A woman who earns £156,000 a year has revealed that she ‘doesn’t feel rich’ and has banned herself from Botox and holidays to save for her dream home.
Amelia Brown, 33, from London, has revealed that while her monthly pay is £13,000, she falls in the so-called HENRY bracket – high earner not rich yet – meaning that despite her ‘decent salary’, she has no accumulated assets or wealth.
Over the course of 10 years, she has managed to increase her wage by £111,000, yet still doesn’t feel ‘wealthy’ and takes home £6,924 a month due to tax and pension contributions.
Now, in a desperate bid to save up for her dream three-bedroom family home in London with her partner, Amelia is completely abandoning Botox and has placed herself on a holiday ban.
‘I think if I was on my salary in other parts of the country it would be crazy but when I was a kid if I imagined earning this much money I didn’t think it would be a relatively normal lifestyle,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to be in the class of HENRY who is a massive whinger, I know I’m extremely lucky to be earning this amount of money.
‘We’re not buying new clothes and not shopping at all really unless I sell something on Vinted and that becomes a new shopping fund.’
Amelia was born in London but grew up in Australia where she turned down a PHD position doing mechanical engineering – which paid just £10,000 per year over four years – in favour of becoming a management consultant.
She also rejected an offered scholarship at Oxford University to focus on a ‘big career acceleration’ working for a start-up.
Amelia Brown, 33, from London , has revealed that while her monthly take home pay is £13,000, she falls in the HENRY bracket – high earner not rich yet – meaning that despite her ‘decent salary’, she has no accumulated assets or wealth
Now, in a desperate bid to save up for her dream three-bedroom family home in London with her partner Amelia is completely abandoning Botox and holidays
Now, she is urging others to explore other ways they can generate additional income, having boosted her income by 20 per cent by posting content online.
She also manages her monthly pay check, paying herself first – calculating her costs for the month with everything else either saved or invested.
Amelia, head of growth in the tech industry, explained: ‘Living in London and the cost of living it doesn’t go as far as other people think.
‘I’ve stopped getting Botox. We like to travel pretty frugally but we’re reducing that as well. We’ve deferred buying a car.
‘The common wisdom is to buy a starter home and get on the property ladder and buy your forever home later.
‘But my strategy is to save as much cash as possible and buy my forever home without that intermediary step which has a lot of costs attached to it like stamp duty and moving.
Having always been interested in investing and saving – buying her first investment property in 2017 and has gotten into stock market investing over the last five years – Amelia employs a number of methods to reach her newly decided target deposit.
‘I try and max out my ISA every year and be tax efficient with my pension an savings and live a relatively frugal life especially compared to a lot of people on the same salary as me,’ she said.
‘I think if I was on my salary in other parts of the country it would be crazy but when I was a kid if I imagined earning this much money I didn’t think it would be a relatively normal lifestyle,’ she said
‘As soon as you’re paid I use the pay yourself first principle.
‘Things that are like luxuries like travel, therapy, shopping, and aesthetics likes Botox I save for that every month and put a bit of money aside every month in sinking funds.’
To help further, Amelia has slashed her pension contributions from 20% to 10% and has been pursuing additional income through her content creation – which boosted her last month’s take home pay by 20%.
Amelia’s advice to others who might be starting their own saving journey is to ‘be honest’ about where you are financially.
She said: ‘Some people already on high salaries need to look at their expenses and be ruthless to cut expenses and save money.
‘The majority of people need to be really honest about their salary and find opportunities to increase their money and earnings and to set financial goals and reach them.’
