned in the text, but sometimes appearances can be deceptive. It's unlikely that they will be able to afford 3 foreign holidays (presumably with DCs) & a brand new car with just benefits.

You have misunderstood. Op is saying that the rich should live within their means just as the poor have to live within their means. If you do or don’t have a degree you still need to choose a mortgage or school or holiday or car that reflects your income. People need to leave enough aside for other day to day expenses. Some well off Mumsneters think they should be exempt from sound financial planning. A lot of these threads make you wonder how some of these people ended up with such high income in the first place.

Loophole?

You mean policy driven by spite.

Bitter much?

Agree with the first paragraph, and had this conversation with a close friend, who earns marginally above minimum wage has 4 DCs, but is extremely passive (or lazy).

Disagree with the second point. Dsis earns significantly, but has just chosen to allocate her resources to her chosen pots. External factors, such as the budget, are beyond her control, so own your choices. yesterday's budget, or the one last year or the Hunt one before have actually impacted the majority of at the margins.

Exactly this. I’m a little torn as I do understand that people need a decent standard of living. I work as a manager in a company and a few women I work with, single mothers, are earning more than me and my DH also a manager once their wages and benefits are totted up. They have a very low stress position and walk out the door with more money and that feels wrong.

Yes I get that, and expect my taxes to go towards education for all. Education is a public good.

What I object to is a punitive tax on private schools.

i don t mind paying twice (through general taxation and fees) but I do object to paying three times through general taxation, then through fees and now through a specific tax on private school fees

We're never going to agree, and the conversation has been done 1000 times, so I'll just leave it there. Our positions are entrenched and immovable.

I think unless I was a highly skilled surgeon saving lives ( maybe that’s your job?) or extremely passionate about my field I wouldn’t work that amount of hours for that or any amount of money really. Life is just too short, in my view of the world we need enough to have a nice life of course but it has to be a balance. I’ve worked in France nearly all my life ( and am happy to pay the taxes that give us good public services) and even in Paris you could bring up a family in zone three with a stay at home parent on that salary. You mightn’t have the biggest house in the swankiest area or be jetting off for all inclusive holidays every couple of months but it would still be nice and doable . Very select private schools are expensive but others are very reasonable ,probably about 250 a month.Good luck in your move !!

@Umbrella15 If I was to get a pay raise, I would be put into the higher tax bracket.

Does your workplace have a salary sacrifice scheme for a pension?

If you are slightly into the higher tax bracket, the most sensible thing to do is to salary sacrifice the additional money into a pension pot. Then all of your income will only be taxed at the 20% rate.

The thing is no one knows other people’s financial information or what goes on in their lives. There does seem to be a lot of resentment toward high earners (and no I’m not one of them unfortunately) without seeing how these people got to these positions in life. I wouldn’t dream of calling out anyone on how they spend their wages be they’re high or low earner and o wood to expect someone to ask me, but this is happening on the various threads and it’s become vicious which I don’t like either. I agree that it’s even more important people vote and I suspect the next election the turn out will be huge, but who is first past the post is anyone’s guess but I doubt it will be Labour.

Doing work during the weekend is normal, and working during holidays is not particularly unusual either.

I did not have a social life in my 20s either. You said that you don't go for a drink between Monday and Friday (again, that's normal), but the difference is that I never drank during the weekends either because I was busy working.

The only thing I will give you that's unusual, and particularly hardcore, is working Christmas days.

Yet, despite the fact that I made all the same sacrifices that you did, I make peanuts compared to you. I would love to work 50 - 100 hours a week for a £100k salary, but I have never landed that job role.

This is what £100k earners don't seem to understand. You seem to think you have a freakish work ethic that's above and beyond the general public, but this is not the case. There are lots of people who are hard working and you are not special in that regard. The only difference is that you went for an interview for a £100k job and you got it, whereas that opportunity did not arise for me.

It does seem like it's the norm to live right at the edge of your means. Have friends who are financially very similar to you, earn imo an insane amount of money yet are very cash poor.

Large reason of why DH and I just moved to a cheaper part of the country, as we both WFH so income isn't reducing, just going further. Given that we're now about to pay more in tax it feels like a wise choice.

Taxes are really high on any objective basis now.

It is true the ‘middle’ are getting hit very hard to pay for a massive welfare state, whereas the properly rich weren’t meaningfully touched.

At the bottom end there was no tackling of the absurd ‘triple lock’ or any real attempt to get to grips with the epidemic of mental health incapacity.

And, at the top end, the house tax was the only meaningful extra tax. They left CGT unchanged, which is how the rich generally get paid, and they left EIS and VCT reliefs unchanged.

There was a big sigh of relief amongst the wealthy.

Of course wealth is mobile and maybe real measures would have been counterproductive, but if you are on 200k and taxed at 45% income tax plus a raft of other taxes, it must be hard to see people paying 24% on share option gains, and that is before real avoidance, such as offshore trusts kick in.