2.5 Million Families on £100k/year Don't Feel Rich

bo_drinker

Conrad wrote: »

For example I have a client with a £2m home that owns several market stalls, and pays ZERO income tax.

Fair play to him/her...

SingleSue

Cleaver - we still went camping when I was a high earner..for some unknown reason, we loved it!

Wouldn't do it now though, one bad summer in 1991 with gale force winds and constant rain put paid to that, the fun was rather taken out of it when I was stood there, rain lashing down, wind blowing a gale, hanging on for dear life to a tent pole and a handful of tent canvas whilst the lads were over at the club watching football.

We did do it for one more year on our main holiday in 1993 whilst I was heavily pregnant and then went onto static caravans...then tried again in around 2002 ish for an August bank holiday but it was a complete failure with youngest and his obsessions.

Still got the tent and all the equipment though, a present from my parents in 1988, still in good nick which is brililant bearing in mind we used to go camping in it with my parents as children.

Cleaver

The_White_Horse wrote: »

anyone who bought property post 2003 will not feel rich. I would feel rich on what I earn if I had no mortgage to pay. people who bought 2003 onwards have been shafted for their entire lives. the leftys should have raised IR's in 2004 by 2%.

We bought in 2004 and we're fine thanks. We looked at what we earned, did a conservative assessment of what we thought we'd earn in the future, ensured that we didn't overstretch ourselves with a property we couldn't afford and looked at what our mortgage payments would be at a variety of interest rates. We also did cacluations to work out whether we could still pay the mortgage if one of us lost our job and then also built up a reserve fund of money incase the worst happened

Obviously we did all this because we have a sense of responsibility for our own lives. It would have been easier to not think about any of the above and simply blame an abstract concept of 'leftys' if things went wrong for us.

Pobby

I was earning about £44, 000 a year after running costs. My wife was unwell so not working. After tax, we found that we were saving a lot. OK no mortgage but did I feel deprived? No not at all. We earn pre tax a bit of £30k now pre tax, recession you know, also I am semi retiredish. Still feel very well off. Have a beer when we want, a meal out and weekends away or a holiday. Think we are very, very fortunate.

We are a bit miffed that our savings are doing nowt which wouldn`t be spent anyway but the interest would go toward our retirement.

Then again, flash cars ( I have done that ) bring no real happiness. The latest gadget, not for me.

If we do retire fully, which health being OK we are likely not to, we are hoping for a similar income, stock markets not crashing, to what we have now. Wouldn`t spend that amount in a year. In fact with better tax breaks we could be looking at about an income of of £550 a week in retirement. More than enough but then again we are very MSE in our outlook.

ceebeeby

I'll add us to that income bracket but I wouldn't consider us well off in terms of disposable income because as others have pointed out, we've invested heavily.

I've been on both sides of the coin, and can honestly say, there's very little difference in how wealthy you feel from either side! The debt level stays relative, just looks a heck of a lot worse now!

If we desperately needed too, we could go back to a low salary, but I'd prefer not too.

SingleSue

Pobby wrote: »

I was earning about £44, 000 a year after running costs. My wife was unwell so not working. After tax, we found that we were saving a lot. OK no mortgage but did I feel deprived? No not at all. We earn pre tax a bit of £30k now pre tax, recession you know, also I am semi retiredish. Still feel very well off. Have a beer when we want, a meal out and weekends away or a holiday. Think we are very, very fortunate.

We are a bit miffed that our savings are doing nowt which wouldn`t be spent anyway but the interest would go toward our retirement.

Then again, flash cars ( I have done that ) bring no real happiness. The latest gadget, not for me.

If we do retire fully, which health being OK we are likely not to, we are hoping for a similar income, stock markets not crashing, to what we have now. Wouldn`t spend that amount in a year. In fact with better tax breaks we could be looking at about an income of of £550 a week in retirement. More than enough but then again we are very MSE in our outlook.

My parents surprised me last week Pobby, my mum is forever pleading poverty and moaning about single parents (me excepted of course ).

Anyway, I was reading a thread on DT about savings guaranteed income or something for pensioners and thought it may be something they were entitled to claim...gave my mum the figures and she finally admitted the next day that they received well over the maximum amount each week and in fact, from the various pensions they had, are receiving the same amount as when dad was working.

In fact they are better off than when he was working because he was also paying towards his pension, into an ISA at £100 a month, fuel to get to work and for some double glazing.

They have always been very money saving though, think it is a throw back to when dad had his accident and they were very poor indeed.

neverdespairgirl

Bootski wrote: »

Stupid, Selfish and everso greedy to think you can't live on that amount of money.

In fact - it's BARBARIC

& so these people should be taxed to the hilt.

Way to misunderstand the point!

The OP doesn't say they didn't think they could live on that amount. It said they didn't feel "rich". Which is quite different.

fc123

ceebeeby wrote: »

I'll add us to that income bracket but I wouldn't consider us well off in terms of disposable income because as others have pointed out, we've invested heavily.

I've been on both sides of the coin, and can honestly say, there's very little difference in how wealthy you feel from either side! The debt level stays relative, just looks a heck of a lot worse now!

If we desperately needed too, we could go back to a low salary, but I'd prefer not too.

Same here...and I am sure we will take a dive in salary again at some point in the future.

This is the first Xmas for 4 years that we have enough surplus spare (to see us through the quiet quarter Jan - April 2010), enough for modest pressies for everyone and can afford to entertain OH's entire family Xmas day.

Pobby

Well I must admit that I would find it hard to get through £550 a week between the 2 of us. Not saved much this year as the builders have been in and out and needed to update the house. Heck we eat nice food.I love a few tins of ale of an evening and a drop of wine for my wife. Will be glad to get rid of the needed second car.

However, talking to the lovely Mrs. P, she told me that she wants to keep working, well who would want to be at home with me all day, and I intend, on retirement to have some sort of gainful income for as long as I can. However, can`t see us blowing a load.

I was very fortunate as a younger guy. I travelled a good bit of the world ( miss that ) in my job and drove company cars so done all that. Since I have been a regular on MSE i have developed a hobby in saving money. Sad but no different to our fore fathers I guess.

PasturesNew

For the one year before the dot com bubble burst (I had no idea that's why the market collapsed at the time, I just knew jobs dried up overnight), I was contracting, firstly at £35k/year, then at £50k/year. But ... it was only for 6 months apiece. That was my one "lucky break" in life and I squirrelled away every penny I could, grabbed myself a contractors' mortgage, stuck down every penny in a deposit and essential upgrades (I mean essential, no new kitchen because I fancied one, I'm talking essential fabric of the building stuff) ... then the work stopped .. and I was about 200 miles from any work potential. So I dug myself in and made the most of it. Suddenly unable to afford to pay the (quite small) mortgage, I went down to interest only and didn't go out for years. Every penny went into keeping the roof over my head, taking any job I could. None of that was any good for the CV, employers don't like you "taking any job", they like to see a smooth transition between better and better jobs. But I was battling with a collapsed IT industry and my own geography.

When you're single and a job stops one day, it's down to you to replace that income any way you can the very next day/soonest, so you apply for anything - and take anything. But anything's not good for income or the CV, yet you need the instant/continuous money ... you have to keep going. And, in a new job, you can't apply for other/better jobs because you can't get the time off work because you've not accrued any and can't book time off in time in most cases because interviews are too short notice. So you just get on and do it and hope things get better... it's a bit of a trap.

The cost of keeping the roof over my head meant there was none left for speculative interviews (cost of an interview worked out at £50-100 apiece with travel costs), so I just kept my head down and got on with it. Then I thought "house prices will bomb ... you'll be stuck here unless you ditch this place now". So I sold.



I did feel very very rich when I was earning £35-50k. Seeing all that money flooding in month after month after month ... was amazing!