How much money do you earn? And how do you spend it?

cguy said:
Why do you guys go onto a salary transparency and expenditure thread if you’re going to get all jelly when people who have done better than you discuss the topic?

Learning from more successful people who are direct and open on topics of wealth, and career development were key to reaching my level of success. Pointing fingers is just a coping mechanism to justify mediocrity.
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Sorry to disappoint, but I'm quite comfortable, wealth wise. And although you may be better off than me, who gives a fluck? There are plenty who are far better off than you. It's the way of the world.

But you just go on and on and on - we had the same debate years ago, and you are still doing it.

You can help people without continuously mentioning over and over, in the same thread, how you accumulated wealth.

By your reckoning, how many times have you brought it up?
 
cguy said:
Why do you guys go onto a salary transparency and expenditure thread if you’re going to get all jelly when people who have done better than you discuss the topic?

Learning from more successful people who are direct and open on topics of wealth, and career development were key to reaching my level of success. Pointing fingers is just a coping mechanism to justify mediocrity.
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Who said I'm jelly? And who said you did better than me?
Don't be so sensitive girl.
 
yogidabear said:
That article makes it sound like they pay 62% tax but it weirdly seems to include pension and a student loan repayment. On that salary £125,500 you pay 35.6% tax incl national insurance. https://aftertaxuk.com/

Maybe it was just me that was confused but know we still have quite high tax here so that looked hectic
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Here is a breakdown of why that £100,000 mark is considered a "cliff edge" rather than a smooth transition.

1. The Personal Allowance Taper​

Most people in the UK have a Personal Allowance—the amount you can earn before you start paying any Income Tax. Currently, that is £12,570.

However, once your "Adjusted Net Income" hits £100,000, you lose £1 of that allowance for every £2 you earn above the limit.

  • The Result: By the time you earn £125,140, your entire tax-free allowance has vanished. Every penny of your income is now taxable.
  • The "Hidden" Cost: Because you are losing your tax-free protection at the same time you are paying a 40% tax rate on the new income, the effective tax rate on that specific slice of earnings (between £100k and £125k) jumps significantly.

2. The "62%" Math​

The statement mentions that 62p of every pound is lost. This isn't a single tax, but a combination of three things hitting your paycheck at once:

  • 40% Income Tax: The standard higher rate for earnings over £50,270.
  • 20% "Hidden" Tax: This is the cost of losing your Personal Allowance. For every £1 you earn, you're effectively paying tax on an extra 50p of income that used to be free.
  • 2% National Insurance (NI): The contribution rate for high earners.
$$\text{40\% (Higher Rate)} + \text{20\% (Allowance Withdrawal)} + \text{2\% (NI)} = \mathbf{62\%}$$
In short, for every £1,000 raise you get in this bracket, you only see £380 in your bank account.

3. The Childcare Cliff Edge​

This is often the most painful part of the "curse." Unlike the tax allowance, which tapers off gradually, childcare benefits in the UK are often all-or-nothing.

If either parent earns over £100,000 (even by just £1), the household loses:

  • Tax-Free Childcare: Worth up to £2,000 per child per year.
  • 30 Hours Free Childcare: The entitlement to 15 or 30 hours of funded childcare for children aged 9 months to 4 years.
The "Math of Misery":

Imagine a parent earning £99,000 who gets a £2,000 bonus. Their income is now £101,000.

  1. They pay £1,240 in tax and NI on that bonus.
  2. They lose £2,000 in Tax-Free Childcare.
  3. They lose 30 hours of free nursery, which can cost £5,000–£10,000+ depending on where they live.
In this scenario, a £2,000 "pay rise" could effectively cost the family over £8,000 in lost disposable income.
 
Anyways, back to the topic of the thread:

How much money do you earn? And how do you spend it?​


I love to travel and have just come back from Japan where I was shocked at how affordable everything was. Save R10k on an iPhone 17, and shoes are half price there, so the trip basically paid for itself. (The lies we tell ourselves,)

Also, I got R10k off the flight with Absa Rewards so the flight came to R5k-odd with Singapore Airlines. The visa was only R300 and you only pay the Japanese government if they grant you the visa.
 
Juanado said:
Anyways, back to the topic of the thread:

How much money do you earn? And how do you spend it?​


I love to travel and have just come back from Japan where I was shocked at how affordable everything was. Save R10k on an iPhone 17, and shoes are half price there, so the trip basically paid for itself. (The lies we tell ourselves,)

Also, I got R10k off the flight with Absa Rewards so the flight came to R5k-odd with Singapore Airlines. The visa was only R300 and you only pay the Japanese government if they grant you the visa.
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petrol R16/l too.
 
ISP cash cow said:
Why are people getting upset about people saying what they earn in a thread about "what do you earn and how do you spend it"?
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Its when you say it about 20 times that it gets tiresome. Every time someone else fires up this thread again, Guy comes and repeats himself. Dunno how some folk dont get that.
 
Splinter said:
Sorry to disappoint, but I'm quite comfortable, wealth wise. And although you may be better off than me, who gives a fluck?
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Clearly you care, very deeply. Amazingly, even though I didn’t bring up how much I earn.

Splinter said:
There are plenty who are far better off than you. It's the way of the world.
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Indeed, and I learn from them whenever they give advice. If I wrote them off, I would be a lot poorer.

Splinter said:
But you just go on and on and on - we had the same debate years ago, and you are still doing it.
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We’re in a forum thread about wealth, something I know a fair amount about, so I will continue to give advice to those who post and read. If you don’t care for my posts, you’re welcome to ignore them and go on your merry way, instead of trying to police me.

Splinter said:
You can help people without continuously mentioning over and over, in the same thread, how you accumulated wealth.
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Splinter said:
By your reckoning, how many times have you brought it up?
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I’m responding to new posts. Do you expect people to have the last 270 pages in their context buffer?
 
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Splinter said:
Its when you say it about 20 times that it gets tiresome. Every time someone else fires up this thread again, Guy comes and repeats himself. Dunno how some folk dont get that.
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What on earth are you talking about? We are talking about @messuga’s earnings, not mine.
 
Kindly ignore @Splinter and @Juanado trolls. Ignore them like the guys in the political threads ignore them.

I enjoy reading the other posts and people's experiences, as per the thread topic. @cguy keep it going. Also, it's okay to be jealous. It means you are still hoping to achieve something in life

I earn enough money to buy 1KG of beans a month and one day die as a hobo
 
yogidabear said:
That article makes it sound like they pay 62% tax but it weirdly seems to include pension and a student loan repayment. On that salary £125,500 you pay 35.6% tax incl national insurance. https://aftertaxuk.com/

Maybe it was just me that was confused but know we still have quite high tax here so that looked hectic
Click to expand...
It’s an increase in marginal tax rate for a small range of income, at the point the UK tax decision makers decided people make enough to not need a personal allowance and can pay for their own child care. At its max the personal deduction loss costs £5k. The childcare loss only affects people who happen to have young kids at the same time their income is in this range. In this worst case scenario, it works out to a 62% marginal tax. The effective tax is much less, and converges up to 45% as income increases.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Updating this as moving companies in the next two months due to some management reasons.

Age: 28
Note salary is net / 12 as 14 checks, previous was near R21/Eur, now it's 19.37 (~10% difference).
Salary:
~R80k net pm after pension, taxes, medical aid, and unemployment (down 3k EUR/year or ~5% net).
"Guaranteed" Bonus (same as first Austrian job, goals are basically set as easy to meet, but must exist as goals for tax purposes, first 3k EUR tax-free, then caps at 25.5% effective tax): ~R150k / 12 = R12k net pm, but only applies next year sadly. So rest of year a ~R1k net pm drop, but hopefully next year R92k net so ~12% gain.

Expenses basically didn't change besides electricity getting cheaper, but that was being offset by energy subsidies. Official inflation is ~4-5% adjustments.

Overall Net: ~R54k net pm, next year hopefully R66k net.
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Updating again, considering if I should move companies as got a pretty good offer where salary stays the same but I get shares that vest that are probably around half salary again after tax, just that it's going to be around 5 years before it matters. The work is interesting though.

Age: 29
Again, note salary is net / 12 as 14 checks, and going to do it a bit different and do this CTC and then actual net. Going to take an average of the last 4 months as expenses.
1 EUR is 19.28 ZAR, so similar to last time. Inflation since then has been about 4-5%, most of it concentrated on food/going out.

Summary:
CTC R182k pm
Gross R144.6k pm
Net after medical, pension: 91.5k pm
Spend about R60k pm.

90k in EUR.png

90k in ZAR.png

SV (Pension, Medical, UIF), both pay for it.
DB (Family funds, solidarity tax for schoolchildren / daycare, etc.)
DZ (pays for AK / workers union)
KommSt (Communal housing)
BV - Pension

So when I say I earn 90k EUR gross, South Africa it's about 113k equivalent, note how like R56k go into pension, medical and unemployment. I'm at about the cap that you pay into that system.

My main expenses recently seem to be rent / place to live, I could swap to living in house that's inherited, but like living directly in the city more vs 20 min outside. I'm fine with anything up to 30%, so where I am is nice, still basically fixed cost till 2028, will jump then.

Travel is higher, but that's because I prepaid the main two holidays the last three months, think average is a little over half that. Usually I go with a friend to places, since accommodation is half the cost.

Groceries are probably high, but that's mostly cutting down from eating out, I like making better dishes / inviting friends over, eating out is third place.

Looking at savings, I am kind of curious if in like 10 years, income on just side stuff from it will be more than my salary, I've not really scaled up my lifestyle too much. I'm slowly starting to save more as apartment is getting kitted out, have clothing and stuff (usually under online purchases the last 3 months).

Missing bonus in this, as it's June, so not in my last months bit (pulling this from my bank app's budget).
 
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This is a really weird thread. Didn’t your parents teach you that it’s rude to talk about your income with strangers😂
 
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