Disillusioned when earning 150k

[Littlezonedout]

I know these threads cause trouble, but this is how I feel. I can’t help but wonder when does the merry go round stop. It is worth it waking up crack of dawn, kids to breakfast club, nursery, after school club, run home, make dinner, bed, bath. Glass of wine because I’m exhausted.
if I stayed at home I’d save 20k on commuting, wraparound childcare, cleaner, gardener, etc.
fine, I can afford a house, but the maintenance, the upkeep, the bills.
not sure why I’m ranting. Know I’ll get pulled to
pieces. Just exhausted

You can't move overnight but you could start to make steps towards a different lifestyle.

I would say what's the point in having a successful career at the cost of family life and being able to be there more for and with your children? I'm not suggesting you become a SAHM but that you change the balance.

Are you the only parent?

No - meaning you've over stretched yourself by buying the house with the mortgage you can only just manage an hour's commute from the job you are tied to by the house.

You're in the same situation someone on half ypur salary would be in if they'd taken on a mortgage at the very maximum of their borrowing limit and therefore couldn't meet their outgoings if they dropped a(nother) day at work or changed to a more local job.

You are not trapped by success, you're trapped by having over stretched yourself financially - possibly you got sucked into the old "forever house" fairy tale that's so important to some groups of people.

I'm on compressed hours which is frowned upon, but I just let them frown.

@Littlezonedout “People are saying this is s situation of my own making?”

Who else’s fault would it be then?

No, your thought process is mental and just accepting of the shit sandwich we are all being offered. Out of interest who do you think should be able to afford a large family home? Because I don’t think that should be unobtainable aspirational for professional working families. I bought my (large) house 15 years ago. I earn more than double in before tax numbers but in real numbers the increase is of course much less and my disposable income is vastly reduced. 15 years ago my mortgage and bills were about half of my take home. My mortgage figure is actually within £50 the same as the original mortgage payment so it’s not that that is the issue. My council tax has doubled. My energy costs have doubled. My food costs have doubled and I don’t shop in Waitrose anymore, I can’t afford a cleaner or a gardener anymore (which by the way means there are less jobs for cleaners and gardeners), my commute costs have doubled for a less reliable service, I can’t afford to eat out during the working week anymore. If people like me and OP are having to tighten belt to this extent it really shows that the economy is in a total mess. Meanwhile my 18 year old gap year working full time (40 hours) in a national retail store is taking home £2k a month so has more disposable income (save that he is saving it for uni) than me (more like 80 hours a week)but most of his friends can’t find a job at all. Someone on £100k (or salary sacrificing to £100k) takes home £5.5 or less depending on student loans etc. It’s not the megabucks it sounds particularly if you have a mortgage, rent, childcare etc etc. together with the hugely onerous demands of mid level professions (much easier if you get to the top of course and can afford to pay someone else to do everything for you) - when did we decide some people have less so only the really rich get to have more?

Sounds tough po, you have a majority yanbu so most agree with you.

There are a few threads with women in the same position who have made changes, might be worth doing one specifically for your career.

No, what’s the point in using your success to achieve a situation that doesn’t make you happy. Time, freedom, family are all > £. I found that out the hard way.

Perhaps the government for the ludicrous tax cliff edges. For exempting higher earners from any childcare help, when two children full time in nursery is the whole of a £100k salary. For damaging productivity when people refuse promotions or top up their pensions to lower their salary or drop a day at work.

Before you make a decision on career OP, I highly recommend exploring different childcare options, like a nanny. That’s made a huge difference for us - less rushing around to drop off and pick up and the children seem to prefer it. And look through your handbook and see if you have a core hours policy, a holiday purchase policy, and what hybrid working policy you can do.

Let me play my tiny violin for you.

If you overstretch yourself financially you're in the same mess whether you overstretch yourself on the basis of borrowing as much as possible on an average, double average, four times average or 20 times average salary.

If an adult feels run ragged wants to work less they need to reduce their outgoings accordingly.

That doesn’t mean ‘what’s the point of having a successful career’ though does it.

You could have a successful career without needing the house etc…you chose the situation you are in, but you can fix it easily. You stretched yourself too thin, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful career does it. You must be intelligent to have your career, so I don’t for one second think you don’t understand this, you are just having a pity party, and that’s ok…but at some point you have to make some new choices

I’ll make it a duet…all these woe is me people. Yes someone has more take home than her with a low salary, but also…no bills, small pension, no mortgage to build equity.

People just can’t see their issues are of their own making, you want the house you pay for it. I choose to live in the same home I bought when I worked a terrible job, my salary is now triple what it was when I bought this, but I didn’t move…that means I can have an annual trip to Disney World, and 2 European holidays every year.

Or I could have a big house but no money to enjoy life, and a penchant for complaining on Mumsnet.

Yes - it's even sillier though in that she's comparing her 5.5k take home (admitting to having overpaid into her pension to allow her to pay as little tax as possible - hello elephant in the room comparatively huge income as a pensioner and potentially early retirement) to her adult offspring's 2k take home and saying it isn't fair because her child has more disposable income.

Her child has more disposable income because she or he is living for free in mummy's big house, which mummy can afford because despite all her wailing, and her legal tax avoidance in the form of putting as much as possible into a pension, she still has enough money to choose to house and feed another (full time working) adult for free so they can save 100% of their income (or spend it on non essentials)!

Some people really can't see that complaining that their diamond shoes are tight and those who can only afford cheap plastic flip flops look so much freer is the "mental" thought process number1of7 so questionably named; it's not pointing out that whatever your income, you will not be able to reduce your workload if you've chosen to overstretch yourself financially unless you take steps (such as moving to a smaller, more affordable home) to reduce your financial commitment, that's "mental".

It's not "poor me I earn 150k and this is uniquely difficult" but "oops I've painted myself into a financial corner by taking out an enormous mortgage on a property an hour's commute each way from my work and obviously I can't afford to take a lower paid job nearer home or cut my hours further (already working 80%) and earn less as I wouldn't be able to service the mortgage.

I'm also wondering whether OP is a single parent as she's ignored the early questions about a partner - if so over stretching yourself is even higher risk of course, but if there's a partner why is this person too special to take both half the childcare and some financial strain off the OP - who mentions doing all drop offs and pick ups and meal preparation after work?

Yes I agree, maybe I am having a pity party.
i chose a career path with high aspirations as to what I could achieve and also hoped to gain the reward with that. I guess it depends how you define success I had hoped at this stage in my life the early work would have paid off and I wouldn’t feel like everything is such a juggle.

And tbf it gets easier as kids get older

All these comments hating on OP miss the point....

@Littlezonedout is in top 5% of earners according to the government.

A £100k salary puts someone in roughly the top 5% of earners according to official statistics. (150 is 2-3%)

On paper, being in the top 5% should mean a noticeably affluent lifestyle: a nicer-than-average house, shopping at waitrose without thinking twice, a nanny and a couple of decent holidays .

The issue is that for many people earning that amount, life doesn't feel dramatically different from that of an average middle-class household. It feels better than ave... but not "top 5%" better.

So either

£100k (with 50k in pension) still is top 5%, in which case it's fair to ask why being near the top of the income distribution no longer delivers what most people would consider an affluent lifestyle.

OR

Income statistics are missing a large part of the picture because they ignore transfers, benefits and over 50% of uk being net recipients, inherited wealth, housing wealth, investment income etc.
so a £150k salary may mean you are a high wage earners but leave them much closer to the middle of the ditribution in reality.

Which is very disheartening.

Whichever explanation you prefer, i firmly believe something about the relationship between income and living standards is badly out of alignment.

We don't know what mortgage the OP has - if she's borrowed 750k she's in the same position as someone on 50k who borrows 250k - if she borrowed 150k on a 150k salary she'd feel affluent because she'd have a huge disposable income compared to the disposable she has (theoretically) servicing a 750k mortgage.

There's no special right to feel comfortable if you live beyond your means just because you're in the top 5% of earners. If you're in the top 5% of spenders of course you still feel stretched.

What you have, if you are in the top 5% of earners is choice about whether to overstretch yourself and juggle like an average person but in a far more expensive setting, or to live modestly and not feel stretched and have freedom to make other choices.

"Hating on" is a ridiculous expression when it is used (as here) to mean anything other than complete unqualified agreement and sycophancy.

@HaveYouFedTheFish it’s not the same though, remotely. A £50k salary is £3.3k net a month. A £150k salary is £7.6k a month - it’s not three times the salary because of taxation going up so much as you earn more.

Then on top of that, you pay full costs for childcare, which is about £2.5k per child.

This has been repeated ad nausium but doesn't change the fact that if you max out your borrowing, you can't afford to cut your hours. and if you buy a house at the top of your budget requiring an hour's commute each way because it's your dream house, you aren't run ragged because life isn't fair and everyone is out to get you, but because you've chosen to live at the limit of your means and overstretched yourself. That applies whatever your after tax income.

The OP surely knew what her after tax income and outgoings were and how far the house was from work, before applying for the huge mortgage which traps her into her commute.

Nursery fees are only for a few short years and every family struggles during that phase, whether it's because one parent screws their career advancement and pension, potentially permanently, by taking years out of paid work, or whether they struggle with the logistics and cannot afford to pay their rent and bills if they take any more unpaid time off when the children are sick/ nursery is closed etc. or at the other end of the scale whether the juggle is about the children being brought up by nannies and not seeing their parents for days at a time.

It's almost as though you think that because someone earns 150k they should be the only people for whom the way is cleared of any of the problems people on lower salaries have. Why? "Aspiring" to earn as much as possible isn't intrinsically in any way better than, nor are the individuals intrinsically harder working than, those aspiring to be a GP, senior nurse or senior teacher - and those careers aren't earning anyone anywhere near 150k, nor are the individuals in those careers less stressed.

The "cut your cloth" advice applies, no matter how people on 100k plus wail about not getting subsidised childcare - nobody is taken by surprise by their mortgage repayment and nursery costs unless they are very naive indeed.

OP works 80%, can't cut her hours further because of the mortgage and has a long commute because of the house she bought. She didn't have to buy this house. She's overstretched herself. That's the issue, not the tax she surely isn't caught unaware by every month.

Also if the OP is paying £150 per child per day for childcare she should switch to a childminder or consider a nanny as she has two children (she clearly doesn't use a nanny currently as she talks about being run ragged by drop offs and pickups and making dinner- she could spend 5k a month all in but spare herself all of that juggle that if she employed a nanny) - four days per week of outside the home childcare without subsidies is still not £2500 per child per month.

@HaveYouFedTheFish it is £2500 plus a month, my bill was over £5k for two children. Pre the free hours being extended and NI going up, it was a few hundred less per child. I don’t live in London either, a commuter town. A nanny is very expensive also, but I agree more convenient. But realistically it’s £21 per hour, plus NI, plus pension. And you’re looking at 10-11 hours a day.

I was reading it as the OP using annual leave to be four days a week after at leave, but i
might be wrong.