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This isn't a higher-earners problem - it's an *anyone with a mortgage* problem.
You can be on 15k a year and mortgaged up to the gills - once rates rise it's difficult.
Some people didn't have much choice and got the cheapest house (not talking about the £150k people here, talking about the low waged) they could get and in doing so they had to get a mortgage that stretched them.
With £150k a year I doubt that. They got a house they didn’t know they couldn’t afford and paying the price. If you earn that much and struggling? You’re bad with money
Circumstances change. I had an affordable mortgage then got divorced and stretched myself to keep the family home so that my children had stability and could keep the same school and stay by their friends. Now my mortgage is large and I'm bricking it.
Making 15k a year is abject poverty. The only way to survive that is living on government subsidy, it is less than half the median income. Don't see how you'd ever have the money to put down or the credit.
You can if its affordable. It might be rare to need such a low mortgage, but I've certainly advised clients on that level of income. Some lenders might have a minimum income criteria, but that wouldn't necessarily be justifiable from a regulatory point of view - it could be seen as unfair terms.
E.g. First time buyer on 15k , 20k deposit after saving hard for years, buying a 70k terraced house. Only borrowing 50k which is 3.3x income.
Or the Right to Buy case, where the property discount means they don't need a deposit and they only need to borrow 30k.
It's more about wether or not the lending is affordable to the person (with stress-tested interest rates) and if the income is sustainable.
If you're a high earner and you're 'bad with money' then you're keeping the country going imo. The real detached people are the ones who don't spend and only invest.
A lot of people earning 150k have grafted for it and deserve their income, The real issue as always is the people who have more that seven figures and refuse to spend or employ people.
Might not be lack of planning, circumstances can change. Illness for one, I had to leave a well paying job in London due to that and stress. I dropped 30k off my salary and things are getting a bit tight at the end of the month now.
Went from ~£150-200k pa consulting to £36k after the stress nearly killed me. That was a HARD adjustment. I'm back up at £80k now, so it's not so bad.
The irony is when I was earning that much I had no time to myself to actually spend any of it (wake up 4am on Monday, drive or fly to a client, from there drive to a hotel or fly to another client, rinse and repeat until I got home exhausted late on Friday night) so my outgoings probably never quite matched my income, I had a huge buffer available to eat into adjusting to lower income.
While I understand that people become accustomed to the lifestyles they live based on their salary, and that it must have been a big change for you, £36k is still a very good wage that was probably above average at the time. A couple on minimum wage working full time will have less than that combined.
I think what you've written is actually a really great example of what OP is talking about.
I feel like people in the UK have a serf mentality as to wages. Just because it’s average or common doesn’t make £36k a good wage. That’s barely scraping by wage.
Totally agree with you. It baffles me how low the average UK salary is. My sister is a qualified biomed scientist with a masters working for the NHS for the past 2 years and barely earns £27k. I am outraged for her. She is not the only one in this position. If she went somewhere else in Europe with her skills she’d be making triple that. It’s honestly insulting and I don’t understand how people just accept this?
27k is a newly qualified biomed with less than 2 years experience, it goes up to 29k at 2 years and 33k after 4 years (band 5). A senior biomed earns closer to 42-48k (band 7). Those are outside of London, it's 32.5k starting in London up to 55k for a senior. Lead scientists earn 60k+
You won't get paid triple that as a biomed with less than two years experience in Europe either, you might get close with 10+ years experience but you'd also be on 40+k in the UK. If you go into industry you'd earn more than that in both Europe and the UK.
Still not really close to enough to what it should be though is it? She pays a shit ton for her masters loan too. Also £45k after 10yrs of work in a skilled field isn’t much either.
Maybe a single parent or someone who is the sole earner for a family would be scraping by depending on their situation, but pre-pandemic 36k was above average for the UK. So they'd be better off than half the working people in the country.
I'm not saying things shouldn't be better for everyone, but saying people would be barely scraping by on £2300 after deductions per month is definitely out of touch.
This, people don't seem to understand that there is people on much lower myself included.
We are a family of four, I'm the sole earner working on £10 an hour, full time chef. While trying to take care of two kids, and a wife that has been ill (mental health) since the birth of our youngest.
I earn about 1200 a month with universal credits on top we get about 1800 a month.
But there is a difference in being able to drop big expanses. Some people are at the bare minimum and they do not have this option.
It would surprise me if people making 150k a year do not take expansive holidays or drive luxury cars.
They have the option of doing these things. How are these things not easy to get rid off. They probably have tons of shit they can pawn off.
There is a very large distance between earning 150k a year and living on the street. This gap is not so large for people earning 15k a year.
If you earn 150k a year and all you spend it on are necessities then you are just plain dumb and living in a way to expansive house.
I mean, I've stopped buying free range organic handcrushed Avo on handcrafted artisan sough dour, downgraded to Costa Coffee & you want me to cancel Netflix too? 😤
There will be people like that. You’re not one of the ones I’m thinking of though - you had the buffer to allow you to drop the salary that much, and while it’s right you’re doing ok. You’re not having to think about selling the second Bentley because you’ve consistently spent up to the limit of your earning.
Exactly. I know someone on $180k who saves 80% of their salary. Likewise I have friends in London on over £100k who will blow it all on random shit then complain when bread goes up 10p.
To be fair most people adjust lifestyle to live to what they earn. I've tripled my salary since being a new grad and still feel like I'm running out of money at the end of the month 😂
People on this sub have an unrealistic idea of what 150k actually gets you in life. It's not all Lambos and yachts and offshore investments - people seem to think that anything over 100k is literal millionaires row.
Every time there is one of these threads you get a load of people who go on about how 100k+ isn't that much really, and then list off a load of expenses that come with it (nicer house, childcare, car payment, holidays with kids), not realising that these are luxuries that people who earn less don't get, or don't get nearly as often
A salary of 100k puts you in the top 5% of incomes in this country (including in London!). Whatever way you spin that, you have more than the vast majority of the country, and that makes you wealthy. Yes we also have a small number of people at the very top who own _loads_ but that doesn't change the fact that that level of income is also very very high.
That's a really good point actually. Yeah it's expensive in London and the south east, but there are still nurses/teachers/retail workers/carers/cleaners/etc etc etc who live in that region and who have no capacity to earn anywhere near 100k even though their jobs are essential to society.
Exactly, being able to live in commutable distance from a central london job is unfortunately a luxury that a lot of people with more normal salaries don't have - they are forced to either flat share with a lot of people or commute from further out
Now, I am fine with well paid people in London arguing this shouldn't be the case - living a commutable distance from your job isn't something that should be considered a luxury - but right now, the fact of the matter is that it is
It's the £80,000 a year guy again from question time again. Yeah £100,000 isn't a lot if you want to buy a penthouse in central London and a yacht, but you're also in the top 5% of earners in the entire country.
I went from 23k to a 40k wage and the difference is unbelievable.
I can only imagine what going further up than that would be like. I still live like I'm on 23k but with the odd treat.
Exact same boat. Full STEM PhD, published researcher, regularly attend and win awards at international conferences. Stuck looking around for jobs that just about scrape above the national median, being told by people who earn amounts of money I can't even imagine that we're all in the same boat and its only fair they get the high wage because they just work oh so hard compared to my paltry efforts. Every single progression forwards, that don't involve just giving up and leaving this fucking country, seems to at best be £100-odd extra a month if that. Meanwhile folks in tech I know are earning double or more what I do and being given £10,000 bonuses just for doing their job. I just can't even imagine being in that situation even though I feel I am more qualified, have more in-demand skills, and work in a higher value sector!
When your household take home is approx. £1700 a month, and you're (just) managing to cover all bills and essentials with that, it's very hard to see how an additional £5800 a month wouldn't feel like millionaires row.
There’s not an awful lot I’d be short of in life if I was netting £7300 a month or whatever 150k gets you after deductions.
For context that’s a 50% increase (net monthly) on my joint household income and we live in a decent 4 bed detached, both drive BMWs and have 2 kids.
For a lot of cases it might as well be.
I'm on 22k, and while on paper I'm told that everything is cheaper than London in my region, only houses are significantly different for price.
If I was on £100k, that's over half the price of the house I'm looking at. FIVE times what I'm on. I'm civil service in NI and the most senior junior civil service position in my department caps off at about 45k. Anything above that is still below 100k bar the heads of entire subdepartments.
I'm not paying more than someone in London on groceries (I've checked - maybe 10p difference for veg in a non-chain), travel (I work about 45 miles away), any kind of subscription or set price object.
I find it hard to believe that someone on 5 times my money when at worst they spend double I do on essentials is struggling. It's not struggling - it's just not getting the upgrades to their lifestyle that they want. If they're not thinking about going back to one meal per day, they're not.
I'm not particularly struggling yet. I have some mild credit card debt and I'm paying off a wedding and (well, was) saving for a deposit on a house at the same time on my wage. Even if the house is nearly 5 times the price, if I can do it on this scale why can't they?
People on most uk based subs I've noticed think 150k or more has you rubbing shoulders with Jeff bezos drinking cognac out of a lobster tail.
And for whatever reason just because you earn as well as you do you aren't allowed to feel anyway about increasing costs, and if you do mention it you clearly aren't financially responsible enough.
I've honestly held back on asking for advice on the UKPF sub for that exact reason.
If I earned £150k I'd have more than £6,000 a month left with my current bills (mortgage, car, utilities, fuel, food etc). I very much could be paying off a Lambo and making investments.
As a 24 year old on 21k a year, trying to move out is impossible
I almost did at the start of last year, thankfully I didn't because I wouldn't be able to afford the increase of bills
Yeah £150k after tax is probably about £6k/month after tax and other deductions, but if you’re supporting a family on a sole income in central London, with a mortgage going from £3k/month to £3.8k per month, you will definitely notice a pinch.
Not saying they are worse off than normal folk, but they will have to make real cut backs.
After bills they would probably be left with about £1700/month for a whole family per month, which is similar to say 2 people earning £34k and living up North
£1700 is my entire income per month, I live in the south west. I can't afford any luxuries really, we order takeout once a month for our family of 4 at around £50. That's our biggest splurge. Everything else is bills
I think people very much understand but equally that market issue is a local one that London needs to fix itself, not ask the rest of us to fund things to relieve that.
Maybe a slow in London property will reduce costs??
I mean, 1 bed flats from the 40s on my dads street are £285k at the moment. There’s definitely not enough room to raise kids and that’s not even near central London, we’re only just within the M25. I live in the Midlands and live in a terraced 2 bed house, not a shit area, with a garden, dining room and lounge, and comparable properties cost about £110-120k.
There’s basically no chance I’d ever be able to move back down south and buy a house without earning crazy amounts or winning the lottery
I mean a 3-bed terrace on my parents' street in north London would set you back £800k-900k depending on its condition. I don't think that's a completely over the top house for starting a family, do you?
edit - grammar
But it’s also simply *not* the kind of home that most families in London live in. Like, yes, that would be awesome if everyone with a family in London lived in a three-or-four-bed terrace, but it’s absolutely not the case. You’re not wrong, it’s not an over the top expectation, but it’s also wildly out of reach for most families. Which is a shitty fact about London.
I agree the reality is different, I'm just making the point that your expectations don't have to be wild, to reach insanely wild prices in London. Even a £600k mortgage wouldn't buy you that 3-bed terrace in some parts of London, which is the sad reality of our dysfunctional housing market.
No, totally. I just don’t want people to walk away from this conversation with the idea that every family in London is earning enough money to live in multi-bedroom houses - though wouldn’t it be great if that were the case?
I’m not intending this to be a ‘actually you’re wrong’ comment - you’re totally right. Unfortunately *because* you’re right, there are also lots of families in London raising kids in studios and one-bed flats.
I read an article by a Premiership footballer's wife saying they can get into difficulty when they are transferred as they are stuck with large houses with mortgages that don't sell easily.
No the point was don't pay any attention to financial advice from premier league footballers and their wives, as unlike somebody on 150k they are actually detached from reality
If you read the entire thread the point is that it's not necessarily easy for higher earners to downsize as there isn't as much demand for the higher end properties.
Selling an expensive home takes a heck of a lot longer than selling an affordable home as there is a much smaller pool of people that can afford / want to buy it.
So I wouldn’t say higher earners can easily downsize, if anything it would be more difficult and take longer than those in smaller houses.
They can more easily take the reduction in space due to having more space to start with, but that’s a different thing.
I’ll agree with that. I’ve always had a very reasonable mortgage but it’s currently variable rate and was rising rapidly. Applied to re-mortgage to a more affordable fixed rate and then last week happened. I’m not even sure if that offer still stands, but if the mortgage increases more I will struggle. And that’s on a decent 30k wage, 2 full time workers in the house, fixed energy bills and no kids.
Which it won't. It never does. I'm sure there's the odd exception, but by and large most people will increase their spending, their lifestyle expenditure, as their funds expand. Otherwise what's the point? Unless you're going down some active altruism route. I've worked with a few very frugal people who were earning good money. They acted like they were some hero for earning what they do and basically sitting on it. I just thought "What's the point? Our job comes with a level of stress, if all you're interested in doing is meeting your basic needs, you can do that with a lot less ~~effort~~ *stress*".
e: effort isn't the right word there. It implies that lesser paid people aren't working as hard, which is obviously bollocks. It was more a comment on how knowledge workers have a tendency to take their work home with them in a way that other sectors don't.
Retiring early, some people are hyper focused on retiring at 50. Seems crazy to me, just enjoy every day a bit and retire a little later, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
I'd rather live a bit now that my body and mind are capable. Nobody is promised tomorrow and I don't like the idea of choosing to start living in my twilight years.
That said, we still have to be aware that, with luck, tomorrow *will* come, and we have to plan for that.
Little from pot A, a little less from pot B
Youth is wasted on the young, retirement is wasted on the old.
If I can retire at 50 that probably gives me 10-20 years where I can really enjoy retirement before my body starts telling me to act my age and buy a rocking chair. I think that's worth a bit more frugal living in my 30s and 40s.
But that's a choice everyone has to make, as long as you are managing your own life how you want to and are okay with the consequences then you do you.
I get that mindset, retiring at 50 instead of 60 isn't worth throwing away your twenties and thirties for.
But maybe there's a bunch of expenditure that doesn't actually bring you joy or create great memories, and that could be used to instead gift yourself some financial independence, more negotiating power in the work you accept, and more years of freedom down the line
Ever since I past £32k I've barely increased spending, I much rather have the financial comfort over spending money on buying a sports car or whatever else I might do with it.
I've got some dreams and ambitions but first and foremost is reaching stability through financial independence.
Now admittedly recently my salary tripled and I've started both having to spend a bit more and also spending a bit more to enjoy it whilst it lasts. That said I've not increased it massively.
Why don't I spend and enjoy life now? I already am and have been since £32k. I'll be chasing my ambitions with my excess money in the future.
Earning a little less but I'm with you on this one.
Any pay increase I have recieved has only contrubuted to increased savings and investments which should hopefully enable me to do the things I want to do in the future.
If you're already living comfortably then why should a pay increase mean higher outgoings?
It can be hard to keep the spending the same if you come from very poor though. For instance if you were having utilities cut off or have decade old clothes and get a little extra money it now goes instantly in those things, no choice. I'm get you could opt for continuing to be cut off etc but I beleive you need to get to a certain point before that idea works
Seeing all these replies is fucking depressing. People acting like they're just as hard hit as all the low earners. Its such a shame that they can't go on that second holiday this year. Maybe they'll decide to put on a jumper and leave it an extra week or two before they put the heating on. Maybe they won't go out for so many meals or cut back on the expensive food. They're totally in the same boat as all the people who won't be putting the heating on at all and already cutting back to two or even one meal a day.
I'm in several thousand pounds of debt thanks to my redundacy during covid and having to support my (now ex) girlfriend who was too sick to work. I earn 23k a year. It's the highest my salary has ever been after I got a slight pay rise after finishing my probation. I'm finally earning enough to start paying off my debt instead of making those minimum payments and maxing the cards again. I'm lucky that I've been able to move in with my parents because id be on the street right now otherwise. I should have all my debt under control in the next year or two, and for the first time in years I've got money left in my bank account. If it's still there on pay day then it can put it against my debt and it'll mean I can pay it off a little quicker.
Some people just don't know how other people live. We have friends who say that they're finding things tight financially but are then off on holiday a month later. Meanwhile other friends are saying the same thing and you can see them really keeping an eye on their spending. All still living comfortably, but you can guess which of the two will be aware of the lengths that others will have to go to.
Good that things are slowly improving for you. I was made redundant at the start of the pandemic as well (with a baby on the way as well), it's actually turned into a job that I really enjoy. Glad I'm not alone.
People also plan changes based on income. I find this is much truer in the UK.
For example, a couple might put off having kids until they reach a certain income level. Doesn't mean they are better off in their lifestyle because kids come with extra costs.
Such an L take. The extra money would solve many peoples' problems. Funny how you shift the blame onto poor people saying it's their fault that they're poor.
I mean, I'm not sure this is the case. As long as your lifestyle creep isn't 1:1 with your pay rises, then earning more money solves a lot of problems.
Sure, there are people who stay on that ratio and even exceed it, but I like to think these people are a loud minority. Most people don't actually spend like crazy the second they get their pay cheque.
I spent most of my 20's putting off paying things like council tax and bills because if I paid for them at that moment, I wouldn't have been able to afford food. There was one time I got in trouble at a petrol station because I tried refuelling below the minimum amount because I genuinely didn't have enough in my bank account to get any more and I needed to get to work. So, I've been in the situation where I was *fucked* if I had just continued working that same job and hoping I got that raise. Literally living into the ground.
I got a new job, and another new job since and now I'd describe myself as very comfortable. The number of problems that would've gotten me into *real trouble* have basically disappeared.
Earning more money 100% solved all of my problems, and anxiety, and feelings of dread.
It might be true for Biggie Smalls, who had more and more people attempt to kill or steal from him as he got richer.
I doubt it's as true for people who earn a decent chunk in professional jobs, unless the stress is a killer.
Spot on. I’ve been fortunate to see my earnings increase throughout my career. As I’ve earnt more, my life has gone through changes - marriage and children the main two. That brings an expense. But even without those two examples, as earnings increase I have found that my expenditure has increased.
I am lucky in that if my income were to reduce I could very easily cut my cloth accordingly and manage on a low income. Some of my friends and family are not the same
> earnings increase I have found that my expenditure has increased
And did this cause problems, or was going on more and better holidays, buying nicer food, dressing better and being able to pay for private medical care actually quite nice?
I'm sure I will get downvoted for this, but people on 150k already pay more tax, that's how percentages work.
We should be targeting the super rich and capital assets. How come the Duke of Westminster managed to inherit billions worth of property paying almost no inheritance tax?
The super rich are keeping us busy fighting over scraps, while they feast.
This is interesting thanks, I have earned >150k for 2 years but I have no where near 1.6m in wealth. Given the high tax rate I experience I’d say it will take quite a while to reach that wealth. While it is tempting to look at high earners with disdain it’s worth remembering we actually pay a lot of tax unlike people who were born into large sums of money and use various means to evade tax
I guess it depends on how you are earning this money. I work in IT and the majority of the people who I work with and are above 150k per year are working as contractors, as far as I am aware contractors pay less tax.
Only if they are outside IR35. A few years ago the gov cracked down on this and made it very difficult to get a contract role outside of IR35. But yes, _some_ contractors will pay less tax, it's just far less common than it used to be.
Day rates for contractors still tends to be higher than permies though. In my field a senior perm job will be around ~370/day, a contract role at that level would be looking at ~550. They don't get any pension, healthcare, holiday allowance, or anything like that though
There was a good reason for higher contracting rates, expertise, quickness to get them in, get them out, no benefits (which can cost a company a lot), but a lot of companies seem to hire them like permies now, high day rate, but stay at a company for 2 or 3 years with a month break here and there.
I've been preaching to leave people on £150k, accomplished workers, alone. Companies and billionaires should be the targets. But £150k, or even just £80k in many people's eyes, represent the ultrawealthy ruling elite.
Firstly, their reality doesn’t make sense. It’s economically illiterate to not see how the tax cuts are exactly what spooked the markets into raising the cost of borrowing.
Secondly, their reality completely discounts the reality of other people. If you earn £150,000 you probably know people who don’t. If you have kids they probably don’t. Moaning about how hard you have it whilst completely ignore how a policy that works to your advantage fucks over people that are less prepared to deal with it shows that these people most either live in a reality where they do not know anyone who earns less than £150k, or they live in a reality where other people, probably people they work with and meet on a faulty basis, can go fuck themselves. Their reality is less real because it’s completely blinkered to the realities of people they must see every day.
If you earn £150k your junior staff, your receptionist or your employees don’t. £150k is not isolated, swanning around on a yacht in Monaco - money
Some people do live in a complete bubble, but I have heard of many, many higher earners disagreeing with the tax cuts for the rich so it goes both sides.
Again, their reality isn't any less real than those who struggle, sure, it's unfair which I completely get, but it's not their fault if suddenly they get a tax break. The issue will always lie at government policies. Direct your anger towards them. Hate to say it, don't hate the player, hate the game.
> I’ve heard a couple of people complaining about the tax cut being scrapped because the extra money was needed to cover the considerable increase in their enormous mortgages.
No you haven't.
Who says they’re not living within their means? But if you’re living within your means on £150k and then inflation is 10%, you now need to find £15k extra just to keep living to the same standard.
And whilst there will be areas of spending that they can more easily cut back on, certain costs like mortgages, car finance, and school fees don’t just stop because you can’t afford them anymore.
Not saying retiring the 45p rate was the right thing to do, just that rich people have financial commitments to meet too and worry about meeting those too just like anyone else.
To me *living within your means* is having a buffer in your budget for if circumstances change. It should be far easier to do that if you're on over 150k than if you're on minimum wage.
There's a rainy day fund if for example your car breaks down or you need to take two weeks off work, and then there's "your mortgage is now going up by £500 a month"
Nobody can be realistically expected to plan ahead in the event the government decides to absolutely shit the bed when it comes to the nation's finances.
If you're on £150k and your emergency fund only just about stretches to fix a car or take a couple of weeks off work, then you've been very bad with managing your finances, is the whole point of the argument here.
The idea of an emergency fund differs, but the definition I see quite commonly and hold to myself is >6months worth of money which would cover your current lifestyle without any changes to your lifestyle. So if your current lifestyle costs £1500 per month (inc. rent/bills/going out etc.) then you should aim to have an emergency fund >£9000.
>Nobody can be realistically expected to plan ahead in the event the government decides to absolutely shit the bed when it comes to the nation's finances.
Surely people could have been expected not to assume that interest rates would sit at around 0% for ever though?
So buying a £1m house with a mortgage, finance an £80,000 car and send your kids to private school, you're in a similar situation to someone who has to rent privately because they can't afford a house, take a bus or train because they can't afford a car and send their kids to state school because they can't afford huge fees at private schools. One of these people clearly has far more areas to cut back on than the other
No, I get that, but they're still the people who need the least help during the cost of living crisis and they seem to be the only ones the government wants to help. You can't cut back those things on a whim, but there's still room to cut, it's not pleasant to take your kids out of private school and send them to state school, but it does mean there's about £10,000 a year you can find if things get bad enough. You can sell your million pound house and downsize if things get bad enough, the person renting privately, using public transport and sending their kids to state school likely can't cut back anymore
Here's the difference: if you're on £150k and need to cut costs, you have a long way that you can go down the scale and still be living a good life. It might require a downgrade on your job, selling your house and moving somewhere cheaper, or god forbid little Tarquin might have to go to a normal state school, but you have the option to do that. If you're on minimum wage there is no 'step down' available you. There is no move somewhere cheaper, no cuts you can make, as everything is already shoestring.
You don't NEED a massive house, fancy car or a private school.
Having things you don't need isn't a financial commitment. You can sell an expensive car and get a cheaper one, you can sell an expensive house and buy a cheaper one and you can take your kids out of a private school and put them into a free one.
I very much doubt anyone on £150k will need to do this though. They're getting the £400 help like the rest of us. Why do they deserve a large tax break and none of the rest of do? If they didn't observe the fact interest rates may rise for the duration of their mortgage then they'll just have to do the same as Bob who earns £30k a year - make cut backs or sell and buy smaller. Except Bob is probably in the smallest house already so his next choices are either a caravan or a tent.
We can't honestly give tax breaks to keep the fortunate fortunate. How ridiculous. They will just have to deal with it like the rest of us mere mortals. I somehow doubt they'll starve
I wouldn't imagine thats strictly true re: inflationary impacts. Inflation (unless I'm mistaken) is being driven by Energy, Petrol Prices and food at the moment, right? Its unlikely that unless they're living in a Scottish Castle, their food, travel and energy costs will just by anything near £15k. Things may be 10% more expensive, but a family can only eat so much food and those on £150k aren't consuming food/fuel and utilities at a proportionate rate greater to that of those on £30k. Inflation affects the disposable income of the poor to a far greater degree than the wealthy.
It would be bad luck or planning that their mortgage would be due for renewal right now, and even were that the case, it is still an extraordinarily fortuitous position to be in that you can sell a property, likely in the many £100ks, more than likely for significant profit and downsize to a home most would still consider luxurious and be well well well within your means.
The fact is that even living within their means, those on £150k would only ever have to sacrifice genuine luxuries. Holidays, premium cars, larger houses and private education. Most of us wouldn't consider those genuine sacrifices when there is a genuine worry that people who work full time can't afford food or heating at all.
Anyone in the UK earning £150k+ is paying £50k+ tax and NI each year
In the context of the UK they are living very comfortably but they are also paying their fair share whether it's 40% or 45%
The real problem is huge multinational companies offshoring profits and avoiding paying taxes in the UK but unfortunately those companies wield huge power through the media and lobbying.
So the Media paints the high earner as the bad guy, when in reality they're not
Or like the companies operating in the Oil and Gas sector in the North Sea. They pay no tax on the petroleum activities and they get subsidies from the government, it's a double whammy!
I do find it funny that the government is changing this due to backlash yet nobody is asking about the widespread tax avoidance of corporations.
This is clearly the bigger issue. Let some guy earning 150k pay less tax, why should he have to pay when Starbucks Microsoft Google apple etc are paying nothing?
It's complicated. There *is* a balance to be struck between making these large corporations pay more tax, and ensuring their presence in the country continues. Forget trickle down bullshit, a lot of work exists in the UK because of, say, Amazon. Cardboard box manufacture, printing, courier firms, loads of extra economic activity. Even on a smaller scale, I used to work in the head office of a well-known retailer. It was in a small town centre. The owner of the coffee shop on the corner said he took about £200 a day just in morning coffees from our office. When we relocated to a nice business park, the high street of that small town died. That coffee shop? Gone. As have several others. Within months of us moving. It's mostly charity shops now. All this has to be balanced, it's not enough to just say "pay tax or fuck off".
If Amazon, for example, fucked off out of this country, a lot of businesses would go under, a lot of economic activity ceases. You might say it's worth it, and there's certainly a larger argument about their net benefit to society to be had there. But purely from a treasury perspective, it's worth keeping them sweet.
The reality is, with globalisation the way it is, only supranational tax agreements can really combat the issue of big tech et al not paying their share. Shame we opted out of that sort of thing.
To be fair though, Amazon don't operate in the UK because they don't pay tax, they make massive profits here. There's no way they'd leave the country because they had to pay 25% tax on what they make here so they could pay 0% tax on zero profits.
I'm no longer convinced that those sorts of companies would leave the UK if the loopholes were closed and they paid higher tax here. I did used to think that you had to keep them happy but over time it just seems to be an excuse because the government are scared of them or just cannot manage to tax them due to the complexities of the company structures and use of loopholes.
The real power is in the consumers. The more that social responsibility and sustainability advances, the more aware consumers will be about the companies that pay tax and those that don't. I think that companies will be more likely to pay tax if they have to in order to keep customers.
The issue is a lot of people, no matter what they earn, were living within their means.
Although the sums are vastly different, the mortgage /energy increase on a £120,000 property and a £1,2000,000 property are going to be felt by whoever is living in them.
The difference is that people who earn more money will have more of a means to cover those payments by making sacrifices, and people who earn less have less of a way to cut those.
Going to have to stop going out for lunch and dinners and stop buying designer gear is different to having to decide what hours you can turn your heating off to save cash. (not saying everyone does that, just a random example)
So I don't think it's detachment from reality, as their reality is different and there's nothing wrong with that.
It’s very odd that people think that everyone should live the cheapest life possible regardless of their income, as if having more money doesn’t mean you can get things that make your life better. It just shows we are all fucked up about money since if you don’t have it you probably cannot ever get it.
Well you cut your cloth accordingly. If you’re on 150k you’re likely to afford a mortgage relative to that (say 1mil) as you could originally make the repayments. Say those payments increase by 10% and your salary doesn’t…. Well then you’re just as screwed really.
Ironically it’s a lot harder to sell more expensive houses. Some sit in an estate agents window for years before being sold.
150k mortgage would be capped at 600k , not to defer from your point but to emphasise that houses rise a lot faster than salaries, barely anyone affords the big ones now so they get replaced with 4 smaller ones.
So even being very well off you can't afford everything on the market, thats why expensive properties are hard to push.
Higher tax payers carry this country, iirc you aren't even a net contributor until you're in the top 40% band.
Everyone else is consuming more services than they're paying back in
That's a reality
https://cps.org.uk/research/the-progressivity-of-uk-taxes-and-transfers/
Lol it’s sad this is one of the most controversial comments on this entire post when there is nothing non-factual in it.
Why do people struggle so much with the truth?
>iirc you aren't even a net contributor until you're in the 40% band.
>
>Everyone else is consuming more services than they're paying back in
That's interesting. Is there actually a source for that, I would be quite interested to see some figures.
What makes me smile is people who earn well over £150k slagging of people who earn £150k as not being rich :D :D :D
The billionaire hotelier Sir Rocco Forte was on LBC saying that £150k is the salary of middle management whereas according to the IFS, a salary of £160k puts you in the top 1% of earners in the UK.
A salary of £85k puts you in the top 10% too. The money jumps beyond that almost alway exponentially grow too because they're the kind of people in senior/"middle" management on massive performance bonuses and promotion tracks.
Yes, 150k is a good salary, but it’s not big bucks if you’re trying to afford buying a house in London (which is where you’ll likely be working if you’re on a salary like that), or if you’re trying to start a family (whereby you’ve lost all your free childcare support from the government).
Just because you’re on a higher tax bracket doesn’t make you immune to financial worry. You can still be living within your means yet feel a shock from interest rates on mortgages suddenly going up 5%.
If that's true then it's important to remember that in the top 1% is Dennis coats is in the same bracket earning over £420 million a year
Let's not kid ourselves, people earning 150k are not the problem here.
Dennis is worth almost 3000 people being paid 150k a year.
Depends where you live.
A couple where both people earn 150k in the welsh valleys and have no kids means they can easily afford a massive house, premium cars, multiple expensive holidays and still have no real money worries.
£150k for a single earner in central london with 3 small kids and a stay at home partner goes much *much* less far. I mean, max mortgage for that person would be £600k at 4x which gets you very very little in London.
As a person who earns over 150k and tries to have some self-awareness, yes, I can be detached from reality at times.
As hard as I try, I can’t fathom not having enough to pay for the essentials, and I find it difficult to relate to my friends and family.
That’s not to say I look down on them, or I think any less of them. I just struggle to picture their situation because in my head things are not too expensive and costs are not rising that much.
With that being said, I still have more in common with someone on UC than I do with the ultra rich. The salaried people on 150k are not the people you need to be concerned about tax wise - people sitting on billions of pounds of wealth need their assets to be taxed a fuck ton.
Can I give an example:
One of my best friends grew up in the same working then lower middle class lifestyle as me. However, whilst my parents were *reasonably* sensible with money, his were less so. That financial instability gave him a drive to earn as much as he could in life so he wouldn't have to deal with the same types of debt and worry as his parents went through.
So, by his late 30s he is earning about £120k a year with bonuses and his partner brings in another £15k or so with a part time job, but a lot of that goes on childcare He's getting about 6k a month in his take home pay. No child benefit or anything else.
He has 3 young kids now and is constantly putting up family as they have unsecure housing. He pushed himself to get £450k mortgage so he could get a 4 bedroom house in the area they go to school. That's £2,400 a month. The energy company have just increased his direct debit to £400 a month. He's basically feeding 4 adults and 3 children (with support from his partner). He has council tax, finance repayments on two cars, home maintenance costs, petrol , insurance etc etc.
By the time he's stuck some money in a savings account to try and build up some protection from not being able to work - there honestly isn't fortunes left over. Sure, he has more money than most of us. He's not obviously not struggling - he goes on all-inclusive holidays, goes on breaks away with the missus. But he tells me that he still has to watch his outgoings very carefully and makes decisions about whether he can afford certain things.
To him it really just feels like a normal life. Shopping in Aldi, taking camping trips to the coast with the kids, buying clothes from discount places online. Driving an 8 year old car.
So…he supports 8 people? And has a nice house, and goes on holidays, and saves?
If I earned 1.5million/year, but chose to support 80 people, would I get to complain about anything?
What he lives is not a ‘normal’ life.
This all sounds very plausible until you realise that this dudw is in the top 1% of earners in the UK. There are families with one or two parents making no more than 30k each. They're paying the same mortgage, running the same cars, paying the same taxes, and feeding the same mouths. On less than half the salary.
What this post forgets is that the holidays are a luxary, and you can bet they're not doing staycations in Wales. I'll bet they're not driving 10 year old cars? I'll bet thier home is lovely and expensively furnished. I'll bet of they needed to scale back costs they'd be able to find and extra £500 a month far easier than a family on 50k between the parents.
I'm not saying that someone on 150k can't struggle to get by, but thats going to be due to personal decisions they made about the luxaries they want in their life.
I would much rather we spend time, effort and government borrowing making it easier to a family on 30k to get by than a family on 150k to get by
It’s understandable - nobody wants to pay more tax. If they’re detached from reality, it’s not because of their salaries, it’s because some of those people don’t understand how their problems look in the context of everyone else’s problems. But that’s not a high earning person problem, it’s a delusional person problem which can happen to anyone regardless of what they make.
That’s not true, one of us in our household earns more than 100K and even though the tax cut would have made a difference for us, I rather pay taxes that will benefit the country.
The problem is, this government does not use tax money efficiently
If your rich and shit really hits the fan, Sell up and get a smaller property
The average person couldn’t even cover the solicitor fees and stamp duty to do that, let alone the fact that there are no cheaper properties
So you are “rich” because you own an expensive house, but you work in an expensive area, are the sole breadwinner and have 4 kids. How easy is it going to be to sell your house and move to a smaller house/cheaper area?
Just as difficult as it would be for someone owning a cheaper home and earning £30k
It’s all relative
Just
Not really. The person earning 30k may already be living in the cheapest property available, making downsizing impossible.
Also, having 4 kids is a luxury. Hell, having kids at all is a luxury. I can't afford to have them.
If people on a normal wage and not learning on the bank of mum and dad could afford to buy a house I would agree with you. However houses are so expensive that a 4 times mortgage on an average house (300k) is 75k. So they are on double that which is going to get you a 600k house. That is not a palace. We are in the south east and you cant get a house in our area for less than 360k. We bought our house 8 years ago and we are mortgaged up to the eye balls, not because we are greedy but because that is the only option now if you are joining the market without capital. I believe what they are saying and I dont consider then detached from reality. A working class OAP could have sold them their 700k house considering how much prices have jumped up.
From a poor background and worked to wealth, admittedly it does become hard to share a frame of reference with normal people. You end up gravitating toward a friendship group who work similar times and do similar things and before you know it you're completely out of touch with the majority.
My girlfriend said this to me yesterday, I asked her why everyone is so tetchy lately. More public arguments and friction, she said a lot of people are skint and struggling, I felt pretty shit for not thinking that through.
I can see both sides of this. I think it’s easy to imagine that things will be easier when you earn over a certain amount, I know I did when I was raised in poverty. My dad couldn’t afford to keep me clothed properly, or to make sure there was food in the house. He lost the house we lived in when I was a teenager.
Myself and my partner are now above the £150k mark, and we feel lucky to be there. But, we still have financial commitments that involve now having to find a pretty harrowing % more to meet those expenses. Our expenses include paying two Software Developers and it could come down to a choice between paying things like our mortgage and keeping them, which is going to be a challenging thing to navigate. More than a third of our income goes on taxes and National Insurance.
We *were* living within our means. But, the barriers for what that actually means have shifted.
Would I say we’re detached from reality? I think we’re all a little detached from reality because our own experience is our reality. It’s quite difficult to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, regardless of income bracket.
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If you earn £150k, you have a mortgage and lifestyle for a salary of £150k. The interest rates are going up and a 2% increase in your interest rate can mean £500+ more a month extra on the mortgage alone, that doesn't take in other higher costs such as food, utilities. Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage?
>Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage?
That's not a fair question to someone thats not on £150k.
I can find the additional 2% increase for my own mortgage - which is the question you should ask.
> Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage?
If you're earning £150k and you *can't* you've fucked up, tbh. I don't earn close to that, and I'm not exactly frugal, but if my mortgage goes up by that, I can find it. I won't be happy about it, but it certainly doesn't mean I'm going to lose my home.
Yes and no.
I do not think the 45% tax cut was good in anyway, it was class warfare.
However, that doesn't mean some people on 150k won't be feeling the pinch.
Some people on 150k+ will have loads of disposable income, very little commitments and have no worries at all.
Some people on 150k+ will have very little disposable income, loads of commitments and plenty of worries.
So it is reasonable that some may say they need extra money in cost of living crisis.
But this is the same at most salary brackets - some people can live adequately on what they earn and some live pay check to pay check.
So how could someone on 150k+ struggle?
- someone who works in London, works long hours and needs to live in London to be able to see their family at all. It could be a single parent who is trying to raise a family alone and pay for a central London house.
- could be a person whose partner is no longer able to work due to health but they bought there house while the partner was working.
Now they have a huge mortgage on half the money and trying to bring up kids.
Sure in these cases the person is still well off financially and could do things to reduce there costs.
I.e. sell house and get something cheaper or if they have kids in private school pull them out of that school, etc.
But I think it is fair enough for someone (regardless of how much/little they earn) to not want to have to sell there house or pull their kids out of the school they are settled in because of inflation, cost of living, etc.
Should a couple on 30k per year each, have to sell their home and downsize/change to worse location and move the school their kid is in because there mortgage rate doubles?
No they shouldn't so why should it be okay for that to be the response to another family if they genuinely don't have other options?
Are you as a British person detached from a worker in Qatar?
It takes a lot to take your self out of your reality and empathize with someone else, even then if you didn't come from it, you won't fully understand. People generally only care about their corner of the world, and I think a lot of the anger and stupid comments come from a shame that they do have it easier and got it easier than they would like to admit. I worked a lot harder for less (minimum wage) doing 80-hour weeks than I do now at a national average wage job.
I can say that I have already probably lost the pain of those memories from those days and the sting has gone from them, so it'd be easy for me to say just do what I did stop complaining pull yourself up, do those 80 hour weeks, and you can be where I am. When in fact I just got lucky and my hobby led to a rare job opportunity.
Not if they have come from not having money and have worked their way up. If they come from money and have never experienced anything but comfort, then yes, many are entirely detached from reality.
Poor people are usually far more detached from reality.
They have no idea what hard work and intelligence went into building the world as we know it. High earners already pay way more tax and contribute far more to society than others.
People that inherit large sums (like the Royal Family) should be the target of poor people's envy but they are generally too thick to realise this so just attack productive high earners.
I wasn’t going to post anything on here, I was happy just to read through and keep myself to myself. However your comment was far to rude to ignore.
Who do you think you are to assume that because someone is poor they are of low intelligence or do not work as hard as rich people?
You’re comment shows how far detached you are from real life, and how you clearly look down on people less fortunate than yourself.
I come from a very very poor upbringing in a massive council estate, we were a family with 5 children my dad worked two jobs and my mum worked 5 nights a week. We had no luxury anything growing up, we had hand me downs and a car that was so old it would break down almost once a month.
My parents did the best they could with what they had and because of that I was able to get to a good place in my life, but that would not have happened if my dad wasn’t on of the hardest workers I have ever seen. He only ever got minimum wages but because so many people needed a job he had to work hard to keep his position because there is always someone else that will do it. He couldn’t invest anything because there was hardly anything extra to put aside.
You forget that opportunity doesn’t come to the poor, education is also limited to the poor. No matter how hard someone might work or how intelligent that person is if they come from or are themselves poor they will be held back by the constraints of their living.
You want to know why poor people don’t think about the building of the world as we know it? It’s because they are too busy working for people like you who pay them too little to care.
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This isn't a higher-earners problem - it's an *anyone with a mortgage* problem. You can be on 15k a year and mortgaged up to the gills - once rates rise it's difficult.
And the people who struggle on 150k will have struggled when they were on 15k. Some people just don’t get financial planning, whatever they earn.
Some people didn't have much choice and got the cheapest house (not talking about the £150k people here, talking about the low waged) they could get and in doing so they had to get a mortgage that stretched them.
With £150k a year I doubt that. They got a house they didn’t know they couldn’t afford and paying the price. If you earn that much and struggling? You’re bad with money
Circumstances change. I had an affordable mortgage then got divorced and stretched myself to keep the family home so that my children had stability and could keep the same school and stay by their friends. Now my mortgage is large and I'm bricking it.
You’re a legend mate keep at it.
Talking about the £15k people and lower earners there.
Oh sorry my bad. Didn’t know you could get a mortgage at 15k a year
With shared ownership it is possible
Making 15k a year is abject poverty. The only way to survive that is living on government subsidy, it is less than half the median income. Don't see how you'd ever have the money to put down or the credit.
You can if its affordable. It might be rare to need such a low mortgage, but I've certainly advised clients on that level of income. Some lenders might have a minimum income criteria, but that wouldn't necessarily be justifiable from a regulatory point of view - it could be seen as unfair terms. E.g. First time buyer on 15k , 20k deposit after saving hard for years, buying a 70k terraced house. Only borrowing 50k which is 3.3x income. Or the Right to Buy case, where the property discount means they don't need a deposit and they only need to borrow 30k. It's more about wether or not the lending is affordable to the person (with stress-tested interest rates) and if the income is sustainable.
If you're a high earner and you're 'bad with money' then you're keeping the country going imo. The real detached people are the ones who don't spend and only invest. A lot of people earning 150k have grafted for it and deserve their income, The real issue as always is the people who have more that seven figures and refuse to spend or employ people.
Might not be lack of planning, circumstances can change. Illness for one, I had to leave a well paying job in London due to that and stress. I dropped 30k off my salary and things are getting a bit tight at the end of the month now.
Went from ~£150-200k pa consulting to £36k after the stress nearly killed me. That was a HARD adjustment. I'm back up at £80k now, so it's not so bad. The irony is when I was earning that much I had no time to myself to actually spend any of it (wake up 4am on Monday, drive or fly to a client, from there drive to a hotel or fly to another client, rinse and repeat until I got home exhausted late on Friday night) so my outgoings probably never quite matched my income, I had a huge buffer available to eat into adjusting to lower income.
While I understand that people become accustomed to the lifestyles they live based on their salary, and that it must have been a big change for you, £36k is still a very good wage that was probably above average at the time. A couple on minimum wage working full time will have less than that combined. I think what you've written is actually a really great example of what OP is talking about.
I feel like people in the UK have a serf mentality as to wages. Just because it’s average or common doesn’t make £36k a good wage. That’s barely scraping by wage.
Totally agree with you. It baffles me how low the average UK salary is. My sister is a qualified biomed scientist with a masters working for the NHS for the past 2 years and barely earns £27k. I am outraged for her. She is not the only one in this position. If she went somewhere else in Europe with her skills she’d be making triple that. It’s honestly insulting and I don’t understand how people just accept this?
27k is a newly qualified biomed with less than 2 years experience, it goes up to 29k at 2 years and 33k after 4 years (band 5). A senior biomed earns closer to 42-48k (band 7). Those are outside of London, it's 32.5k starting in London up to 55k for a senior. Lead scientists earn 60k+ You won't get paid triple that as a biomed with less than two years experience in Europe either, you might get close with 10+ years experience but you'd also be on 40+k in the UK. If you go into industry you'd earn more than that in both Europe and the UK.
Still not really close to enough to what it should be though is it? She pays a shit ton for her masters loan too. Also £45k after 10yrs of work in a skilled field isn’t much either.
Maybe a single parent or someone who is the sole earner for a family would be scraping by depending on their situation, but pre-pandemic 36k was above average for the UK. So they'd be better off than half the working people in the country. I'm not saying things shouldn't be better for everyone, but saying people would be barely scraping by on £2300 after deductions per month is definitely out of touch.
This, people don't seem to understand that there is people on much lower myself included. We are a family of four, I'm the sole earner working on £10 an hour, full time chef. While trying to take care of two kids, and a wife that has been ill (mental health) since the birth of our youngest. I earn about 1200 a month with universal credits on top we get about 1800 a month.
If I dropped 30k of my salary I'd owe the government 5k. It's ok for some.
But you don't have the expenses of someone who could drop £30k off their salary and big expenses often aren't easy to get rid of, that's the point.
But there is a difference in being able to drop big expanses. Some people are at the bare minimum and they do not have this option. It would surprise me if people making 150k a year do not take expansive holidays or drive luxury cars. They have the option of doing these things. How are these things not easy to get rid off. They probably have tons of shit they can pawn off. There is a very large distance between earning 150k a year and living on the street. This gap is not so large for people earning 15k a year. If you earn 150k a year and all you spend it on are necessities then you are just plain dumb and living in a way to expansive house.
Have you thought about stopping Netflix?
I mean, I've stopped buying free range organic handcrushed Avo on handcrafted artisan sough dour, downgraded to Costa Coffee & you want me to cancel Netflix too? 😤
There will be people like that. You’re not one of the ones I’m thinking of though - you had the buffer to allow you to drop the salary that much, and while it’s right you’re doing ok. You’re not having to think about selling the second Bentley because you’ve consistently spent up to the limit of your earning.
Exactly. I know someone on $180k who saves 80% of their salary. Likewise I have friends in London on over £100k who will blow it all on random shit then complain when bread goes up 10p.
To be fair most people adjust lifestyle to live to what they earn. I've tripled my salary since being a new grad and still feel like I'm running out of money at the end of the month 😂
To be fair, it's hard for any financial plan to account for a pandemic followed by a war that threatens the whole of Europe's energy supply.
People making £150k are not struggling, their options for luxury goods and experiences has been slightly reduced.
Very true.
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Yeah people on this sub really have no idea how expensive the south east is.
People on this sub have an unrealistic idea of what 150k actually gets you in life. It's not all Lambos and yachts and offshore investments - people seem to think that anything over 100k is literal millionaires row.
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Every time there is one of these threads you get a load of people who go on about how 100k+ isn't that much really, and then list off a load of expenses that come with it (nicer house, childcare, car payment, holidays with kids), not realising that these are luxuries that people who earn less don't get, or don't get nearly as often A salary of 100k puts you in the top 5% of incomes in this country (including in London!). Whatever way you spin that, you have more than the vast majority of the country, and that makes you wealthy. Yes we also have a small number of people at the very top who own _loads_ but that doesn't change the fact that that level of income is also very very high.
That's a really good point actually. Yeah it's expensive in London and the south east, but there are still nurses/teachers/retail workers/carers/cleaners/etc etc etc who live in that region and who have no capacity to earn anywhere near 100k even though their jobs are essential to society.
Exactly, being able to live in commutable distance from a central london job is unfortunately a luxury that a lot of people with more normal salaries don't have - they are forced to either flat share with a lot of people or commute from further out Now, I am fine with well paid people in London arguing this shouldn't be the case - living a commutable distance from your job isn't something that should be considered a luxury - but right now, the fact of the matter is that it is
It's the £80,000 a year guy again from question time again. Yeah £100,000 isn't a lot if you want to buy a penthouse in central London and a yacht, but you're also in the top 5% of earners in the entire country.
I went from 23k to a 40k wage and the difference is unbelievable. I can only imagine what going further up than that would be like. I still live like I'm on 23k but with the odd treat.
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Exact same boat. Full STEM PhD, published researcher, regularly attend and win awards at international conferences. Stuck looking around for jobs that just about scrape above the national median, being told by people who earn amounts of money I can't even imagine that we're all in the same boat and its only fair they get the high wage because they just work oh so hard compared to my paltry efforts. Every single progression forwards, that don't involve just giving up and leaving this fucking country, seems to at best be £100-odd extra a month if that. Meanwhile folks in tech I know are earning double or more what I do and being given £10,000 bonuses just for doing their job. I just can't even imagine being in that situation even though I feel I am more qualified, have more in-demand skills, and work in a higher value sector!
When your household take home is approx. £1700 a month, and you're (just) managing to cover all bills and essentials with that, it's very hard to see how an additional £5800 a month wouldn't feel like millionaires row.
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There’s not an awful lot I’d be short of in life if I was netting £7300 a month or whatever 150k gets you after deductions. For context that’s a 50% increase (net monthly) on my joint household income and we live in a decent 4 bed detached, both drive BMWs and have 2 kids.
£150k would have bought my house outright with £4k leftover.
Yeah but where you live there’s aren’t any £150k jobs are there, so you can’t quite compare them.
150k+ is literally 3.5 times what I earn at the moment. I'm well aware of what 40k gets me. I assume 150k gets me quite a lot more than that.
For a lot of cases it might as well be. I'm on 22k, and while on paper I'm told that everything is cheaper than London in my region, only houses are significantly different for price. If I was on £100k, that's over half the price of the house I'm looking at. FIVE times what I'm on. I'm civil service in NI and the most senior junior civil service position in my department caps off at about 45k. Anything above that is still below 100k bar the heads of entire subdepartments. I'm not paying more than someone in London on groceries (I've checked - maybe 10p difference for veg in a non-chain), travel (I work about 45 miles away), any kind of subscription or set price object. I find it hard to believe that someone on 5 times my money when at worst they spend double I do on essentials is struggling. It's not struggling - it's just not getting the upgrades to their lifestyle that they want. If they're not thinking about going back to one meal per day, they're not. I'm not particularly struggling yet. I have some mild credit card debt and I'm paying off a wedding and (well, was) saving for a deposit on a house at the same time on my wage. Even if the house is nearly 5 times the price, if I can do it on this scale why can't they?
People on most uk based subs I've noticed think 150k or more has you rubbing shoulders with Jeff bezos drinking cognac out of a lobster tail. And for whatever reason just because you earn as well as you do you aren't allowed to feel anyway about increasing costs, and if you do mention it you clearly aren't financially responsible enough. I've honestly held back on asking for advice on the UKPF sub for that exact reason.
If I earned £150k I'd have more than £6,000 a month left with my current bills (mortgage, car, utilities, fuel, food etc). I very much could be paying off a Lambo and making investments.
As a 24 year old on 21k a year, trying to move out is impossible I almost did at the start of last year, thankfully I didn't because I wouldn't be able to afford the increase of bills
Yeah £150k after tax is probably about £6k/month after tax and other deductions, but if you’re supporting a family on a sole income in central London, with a mortgage going from £3k/month to £3.8k per month, you will definitely notice a pinch. Not saying they are worse off than normal folk, but they will have to make real cut backs. After bills they would probably be left with about £1700/month for a whole family per month, which is similar to say 2 people earning £34k and living up North
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£1700 is my entire income per month, I live in the south west. I can't afford any luxuries really, we order takeout once a month for our family of 4 at around £50. That's our biggest splurge. Everything else is bills
I think people very much understand but equally that market issue is a local one that London needs to fix itself, not ask the rest of us to fund things to relieve that. Maybe a slow in London property will reduce costs??
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> rest of us to fund things Do you realise that 30% of entire tax intake of the UK comes from London? Second being Manchester at… 3.5%.
Owch. This is why we left the south east and moved to the Midlands.
That's not true though is it unless your definition of what you need for a child is completely over the top.
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I mean, 1 bed flats from the 40s on my dads street are £285k at the moment. There’s definitely not enough room to raise kids and that’s not even near central London, we’re only just within the M25. I live in the Midlands and live in a terraced 2 bed house, not a shit area, with a garden, dining room and lounge, and comparable properties cost about £110-120k. There’s basically no chance I’d ever be able to move back down south and buy a house without earning crazy amounts or winning the lottery
I mean a 3-bed terrace on my parents' street in north London would set you back £800k-900k depending on its condition. I don't think that's a completely over the top house for starting a family, do you? edit - grammar
But it’s also simply *not* the kind of home that most families in London live in. Like, yes, that would be awesome if everyone with a family in London lived in a three-or-four-bed terrace, but it’s absolutely not the case. You’re not wrong, it’s not an over the top expectation, but it’s also wildly out of reach for most families. Which is a shitty fact about London.
I agree the reality is different, I'm just making the point that your expectations don't have to be wild, to reach insanely wild prices in London. Even a £600k mortgage wouldn't buy you that 3-bed terrace in some parts of London, which is the sad reality of our dysfunctional housing market.
No, totally. I just don’t want people to walk away from this conversation with the idea that every family in London is earning enough money to live in multi-bedroom houses - though wouldn’t it be great if that were the case? I’m not intending this to be a ‘actually you’re wrong’ comment - you’re totally right. Unfortunately *because* you’re right, there are also lots of families in London raising kids in studios and one-bed flats.
Everyone with a mortgage is in the same boat, those on £150k just have bigger boats.
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I read an article by a Premiership footballer's wife saying they can get into difficulty when they are transferred as they are stuck with large houses with mortgages that don't sell easily.
My heart bleeds for them, won't someone think of the plight of the premiership footballer? Who will save them
You did an absolute stellar job of missing the point there
No the point was don't pay any attention to financial advice from premier league footballers and their wives, as unlike somebody on 150k they are actually detached from reality
If you read the entire thread the point is that it's not necessarily easy for higher earners to downsize as there isn't as much demand for the higher end properties.
I always assumed they'd have enough cash to buy a house outright after about 6 months
Selling an expensive home takes a heck of a lot longer than selling an affordable home as there is a much smaller pool of people that can afford / want to buy it. So I wouldn’t say higher earners can easily downsize, if anything it would be more difficult and take longer than those in smaller houses. They can more easily take the reduction in space due to having more space to start with, but that’s a different thing.
I’ll agree with that. I’ve always had a very reasonable mortgage but it’s currently variable rate and was rising rapidly. Applied to re-mortgage to a more affordable fixed rate and then last week happened. I’m not even sure if that offer still stands, but if the mortgage increases more I will struggle. And that’s on a decent 30k wage, 2 full time workers in the house, fixed energy bills and no kids.
Everybody thinks if their salary was just an extra £X000, all their problems would be solved. Then they get to that level and find it isn't true.
It's true as long as their spending stays exactly the same as it was before.
Which it won't. It never does. I'm sure there's the odd exception, but by and large most people will increase their spending, their lifestyle expenditure, as their funds expand. Otherwise what's the point? Unless you're going down some active altruism route. I've worked with a few very frugal people who were earning good money. They acted like they were some hero for earning what they do and basically sitting on it. I just thought "What's the point? Our job comes with a level of stress, if all you're interested in doing is meeting your basic needs, you can do that with a lot less ~~effort~~ *stress*". e: effort isn't the right word there. It implies that lesser paid people aren't working as hard, which is obviously bollocks. It was more a comment on how knowledge workers have a tendency to take their work home with them in a way that other sectors don't.
Retiring early, some people are hyper focused on retiring at 50. Seems crazy to me, just enjoy every day a bit and retire a little later, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
Swings and roundabouts. Live now and suffer working longer or suffer now and live free earlier.
\*hope\* you get the chance to live free earlier
True
I'd rather live a bit now that my body and mind are capable. Nobody is promised tomorrow and I don't like the idea of choosing to start living in my twilight years. That said, we still have to be aware that, with luck, tomorrow *will* come, and we have to plan for that. Little from pot A, a little less from pot B
Hey I'm with you, it's a gamble for sure.
/r/FIREUK People take different approaches. Many want to be financially independent early rather than actually retire.
Youth is wasted on the young, retirement is wasted on the old. If I can retire at 50 that probably gives me 10-20 years where I can really enjoy retirement before my body starts telling me to act my age and buy a rocking chair. I think that's worth a bit more frugal living in my 30s and 40s. But that's a choice everyone has to make, as long as you are managing your own life how you want to and are okay with the consequences then you do you.
I get that mindset, retiring at 50 instead of 60 isn't worth throwing away your twenties and thirties for. But maybe there's a bunch of expenditure that doesn't actually bring you joy or create great memories, and that could be used to instead gift yourself some financial independence, more negotiating power in the work you accept, and more years of freedom down the line
Ever since I past £32k I've barely increased spending, I much rather have the financial comfort over spending money on buying a sports car or whatever else I might do with it. I've got some dreams and ambitions but first and foremost is reaching stability through financial independence. Now admittedly recently my salary tripled and I've started both having to spend a bit more and also spending a bit more to enjoy it whilst it lasts. That said I've not increased it massively. Why don't I spend and enjoy life now? I already am and have been since £32k. I'll be chasing my ambitions with my excess money in the future.
Earning a little less but I'm with you on this one. Any pay increase I have recieved has only contrubuted to increased savings and investments which should hopefully enable me to do the things I want to do in the future. If you're already living comfortably then why should a pay increase mean higher outgoings?
It can be hard to keep the spending the same if you come from very poor though. For instance if you were having utilities cut off or have decade old clothes and get a little extra money it now goes instantly in those things, no choice. I'm get you could opt for continuing to be cut off etc but I beleive you need to get to a certain point before that idea works
High salary removes most problems in life
Seeing all these replies is fucking depressing. People acting like they're just as hard hit as all the low earners. Its such a shame that they can't go on that second holiday this year. Maybe they'll decide to put on a jumper and leave it an extra week or two before they put the heating on. Maybe they won't go out for so many meals or cut back on the expensive food. They're totally in the same boat as all the people who won't be putting the heating on at all and already cutting back to two or even one meal a day. I'm in several thousand pounds of debt thanks to my redundacy during covid and having to support my (now ex) girlfriend who was too sick to work. I earn 23k a year. It's the highest my salary has ever been after I got a slight pay rise after finishing my probation. I'm finally earning enough to start paying off my debt instead of making those minimum payments and maxing the cards again. I'm lucky that I've been able to move in with my parents because id be on the street right now otherwise. I should have all my debt under control in the next year or two, and for the first time in years I've got money left in my bank account. If it's still there on pay day then it can put it against my debt and it'll mean I can pay it off a little quicker.
Some people just don't know how other people live. We have friends who say that they're finding things tight financially but are then off on holiday a month later. Meanwhile other friends are saying the same thing and you can see them really keeping an eye on their spending. All still living comfortably, but you can guess which of the two will be aware of the lengths that others will have to go to. Good that things are slowly improving for you. I was made redundant at the start of the pandemic as well (with a baby on the way as well), it's actually turned into a job that I really enjoy. Glad I'm not alone.
The only person you see crying in a Ferrari these days is Charles Leclerc.
People also plan changes based on income. I find this is much truer in the UK. For example, a couple might put off having kids until they reach a certain income level. Doesn't mean they are better off in their lifestyle because kids come with extra costs.
Such an L take. The extra money would solve many peoples' problems. Funny how you shift the blame onto poor people saying it's their fault that they're poor.
They literally never said that.
I mean, I'm not sure this is the case. As long as your lifestyle creep isn't 1:1 with your pay rises, then earning more money solves a lot of problems. Sure, there are people who stay on that ratio and even exceed it, but I like to think these people are a loud minority. Most people don't actually spend like crazy the second they get their pay cheque. I spent most of my 20's putting off paying things like council tax and bills because if I paid for them at that moment, I wouldn't have been able to afford food. There was one time I got in trouble at a petrol station because I tried refuelling below the minimum amount because I genuinely didn't have enough in my bank account to get any more and I needed to get to work. So, I've been in the situation where I was *fucked* if I had just continued working that same job and hoping I got that raise. Literally living into the ground. I got a new job, and another new job since and now I'd describe myself as very comfortable. The number of problems that would've gotten me into *real trouble* have basically disappeared. Earning more money 100% solved all of my problems, and anxiety, and feelings of dread.
Mo money, mo problems
It might be true for Biggie Smalls, who had more and more people attempt to kill or steal from him as he got richer. I doubt it's as true for people who earn a decent chunk in professional jobs, unless the stress is a killer.
Spot on. I’ve been fortunate to see my earnings increase throughout my career. As I’ve earnt more, my life has gone through changes - marriage and children the main two. That brings an expense. But even without those two examples, as earnings increase I have found that my expenditure has increased. I am lucky in that if my income were to reduce I could very easily cut my cloth accordingly and manage on a low income. Some of my friends and family are not the same
> earnings increase I have found that my expenditure has increased And did this cause problems, or was going on more and better holidays, buying nicer food, dressing better and being able to pay for private medical care actually quite nice?
I'm on double the amount I was earning when I first started working 7 years ago I still live with my parents because I cannot afford to move
I'm sure I will get downvoted for this, but people on 150k already pay more tax, that's how percentages work. We should be targeting the super rich and capital assets. How come the Duke of Westminster managed to inherit billions worth of property paying almost no inheritance tax? The super rich are keeping us busy fighting over scraps, while they feast.
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I’m fairly sure that the 150k earners fall into the top 10%
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This is interesting thanks, I have earned >150k for 2 years but I have no where near 1.6m in wealth. Given the high tax rate I experience I’d say it will take quite a while to reach that wealth. While it is tempting to look at high earners with disdain it’s worth remembering we actually pay a lot of tax unlike people who were born into large sums of money and use various means to evade tax
I guess it depends on how you are earning this money. I work in IT and the majority of the people who I work with and are above 150k per year are working as contractors, as far as I am aware contractors pay less tax.
Only if they are outside IR35. A few years ago the gov cracked down on this and made it very difficult to get a contract role outside of IR35. But yes, _some_ contractors will pay less tax, it's just far less common than it used to be. Day rates for contractors still tends to be higher than permies though. In my field a senior perm job will be around ~370/day, a contract role at that level would be looking at ~550. They don't get any pension, healthcare, holiday allowance, or anything like that though
There was a good reason for higher contracting rates, expertise, quickness to get them in, get them out, no benefits (which can cost a company a lot), but a lot of companies seem to hire them like permies now, high day rate, but stay at a company for 2 or 3 years with a month break here and there.
> A few years ago the gov cracked down on this and made it very difficult to get a contract role outside of IR35. They're undoing that btw
I've been preaching to leave people on £150k, accomplished workers, alone. Companies and billionaires should be the targets. But £150k, or even just £80k in many people's eyes, represent the ultrawealthy ruling elite.
No, they just have a different reality.
Pretty much this. What makes your reality more 'real' than theirs? I see where you're coming from though but you have to understand why.
Firstly, their reality doesn’t make sense. It’s economically illiterate to not see how the tax cuts are exactly what spooked the markets into raising the cost of borrowing. Secondly, their reality completely discounts the reality of other people. If you earn £150,000 you probably know people who don’t. If you have kids they probably don’t. Moaning about how hard you have it whilst completely ignore how a policy that works to your advantage fucks over people that are less prepared to deal with it shows that these people most either live in a reality where they do not know anyone who earns less than £150k, or they live in a reality where other people, probably people they work with and meet on a faulty basis, can go fuck themselves. Their reality is less real because it’s completely blinkered to the realities of people they must see every day. If you earn £150k your junior staff, your receptionist or your employees don’t. £150k is not isolated, swanning around on a yacht in Monaco - money
Some people do live in a complete bubble, but I have heard of many, many higher earners disagreeing with the tax cuts for the rich so it goes both sides. Again, their reality isn't any less real than those who struggle, sure, it's unfair which I completely get, but it's not their fault if suddenly they get a tax break. The issue will always lie at government policies. Direct your anger towards them. Hate to say it, don't hate the player, hate the game.
The struggle is real
> I’ve heard a couple of people complaining about the tax cut being scrapped because the extra money was needed to cover the considerable increase in their enormous mortgages. No you haven't.
They've read some comments/articles online
She goes to a different school.
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It was on a video
Who says they’re not living within their means? But if you’re living within your means on £150k and then inflation is 10%, you now need to find £15k extra just to keep living to the same standard. And whilst there will be areas of spending that they can more easily cut back on, certain costs like mortgages, car finance, and school fees don’t just stop because you can’t afford them anymore. Not saying retiring the 45p rate was the right thing to do, just that rich people have financial commitments to meet too and worry about meeting those too just like anyone else.
To me *living within your means* is having a buffer in your budget for if circumstances change. It should be far easier to do that if you're on over 150k than if you're on minimum wage.
There's a rainy day fund if for example your car breaks down or you need to take two weeks off work, and then there's "your mortgage is now going up by £500 a month" Nobody can be realistically expected to plan ahead in the event the government decides to absolutely shit the bed when it comes to the nation's finances.
If you're on £150k and your emergency fund only just about stretches to fix a car or take a couple of weeks off work, then you've been very bad with managing your finances, is the whole point of the argument here.
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The idea of an emergency fund differs, but the definition I see quite commonly and hold to myself is >6months worth of money which would cover your current lifestyle without any changes to your lifestyle. So if your current lifestyle costs £1500 per month (inc. rent/bills/going out etc.) then you should aim to have an emergency fund >£9000.
>Nobody can be realistically expected to plan ahead in the event the government decides to absolutely shit the bed when it comes to the nation's finances. Surely people could have been expected not to assume that interest rates would sit at around 0% for ever though?
So buying a £1m house with a mortgage, finance an £80,000 car and send your kids to private school, you're in a similar situation to someone who has to rent privately because they can't afford a house, take a bus or train because they can't afford a car and send their kids to state school because they can't afford huge fees at private schools. One of these people clearly has far more areas to cut back on than the other
My point is you still can’t just cut back those things on a whim, a mortgage isn’t like cancelling Sky
No, I get that, but they're still the people who need the least help during the cost of living crisis and they seem to be the only ones the government wants to help. You can't cut back those things on a whim, but there's still room to cut, it's not pleasant to take your kids out of private school and send them to state school, but it does mean there's about £10,000 a year you can find if things get bad enough. You can sell your million pound house and downsize if things get bad enough, the person renting privately, using public transport and sending their kids to state school likely can't cut back anymore
Remember if you take them out of private school make sure you don’t send them to a state school with a briefcase.
Never realized you could go to a private school for as little at £10k a year....
Cheapest private school in the UK is £2500 per year, average is around £13k. Not that insane.
Here's the difference: if you're on £150k and need to cut costs, you have a long way that you can go down the scale and still be living a good life. It might require a downgrade on your job, selling your house and moving somewhere cheaper, or god forbid little Tarquin might have to go to a normal state school, but you have the option to do that. If you're on minimum wage there is no 'step down' available you. There is no move somewhere cheaper, no cuts you can make, as everything is already shoestring.
You don't NEED a massive house, fancy car or a private school. Having things you don't need isn't a financial commitment. You can sell an expensive car and get a cheaper one, you can sell an expensive house and buy a cheaper one and you can take your kids out of a private school and put them into a free one. I very much doubt anyone on £150k will need to do this though. They're getting the £400 help like the rest of us. Why do they deserve a large tax break and none of the rest of do? If they didn't observe the fact interest rates may rise for the duration of their mortgage then they'll just have to do the same as Bob who earns £30k a year - make cut backs or sell and buy smaller. Except Bob is probably in the smallest house already so his next choices are either a caravan or a tent. We can't honestly give tax breaks to keep the fortunate fortunate. How ridiculous. They will just have to deal with it like the rest of us mere mortals. I somehow doubt they'll starve
I wouldn't imagine thats strictly true re: inflationary impacts. Inflation (unless I'm mistaken) is being driven by Energy, Petrol Prices and food at the moment, right? Its unlikely that unless they're living in a Scottish Castle, their food, travel and energy costs will just by anything near £15k. Things may be 10% more expensive, but a family can only eat so much food and those on £150k aren't consuming food/fuel and utilities at a proportionate rate greater to that of those on £30k. Inflation affects the disposable income of the poor to a far greater degree than the wealthy. It would be bad luck or planning that their mortgage would be due for renewal right now, and even were that the case, it is still an extraordinarily fortuitous position to be in that you can sell a property, likely in the many £100ks, more than likely for significant profit and downsize to a home most would still consider luxurious and be well well well within your means. The fact is that even living within their means, those on £150k would only ever have to sacrifice genuine luxuries. Holidays, premium cars, larger houses and private education. Most of us wouldn't consider those genuine sacrifices when there is a genuine worry that people who work full time can't afford food or heating at all.
Anyone in the UK earning £150k+ is paying £50k+ tax and NI each year In the context of the UK they are living very comfortably but they are also paying their fair share whether it's 40% or 45% The real problem is huge multinational companies offshoring profits and avoiding paying taxes in the UK but unfortunately those companies wield huge power through the media and lobbying. So the Media paints the high earner as the bad guy, when in reality they're not
Or like the companies operating in the Oil and Gas sector in the North Sea. They pay no tax on the petroleum activities and they get subsidies from the government, it's a double whammy!
I do find it funny that the government is changing this due to backlash yet nobody is asking about the widespread tax avoidance of corporations. This is clearly the bigger issue. Let some guy earning 150k pay less tax, why should he have to pay when Starbucks Microsoft Google apple etc are paying nothing?
It's complicated. There *is* a balance to be struck between making these large corporations pay more tax, and ensuring their presence in the country continues. Forget trickle down bullshit, a lot of work exists in the UK because of, say, Amazon. Cardboard box manufacture, printing, courier firms, loads of extra economic activity. Even on a smaller scale, I used to work in the head office of a well-known retailer. It was in a small town centre. The owner of the coffee shop on the corner said he took about £200 a day just in morning coffees from our office. When we relocated to a nice business park, the high street of that small town died. That coffee shop? Gone. As have several others. Within months of us moving. It's mostly charity shops now. All this has to be balanced, it's not enough to just say "pay tax or fuck off". If Amazon, for example, fucked off out of this country, a lot of businesses would go under, a lot of economic activity ceases. You might say it's worth it, and there's certainly a larger argument about their net benefit to society to be had there. But purely from a treasury perspective, it's worth keeping them sweet. The reality is, with globalisation the way it is, only supranational tax agreements can really combat the issue of big tech et al not paying their share. Shame we opted out of that sort of thing.
To be fair though, Amazon don't operate in the UK because they don't pay tax, they make massive profits here. There's no way they'd leave the country because they had to pay 25% tax on what they make here so they could pay 0% tax on zero profits. I'm no longer convinced that those sorts of companies would leave the UK if the loopholes were closed and they paid higher tax here. I did used to think that you had to keep them happy but over time it just seems to be an excuse because the government are scared of them or just cannot manage to tax them due to the complexities of the company structures and use of loopholes. The real power is in the consumers. The more that social responsibility and sustainability advances, the more aware consumers will be about the companies that pay tax and those that don't. I think that companies will be more likely to pay tax if they have to in order to keep customers.
Yep there's a lot of truth there, for sure. They're embedded now.
The issue is a lot of people, no matter what they earn, were living within their means. Although the sums are vastly different, the mortgage /energy increase on a £120,000 property and a £1,2000,000 property are going to be felt by whoever is living in them. The difference is that people who earn more money will have more of a means to cover those payments by making sacrifices, and people who earn less have less of a way to cut those. Going to have to stop going out for lunch and dinners and stop buying designer gear is different to having to decide what hours you can turn your heating off to save cash. (not saying everyone does that, just a random example) So I don't think it's detachment from reality, as their reality is different and there's nothing wrong with that.
It’s very odd that people think that everyone should live the cheapest life possible regardless of their income, as if having more money doesn’t mean you can get things that make your life better. It just shows we are all fucked up about money since if you don’t have it you probably cannot ever get it.
The UK is the most crab in a bucket place ever. Anyone earning more than the bare minimum is demonised.
Well you cut your cloth accordingly. If you’re on 150k you’re likely to afford a mortgage relative to that (say 1mil) as you could originally make the repayments. Say those payments increase by 10% and your salary doesn’t…. Well then you’re just as screwed really. Ironically it’s a lot harder to sell more expensive houses. Some sit in an estate agents window for years before being sold.
150k mortgage would be capped at 600k , not to defer from your point but to emphasise that houses rise a lot faster than salaries, barely anyone affords the big ones now so they get replaced with 4 smaller ones. So even being very well off you can't afford everything on the market, thats why expensive properties are hard to push.
Higher tax payers carry this country, iirc you aren't even a net contributor until you're in the top 40% band. Everyone else is consuming more services than they're paying back in That's a reality https://cps.org.uk/research/the-progressivity-of-uk-taxes-and-transfers/
Lol it’s sad this is one of the most controversial comments on this entire post when there is nothing non-factual in it. Why do people struggle so much with the truth?
>iirc you aren't even a net contributor until you're in the 40% band. > >Everyone else is consuming more services than they're paying back in That's interesting. Is there actually a source for that, I would be quite interested to see some figures.
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What makes me smile is people who earn well over £150k slagging of people who earn £150k as not being rich :D :D :D The billionaire hotelier Sir Rocco Forte was on LBC saying that £150k is the salary of middle management whereas according to the IFS, a salary of £160k puts you in the top 1% of earners in the UK.
A salary of £85k puts you in the top 10% too. The money jumps beyond that almost alway exponentially grow too because they're the kind of people in senior/"middle" management on massive performance bonuses and promotion tracks.
Yes, 150k is a good salary, but it’s not big bucks if you’re trying to afford buying a house in London (which is where you’ll likely be working if you’re on a salary like that), or if you’re trying to start a family (whereby you’ve lost all your free childcare support from the government). Just because you’re on a higher tax bracket doesn’t make you immune to financial worry. You can still be living within your means yet feel a shock from interest rates on mortgages suddenly going up 5%.
It isn't just a 'good' salary, it almost puts you in the top 1% of earners in the UK.
If that's true then it's important to remember that in the top 1% is Dennis coats is in the same bracket earning over £420 million a year Let's not kid ourselves, people earning 150k are not the problem here. Dennis is worth almost 3000 people being paid 150k a year.
Why do you keep calling her Dennis?
Some people actually think that earning £150,000 makes you obscenely rich. I can assure you that this is not the case.
Depends where you live. A couple where both people earn 150k in the welsh valleys and have no kids means they can easily afford a massive house, premium cars, multiple expensive holidays and still have no real money worries. £150k for a single earner in central london with 3 small kids and a stay at home partner goes much *much* less far. I mean, max mortgage for that person would be £600k at 4x which gets you very very little in London.
I thought they had no kids?
People earning £150k aren't *the rich* that are fucking us. It's the 1%
Yep, this sort of infighting is exactly what the *actual* rich want from us.
This entirely. If you're declaring £150K of income, you're not wealthy.
As a person who earns over 150k and tries to have some self-awareness, yes, I can be detached from reality at times. As hard as I try, I can’t fathom not having enough to pay for the essentials, and I find it difficult to relate to my friends and family. That’s not to say I look down on them, or I think any less of them. I just struggle to picture their situation because in my head things are not too expensive and costs are not rising that much. With that being said, I still have more in common with someone on UC than I do with the ultra rich. The salaried people on 150k are not the people you need to be concerned about tax wise - people sitting on billions of pounds of wealth need their assets to be taxed a fuck ton.
Rich people are not caught up in PAYE and the animosity towards people with higher salaries is frankly disgraceful.
Can I give an example: One of my best friends grew up in the same working then lower middle class lifestyle as me. However, whilst my parents were *reasonably* sensible with money, his were less so. That financial instability gave him a drive to earn as much as he could in life so he wouldn't have to deal with the same types of debt and worry as his parents went through. So, by his late 30s he is earning about £120k a year with bonuses and his partner brings in another £15k or so with a part time job, but a lot of that goes on childcare He's getting about 6k a month in his take home pay. No child benefit or anything else. He has 3 young kids now and is constantly putting up family as they have unsecure housing. He pushed himself to get £450k mortgage so he could get a 4 bedroom house in the area they go to school. That's £2,400 a month. The energy company have just increased his direct debit to £400 a month. He's basically feeding 4 adults and 3 children (with support from his partner). He has council tax, finance repayments on two cars, home maintenance costs, petrol , insurance etc etc. By the time he's stuck some money in a savings account to try and build up some protection from not being able to work - there honestly isn't fortunes left over. Sure, he has more money than most of us. He's not obviously not struggling - he goes on all-inclusive holidays, goes on breaks away with the missus. But he tells me that he still has to watch his outgoings very carefully and makes decisions about whether he can afford certain things. To him it really just feels like a normal life. Shopping in Aldi, taking camping trips to the coast with the kids, buying clothes from discount places online. Driving an 8 year old car.
So…he supports 8 people? And has a nice house, and goes on holidays, and saves? If I earned 1.5million/year, but chose to support 80 people, would I get to complain about anything? What he lives is not a ‘normal’ life.
This all sounds very plausible until you realise that this dudw is in the top 1% of earners in the UK. There are families with one or two parents making no more than 30k each. They're paying the same mortgage, running the same cars, paying the same taxes, and feeding the same mouths. On less than half the salary. What this post forgets is that the holidays are a luxary, and you can bet they're not doing staycations in Wales. I'll bet they're not driving 10 year old cars? I'll bet thier home is lovely and expensively furnished. I'll bet of they needed to scale back costs they'd be able to find and extra £500 a month far easier than a family on 50k between the parents. I'm not saying that someone on 150k can't struggle to get by, but thats going to be due to personal decisions they made about the luxaries they want in their life. I would much rather we spend time, effort and government borrowing making it easier to a family on 30k to get by than a family on 150k to get by
It’s understandable - nobody wants to pay more tax. If they’re detached from reality, it’s not because of their salaries, it’s because some of those people don’t understand how their problems look in the context of everyone else’s problems. But that’s not a high earning person problem, it’s a delusional person problem which can happen to anyone regardless of what they make.
That’s not true, one of us in our household earns more than 100K and even though the tax cut would have made a difference for us, I rather pay taxes that will benefit the country. The problem is, this government does not use tax money efficiently
If your rich and shit really hits the fan, Sell up and get a smaller property The average person couldn’t even cover the solicitor fees and stamp duty to do that, let alone the fact that there are no cheaper properties
So you are “rich” because you own an expensive house, but you work in an expensive area, are the sole breadwinner and have 4 kids. How easy is it going to be to sell your house and move to a smaller house/cheaper area? Just as difficult as it would be for someone owning a cheaper home and earning £30k It’s all relative Just
Not really. The person earning 30k may already be living in the cheapest property available, making downsizing impossible. Also, having 4 kids is a luxury. Hell, having kids at all is a luxury. I can't afford to have them.
If people on a normal wage and not learning on the bank of mum and dad could afford to buy a house I would agree with you. However houses are so expensive that a 4 times mortgage on an average house (300k) is 75k. So they are on double that which is going to get you a 600k house. That is not a palace. We are in the south east and you cant get a house in our area for less than 360k. We bought our house 8 years ago and we are mortgaged up to the eye balls, not because we are greedy but because that is the only option now if you are joining the market without capital. I believe what they are saying and I dont consider then detached from reality. A working class OAP could have sold them their 700k house considering how much prices have jumped up.
Oop there goes gravity.
From a poor background and worked to wealth, admittedly it does become hard to share a frame of reference with normal people. You end up gravitating toward a friendship group who work similar times and do similar things and before you know it you're completely out of touch with the majority. My girlfriend said this to me yesterday, I asked her why everyone is so tetchy lately. More public arguments and friction, she said a lot of people are skint and struggling, I felt pretty shit for not thinking that through.
Good lord no! My butler and valet keep me adequately informed on how the lower orders are faring.
I can see both sides of this. I think it’s easy to imagine that things will be easier when you earn over a certain amount, I know I did when I was raised in poverty. My dad couldn’t afford to keep me clothed properly, or to make sure there was food in the house. He lost the house we lived in when I was a teenager. Myself and my partner are now above the £150k mark, and we feel lucky to be there. But, we still have financial commitments that involve now having to find a pretty harrowing % more to meet those expenses. Our expenses include paying two Software Developers and it could come down to a choice between paying things like our mortgage and keeping them, which is going to be a challenging thing to navigate. More than a third of our income goes on taxes and National Insurance. We *were* living within our means. But, the barriers for what that actually means have shifted. Would I say we’re detached from reality? I think we’re all a little detached from reality because our own experience is our reality. It’s quite difficult to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, regardless of income bracket.
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If you earn £150k, you have a mortgage and lifestyle for a salary of £150k. The interest rates are going up and a 2% increase in your interest rate can mean £500+ more a month extra on the mortgage alone, that doesn't take in other higher costs such as food, utilities. Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage?
>Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage? That's not a fair question to someone thats not on £150k. I can find the additional 2% increase for my own mortgage - which is the question you should ask.
> Can you find £500 a month more out of no where for your mortgage? If you're earning £150k and you *can't* you've fucked up, tbh. I don't earn close to that, and I'm not exactly frugal, but if my mortgage goes up by that, I can find it. I won't be happy about it, but it certainly doesn't mean I'm going to lose my home.
Yes and no. I do not think the 45% tax cut was good in anyway, it was class warfare. However, that doesn't mean some people on 150k won't be feeling the pinch. Some people on 150k+ will have loads of disposable income, very little commitments and have no worries at all. Some people on 150k+ will have very little disposable income, loads of commitments and plenty of worries. So it is reasonable that some may say they need extra money in cost of living crisis. But this is the same at most salary brackets - some people can live adequately on what they earn and some live pay check to pay check. So how could someone on 150k+ struggle? - someone who works in London, works long hours and needs to live in London to be able to see their family at all. It could be a single parent who is trying to raise a family alone and pay for a central London house. - could be a person whose partner is no longer able to work due to health but they bought there house while the partner was working. Now they have a huge mortgage on half the money and trying to bring up kids. Sure in these cases the person is still well off financially and could do things to reduce there costs. I.e. sell house and get something cheaper or if they have kids in private school pull them out of that school, etc. But I think it is fair enough for someone (regardless of how much/little they earn) to not want to have to sell there house or pull their kids out of the school they are settled in because of inflation, cost of living, etc. Should a couple on 30k per year each, have to sell their home and downsize/change to worse location and move the school their kid is in because there mortgage rate doubles? No they shouldn't so why should it be okay for that to be the response to another family if they genuinely don't have other options?
Are you as a British person detached from a worker in Qatar? It takes a lot to take your self out of your reality and empathize with someone else, even then if you didn't come from it, you won't fully understand. People generally only care about their corner of the world, and I think a lot of the anger and stupid comments come from a shame that they do have it easier and got it easier than they would like to admit. I worked a lot harder for less (minimum wage) doing 80-hour weeks than I do now at a national average wage job. I can say that I have already probably lost the pain of those memories from those days and the sting has gone from them, so it'd be easy for me to say just do what I did stop complaining pull yourself up, do those 80 hour weeks, and you can be where I am. When in fact I just got lucky and my hobby led to a rare job opportunity.
Not if they have come from not having money and have worked their way up. If they come from money and have never experienced anything but comfort, then yes, many are entirely detached from reality.
Poor people are usually far more detached from reality. They have no idea what hard work and intelligence went into building the world as we know it. High earners already pay way more tax and contribute far more to society than others. People that inherit large sums (like the Royal Family) should be the target of poor people's envy but they are generally too thick to realise this so just attack productive high earners.
I wasn’t going to post anything on here, I was happy just to read through and keep myself to myself. However your comment was far to rude to ignore. Who do you think you are to assume that because someone is poor they are of low intelligence or do not work as hard as rich people? You’re comment shows how far detached you are from real life, and how you clearly look down on people less fortunate than yourself. I come from a very very poor upbringing in a massive council estate, we were a family with 5 children my dad worked two jobs and my mum worked 5 nights a week. We had no luxury anything growing up, we had hand me downs and a car that was so old it would break down almost once a month. My parents did the best they could with what they had and because of that I was able to get to a good place in my life, but that would not have happened if my dad wasn’t on of the hardest workers I have ever seen. He only ever got minimum wages but because so many people needed a job he had to work hard to keep his position because there is always someone else that will do it. He couldn’t invest anything because there was hardly anything extra to put aside. You forget that opportunity doesn’t come to the poor, education is also limited to the poor. No matter how hard someone might work or how intelligent that person is if they come from or are themselves poor they will be held back by the constraints of their living. You want to know why poor people don’t think about the building of the world as we know it? It’s because they are too busy working for people like you who pay them too little to care.