What is your household income/ lifestyle

[Lockdown12]

What is your household income and what lifestyle do you manage to have on it?

Do you have children? Own your own house? Go on holiday? Go out for meals?

I don't have children yet but am interested about how the financial situation might change when we hopefully do!

It's often more affordable than you might think to drop a day a week OP, when you factor in childcare and any commuting costs. If your combined income is 4.2k you might be on around 37k each? You'd probably lose no more than a couple of hundred a month factoring in childcare on that salary. If one of you earns more than the other, the lower earner dropping a day could have an even lower impact on the budget.

Housing is usually one of the biggest expenses, and luckily you don't have that. I would look to use this time to save up a lot more on that level of income whilst mortgage free, especially with the potential expense of IVF. There's no reason why you couldn't. Parents of young children also tend to spend a lot less on socialising than pre kids, so there's that to factor in as well.

DH's Income 180k P/A. I'm a stay at home mum. DH gives me my own money a month purely for me & then a credit card to buy whatever I need or want on it for baby/house etc...

Holiday for 3 weeks twice a year + a few weekends away throughout the year.

Spend around £300 a week on food

Bills for us don't cost a lot at all.

No childcare costs yet - contemplating a PT nanny

Own property in London with a 1k mortgage (have lived in it 12 years so equity is a lot now)

Monthly income 4.5k (we both work part time)
Outgoings (household set bills and childcare) are low at 650ish per month
No mortgage or car payments
The rest is to save and spend as we like.
2 dc age 5 and 7
2 foreign holidays a year and some weekends away and camping etc
3bed house rurally on approx 2 1/2 acres

OP we earn similar to you , and both changed/reduced our hours when dc were small so only paid for 3 days childcare.

Now they are preteens, we pay c£250 a month in childcare, c£220 a month on clubs (karate, golf, swimming, scouts, guides).

Mortgage is £500 a month. Holiday once a year (Europe), nothing flash or fancy but as limited to school hols it generally turns out to cost c£4.5k. Eat out once a month, takeaway once a month. Don’t scrimp on food but aren’t extravagant either. I would say we are pretty frugal, we are savers rather spenders. I’m going to buy a new-ish car soon, but have had my current car for 10 years.

To the PPs who take 3/4 holidays a year, how much annual leave do you get?

When husband is earning (contractor) it's probably about 9k a month, but given he's might be in between contracts 3-5months a year, I'd say he's putting 2-4k aside each month to cover that. Have two kids, one in primary, one secondary.

I'm paying mortgage out of an inheritance (as we're still in a fixed-rate period where we'd be penalised heavily for early pay off)

No debts

Having just got the inheritence, before all this kicked off we were finally starting to do things like go to the theatre and opera once or twice a month, oh well!

Eating out 3 or 4 times a month, ditto 'days out', more so in summer.

One big holiday a year, sometimes one smaller one, a few UK weekends away and a weekend without the kids each year

@YoungBritishPissArtist I'm a teacher and my dh works 4 days on /4 days off and then gets his 30 days holiday also. He actually struggles to take them all it's crazy!!

I get a decent holiday entitlement but even DH who gets the basic allowance gets 4 weeks off plus bank holidays so easy to do 4 holidays a year, especially if counting a few long weekend city breaks

We go on holiday 5 times per year and dh gets 25 days annual leave.

I earn a good salary and husband just starting out in new career after retraining.

Jaw dropping incomes here. I find it weird how disproportionate very high incomes are compared to real life .

Bizarre.

miss, it is still useful that people know what others can earn so that if money matters to people they can at least encourage their children into higher paid jobs.

To the PPs who take 3/4 holidays a year, how much annual leave do you get?

I work in school so get school holidays. DH gets 42 days including bank holidays, he’s worked there for over 20 years and is now on max holiday.

I get 35 plus bank holidays. Then I do a nine day fortnight, which helps and can work from our holiday home.

Sadly, it’s irrelevant at the moment...

I work for myself so can take whatever leave I want. We tend to go skiing for a week at Christmas and these days now the children are older a week abroad in the summer. When they were younger the summer holiday was more usually 2 weeks and we used to hire a cottage around the Easter holiday time for a week.

Currently in my 50s I tend to work most days (but if away on holiday just an hour or 2 a days), across 365 days a year (from choice, from home as my youngest are student age so life is a bit different from before). Today I am just doing a bit of admin for work.

20k income
Pay 670 Bill's including rent but not food
Dont eat out
One second hand car fully paid but its caused my insurance to sky rocket since I changed cars (was donated from a family member as it had no monetary value to part exchange and my old car was very slow and costing more in repairs then its worth as I do high mileage).
Dont really eat out and get a takeaway maybe once every few months
Haven't been on holiday abroad in about 7 years, and have had 2 weekends away in the past 4
Outside of lockdown I have to spend £240 per month on physio/physical rehabilitation
Next year income drops to 14k pa and I'm really not sure how we will afford to live >.

Why do people always pull out the they’re lying/must be making it up card on these threads? Is it really that hard to imagine that different people might just earn more or have a different lifestyle? It doesn’t necessary mean people are lying!

Personally in my admittedly small social circle of friends and colleagues these sort of salaries is really not unusual. I work in a professional role and live in the South East. It hasn’t always been this way for me so I know the opposite. Averages salaries are just that, average, there will always be people at either end of the spectrum.

To the PPs who take 3/4 holidays a year, how much annual leave do you get?

Excluding bank holidays, I have 32, DH has 39. I work very flexibly so it’s easy to eek out a few more days.
The biggest contributor to the amount of holidays we take is not our income, it’s the fact that we don’t have children so can dedicate annual leave to travel and not have to worry about keeping any for sick kids, getting them settle in to school etc.

Why do people always pull out the they’re lying/must be making it up card on these threads? Is it really that hard to imagine that different people might just earn more or have a different lifestyle?

I’m not from the UK so it’s probably because of the focus on education where I’m from but I have very few childhood friends who didn’t go on to have professional roles. Most went in to either finance or pharmacy.

When we had 3 holidays it was a week at Christmas, a week at Easter and 2 weeks in the summer (and in those days I got about 4 weeks a year plus bank holidays- people tend to get a bit more now)

DH has his own business so takes as much as he likes. We’ve had 2 1 month long holidays at Christmas, took the kids out of school. We have a 3 week hotel holiday in the summer holidays then a Uk cottage break. Easter is usually the Caribbean. I’d planned a 6 week trip with one child this year , obviously cancelled now.

This is a total brag fest!!

Approx 5k a month but this is less then pre dc as I have one of those unicorn jobs that's p/t & tto.

Mortgage 1k but have a lot of equity (600k plus).

Childcare av about £600 a month as i'm p/t & family help.

Have disney plus & Sky. Shop in M&S, Sainsbury's & Aldi. One 2nd hand car which cost 10k. Spend a lot on days out, eating out etc.

Holidays are pretty cheap but that's because my family & inlaws both have holiday homes.

Income 4.5k net, small mortgage (500pcm). Small amount of card debt (2I, mainly my internet shopping habit). Modest holiday each year, this year would have been uk holiday park/lodge but cancelled.

Husband been trying to get back into work since being a SAHD but even before coronavirus was struggling.

I'm not confident of keeping my job, but half our income is from a second property.

We would likely survive any global recession but things would be tight.

Income 4,200 net pcm but I'm only doing a few hours at the moment while DC3 is 1, so that will increase again.
Two older primary DC as well: no childcare costs but both learn 2 instruments to a good standard and in ensembles, so a significant monthly cost.
Mortgage 750pm with 400k equity. 4-bed semi in zone 5 London. No other debts.
Holidays: on average, 1 European short break and 1 UK week-long break a year, plus a long-haul every 2-3 years.
Eating out: one nice couple meal out, two takeaways and one family meal out each month.
Generally frugal in terms of clothes etc. Eat well but enjoy budgeting. One car, probably only with around 2k now, so that's not a priority for us.
We're left with around 1k a month to put into savings/overpay mortgage. Around 35k in savings/investments currently.

I think it is not bragging and quite useful to know what others earn and what women on low pay might aim for or a least encourage their daughters to aim for.

I think that those who accuse people of lying are often quite ignorant to the fact that some people are earning some serious money out there.
Of course threads such as these are going to attract a disproportionate number of high earners.
I find it interesting to find out what people do.