Broke on £70k ?

bobsa1

Got to agree with lots of other posters. As a couple we have a high income and yet we did have a lot of debt.

We now have just a small debt £1,000 ish due to be paid off in a couple of months.

Everyday we get offers of loans, credit cards & store cards. Today we got Alliance & Leicester card, John Lewis and the offer of a mortgage.

I know of lots of people earning very good salaries who are using debt consolidation companies in order to stay afloat.

At work I see lots of people on low incomes, some of whom manage really well, some of whom have relatively large debts.

I think there are probably an awful lot of seemingly prosperous people who face a mountain of debt, if not now then in the future.

sparkle84

Actiongirl wrote:

I think that is the best point I have read on this thread. MSE has really impressed me with its lack of judgements against contributors. I am sorry if I am going a bit off point here, but I really wanted to give my opinion after reading the posts above.

I work in the city, earn a biggish salary and have always tended to spend over and above my means.

But I have found some of the posts above quite insulting. :think: I use MSE because I want my money to go further without cutting back (which I think is the general premise of this site - correct me if I am wrong!) not because I am poor, or desparately in debt. I am also good friends with another regular poster on the boards.. and our lives and careers have at times been poles apart, but this is something really massive that we have in common and chat about all the time. Just because I have a big salary, doesnt mean I dont watch my tesco points like a hawk!!

Please just remember that this board helps, supports, and encourages all types of people from all backgrounds and it is no less likely that someone earning £70k would be on here, than someone earning £10k.

Well said - I have always been of the impression that there was a huge mixture of people with all sorts of income and outgoings on the forum which is really really good

The board gets a lot of requests like this I am sure Southernscouser will back me up on that, also Ms London was in a magazine last October (I think) talking about her debts and how she paid them off (we were all really excited about it). I think it is the 70k that has upset people but you can earn that and still be scraping around for the money for a pint of milk

Dora_the_Explorer_5

southernscouser wrote:

And how much are they going to pay each case study?

I'd say it's got to be worth a grand! Maybe more with pictures!

I'd say it's worth a heck of a lot more than that - I think cheap and cheerful 'real life' comics pay £250. Also think the 'glossy' should cough up a very large donation to the charities often quoted on MSE that help people manage their debts. That would help their readers (the whole point of the article) and teach them the value of money :mad:

LookingAhead

nabowla wrote:

I'm going to cause a bit of a stir here and say that I think it's very easy to be 'broke' on 70k. Many of my university peers are earning salaries of +70k as they work in the City. They run into problems because they are expected to live a certain lifestyle to go with the job: designer clothes, batchelor pads in central London, weekend mini breaks, regular salon treatments. If they aren't living that lifestyle then they are viewed with suspicion by their colleagues who to think that they can't be very good at their jobs if they can't afford all the 'essentials'.

Yes, the mindset is wrong, but it's very easy to get sucked in before you realise what's happening. You'd almost certainly have to change job/career to get away from the constant pressure to spend and you'd lose many of your friends along the way. We might think that those 'friends' aren't worth knowing if all they value is material wealth but just think how you'd feel if you had to give up both your career and your friends overnight. Not easy. So people carry on spending and spending and end up with huge debts. If I'm completely honest I could easily have fallen into that trap if I'd gone into the City. As the old saying goes, there but for the grace of God.......

Sounds bl**dy awful. In fact it made me quite :mad: to read that. Not at you nabowla...but just thinking about that type of social circle.

I really hope the OP gets someone to do a feature on. I can't help thinking that it sounds like a circle of thought/values that needs breaking by someone strong enough to stand up to the shallow individuals who would judge their colleague; just because they don't spend an obscene amount of money (over the year) in Starbucks, Pret & whatever after work hang outs. <Takes a breath..>. Not good at your job because you don't bow to the pressure of wasting your cash? B*gger that, I'd rather eat lunch on my own and pay my mortgage off early. But hey that's just me.

But if anyone wants to pay me £70k so I can try and prove my point, well...I'm willing!

Actiongirl_2

LookingAhead wrote:

Sounds bl**dy awful. In fact it made me quite :mad: to read that. Not at you nabowla...but just thinking about that type of social circle.

I really hope the OP gets someone to do a feature on. I can't help thinking that it sounds like a circle of thought/values that needs breaking by someone strong enough to stand up to the shallow individuals who would judge their colleague; just because they don't spend an obscene amount of money (over the year) in Starbucks, Pret & whatever after work hang outs. <Takes a breath..>. Not good at your job because you don't bow to the pressure of wasting your cash? B*gger that, I'd rather eat lunch on my own and pay my mortgage off early. But hey that's just me.

But if anyone wants to pay me £70k so I can try and prove my point, well...I'm willing!

Hmm. Social circle? No. In most cases it is more about maintaining an impression in the office. When I first moved to London I didnt have the confidence NOT to spend. Seriously, when you are working all the hours in the day and you really want to build your career, you dont faff around with taking your butties when you are doing intensive days. Instead, you do what everyone else does and go to Pret. You also stand your rounds - in a male environment where you have to keep up. It is essentially an extension of playing the corporate game.

Saying that, times are changing. The new conservationist zeitgeist seems to be having an impact on what people eat and how they live. I even had a conversation about a slow cooker with someone in the office the other day!

(And just to add one more little thought, my mum is a manager in a CAB. I have grown up knowing HOW to do it. It is actually WANTING to do it that really makes the difference!! )

ceebeeby

sparkle84 wrote:

I think it is the 70k that has upset people but you can earn that and still be scraping around for the money for a pint of milk

LOL - This quote made me smile as it reminds me of the time MANY years ago when myself and 3 friends all shared a 3 bedroom house down on the south-coast. All 4 of us worked and had very good jobs. Our combined income all those years ago was probably £80k. We were all single, and all drove fabby cars, and basically lived life to the full.

Then, one Sunday early evening we were sat in the front room watching TV, we had no tea, no coffee, no juice - nothing whatsoever in the house. By some process we got down to one person driving to the garage to get a bottle of coke ...... after a long time of frantic searching in purses, behind settees, etc. we managed to scrape together enough 'found' coins to buy 2 single cans of coke.

My half of that can of coke was as sweet as life was back then!!! I wouldn't change a thing :beer:

tomstickland

Hey, if anyone of these +70K single women need a hand spending any of the money then they can contact me because I'm writing an article for my website about this problem too! PM me for details!

yoshihirouk

The point that people are missing here is a magical formula called Debt to income ratio. EG If somebody has 50% debt to income and earns £10k that would mean owing £5k.
On the contrary, if somebody earn't £70k and still had a 50% DTI this would mean £35k of debt.
Just because the numbers get bigger doesn't mean that getting into debt is any less likely. Having worked for a major corporation dealing in personal loans (for nearly 3 years) I have seen it all. One surgeon I spoke to one day (earning around £100k and owing more than that in unsecured debt) clarified the entire culture of spending to me in a nutshell:

"Yes I am a big earner, but I am also a big spender".

tomstickland

Yes, it's all proportional and a large income means that lenders are clamouring around for a slice of the action. I'm sure that in London, or in a social circle that revolves around expensive bars/restaurants then it's easy to spend £70K. I earn about half that and despite a reasonably non-glamorous lifetstyle now, I went through a phase where I pretty much spent most of my income. Factor in a high rent or mortgage and it'd easily all go.

LookingAhead

Actiongirl wrote:

Hmm. Social circle? No. In most cases it is more about maintaining an impression in the office.

Saying that, times are changing. The new conservationist zeitgeist seems to be having an impact on what people eat and how they live. I even had a conversation about a slow cooker with someone in the office the other day!

(And just to add one more little thought, my mum is a manager in a CAB. I have grown up knowing HOW to do it. It is actually WANTING to do it that really makes the difference!! )

OK probably wrong choice of words there from me.

God is it really that sad that people in the Big Bad City of Gold have to spend money to impress people you'd probably never have in your house under normal circumstances?

Well I can't help but think if one person is feeling the pressure then so are a hell of a lot of other people....hopefully it will take a handful of strong, determined people who don't mind making their own lunch ( ) to start a new trend.

:idea: That's it!! Just label it trendy to make your own lunch and plan your menus/go home and eat some homecooked food....and someone in 'the media' will be onto it before you can say "hang on that was my idea!"

Suddenly everyone'll be at it! Channel 4 will have a new programme with someone like Gillian McKeith going round to slap people she sees wasting cash in Starbucks!