Why DONT you want to be well paid?

To be honest just a fairly normal slightly above average lifestyle.

For example, my uncle has a quite nice house in London Zone 6 (so about 25 miles from the centre), 4 bedroom detached on a main road (not that glamorous?) and a probably slightly more than average expensive car with wife (paid for wedding) and three kids. He had all this at 30 and he was not earning anything what most people would consider a very high salary - maybe 40-50k, if that. And now he also has another similar house and more cars - again nothing much has changed for him salary wise.

But to achieve that today in the same timescale, you'd need to be on a very, very high salary. I mean to get a mortgage for the house alone you'd need to be on at least £150,000. He bought it for £180,000, it is now worth just under £1,000,000 just 20 years later.

So I'm not referring to anything special, just a normal middle class lifestyle. I think most people our age are in for a shock when they start working and suddenly realise what they thought was a good salary, actually goes nowhere at all - I mean, barely covering the basics if you have a family.

What I'm saying is in the past an above average salary (banker, lawyer, accountant etc.) would get you an above average lifestyle. Today, an above average salary gets you a normal lifestyle. And an average salary gets you the basics.

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There is a world outside of London where it is very feasible to have all the things you listed without a super high salary.

They are far from the only way. The only people I know who make over £100k a year are self employed. One is a builder who has got into property development, one has a wholesaling business and the other has a plumbing and heating business.

I think generally, if you look at the people who have the amounts of money we are talking about in this thread and haven't just inherited it, the vast majority are self employed or run their own businesses. There just aren't that many investment bankers/traders/corporate lawyers.

If your sole aim is just to make as much money as possible, the best bet is to position yourself to go down the entrepreneurship route with something that either has a pretty sure chance of making a decent income with the potential for scalability (e.g. a trade where you will be able to find work for yourself but with the opportunity to go self employed, get bigger contracts and take on staff) or focus your efforts on setting up some business alongside going to uni or getting into some job where you will get experience/training that you can fall back on if your business ideas don't pan out.

I think the reason that people on here are ignoring this and concentrating on banking and corporate law as the only way to make serious money is because the path into it is so much more formalised and easier to understand. That maybe so but at the same time it strikes me as being more unlikely and less imaginative.

A four bed detached house would be 170k+ (so a deposit of 35k+)

I live in a cheap property area and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find anything matching that criteria for 170k.

OK...

The easily exist
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43151626.html

My friend got a three bed detached in Scotland for £140k less than a year ago. I didn't want to say higher incase they said 'there are cheaper properties out there'.

OK...

The easily exist
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43151626.html

My friend got a three bed detached in Scotland for £140k less than a year ago. I didn't want to say higher incase they said 'there are cheaper properties out there'.

Ha, they DEFINITELY don't live in Aberdeen. The houses in my neighborhood, fairly decent area, that match that are £300k+.

When I went to the International School, the houses there were upwards £500-600k for a 4 bed.

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No, but at leat you get free weed on trains from Aberdeen. Or at least I did last weekend...

Hm, haven't had that happen to me yet.

How come you were up here?

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Honestly? When I was earning a 'decent' wage, I had no time to actually ENJOY my wealth. I value work life balance VERY highly. I love the fact that my other jobs had an excellent work life balance, although I didn't earn as much I was far happier.

This! I know an acquaintance of myself who has had a good paid job with a very excellent wage by working 12 hours a day. He gave that up just to have more time for his family.

Good decision. I remember working and coming home, being able to barely have time to relax before I had to be in bed again, for months...I could only take the weekend off and even then I was constantly thinking and dreading the Monday. It just sucked.

Could you just outline how you could do that? As someone who has recently hit 30 with earnings of £49,400 outside of London I don't see how it'd be achievable.

A four bed detached house would be 170k+ (so a deposit of 35k+)
An above average car - 25k? (so a deposit of 4k)
Wedding - 12k?
So upfront costs of £50k+ and thats ignoring the running costs of a two adults and three kids.

It is 'feasible' I guess, but highly unlikely - especially if in the mid-range of the 40-50k bracket and had student loan repayments.

A lot of people aren't your age and have sufficient time to save - are those upfront costs taking into account you are starting from scratch with no savings at all? Also nobody has three kids all in one go, this based on the assumption that no one yet has kids as most people here won't. Therefore a four bed property is not necessary from the get go, neither does the house need to be detached. That said I have friends who own homes with at least two bedrooms, with generous back gardens and decent yet not excessively expensive cars. (again I don't see the need for them to be new or expensive). Some of them don't earn much above £20k if that. Oh and London is just over an hour away on the train. People save up for all the things you highlighted across a period of time plus couples combine earnings so yes between two people it is especially affordable and no, I don't think most people would plan their wedding to coincide with the purchase of a car. By the time said couple has kids the deposits would've been paid assuming they're sensible and have kids when they're ready. I'm also from a big family so I'm well aware of running costs. Life happens in stages which I feel you've ignored to create an unrealistic and unattainable picture of the kind of lifestyle many people I know have.

Please bear in mind it was the poster 'will2348' who outlined the example of their uncle. You seem to have forgotten that. Or are you now saying (when confronted with todays capital requirement) that you were wrong earlier and it isn't feasible?

I asked if you could outline how they would save. How can they save that amount of cash by 30? Could you illustrate an example?

Ok you've decided to be exacting, think it's quite obvious I meant owning a nice size house and car is attainable. The house being detached is such an irrelevance I feel you've missed the gist of what he was saying too. Even so, I think I've just shown it is possible seeing as the people I know have done as much as they have on half your salary and aren't above 25. With a little more money then yes they could afford a more expensive car and slightly bigger house in a few years if they wanted. Around £50K in 8 years is not insurmountable on a half decent salary and maybe I didn't see the part where the poster said his uncle did it all by himself, not sure that was stipulated. Again not sure that's relevant unless he weirdly has an express desire to be the sole provider.

Besides it is you who has missed my original point. £50k is in fact a possibility and is one only if you move out of a high cost area. People want sky high salaries because they're imagining the cost of a four bed in London. One way of saving money is moving out the area which effectively reduces most of your monthly outgoings.

You don't need it broken down any more than that.

I did it on a fairly "average" salary. Had a flat in zone 2 in London by the time I was 30 and that was on a single income. And that's with a fairly comfortable lifestyle (3 holidays a year, regular nights out).




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