AIBU to feel deflated after payday despite a decent salary?

[Wtfisisfor]

Do you ever just get paid and think seriously is this it… I got paid this morning 3100 was put into my account, I transferred 1400 to the joint for bills and household expenses. And I’m left with the rest, but when I look at it, I just think, is this it? Anyone else? Just feeling a bit defeated today! I know to some people this is a lot of money. But these days it really doesn’t feel like it. Come and join for a moan

What is it you feel like you are missing out on? It sounds like you've got a fair bit of disposable income between the two of you.

Many people's bank accounts are wiped clean after the bills and they struggle to pay for any extras. Many can't afford holidays, cars, clothes, gifts.

What is monotonous about your financial situation, are you actually struggling?

I get about £4200 a month and after bills, mortgage, etc etc have less than £200 left, so from my pov YABU.

So you are paying off a loan? Is there some other way to pay for what you want?

Its not about the numbers though is it? More the principle. If we lived in a Scandi country we would be paying 45% tax but would get good quality public services and cheap or free child and health care. Instead we are robbed blind and get shit services. We see money flowing out abroad to help people who contribute nothing to this country. The system is a disincentive to hard work. Smart workers cut their hours and get a cash in hand side hustle.

It does annoy me when people on good salaries receiving sizeable bonuses complain about the tax they pay. They are 1. still better off financially than they would be without the bonus or than others on lower salaries; and 2. can use salary sacrifice or additional payments into their pensions to reduce the tax impact and enhance their pension pots.

Yes, increases in interest rates and inflation affect affordability, but come on. The OP must be earning around £54k.

Nail on the head. Too many posters on here are just doing the green eyed monster thing. People need to look at the economy as a whole. These ridiculous high marginal tax rates and cliff edges for benefits etc (like free child care) are causing real damage to the economy. We have doctors and dentists reducing their hours to get their wages under £100K. Thus worsening the shortages and lengthening waiting lists etc. As you say, at the bottom end of the earnings scale, people are refusing to work extra shifts or take promotions because of the effect of reduced benefits at the same time as increased tax/nic. Then in the middle, the £50k h/r threshold and the £60k threshold for tapering away of child benefit. Far too many people aren't working as much as they could because the tax/benefits system is encouraging them not to. It's utterly insane. Been like this for 30 years yet successive politicians don't have the nouse to reform the tax/benefits system. Then of course the "brain drain" of well paid people like doctors, actuaries etc relocating abroad to lower tax/higher quality of life countries. People need to start looking at the bigger picture and start to challenge our useless politicians (of BOTH colours) why they've allowed things to get so bad and why they're not doing anything about it!

What a load of whinging. I earn very well and get clobbered by tax but I've still got plenty enough left over so life is good. If you've got £1700 left over after bills but you're still moaning then you're doing it wrong. Maybe step away from social media (or the media generally), or whatever else it is that's fuelling this unhealthy sense of grievance, give your head a wobble and see that you're doing OK.

You actually understand student loans? Your answer sounds like the response AI would make, latches onto the word “loan” with zero contextual awareness

I don't really understand this attitude. Of course they should be better off financially having accepted a job that inevitably involves longer hours, more skills, management or supervision, travel, high responsibility or a combination of the above. Employers aren't daft - if they could pay someone less and get the same output, they would. The question is whether the extra effort is worth it, just to hand over such a huge amount of tax (and as PP said, receive comparatively little in return). What do you think would happen to society if everyone was paid the same? Because this is the direction in which we seem to be heading.

Pension saving is great, but it's "jam tomorrow" and most people need to pay their bills today.

I totally understand. My husband earned £20k this month. Half of that has gone on deductions. Half. Now, I know people will think £10k a month is a ridiculous amount to moan about but it goes very quickly.

And I have a 12 year old car, husband has a company car, not been on holiday for two years, do

The point is that previous generations didn't have to borrow so much to go to Uni (many could get decent jobs without going to Uni). Today, a degree is a minimum entry requirement for more jobs/careers/professions than ever before. Today, tuition fees are huge compared to the previous generation and of course go back a couple of decades and they were zero. Housing costs have increased massively over the past decade or so for student flats - someone is making A LOT of money as the landlords know they can charge more as it's covered by the student loans! The loan isn't for something frivolous like a new car or a holiday - for many it's for an ESSENTIAL education to be able to get a profession/vocation/job whereas 2/3 decades ago, for many it wasn't a requirement. It's just yet another tax on young people that previous generations didn't have to pay!

Ugh, half that didn’t post. Basically, not been on holiday in 2 years, not been shopping for clothes, no aesthetic work. Just a very regular life.

If that's how you really feel then go and do one of the lower paid jobs in society and have less responsibility and pay less tax. Someone on that kind of salary should be able to pay their bills and have a good lifestyle. If they cannot then they perhaps need to look at some unnecessary discretionary spending and rejig accordingly.

It’s the cost of childcare that particularly horrifies me!

Well, I honestly don’t know how you’re managing so badly because on 10 grand a month before tax I was away at least one weekend out of Four in a foreign location, I had a brand-new car. I could shop and buy whatever I wanted without looking at a price tag for clothes meals out cinemas and food shops.
Can only assume you’ve done the lifestyle creep and you’re Mortgaged up to the eyeballs

Easy and glib to say, but that's exactly what more and more people are doing, hence the shortage of doctors and dentists and other professionals - even contributing to the shortage of trades-persons.

Off on a tangent, how about the VAT registration threshold for small businesses/sole traders? Stuck for years at just £90k of TURNOVER, not profit. Just this week alone, I've had three different clients with turnover just under that, wanting to discuss ways to holding their businesses down so they don't go over it! It's utterly insane. For one, I crunched the numbers - they'd have to work harder to get their turnover up to £105k per year before they were back to being as well off as they were when it was £79k - why work a lot harder to be worse off or back where you started??

The entire tax/benefit system is causing our very low productivity, low GDP growth etc. and therefore dragging the country down. Not just people leaving the country or choosing not to work as hard/as long, but it's causing delays in getting things done, longer waiting lists etc.

If you work hard, whether that’s in a supermarket or the financial market - it should pay.

The more skilled your job is, the more money you should earn.

If you work full time, you should enjoy more money than those who work part time.

If you don’t work and you live on handouts, then you should be grateful for what you receive. However deserving you might feel.

Nobody working hard and earning their own money should have to feel ‘grateful’ for whatever is left over. Even if it seems a decent amount by comparison.

Just my two cents.

I have not even mentioned my own job or salary though. The point is, if everyone just works for MW, because they're no worse off, then what happens to society? Who fixes your teeth or does your conveyancing or flies the plane taking you on holiday?

People's outgoings adjust to their income and always will. If working harder or more hours doesn't permit additional "discretionary spending" then why bother? And where would the economy end up if none of us did bother? Work should pay and we are perilously close to it not paying, whilst simeltaneously receiving exceptionally poor state services.

What a ridiculous attitude. A bonus is a reward for hard work and strong performance beyond what is expected. Why should the taxpayer get nearly 3/4 of this and the person who earned it only 1/4 of it?

That is outrageous at any level of earnings and no such tax rates apply to those who are actually wealthy. The economic damage that this tax cliff edge is causing has been demonstrated in numerous pieces of economic research. The effect is to lower productivity and overall tax revenue, so it is to the detriment of everyone not just the person having 3/4 of their earnings in this bracket confiscated. No other tax system in the world has a ridiculous spike in tax rates like this on a particular earnings bracket as far as I know, for the very obvious reasons stated above.

These absurd responses motivated entirely by the fact the poster earns more than those replying are utterly stupid and demonstrate a total ignorance of economics and how these stupid tax policies negatively impact growth and services for everyone.

One poster even replied in disbelief. I think many people don’t have a clue about the topic yet, unfathomably, still comment about it.

I 100 percent agree and felt the same this morning xx

Oh man I'd LOVE £1700 a month after bills 😁 One day.

I strongly believe that a bonus should NOT be subject to tax. The salary, ok, but not the bonus. That is MY hard work, and it is a discretionary one-off payment every year or two years. That makes me feel really annoyed.

My bonus amounts are not huge, but after tax this year, I walked away with £1500.

I agree. It all needs to be proportional to the skills required, time/effort put in, and the benefit derived by the employer.

I've been saying for years on here that at EVERY income level, the amount you keep for working more, longer, harder, etc should be ring-fenced at no less than 50%, when taking into account all taxes (inc nic and student loan repayments), and loss of all benefits including free childcare, free prescriptions, rent/council tax relief etc etc). So if you earn another £50, whatever your income level or benefits, you keep at least £25 of it. That would make a real incentive to work longer hours, take promotions, upskill etc.

There should never be any point on the income/benefit scale where your "losses" are more than 50% of the extra income you earn meaning you don't get to keep 50% or more of it.

We need politicians to start to grow the economy by increasing production, efficiency, GDP etc., rather than screwing the workers by more tax rises.

I'm not motivated by the fact that the poster earns more than me. I don't have to carefully scrutinise my inner motivations to determine this: it's a mathematical fact.

And I'm not saying the level of tax is reasonable. It isn't, and on one level it would piss me off royally.

All I'm saying is that practicing a certain detachment, looking on the bright side, and focusing on the things I can control has really helped me to deal with the shit life (and government) throws at me over the years.

From the posts I’ve read I think there are a lot of people who don’t truly believe that anyone really deserves to earn more than they do themselves.

I have some sympathy for that when you see the incredible salaries some CEOs receive, but from this basic premise, they seem to feel that:

• if someone does get paid more, they should be “grateful” for it (because it hasn’t really been “earned”); and
• It doesn’t really matter too much if they get heavily taxed, because this money (which they haven’t really “earned”) should be thought of more like a windfall or an inheritance -as long as they walk away with some of it then surely they should be happy.

So instead of feeling disgruntled about how much of your earned income/bonus the government chooses to take, you should instead feel happy and grateful that they allowed you to keep some of it!