Average Salaries + Lifestyle in 30s/40s

[SmallWorldAfterAll]

First time thread poster here. I am always intrigued how people manage their personal finances, especially when it’s people on similar salaries with such variable costs and lifestyles. But as a woman in my early 30s, I’m finding a lot of people on MN are in their 50s and beyond, therefore very progressed in careers and different stage of life so slightly less relatable.

For those in their 30s and perhaps 40s, what is your financial situation looking like? What are your goals? I will of course start.

Salary = £75k, household ~ £105k
Pension = Contribute 15% with an employer match of 10%
Mortgage + essentials = £2,500 per month
1 DC with a plan for another
Currently have what feels like a very comfortable lifestyle but have some ambitious goals for the future
Goals = By 35 achieve a £100k+ salary, be able to save £1,000 per month (amidst childcare costs), 20% pension contributions, continue nice lifestyle (multiple holidays abroad, restaurants, nice family days out, etc.)

I’m 38 with a salary of just over 30k (the National average for women my age).

after all my deductions (including 3% pension) I take home just under £1900. I save £450 every month (my house needs renovating and I’d like to pay the mortgage early).

the rest I spend on bills, essentials, and my hobbies/socialising.

my mortgage is £600 per month and has 31 years left on the term.

I don’t plan on ever living with a partner in the future, nor do I expect I’ll get paid much more money in my career.

i run a small business on the side to make extra spending money.

I have a three bedroom house with a big garden in a nice town in the West Midlands. I feel like I have a really nice lifestyle. I eat out a fair bit, go to cultural things, go drinking regularly, etc.

38, public sector job, single and no kids (and no plans to have any). £50k a year salary, 10% pension contribution, mortgage is £652, total bills around £2200

No savings as Im utterly terrible with money but see my home as my future security. Have 3-4 holidays a year to very nice places including at least one long haul. I eat out a few times a month but my weaknesses are expensive wine, expensive candles and lots of clothes!

Currently looking for a new job but even if I get one I'll have to wait another 2.5 years for a pay rise... but will go up to £60k. Remortgage due this year so could go up but I know I'm lucky only paying what I do (3 bed semi, medium-sized northern town)

I'm 44, DH is 40.

I earn 23k but only work 0.5. Teacher pension with some additional contribution to try to offset the part time.

DH has his own business so takes a lowish salary but we also get awarded a dividend.

No mortgage or childcare costs now- bought house 12 years ago for £160k and massively overpaid. Children both in school but in special schools as both are disabled so no after school care etc available.

This year we need to prioritise savings and decide if we want to move to a bigger house!

You lot are loaded

NC

We're both 40.

My income is around £80k, DH £70k this year (lower than previous as had some time off sick and changes to a lower paying role). So £150k total.

Mortgage £1300. We both pay £1200 into a bills account so other bills come in at less than that as there is always extra in there for annual stuff. That's just direct debit bills though - we have another joint account for food and spending.

2 DC in primary school, no childcare costs.

Pensions around £250k between us. Savings in ISAs and various places. We save £2k ish/month.

Biggest spends; food, children's hobbies, cleaner, doggy daycare, personal trainer.

We don't spend much on: alcohol, going out, our own hobbies.

Currently discussing the balance for 2024 - more holidays v more saving v moving house

We are mid-late 50s.
My salary 34k, DH’s 25k.
Pension 15%. Employer puts in 6%. DH doesn’t contribute to a pension now.
Mortgage paid off.
House in central London.
Adult children live with us. We support one of them completely.

I'm always shocked at these threads I think I fell into the wrong career path as I'm nearing 40 and earning 33k. My partner works part time to look after the children and he is on about 12k. We are on universal credit now and I can finally breathe a little each month.

Age 39.
Salary - 135k in annual bonus (always given)
Sole earner in home.
Pension = contribute 28%, employer 10% and bonus goes in too- so c.50-60k/yr.
mortgage - paid off this year
Bills - 1850/mo
2 DC (6+4) + 2x dogs.
Comfortable lifestyle.

Aims:
for 150k salary by 45.
Take family on 2x decent hols a year (Florida etc)
Keep everyone safe, warm, well fed and healthy.
Encourage experiences, days out etc.
more time with family (time really is precious)

Salary = £75k, household ~ £105k
Pension = Contribute 15% with an employer match of 10%
Mortgage + essentials = £2,500 per month
1 DC with a plan for another
Currently have what feels like a very comfortable lifestyle but have some ambitious goals for the future
Goals = By 35 achieve a £100k+ salary, be able to save £1,000 per month (amidst childcare costs), 20% pension contributions, continue nice lifestyle (multiple holidays abroad, restaurants, nice family days out, etc.)

Sorry forgot to delete your example from mine!

Early 30’s (dh early 40’s)

Salary: 25k ~ household 145k (plus bonus/commission. I’ve just returned from to work after being a sahm
Pension: 5% plus 7% employer pension, highest I could go
Mortgage: £1500
Children: 1 DC between us, DH 2 from previous marriage
Lifestyle: Feeling very flush now that I’m back to work! Although we were also very lucky before in that I could stay at home and my dh was earning well.
Goals: not feeling ambitious anymore. Earning as much as I can so I can retire as early as possible and focus on our home and family

And yet we are still both earning above average.

Mumsnet does attract a certain type. ;-)

I'm 39 and have earned circa 100k since I was 29. Could be more but I don't want a management position. Household income is currently 110k but that will change soon as I'm in the process of divorce.

I'm actually the one who grew up in poverty (family on benefits, grew up in vehicles,left school when before GCSEs etc) and my stbx grew up in an upper middle class family. So please dont think that your background limits you! It does piss me off when people.make assumptions about me.based on the fact I've basically dragged myself up from the gutter (literally- I was street homeless as a teenager).

I own my own home and that is ringfenced (bought before marriage and never been lived in as the marital property). No kids involved. But I don't have any friends or family who earn anything near what I do - average seems to be from 15-30k or UC. Guess I just got lucky falling into a career that I'm randomly pretty good at.

Mid 40s, earn £63k. Have £150k pension pot (dc) and am now in a very good Db scheme where I pay in about 7%.
DH is a high earner, has approx £710k pension pot but can only put in £10k a year as he pays additional rate tax.
Mortgage is £3k/month and we have about £2m equity. We have about £320k in ISAs and other savings.
3 DC- no childcare costs but we are paying school fees.
Aiming to take early retirement in 6-7 years if we can.

We are early 40s

Salary: £91k - household income is around £160
Pension: 13% contribution, with double that added by employer (I'm lucky enough to be on the Teachers Pension Scheme - huge perk)
Mortgage, bills, food: Around £4,000 per month (we have a very big mortgage). Childcare costs (2 DC) are just after school club and holiday clubs now

We are definitely more than comfortable, and can spend what we want without really thinking about it. Though we take modest holidays (city break plus a few UK and Ireland trips each year) and have a 15 year old car. We aren't saving at the moment, which concerns me, though we are currently doing up the house (and blowing through what savings we have!). I am very happy with our lifestyle, and feel very, very lucky.

Goals: My next career step will be to ~£120k, but I am not ready to take that step yet. DH's next step will be to ~£80k. At that stage, we can hopefully pay down some more of our very high mortgage.

Salary = £73k (single so just my salary)
Pension = Contribute 6% with an employer match of 10%
Mortgage + essentials = £1816/ month (includes everything I need to pay for - yearly bills, food shopping, spending money etc)
Childfree by choice
I'm definitely comfortable but my childhood means I don't feel secure and worry constantly about what's been saved and whether it's enough etc etc.
Goals = Continue to fill long term savings pots and overpay the mortgage, start investing on a bigger scale, try to say yes to more instead of feeling like I need to save every penny, continue to grow my income.

Holy hell.
These are massive numbers.
My salary peaked in my 30s - at 42k.
I earnt £0 for a number of years, and, now mid 40s have clawed my way from 16k (term time only) up to 21k (still TTO). DH earns well, but much lower than your numbers - aprox 50k.
We are very comfortable - 2 cars, 4 bed detached house, holiday abroad if we want every year - we sometimes choose to stay in the UK. Zero debt. Savings account. Top up my pension every month. OK, we are past the childcare years, but we still saved at that point.

I'm not actually sure what we would do with an extra 30K or so more a year those of you with 100k plus household incomes have - that's an extra grand a month!

Mid 30s

Salary = £75k (PT), household ~ £175k
Pension = Contribute 8% with an employer match of 5%
Mortgage = £3,500 per month
3 DC, 1 in primary, 2 nursery. Costs circa £2k a month
have a good lifestyle with clubs for the kids, meals out every few weeks but no room for savings currently, twins starting school in September and will be able to prioritise from them.
Goals = continue to have a job which allows me the flexibility to attend all school events, pick up a few times a week and do most drop offs. Start to save!

You would spend it on a mortgage if you lived in a more expensive part of the UK.

Me early 40’s with salary of 200k.
DH also earns a decent salary.

One DC who is pre-school age

No rent/mortgage. We don’t live in an expensive property compared to our household income.

Including employer contributions I put the max 60k into my pension every year.

Outgoings are low although we are saving up for DC private school as we need to have the full 14 years worth of fees ring fenced as soon as possible as we plan to be retired for much of the time he’s at school.

We both previously worked in low paid roles and worked our way up. We’ve never received any help or support from anyone else. No family childcare, no financial support when we were struggling, no inheritance etc.

We don’t live an extravagant lifestyle. I doubt any of our neighbours have a clue how much we earn. Most people in our road have normal jobs and earn 30k/40k. We are definitely not flashy.

All I want from our careers is to fund the best education possible for our DC and to be able to have a comfortable early retirement. I’ve no desire to have the big house and all the trappings.

What are the jobs those of you earning such high salaries are in?

Legal profession.

I'm 39. DH is 41.
I'm on £70k. DH has recently retrained into a trade and is self employed and on around £40k. So household £110k.
No kids.
This thread has shown me I don't know about my pension! I obviously have one, but couldn't tell you the contributions. I'll read up on it in Jan. DH has a basic pension for self employed people.
No kids. One dog. A car and a campervan owned outright. The campervan needs £1000 spending on it on a regular basis! No other debts.
Our 4-bed house is worth approx £450k and our mortgage payments are only £500 a month. Our bills are low - apart from council tax at £270 a month!
As we don't have kids, don't have debt, and have low outgoings, I never really feel that we need financial goals. I guess I feel like we're already there.
We comfortably save between £1000-£2000 a month, depending on if we're getting anything done to the house or our van.
I'm bored shitless by my job, so my only goal is to keep everything very affordable so that I can take a 50%/75% pay cut if ever I want to retrain. However, I'm exceptionally well paid for my region so know I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth 😑💤

Salary = £85k, household ~ £185k (including DH bonus)

I work in branding, he works in recruitment marketing.

Pension = Contribute 9% with an employer match of 6%... looking to increase this as I only started my pension at 28
Mortgage + essentials = £3200 roughly

1 DC, no plans for more.

DH has about half a million in inheritance. Even though he's the high earner his pension is lower because I think he's just relying on this inheritance.

We're comfortable, don't have to think too much about spending and can enjoy meals out and takeaways whenever we fancy. We're planning to build our own home next year which will invariably be a bit of a money pit!

Goals - I'd like to start a S&S ISA soon and build long term interest. At some point we'd like to buy a second property to let but would need to save for the deposit.

Should have said, I'm 31 and DH is 35.

Funny how if you take the average of all the aforementioned salaries, you're probably double what the national average is.

To those that read these feeling disheartened, don't be... naturally these will attract many wanting to show off :)