What is considered rich these days??

[Soccermomsavestheday]

So my husband and I live a pretty decent life but not one that warrants being called ‘financially out of touch’ and ‘how the other half live’ in my opinion which is just a couple of example of my sil many comments towards us.

My husband earns around £250k a year, I don’t have to work so don’t. We live in a nice 4 bedroom detached house with a lovely sized wrap around garden. We’re lucky enough to send our children to private school. We don’t go on extravagant holidays or wear high end designer clothes etc. We both drive Range Rovers but one is second hand (5 years old). And bottom line we have worked really hard to be where we are but don’t consider ourselves ‘Rich’ more so comfortable that we can live a modest life without financial restraints

it really bugs me when she says stuff like ‘you wouldn’t know what it’s like to budget’ and ‘it’s alright for some’ etc. I do budget monthly and am very much aware of how much things costs etc

Am I being unreasonable in this situation?

Yes you’re rich - well done you (your husband).

Our combined income is only £95k. But we own a five bed detached house worth £950k with only a £55k mortgage, £550pm.

I can afford them and they are now too old to require much if any paid childcare. I’m not sure why you’re getting so irate?

You must acknowledge that having access to free childcare is quite lucky - it certainly would have saved you a chunk of cash

This thread isn’t about benefit claimants, not sure why you’re shoe hinting that in, except that you have a lot of contempt for people who use paid child care, as shown by your comment that those people ‘choose strangers and bedtime and weekends’.

What a nasty thing to say about people who are trying to juggle work and kids and don’t have free family childcare. Your posts drip with smugness.

It did actually. Sorry you’re unhappy.

Oh good grief.

I‘m not irate. I just think it’s weird that you think I live with zero income.

I reply on each thread as I find it and don’t really pay attention to user names.

If you did stick up for me, thank you, but I don’t remember any user names here.

Well now you know I did and, as I said, never again.

I really don’t remember. I don’t expect anyone to stand up for me. I must speak as I find, I can’t change my opinions based on who I’m
replying to.

But thank you if you have.

Where did the other £100k come from? The OP's DH earned (this year) £250k not £350k. If indeed he is an equity partner in a law firm then that income is not guaranteed and will fluctuate fairly significantly year on year to the extent that if the firm has a bad year he might have to give some back. Equity partners get an amount of money as drawings based on what the management team think the firm will make (and their individual performance). This will be lower than 1/12th of their drawings. Certainly in DH's firm he gets told what the amount should be each year but then in monthly drawings he gets about 2/3 of that (divided by 12). If the firm does well enough then the rest of it is paid out. Generally this distribution will be made a few times a year. If the firm does really well then they might get a bit more. If the firm hasn't done as well as anticipated then in theory money has to be paid back (or more commonly they don't get the extra distribution that had been hoped for). If the firm fails then the partners loose their stake in the firm (which is generally hundreds of thousands in the form of a loan taken out by the firm on their behalf).

Equity partners in a law firm don't get any pension contribution because they're not employees. They don't get any statutory job security because they are not employees, they will be able to buy into other benefits but that money comes out of their annual drawings rather than being given to them as an extra. The OP's DH will be on the pension taper and so won't get any tax benefit by paying into a pension anyway.

In a number of firms you are financially better of being a salaried partner (who doesn't have a stake in the business and is just an employee with a title) than you are being an equity partner). When I was first made equity I was effectively worse off because my drawings were roughly the same as my salary had been but I had no pension contribution etc.

Still not entirely convinced the OP's DH is a lawyer at all though given the super weird barrister thing.

Didn’t you have children you couldn’t afford if you were still “skint” even while benefiting off free childcare?

Sorry if you've already answered this, OP, but how much do you have in savings, investments?

I agree with people on this thread who have pointed out how annoying it is when people claim they've "worked hard" for their money. Worked hard compared to who...a nurse, a doctor, a teacher? My mother used to say this about my dad - like he had a monopoly on working hard! Self employed people can use various methods to keep hold of way more money than us mere employees can, too.

Working hard more often than not doesn't result in earning several times above the average UK salary, so a failure to acknowledge or even see that there has been an element of luck reveals that you are indeed seriously "out of touch".

Perhaps your DH took risks thst have paid off, that many wouldn't have had the confidence to take, resulting in being able to build a successful business.

Hats off to him if he is employing other staff, being an excellent employer and paying all his taxes, but even so, I would still argue till the cows come home that he hasn't worked harder than a nurse.

There's an air of superiority emanating from your posts which I'm sure gets right up your SIL's nose. Try and be a bit less smug and boastful and the comments from her might well become less frequent.

The salary is 250k but the private schooling is covered by an annual bonus which puts the bonus at least 100k pre tax.

OP some would say you’re rich if they are relatively poor and others would say you’re comfortable if they are on a fairly equal playing field to you. Few others wouldn’t think you’re not wealthy at all if they’re uber wealthy (I’m talking multi millionaires +)

Its all relative.

regardless of all of that, your sil has no right to make snide comments about your finances. They’re your finances and you don’t have to answer to anyone about your current situation.

For those delightful posters that feel it necessary to comment on whether you work or not just ignore them. There are plenty of bitter women on here that feel the need to tear others down. Most are jealous as most would also choose to not work if they were able to. I guarantee that the majority of lottery winners do not continue working after a big win just because they enjoy working.

Lastly. When in a relationship that is healthy and loving, It’s very common to share all monies and be equal partners regardless of who actually goes off to work. Yes spouses could have affairs and leave etc but you can’t live your life for all the what ifs, you’d never truly enjoy anything. Live your happy family life in the now and to hell with the bitches hating on here. They’ve got nothing better to do than come on someone else’s thread and rip them apart, call them names, call them liars etc. It’s plain old trolling dressed up as something else

Sil is just jealous, ignore. As others have said, it’s all relative but you’re at the higher end of the income scale in the UK. We have a lot more income than you - both working exec jobs, mortgage paid off - but live in one of the UK’s most expensive towns where there are a lot of people with more than us, however I never forget that I’m in an extremely fortunate position and am conscious to play things down when we’re around friends and family who are less well off.

Everyone measures wealth by income, but that’s not the full picture.

How well set up are you for the future, ie savings and investments, pensions? Does husband’s salary pay into a private pension for you?

To me this is a modest but comfortable lifestyle as 20 years ago that lifestyle would have been doable on less than half that income.

Equity partners in law firms don't generally get "bonuses". Yes they get extra distributions a few times a year but that is generally part of the amount they were supposed to receive in the first place.

They get assessed each year for how they and their team have performed and then they are told what level they are at for the year. This will then come with a potential level of drawings for the year. However they don't get all of that paid out on a 1/12th basis. They get part of it paid out in anticipation of profits and part of it is retained. If the firm does well they then get the bit that was held back and sometimes they can also get a bit extra. If the firm (or the individual) doesn't do as well then that amount might be lower than expected.

I suspect the OP is confused since if a partner was actually getting £21k gross per month plus another £100k throughout the year then they would say they are on £350 not £250.

The amount held back is generally higher than just income tax and NI since partnership profits are difficult to calculate. By way of example my DH who is a partner in law firm is in theory on about £275k this year. Coming into the bank account each month is about £9k (he pays into a pension from his income and also family private healthcare). He will then get a quarterly distribution which varies but is often around £10k ish net.

All firms operate slightly differently with different structures, different levels of investment into the firm etc (we are liable for about £400k if the firm went bust).

At the firm I was at and at DH's firm, part of what you do as an equity partner is essentially buy into the firm by contributing capital, which is the definition of equity partner - if you are salaried or of counsel, you're an employee and not required to pay in. It tends to be around 30% of your income, but isn't considered taxable. When you leave or retire that contribution is returned. Assuming you've been there a while and it's a healthy firm, it's quite a nice chunk.

Additionally, our firms have had a private pension fund that partners can invest in that pays out a very nice retirement income. Again, that relies on the firm doing well or continuing to do well, so it's always wise to choose your firm carefully.

Our experience is US firms, so needless to say, I don't know how the OP's husband's firm is structured.

Complete tangent but this is very intriguing personally, because OP suggested calling her a DH a "barrister" made more sense because EPs are self employed just like [most] barristers.

But this EP payment set up, which I had no idea worked this way, is a million miles away from how we (barristers) get paid! It sounds really complicated and variable.

Barristers get paid by the hour for the work we do, and/or we get paid a lump sum for a hearing/case. If you do more hours, or more cases, or higher value cases, you get more. If you work less, you get less. What others in chambers do has almost no effect on what we get. V simple!

She said the fees were ~£40k a year, so a bonus of ~ £65-70k.

Not that this makes a great deal of difference.

@Ciri DH's firm does sometimes give bonuses with the Jan distribution if you've had a stellar year, particularly if you're already at a level where progression to the next is going to be very difficult. They tend to be relatively small compared to overall income - nothing like bankers' bonuses.

You would absolutely not consider them as certain income in planning ahead, and you would be quite foolish to rely on them for school fees.

In a nutshell, with firms EPs are technically self employed as they own a stake in the firm. In this instance, the firm gets paid the hourly rate, pools it and distributes it according to partnership levels, with all the various and sundry other things mentioned. The OP was confusing and possibly clueless?

My experience is that in most firms you don't get your capital contribution back because you never put it in in the first place really. Rather the firm takes out a bank loan on your behalf which then gets paid back when a partner leaves.