What income do you consider rich?

[Believer99]

Interested to know what household income is considered rich.
When I was younger (19) I remember telling my BF when he earns over 30k il be a SAHM 😳 because I considered that to be an awful lot of money

Now we are older & earning more of course my perspective has changed, I would probably consider a household income of over 120k rich now we live in the north of England.

Here in NI I reckon a family can live very comfortably on 45k a year. Let's assume a 4 bed bungalow, 2 cars, wooden floors and nice furniture.

I love the very specific prioritisation of wooden floors here

However we don't say we are poor. We all know what most people have after tax. It is more people thinking if you earn £300k you keep £300k rather than the state takes £130,000 of it that people like to ensure is made clear.

This is extremely patronising, why are you assuming lower rate tax payers stating £300k is a lot of money means they are incorrectly thinking they're taking home £300k? £300k IS a lot of money even if it's highly taxed, a student loan is going to disappear very quickly on that sum and in a lot of cases lots getting thrown in the pension. It is still going to result in a MUCH higher take home than the majority.

I'm not going to say it's rich because that is far too subjective, but you are absolutely downplaying that income if you think it somehow doesn't count because heaven forbid tax is being paid on it.

It is rather. All the "its not that much money really if you take into account my large mortgage/private schooling/wonderful life" comments that look rather ignorant.

I think we all known 300k is bigger than 30k. And that 300k taxed is still considerably bigger than 30k...

Very patronising to suggest we don't understand income tax. £300k? That's £14,000 a month after tax.

Then it is a problem at both ends - the well off patronisingly saying some people don't realise how little you have left after tax and student loan and full time childcare and some of the less well off assuming people keep more of their gross income than they do.

May be we all just do understand the other side of this.

I know perfectly well I am a lot better off than mkost people and it is a much nicer position to be than short of money so I would encourage everyone's teenager daughters to seek high paid work as a priority in their lives so they do not end up on MN in 20 years time trying to work out where to buy the cheapest food shopping - let someone else's children be the low paid workers of the future.

[quote HalfShrunkMoreToGo]@blackcoffeeplant I went from a customer service management role into Governance and compliance, then a few strategic moves and a lot of luck had me end up in a senior InfoSecurity role. I had 5 job titles over that time and a lot of knuckle bitingly uncomfortable 'I'm great and you really don't want to lose me' type conversations that I acted/bluffed my way through while feeling like an imposter.[/quote]
Can you start an AMA - a lot of people ask about getting into tech from different backgrounds and stories like yours would be useful. People don't need to code to make it big

@Xenia I'd love to hear you sing ;) and yes that is true.
Also again 'rich' is a divisive word - it doesn't mean 'not poor'.
To some people it means being able to buy whatever they want without thinking.
To others - working only as much as they like.
Still others - having £50 to put away at the end of each month is rich.

The people saying 'we're not rich' are not wrong if their definition of rich is different from someone on a lower income.

As have a combined income of £170k and I feel like we are comfortable but not rich. I don't buy clothes regularly, maybe once a year and all from Primark. We don't eat things like lamb or salmon or drink alcohol as they're too expensive. We only go on holiday once every 2-3 years.

What the hell are you doing with your money then because, there’s no way on a salary of £170k you can’t afford to buy some lamb and salmon and can only stretch to a trip to primark once a year.

@TractorAndHeadphones I was in customer service for years from 17-28 moving from telemarketing up to call centre manager then saw an internal vacancy for IT Service manager which got me into the IT/governance realm. I took over running the ISO20000 certification programme which developed experience with external auditing/governance frameworks. Then I convinced them to let me run a programme to get a few more ISOs and accreditations relevant to the company and alongside that I convinced them to create new roles for me which encompassed those tasks and gave me a team to work on them. When the InfoSec Director left I put forward my case that I could manage the InfoSec Management System based on my experience with the other frameworks and they agreed.

Never have had any qualifications, didn't finish uni and haven't had time to do any professional certs, I'm just good at retaining information, making logical leaps and bringing together the right people to achieve a goal.

‘I think people who are mortgage-free can be far wealthier on lower salaries than people who have a mortgage. ‘

Absolutely this. My ex was on over 100k a year and due to some poor choices when younger we never owned. Friends with much lower salalries but who had little to no mortgage could always afford more holidays, bigger cars etc because we paid so much in rent.

Bizzarely now im on a minimum wage income and though im counting every penny i’m far happier and less stressed. So i’d count rich as happiness, not in monetary terms.

I agree with Oneforthemoneytwo - what are you doing with £8,600 a month?

It’s all relative. To someone, feeling or being rich can be having time off to take their children to do activities at weekend or not work 5 days a week.

To others, it can be sipping champagne and fine dining or expensive hobbies.

You can feel “rich” if you’re eyes let you. Not the media or others.

@Xenia you can get off your high horse and stop pleading ignorance. I'm not a low paid worker, I'm an above average salary worker earning some of these "rich" incomes, I just have enough nouse about me to know how not to interact on threads like this.

There have been a lot of descriptions of what people consider a rich person's lifestyle to be, but I'm curious about what posters think is an average lifestyle, or what counts as poverty.

It makes me smile how everyone says horses. Most horse people have no money as the horse is either wearing it or eating it
I loaned (part loan but sole use) for £110pm which was fine on my salary. I earn 18k basic then commission for a 40hr week and can afford a mortgage and car living alone

Combined household income of 80k - affluent
Combined household income of 150 k - rich
Combined household income of 250k - very rich!

@Oneforthemoneytwo

As have a combined income of £170k and I feel like we are comfortable but not rich. I don't buy clothes regularly, maybe once a year and all from Primark. We don't eat things like lamb or salmon or drink alcohol as they're too expensive. We only go on holiday once every 2-3 years.

What the hell are you doing with your money then because, there’s no way on a salary of £170k you can’t afford to buy some lamb and salmon and can only stretch to a trip to primark once a year.

I agree. You must be saving a lot or have huge debts/private schooling because we do all those things on a tiny fraction of your income

@DaisyWaldron

There have been a lot of descriptions of what people consider a rich person's lifestyle to be, but I'm curious about what posters think is an average lifestyle, or what counts as poverty.

Time for another thread ;)

110k combined income and we have a 4 bed detached, 2 new cars, long haul holiday every year. Shop at cheap places for clothes, 3 kids. I have been in social housing counting every penny years ago. Of course this is now rich.

@Snally82

We have a friend who just bought a helicopter, I’d consider him rich. Mostly I’d consider people well off or very comfortable but very very rarely rich.

That's probably why he bought the helicopter, it will make the naive think he's rich. Beware if he approaches you with suggestions for investment.

110k combined income and we have a 4 bed detached, 2 new cars, long haul holiday every year. Shop at cheap places for clothes, 3 kids.

We have a similar combined income, live in a (period) 4 bed semi, one old car, never travel long haul and only started taking the 3DC abroad at all since we stopped needing childcare, I do spend on clothes though (I wear clothes till they fall apart so buy top quality). Once you have enough money (and I agree we have lots) then you can choose where you spend your money so I'd not fly long haul because of the damage to the environment. Same with the car, we manage with one because of the environmental impact of having 2. Conversely I've just spent as much as you'd spend on a car thousands on Vitsoe shelves for the sitting room but they don't lose their value like a car does and will last us for the rest of our lives (and being metal are infinitely recyclable) so for me are a better buy.

For me being able to do the food shop without checking my bank balance first, or popping out for the day without worrying my kids are going to ask for a treat 🤷🏻‍♀️ (and my husband works full time, me part time, we have a mortgage, a 5 year old at school and a 2 year old not yet at nursery because we can't afford it!)

There does seem to be a fairly vocal group of people on MN who take an active dislike to high and sometimes even medium earners, let alone rich/wealthy people. There are comments that high earners have no idea what it is like to be a low earner (most high earners had to work their way up), there are comments that demonstrate many people do not understand the levels of taxation high earners pay (although there are many that do). Some also seem to (deliberately) misunderstand that high earners saying that £x income is not limitless, that they still have financial constraints is not them saying that they are struggling to feed themselves, but that a high income does not remove all financial limitations.

Also those jobs that pay highly often come with long hours and a lot of responsibility, as well as requiring many years of education and training. I know some middle income jobs are similar (nurses for example, highly skilled, long hours, huge responsibility, mostly paid in the £30-40k range) and I think those professions should be paid more, but that is still not a reason to resent those who chose a higher paying career path.

One would hope that threads like this should foster greater understanding on all sides, but the reality seems to be that they further solidify entrenched and often inaccurate viewpoints.

I think if you dont have childcare costs and 2 parents working full time and bought in the early noughties or before you will be comfortable.

Our household income is under £60k and I feel like I can have whatever I want. 1 DC in private school. 4 bed in sought after area. 4 yo SUV. Been to WDW. Shop in Sainsbury's or Morrisons. DC's have done skiing, horse riding, golf etc as hobbies.

Unless people have huge mortgages or childcare (been there with £1k pcm! Each) people on more who dont feel rich are not managing their finances wisely!

But many high earners have not worked their way up, or have come from higher income families and therefore even if they did start out on a lower income, they have often had family support and do not have the experience that people who come from poverty and still live in poverty do. I understand that is not always the case, but choice of profession and the kinds of options that somebody considers are highly influenced by class and class is highly correlated with education level and income. I know people like to pretend we are all classless now, but realistically in the main, people are creatures of habit and we do what we know.

I don't think anybody really thinks that any income level (well maybe Jeff Bezos) completely removes all limitations, but there is a certain level at which the general struggle to survive is lifted and I think that's what people on the higher income end don't really get, and it can be frustrating if you're on a lower income to see people say "Well you see we need to make choices too" - the thing is, those choices aren't "put the heating on or buy the kids new shoes" but "eat out or get a newer car" "holiday vs private school".

If you can easily cover all your essentials and the financial choices you are making are between luxuries, then that is a whole league, a whole world away from robbing Peter to pay Paul, carefully timing your direct debits because a dip would be disastrous, making compromises because you can't afford something you really need, being generally stressed and worried about money all of the time. It takes a toll on health which also affects earning potential.

It's not that people on lower incomes think people on high incomes have limitless money, but the concept of having all the essentials covered and being able to choose between luxuries feels limitless in comparison to that kind of existence. I'm sure it doesn't feel limitless when you are used to it, especially when there is always somebody who can afford more, but that is the feeling that people are trying to get across.

Very well expressed. And as this thread shows many on high salaries are quite out of touch with how much more than the average person they earn, and how much choice that has bought them . It isn't "all relative". Wondering whether to do 2 foreign holidays that year isn't the same as wondering about coats or shoes.

Most of my family are very well off. We aren't due to a number of factors and I can see this play out first hand. Often they just don't get that we cant afford xyz that they see as basic.