What do people consider to be a 'high income earner'?

I agree with what @NHG said in his post. The comments on how to get a passive income were interesting too.

To get into the top 1% of earners in Australia, you have to earn over $220K. That doesn't go very far in the housing market. Assuming a 20% deposit, and borrowing four times salary, that'd give a budget of around $1.1 million, or an average house in Sydney.

Given a small house in a good suburb can easily hit $2 million in Sydney and Melbourne (this place in Carlton North went $2.3 million in a recent auction), a big salary doesn't get you far in property, and hence someone could feel hard done by.

There are reports that the wealthiest suburbs are feeling mortgage stress. Maybe people are struggling to keep up with the Joneses.

 

To me, if someone can earn 250k + annually (not dual) i'd call a high wage in this market.
Thats just my opinion. That would mean 10000+ take home monthly salary!

 

Doctors who are juniors and training in hospitals earn anything from 100k to 150k (includes regular overtime). More for specialties trainees to requires to do lots of overtime nights and all these add up. Now once they graduate their income varies with specialties and location of job. I know consultant psychiatrists working in sydney hospitals get around 150k only where as in the same hospital VMO (contract job) for same position doctors are earning over 250k. Earning increases if the specialties include procedures, nature of contract (not permanent posts), rural areas. Specialties like gynae and surgeries earn double. More in rural areas.

vocational GP's earn anything between 150k to 300k in City if they work full time ( again depend on location, expertise, doing more procedures like skin cancer excision, botox and other procedures or not).

GP's in rural area full time earn from 200-500k.

Female consultant are more likely to take up hospital permanent positions and parttime- hence earn significantly less.

So it varies between 120k to 500k or even more for surgeons in pvt practice. So you cant judge unless you know at what stage of job/training the doctor is in....

 

What you "earn" isnt as important as what you do with the income. I have clients on 80-100K who have their PPOR mortgages paid off or nearly paid off, and several INV properties, each of which is generating 7,8,9,10K CF+. I have others on far higher incomes who cant seem to find a way to save a deposit. Some people will burn up whatever salary they earn, no matter how large. Others will find a way to be frugal and make a more limited income work as effectively as it can ...

But as a general rule, I would consider 150K + to be entering the "comfy" income level, and 250K + to be "high" income... but as I said, for some people 250K would still burn a hole straight through their pocket ... In the end, many of my lower salary clients are far better off than many of my higher income clients. The only discernable difference ( besides their salary) is that the higher earners tend to have a fancier PPOR. But they often have little else. All well and good to have a fancy home, but better to get a little bit of a portfolio under you before splurging, methinks...

I personally think 200-250K with an unencumbered PPOR is the sweet spot. If you aren't an idiot with money you should be able to live a very comfortable life, fly business when you travel, eat out regularly and upgrade your car every 8-10 years or so, without too much trouble.

Of course 300K + would be nicer As would 350K + etc etc

 

The average on this forum would probably be (according to the posts) 500k annual with 6 houses in blue chip areas - mostly paid off, with another few hundred k in shares and perhaps a couple of kilos of gold/platinum stashed somewhere...however most are not retired.

Anyway, I'm off to whirlpool where mere mortals live

 

I'm well below average, in that case.

 

When all of you in this thread refer to a particular figure, do you just refer to the primary salary of the job one holds, or do you also include income from rentals, etc?

 

I would hope everyone is referring to one PAYE income on its own.

 

I just find it amusing that people with a high income who has yet to purchase either a PPOR or IP find so many different excuses on why they didn't purchase ie "I have a HECS debt" which in my view doesn't quite cut the mustard, as I have a HECS debt in the region of $45k due to my constant studies but still managed to make purchases. Especially, the politician with an average of only 2 homes a piece is rather shocking and makes me concerned that people with no money management skills are running our country!

 

Doesnt have to be one income source. Could be from salary, plus a number of CF+ properties, or commercial properties, or LIC's etc. What I have done is to build 4 income streams.
1. Business Income, from which my personal salary is drawn
2. Surplus CF+ income from resi property
3. Dividends - but at the moment I reinvest all dividends to grow the pot
4. Superannuation

Because I have a portfolio which produces significant pre tax losses due to the 20% reduced rental income received from NRAS + depreciation , Im able to generate @ 200K of deductions which I can offset against personal salary drawn down from my company. So lets say I draw down $218,200 as salary for example. Instead of any tax being payable on that income, my pre tax losses would fully offset that amount , reducing my taxable income to below the $18,200 tax free threshold. In other words, the entire $218,200 would be tax free. Then I also receive NRAS credits back for each NRAS dwelling, which adds additional tax free income . In my case, 218,200 taxable salary becomes @ 365K tax free when the NRAS is added back. This income is in place for the next 7-9 years. I reinvest the majority of that in debt reduction, which does several things. Firstly it deleverages me. This gives me several advantages; it creates equity even where growth is slow or non existent- which isnt something I want, but is something I plan for. It also creates better borrowing capacity over time, because of the rapid removal of debt. This allows for future expansion where it wouldnt otherwise be possible without large salary increases or selling assets. It also insulates me against future rate rises or P&I and essentially it allows me to set and forget the portfolio and just wait for it to mature. The advantage this affords me is that I dont ever HAVE to sell because of servicing issues or P&I issues, and I am positioned to expand should I wish to. And my worst case outcome is debt paid off, and the unencumbered properties provide for a passive income for life . Its a simple dividend reinvestment plan, using high yielding resi property instead of shares.

But I do put a little money into shares as well... we shall see whether that continues to disappoint as it has so far. LIC's are going nowhere at the moment. NRAS and Dual Occ yields, on the evidence to date - kill LIC's

Superannuation - same concept. I use gearing /leverage to expand my footprint. Purchase cash cows, and use the surplus incomes to then pay off the debt. Result...much larger asset base...much higher income from that asset base.

Then - stop working completely...live off streams 2,3 and 4

 

Your assuming houses is the only logical place to put your money?

 

Not assuming that it's the only source of income, but you're think that even with income made by politicians who are def not in the lower income earning bracket, the number may have been abit higher than 2 average across the board.

 

Why? Businesses, shares, etc. you think turnbull got where he is by buying houses?

 

I would have thought primary salary, whatever source that comes from. Either business or PAYE income.

 

What's the point of your argument? An additional post to your count? BTW, using Turnbull is a rather poor example when he had more than the 2 average and if you factor in that other politicians have less and some more than the average. that distorts the average/

 

My point is that saying a group have bad money skills because they dont own lots of houses is shallow. There are other profitable things.

 

These days in Sydney at least, training time seems to be getting longer too which means more years of being a registrar. Its quite common for physicians to require a PhD in addition to their basic/adv training and the same for surgeons, again extending training time and therefore time on 'lower' incomes. I actually know quite a few trainees who couldn't land consultant positions and had to do CMO jobs. Just how it is now I guess.

 

I'm 170k a year, I think 260k+ is considered high income.

 

What do you do?

Do we have any members doing something related to IT in QLD / Bris?

 

Hash investor? What do you do? Are you a hashing hash table of the IT worlds?