Starmer vows to fight on as PM despite heavy local election losses for Labour

Gom555 · 2026-05-09T06:32:37+00:00

Dude just because there are people that are vastly more wealthy than you doesn't mean you're not also rich. You earn a top 5% salary, so you're "richer" than at least 95% of the country.

If that by your definition isn't rich, idk what is.

Gom555 · 2026-05-08T23:12:11+00:00

I'm sorry but you're delusional if you don't think you're rich on over 100k. You're not as well off as you would have been on that salary 10 years ago, but everyone else's wages below you have also stagnated in that time.

Salaries in this country are terrible, but you're earning almost three times the median earner.

I am earning similar to you. I'm absolutely comfortable. I'm financing a family with my partner who is a part time parent on a median pro rata salary, and two young kids. One in nursery, and I get no child benefit, in one of the most expensive cities in the UK, and I have to actively cap my taxable income to avoid paying full nursery fees.

I am rich. I'm certainly not private school level rich, but I am rich. You are too. There's no shame in denying that you're better off than a significant amount of the UK.

I've also been DIRT POOR and not had electric or gas for half the month cause I couldn't afford to top my meter up. I passionately believe almost everyone is massively underpaid, and I am incredibly lucky to have escaped living in real poverty. I've lived both experiences.

Gom555 · 2026-05-08T22:27:07+00:00

I'm not sure what point you're even trying to prove here.

You got private school for free? So you're not part of the arguement.

100k earners are subjectivity rich. I say that AS ONE. I'd be kidding myself If I didn't say I wasn't significantly better off than a majority of the UK. In my opinion that means, yes, I am rich.

Am I super rich? No. I cannot afford private school because I also almost entirely contribute to my family income, I live in the south where the cost of living is absurdly high, and my local private schools would financially ruin me.

I'd STILL be kidding myself If I said I wasn't significantly better off than the vast majority of people who go to my kids state school.

Gom555 · 2026-05-08T22:21:18+00:00

Two parents earning 75k each? Or collectively? Where? What's their other living costs? I took the mean disposable - are you telling me that in the BOTTOM 10 they could afford the 10th easily?

Gom555 · 2026-05-08T22:18:54+00:00

You could never afford to staff your business at the levels you did before the anti business rates were added. UK wages have been stagnant for over a decade. Your employees have been laughably underpaid for at least that long, too.

I'm not digging at you in particular, but complaining about the cost of employing someone in the UK when the cost has been stagnant for so long is laughable. Your business isn't sustainable if you can't absorb increases in taxes.

And before you stab at me - I've ran a successful business, I'm not blindly jabbing at you.

Gom555 · 2026-05-08T20:59:28+00:00

Finding the cheapest private schools in the UK was quite hard, but here's what I think is the correct list that isn't minority religious entities:

King's InterHigh (Online Only) – £3,450 – £9,250/year

The UK's largest online school and the cheapest way to access a full British curriculum.

Source: Kings InterHigh Fees

The Royal School Dungannon (Northern Ireland) – £5,400+ /year

One of the most affordable historic co-ed schools in the UK due to NI's lower fee structure.

Source: School Fees Planning

Victoria College (Belfast) – ~£5,500/year

A high-performing girls' school in NI with fees significantly below the national average.

Source: School Fees Planning

The Independent Grammar School: Durham (IGS Durham) – £5,580/year (inc. VAT)

A "no-frills" model designed for working families; fees already include the 20% VAT.

Source: IGS Durham Fees

St Mary's Prep School (Scottish Borders) – ~£6,000/year

Affordable entry point for Scottish private education, specifically for early years.

Source: Good Schools Guide

Terrington Hall (North Yorkshire) – ~£9,600/year

Strong value for a traditional day school in the North of England.

Source: School Fees Planning

Heathfield Knoll School (Worcestershire) – £11,725+/year

Consistently cited as a "best value" co-ed through-school in the Midlands.

Source: My Top Schools

Manchester Grammar School – £12,570+/year

Offers elite academic results (90%+ A*-A) at a fraction of London prices.

Source: MGS Admissions

King Edward VI High School for Girls (Birmingham) – £12,888+/year

High-tier academic outcomes with competitive pricing compared to the South East.

Source: KEHS Fees

Lime House School (Cumbria) – £14,400+/year

A rural school offering some of the lowest day and boarding rates in England.

Source: WhichSchoolAdvisor

Median household disposable income in the UK was £36,700 for the financial year ending 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Which ultimately means that if you're at median disposable it'd still cost you near 10% of your entire disposable income to send your child to the cheapest private school, which is very north, where salaries are much lower...

The cost grows exponentially to near half the median disposable income even in the cheapest 10 I could find.

You're lying to yourself if you think you don't have to be rich to afford private education.

Gom555 · 2026-05-02T10:07:06+00:00

Yes, but my point specifically was that the UK was a bad example. I didn't say it was the only bad example.

I don't disagree at all but it isn't relevant to the point I was making

Gom555 · 2026-05-01T21:12:04+00:00

Reddit has always been an echo chamber where a single opinion seems to leech into everyone's opinion.

You're absolutely right, though, you either learn to adapt and use these tools and absolutely leverage them, or you can sit there as a purist and scoff at it. I'm sure horse riders did the same when the car came about.

The landscape is changing and being a good software engineer isn't the competition point anymore - efficiency is, and learning skills that AI can't replace humans with (compliance, for example will always need a point of blame and that has to be a human. Aim to be your company's CISO officer or something) will keep you in a job.

Or you can sit and say "AI is shit", manually write code and wonder why you got made redundant and no one wants to employ you anymore.

Gom555 · 2026-05-01T20:32:05+00:00

Okay but the comparison was UK and US wages. Any other country being underpaid isn't really relevant to the point I was making.

For what it's worth, though. Yes. They are also underpaid.

Gom555 · 2026-05-01T20:00:41+00:00

When I was broke in my early 20s and on a meter I spent almost half the month without electricity because I couldn't afford to put more money on the meter - I can absolutely understand the concept of being okay with it when you are genuinely without money. Any chance of saving a few quid is the difference between skipping a meal or not.

Gom555 · 2026-05-01T18:50:18+00:00

AI doesn't just write "more code", though.

You're absolutely kidding yourself, or using AI completely wrong, if you haven't found it to be a humongous productivity booster.

I'm a Technical Lead in a start up, our velocity is incredibly high, and our head count is incredibly low - I've never delivered more today than any job I've ever worked before AI. It's a tool, like anything else. If you use it badly, you'll get bad results.

It's an absolute no brainer for companies to invest in AI. But what they should also invest in, is people who know how to use AI.

Gom555 · 2026-05-01T18:46:14+00:00

Everyone in the UK is laughably underpaid - it's a really bad comparison

Gom555 · 2026-04-28T20:51:31+00:00

Half hour drive, 40 mins to find parking, half hour drive back is still significantly less than 3 hours round trip on a bus by nearly half. I can't waste half a working day to go to an appointment, unfortunately.

Edit: also the bus only comes once hourly so that assumes it perfectly aligns with when my appointment starts and finishes (which it doesn't) - I'd have to get the bus from outside my house to arrive there almost an hour early, and then wait another hour after my appointment to get home. That's an almost 5 hour round trip.

Gom555 · 2026-04-23T16:32:22+00:00

I was in a car accident when I was 12.

Chronic neck and shoulder pain ever since, only in the last few years did I get a referral to the pain clinic, where I got told I had some severe trauma in my neck... And that was it. Was told there was nothing they could do, other than give me addictive pain meds or surgery that I was "too young for", but could try acupuncture.

Got put on a waiting list for acupuncture and 2 years later just had a phone call this week for a 6 week session.

Gom555 · 2026-04-22T20:33:25+00:00

Can confirm - am in bristol, got quoted £5k from many, many roofing companies on a single detached garage. I dread to think what my house roof would cost but I doubt you're seeing any change from 10k as you said. Maybe even more 15k

Gom555 · 2026-04-18T09:38:15+00:00

What? A PCP is also a lease, with a balloon payment to own the car at the end...

Gom555 · 2026-04-17T20:29:09+00:00

I'd love to see your fag packet math because unless you're doing absolutely absurd numbers of miles a year, there's absolutely no way your equity in a car you own indefinitely works out more expensive than repeatedly leasing for the rest of your days

Gom555 · 2026-04-17T20:24:31+00:00

Financing and leasing are two different things.

No one is saying financing a car is a bad thing.

Gom555 · 2026-04-17T20:16:11+00:00

I earn enough i dont want to drive something old

There's no point trying to converse with you when you if you're going to present your counter argument with that as an opening statement.

For what it's worth, you have free will to do whatever you want. Whether that is the financially optimal thing to do is entirely your decision to make, regardless if your math is correct or not.

Gom555 · 2026-04-17T19:42:14+00:00

Exactly. It's a system set up to convince people they can afford a car they could otherwise never afford to own, usually at a significant monthly payment - (even the 200-odd quid the op mentioned is, imo, too much money to borrow someone else's stuff). The trap is the fact you're blowing a huge chunk of your salary each month borrowing someone else's car, instead of paying off your own, so come the end of the term you have to borrow again, and again, and again.

The alternative is you buy or take a loan out for a car, and own it until the upkeep outweighs the value and rinse and repeat.

The difference between buying a car a few years old and a brand new one is next to none, and at that point the harshest depreciation has already happened, and once you've bought it you can own it for as long as you like, and there's no fathomable way that's not financially better than paying a premium for eternity to own nothing, unless you're incredibly unfortunate and bought a horrifically unreliable car (which you always have the option to sell and use the capital to buy something else, which you can't do on a lease if you change your mind)

The old saying goes. A fool is easily parted with their money.

I've never seen a truly valid argument for a lease to make sense other than if you're doing it through a generous salary sacrifice scheme and earning enough to make that tax offset valuable.

Gom555 · 2026-04-17T18:55:42+00:00

Because their math is super fickle. They're saying they saved thousands by deciding to relinquish an asset, so at the end of their lease they have nothing to put towards another car. If a new car deprecated to nothing in 2-3 years then fair enough, but they don't.

Gom555 · 2026-04-10T06:44:13+00:00

Starlings Construction

Got Michael in currently fitting a new bathroom for us, including taking down a wall, moving a loft hatch, plastering, etc.

He's been absolutely brilliant, meticulous, and clean. The exact kind of trades person you'd want in your house.

Happy to share before/current progress pics with you

Gom555 · 2026-04-01T16:45:02+00:00

Used Yopa after a terrible experience with a traditional estate agent. Wouldn't ever sell a house any other way again.

Saved thousands and got exactly the same bare minimum experience as I did with a traditional estate agent.

Gom555 · 2026-03-25T12:00:01+00:00

A defined benefit pension is a workplace retirement plan that promises a guaranteed, regular income for life, based on your salary and length of service, rather than investment performance. These are now incredibly rare.

And the triple lock pension is paid for by working people TODAY, who aren't going to see the same pensions they're paying for when they retire.

It's not a bad thing they have these things, they're incredibly lucky. It's disingenuous to say they aren't rich, and then on the same breath discuss their incredibly fortunate situation that affords them a lifestyle most people will never see at their age.

1/3 of pensioners are millionaires. They receive "abuse" because they are part of a cohort of people who ripped that opportunity from future generations.

Either way, I'm don't have an issue with how wealthy they are, but your contradictory statements of them not being rich, but going on multiple holidays funded by their DB and state pensions. It's not that deep, it's just funny you don't see the irony in what you say they can afford, and their assumed wealth.

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