Are we on a low income?

[biganlittle]

I earn 33.5k pro rata’ to 4 days a week.
DH full time of 48k, I know there’s some high earners on here but I’m guessing the majority earn less, maybe not as little as us.

We have a little one in nursery still which I think makes us feel that much more skint!

Are we low paid? Both in jobs that we needed qualifications for and I have a degree but part time for years and 2 maternity leaves I think has held me back.

You knew you were being insensitive by posting this.

Most people are on a single income, of which is average around £30k.

So you know if there are 2 of you on double this with sharing half the bills, then you are way better off than most people.

Your DH then earns more than the average and so you’re even more better off.

Ooh this is interesting. This is ours. NE England

Individually yes
combined no

It’s net of income tax, NI and council tax

Thanks for clarifying that.

We earn similar but are north west scotland. Not allow income here and we have a low mortgage but we felt the same re. nursery fees. Once they go it will feel get much better.

We have almost identical income (apart from in the higher earner on around 48k and DH is 33k). I feel like we are relatively well off. We can afford a holiday once a year, days out, presents for the kids at Christmas etc. We live in the south east so we have an expensive mortgage but all bills feel very manageable on our current income. The only thing I’ve found we’re really struggling with is just how much we are having to spend on food and the cut backs we’ve made there (eating a lot more cheaper meals like jacket potatoes each week, veggie meals etc)

Sounds medium-high to me and I'm in London. I know some people locally who earn around that, but most of my friends and family in London have less.

Also a word of warning…. We thought we’d feel much better off once we didn’t have nursery fees to pay. Everyone told us kids got more expensive as they got older. We thought surely we’ll still be better off without fees. Nope, as usual everyone was right and we haven’t really felt the impact of not paying much in fees because everything else is so bloody expensive. I’m not saying that to scare you, just to warn you that it doesn’t suddenly get easier in the way you might think. I

It’s down to tolerance levels and expectations. If I was having to cut back on my food spending I wouldn’t feel relatively well off. People in the UK are accepting the bar being too low imo.

Yeah, I agree. You then have to pay breakfast and after-school club, after school activities, budget for holiday clubs and days out to keep them occupied.

Also not trying to put a downer, it was just what happened.

Yeah, MN does skew richer - quite common on here to see people vehemently insisting that they're not highly paid on £70k or something, and sometimes refusing to believe that the average FT salary is £37k. But it is.

Same! Children's hobbies can be expensive 🫰🏼 good quality holiday clubs are not cheap either. I think children in general are expensive 😆

Single, £27k ish and haven’t had a holiday since 2019 😩!

Second this, also live in Scotland. Both husband and I are in higher tax bracket, however mortgage is 2k per month, CT £230, gas and electric £250, nursery after funding £1600. Food bill is about £180 per week. We live in a fairly average commuter town, nowhere expensive or sought after.

you are middle earners but pay is just so low! £4.6k with 4 days nursery would leave you with £3k a month for mortgage/rent, bills & food. It’s not much for a family of 4 especially as you won’t be entitled to much otherwise. If you were on £25k you would have access to so much more in terms of benefits or UC to help with costs

Nearly £7k per month into your house and your skint? wtf?! 😳

Yes but there are inexpensive parts of England, Wales and NI as well, so it's really weird to just pick one of the home nations as cheaper.

The cheap parts of Scotland (and there are some) are generally those that are deprived, or rural without good links. Same as anywhere across the UK.

Edit: also, I don't live in an expensive part! But it is a commuter town and has good transport links. So, like comparable towns across the country, it costs a lot to live. Most of that is the day to day expense of fuel, council tax, food, kids clubs etc.

I'm up north (Lincolnshire) and i can say for a definite that your DH alone earns more then our total household income. So if your combined of 70+k a year is low income then im living my best life in poverty

I wonder this too. It's always people that are very comfortably off that want to know as well (at least by my standards)

I think it’s useful to think about outgoings, nursery costs are huge and probably eat up a lot. It’s like a second mortgage. So yes you may have decent money coming in your outgoings are high. I don’t know what your mortgage payments are either.
yes, household income may be good but if little money is left each month op won’t feel this.

Where is this coming from??
OP salary is likely to be swallowed by childcare cost almost entirely (2 kids) and they live off DH salary which is about 2.7K after tax.
How’s that plenty? We live in not too expensive town in East of England and bog standard 3 bed to rent starts from 1.5K a months. Bills on top. Food. All gone very easily.
I can totally see why she asked this question.

You really can’t compare salaries in different countries just with a straightforward currency conversion. There are loads of different factors to the costs of living that impact the comparison. You have to take into account average national salary, housing costs v salary in that country, etc etc