Poll: What's the gross income of your household?

[MothersMilk]

What the heck is humint? I've never heard of that

ETA: okay i looked it up. Sounds very mysterious and interesting.

[Pina Colada]

so curious ladies! Never heard of humint either, googled that one, very interesting!

DH makes a more than decent wage as a civil engineer. Hoping to make a big move into trading shares and commodities by the end of the year (six figure move ), training and educating myself now. That will be my job so to speak. DH will be able to retire within 5 years, but my plan is for 3 years, he has always dreamed of retiring at 45 so I will make that happen (excuse all the positive thinking, I've just read 'The Secret' , so no 'maybes' or 'hopefully's allowed )

By then we might be able to select the $1million+ club

[Boobycino]

That was almost a depressing excersize. I was hoping to see that tere were lots of families in our position, but it appears that the 'average' family is livin off twice our yearly income

*fingers crossed* I can find a job ladies, cos we're financially up a particular creek without a paddle!

I just need to find one, half decent, full time nannying job and I think we can survive!

- also - OMG how do you earn $1,000,000 a year?!?!?! Share a little with the rest of us!

[Pax]

So I have been a scheme artist, a female escort and famous

Well to put you out of your misery I will tell you that I work in the humint industry ( as I like to call it) and leave it at that.

so you come to bubhub to collect and rob us of our intelligence then?

[TillyG]

That was almost a depressing excersize. I was hoping to see that tere were lots of families in our position, but it appears that the 'average' family is livin off twice our yearly income

*fingers crossed* I can find a job ladies, cos we're financially up a particular creek without a paddle!

I just need to find one, half decent, full time nannying job and I think we can survive!

- also - OMG how do you earn $1,000,000 a year?!?!?! Share a little with the rest of us!

I hope you can find a job soon.

You have to remember, too, that whilst some of us have a high-ish income, we may also have high expenses too. DH earns 110k pre-tax BUT our rent takes up 42% of his take-home pay. Because of us living close to his work.

We *could* move further out and probably pay half the amount of rent we currently do (or even pay less if we ever get around to buying a place) BUT we have chosen to live in this area, and it's notorious for being rather expensive (and not just housing, everything costs that little bit more in this area, even groceries!).

[V8 Crewy]

I would have to agree with TillyG. The higher the income the harder you work, the more stress you get and bigger the risk you have of crashing.

I think you might find that majority of the "average family" is struggling day to day.

Some of the post i read I do not believe. As much as some ppl claim the 1,000,000+. If they sold everything they earn and paid out all there bills I think you might find they would be no better off then everyone.
In saying that, I admire everyones success as I know how hard it is to get it and all the strain it can cause on the way.

[sockstealingpoltergeist]

I hope you can find a job soon.

You have to remember, too, that whilst some of us have a high-ish income, we may also have high expenses too. DH earns 110k pre-tax BUT our rent takes up 42% of his take-home pay. Because of us living close to his work.

We *could* move further out and probably pay half the amount of rent we currently do (or even pay less if we ever get around to buying a place) BUT we have chosen to live in this area, and it's notorious for being rather expensive (and not just housing, everything costs that little bit more in this area, even groceries!).

Many people would love to live closer to their work. They do live further out and have to travel long distances. Just because someone works in the city or in an expensive area that doesn't mean they earn a mint. There are all sorts of jobs on every level all over the place.

So really that is your choice.

V8 i have to disagree with you too, because poverty brings far more stress then some people can ever imagine.

My life is far less stressful now that i am not living in poverty.

Also some of the hardest workers I have ever met work long hours at low paid jobs.

[LeeJ]

v8, i have to disagree too.

we make a very nice wage, and dh works 6-7 days a week, 9-14 hours a day, so yes he works REALLY hard for us to have a nice wage,
BUT i know plenty of people working as hard as him who arnt half as well paid as him.

[TillyG]

Many people would love to live closer to their work. They do live further out and have to travel long distances. Just because someone works in the city or in an expensive area that doesn't mean they earn a mint. There are all sorts of jobs on every level all over the place.

So really that is your choice.

V8 i have to disagree with you too, because poverty brings far more stress then some people can ever imagine.

My life is far less stressful now that i am not living in poverty.

Also some of the hardest workers I have ever met work long hours at low paid jobs.

Oh I agree it's our choice to live where we do (and to be honest, living where we do has "spoiled" us for other areas - nowhere else can come close to comparing at the moment!).

However, before we moved to Sydney we lived in the UK. And DH used to have to drive 90 mins to work and back each day, along a hideous route. He hardly saw DD (would leave just as she got up and would rarely be home before she went to bed) and it really took a toll on our marriage too. Plus he used to have to work away a fair bit too.

So, when we emigrated (having never been to Australia before!), we made the decision that we'd rather live close to his work in order to cut down on the commuting, because of the damage the commute did to our relationship before.

Even now, 3 years on, I'm not comfortable with moving more than 30mins away from his work to be honest. I like the area we live in and we've pretty much decided that if we ever buy, we'd rather buy a small 2-bed unit here than a big 3-4 bed house further out. Just because living close to his work has had such a positive effect on our marriage.

So yes, we choose to pay what we do and we are lucky that we can afford to do so. However, we wouldn't have emigrated had we not been able to do so - we always said that as long as it was financially viable to live here, then we would. If it gets to the point where we're struggling then we will rethink things and possibly head back to the UK - there's no point being miserable AND far from home!

[Ffrenchknickers]

I would have to agree with TillyG. The higher the income the harder you work, the more stress you get and bigger the risk you have of crashing.

I cannot even begin to tell you how strongly I disagree with this. Hard work does not always equal big money. That misconception really, really bugs me when I see how hard my husband works, day and night