Is it rude to ask your annual income?

[dontcomeatme]

I am always gobsmacked and a little in awe whenever a thread gets onto the topic of money. Posters often stating they have an annual income of 100k+, but still struggling with finances for example. I am really interested to see if this is a demographic thing, so same job = totally different salary depending on location. Which I understand would then be reflected in the cost of living for the area.
But if any MNers feel comfortable I wanted to start a thread where everyone could state their

• individual annual income + job title
• the house as a whole annual income if different
• plus where you live.

No one is obligated so if you dont want to absolutely fine. This is more out of my own curiosity than anything!

Ours -

• OH annual salary before tax £37k, head of year in a comprehensive
• I am SAHM so just CB coming in which we put aside for 2 DC
• North East of England.

We live quite comfortably, just bought a home, save for both DC and a rainy day fund, able to do stuff with DC every weekend and holidays (in the uk) every year, no debt other than mortgage.

I know,
that’s why you need the additional info….
duh…🙄

£77000 for me, £68000 for husband. Both civil servants. I work part-time but will be increasing my pay to £95000 when I increase my hours soon. We live in the south-east and recently paid off mortgage through overpayments so currently no debt. Son is due to leave nursery to go to school in September, which is very helpful for future savings. We will then be able to save roughly £4400 per month before my pay-rise kicks in. We don't want to take on more than £150000 for our next mortgage so it'll take us a few years to build up enough money to move.

I don't think it's rude. I always find these kinds of topics interesting as people are so different in their approach to money. It's not something I would ever feel comfortable talking about in real life though.

Sunderland NE. I love our little village we having going on here too. So lovely, and my house is huge !

Me: somewhere between £135k-£160k depending on stock options and share price. I’m a Lawyer. Thats pre tax though so it drops a LOT post tax. I also put 17% into pension as salary sacrifice.

DH: teacher £30k as 4 days per week only.

mortgage is about £950/m now as we’ve paid a good amount off and still on a very low fixed rate from pre Liz Truss days!. Expected to rise to £1,400ish when we remortgage due to higher interest rates now.

obvs not entitled to child benefit, funded nursery hours etc. so childcare is a big expense for us for our youngest (~£1k/ month for 3 days) plus wraparound for oldest 3x a week after school (£200).

Thankfully we manage to save a bit each month which is amazing. We both have 5-8yr old cars atm which we buy second hand outright (we run them until they conk out, so got years left in them!). Live in a very average 3bed home near to Cambridge (not Cambridge itself as property prices there are insane so we’re a good 25min drive away!). Couldn’t afford private school for our two kids so we’re not really wealthy, but we have a good savings safety net now and never worry about the appliances going wrong now like we used to. I usually make overpayments on our mortgage each year, but we don’t max this out (we’re allowed to overpay 10% each year but this is too much atm). We do 1 week abroad in Europe with kids for holiday each year, plus a center Parcs weekend or something like that.

• individual annual income + job title: £50k, Charity Director (I work three days a week, PT)
• Total household income: £230-250K, depending on DH’s bonus. Also shares.
• A stupidly expensive bit of London.

We’re obviously not broke, but we’re not exactly overburdened with funds. Our house is terraced and our car is quite elderly. No debt other than mortgage, decent savings and investments. We’re in our 30’s, so will earn more at some point, but suspect school fees will take a solid chunk out of that.

Between the two of us we bring in around 150k including bonuses

Living around the Oxford area.
Both of us working in finance. Me £78k and him £75k gross salary.
Bought house 3 years ago for £550k but large deposit so small mortgage rate...which we only have 2 years left on 😭
We don't have children yet so right now nearly everything we can goes to savings so we can extend the house. Once that's done il need to build up the savings again!

He has around £200k in pension and I have £65k tight now. I'm early 30s and he's mid 30s.

Me = £65k, OH = £40k. Both scientists, management roles. Me in London, him in cambridge, we live in between. 1 kid, in school nursery so most of the cost covered by 30 funded hours. Mortgage on a 3 bed semi is £1900pm. Train is £300 every 3 weeks. We save £1000 a month. Generally live reasonably frugally so we can spend more on a holiday or house project every few years. We're comfortable bur certainly not wealthy by local standards!

Me £36k (part time, pro rated)
DH £52k
Both sales support type / middle management roles
Midlands
2 primary age DC

We're comfortable, able to over pay on mortgage at least. But don't feel well off!

Me: £60k, total household income £165k. Both late 30s & work full time, financial services.
West Midlands.
House worth £600k, mortgage £140k - about £800 a month.
2 primary aged DCs attending the local state school. We have savings, good pensions and investments.
We are comfortable and enjoy a very nice lifestyle.

Me -53k manager in social care
DH 65k manager
West Midlands
we are comfortable

We’ve got a decent combined income of over £100k and still this thread has depressed me!

Thank you. Why on earth are some people continually believing that those who say they are on £100k plus are fantasists? Why shouldn’t women earn these numbers, it is possible. It may not be the norm, of course it’s not, but the more that women say “that’s incredible, you’re a fantasist, no women earn that much” the more we are encouraged to believe we are ‘less than’.
Come on, let’s hold them up, not bring them down (from a woman who hasn’t had a career for years and has very much relied on her high earning husband!!)

London is no more ridiculous now than it ever has been. In fact, property prices in London have stalled compared to the rest of the country where they are still going up.

Me £58k for 4 days a week, DH £62k full time, so annual joint income of £120k.
South East with one DC in school and one DC in nursery, we are comfortable but will feel more comfortable once nursery fees finish.

Me: £32K
Whole household: Just under £50K

Living in Scotland with relatively low housing costs.
We're absolutely fine. Pretty comfortable. Drive a car, go on holidays, kids in activities...all that.

Why?? Plenty of people are worse off than you.

Why has it depressed you? Sorry that wasn't my intention!

Yes but just from this thread alone I can see that, for example, the very same property would sell for maybe £120k where I live, but £350k in London. I know wages reflect cost of living so we would earn around £30/40k but someone in London hoping to buy that house might earn anywhere from £60k plus. My point of interest is how such a small island can have such stark differences in living just by driving for a couple of hours! From my location to London is 4hrs drive. My aunt is currently living in London and looking to buy, she said she could buy 3 houses up here for what it would cost her to buy one flat down there. Just fascinating and crazy to me.

Couldn’t agree more. I am late 40’s now but remember reading an article in cosmo in my early 20’s (so v early noughties) about earning £50k by 30 - which seemed like an enormous amount of money then particularly as it would have been more than my parents combined income. It opened my eyes and I definitely made career options that would help achieve that - which I did by 26. The equivalent is still avaliable now, but you have to make smart decisions Despite having time out raising children etc I should earn around £200k this year - and that feels a bit disappointing as if I had taken different life decisions it could easily be double that. If hard work equates to hours worked I work very hard though, often in excess of 60-70 hours. The UK has really turned into a low wage / low growth economy for many (who then need to be propped up with tax credit etc).

It’s not that people cant imagine anyone earning over £100k it’s just that only 4% of the uk population do and yet on these threads about one third of the posters either earn over £100k themselves or their OH does. There’s also a few earning over £182k i.e the top 1% which again much higher proportionally than in the general population.

So I would say that no-one should be depressed by this thread as it’s not representative of the wider population.

Absolutely, no-one should be depressed or feel bad about their income. Some of the most important people who make a good society are woefully underpaid. I was just agreeing with a PP who made the point that calling high earning women, fantasists, feels like undermining those women.
To me, they are just proving that you don’t need to be a man to earn the big bucks and all girls can aspire (if that’s what they want) to do the same.
It may not be the norm for all parts of the country, or all stratas of society, but why assume they’re liars?

@Ofchrisre that statistic of only 4-5% of the population earning it, I wonder how it is recorded? Is it just salary, or does it include self employed, and contractors that earn big day rates?

Also does it capture the people that purposely keep their salary just under £100k with pension contributions etc so they aren’t taxed at 62% and can access tax free childcare and free childcare hours. With young children you have to earn over £140k a year to break even going over £100k I think.

I’m not sure, genuinely curious because a lot of people I know are on over £100k, myself and my partner included. I live in the south east and work in London. However quite a few of our friends are keeping their earnings just under £100k for the reasons above, and I wonder if they’re captured in the stats