so if your not rich earning 60k a year?

at what level would you be? is a grand a week not enough, do you need 1500 or even more? if your spending 2k a week .. what on?

I heard this, this morning on the radio, made me chuckle, guy phones up how hard up he is earning 110k a week, complaining about his large mortgage, yep must be terrible paying for a six bedroom detached house, and pcp payments on a 5 series bmw (the last two are only guesses on his expenditure), either way 60k is over double the average national wage.

It’s not “rich” but certainly very comfortable.

I think rich is when you dont bother looking at the price of things.

Benji – think it was £110k per year but your basic point still valid.

I think about 10% of people pay higher rate of tax so by most folks standard £60k is wealthy.

TJ will be turning in his virtual stw grave!

Depends if that is for 2, or where you live etc. considering that they will pay 20% on most of what they spend as VAT why is it so bad??

FWIW it ends up as £800 a week after tax.

I’d rather stop all the people skipping the VAT by getting their bike stuff from Germany 🙂

I’m with mackem, I wouldn’t define that as rich, but comfortable enough.

Ps I don’t know where you live, but 60k wouldn’t get you a 6 bed detached and a pcp on a 5 series around here!

Edit no, but 110k would! Doh!

haven’t we been here before?

probably, is the 60k what you can get in benefits…..

not sure it makes you “feel” wealthy as your points of reference change and what you can’t afford just increases. that said it’s hard to sympathize with anyone moaning at that wage level.

6 bed house on 60k a year? Only if the bank of mummy and daddy bought it for you.
…and yes, it’s comfortable, but not rich, which is a sad indictment of how we measure ourselves.

FWIW it ends up as £800 a week after tax.

no it doesn’t, more like 1300.

http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

Using your link it says 803?

60,000/52 = 1153 so take some tax off.

If you can make 1300 * 52 = 60000 then welcome to the bank of **** up

As usual the problem is with inexact terminology. My rich may be my friend’s comfortable and your poor. There is no precise definition.

But relatively speaking £60k is a decent whack to most people; try and support a family in a decent part of Surrey on that though and you will certainly not feel rich. And whilst you may feel well off that will almost certainly not be the case if you lose your job and have no savings to fall back on.

A lot if the higher earners live in/near big cities though where house prices can be bordering on the ridiculous, by choice yes, but a young family early in their career may have little choice if they want to progress. Some of the most relatively hard up people I’ve met are those who’ve bought a £400k house in 2007 have a couple of kids and whose joint income is over £75k.

If you can make 1300 * 52 = 60000 then welcome to the bank of **** up

ah, I was thinking of that bloke on 110k !

sorry, it is so long since I was on the paltry sum of 60k that I forgot how little it was …

Plus house prices in London are getting ridiculous, so who knows what his mortgage.

I remember hearing a high-up manager on the phone to his bank to set up a new DD for his mortgage of 4600 a month.

I’d rather stop all the people skipping the VAT by getting their bike stuff from Germany

They don’t skip VAT – EU innit.

Are you planning on emigrating back now the dimwits are in charge down here?

Listening to all the carbon this, Kashima that on here I thought everyone was on £60k +

If you taxed people on 60k more, would that keep a lid on london house prices?

They don’t skip VAT – EU innit.
Are you planning on emigrating back now the dimwits are in charge down here?

They pay it to the Germans instead though.

Not heading back just fun to watch inept British politicians.

In the rarefied world of politicians, 60k is what the oiks earn….

I know couples earning twice that who aren’t rich. Eating out a lot seems to be a common way of disposing of money with no obvious benefit.

Why does it matter what Rachel Reeves or anyone else thinks is “rich”?

If labour are planning to tax the crap out of the rich you may want to know what they think rich is.

If you taxed people on 60k more, would that keep a lid on london house prices?

not doing that stupid ‘help to buy’ scheme would have helped keep some of the prices down…

If labour are planning to tax the crap out of the rich you may want to know what they think rich is

it might be more worthwhile to figure out how to effectively tax all those companies that manage to operate in this country at a loss, but make big global profits and not pay much tax here.

It really does depend, you may be earning that but have 2 people to support. If you wanted to live in the centre of Cambridge though you would likely need both parties in the relationship to be earning that amount I order t meet mortgage payments and still be able to afford to eat.

I spend a lot of time looking round at the cars on the road, the luxury purchases people are making, the cost of houses and wonder if they are largely self employed and lying about their earnings, if they all had large inheritances at some point, or if they are all just living in a lot more debt than I am.

For reference I think the average wage in my house in house is about £38k, so above average, but i don’t feel rich, I also don’t have any real money troubles and have just got back from a trip to NYC, so I am by no means complaining. I would also say I not as good at managing my money as some of my friends!

So the headline should be, Labour may propose a new threshold for those earning over 150k. Debating whether anyone is rich doesn’t achieve anything as it will always be a subjective measure.

it might be more worthwhile to figure out how to effectively tax all those companies that manage to operate in this country at a loss, but make big global profits and not pay much tax here.

The only result is that they will make less return so will have to reduce staff costs and increase prices. It may well be good for smaller competitors but the end result is the employee earns less and the consumer pays more.

Be careful what you wish for.

frankly 60k a year is a lot of money. average earned income in the uk is 26k pre tax.

what you choose to do with it is what makes you ‘rich’

to paraphrase..rich is the man who earns a quid and spends 90p skint is the man who earns a quid and spends £1.05

Be careful wishing big global companies pay a fair amount of tax here? I’m lost for words.

not doing that stupid ‘help to buy’ scheme would have helped keep some of the prices down…

True. I’m looking at the moment and H2B basically says to you as a buyer “Are you prepared to give up 20% of the future value of your house in order to live in a better house for that time”

It’s quite a clever short term plan though – keep a lid on mortgage sizes whilst fuelling a housing boom, and ensuring that the government gets a cut of the boom. Long term, when the plan is removed prices will slump and everyone loses 🙁

On £60k, your take home is £3480 a month.
On £40k, your take home is £2502 a month.

Looking at rentals for instance:

In greater London, the average is £1316. Leaves you with £2164 or £1186, at £40k it’s 52% of your wage.
In the North East, the average is £525. Leaves you with £2995 or £1977, at £40k it’s 21% of your wage.

When looking at the most significant expenditure, you’d have to earn around 25% more in Greater London than the North East to maintain the same income once housing is accounted for.

Always a chuckle in these threads, the idea that you have to have a massive mortgage in order to live somewhere in order to make enough to pay a massive mortgage…

A lot if the higher earners live in/near big cities though where house prices can be bordering on the ridiculous, by choice yes, but a young family early in their career may have little choice if they want to progress. Some of the most relatively hard up people I’ve met are those who’ve bought a £400k house in 2007 have a couple of kids and whose joint income is over £75k.

Some of the most hard up people, not relatively, but actually, are people who live in rented accommodation and have 2 or 3 jobs which don’t pay enough for them to have anything other than a telly…

And don’t forget, if you earn 60k and your partner doesn’t earn anything, it’s like having two slightly above average earners.

I like the architect Buckminsterfuller’s definition.

If you stopped working tomorrow and your unearned income covers your monthly expenditure then you are wealthy.

If your unearned income more than covers your monthly expenditure then you are rich- and that by the way is why the rich just keep getting richer as the spare income is invested.

I rather like this definition as it depends on how much you spend so in theory you could be rich on quite a modest income.

but the end result is the employee earns less and the consumer pays more.

😀 Could Starbucks charge anymore for their coffee ? !

Companies such as Starbucks charge for their products what they think they can get away with, and pay as little wages as they think they can get away with, it has nothing to do with whether they pay their taxes or not, the idea is to maximize profit.

If their customers were prepared to pay more, they will increase their prices, and if their customers aren’t prepared to pay more, they won’t increase their prices – they do after all want to stay in business. They just don’t want to pay their taxes. No one does, which is why they have to forced to – even if it upsets them !

The only result is that they will make less return so will have to reduce staff costs and increase prices. It may well be good for smaller competitors but the end result is the employee earns less and the consumer pays more.

Be careful what you wish for.

Or accept less return. If taxing companies is all bad why tax UK companies? Making international companies pay UK tax on the profits earned in the UK seems fair to me.

I think if many companies were able to reduce staff costs easily they would do it no matter what their tax situation was.

Some of the most hard up people, not relatively, but actually, are people who live in rented accommodation and have 2 or 3 jobs which don’t pay enough for them to have anything other than a telly…

Was going to edit to say “don’t pay enough to get sky 3D on their 42″ LCD”, but…

While I don’t disagree, you’ll be hard pushed to find someone with 50k negative equity and 2 kids on a salary circa 60k where they don’t receive any benefits to agree with that statement.

I think you are confusing a ‘lack of disposable income commensurate with owning an expensive house’ with ‘poverty’.