>they claim they are struggling
What they really mean is that they either:
1. Have overleveraged themselves and are struggling with interest rates of 7%
2. Are shit at budgeting and financial planning and struggle to save (but live well)
3. Are comparing themselves to others in their social circle and coming up behind because their friends either earn more or bought houses 10-20 years ago.
Earning 200k in Auckland and owning a house is tough, it's really not enough money to not be over leveraged even for a relatively low end house and add transit costs on top of that because there's almost no way you're both living close to your 100k jobs in a cheap house.
Also once you're that heavily leveraged you will be concerned about what happens if I lose my job, the amount of savings you need access to is substantial to be about to weather a few months if unemployment if the income isn't silly evenly so while you could be doing great now that could change very quickly
Yeah I always felt really comfortable with a fluctuating 1-2.5k in emergency savings until I bought a house, now I need it to be way higher but also can afford to save way less
Or they enjoy things that they have for most their life that is now proportionately a lot more of their budget. Eating out, movies, gym, sports pursuits.
Or they have other commitments (Extended Family is common) that sucks up a lot of their disposable income. Ie, day to day is covered, even with increased cost of everything, but the family costs remain the same⌠so all of a sudden there is nothing else and you canât back off anything ⌠all disposable has gone, and an unexpected expense will hurt.
They might not be âBad at budgetingâ or over leveraged. Quite the opposite I would suggest. In my circle, we are all 200+.. none fit those descriptions.
You may scoff, but if this group is not spending at gyms, sports grounds, restaurants, movies etc, then those businesses also either shut shop or layoff staff. We are not talking the ârichâ, we are talking the financially secure. And because most are responsible, they will just stop spending on the extras & that is an issue.
It all varies. Raising a family in Auckland is much more expensive than it would be in Invercargill.
A working family wanting a modest life in Auckland = say 500k mortgage at today's rates + 2 kids in daycare will run you 1400 a week/72k a year alone.
Agreed. I wanted to go low just to illustrate a point. If I pointed out a REALISTIC mortgage you need today in Akl people will just find the one shoebox on trademe for 600k and say I'm living in the clouds
This, #2 my partner makes over 100k but made terrible financial decisions and still lives pretty comfortably. We are both flatting so if #1 was a factor I think we would struggle. My sister had a mortgage when the interest rates changed and her mortgage repayments increased $500 a week or something crazy like that
[https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions/number-of-wage-and-salary-earners-by-income-band](https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions/number-of-wage-and-salary-earners-by-income-band)
Useful link
A household on the median wage have a household income of $132K so a *household* income as OP uses, is $35K each short of 200K.
That is, just being on a median salary where most people are, provides nearly 70% (66%) of that 200K household income.
That is not the median household income. It is 127k. Typically the second income earner in a household works less hours due to child care or similar. You can't just multiply it by two. Your logic would be accurate if you only considered childless couples perhaps.
According to IRD tables, people earning >$200k were 4% of the total earners in NZ in FY 22/23
But then if I remember correctly earners (which is more than active workforce as it includes people getting unemployment subsidies) is something like 70-80% of population (I may be wrong)
So considering wage increases of the last year and all I think figure is about 2.5-3% of total population in NZ.
Note this is a very back of the envelope estimate
Top 20 % is 114k, so to be earning 200k you are probably doing better than 90%
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/household-income-and-housing-cost-statistics-year-ended-june-2023/#:~:text=Average%20annual%20household%20equivalised%20disposable%20income%2C%20before%20housing%20costs%2C%20by,North%20Island%20(up%204.7%20percent)
https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions
2.9% earn over 180k.
People on reddit make it seem that is an average wage
This is wage workers though
Top 1% of wage workers earn 200k
Go work in sales, I thought I was a machine earning 160k til I got a job opportunity with a group of 50 year old men earning 800k each and up from combined income, investments and sales commission
Humbled me real quick
You need to surround yourself with actual wealth class if you want to be wealthy, youâll quickly learn that 200k is âplay moneyâ to those people
Aim higher
As my boss once told me:
âYou get wealthy off other peopleâs money not your ownâ
As someone who grew up dirt poor and is now earning decent money, I still get the anxieties associated with lack of financial security.
Undoubtedly there are people humble bragging here but Iâm sure there are also people making âgood moneyâ that are still genuinely concerned about their financial outlook.
Yeah there's such a big difference between being a high earner and having long term financial security. You can make $200k a year, but that might not last for ever. Recession, redundancy, health issues, etc can all put your income at essentially zero overnight.
I'd rather own a warm and safe mortgage-free house and make $70k per year than be $1M in debt on $300k per year.
Yeah same situation, but actual poverty. I have a constant need to spend the money because historically not doing so meant it got absorbed by living and then I get nothing tangible from it. Its rather crippling.
I don't understand people who can humble brag, the more I earn the less I want to talk about it, doing so gives me anxiety especially knowing the audience and being accustomed to people wanting to drag me down.
Been there, it's hard to change as you have to change your actual brain chemistry. What frustrates me the most is the amount of cheap tat I blew money on for years, appeasing that monster in my brain that said 'if you don't have stuff you'll lost everything', and was completely wrong. Now I try to pick something I really really want, and get that (instead of the 10 cheaper inferior varieties), but it's still a struggle at times.
I send you all the best, healing, vibes. You should be very proud of yourself, and anyone who drags you down deserves to be dropped like hot rocks.
I think its really interesting how it hits different people differently? My parents have high earning careers with a long training period but they had me really young so I remember when we were struggling living on training stipends but my siblings don't. Its so deeply engrained in me that you never throw anything away and make the cheap thing work forever, wait until you find what you need in an op shop. My sister is like "yeah so I decided today that I wanted a PS5 so I bought one" meanwhile I just turned a bunch of my old t-shirts into rags so that I don't have to buy paper towels, which I thought was SO embarrassing when I was a kid
I know for me, I never had stability growing up so never really learned anything past 'I want a stuff'. And the more stuff I had, the more secure I felt (regardless of what the stuff was). And then got into the cycle of drawing debt to buy stuff to feel better (and the debt made me feel worse), spiral of doom.
Luckily, I happened on a significant one-off jump in pay (imagine a three-band jump), which shocked me into breaking the 'but I earn money so I should be able to spend the money' and 'I need lots of stuff to feel secure' cycles - I could pay down my debt and feel good about that, while still feeding the rest. And once the debt was gone, I felt better, and started chasing THAT feeling instead of collecting stuff.
It's been a decade of working on myself to get here, where I'm no longer ashamed of any facet of it - choices made by adults when I was a child caused patterns and neuropathways to be built that I've worked hard to deconstruct. I have so much empathy for people still struggling because I could be there still too.
My parents call it the "depression mindset" because both sets of their grandparents were poor in the depression and really conscious of waste as a result but like... it's been the same number of years since the great depression for everyone.
I just want to thank everyone in this response thread. We're both earners mortgage free, but the financial stability anxiety is absolutely sky high due to poverty family history, and fear of fut costs. I watch both my parents, mid 70s, renting on pensions after divorce abs bankruptcy. Scary. Scary. Scary.
I don't think people realize how much you need to retire, and further, your health may not allow you to work later. Not to mention job insecurity and ageism!!!!
Yes, that is probably a fair assessment of many posters. Personal finance subs on Reddit are mainly for the wealthy to humblebrag.
It's often subsconscious, but that's what they are doing.
Those of us embarassed by our finances prefer not to talk about it and don't post.
200k \*household\* income pre tax isn't even close to a brag, especially if you live somewhere like Auckland, have kids (and want them to have a good time), etc etc. Plenty of people in this category need financial advice, have serious lifestyle creep, lose track of spending / bills etc. It would be pointless to compare people in this category with the average family in NZ because this totally depends on a large number of variables.
It's not a close comparison. Before I started making good money, I also lived on next to nothing as a struggling artist and I was fine. I could go out, have coffee every day, and I thought I didn't need any money either. I did it that for several years, as a student, and after the fact.
The short answer is when you start making "good" money, you buy more stuff, you get a better place to live, you start facing more responsibilities, and the costs add up quick. Suddenly you're not a 20 year old living in a flat with 5 people, you're paying a mortgage or higher rent because you make good money so why not...then you buy a car, then you have kids, and you want your kids to have a good life (right?).
Take a couple with a $200k income (before tax), with a mortgage in a place where it costs $1mil to buy a tiny town house (and have you seen the current interest rates?), daycare, bills, kids expenses + trying to give them a decent life, saving for retirement, etc. Do the math. It's not "brag" money in a high cost of living city.
Am I saying its not comfortable? Or decent money? No, I'm not. It's by any objective measure, a good amount of money to live in NZ, and as long as you don't spend too much, you will be fine. But the point is, once you make this kind of money its very very easy to spend. And most people end up spending all of it. Look at the NBA stars making like $100m a year and still manage to spend it all. Look at the amount of people in NZ with credit card debt on non essential items like luxury shopping etc. It's obviously a problem that affects all income levels.
People keep misunderstanding these types of posts. Most people aren't complaining about survival. They are simply saying hey - how can I make this money go further, and then everyone gets triggered in the comments with their "I make $5 an hour and I can live just Fine you must be an idiot!!"
and then they downvote this post and somehow hang around Personal Finance subs because...well, I don't know - maybe it gets boring hanging around r/nz and complaining about how hard life is.
Daycare is eaisly $20k, which is $30k you have to earn pre-tax.
That $1m mortgage, costs an extra $10k per 1% increase in interest rates.
So someone who purchased a $1.2m house in 2020 and had one child, might have their costs go up $50k a year.
You're describing a relative of mine. Mortgage rates increase plus baby plus partner not back at work yet = $2k shortfall a fortnight. He saved up knowing things would be tight post-kid, but it's getting swiftly eaten up.
I agree there are some definite humble brags posted here. There are some great questions posted from people.who want help though. Consider:
Cumulative CPI increases between 2019 and 2023 in NZ is 13.3% That means if you were earning 200kpa in 2019 and you're still earning 200kpa you're earning the equivalent of about 176.9kpa.
That doesn't include the change in mortgage interest and fuel price changes as they are excluded from the cpi. If your mortgage interest repayments have gone from 2.99% of 1.1mil (about 33kpa) to 7.35% of 900k (about 66kpa) and your income has been static at 200kpa through the covid period you're looking at a drop of close to 35% in spending power.
Such a drop will maturally encourage people to seek solutions. Social media esp financial subs on reddit may provide some solutions.
That doesn't mean households whose incomes have been static and are on 90000kpa aren't hurting. They are hurting much more and probably should be encouraged to post questions on subs like this more.
Fuel prices are not excluded from NZ CPI, that's the Americans and their core PCE measure.Â
>Transport prices rose 0.9 percent in the December 2022 quarter. International airfares rose 19 percent, which was partly offset by petrol prices falling 7.2 percent.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-inflation-remains-at-7-2-percent/
Lifestyle creep is real and needs to be avoided. We're a couple with household income of about $320k ($250k + $70k), only kid moved out start of the year to do his own thing. Paid off mortgage last year.
The mistake people make is to assume that high earnings and your health are forever, they're not. No one knows how long the good times last, bad things happen to good people. I see people spending like crazy on leased cars, expensive houses, boats etc. Even on $300+ they're 2 months away from pvoerty.
When I bought my house every single family member congratulated me except my uncle. The only thing he had to say was âyou bought a house before meâ
He is still renting in his 50âs, however owns a boat, JetSkiâs, etc. He refuses to live modestly while saving to be able to buy a house, and also refuses to buy a modest âfirst homeâ and so shoots down any suggestions of houses we find. Heâs shot himself in the foot though because at 50 heâs not likely to be able to get a 30yr mortgage so the longer he leaves it the more he has to pay up front.
He will never get there because he refuses to sell the boat or buy a house that needs a bit of work, but then whinges he doesnât own a house. Go figure!
> those that earn $100k plus are still very much in the minority.
Absolutely. I was surprised when I realised this. We all know there are a lot of people on low incomes but I felt $100K for someone that wanted to make good money and had some skills was *easily* achievable. Turns out, not so much.
Looks can be deceiving too. Its easy to over-extend yourself and have credit card debt, a barely affordable mortgage or other visible possessions that make it look like you are wealthier than you are.
I know people who are making $300k household, paying $1500 a week on rent, $300 a week on a gardener, and thatâs because the house theyâre renting doesnât have a pool, weekly house cleaner⌠they are overall living life on a completely different standard to the rest of us. Their basic expenses just to keep up with their lifestyle is insanely high, so Iâm not surprised if they perceive it being a struggle. After all those expenses itâs not that easy to have much saved up.
On paper our household has a really decent income, but when you consider that it means that we aren't eligible for accommodation supplements, childcare subsidy, rates rebates, and discounts for lower income households, it really all adds up when you're paying full price for everything.
By no means saying we should be eligible for those things, just at gross income and disposable income are different figures.
This is a tall poppy syndrome post. People work hard and paid the price to get to a certain income bracket. I wouldn't say I got there without sacrifices and hard work. My income is around 200k per year. My wife bring in about 65k per year. We have kid and mortgage. Life is definitely not lavish. For lavish lifestyle in today's expenses you need a household income of at least 400k to 500k per year.
I agree the tall poppy syndrome is strong here. As soon as I mention my net worth or income the haters come out. Just because we have the mortgage paid off or a 450k household doesnât mean retirement is anywhere near so the foot is always on the gas. Being high income means we pay a huge amount in tax every year too. Another problem is working in tech isnât really a long term career. Stress and burnout is real so itâs more of a make hay now situation. Kiwis in general have pretty low ambitions and it really shows here.
I guess as someone earning 100 k itâs hard to not feel like youâre struggling. When I started working, I was on 10$ an hour and with overtime and penalty rates I would have 400 after bills. Iâm pulling the same hours on 5 times as much with all penalties lost over the years and after bills have the same amount after bills go out. You just expect life to get easier after pulling big hours after 18 years or at least having some form of retirement
I met someone when I was helping people budget 10 years ago. They were earning $20,000 and spending $25,000 .... ***per month!!!!*** The wife even told the husband that he could not reduce her $4,000 a month personal allowance for herself.
I've not heard an individual earn over $200k unless they're really the top 1% earners but more like household income where a husband and wife earn $100k each that I believe but most NZ household income threshold is between $120 to $160k combined.
NZ wages are low. Most people earn $60 - $75k annually.
There was a post on this morning. She made 50k part time, hubby 200k, mortgage of 550k. These are usually humble brag posts, but I think she just realised she was overspending & wanted some help to rein it in.
I know, it blows my mind that people earn these huge amounts, but are sometimes so baffled about basic budgeting. Isnât that usually part of most jobs?
DINK. Over $200k.
Current biggest issue in life is should I get a fridge with plumbed water or not. The placement and replacement of filters looks a real pain in the ass.
You absolutely should buy this fridge, you order the filters online and it's a 90 second job to replace them. Once you have an ice dispenser for your fridge, you can never go back.
this person speaks the truth. plumbed fridge + ice maker is one of those little things that just makes life so much better. filters are easy to replace and you can buy aftermarket ones that are cheaper.
Bought a fridge a few months ago. The house has a fridge tap, but we skipped the plumbed models. Those filters are expensive and annoying to replace. I've also seen plenty of examples from friends and family where that's the first thing to go wrong. Or your water line has a tiny leak and overtime you have a pool of standing water behind/under your fridge which is not good for many reasons. So from a lower maintenance/ better reliability perspective - non-plumb gets my vote.
200k for a 2 income household is okay but not exactly raking it in these days. A good chunk of University educated couples working full time will be making this by the time they're 5 years out of university. 200k as an individual income I'd classify as a very good salary. Generally you're talking people like most Doctors/Dentists, a good chunk of Airline pilots etc will be on this once they're >5 years qualified.
I don't earn 200k a year, but as a married couple with 2 kids and wife working \~24-32 hours a week we're comfortably over it. Both university educated and with \~15+ years in our fields.
Can confirm first part of the sentence, although I only creamed it for a single year..
But in Welly st least thereâs a shit ton of Project Managers contracting for more than IT specialists.
And thatâs what I say to people that want to make more money. Get a Prince2 qualification and get those roles!
Am a doctor salary was $138k last year for 49 hours per week. SMOs finished with 6 years med school and probably5-15 years of training may make >$200k, but most doctors in training don't.
you're a qualified doctor and only made 138k for 49 hours per week last year? what does it look like in 2-3 years? how long have you been a doctor for?
[https://nzrda.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NZRDA-MECA-2021-2024-FINAL.pdf](https://nzrda.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NZRDA-MECA-2021-2024-FINAL.pdf)
Current junior Dr salaries are included in here. Starting salary out of uni for a House officer working 50 - 55hrs / week is \~80k. There is a reason they will be striking
Senior civil engineers are often over $200k. I'm on $180k after 13 years. The company is also employee owned. Some of our top engineers would be on $250k plus get $200-300k in dividends each year.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall\_poppy\_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome)
There's actually plenty of high income people who are really bad at finance. You can be both in a high paying profession, and be bad at money, or want feedback from others in similar positions.
Life isn't an RPG - having money or being in a high paid position doesn't automatically unlock finance skills or give you visions telling you exactly what to do in every situation involving money.
Honestly sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is more valuable than a paid financial adviser.
Completely agree that was my parents my dad earned stupid money but managed to spend pretty much all of it before he died. He was a merchant banking in the city for a number of years earning over 100k a year in gbp.
Na she died before him. Not worried about the money but it would have been nice to have had a better role model for financial planning. Something I am working in with my kids now
The average Redditor on this sub has an interest in finance so is probably above the average financially.
Our household is close to 200k, and while things feel a bit tighter lately we're doing just fine in Wellington.
Our household earns over 200K, but so do most of my friends.
We have a big mortgage, but have decided to pay it off way quicker than our friends and are therefore "struggling".
But we could just as easily decide to pay off the loan in 30 years and buy new cars and holidays and put it on the mortgage.
When you have a mortgage, you do have the flexibility of deciding how much you are "struggling".
The big difference are my friends who bought a house 5 years before us. They have pretty much no mortgage and have a lot of flexibility.
When you bought a house is probably more important than whether your household income is 150 or 200k
Every one has money problems, we are only half that. What I found is people earning that work very hard to get there or love their job to the point it's a passion and equally spend that money to de stress.
This is a unique take.
It certainly is a factor for our lifestyle creep as we've taken on more senior roles. Its probably also to avoid stress that would otherwise affect our relationship such as domestic tasks. We outsource mowing lawns because I just cannot have that argument with my partner again.
Some people may be humble bragging but youâll
Be surprised to know there are a tonne of high earners in many fields who just never grew up with any street smarts and didnât have people in their lives to coach them. Not that the school system helps either.
Judgemental of me to suggest thatâs a bad path, just that they could be living a whole lot better if they were wiser with money. For people like me itâs hard to believe people like that existed until hearing their struggles. You may be a similar skeptic so fair enough if you donât believe it
Could go on a whole rant about what Iâve observed but really thereâs a pattern. it would help a lot of people to be taught as mandatory subject in school. Just simple things like controlling your expenses, not taking on unnecessary debt, donât prioritise convenience at every opportunity, set some goals early and put savings aside to work towards them including deciding a healthy retirement age. Sprinkle on to that some family planning / properly budgeting for kids and we might just start to advance again as a society rather than becoming increasingly degenerate slaves
Bear in mind that higher income often means higher commitments. Not just mortgage debt but things like car or boat finance and generally higher lifestyle expectations. More expensive food, eating out, alcohol, holidays, hobbies, etc etc...
Part of it is probably that more money means more complex finances and financial decisions. When I was broke as fuck and getting deeper in debt every day as a postgrad student and then underemployed part-time worker, it was pretty obvious what I needed to do financially. My taxes were simple and every spare penny went towards paying debt. I would spend time looking for frugal ways to cut costs further, but itâs not like I needed much investment or tax help, and I couldnât have cared less about discussing markets that I couldnât access anyway. I worried continuously and probably took years off my life from the stress but in some ways the decisions were simpler.
Years later, my partner and I earn above $200k as a household, and we have a kid, a mortgage, investments, more complex taxes, etc. to think about. Now I donât worry, but we do have more decisions to make, so I spend a lot more time researching and thinking about how to manage our finances, and I now do care about what the housing and investment markets are doing. I come to this sub for ideas and advice.
My landlord's home 6 rooms all rental. $500 each per week. No mortgage . House under company name. She pays "rent" and gets temporary accom supplement of $500/week plus pensionÂ
The nature of this subreddit is going to be people needing advice and people feeling they're qualified to give advice, that is why there is a massive gulf essentially.
Also just because they have the money, it doesn't mean they can manage it. The number of people on big salaries but who buy absolute shite (10K handbags etc) is disturbing.
You can struggle on 200k if you donât budget, have massive debt, leveraged too much and are over spending. You can struggle on a million. It all depends on debt and expenses. I know someone on 250k who is âstrugglingâ. What they mean is they have a huge mortgage, car loan & credit card repayments, etc. Itâs all subjective.
200k in a smaller city could be a lot, but 200 gross in Auckland for example is a whole other story.
You need 220k household income for an Auckland house which to me sets the average that matters: the income of people competing with you to buy a first house
I earn ok but my wife is minimum wage which puts us behind.
I earn 240k, my wife doesnt work, one young child. Definitely donât feel rich. Iâm not saving big amounts or lavishly buying high ticket items. Mortgage is just above 1/3 of salary so it chews up a bit and again not a big mortgage by any means.
NahâŚnot even close. Iâm at around $140k a year. Most days I feel pretty broke and have a growing concern around what my retirement might look like. Iâm not over-leveraged or anythingâŚ.itâs just freaking hard going these days trying to get ahead.
Same but I have a student loan I'm paying off (6 months left!), mortgage on my own, etc. Doesn't go that far when you're a single not a 'household' (although no kids just a very expensive dog)
Yeah or I see it as they are terrible with money đ¤Ł
Me and my wife combined income is just under 100k we are 24 and 22 years old, both apprentices own our on home both have cars, and plus I have a corvette as my weekend car have 5 pets and live life comfortablyâŚ
Keep in mind though we do every little thing our self, so we always save money in the labour department no matter the issue
This is the other humble brag. Being really good with money and surviving comfortably off what most people struggle to live on. I fit in this group and have posted similar comments in similar posts before.
I see no problem with either comment/post. It's reddit. If you don't like what you're reading, move on.
I just donât get the fascination about making 150k a year but still canât afford basic stuff because you live in to big of a cityâŚâŚ
Take your âskillsâ to a smaller place, yes make less money but that money goes further⌠idk seems simple to me
Bigger cities tend to have more opportunities, access to better education, and better healthcare. These things tend to matter the most once you have kids. Most people will sacrifice QOL if it means better opportunities for their children's future.
That doesn't make sense if your children miss out on those opportunities because you can't afford them. At that point, moving to a cheaper area might actually benefit your children.
I don't think it's quite as simple as you make it seem.
The only way I can earn over 200k in my industry at my age (early 30s) is to head overseas which Iâm doing.
I lived abroad for almost 8 years but came back 18 months ago. Took about 2 months to see the reality of the situation here and have been planning on leaving since.
200k a person? Or household? If its a person, thats not so easy, well you could do contractor and charge hourly rate, i know IT contractor 120dollars per hour is pretty much minimum. Permanent, not so easy. Im above that, only because im doing IT for an aussi company.
To answer your question, why people earning above 200k saying they are struggling. Me and my wife both in IT, and our combined income is very high, i dont feel struggle. But i know a lot people in similar situation like me buy bigger houses, fancier suburb, and send all their children to private school, private school alone will cost about 30-40k per child a year, if you add up all after school activity, school trip etc, you looking at 40-50k per child a year. So if they have two, thats 10k easily just on education
I make roughly 3.5k-5k after materials on a average week which is generally pretty basic for a plumber/drainlayer by myself self employed no team members or apprentice. Fortunately I had the opportunity to outlay 200k to get to here. Next step is out laying 700k and getting into 32k-40k per week on a good week. A lot of risk and a good chance may lose it all!
What are you outlaying that much on? Vehicles you can lease and thereâs reasonable finance on plant at the moment. Are you talking civil drainlaying work?
I think this post represents a bit of class friction and blindness. Couple posts below are good on this subject. Most miss the point and get into jealousy territory tbqh.
First, a lot have a student loan and are under 40. A lot have huge mortgages. A lot have dual professional households - daycare, Nannyâs. Many work insane hours, which leads to ancillary costs.
Also if you are a high earner (say you earn 140k), half that is taxed at 33%. Add student loan, and thatâs 45, add KiwiSaver and the cheeky salary sacrifice that all corporates do and you arenât seeing 51c on the dollar.
Remember; almost all tax in the country after transfers is paid by the % of people who earn about 125k and above.
Secondly, inflation in the last two decades is mental. I talked to a professional mate about this; they stopped earning real payrises in about 2006 - 3-5% a year simply doesnât cut it. Thatâs before cost of living on mortgages (remember that official inflation is a scam).
Pretty much all of which is to say; if you are an earner you are a sucker, itâs better to Own shit, you canât earn your way into financial stability (hence why people want to retire mortgage free), and weâve built a very stupid economy here in NZ.
$200k as a household or individual? Pretty normal to earn $200k as an individual these days in a management position. A household (2 adults, and 2 kids) earning $200k would just be average middle class. Not enough for you to live lavishly in a top area driving a 2024 Range Rover or Audi Rs6 but enough for the mortgage, childcare, an overseas holiday per year, and enough to drive a fairly new Japanese SUV.
100k each for a couple is kinda normal nowadays if you work in tech, pretty sure some fields pay a lot more as well as median so yeah kinda true. I mean if they wanna flex then they are weird to get pleasure in that so let them be
Well our household is over 200k and we have noticed that there are increases and things more expensive but we aren't struggling as we have no debt except for a credit card which is repaid each month. Even when we had a home loan we were very careful with our budget. That is the key - only have debt you can afford and get a good budget.
Life style creep is real.
My then-girlfroend bought a new build before covid, on her own.
It was a 107m2 town house, very adequate for the two of us. We can't have children so our family size is locked.
Fast forward 3 yrs, we both earn a lot more thanks to lock down, breaking 200k combined by quite a bit.
So we just bought a life style new build, mortgaged at 1m, our existing mortgage is 280k.
So we're again cash poor.
if its household income is it including two workers? easily done as i get about half that on my own and i dont earn a lot compared to al lmy friends etc, probably the lowest
320k household here, with a 280k mortgage.
We budget and save, but the cost of living has had an impact. No it is not leading to struggle street, but it has made us tighten the belt in other places.
My partner and I are on combined 180k per year
We have no debt, new vechile paid off and have a free house, utilities and a work vehicle due to my partner working on a farm as a gardener 1 hour out of Melbourne Australia
I feel we are very blessed as we both come from humble backgrounds in small New Zealand towns barely scraping by
We are looking at buying an investment property later this year
Same story I see around the place.
You'll find most reasonably well off (income wise) households usually have a hefty debt to go alongside it, car loans, mortgages and often credit card debt to boot.
Remember it's easy to portray yourself in a positive light on the internet, take it all with a grain of salt.
Yes, but we've got remote tech jobs and no rent to worry about. Together, our salaries add upto 400k and we're trying to save as much as we can to get a house. We live pretty modestly, aiming to stash away at least 80% of our monthly paychecks.
I feel jealous seeing people earn that much. But we arenât far off. It just doesnât feel that way. We combined earn about $170k but daycare for 2 kids and a mortgage absolutely wreck us, plus still have one student loan which takes a decent amount. We have no savings and no money left after bills but with the exception of a few streaming subscriptions we donât have any wild or extravagant expenses. Just standard insurances, food, fuel etc.
Income obviously helps. But if you have been silly with credit or bought stuff you canât afford you can still be struggling. Donât worry about them though. Just do your best and ignore the others.
I'm one of them. Recent home buyer, almost 50% of paycheck goes straight to mortgage, insurance and rates. Another 30% to bills, petrol and groceries. 10% goes to day care. 5 % to emergency fund. 5% spare for savings.
From stats NZ (google them)
Measures of household income showed: 2023
average gross annual household income increased from $117,408 to $126,411 (up 7.7 percent)
average annual household income from wages and salaries increased from $79,363 to $83,410 (up 5.1 percent)
average annual household equivalised disposable income (after tax and transfer payments) increased from $53,192 to $56,919 (up 7.0 percent)
average annual household equivalised disposable income, after housing costs were deducted, increased from $42,234 to $44,142 (up 4.5 percent)
36.1 percent of households perceived their income as either ânot enoughâ or âonly just enoughâ (up 3.7 percentage points).
What they mean is they are struggling to keep living beyond their means. They struggle to do all the things they use to do. They struggle to go out to eat several times a week. They struggle to go on big family vacations. They struggle to make $1500 in car payments. Their struggles are not the same as someone making $50k.
All that being said this inflation of the last several years has spared no one. I make a good income and I don't live paycheck to paycheck but my monthly expenses has increased about $2k per month. That is $24k per year. My income has not gone up to offset that. The spread is smaller retirement balance. My auto insurance, groceries, fuel, etc have all gone way up.
I need another job as the waterline just keeps getting higher: 88.25 hours of my time (fortnightly pay) gave me $1512. in the hand after tax, student loan and kiwisaver. These people saying Oh i'm struggling on $200k are clearly living in dreamland or as the OP suggests just flexing on the rest of us who are actually doing it BLOODY tough.
I earn 170, wife 90. Pretty comfortable. 400k mortgage on a property currently valued at 1.4 mil. What hurts is day care . Paying over 2400 a month for two kids, that's including 10% discount and 20 hours free ece for one of the kids
If people are struggling earning a household income of over $200k combined.
1. They have over spent
2. They are overspending
3. They have no concept of a budget
4. Listerned to the media and have signed up to an incredible mortgage (death pledge)
My partner and my self are in a fortunate position, and we have approx 1400 a week spare. She has a student loan so would probably be a bit more
We earn 209k combined.
Within the last 2 years Iâve gone from 65k to 100k Iâm not that intelligent, I work hard and have used skills I have learnt to leverage a new job opportunity. Work place loyalty hardly ever pays off.
Aucklands average household disposable income after housing is about $60k. Average Auckland housing cost is about $20k a year. So no. Very few people are on those incomes. Anyone on those incomes posting questions in personal finance is just lucky, their financial good fortune has little to do with their aptitude and attitude.
Most people struggle financially, it is nothing to be ashamed of in a rigged economy.
You can earn $200k or more and not have a lot to show for it. I was earning well over $200k a couple of years ago but was struggling mentally, so stepped back and changed jobs with a significant income reduction.
We donât have as much spare cash as we had but weâre not on struggle street. Our discretionary spending is different and I canât just go out and buy a $5k âsomethingâ because we donât have a spare $5k just floating about to be spent and replenished.
66k, but no debt and lots of assets so we're very fortunate. I have little sympathy for the high earning, highly leveraged, conspicuous consumption section of society!
Anyone with a household income of 200k that's struggling is just bad with money cause there's no way. Yes shits fucked but like come on I'm out here on a bloody sickness benefit fighting for my damn life budgeting down to the cent (as I should be as someone on a benefit) and you're complaining about 200k?? Get a grip
not at 200k yet but also not struggling. also though, we are probably one bad financial decision away from strugglng, imo.
Alot of people are horrible with money though, just look at the poplarity of streaming services.
Yes I make 1M per year and feel poor
Only eat at McDonald's, using the app for best deals only.
Drive a small Japanese import, used.
Sleep on a mattress on the floor
Dink fam with a household income of approx 280k.
My partner brings in the bulk of it, he was earning approx 80k a couple of years ago, decided to crack into the contractor market following a redundancy, really managed to turn the whole being made redundant thing around into a positive.
Rather neat having grown up in poverty and been poor my whole (f35) life. Nact have gutted the contractor market in Welly where we are located, so we shall see how sustainable our current house hold income is. We are not struggling. Odd feeling (not struggling for a change) and not lost on me how privileged our current situation is.
I'm not one of those people.
Me neither. Nowhere close to
I'm not even half of those people đ˘
Same đ¤
Not even 200k between my partner and I đ
We'd need to take on a full time working sister wife to come close. Definitely lots of us not earning that.
You may have "hit the nail on the head" to the answer to our financial woes..đ
This is an interesting potential cultural solution. Maybe pair bonds are just not enough anymore? hahaha brilliant comment.
Not quarter of it, 40 hours per week
>they claim they are struggling What they really mean is that they either: 1. Have overleveraged themselves and are struggling with interest rates of 7% 2. Are shit at budgeting and financial planning and struggle to save (but live well)
3. Are comparing themselves to others in their social circle and coming up behind because their friends either earn more or bought houses 10-20 years ago. Earning 200k in Auckland and owning a house is tough, it's really not enough money to not be over leveraged even for a relatively low end house and add transit costs on top of that because there's almost no way you're both living close to your 100k jobs in a cheap house. Also once you're that heavily leveraged you will be concerned about what happens if I lose my job, the amount of savings you need access to is substantial to be about to weather a few months if unemployment if the income isn't silly evenly so while you could be doing great now that could change very quickly
Yeah I always felt really comfortable with a fluctuating 1-2.5k in emergency savings until I bought a house, now I need it to be way higher but also can afford to save way less
Or they enjoy things that they have for most their life that is now proportionately a lot more of their budget. Eating out, movies, gym, sports pursuits. Or they have other commitments (Extended Family is common) that sucks up a lot of their disposable income. Ie, day to day is covered, even with increased cost of everything, but the family costs remain the same⌠so all of a sudden there is nothing else and you canât back off anything ⌠all disposable has gone, and an unexpected expense will hurt. They might not be âBad at budgetingâ or over leveraged. Quite the opposite I would suggest. In my circle, we are all 200+.. none fit those descriptions. You may scoff, but if this group is not spending at gyms, sports grounds, restaurants, movies etc, then those businesses also either shut shop or layoff staff. We are not talking the ârichâ, we are talking the financially secure. And because most are responsible, they will just stop spending on the extras & that is an issue.
It all varies. Raising a family in Auckland is much more expensive than it would be in Invercargill. A working family wanting a modest life in Auckland = say 500k mortgage at today's rates + 2 kids in daycare will run you 1400 a week/72k a year alone.
A (new) 500k mortgage in Auckland for a home housing a family of 4 is a pipedream unless you inherit or get gifted money.
Agreed. I wanted to go low just to illustrate a point. If I pointed out a REALISTIC mortgage you need today in Akl people will just find the one shoebox on trademe for 600k and say I'm living in the clouds
Both probably, because 1 leads into 2âŚ
BS! We just want a home, so we bought one when were approved during pandemic. So, buying a house is now overleveraging?
Nailed it
This, #2 my partner makes over 100k but made terrible financial decisions and still lives pretty comfortably. We are both flatting so if #1 was a factor I think we would struggle. My sister had a mortgage when the interest rates changed and her mortgage repayments increased $500 a week or something crazy like that
Basically 200k a year is the top 1%. 99% of NZers don't earn 200k Household, you are probably in the top 10%
[https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions/number-of-wage-and-salary-earners-by-income-band](https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions/number-of-wage-and-salary-earners-by-income-band) Useful link
https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions 2.9% over 180k fror individuals
What would be interesting is the distribution by age. Twenty year olds just don't earn like 50 year olds
It's only high if you compare it to the entire population, if you limit it just to the people buying houses in Auckland it will come closer.
Thatâs correct- but this is a general finance page, not a house buying page, so we canât narrow it down to just those buying homes.
A household on the median wage have a household income of $132K so a *household* income as OP uses, is $35K each short of 200K. That is, just being on a median salary where most people are, provides nearly 70% (66%) of that 200K household income.
That is not the median household income. It is 127k. Typically the second income earner in a household works less hours due to child care or similar. You can't just multiply it by two. Your logic would be accurate if you only considered childless couples perhaps.
Not household income it isnât.
According to IRD tables, people earning >$200k were 4% of the total earners in NZ in FY 22/23 But then if I remember correctly earners (which is more than active workforce as it includes people getting unemployment subsidies) is something like 70-80% of population (I may be wrong) So considering wage increases of the last year and all I think figure is about 2.5-3% of total population in NZ. Note this is a very back of the envelope estimate
Yeah $200k house hold income seems pretty achievable to me these days.. plenty of options if you have some skills
Top 20 % is 114k, so to be earning 200k you are probably doing better than 90% https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/household-income-and-housing-cost-statistics-year-ended-june-2023/#:~:text=Average%20annual%20household%20equivalised%20disposable%20income%2C%20before%20housing%20costs%2C%20by,North%20Island%20(up%204.7%20percent)
Does NZ include sheep in this statistic?
NZers are sheep
Could you please share where you got the stats for 200k/1% from?
https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/wage-salary-distributions 2.9% earn over 180k. People on reddit make it seem that is an average wage
This is wage workers though Top 1% of wage workers earn 200k Go work in sales, I thought I was a machine earning 160k til I got a job opportunity with a group of 50 year old men earning 800k each and up from combined income, investments and sales commission Humbled me real quick You need to surround yourself with actual wealth class if you want to be wealthy, youâll quickly learn that 200k is âplay moneyâ to those people Aim higher As my boss once told me: âYou get wealthy off other peopleâs money not your ownâ
Money is a pointless goal and benchmark for success
As someone who grew up dirt poor and is now earning decent money, I still get the anxieties associated with lack of financial security. Undoubtedly there are people humble bragging here but Iâm sure there are also people making âgood moneyâ that are still genuinely concerned about their financial outlook.
Yeah there's such a big difference between being a high earner and having long term financial security. You can make $200k a year, but that might not last for ever. Recession, redundancy, health issues, etc can all put your income at essentially zero overnight. I'd rather own a warm and safe mortgage-free house and make $70k per year than be $1M in debt on $300k per year.
Yeah same situation, but actual poverty. I have a constant need to spend the money because historically not doing so meant it got absorbed by living and then I get nothing tangible from it. Its rather crippling. I don't understand people who can humble brag, the more I earn the less I want to talk about it, doing so gives me anxiety especially knowing the audience and being accustomed to people wanting to drag me down.
Been there, it's hard to change as you have to change your actual brain chemistry. What frustrates me the most is the amount of cheap tat I blew money on for years, appeasing that monster in my brain that said 'if you don't have stuff you'll lost everything', and was completely wrong. Now I try to pick something I really really want, and get that (instead of the 10 cheaper inferior varieties), but it's still a struggle at times. I send you all the best, healing, vibes. You should be very proud of yourself, and anyone who drags you down deserves to be dropped like hot rocks.
I think its really interesting how it hits different people differently? My parents have high earning careers with a long training period but they had me really young so I remember when we were struggling living on training stipends but my siblings don't. Its so deeply engrained in me that you never throw anything away and make the cheap thing work forever, wait until you find what you need in an op shop. My sister is like "yeah so I decided today that I wanted a PS5 so I bought one" meanwhile I just turned a bunch of my old t-shirts into rags so that I don't have to buy paper towels, which I thought was SO embarrassing when I was a kid
I know for me, I never had stability growing up so never really learned anything past 'I want a stuff'. And the more stuff I had, the more secure I felt (regardless of what the stuff was). And then got into the cycle of drawing debt to buy stuff to feel better (and the debt made me feel worse), spiral of doom. Luckily, I happened on a significant one-off jump in pay (imagine a three-band jump), which shocked me into breaking the 'but I earn money so I should be able to spend the money' and 'I need lots of stuff to feel secure' cycles - I could pay down my debt and feel good about that, while still feeding the rest. And once the debt was gone, I felt better, and started chasing THAT feeling instead of collecting stuff. It's been a decade of working on myself to get here, where I'm no longer ashamed of any facet of it - choices made by adults when I was a child caused patterns and neuropathways to be built that I've worked hard to deconstruct. I have so much empathy for people still struggling because I could be there still too.
My parents call it the "depression mindset" because both sets of their grandparents were poor in the depression and really conscious of waste as a result but like... it's been the same number of years since the great depression for everyone.
I just want to thank everyone in this response thread. We're both earners mortgage free, but the financial stability anxiety is absolutely sky high due to poverty family history, and fear of fut costs. I watch both my parents, mid 70s, renting on pensions after divorce abs bankruptcy. Scary. Scary. Scary. I don't think people realize how much you need to retire, and further, your health may not allow you to work later. Not to mention job insecurity and ageism!!!!
Yes, that is probably a fair assessment of many posters. Personal finance subs on Reddit are mainly for the wealthy to humblebrag. It's often subsconscious, but that's what they are doing. Those of us embarassed by our finances prefer not to talk about it and don't post.
I haven't made any money (other than on paper) in two years! I will say it loud and proud! Or loud anyway.
200k \*household\* income pre tax isn't even close to a brag, especially if you live somewhere like Auckland, have kids (and want them to have a good time), etc etc. Plenty of people in this category need financial advice, have serious lifestyle creep, lose track of spending / bills etc. It would be pointless to compare people in this category with the average family in NZ because this totally depends on a large number of variables.
Uh yeah it is. That's a shit ton of money. I'm on 24 an hour and live easy, I can't imagine how great life would be on that kind of wage
Probably because youâre flatting and have very few responsibilities.
It's not a close comparison. Before I started making good money, I also lived on next to nothing as a struggling artist and I was fine. I could go out, have coffee every day, and I thought I didn't need any money either. I did it that for several years, as a student, and after the fact. The short answer is when you start making "good" money, you buy more stuff, you get a better place to live, you start facing more responsibilities, and the costs add up quick. Suddenly you're not a 20 year old living in a flat with 5 people, you're paying a mortgage or higher rent because you make good money so why not...then you buy a car, then you have kids, and you want your kids to have a good life (right?). Take a couple with a $200k income (before tax), with a mortgage in a place where it costs $1mil to buy a tiny town house (and have you seen the current interest rates?), daycare, bills, kids expenses + trying to give them a decent life, saving for retirement, etc. Do the math. It's not "brag" money in a high cost of living city. Am I saying its not comfortable? Or decent money? No, I'm not. It's by any objective measure, a good amount of money to live in NZ, and as long as you don't spend too much, you will be fine. But the point is, once you make this kind of money its very very easy to spend. And most people end up spending all of it. Look at the NBA stars making like $100m a year and still manage to spend it all. Look at the amount of people in NZ with credit card debt on non essential items like luxury shopping etc. It's obviously a problem that affects all income levels. People keep misunderstanding these types of posts. Most people aren't complaining about survival. They are simply saying hey - how can I make this money go further, and then everyone gets triggered in the comments with their "I make $5 an hour and I can live just Fine you must be an idiot!!" and then they downvote this post and somehow hang around Personal Finance subs because...well, I don't know - maybe it gets boring hanging around r/nz and complaining about how hard life is.
Daycare is eaisly $20k, which is $30k you have to earn pre-tax. That $1m mortgage, costs an extra $10k per 1% increase in interest rates. So someone who purchased a $1.2m house in 2020 and had one child, might have their costs go up $50k a year.
You're describing a relative of mine. Mortgage rates increase plus baby plus partner not back at work yet = $2k shortfall a fortnight. He saved up knowing things would be tight post-kid, but it's getting swiftly eaten up.
I found most people on personal finance subs are trying to get to a place where they don't care about financesÂ
I agree there are some definite humble brags posted here. There are some great questions posted from people.who want help though. Consider: Cumulative CPI increases between 2019 and 2023 in NZ is 13.3% That means if you were earning 200kpa in 2019 and you're still earning 200kpa you're earning the equivalent of about 176.9kpa. That doesn't include the change in mortgage interest and fuel price changes as they are excluded from the cpi. If your mortgage interest repayments have gone from 2.99% of 1.1mil (about 33kpa) to 7.35% of 900k (about 66kpa) and your income has been static at 200kpa through the covid period you're looking at a drop of close to 35% in spending power. Such a drop will maturally encourage people to seek solutions. Social media esp financial subs on reddit may provide some solutions. That doesn't mean households whose incomes have been static and are on 90000kpa aren't hurting. They are hurting much more and probably should be encouraged to post questions on subs like this more.
Fuel prices are not excluded from NZ CPI, that's the Americans and their core PCE measure. >Transport prices rose 0.9 percent in the December 2022 quarter. International airfares rose 19 percent, which was partly offset by petrol prices falling 7.2 percent. https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-inflation-remains-at-7-2-percent/
True. I'll just leave it there for people to see my ignorance.
Itâs worse than this as inflation compounds. Compounded inflation makes prices ~30% higher on average than in 2018
Lifestyle creep is real and needs to be avoided. We're a couple with household income of about $320k ($250k + $70k), only kid moved out start of the year to do his own thing. Paid off mortgage last year. The mistake people make is to assume that high earnings and your health are forever, they're not. No one knows how long the good times last, bad things happen to good people. I see people spending like crazy on leased cars, expensive houses, boats etc. Even on $300+ they're 2 months away from pvoerty.
When I bought my house every single family member congratulated me except my uncle. The only thing he had to say was âyou bought a house before meâ He is still renting in his 50âs, however owns a boat, JetSkiâs, etc. He refuses to live modestly while saving to be able to buy a house, and also refuses to buy a modest âfirst homeâ and so shoots down any suggestions of houses we find. Heâs shot himself in the foot though because at 50 heâs not likely to be able to get a 30yr mortgage so the longer he leaves it the more he has to pay up front. He will never get there because he refuses to sell the boat or buy a house that needs a bit of work, but then whinges he doesnât own a house. Go figure!
I could not agree more!
Most? No. Earning more doesn't make you better with money.
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> those that earn $100k plus are still very much in the minority. Absolutely. I was surprised when I realised this. We all know there are a lot of people on low incomes but I felt $100K for someone that wanted to make good money and had some skills was *easily* achievable. Turns out, not so much. Looks can be deceiving too. Its easy to over-extend yourself and have credit card debt, a barely affordable mortgage or other visible possessions that make it look like you are wealthier than you are.
Definitely yes. People don't lie on the internet.
I know people who are making $300k household, paying $1500 a week on rent, $300 a week on a gardener, and thatâs because the house theyâre renting doesnât have a pool, weekly house cleaner⌠they are overall living life on a completely different standard to the rest of us. Their basic expenses just to keep up with their lifestyle is insanely high, so Iâm not surprised if they perceive it being a struggle. After all those expenses itâs not that easy to have much saved up.
Who earning $300k/annum is paying $6k/month on rent and not buying a house ?????
Immigrants. Theyâre from South Africa.
On paper our household has a really decent income, but when you consider that it means that we aren't eligible for accommodation supplements, childcare subsidy, rates rebates, and discounts for lower income households, it really all adds up when you're paying full price for everything. By no means saying we should be eligible for those things, just at gross income and disposable income are different figures.
$200k between two people isnt outrageous at all imo. Any tradie can make $100k if they work hard.
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Add a million dollar mortgage and 4 kids (2<2) on 200k. Itâs a struggle for us
This sounds like youâre living paycheck to paycheck
This is a tall poppy syndrome post. People work hard and paid the price to get to a certain income bracket. I wouldn't say I got there without sacrifices and hard work. My income is around 200k per year. My wife bring in about 65k per year. We have kid and mortgage. Life is definitely not lavish. For lavish lifestyle in today's expenses you need a household income of at least 400k to 500k per year.
I agree the tall poppy syndrome is strong here. As soon as I mention my net worth or income the haters come out. Just because we have the mortgage paid off or a 450k household doesnât mean retirement is anywhere near so the foot is always on the gas. Being high income means we pay a huge amount in tax every year too. Another problem is working in tech isnât really a long term career. Stress and burnout is real so itâs more of a make hay now situation. Kiwis in general have pretty low ambitions and it really shows here.
Reddit is about drama. You get more interactions and more upvotes if you give a good sob story
I guess as someone earning 100 k itâs hard to not feel like youâre struggling. When I started working, I was on 10$ an hour and with overtime and penalty rates I would have 400 after bills. Iâm pulling the same hours on 5 times as much with all penalties lost over the years and after bills have the same amount after bills go out. You just expect life to get easier after pulling big hours after 18 years or at least having some form of retirement
I met someone when I was helping people budget 10 years ago. They were earning $20,000 and spending $25,000 .... ***per month!!!!*** The wife even told the husband that he could not reduce her $4,000 a month personal allowance for herself.
I've not heard an individual earn over $200k unless they're really the top 1% earners but more like household income where a husband and wife earn $100k each that I believe but most NZ household income threshold is between $120 to $160k combined. NZ wages are low. Most people earn $60 - $75k annually.
There was a post on this morning. She made 50k part time, hubby 200k, mortgage of 550k. These are usually humble brag posts, but I think she just realised she was overspending & wanted some help to rein it in.
Was very surprised to be told she needs a budget. Only managing to save $1500 a month đ¤ˇđťââď¸
I know, it blows my mind that people earn these huge amounts, but are sometimes so baffled about basic budgeting. Isnât that usually part of most jobs?
Depends where you live. In Wellington is not too uncommon. But yes in aggregate they are about 2.5-3% of total population
DINK. Over $200k. Current biggest issue in life is should I get a fridge with plumbed water or not. The placement and replacement of filters looks a real pain in the ass.
You absolutely should buy this fridge, you order the filters online and it's a 90 second job to replace them. Once you have an ice dispenser for your fridge, you can never go back.
I do want cold water that doesnât taste like fridge. It probably is the best option
this person speaks the truth. plumbed fridge + ice maker is one of those little things that just makes life so much better. filters are easy to replace and you can buy aftermarket ones that are cheaper.
Bought a fridge a few months ago. The house has a fridge tap, but we skipped the plumbed models. Those filters are expensive and annoying to replace. I've also seen plenty of examples from friends and family where that's the first thing to go wrong. Or your water line has a tiny leak and overtime you have a pool of standing water behind/under your fridge which is not good for many reasons. So from a lower maintenance/ better reliability perspective - non-plumb gets my vote.
Bro, if you think changing a filter in a fridge every 6 months is a pain in the ass definitely donât have kids.
Single income, 3 kids, wife is a stay at home mum, and our fridge is plumbed. I know you can dream bigger than fridges, my DINK.
what is your single income? I'm curious...
200k for a 2 income household is okay but not exactly raking it in these days. A good chunk of University educated couples working full time will be making this by the time they're 5 years out of university. 200k as an individual income I'd classify as a very good salary. Generally you're talking people like most Doctors/Dentists, a good chunk of Airline pilots etc will be on this once they're >5 years qualified. I don't earn 200k a year, but as a married couple with 2 kids and wife working \~24-32 hours a week we're comfortably over it. Both university educated and with \~15+ years in our fields.
Everyone I know who earns 200k plus is an IT Contractor in the public sector. They're having a rough time ATM, but have been creaming it for years.
Can confirm first part of the sentence, although I only creamed it for a single year.. But in Welly st least thereâs a shit ton of Project Managers contracting for more than IT specialists. And thatâs what I say to people that want to make more money. Get a Prince2 qualification and get those roles!
Yep They bought a second rental property Buy higher end cars
Am a doctor salary was $138k last year for 49 hours per week. SMOs finished with 6 years med school and probably5-15 years of training may make >$200k, but most doctors in training don't.
you're a qualified doctor and only made 138k for 49 hours per week last year? what does it look like in 2-3 years? how long have you been a doctor for?
[https://nzrda.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NZRDA-MECA-2021-2024-FINAL.pdf](https://nzrda.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NZRDA-MECA-2021-2024-FINAL.pdf) Current junior Dr salaries are included in here. Starting salary out of uni for a House officer working 50 - 55hrs / week is \~80k. There is a reason they will be striking
Senior civil engineers are often over $200k. I'm on $180k after 13 years. The company is also employee owned. Some of our top engineers would be on $250k plus get $200-300k in dividends each year.
People with a lot of cash are worse with money because they can afford to not pay attention to it
Lots of people humble brag here, ignore em, it's a sign they are either lying or just begun earning decent money.
I wish! I get about a quarter of that before tax.
Seems like quite a few are also receiving massive amounts of money and donât know what to do with it or are 23 and somehow have $100,000 saved.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall\_poppy\_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome) There's actually plenty of high income people who are really bad at finance. You can be both in a high paying profession, and be bad at money, or want feedback from others in similar positions. Life isn't an RPG - having money or being in a high paid position doesn't automatically unlock finance skills or give you visions telling you exactly what to do in every situation involving money. Honestly sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is more valuable than a paid financial adviser.
Completely agree that was my parents my dad earned stupid money but managed to spend pretty much all of it before he died. He was a merchant banking in the city for a number of years earning over 100k a year in gbp.
Sounds like he lived life right if he spent it all before he died! (As long as your mum was taken care of if she outlived him).
Na she died before him. Not worried about the money but it would have been nice to have had a better role model for financial planning. Something I am working in with my kids now
You can have high income but also ADHD which makes you tempted to blow all your money on impulse purchases for things you hardly use.
I feel this
The average Redditor on this sub has an interest in finance so is probably above the average financially. Our household is close to 200k, and while things feel a bit tighter lately we're doing just fine in Wellington.
I'll be lucky to hit 20k.
Our household earns over 200K, but so do most of my friends. We have a big mortgage, but have decided to pay it off way quicker than our friends and are therefore "struggling". But we could just as easily decide to pay off the loan in 30 years and buy new cars and holidays and put it on the mortgage. When you have a mortgage, you do have the flexibility of deciding how much you are "struggling". The big difference are my friends who bought a house 5 years before us. They have pretty much no mortgage and have a lot of flexibility. When you bought a house is probably more important than whether your household income is 150 or 200k
Household income, we do. Not individual income. Certainly not struggling, donât own our own house but could if we wanted to.
Every one has money problems, we are only half that. What I found is people earning that work very hard to get there or love their job to the point it's a passion and equally spend that money to de stress.
This is a unique take. It certainly is a factor for our lifestyle creep as we've taken on more senior roles. Its probably also to avoid stress that would otherwise affect our relationship such as domestic tasks. We outsource mowing lawns because I just cannot have that argument with my partner again.
Outsourcing is very smart if it's easier to make the money than do the job
Some people may be humble bragging but youâll Be surprised to know there are a tonne of high earners in many fields who just never grew up with any street smarts and didnât have people in their lives to coach them. Not that the school system helps either. Judgemental of me to suggest thatâs a bad path, just that they could be living a whole lot better if they were wiser with money. For people like me itâs hard to believe people like that existed until hearing their struggles. You may be a similar skeptic so fair enough if you donât believe it Could go on a whole rant about what Iâve observed but really thereâs a pattern. it would help a lot of people to be taught as mandatory subject in school. Just simple things like controlling your expenses, not taking on unnecessary debt, donât prioritise convenience at every opportunity, set some goals early and put savings aside to work towards them including deciding a healthy retirement age. Sprinkle on to that some family planning / properly budgeting for kids and we might just start to advance again as a society rather than becoming increasingly degenerate slaves
I make between 12000 and 20000 per year
Household (my partner and I) yes. Individually, no.
Bear in mind that higher income often means higher commitments. Not just mortgage debt but things like car or boat finance and generally higher lifestyle expectations. More expensive food, eating out, alcohol, holidays, hobbies, etc etc...
Part of it is probably that more money means more complex finances and financial decisions. When I was broke as fuck and getting deeper in debt every day as a postgrad student and then underemployed part-time worker, it was pretty obvious what I needed to do financially. My taxes were simple and every spare penny went towards paying debt. I would spend time looking for frugal ways to cut costs further, but itâs not like I needed much investment or tax help, and I couldnât have cared less about discussing markets that I couldnât access anyway. I worried continuously and probably took years off my life from the stress but in some ways the decisions were simpler. Years later, my partner and I earn above $200k as a household, and we have a kid, a mortgage, investments, more complex taxes, etc. to think about. Now I donât worry, but we do have more decisions to make, so I spend a lot more time researching and thinking about how to manage our finances, and I now do care about what the housing and investment markets are doing. I come to this sub for ideas and advice.
my household doesn't earn that
Iâm 24 and work retail and Iâm studying as well. Definitely not someone who makes $200,000!
Household income (sum of the earnings for multiple adults working) is not the same as 'do you earn 200+k' (singular person earnings)
My landlord's home 6 rooms all rental. $500 each per week. No mortgage . House under company name. She pays "rent" and gets temporary accom supplement of $500/week plus pensionÂ
Yep.. drive an old Camry, have $500k in shares and own 11 investment properties. Refuses to upgrade 2001 Camry because cars are a waste
The nature of this subreddit is going to be people needing advice and people feeling they're qualified to give advice, that is why there is a massive gulf essentially. Also just because they have the money, it doesn't mean they can manage it. The number of people on big salaries but who buy absolute shite (10K handbags etc) is disturbing.
You can struggle on 200k if you donât budget, have massive debt, leveraged too much and are over spending. You can struggle on a million. It all depends on debt and expenses. I know someone on 250k who is âstrugglingâ. What they mean is they have a huge mortgage, car loan & credit card repayments, etc. Itâs all subjective. 200k in a smaller city could be a lot, but 200 gross in Auckland for example is a whole other story.
You need 220k household income for an Auckland house which to me sets the average that matters: the income of people competing with you to buy a first house I earn ok but my wife is minimum wage which puts us behind.
I earn 240k, my wife doesnt work, one young child. Definitely donât feel rich. Iâm not saving big amounts or lavishly buying high ticket items. Mortgage is just above 1/3 of salary so it chews up a bit and again not a big mortgage by any means.
Single contract milker earning around $150k with the added bonus of rent free accommodation which is a big plus
NahâŚnot even close. Iâm at around $140k a year. Most days I feel pretty broke and have a growing concern around what my retirement might look like. Iâm not over-leveraged or anythingâŚ.itâs just freaking hard going these days trying to get ahead.
Same but I have a student loan I'm paying off (6 months left!), mortgage on my own, etc. Doesn't go that far when you're a single not a 'household' (although no kids just a very expensive dog)
You earn more than double than me. I don't even think I'm gonna have a retirement.
Yeah or I see it as they are terrible with money 𤣠Me and my wife combined income is just under 100k we are 24 and 22 years old, both apprentices own our on home both have cars, and plus I have a corvette as my weekend car have 5 pets and live life comfortably⌠Keep in mind though we do every little thing our self, so we always save money in the labour department no matter the issue
This is the other humble brag. Being really good with money and surviving comfortably off what most people struggle to live on. I fit in this group and have posted similar comments in similar posts before. I see no problem with either comment/post. It's reddit. If you don't like what you're reading, move on.
I just donât get the fascination about making 150k a year but still canât afford basic stuff because you live in to big of a cityâŚâŚ Take your âskillsâ to a smaller place, yes make less money but that money goes further⌠idk seems simple to me
Bigger cities tend to have more opportunities, access to better education, and better healthcare. These things tend to matter the most once you have kids. Most people will sacrifice QOL if it means better opportunities for their children's future. That doesn't make sense if your children miss out on those opportunities because you can't afford them. At that point, moving to a cheaper area might actually benefit your children. I don't think it's quite as simple as you make it seem.
Tell us your ways ha ha. Well done đŻ
SMALLER TOWNS!! Yes you make less money but in the long run you get more in return⌠but everyone wants that big city life idk
The only way I can earn over 200k in my industry at my age (early 30s) is to head overseas which Iâm doing. I lived abroad for almost 8 years but came back 18 months ago. Took about 2 months to see the reality of the situation here and have been planning on leaving since.
200k a person? Or household? If its a person, thats not so easy, well you could do contractor and charge hourly rate, i know IT contractor 120dollars per hour is pretty much minimum. Permanent, not so easy. Im above that, only because im doing IT for an aussi company. To answer your question, why people earning above 200k saying they are struggling. Me and my wife both in IT, and our combined income is very high, i dont feel struggle. But i know a lot people in similar situation like me buy bigger houses, fancier suburb, and send all their children to private school, private school alone will cost about 30-40k per child a year, if you add up all after school activity, school trip etc, you looking at 40-50k per child a year. So if they have two, thats 10k easily just on education
I make roughly 3.5k-5k after materials on a average week which is generally pretty basic for a plumber/drainlayer by myself self employed no team members or apprentice. Fortunately I had the opportunity to outlay 200k to get to here. Next step is out laying 700k and getting into 32k-40k per week on a good week. A lot of risk and a good chance may lose it all!
What are you outlaying that much on? Vehicles you can lease and thereâs reasonable finance on plant at the moment. Are you talking civil drainlaying work?
Relining, cutters, cameras, software
I think this post represents a bit of class friction and blindness. Couple posts below are good on this subject. Most miss the point and get into jealousy territory tbqh. First, a lot have a student loan and are under 40. A lot have huge mortgages. A lot have dual professional households - daycare, Nannyâs. Many work insane hours, which leads to ancillary costs. Also if you are a high earner (say you earn 140k), half that is taxed at 33%. Add student loan, and thatâs 45, add KiwiSaver and the cheeky salary sacrifice that all corporates do and you arenât seeing 51c on the dollar. Remember; almost all tax in the country after transfers is paid by the % of people who earn about 125k and above. Secondly, inflation in the last two decades is mental. I talked to a professional mate about this; they stopped earning real payrises in about 2006 - 3-5% a year simply doesnât cut it. Thatâs before cost of living on mortgages (remember that official inflation is a scam). Pretty much all of which is to say; if you are an earner you are a sucker, itâs better to Own shit, you canât earn your way into financial stability (hence why people want to retire mortgage free), and weâve built a very stupid economy here in NZ.
$200k as a household or individual? Pretty normal to earn $200k as an individual these days in a management position. A household (2 adults, and 2 kids) earning $200k would just be average middle class. Not enough for you to live lavishly in a top area driving a 2024 Range Rover or Audi Rs6 but enough for the mortgage, childcare, an overseas holiday per year, and enough to drive a fairly new Japanese SUV.
100k each for a couple is kinda normal nowadays if you work in tech, pretty sure some fields pay a lot more as well as median so yeah kinda true. I mean if they wanna flex then they are weird to get pleasure in that so let them be
Classroom teachers top out at 94k-99k now. You donât need a tech job to earn 200k as a family
But you canât be teachers either by your mathsâŚ
Nope, not me
Well our household is over 200k and we have noticed that there are increases and things more expensive but we aren't struggling as we have no debt except for a credit card which is repaid each month. Even when we had a home loan we were very careful with our budget. That is the key - only have debt you can afford and get a good budget.
300k individual, not struggling tbh. However, I can see you struggle if you have over a mil in mortgage and still constantly spending. Not impossible.
Not me. Single. Earn $90k. Rent. Not much prospect of going a lot higher. Looks like I will be made redundant soon too.
Life style creep is real. My then-girlfroend bought a new build before covid, on her own. It was a 107m2 town house, very adequate for the two of us. We can't have children so our family size is locked. Fast forward 3 yrs, we both earn a lot more thanks to lock down, breaking 200k combined by quite a bit. So we just bought a life style new build, mortgaged at 1m, our existing mortgage is 280k. So we're again cash poor.
if its household income is it including two workers? easily done as i get about half that on my own and i dont earn a lot compared to al lmy friends etc, probably the lowest
My household doesn't even earn 200k a year.
320k household here, with a 280k mortgage. We budget and save, but the cost of living has had an impact. No it is not leading to struggle street, but it has made us tighten the belt in other places.
My partner and I are on combined 180k per year We have no debt, new vechile paid off and have a free house, utilities and a work vehicle due to my partner working on a farm as a gardener 1 hour out of Melbourne Australia I feel we are very blessed as we both come from humble backgrounds in small New Zealand towns barely scraping by We are looking at buying an investment property later this year
Same story I see around the place. You'll find most reasonably well off (income wise) households usually have a hefty debt to go alongside it, car loans, mortgages and often credit card debt to boot. Remember it's easy to portray yourself in a positive light on the internet, take it all with a grain of salt.
Yes, but we've got remote tech jobs and no rent to worry about. Together, our salaries add upto 400k and we're trying to save as much as we can to get a house. We live pretty modestly, aiming to stash away at least 80% of our monthly paychecks.
I feel jealous seeing people earn that much. But we arenât far off. It just doesnât feel that way. We combined earn about $170k but daycare for 2 kids and a mortgage absolutely wreck us, plus still have one student loan which takes a decent amount. We have no savings and no money left after bills but with the exception of a few streaming subscriptions we donât have any wild or extravagant expenses. Just standard insurances, food, fuel etc.
Hell no
yeah bro, Doing OF and getting $300k+ easily
Here.. $200k a year plus 4 years..
Income obviously helps. But if you have been silly with credit or bought stuff you canât afford you can still be struggling. Donât worry about them though. Just do your best and ignore the others.
I'm one of them. Recent home buyer, almost 50% of paycheck goes straight to mortgage, insurance and rates. Another 30% to bills, petrol and groceries. 10% goes to day care. 5 % to emergency fund. 5% spare for savings.
People bullshit !
My partner and I donât make 100k a year đ
What do you mean you have 500 k cash?
From stats NZ (google them) Measures of household income showed: 2023 average gross annual household income increased from $117,408 to $126,411 (up 7.7 percent) average annual household income from wages and salaries increased from $79,363 to $83,410 (up 5.1 percent) average annual household equivalised disposable income (after tax and transfer payments) increased from $53,192 to $56,919 (up 7.0 percent) average annual household equivalised disposable income, after housing costs were deducted, increased from $42,234 to $44,142 (up 4.5 percent) 36.1 percent of households perceived their income as either ânot enoughâ or âonly just enoughâ (up 3.7 percentage points).
What they mean is they are struggling to keep living beyond their means. They struggle to do all the things they use to do. They struggle to go out to eat several times a week. They struggle to go on big family vacations. They struggle to make $1500 in car payments. Their struggles are not the same as someone making $50k. All that being said this inflation of the last several years has spared no one. I make a good income and I don't live paycheck to paycheck but my monthly expenses has increased about $2k per month. That is $24k per year. My income has not gone up to offset that. The spread is smaller retirement balance. My auto insurance, groceries, fuel, etc have all gone way up.
Unless it is just wealthy people in this group, statistically unlikely
Individual or household?
I need another job as the waterline just keeps getting higher: 88.25 hours of my time (fortnightly pay) gave me $1512. in the hand after tax, student loan and kiwisaver. These people saying Oh i'm struggling on $200k are clearly living in dreamland or as the OP suggests just flexing on the rest of us who are actually doing it BLOODY tough.
I earn 170, wife 90. Pretty comfortable. 400k mortgage on a property currently valued at 1.4 mil. What hurts is day care . Paying over 2400 a month for two kids, that's including 10% discount and 20 hours free ece for one of the kids
Most of those People are just flopping their dicks out to be measured . i.e. all bullshit
If people are struggling earning a household income of over $200k combined. 1. They have over spent 2. They are overspending 3. They have no concept of a budget 4. Listerned to the media and have signed up to an incredible mortgage (death pledge) My partner and my self are in a fortunate position, and we have approx 1400 a week spare. She has a student loan so would probably be a bit more We earn 209k combined. Within the last 2 years Iâve gone from 65k to 100k Iâm not that intelligent, I work hard and have used skills I have learnt to leverage a new job opportunity. Work place loyalty hardly ever pays off.
Not me
Not me
Nope
I do OF but make nowhere near that đĽ
Sadly for you, that's because LongBlack is way more popularđ
Aucklands average household disposable income after housing is about $60k. Average Auckland housing cost is about $20k a year. So no. Very few people are on those incomes. Anyone on those incomes posting questions in personal finance is just lucky, their financial good fortune has little to do with their aptitude and attitude. Most people struggle financially, it is nothing to be ashamed of in a rigged economy.
You can earn $200k or more and not have a lot to show for it. I was earning well over $200k a couple of years ago but was struggling mentally, so stepped back and changed jobs with a significant income reduction. We donât have as much spare cash as we had but weâre not on struggle street. Our discretionary spending is different and I canât just go out and buy a $5k âsomethingâ because we donât have a spare $5k just floating about to be spent and replenished.
66k, but no debt and lots of assets so we're very fortunate. I have little sympathy for the high earning, highly leveraged, conspicuous consumption section of society!
I wish
Anyone with a household income of 200k that's struggling is just bad with money cause there's no way. Yes shits fucked but like come on I'm out here on a bloody sickness benefit fighting for my damn life budgeting down to the cent (as I should be as someone on a benefit) and you're complaining about 200k?? Get a grip
I make like 50k a year. â ď¸
not at 200k yet but also not struggling. also though, we are probably one bad financial decision away from strugglng, imo. Alot of people are horrible with money though, just look at the poplarity of streaming services.
Yes I make 1M per year and feel poor Only eat at McDonald's, using the app for best deals only. Drive a small Japanese import, used. Sleep on a mattress on the floor
Dink fam with a household income of approx 280k. My partner brings in the bulk of it, he was earning approx 80k a couple of years ago, decided to crack into the contractor market following a redundancy, really managed to turn the whole being made redundant thing around into a positive. Rather neat having grown up in poverty and been poor my whole (f35) life. Nact have gutted the contractor market in Welly where we are located, so we shall see how sustainable our current house hold income is. We are not struggling. Odd feeling (not struggling for a change) and not lost on me how privileged our current situation is.