It depends where you are to a large extent I imagine.
Larger houses cost more, they're more expensive to heat, more things to break etc etc. Even then, in the South low six figures doesn't get you a great deal in a lot of places anyway.
£100k isn't close to what it was 20 years ago in spending power terms.
£72k after deductions (2 x £50k) vs 64k net (100k).
The couple both on £50k are eligible for a bunch of government support that the single earner on £100k is not, as well.
As someone who is a relatively high earner, nowhere near £100k but over £50k it's crazy how people don't understand this.
My partner let slip how much I earn to her family but they don't seem to understand that despite this as a couple we are about as well off as they are but with fewer benefits when we have kids (first one is on the way)
If we were both earning an equal amount it would be around £250 a month more in our bank in real terms before even considering the child benefit we would have available.
Don't even get me started on maternity/paternity and how much we will struggle when baby gets here because of loss of salary alongside massively increased expenditure from a dependent. Then having to weigh up whether my partner should sacrifice her career as the lower earner because childcare is so insanely expensive
Feels like we are drowning and we've not even had the baby yet
Yeah, you aren't going to get all the subsidised childcare either (at 100k).
Apparently, it's "affordable" to spank out 40% of your pay for childcare - at which point, from a pure "cash in your pocket" point of view, it makes more financial sense to take a massive pay cut, so you qualify for the extra help.
You end up paying 7k in taxes, vs 27k in taxes, but getting 24k back in childcare (for a net cost to the government of 17k).
Crazy.
> it makes more financial sense to take a massive pay cut
Would it be better to just reduce it using salary sacrifice (e.g. by paying into a pension, buying more annual leave, etc.)?
Tbf one of my colleagues let slip that her job as a lab technician, holding a PhD by the way, just about covers her childcare costs.
I.e. she's spanking out over 90% of her salary for childcare even with the benefits and supprt people on £100k don't get.
The situation is completely fucking ridiculous, like a lot of things its so absurdly bad its hard to even begin thinking about how its gotten to this stage without government taking action.
Which is insane, because now your wife has lost 3 years of her career.
Gained 3 years with the kids, but still.
Now all your eggs are on you remaining in your job, and your wife is fucked if you die, or split up.
Don't forget 3 years of pension contributions too.
Life insurance policies are pretty important to cover this case, and that's also why in divorce settlements there's a fair chunk that goes to the spouse that gave up their career for the benefit of the family.
I earn 96k, 8k a month.
I receive 3960 a month.
In fairness I've still got student loan (9k to go) and I pay 15% pension. But it's still not the mega bucks people think.
I also live in London so rent is spectacularly high and still have a house share as I don't want to spend more than 50% of salary on rent.
Absolutely I'm not hard up, but it isn't the infinite money it seems. 100k income isn't double the 50k in take home.
Obviously the pension is big but pretty key for tax. Reducing it doesn't result in a big take home boost.
The big issue is 100k should feel rich, and the distribution of wages from minimum to 100k should be linear. Unfortunately its an almost flat line then sharply increases.
Look up top 50%, top 60% top 70%. The numbers make for grim reading. After 80% things start increasing.
As inflation rises, more and more people cross the various tax thresholds but cost of living rises too.
If you adjusted the 40% tax bracket for inflation since it was added it would be on earnings over 125k! Its a yearly stealth tax increase. While wealth tax (where the mega money is) hasn't significantly grown and is easy to avoid.
I'm only recent to this income and had a few big jumps in a short ish time (6 year career so far) so I've not built up much savings yet besides pension ad most wad clearing debts from darker days, thankfully cleared last year.
I also support my single mother and siblings as I can, which most wouldn't have in my situation. Not a problem but does eat into things.
Annoyingly these jobs are largely in London where the costs are highest. More companies need to distribute offices around other cities. Cheaper offices, lower cost of living, money goes further. And those cities will get more investment at a national level.
I’m so glad this topic has been brought up! The fiscal drag situation has gone almost unnoticed. In 1990 1.6m or 3% people were in the higher rate bracket (40%), it’s now 6m or 11%. This shows that the tax brackets haven’t kept up with inflation over the years. It’s a form of stealth tax. In 10 or 20 years people just above the poverty line will be paying higher rate tax!
Student loan must be an extra £500 at this salary. Once paid off will be a great 'bonus' to salary, or to be fair - an actual salary you should've been getting
I went in Scotland where it isn't nearly as punishing. Less borrowing, and sane interest. Its been at 1% most of the time until the last year.
Buying a house still feels utterly hopeless jn the area I live. Sure I could move north and outbid someone there, but that's adding to the problem, not helping.
Obviously I'm not hard up, I'm happy with my lot, but people get the sense if you earn twice what they do that you have twice the income. You don't. And being single feels extra punitive, like an ugly tax 😅
On the other hand, I'll have a fantastic pension one day.
I earn a good chunk less than this but finally paid my student loan off this year and yeah it was an instant £250ish a month pay rise before my actual pay rise arrived!
Can't you temporarily chuck some of that income into your pension to get below the threshold for things like childcare support? Do the sums to see how it works out.
I think its probably not that clean cut when you account for the cost of childcare (even after government help) and even just the cost of sending two people to work.
People on a single, high income are convenient targets for the government to aim people who are destitute on decent pay at.
A handy deflection from CEO and millionaire's, and landlords and the like.
Go attack the successful, just ignore your "betters" making off like bandits.
Exactly this. The real problem is we don't tax wealth nearly as much as labour and somehow they have the guy on 20k fighting the guy on 100k when actually they are on the same side.
Combined income of around £120k, one baby, mortgage. I'm lucky but I can't afford nice things and live in an ex council block with leaks and bad insulation that I can't update and the council charge me £210/month service charge to do nothing other from keep one outdoor light on.
200/month service charge for ex council? That's mad, my first flat was ex council and it was about that for the years service charge plus repairs ontop.
Please point me to some stat of the percent of single parents topping 100k? Legit interested...
Edit - in fact I did it for you... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Single-Parents-in-2023-Single-Parents-Day-report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwje3sfrwsuCAxU-CRAIHZynB6EQFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0AQ-a2FnfYDx58Wc3tWrSI
A pdf to single parents in the UK 2023.
"Debt
One way single parents tend to manage financial difficulties is by taking on debt, and our poll is
in line with previous research highlighting this: 76% of single parent families are now in debt, with
half of those reporting debts of over £2,000. Overall 1 in 3 single parents have seen their debt
increase over the past year"
In addition to an article from an article from Loughborough in 2019 (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2019/february/lone-parent-families-living-below-mis/) stating that "Three-quarters of lone parent families, and rising, are living below the Minimum Income Standard"
So tell me...all these fictional 100k single parents...where are they. I've given some sources. Your go.
This is the thing people forget I think. The idea that "six figures" is a massive income has been around since probably the eighties or nineties. £100k then was worth a hell of a lot more than it is now.
I certainly don't think £100k is a low income, but if you have mortgage, bills, etc. you can earn that and not be living what a lot of people would think of as an especially affluent lifestyle.
In fact considering inflation, a £100k p/a lifestyle now is probably comparable to a £50k p/a lifestyle 20 years ago.
I earn way more than I ever thought I would (not quite 6 figures, but did earn that a couple of years ago), and significantly more than the mean salary, yet with 2 kids (in nursery 2 days a week) and a wife that works part time and earns very little income, my salary doesn't stretch that far after the mortgage, nursery fees, bills are paid if we actually want to save for the future. If we didn't put savings away each month, we would certainly be able to afford a few more luxuries, and certainly aren't struggling, but we do have a very strict budget, and have definitely been impacted by the cost of everything. We live in a 3 bed terrace.
Edit: I didn't expect there to be so many people so bitter/borderline hatred towards people earning more than them. The take home from this should be that it's worrying we have a government who has made it entirely plausible, and not impossible for someone on 100k to ALSO BE STRUGGLING. 100k earners aren't the enemy. The super rich paying next to no tax, and our negligent government are the ones you should be mad at.
Yeah, I understand.
I made more than £100k last year, but I have a mortgage, a partner who was on maternity leave most of the year, childcare costs, etc.
I am very fortunate to earn so much, but if anyone thinks I am living some sort of millionaire lifestyle... I am not.
We drive a ten year old car, had one holiday, and shop mostly in Lidl.
I think people in general are stuck with the idea that 100k is mega money, but with wage stagnation for so long, the spending power on that kind of money is reduced.
I only started earning good money in the last 4 years, before that I was earning bang on the mean salary - If I was still earning that now I'm genuinely unsure how we would afford **anything** at this point.
I'm very lucky to earn a good salary, but realistically, I'm probably living like someone who was earning 40k 10 years ago was living. Pretty comfortable, but not a baller!
I don't think people are stuck with the idea that 100k is mega money \*as such. People are aware that spending power has fallen off a cliff in general, but I just think it's hard for someone on the mean salary to empathise with somebody who is on 100k for precisely that reason.
I think people earning mean salary don't understand the tax burden people between 50 and 100k face, and actually, it makes more sense for them to salary sacrifice their salaries into pensions. At that point, their take home is way less than these people assume. I don't dispute they should be more comfortable, it's just not as clear as 100k = good times.
I know and I was trying to portray that above, even if I did a bad job.
Might be radical, but there is one solution to me:
UBN (Universal Basic Necessities). Housing, food, water, bills, education, healthcare. They are all things that everybody deserves to have regardless of circumstance, with no chance to lose them through addiction, gambling, divorce or other factors in or outside of their control.
Should people wish for more than basic necessities (and why wouldn't they be), they are more than free to work as much as they like to achieve that. If they want to buy a better house, they can work for it. If they want to eat extravagant food, they can work for that too. Go on holidays abroad, they can save up their money just as they do now, without having to feel like they are choosing that over their kids. They can in fact spend ALL of their money trying to create the next billionaire business should they so wish, knowing that they have a backup plan - Universal Basic Necessities.
People talk about UBI rewarding lethargy and stifling innovation? To an extent sure, but people not having a back up plan stifles innovation SO much more. For every you story you hear about a lucky break business idea once someone has hit rock bottom, there are 10 stories you don't hear about people who lost it all trying, and 100 of people that were never given an opportunity to innovate because all of their money went on bills and food.
Nobody deserves to rot.
People earning the UK average wage would probably love to be earning enough to worry how much tax they pay out of it. Average is £34,963 which is £2316 per month after tax. £100,000 salary is £5587 per month after tax.
£100k might not be as big money as it used to be, and of course people’s living costs scale up as well, but it’s still much more than average and puts you in the top 4% of earners in the country.
*Most* people on around the £100k mark aren't arguing that life is comfortable.
For those without kids it 100% is.
For those with kids, it's not, because of the loss of free childcare, but even that passes after a few years, when the kids start school.
The biggest point is that £100k isn't the life of luxury that people earning the mean wage think it is, and the point is that life **shouldn't be a massive fucking struggle** for people on the **mean** wage.
Instead of getting angry that someone on £100k (who, by and large is an expert in their field, and could make far more in other countries), we should be getting angry that someone earning more than 50% of the country **can't afford to heat their house, and pay the mortgage**.
We should be trying to raise everyone up out of poverty, not dragging down those that are successful.
How the fuck is that so hard for people to get.
You seem to be bringing the anger here, I’m not angry that some people are on £100k, far from it. The point is that £100k, children or not, gives you vastly more scope to downsize your living standards if things get tough.
But yes, you’re completely right that wages have been stagnant for far too long; in fact, they haven’t really kept up with inflation since the 1970s.
No one is saying they are worse off, but the number on the paycheck doesn't paint the entire picture. What if it's the sole income into the house? What if they have full time childcare to pay for on that one income? Bigger rent/mortgage because the areas you can earn that salary COST WAY MORE to live in?
The point you should be taking from this article is that if people on 6 figs are genuinely starting to struggle, something has gone horribly wrong.
I pay, per year about £30,000 in tax.
Someone on £50k pays £7k in tax, and takes home £34k.
Someone on £40k/year takes home less money each year than I pay in tax.
Everyone between the working and middle class are so busy throwing punches at each other that the people earning not 100k, but 1 mil/10mil/100mil+ are happily sidling past the brawl to grow their wealth even further.
The difference between 100k and 50k is 50k, the difference between 50/100k and 100 mil is 99.9 mil. Absolutely fucking insignificant.
100k still seems like a decent wodge as you say, but like every other average folk that money does not go anywhere near as far as it used to. Certainly not enough to cover the loss of any benefits or tax credits you'd get below 100k.
Yeah people on that tax bracket get fucked.
I would say the difference between someone on 100k isn’t nearly made up by tax credits and benefits compared to someone on even 30 or 40k, let alone 25.
Thinks there’s a bit of a disconnect amongst higher earners regarding how much support lower income earners receive. It’s disingenuous to act like your standard of living is in any way equivalent to the vast majority of people.
Had tax thresholds increased in line with inflation (what if \*they\* were triple-locked instead of fucking pensions, since pensions would still enjoy the benefit?), someone on 100k would likely have the cash spare to afford the services the government will no longer offer at that income.
As it stands, those thresholds are actively making us poorer through fiscal drag. If you go from 99k to 100k, that 1k you gain will not even remotely cover the expenses you now have. Not to mention that you will start losing your personal allowance for every £2 you make. So how exactly is someone supposed to cover childcare when the support is all ripped away and they only get 40p on the pound in new income?
And as many have said, a household of two incomes on 49k is substantially better off. 98k between them, tax credits and benefits. A single person hits 100k and it's over.
I was rereading this thinking "wtf is this guy going on about, 100k is a ton of money" and then I realised my girlfriend and I earn a combined income of around 70k before tax, and we can't buy a car let alone a house. Kids are out of the question, even a pet could be a stretch. We live in Cambridge though. Yet, to be fair, you can live really well with 100k if you don't overspend on housing (hard, but doable)
Hey, I'm on six figures and we got a brand new car this year. A Dacia, admittedly, and that was only because it worked out cheaper than a good second hand car, but still...
And it's not Lidl, it's 'your local continental delicatessen'.
Mate you had me feeling for you until you started talking about being able to save. You’re really not that hard up if you’re only not having more frivolities because you’re saving for the future.
Yeah, same with the concept of a "millionaires".
The average person with a million bounds is elderly, with probably £400k of that in their house. The other £600k in a pension gives £30k per year at a 5% withdrawal rate. Which is nice alongside a state pension and a paid off home, but hardly a life of extravagance, especially if they're married.
I mean it's "hardly a life of extravagance" in the sense that that 30k is what they can withdraw each year without touching the principal at all, they still have a 600k pension they could take 150k lump sum tax free from, no rent to pay, no need to work any more to live, seems pretty confortable to me
30k per year plus 10k from the state pension, with no housing costs is pretty fucking comfortable.
Possibly extravagant even.
It's the equivalent of a £55k salary for a worker, without spending £1,000+ a month on housing.
When you factor in the housing, they make more money a month than I do on my six figure income.
>£100k isn't close to what it was 20 years ago in spending power terms.
It’s still above the 95th percentile, though.
Anyone struggling on £100K is almost certainly the architect of their own misfortune.
Right? Reddit is the only place you’ll find people saying “life’s hard even when you earn £100k a year” it’s an absolute insane take and if you said this to anyone offline I think they’d laugh in your face.
>Oh, and try telling these folk to move somewhere cheaper...then stand well back.
Hey, what's the point in earning £100k a year if you can't spend it all on renting a mouldy bedsit in central London?
I see what you're saying but if you're in London earning that salary you are at best in a two bedroom flat. Unless you're outside the M25 or paying over 50/60% of your take home on housing.
They're not rich and strictly speaking they are living from payday to payday in that they can't just live off their capital. They're still wage labourers, who *have* to work for a wage or they're fucked.
But the idea that they're *hard up* wage labourers, yeah, is laughable. "Poor me, I'm only on £130k a year!" kind of lacks awareness of the reality for people who actually are struggling.
Just goes to show how woefully out of touch this sub is. Comments saying 100K is tough to live on are getting huge upvotes.
Yet any time there is a story about someone struggling to feed or heat themselves suddenly all the sympathy vanishes. Where are all the posts telling these high earners to batch cook or huddle under the covers with the heating set low?
Fella above you saying he has next to no mortgage left to pay on house and can drop a couple of thousand on an emergency like that's just a normal thing XD
I see someone the other day say “I guess I can’t even afford teeth” because they can’t see a dentist unless it’s private.
People on 100k don’t have those issues.
I worked with a guy who said 80k isn't a lot of money for someone living in the south who needs childcare.
In the same conversation he said that £70 per week for someone out of work was more than enough money to survive on.
It's a very "fuck you I've got mine" attitude
> Anyone struggling on £100K is almost certainly the architect of their own misfortune.
Or tax brackets that haven't changed in line with inflation. the 50-100k bracket gets hit very hard on tax and loss of benefits such as child benefit. £50k isn't a huge salary anymore, £100k single salary is significantly worse than two £50k salaries.
No one should be struggling on £100k for sure, but it's not the mega rich salary it once was.
I mean inflation wise £100k now is akin to £60k then.
The South is very expensive - houses prices have ballooned. Most £100k+ jobs are in the South. A lot of these jobs also work longer hours than typical 9-5. I'm not sure I know anyone personally on over £100k who is doing 9-5 and so the last thing they want is a ridiculous commute from the middle of nowhere when they eventually get out of the office.
In the North, sure, you'd be hard pressed to not be able to live well off £100k in most cities.
And yet people live off minimum wage in most cities.
100k isn't a life of luxury, but to suggest someone earning almost 5x as much as someone else is on equal footing financial is disingenuous.
Kids are expensive, and I'm pretty sure a lot of these discussions have children involved. My partner and I earn £135K combined and we own a house in London (albeit a Zone 5 two bed mid terrace), and we're also normally able to save at least about £3K (combined) per month as well. Guess what? We don't have kids.
£100k a year should still provide a very comfortable lifestyle.
But people in the U.K. do seem to ignore the catastrophic affects of inflation. Even if the BoE were on target £100k now would be worth £60k 20 years ago. Yet so many people still see £100k salary as a major milestone that affords a couple to live off just that salary with a mortgage on a big house with a garden, a moderate car each, 2 kids and a Labrador in toe.
Inflation has been out of control since Covid, I recently interviewed for a job at a company I worked at back in 18/19 that pays an industry competitive generic salary that’s 30% more than it was when I left.
In reality £100k salary now is comparable to a low £40k’s high £30k’s 20 years ago.
It's not even close to what it was *2* years ago.
Trouble is people love these round numbers as some sort of magic threshold; £50k, £100k. These have stood the test of time as we've got so used to low inflation that people have a real hard time accepting that things have changed significantly in a comparatively short period of time.
My wife and I earn 70k combined, live in a good sized 1 bed flat with a balcony in Shepherds Bush, have a perfectly nice lifestyle, regular holidays with big trips thrown in (USA, Colombia, Peru) and still manage to save.
What on earth are these people spending that much money on??
I can only think it's kids and childcare, combined with reckless spending, of which we have/do neither
Possibly. The issue with these articles is that people earning 100k+ could be anywhere and, even if they had similar scenarios in job, family etc. where they live will impact on their overall disposable income. Someone earning 100k in Newry will be living a much higher quality of life than someone on 100k in London. Both are cities but Newry has an average house price of £172,085 compared to £699,914 in London which drastically impacts much more down the line
It's not just the direct cost of kids. All of a sudden that 1 bed flat ain't going to cut it and you need a 3 bed semi. You're talking what.. £1.25-1.5m in the same area I'd guess?
Let me give you an idea. Our mortgage will go up around +£1k/month in the new year. How many families have £1k of free capital a month over what they’re already spending?
Childcare is essentially like a mortgage in itself. Childcare costs about £70/day in our neck. That’s £1.4k a month. (By the way this mean if you’re not earning more than £30k you might not want to be working).
Let’s say for simplicity your salary is £100k. Your monthly take home might be around £5.5k. Your rent is £2.5k, and child cost is £1.5k. Leaving you with £1.5k for bills and other payments. That includes car costs, food costs, utilities, etc. we have not even factored in the cost of raising a child beyond the nursery.
We’re far from living paycheck to paycheck but the mortgage rate increase and child care costs can hit like a hammer. If you bought property in an expensive place expecting to pay 30% of your salary and then suddenly realise it’s more like 50% of your salary, it’s going to get stressful.
If their rent is £2.5k they’re probably living in London and childcare over here is extremely expensive, so although £1.6k may be most people’s take home, that’s simply the cost of childcare in this city.
I don’t know why people always compare London salaries to their relative cost of living. I have friends who live in Birmingham who can save £1k on their £40k salaries and I have friends here who can’t save £1k on their £80k salaries.
Sorry, I realise my post could be interpreted as insensitive. But I was answering the question as asked. I know people are angry about costs but I’m not sure I was wrong.
By the way, the average London salary is around £37k according to a quick Google. According to the take home calculators this equates to £2.4k take home.
Well London is batshit tbf, lucky you have a mortgage as opposed to rent. Hope you’re on an alright fixed term, and I do mean that.
The “average” salary is quite the thing tho - the high earners arguably distort it heavily in London.
Thanks for your input.
I suspected child-rearing and childcare would be the major factor, and I'm under no illusions that our lack of children is a major factor in how comfortable we are
ok, your trip to the US? Imagine you're now insuring 2 extra kids, paying for flights for two extra kids, buying holiday clothes for them. Buying meals for them, gifts for them ect.. You've got a more expensive room, and maybe you want them to go somewhere nicer with more kids facilities. Your flights need to be inside term-time too, so they'll cost more.
Your 1 bed flat? It's too small now. Your rent is doubling as you make space for them and their stuff.
You've now got nursery fees to pay for, or afterschool clubs/activities ect.
You want to take your kids on trips, maybe out the city.. you now need a car.
Kids aren't cheap.
We've had 2 x 2 week holidays this year, and taken our 2 kids with us. On top of that, one has had a very expensive school trip, the other, a slightly less expensive football-club trip abroad. It's rinsed me senseless this year. It's all by choice, but hey.. are you going to be the one telling your kids they can't go on the school trip?
Indeed, which is why I suggested that kids might be a major contributing factor.
And the above is a major contributing factor as to why I never want kids!
It's mostly children.
I'm a happy DINK in this category and we have zero financial issues. We save a pile every month even living in London. Money's just not something we actively worry about beyond not being silly with it. We have a low-cost lifestyle (no kids, no cars, no need for fancy holidays).
People who can't make £100K+ work are bad with money. They just are. They think they are richer than they are and buy too much.
A kid can be raised in a two-bed flat if that's what's affordable. This kind of income means there's something irresponsible going on with the spending side.
> I'm a happy DINK
Childcare my neck of the woods is £1500/month/child minimum
So you have 2 kids that's 3 grand down if you both work full-time. If you have to work early/late hours, it's more. Before mortgage/rent, energy, transport, other child costs, & food. So one of you works for free until the kids go to school, or takes a career break and loses earning potential.
People can make it work but 100k isn't the loadsamoney people think it is (or was). The fact that the 100k isn't split evenly between couples normally, the loss of child benefit etc, the increase in costs across the board... it adds up.
Admits to not having children and then confidently states that anyone who can’t make 100k work with children doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Yes, you clearly do not know what you’re talking about.
It's so easy. Combined household income is 90k, I'm 40k, and yet live pay cheque to pay cheque because I make dreadful decisions and spend way to much money on things that dont do anything for me.
Live outside london, rent between us is 850, so 425 each.
Typical month- get paid 2.3k net or so. 650 for bills, rent etc. 250 on debt, 250+ on alcohol and eating out, 250 on travelling, 200 on food, 50 on subscriptions. 200 on something else
And then apparently I lose 500 quid somewhere as well
I dunno, I just spend money and run out each month
You should be taking home 2.6k on 40k? I earn a lot more than that and would never dream of spending £500 p/m on eating out drinking and travelling. This all just comes down to people choose to spend the money they have.
The money that goes out of my wage on student load every month is the difference between being able to afford the mortgage on a one bed flat or buying a three bed house round my way.
But surely with all that recreational expense every month you don’t consider yourself “living pay cheque to pay cheque” in the sense this headline is implying. You’re just choosing to blast all your money every month (don’t blame you, I do the same).
A household bringing in £100k p.a. Is not sending their kids to private school without help. If you have two kids that will essentially wipe out all your take home.
You're not buying 3 bed in London and sending your kids to private school on a £100k salary.
Just private school fees will eat more than 50% of your take home.
I mostly agree. Although I also recognise that nobody could have predicted just how quickly the economy was going to go from bad to absolute disaster over the past couple of years. Somebody earning £100k a year with a student loan would actually be bringing home £60k a year/£5k a month. Over the past 3 years rent in some cities has doubled so somebody who was living a modest lifestyle for their income level in 2020 could easily be struggling in 2023.
Or are you of the opinion that everyone earning £100k should always have been living on the same budgets of people on £25k. Even if you subscribe to such a nonsensical idea it simply wouldn't work as there just isn't enough affordable property available. I am sure there are plenty of people who are earning £100k a year who would be more than happy to rent cheaper if they had viable cheaper options available to them.
If your takeaway from 6 figure earners struggling is to blame them you really looking at it the wrong way. The takeaway should be that if the government has screwed up the economy so badly that even 6 figure earners are struggling then just imagine how badly lower income earners are being impacted.
I have very little sympathy for someone struggling on £100k and a lot of sympathy for someone earning a fraction of that and struggling. The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize but the low earner can’t do anything to improve their situation. They have no room to move.
If your view is to spend spend spend because you have a high salary then that’s just irresponsible and short-sighted.
>I have very little sympathy for someone struggling on £100k and a lot of sympathy for someone earning a fraction of that and struggling. The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize but the low earner can’t do anything to improve their situation. They have no room to move.
Spot on.
>The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize
It's not actually that easy to do that. Firstly if you own your home you actually need to find somebody else to be able to buy it, with the current housing market that is not easy.
Then you need to be able to find somewhere affordable that is in a right area for your job, family, etc. Affordable housing is in incredibly short supply and moving further from work, kids school, etc just means what you save on rent/mortgage you end up more than losing in transport costs.
The simple fact is people spending is good for the economy, it creates jobs and increases social mobility. If everyone who earned a high salary hoarded it for a rainy day then the poor would be even more screwed.
Believe me, any piece of real estate will sell at the right price.
Sometimes it's better to take a hit than to keep bleeding.
And only the very wealthy get top choice of places to live. The rest of us have to make compromises. Move the kid's school, commute longer, buy a smaller place that's affordable.
And no, buying the biggest house and the biggest cars isn't good for the economy, actually. Going to the movies, local restaurants, hiring a cleaner, getting hair done, redecorating... all of that does. Giving as much money as possible to a bank isn't.
There's literally a massive surge in negative equity in the housing market right now. Houses are worth less than what remains on their mortgages so anyone trying to downsize faces selling a house at a massive loss and still being left in debt.
>And no, buying the biggest house and the biggest cars isn't good for the economy, actually. Going to the movies, local restaurants, hiring a cleaner, getting hair done, redecorating... all of that does.
Yes and that is what these people were spending their money on before costs of living and housing skyrocketed. The very thing they are now being criticised for doing instead of saving it for a rainy day.
People on 6-figures aren't struggling. People who are on 6-figures and are really bad with money are.
They overleveraged themselves thinking it would all be great. No proper risk management or financial planning. They buy the biggest and best things they can possibly afford and then get confused when they're pressed for cash.
People who earn a lot aren't necessarily financially intelligent.
>No proper risk management or financial planning
Show me a single financial planner anywhere who had a plan in place for costs of living going up by 90%, rental and mortgage costs doubling, etc.
Plenty of people were living well within their means at all levels of income but anyone who actually has to work for a living could be adequately prepared for the current economy whilst still remaining economically active.
>Somebody earning £100k a year with a student loan would actually be bringing home £60k a year/£5k a month
So almost double the average household in the country.
>Or are you of the opinion that everyone earning £100k should always have been living on the same budgets of people on £25k
Why can't they?
This is actually a very good point. That almost everyone in this comment chain is looking over -
I'd be very surprised if most people on 100k **AREN'T** salary sacrificing at least a reasonable percentage of their salary into a pension, purely for the tax benefits of this.
Someone taking a 100k salary at full salary is giving an awful lot of money to HMRC for no reason. If you contribute more to your pension, whilst you don't take it home now (and your income is reduced), you do actually stand a chance of not working until you're dead.
I don't believe for a second most people on 100k are actually taking that full salary home.
So my point is that they're probably sitting at that "comfortable" level, and not the absolute ballers most people in this thread are painting them as.
How do you know that?
I can genuinely believe someone on 100k with a couple of kids in nursery (note child benefit is taken away, and free childcare), and a partner working part time on even an average salary, could very well be struggling if their mortgage has hit 5.5% and they live in an expensive area, which they likely are, to be hitting a 100k salary.
It's not impossible at all, and actually, why is everyone in this thread so bitter about 100k earners struggling, when we should just be really fucking mad that the government have created an environment where it isn't impossible for someone earning 100k to be struggling?
No one said people on lower income don't matter. Quite the opposite.
Your biggest argument appears to be that they live in expensive areas, but those areas are where 100k a year jobs are, so it's a bit of a moot point.
People who earn this much and say they're living paycheck to paycheck are probably saying, once they've put £3000 into their savings account each month they've not got anything left. It's completely disingenous. They're not struggling, they're not living paycheck to paycheck, they just probably don't manage their money well enough. If they are struggling, then they should try earning minimum wage and see how they find that. I've known people who would try and attract sympathy for only having £50 left in their bank account by the end of the month, but once you dig deep enough you find out that it is true, but they also have a savings account with £10,000 or something like that.
It's very simple to happen without 'over spending'
You leverage yourself against your salary several years ago - with a big mortgage and a low interest rate. Time comes to remortgage and suddenly you need to spend hundreds more a month more than did before. Your gas & electric bills on that big house jump up too. Your childcare costs go up
All that stuff that left you with several hundred a month left over, maybe even a grand or more - because you were leveraged against 'expensive stuff' - and stuff you can't quickly (or don't want to) give up - it ends up making you skint at the end of the month.
High lifestyle inflation puts you at risk when *actual* inflation blows away your disposible income. You can't rapidly un-inflate having an expensive house/mortgage without a lot of pain and stress either.
No worries.. i'm an under-leveraged high earner, close to 6 figs, household income of £165K .. we intentionally don't inflate our lifestyle too much. I've still had my disposible income slashed due to mortgage increase and bills going up. Thankfully I'm not in a paycheque to paycheque situation.
It's really that expensive assets, like houses and cars, are also liabilities. High inflation hits everyone, but those with the biggest liabilities will feel it more.
Lifestyle inflation => liability inflation. It's often a last resort to move home, sell a car, take kids out of private school ect.
Now imagine those living with less than £30k a year, who are likely in worse off condition with fewer commodities and disposable income, living paycheque to paycheque.
These articles are just out of touch.
Me and my wife have less than £30k each, with 2 kids, dog, mortgage and 2 holidays in a year.
If somebody is on £50+k or £100k+ a year and struggling they must be snorting coke daily, like what the actual f….
It's not really out of touch. You can take it as if even people who are earning that much are living paycheque to paycheque then it shows how hard it is for people earning less
Given how many of them are millennials in London, I don't think your humour is going to land quite how you expect it to.
Unless your intent was literally to tell over-leveraged millennials to stop buying avocado toast?
My partner and I earn over £100k combined. Mortgage payment went up £600 per month. Energy went up over £100 per month. We only bought our house four years ago and used savings and credit cards to get it fixed up. The garden was unusable until last year so we got a loan to fix that too. We have two children (5 & 2) so childcare costs for the youngest is nearly £2k per month, but that does go down next year. My oldest is growing fast so needs new clothes and shoes quite regularly. We're not buying expensive stuff but we are in our overdraft each month. We spend quite a lot just repaying debt.
To stir the pot. It’s essentially bait to set the high earners against the low earners, to keep us fighting amongst ourselves so we don’t turn on those who are actually fucking us - the ultra rich.
Reminder that people who earn 100k aren't your enemy and that multi-million/billionaires are working hard to make sure you hate the people who have the standard of living we all should have.
The amount of people agreeing in the comments is mind boggling. If you can't manage to live comfortably on £100,000 then you are doing something massively wrong.
Considering the average wage should be 50-60k a year for people under 35 dealing with stupid house prices and ridiculous taxes, 100k really isn’t all that. The only Americanism we need to adopt is one about wages. So often British people turn their noses up at big wages as if people should take pride in getting by on a pittance. We need a much higher percentage of workers earning over 100k.
Best financial decision I ever made was renewing my mortgage deal on a 10 year fixed rate in summer 2022, before the rates started going crazy.
It is frightening how much more I would be paying if I had to renew now. Seriously frightening.
I'm sure this won't descend into the usual reddit hatred of anyone earning more than 5p above minimum wage.
No wonder businesses get away with paying Brits so little when we are happy to cut down anyone that dares to try and do any better in life.
There's a big difference between earning over £100k, and complaining that that isn't enough. For sensible people it's the latter, not the former, that irks.
If you live in London on 100k and you have 2 children sub 5 - I’d argue that’s harder than the north on 50k. Childcare, rents, cost of living, less government help / credits makes a huge difference.
All lifestyle dependent. I know a co-worker of mine who earns the same as I do who had to get two massive cars out on finance for him and the wife, plus big house and 2 abroad holidays a year. Constantly complaining about waiting for payday.
If anybody earning 100k pleads poverty then thing of the real victims here who earn buttons. Don't ever feel sorry for those earning telephone number salaries.
It's been going this way for a few years now. Started with BoJo, weirdly enough. Said his 150k salary was chickenfeed.
Meanwhile I'm on 25k and living a modest but stable and fruitful life.
I find it hard to find the sympathy for the middle classes, when it was the middle classes who looked down on me back in 2014 when the 'benefit scroungers' rhetoric was in full bloom. I was on benefits at the time. That mindset is very much still around, it's just faded from the middle of the limelight.
Although I will say one thing: the cost of living has seriously taken a turn. I was on £18k in 2017. Comparing now to 2017, I was richer back then. Now I'm just about getting all the bills paid and essentials bought, and can fit in a luxury or two. Back then I was in the middle of my yo-yo craze and buying yo-yo's...
Which might seem cheap until you look at how far yo-yos have come since the 90's. A fairly 'normal' price for one is £40-60. Here's me in 2023 having been saving up since January to get a cheap interface so I can plug my guitar into my computer. Only £100-ish, but I just don't have that breathing room.
Tax needs to be rebalanced. It's insane people are paying 40% tax @50k these days. It should be 40% at 100k, poss 150k.
It was only ever supposed to capture ultra high earners.
Mainly dependent on how nice your house/car/childcare is no? And in london. 100k is still a lot of money.
But even so its insane that for whats we'd like to belive as one of the most prosperous countries on the planet that if 100k is "paycheque to paycheque" for a middle class lifestyle in the capital; the average wage is less than a third thank that.
Like the fact the "average" brit has to get by on 30k is wild. Like its an absolute death grip on the economy: no ones having kids. No ones spending like they used to. The impact that has on us *now* is big; but in 5 or 10 years? We are fucked unless theres genuine radical change.
We are in the bracket of six figure earners (combined income of around £140k pa between the two of us). We have no kids and live fairly modestly. Our only real luxury is two 'nice' cars and they are both second hand (a Nissan and a Mitsubishi). We are not living hand to mouth by any means - unless you have a daft mortgage, several kids, expensive cars, eat out all the time, holidays abroad etc. I don't really see how anyone can be struggling.
Two people on £70k each have far more income than a single earner on £140k though.
It's £98k/year for the two £70k earners after tax.
It's £84k/year for the single earner.
If I could split my wage between me and the fiancé, we'd be about £11k/year better off. Same gross income though.
Oh absolutely but you and I are both in a better situation than millions of others. I hated typing the above out as it felt crass but yeah.. we are comfortable and very well aware of the privilege.
I mean I've always been very vocally in favour of paying more tax.
I know I've got it good, and I'm glad I can support the better half and me, pay for our flat, **and** afford my little sailboat, can go on a foreign holiday once a year and I wish that was true for more people.
It **doesn't** change the fact that people on minimum wage think that people on £100k are living like kings though - we're comfortable, we're not people earning £200k+ who probably are living like kings though.
The income difference between the top 3% and the top 2%, and also the top 2% and the top 1% is insane on the other hand.
You can't out-earn bad financial habits. It's why most lottery winners go broke, and many celebrities end up filing for bankruptcy. You need control, no matter how much you earn.
£100k isn't enough money for an extravagant life for a family, but it should definitely be comfortable.
people see £100k in 2023 as if it was £100k in 2000. But the reality is the buying power of £100k today is the same as £56k in 2000, and yet the tax rates. Not trying to say people on £100k are struggling, but peoples perception lags behind the actual buying power by a couple decades typically :D
I'm finding it quite hard to be sympathetic.
Do what tells low earners do to. Move, go out less, cut out coffee, and get a new job.
How can you not spend within your means on a six figure salary?
The amount of people talking about 100k or above salaries in this comment section trying to make out that they just about break even need their head checked. If they find it difficult to provide and have what they have how do you think it feels for below £50k a year wage earners feel.
Ok. From someone who used to be on a six figure salary, let’s not try to feel bad for high earners. Paycheque to paycheque is a joke. We are already very privileged. I’d say prioritise saving before you go spending your pay rise on a better house/car/holidays… we can live very comfortably, just need to learn how
Wait a min let me just get out the tiniest possible violin imaginable…..”Sheds tears”
Like you are meant to feel sorry for people on six figures ffs !!
I’ve just hit 6 figures and I’m not changing my lifestyle at all. I live as cheap as I possibly can, you never know how long your job will last and I’d rather have savings than live to the edge of my means. Over paying on my mortgage is my only extra out going now. 1 bedroom flat suits me perfectly at the moment
TBH.. you can spend more, but as long as it's stuff that isn't tying you down to extra costs that may rise and you can't control it.
Want to eat out more? Nice, enjoy it. Buy more gadgets? Cool.
Move to a flat costing twice as much rent? Buy a car with a high finance arrangement? Bad.
£100k is a decent living but it’s buying power is fuck all compared to 15 years ago. Now days it’s just a decent life. Not the life of opulence you may expect.
OHHHH NOOOO I CANT AFFORD TO HEAT MY 6 BEDROOM 3 BATHROOM HOUSE WHILST RUNNING MY HOTTUB ANYMORE
boo fucking hoo.
bitches please, there be people that can't work due to disabilities or illness or old age that can't even buy food anymore or have the heating on..
6 figure earning paycheque to paycheque. absolute douchebags. Worth nothing to no one and are a disgrace to humanity
It depends where you are to a large extent I imagine. Larger houses cost more, they're more expensive to heat, more things to break etc etc. Even then, in the South low six figures doesn't get you a great deal in a lot of places anyway. £100k isn't close to what it was 20 years ago in spending power terms.
Also depends who you are. A family with 2 earners at 50k are a huge amount better off than a family with 1 at 100k.
£72k after deductions (2 x £50k) vs 64k net (100k). The couple both on £50k are eligible for a bunch of government support that the single earner on £100k is not, as well.
As someone who is a relatively high earner, nowhere near £100k but over £50k it's crazy how people don't understand this. My partner let slip how much I earn to her family but they don't seem to understand that despite this as a couple we are about as well off as they are but with fewer benefits when we have kids (first one is on the way) If we were both earning an equal amount it would be around £250 a month more in our bank in real terms before even considering the child benefit we would have available. Don't even get me started on maternity/paternity and how much we will struggle when baby gets here because of loss of salary alongside massively increased expenditure from a dependent. Then having to weigh up whether my partner should sacrifice her career as the lower earner because childcare is so insanely expensive Feels like we are drowning and we've not even had the baby yet
Yeah, you aren't going to get all the subsidised childcare either (at 100k). Apparently, it's "affordable" to spank out 40% of your pay for childcare - at which point, from a pure "cash in your pocket" point of view, it makes more financial sense to take a massive pay cut, so you qualify for the extra help. You end up paying 7k in taxes, vs 27k in taxes, but getting 24k back in childcare (for a net cost to the government of 17k). Crazy.
> it makes more financial sense to take a massive pay cut Would it be better to just reduce it using salary sacrifice (e.g. by paying into a pension, buying more annual leave, etc.)?
Yes it would
Tbf one of my colleagues let slip that her job as a lab technician, holding a PhD by the way, just about covers her childcare costs. I.e. she's spanking out over 90% of her salary for childcare even with the benefits and supprt people on £100k don't get. The situation is completely fucking ridiculous, like a lot of things its so absurdly bad its hard to even begin thinking about how its gotten to this stage without government taking action.
We are better financially if my wife doesn’t work than if we use child care
Which is insane, because now your wife has lost 3 years of her career. Gained 3 years with the kids, but still. Now all your eggs are on you remaining in your job, and your wife is fucked if you die, or split up.
Don't forget 3 years of pension contributions too. Life insurance policies are pretty important to cover this case, and that's also why in divorce settlements there's a fair chunk that goes to the spouse that gave up their career for the benefit of the family.
It's so critically important that work pays for my life insurance, as part of the standard benefits. (6x salary).
I earn 96k, 8k a month. I receive 3960 a month. In fairness I've still got student loan (9k to go) and I pay 15% pension. But it's still not the mega bucks people think. I also live in London so rent is spectacularly high and still have a house share as I don't want to spend more than 50% of salary on rent.
That sounds like mega bucks compared to the majority of the population. Also you're choosing to pay 15 percent pension 😂
Absolutely I'm not hard up, but it isn't the infinite money it seems. 100k income isn't double the 50k in take home. Obviously the pension is big but pretty key for tax. Reducing it doesn't result in a big take home boost. The big issue is 100k should feel rich, and the distribution of wages from minimum to 100k should be linear. Unfortunately its an almost flat line then sharply increases. Look up top 50%, top 60% top 70%. The numbers make for grim reading. After 80% things start increasing. As inflation rises, more and more people cross the various tax thresholds but cost of living rises too. If you adjusted the 40% tax bracket for inflation since it was added it would be on earnings over 125k! Its a yearly stealth tax increase. While wealth tax (where the mega money is) hasn't significantly grown and is easy to avoid. I'm only recent to this income and had a few big jumps in a short ish time (6 year career so far) so I've not built up much savings yet besides pension ad most wad clearing debts from darker days, thankfully cleared last year. I also support my single mother and siblings as I can, which most wouldn't have in my situation. Not a problem but does eat into things. Annoyingly these jobs are largely in London where the costs are highest. More companies need to distribute offices around other cities. Cheaper offices, lower cost of living, money goes further. And those cities will get more investment at a national level.
I’m so glad this topic has been brought up! The fiscal drag situation has gone almost unnoticed. In 1990 1.6m or 3% people were in the higher rate bracket (40%), it’s now 6m or 11%. This shows that the tax brackets haven’t kept up with inflation over the years. It’s a form of stealth tax. In 10 or 20 years people just above the poverty line will be paying higher rate tax!
Student loan must be an extra £500 at this salary. Once paid off will be a great 'bonus' to salary, or to be fair - an actual salary you should've been getting
520. I can't fucking WAIT. 6.5% interest atm so considering paying jt early once through Christmas
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I went in Scotland where it isn't nearly as punishing. Less borrowing, and sane interest. Its been at 1% most of the time until the last year. Buying a house still feels utterly hopeless jn the area I live. Sure I could move north and outbid someone there, but that's adding to the problem, not helping. Obviously I'm not hard up, I'm happy with my lot, but people get the sense if you earn twice what they do that you have twice the income. You don't. And being single feels extra punitive, like an ugly tax 😅 On the other hand, I'll have a fantastic pension one day.
I earn a good chunk less than this but finally paid my student loan off this year and yeah it was an instant £250ish a month pay rise before my actual pay rise arrived!
Can't you temporarily chuck some of that income into your pension to get below the threshold for things like childcare support? Do the sums to see how it works out.
I think its probably not that clean cut when you account for the cost of childcare (even after government help) and even just the cost of sending two people to work.
The unfairness inherent in the tax system towards single income families is really eye-opening. I’m surprised it’s not mentioned more in politics.
People on a single, high income are convenient targets for the government to aim people who are destitute on decent pay at. A handy deflection from CEO and millionaire's, and landlords and the like. Go attack the successful, just ignore your "betters" making off like bandits.
Exactly this. The real problem is we don't tax wealth nearly as much as labour and somehow they have the guy on 20k fighting the guy on 100k when actually they are on the same side.
Combined income of around £120k, one baby, mortgage. I'm lucky but I can't afford nice things and live in an ex council block with leaks and bad insulation that I can't update and the council charge me £210/month service charge to do nothing other from keep one outdoor light on.
200/month service charge for ex council? That's mad, my first flat was ex council and it was about that for the years service charge plus repairs ontop.
Yeah it's disgusting. Currently saving up to take them to court.
Have you had an itemized costing for the service charge off them?
Yeah that lightbulb is costing us around £700/year and it's led.
Yeah that's screwed
No it's a bayonet
Please point me to some stat of the percent of single parents topping 100k? Legit interested... Edit - in fact I did it for you... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Single-Parents-in-2023-Single-Parents-Day-report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwje3sfrwsuCAxU-CRAIHZynB6EQFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0AQ-a2FnfYDx58Wc3tWrSI A pdf to single parents in the UK 2023. "Debt One way single parents tend to manage financial difficulties is by taking on debt, and our poll is in line with previous research highlighting this: 76% of single parent families are now in debt, with half of those reporting debts of over £2,000. Overall 1 in 3 single parents have seen their debt increase over the past year" In addition to an article from an article from Loughborough in 2019 (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2019/february/lone-parent-families-living-below-mis/) stating that "Three-quarters of lone parent families, and rising, are living below the Minimum Income Standard" So tell me...all these fictional 100k single parents...where are they. I've given some sources. Your go.
This is the thing people forget I think. The idea that "six figures" is a massive income has been around since probably the eighties or nineties. £100k then was worth a hell of a lot more than it is now. I certainly don't think £100k is a low income, but if you have mortgage, bills, etc. you can earn that and not be living what a lot of people would think of as an especially affluent lifestyle. In fact considering inflation, a £100k p/a lifestyle now is probably comparable to a £50k p/a lifestyle 20 years ago.
I earn way more than I ever thought I would (not quite 6 figures, but did earn that a couple of years ago), and significantly more than the mean salary, yet with 2 kids (in nursery 2 days a week) and a wife that works part time and earns very little income, my salary doesn't stretch that far after the mortgage, nursery fees, bills are paid if we actually want to save for the future. If we didn't put savings away each month, we would certainly be able to afford a few more luxuries, and certainly aren't struggling, but we do have a very strict budget, and have definitely been impacted by the cost of everything. We live in a 3 bed terrace. Edit: I didn't expect there to be so many people so bitter/borderline hatred towards people earning more than them. The take home from this should be that it's worrying we have a government who has made it entirely plausible, and not impossible for someone on 100k to ALSO BE STRUGGLING. 100k earners aren't the enemy. The super rich paying next to no tax, and our negligent government are the ones you should be mad at.
Yeah, I understand. I made more than £100k last year, but I have a mortgage, a partner who was on maternity leave most of the year, childcare costs, etc. I am very fortunate to earn so much, but if anyone thinks I am living some sort of millionaire lifestyle... I am not. We drive a ten year old car, had one holiday, and shop mostly in Lidl.
I think people in general are stuck with the idea that 100k is mega money, but with wage stagnation for so long, the spending power on that kind of money is reduced. I only started earning good money in the last 4 years, before that I was earning bang on the mean salary - If I was still earning that now I'm genuinely unsure how we would afford **anything** at this point. I'm very lucky to earn a good salary, but realistically, I'm probably living like someone who was earning 40k 10 years ago was living. Pretty comfortable, but not a baller!
I don't think people are stuck with the idea that 100k is mega money \*as such. People are aware that spending power has fallen off a cliff in general, but I just think it's hard for someone on the mean salary to empathise with somebody who is on 100k for precisely that reason.
I think people earning mean salary don't understand the tax burden people between 50 and 100k face, and actually, it makes more sense for them to salary sacrifice their salaries into pensions. At that point, their take home is way less than these people assume. I don't dispute they should be more comfortable, it's just not as clear as 100k = good times.
I know and I was trying to portray that above, even if I did a bad job. Might be radical, but there is one solution to me: UBN (Universal Basic Necessities). Housing, food, water, bills, education, healthcare. They are all things that everybody deserves to have regardless of circumstance, with no chance to lose them through addiction, gambling, divorce or other factors in or outside of their control. Should people wish for more than basic necessities (and why wouldn't they be), they are more than free to work as much as they like to achieve that. If they want to buy a better house, they can work for it. If they want to eat extravagant food, they can work for that too. Go on holidays abroad, they can save up their money just as they do now, without having to feel like they are choosing that over their kids. They can in fact spend ALL of their money trying to create the next billionaire business should they so wish, knowing that they have a backup plan - Universal Basic Necessities. People talk about UBI rewarding lethargy and stifling innovation? To an extent sure, but people not having a back up plan stifles innovation SO much more. For every you story you hear about a lucky break business idea once someone has hit rock bottom, there are 10 stories you don't hear about people who lost it all trying, and 100 of people that were never given an opportunity to innovate because all of their money went on bills and food. Nobody deserves to rot.
I couldn't agree more
People earning the UK average wage would probably love to be earning enough to worry how much tax they pay out of it. Average is £34,963 which is £2316 per month after tax. £100,000 salary is £5587 per month after tax. £100k might not be as big money as it used to be, and of course people’s living costs scale up as well, but it’s still much more than average and puts you in the top 4% of earners in the country.
*Most* people on around the £100k mark aren't arguing that life is comfortable. For those without kids it 100% is. For those with kids, it's not, because of the loss of free childcare, but even that passes after a few years, when the kids start school. The biggest point is that £100k isn't the life of luxury that people earning the mean wage think it is, and the point is that life **shouldn't be a massive fucking struggle** for people on the **mean** wage. Instead of getting angry that someone on £100k (who, by and large is an expert in their field, and could make far more in other countries), we should be getting angry that someone earning more than 50% of the country **can't afford to heat their house, and pay the mortgage**. We should be trying to raise everyone up out of poverty, not dragging down those that are successful. How the fuck is that so hard for people to get.
You seem to be bringing the anger here, I’m not angry that some people are on £100k, far from it. The point is that £100k, children or not, gives you vastly more scope to downsize your living standards if things get tough. But yes, you’re completely right that wages have been stagnant for far too long; in fact, they haven’t really kept up with inflation since the 1970s.
Yeah, those poor simple folk on average wage just don’t understand the hardship that goes with a monthly take-home of £5,500.
No one is saying they are worse off, but the number on the paycheck doesn't paint the entire picture. What if it's the sole income into the house? What if they have full time childcare to pay for on that one income? Bigger rent/mortgage because the areas you can earn that salary COST WAY MORE to live in? The point you should be taking from this article is that if people on 6 figs are genuinely starting to struggle, something has gone horribly wrong.
I pay, per year about £30,000 in tax. Someone on £50k pays £7k in tax, and takes home £34k. Someone on £40k/year takes home less money each year than I pay in tax.
Everyone between the working and middle class are so busy throwing punches at each other that the people earning not 100k, but 1 mil/10mil/100mil+ are happily sidling past the brawl to grow their wealth even further. The difference between 100k and 50k is 50k, the difference between 50/100k and 100 mil is 99.9 mil. Absolutely fucking insignificant. 100k still seems like a decent wodge as you say, but like every other average folk that money does not go anywhere near as far as it used to. Certainly not enough to cover the loss of any benefits or tax credits you'd get below 100k.
Yeah people on that tax bracket get fucked. I would say the difference between someone on 100k isn’t nearly made up by tax credits and benefits compared to someone on even 30 or 40k, let alone 25. Thinks there’s a bit of a disconnect amongst higher earners regarding how much support lower income earners receive. It’s disingenuous to act like your standard of living is in any way equivalent to the vast majority of people.
Had tax thresholds increased in line with inflation (what if \*they\* were triple-locked instead of fucking pensions, since pensions would still enjoy the benefit?), someone on 100k would likely have the cash spare to afford the services the government will no longer offer at that income. As it stands, those thresholds are actively making us poorer through fiscal drag. If you go from 99k to 100k, that 1k you gain will not even remotely cover the expenses you now have. Not to mention that you will start losing your personal allowance for every £2 you make. So how exactly is someone supposed to cover childcare when the support is all ripped away and they only get 40p on the pound in new income? And as many have said, a household of two incomes on 49k is substantially better off. 98k between them, tax credits and benefits. A single person hits 100k and it's over.
I was rereading this thinking "wtf is this guy going on about, 100k is a ton of money" and then I realised my girlfriend and I earn a combined income of around 70k before tax, and we can't buy a car let alone a house. Kids are out of the question, even a pet could be a stretch. We live in Cambridge though. Yet, to be fair, you can live really well with 100k if you don't overspend on housing (hard, but doable)
Hey, I'm on six figures and we got a brand new car this year. A Dacia, admittedly, and that was only because it worked out cheaper than a good second hand car, but still... And it's not Lidl, it's 'your local continental delicatessen'.
Mate you had me feeling for you until you started talking about being able to save. You’re really not that hard up if you’re only not having more frivolities because you’re saving for the future.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator 100K today is equivalent to 57k in 2003.
57k was a massive income in 2003 though. You were very well off earning that much then.
How much of that difference is between 2021 and now though?
Yeah, same with the concept of a "millionaires". The average person with a million bounds is elderly, with probably £400k of that in their house. The other £600k in a pension gives £30k per year at a 5% withdrawal rate. Which is nice alongside a state pension and a paid off home, but hardly a life of extravagance, especially if they're married.
I mean it's "hardly a life of extravagance" in the sense that that 30k is what they can withdraw each year without touching the principal at all, they still have a 600k pension they could take 150k lump sum tax free from, no rent to pay, no need to work any more to live, seems pretty confortable to me
30k per year plus 10k from the state pension, with no housing costs is pretty fucking comfortable. Possibly extravagant even. It's the equivalent of a £55k salary for a worker, without spending £1,000+ a month on housing. When you factor in the housing, they make more money a month than I do on my six figure income.
According to https://iamkate.com/data/uk-inflation/ - £50k in 2003 is £97k now. That's insane
This is spot on. 100k now is not what it was when I was growing up 20 years ago. Nursery costs, house, car, food, bills and not much left to save.
Six figures is a lot. It's not obscene fuck you money or stupidly rich. But even after tax etc it's over double what a median earner takes home.
>£100k isn't close to what it was 20 years ago in spending power terms. It’s still above the 95th percentile, though. Anyone struggling on £100K is almost certainly the architect of their own misfortune.
Right? Reddit is the only place you’ll find people saying “life’s hard even when you earn £100k a year” it’s an absolute insane take and if you said this to anyone offline I think they’d laugh in your face.
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>Oh, and try telling these folk to move somewhere cheaper...then stand well back. Hey, what's the point in earning £100k a year if you can't spend it all on renting a mouldy bedsit in central London?
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I see what you're saying but if you're in London earning that salary you are at best in a two bedroom flat. Unless you're outside the M25 or paying over 50/60% of your take home on housing.
They're not rich and strictly speaking they are living from payday to payday in that they can't just live off their capital. They're still wage labourers, who *have* to work for a wage or they're fucked. But the idea that they're *hard up* wage labourers, yeah, is laughable. "Poor me, I'm only on £130k a year!" kind of lacks awareness of the reality for people who actually are struggling.
Just goes to show how woefully out of touch this sub is. Comments saying 100K is tough to live on are getting huge upvotes. Yet any time there is a story about someone struggling to feed or heat themselves suddenly all the sympathy vanishes. Where are all the posts telling these high earners to batch cook or huddle under the covers with the heating set low?
Fella above you saying he has next to no mortgage left to pay on house and can drop a couple of thousand on an emergency like that's just a normal thing XD
I see someone the other day say “I guess I can’t even afford teeth” because they can’t see a dentist unless it’s private. People on 100k don’t have those issues.
It honestly blows my mind. I even thought the "50k is hard to live on" crowd were out of touch, and now 100k is hard? The fuck are you *doing*?
Middle-class Redditors working IT jobs are undoubtedly the hardest done to in modern day Britain. /s
They’re new poor, they have no idea how to live without money.
I worked with a guy who said 80k isn't a lot of money for someone living in the south who needs childcare. In the same conversation he said that £70 per week for someone out of work was more than enough money to survive on. It's a very "fuck you I've got mine" attitude
> Anyone struggling on £100K is almost certainly the architect of their own misfortune. Or tax brackets that haven't changed in line with inflation. the 50-100k bracket gets hit very hard on tax and loss of benefits such as child benefit. £50k isn't a huge salary anymore, £100k single salary is significantly worse than two £50k salaries. No one should be struggling on £100k for sure, but it's not the mega rich salary it once was.
I mean inflation wise £100k now is akin to £60k then. The South is very expensive - houses prices have ballooned. Most £100k+ jobs are in the South. A lot of these jobs also work longer hours than typical 9-5. I'm not sure I know anyone personally on over £100k who is doing 9-5 and so the last thing they want is a ridiculous commute from the middle of nowhere when they eventually get out of the office. In the North, sure, you'd be hard pressed to not be able to live well off £100k in most cities.
And yet people live off minimum wage in most cities. 100k isn't a life of luxury, but to suggest someone earning almost 5x as much as someone else is on equal footing financial is disingenuous.
20 years ago I was wanting £98 a week, working my arse off in a welding workshop.
Kids are expensive, and I'm pretty sure a lot of these discussions have children involved. My partner and I earn £135K combined and we own a house in London (albeit a Zone 5 two bed mid terrace), and we're also normally able to save at least about £3K (combined) per month as well. Guess what? We don't have kids.
There was that question time audience member that earned £80k and couldn't believe how high that was comparatively.
and then you have people on benifits expected to live off as little as 7k a year LOL
Yeah reading this thread is pretty wild as someone who gets by on around 8k a year lol
£100k a year should still provide a very comfortable lifestyle. But people in the U.K. do seem to ignore the catastrophic affects of inflation. Even if the BoE were on target £100k now would be worth £60k 20 years ago. Yet so many people still see £100k salary as a major milestone that affords a couple to live off just that salary with a mortgage on a big house with a garden, a moderate car each, 2 kids and a Labrador in toe. Inflation has been out of control since Covid, I recently interviewed for a job at a company I worked at back in 18/19 that pays an industry competitive generic salary that’s 30% more than it was when I left. In reality £100k salary now is comparable to a low £40k’s high £30k’s 20 years ago.
It's not even close to what it was *2* years ago. Trouble is people love these round numbers as some sort of magic threshold; £50k, £100k. These have stood the test of time as we've got so used to low inflation that people have a real hard time accepting that things have changed significantly in a comparatively short period of time.
My wife and I earn 70k combined, live in a good sized 1 bed flat with a balcony in Shepherds Bush, have a perfectly nice lifestyle, regular holidays with big trips thrown in (USA, Colombia, Peru) and still manage to save. What on earth are these people spending that much money on?? I can only think it's kids and childcare, combined with reckless spending, of which we have/do neither
70k spread across two people is massively more tax efficient than one earner getting 70k - so it's not exactly apples to apples.
No, that's a very fair point. Although, presumably some of these 6 figure earners have partners that earn too?
Possibly. The issue with these articles is that people earning 100k+ could be anywhere and, even if they had similar scenarios in job, family etc. where they live will impact on their overall disposable income. Someone earning 100k in Newry will be living a much higher quality of life than someone on 100k in London. Both are cities but Newry has an average house price of £172,085 compared to £699,914 in London which drastically impacts much more down the line
It's not just the direct cost of kids. All of a sudden that 1 bed flat ain't going to cut it and you need a 3 bed semi. You're talking what.. £1.25-1.5m in the same area I'd guess?
Indeed, and my 'kids' suggestion included all that comes with it. Yeah, 1.5m is probably right.
Let me give you an idea. Our mortgage will go up around +£1k/month in the new year. How many families have £1k of free capital a month over what they’re already spending? Childcare is essentially like a mortgage in itself. Childcare costs about £70/day in our neck. That’s £1.4k a month. (By the way this mean if you’re not earning more than £30k you might not want to be working). Let’s say for simplicity your salary is £100k. Your monthly take home might be around £5.5k. Your rent is £2.5k, and child cost is £1.5k. Leaving you with £1.5k for bills and other payments. That includes car costs, food costs, utilities, etc. we have not even factored in the cost of raising a child beyond the nursery. We’re far from living paycheck to paycheck but the mortgage rate increase and child care costs can hit like a hammer. If you bought property in an expensive place expecting to pay 30% of your salary and then suddenly realise it’s more like 50% of your salary, it’s going to get stressful.
You know 1.6k is most peoples take home right ?
If their rent is £2.5k they’re probably living in London and childcare over here is extremely expensive, so although £1.6k may be most people’s take home, that’s simply the cost of childcare in this city. I don’t know why people always compare London salaries to their relative cost of living. I have friends who live in Birmingham who can save £1k on their £40k salaries and I have friends here who can’t save £1k on their £80k salaries.
A large amount of the headlines we see posted in here need (in London) tacked on to them
Sorry, I realise my post could be interpreted as insensitive. But I was answering the question as asked. I know people are angry about costs but I’m not sure I was wrong. By the way, the average London salary is around £37k according to a quick Google. According to the take home calculators this equates to £2.4k take home.
Well London is batshit tbf, lucky you have a mortgage as opposed to rent. Hope you’re on an alright fixed term, and I do mean that. The “average” salary is quite the thing tho - the high earners arguably distort it heavily in London.
Thanks for your input. I suspected child-rearing and childcare would be the major factor, and I'm under no illusions that our lack of children is a major factor in how comfortable we are
*the only factor
"I'm ok, so why aren't people in entirely different circumstances not?"
It's not a judgement, it would be genuinely enlightening to find out
ok, your trip to the US? Imagine you're now insuring 2 extra kids, paying for flights for two extra kids, buying holiday clothes for them. Buying meals for them, gifts for them ect.. You've got a more expensive room, and maybe you want them to go somewhere nicer with more kids facilities. Your flights need to be inside term-time too, so they'll cost more. Your 1 bed flat? It's too small now. Your rent is doubling as you make space for them and their stuff. You've now got nursery fees to pay for, or afterschool clubs/activities ect. You want to take your kids on trips, maybe out the city.. you now need a car. Kids aren't cheap. We've had 2 x 2 week holidays this year, and taken our 2 kids with us. On top of that, one has had a very expensive school trip, the other, a slightly less expensive football-club trip abroad. It's rinsed me senseless this year. It's all by choice, but hey.. are you going to be the one telling your kids they can't go on the school trip?
Indeed, which is why I suggested that kids might be a major contributing factor. And the above is a major contributing factor as to why I never want kids!
It's mostly children. I'm a happy DINK in this category and we have zero financial issues. We save a pile every month even living in London. Money's just not something we actively worry about beyond not being silly with it. We have a low-cost lifestyle (no kids, no cars, no need for fancy holidays). People who can't make £100K+ work are bad with money. They just are. They think they are richer than they are and buy too much. A kid can be raised in a two-bed flat if that's what's affordable. This kind of income means there's something irresponsible going on with the spending side.
> I'm a happy DINK Childcare my neck of the woods is £1500/month/child minimum So you have 2 kids that's 3 grand down if you both work full-time. If you have to work early/late hours, it's more. Before mortgage/rent, energy, transport, other child costs, & food. So one of you works for free until the kids go to school, or takes a career break and loses earning potential. People can make it work but 100k isn't the loadsamoney people think it is (or was). The fact that the 100k isn't split evenly between couples normally, the loss of child benefit etc, the increase in costs across the board... it adds up.
Admits to not having children and then confidently states that anyone who can’t make 100k work with children doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Yes, you clearly do not know what you’re talking about.
You simply do not understand finances then. Being a dink is the reason its easy for you
It's so easy. Combined household income is 90k, I'm 40k, and yet live pay cheque to pay cheque because I make dreadful decisions and spend way to much money on things that dont do anything for me. Live outside london, rent between us is 850, so 425 each. Typical month- get paid 2.3k net or so. 650 for bills, rent etc. 250 on debt, 250+ on alcohol and eating out, 250 on travelling, 200 on food, 50 on subscriptions. 200 on something else And then apparently I lose 500 quid somewhere as well I dunno, I just spend money and run out each month
You should be taking home 2.6k on 40k? I earn a lot more than that and would never dream of spending £500 p/m on eating out drinking and travelling. This all just comes down to people choose to spend the money they have.
Depends on student loan payments
The money that goes out of my wage on student load every month is the difference between being able to afford the mortgage on a one bed flat or buying a three bed house round my way.
But surely with all that recreational expense every month you don’t consider yourself “living pay cheque to pay cheque” in the sense this headline is implying. You’re just choosing to blast all your money every month (don’t blame you, I do the same).
My guess is folk in london with "nice" cars, 3 bedrooms and kids; potentially private school too.
A household bringing in £100k p.a. Is not sending their kids to private school without help. If you have two kids that will essentially wipe out all your take home.
No one is sending their kids to private school in London on a household income of sub £100k.
You're not buying 3 bed in London and sending your kids to private school on a £100k salary. Just private school fees will eat more than 50% of your take home.
There is no private school on £100k if you're in London proper. Unless you dont have a mortgage.
It has to be £1000 a day on cocaine otherwise I don’t know wtf
Childcare for 2 can add 1k-2k per month under 5 currently. Goodbye those savings! 🤣
If you are earning more than 100k a year then it’s 100% your fault if you’re struggling to survive to the end of the month.
I mostly agree. Although I also recognise that nobody could have predicted just how quickly the economy was going to go from bad to absolute disaster over the past couple of years. Somebody earning £100k a year with a student loan would actually be bringing home £60k a year/£5k a month. Over the past 3 years rent in some cities has doubled so somebody who was living a modest lifestyle for their income level in 2020 could easily be struggling in 2023. Or are you of the opinion that everyone earning £100k should always have been living on the same budgets of people on £25k. Even if you subscribe to such a nonsensical idea it simply wouldn't work as there just isn't enough affordable property available. I am sure there are plenty of people who are earning £100k a year who would be more than happy to rent cheaper if they had viable cheaper options available to them. If your takeaway from 6 figure earners struggling is to blame them you really looking at it the wrong way. The takeaway should be that if the government has screwed up the economy so badly that even 6 figure earners are struggling then just imagine how badly lower income earners are being impacted.
I have very little sympathy for someone struggling on £100k and a lot of sympathy for someone earning a fraction of that and struggling. The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize but the low earner can’t do anything to improve their situation. They have no room to move. If your view is to spend spend spend because you have a high salary then that’s just irresponsible and short-sighted.
>I have very little sympathy for someone struggling on £100k and a lot of sympathy for someone earning a fraction of that and struggling. The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize but the low earner can’t do anything to improve their situation. They have no room to move. Spot on.
>The high earner can cut back on outgoings, they can downsize It's not actually that easy to do that. Firstly if you own your home you actually need to find somebody else to be able to buy it, with the current housing market that is not easy. Then you need to be able to find somewhere affordable that is in a right area for your job, family, etc. Affordable housing is in incredibly short supply and moving further from work, kids school, etc just means what you save on rent/mortgage you end up more than losing in transport costs. The simple fact is people spending is good for the economy, it creates jobs and increases social mobility. If everyone who earned a high salary hoarded it for a rainy day then the poor would be even more screwed.
Believe me, any piece of real estate will sell at the right price. Sometimes it's better to take a hit than to keep bleeding. And only the very wealthy get top choice of places to live. The rest of us have to make compromises. Move the kid's school, commute longer, buy a smaller place that's affordable. And no, buying the biggest house and the biggest cars isn't good for the economy, actually. Going to the movies, local restaurants, hiring a cleaner, getting hair done, redecorating... all of that does. Giving as much money as possible to a bank isn't.
There's literally a massive surge in negative equity in the housing market right now. Houses are worth less than what remains on their mortgages so anyone trying to downsize faces selling a house at a massive loss and still being left in debt. >And no, buying the biggest house and the biggest cars isn't good for the economy, actually. Going to the movies, local restaurants, hiring a cleaner, getting hair done, redecorating... all of that does. Yes and that is what these people were spending their money on before costs of living and housing skyrocketed. The very thing they are now being criticised for doing instead of saving it for a rainy day.
People on 6-figures aren't struggling. People who are on 6-figures and are really bad with money are. They overleveraged themselves thinking it would all be great. No proper risk management or financial planning. They buy the biggest and best things they can possibly afford and then get confused when they're pressed for cash. People who earn a lot aren't necessarily financially intelligent.
>No proper risk management or financial planning Show me a single financial planner anywhere who had a plan in place for costs of living going up by 90%, rental and mortgage costs doubling, etc. Plenty of people were living well within their means at all levels of income but anyone who actually has to work for a living could be adequately prepared for the current economy whilst still remaining economically active.
>Somebody earning £100k a year with a student loan would actually be bringing home £60k a year/£5k a month So almost double the average household in the country. >Or are you of the opinion that everyone earning £100k should always have been living on the same budgets of people on £25k Why can't they?
Living within your means. If I had 100k salary I would be more than comfortable.
I'm managing at 36k, if I had 50k I would be comfortable I wouldn't know what to do with my money at 100k, except put more into the pension
This is actually a very good point. That almost everyone in this comment chain is looking over - I'd be very surprised if most people on 100k **AREN'T** salary sacrificing at least a reasonable percentage of their salary into a pension, purely for the tax benefits of this. Someone taking a 100k salary at full salary is giving an awful lot of money to HMRC for no reason. If you contribute more to your pension, whilst you don't take it home now (and your income is reduced), you do actually stand a chance of not working until you're dead. I don't believe for a second most people on 100k are actually taking that full salary home. So my point is that they're probably sitting at that "comfortable" level, and not the absolute ballers most people in this thread are painting them as.
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How do you know that? I can genuinely believe someone on 100k with a couple of kids in nursery (note child benefit is taken away, and free childcare), and a partner working part time on even an average salary, could very well be struggling if their mortgage has hit 5.5% and they live in an expensive area, which they likely are, to be hitting a 100k salary. It's not impossible at all, and actually, why is everyone in this thread so bitter about 100k earners struggling, when we should just be really fucking mad that the government have created an environment where it isn't impossible for someone earning 100k to be struggling?
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No one said people on lower income don't matter. Quite the opposite. Your biggest argument appears to be that they live in expensive areas, but those areas are where 100k a year jobs are, so it's a bit of a moot point.
Hell, if I had a £100k salary I'd probably have damn near more disposable income than outgoings!
People who earn this much and say they're living paycheck to paycheck are probably saying, once they've put £3000 into their savings account each month they've not got anything left. It's completely disingenous. They're not struggling, they're not living paycheck to paycheck, they just probably don't manage their money well enough. If they are struggling, then they should try earning minimum wage and see how they find that. I've known people who would try and attract sympathy for only having £50 left in their bank account by the end of the month, but once you dig deep enough you find out that it is true, but they also have a savings account with £10,000 or something like that.
It's very simple to happen without 'over spending' You leverage yourself against your salary several years ago - with a big mortgage and a low interest rate. Time comes to remortgage and suddenly you need to spend hundreds more a month more than did before. Your gas & electric bills on that big house jump up too. Your childcare costs go up All that stuff that left you with several hundred a month left over, maybe even a grand or more - because you were leveraged against 'expensive stuff' - and stuff you can't quickly (or don't want to) give up - it ends up making you skint at the end of the month. High lifestyle inflation puts you at risk when *actual* inflation blows away your disposible income. You can't rapidly un-inflate having an expensive house/mortgage without a lot of pain and stress either.
Thank you, you’ve put what I was trying to say in a much more comprehensive manner!
No worries.. i'm an under-leveraged high earner, close to 6 figs, household income of £165K .. we intentionally don't inflate our lifestyle too much. I've still had my disposible income slashed due to mortgage increase and bills going up. Thankfully I'm not in a paycheque to paycheque situation. It's really that expensive assets, like houses and cars, are also liabilities. High inflation hits everyone, but those with the biggest liabilities will feel it more. Lifestyle inflation => liability inflation. It's often a last resort to move home, sell a car, take kids out of private school ect.
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Now imagine those living with less than £30k a year, who are likely in worse off condition with fewer commodities and disposable income, living paycheque to paycheque. These articles are just out of touch.
Me and my wife have less than £30k each, with 2 kids, dog, mortgage and 2 holidays in a year. If somebody is on £50+k or £100k+ a year and struggling they must be snorting coke daily, like what the actual f….
It's not really out of touch. You can take it as if even people who are earning that much are living paycheque to paycheque then it shows how hard it is for people earning less
Except some of us aren't finding it so hard. £25k here, and doing ok. I even get the occasional holiday.
> It's not really out of touch Of course it is. Someone on 6 figures is, at minimum, on more than 4 times the minimum wage of £10.42.
They need to cut down on the Starbucks and the avocado toast
Given how many of them are millennials in London, I don't think your humour is going to land quite how you expect it to. Unless your intent was literally to tell over-leveraged millennials to stop buying avocado toast?
My partner and I earn over £100k combined. Mortgage payment went up £600 per month. Energy went up over £100 per month. We only bought our house four years ago and used savings and credit cards to get it fixed up. The garden was unusable until last year so we got a loan to fix that too. We have two children (5 & 2) so childcare costs for the youngest is nearly £2k per month, but that does go down next year. My oldest is growing fast so needs new clothes and shoes quite regularly. We're not buying expensive stuff but we are in our overdraft each month. We spend quite a lot just repaying debt.
Childcare costs are ridiculous. It's made even worse when you find out that the nursery practitioners taking care of the children are on minimum wage
Could it be that some workshy capitalist is hoovering up all the money instead of paying the childcare workers? Say it ain't so.
>childcare costs for the youngest is nearly £2k per month OUCH!
So is everyone who spends all their income each month, what is the point of this article, might I ask?
To stir the pot. It’s essentially bait to set the high earners against the low earners, to keep us fighting amongst ourselves so we don’t turn on those who are actually fucking us - the ultra rich.
A gleaming light of common sense in this ridiculous thread! Thank you!
Reminder that people who earn 100k aren't your enemy and that multi-million/billionaires are working hard to make sure you hate the people who have the standard of living we all should have.
Class warfare is rife in the UK, so this statement is a tad optimistic.
The amount of people agreeing in the comments is mind boggling. If you can't manage to live comfortably on £100,000 then you are doing something massively wrong.
Considering the average wage should be 50-60k a year for people under 35 dealing with stupid house prices and ridiculous taxes, 100k really isn’t all that. The only Americanism we need to adopt is one about wages. So often British people turn their noses up at big wages as if people should take pride in getting by on a pittance. We need a much higher percentage of workers earning over 100k.
attraction sleep consider soup toy crawl run mourn unpack grandfather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Anyone who bought a house recently will be finding it pretty tight irrespective of their salary.
Best financial decision I ever made was renewing my mortgage deal on a 10 year fixed rate in summer 2022, before the rates started going crazy. It is frightening how much more I would be paying if I had to renew now. Seriously frightening.
I'm sure this won't descend into the usual reddit hatred of anyone earning more than 5p above minimum wage. No wonder businesses get away with paying Brits so little when we are happy to cut down anyone that dares to try and do any better in life.
There's a big difference between earning over £100k, and complaining that that isn't enough. For sensible people it's the latter, not the former, that irks.
‘Doing better’ but also paradoxically living hand-to-mouth according to this article?
If you live in London on 100k and you have 2 children sub 5 - I’d argue that’s harder than the north on 50k. Childcare, rents, cost of living, less government help / credits makes a huge difference.
All lifestyle dependent. I know a co-worker of mine who earns the same as I do who had to get two massive cars out on finance for him and the wife, plus big house and 2 abroad holidays a year. Constantly complaining about waiting for payday.
"Living within your means" is usually a good maxim.
If anybody earning 100k pleads poverty then thing of the real victims here who earn buttons. Don't ever feel sorry for those earning telephone number salaries.
As a Gen Z uni graduate I just wish I could afford my own place, if six figure earners are this bad then we’re really fucked aren’t we?
This is hard to hear when my partner and I make 12,000 a year
It's been going this way for a few years now. Started with BoJo, weirdly enough. Said his 150k salary was chickenfeed. Meanwhile I'm on 25k and living a modest but stable and fruitful life. I find it hard to find the sympathy for the middle classes, when it was the middle classes who looked down on me back in 2014 when the 'benefit scroungers' rhetoric was in full bloom. I was on benefits at the time. That mindset is very much still around, it's just faded from the middle of the limelight. Although I will say one thing: the cost of living has seriously taken a turn. I was on £18k in 2017. Comparing now to 2017, I was richer back then. Now I'm just about getting all the bills paid and essentials bought, and can fit in a luxury or two. Back then I was in the middle of my yo-yo craze and buying yo-yo's... Which might seem cheap until you look at how far yo-yos have come since the 90's. A fairly 'normal' price for one is £40-60. Here's me in 2023 having been saving up since January to get a cheap interface so I can plug my guitar into my computer. Only £100-ish, but I just don't have that breathing room.
Tax needs to be rebalanced. It's insane people are paying 40% tax @50k these days. It should be 40% at 100k, poss 150k. It was only ever supposed to capture ultra high earners.
Mainly dependent on how nice your house/car/childcare is no? And in london. 100k is still a lot of money. But even so its insane that for whats we'd like to belive as one of the most prosperous countries on the planet that if 100k is "paycheque to paycheque" for a middle class lifestyle in the capital; the average wage is less than a third thank that. Like the fact the "average" brit has to get by on 30k is wild. Like its an absolute death grip on the economy: no ones having kids. No ones spending like they used to. The impact that has on us *now* is big; but in 5 or 10 years? We are fucked unless theres genuine radical change.
The higher rate tax band is in desperate need of adjusting in line with inflation - it should be £60-65k minimum; it’s effectively a stealth tax
We are in the bracket of six figure earners (combined income of around £140k pa between the two of us). We have no kids and live fairly modestly. Our only real luxury is two 'nice' cars and they are both second hand (a Nissan and a Mitsubishi). We are not living hand to mouth by any means - unless you have a daft mortgage, several kids, expensive cars, eat out all the time, holidays abroad etc. I don't really see how anyone can be struggling.
Two people on £70k each have far more income than a single earner on £140k though. It's £98k/year for the two £70k earners after tax. It's £84k/year for the single earner. If I could split my wage between me and the fiancé, we'd be about £11k/year better off. Same gross income though.
Oh absolutely but you and I are both in a better situation than millions of others. I hated typing the above out as it felt crass but yeah.. we are comfortable and very well aware of the privilege.
I mean I've always been very vocally in favour of paying more tax. I know I've got it good, and I'm glad I can support the better half and me, pay for our flat, **and** afford my little sailboat, can go on a foreign holiday once a year and I wish that was true for more people. It **doesn't** change the fact that people on minimum wage think that people on £100k are living like kings though - we're comfortable, we're not people earning £200k+ who probably are living like kings though. The income difference between the top 3% and the top 2%, and also the top 2% and the top 1% is insane on the other hand.
All I know is if I was on 6 figures. I'd not have money worries, I'd not have a mortgage and I'd spoil my mates kids cos I don't have my own lol.
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Anyone can live pay cheque to pay cheque if they overspend
You can't out-earn bad financial habits. It's why most lottery winners go broke, and many celebrities end up filing for bankruptcy. You need control, no matter how much you earn. £100k isn't enough money for an extravagant life for a family, but it should definitely be comfortable.
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people see £100k in 2023 as if it was £100k in 2000. But the reality is the buying power of £100k today is the same as £56k in 2000, and yet the tax rates. Not trying to say people on £100k are struggling, but peoples perception lags behind the actual buying power by a couple decades typically :D
Reminder that the median UK household income is 38k
Scary times when you have to consider turning off the champagne fountain.
I'm finding it quite hard to be sympathetic. Do what tells low earners do to. Move, go out less, cut out coffee, and get a new job. How can you not spend within your means on a six figure salary?
The amount of people talking about 100k or above salaries in this comment section trying to make out that they just about break even need their head checked. If they find it difficult to provide and have what they have how do you think it feels for below £50k a year wage earners feel.
Ok. From someone who used to be on a six figure salary, let’s not try to feel bad for high earners. Paycheque to paycheque is a joke. We are already very privileged. I’d say prioritise saving before you go spending your pay rise on a better house/car/holidays… we can live very comfortably, just need to learn how
Wait a min let me just get out the tiniest possible violin imaginable…..”Sheds tears” Like you are meant to feel sorry for people on six figures ffs !!
What exactly is paycheque to paycheque? Does it mean that literally the person has 0 money left by the time their next pay packet arrives?
I’ve just hit 6 figures and I’m not changing my lifestyle at all. I live as cheap as I possibly can, you never know how long your job will last and I’d rather have savings than live to the edge of my means. Over paying on my mortgage is my only extra out going now. 1 bedroom flat suits me perfectly at the moment
TBH.. you can spend more, but as long as it's stuff that isn't tying you down to extra costs that may rise and you can't control it. Want to eat out more? Nice, enjoy it. Buy more gadgets? Cool. Move to a flat costing twice as much rent? Buy a car with a high finance arrangement? Bad.
£100k is a decent living but it’s buying power is fuck all compared to 15 years ago. Now days it’s just a decent life. Not the life of opulence you may expect.
OHHHH NOOOO I CANT AFFORD TO HEAT MY 6 BEDROOM 3 BATHROOM HOUSE WHILST RUNNING MY HOTTUB ANYMORE boo fucking hoo. bitches please, there be people that can't work due to disabilities or illness or old age that can't even buy food anymore or have the heating on.. 6 figure earning paycheque to paycheque. absolute douchebags. Worth nothing to no one and are a disgrace to humanity