Anyone else feels like he is getting squeezed even if they earn well?

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I was just thinking about this the other day. I don’t know if other people feel the same?

Both me and my wife come from poor to average upbringings. We both feel that we have been very lucky, although we have worked very hard to achieve what neither of us had as a kid and never dreamt to live such a life.

The common salary progression hasn’t been growing but it has stayed more or less the same. But even with a very good (or not anymore, who knows?) salary between us it is more and more difficult to put good money on the side. Sure, we can afford almost anything normal we can imagine, but it shouldn’t be like this? Or I am asking too much? If somebody would tell me when I was young I would have this much money and not see where they go, I would not believe it.

2010: wife 195k, me 30k (starting my own business), together 225k

2015: wife 180k, me 65k, together 245k

2020 wife 165k, me 120k, together 285k

2025 wife 125k, me 85k, together 210k

My wife has changed work in these 15 years but it seems the salary has gotten smaller. She might push herself to find something with bigger pay but probably will affect our private life as we already have 0 time for ourselves between the kids school and everything.

On paper, our income looks awesome, great. But in reality, although we live comfortable, we just don’t see where our money is going, and we never splurge on stuff.

Never bought a new car, always 5 years old used, paid in cash, changed every 4-5 years

We try to buy things when they are discounted

Only one furniture was purchased new at a discount, the rest second hand

We almost never eat out, mostly due to trying to eat healthy

Mortgage is very, very small, 3 times less than comparative rent, although sometimes we spend on upgrades and things we need, we don’t pay a gardener, we do everything ourselves

Health insurance costs seem to have exploded in the last 15 years, from 4k to close to 10k easily today

Kids go to public school, so no cost there

Kids activities is something we don’t try to save, so we send them to camps and sport activities, we do at least one good holiday in the year and if possible we take a overseas travel once in 2 or 3 years if we find a good deal

But come tax time and we have to go through accounts and find money to pay the bill. Putting money on the side seems mission impossible after having kids.

Does anyone else feel the same? Am I wrong to think that what seemed or looks like big bucks it isn’t anymore?

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Try to drive it for 10 years because even if highly depreciated in value, the price paid can still be high in absolute value (e.g. 500k car depreciated to 100k is still 100k).

I think this would be a hard stop for me to finally start budgeting if I would have to scrape for money to pay taxes. The 0815 way is to deduct the expected taxes each month from your salary and put it into a different account.

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When I read it, it gave me the 4 Yorkshiremen vibes, so apologies, but I include here :stuck_out_tongue:
Right, let’s have a think about this, shall we? I were just sat ‘ere t’other day, ponderin’, like. See, me and t’missus, we come from nowt, proper poor backgrounds, we did. Never in a million years did we think we’d be livin’ like we are now. We’ve worked hard, mind, but there’s been a good bit o’ luck thrown in, I reckon.

It’s just… it doesn’t feel like what it should, does it? Back in 2010, she were bringin’ in a hundred and ninety-five thousand, and I were just gettin’ started with me own business, barely earnin’ thirty. Still, two hundred and twenty-five thousand between us! Sounds like a king’s ransom, doesn’t it? Now, 2025, she’s down to a hundred and twenty-five, I’m on eighty-five. Two hundred and ten thousand… and it’s still a struggle!

I mean, we’re not livin’ in squalor, mind. We can afford things, alright. But it’s not like we’re splashin’ the cash about, either. Never bought a new car, always a five-year-old banger, paid for in cash. Get things discounted when we can. Second-hand furniture, mostly. Don’t eat out much, try to keep it healthy, you know? Mortgage is tiny, thankfully. But health insurance? Gone right through t’roof, it has! Ten thousand quid! Kids go to public school, so that’s a blessing. We treat 'em to activities and a decent holiday, and maybe a trip abroad every few years if we find a bargain.

But come tax time… Good grief, it’s like clawing teeth! Scrabbling around to find the money. Putting anything away on t’side? Seems near impossible since we had the little ‘uns. It’s just… does anyone else feel this way? Feels like what used to be “big bucks” isn’t anymore. Maybe I’m askin’ too much. Maybe I’m just a daft old fool. But sometimes, I can’t help but think… we’re workin’ our backsides off, and where’s it all goin’? It’s enough to make a Yorkshireman weep into his tea, it is.

I went through something similar. I guess maybe you have the kid in Kita which is super expensive.

When we had our 2nd kid, we had double Kita costs (peaked at 6k per month) and bought a house to get a bigger place (thankfully at a time when mortgages were low). (and missus took year off work which reduced our income too)

I used to wonder how my friends were going on luxury holidays 4 times per year until the missus pointed out that they had no kids and with the kita money, we could have gone on a luxury holiday every month.

I guess it is just a tough period to go through. You have to spend a lot of money all while being exhausted and having little sleep.

I was looking forward to easing up a bit on the childcare costs but ended up putting the older kid to private school (I am not in favour of private schools and never thought we would have come to that, but particular situations came up and it was the best choice given the circumstances).

At some stage they will grow up and the expensive childcare and school costs will end.

Thankfully, neither of us are big spenders so our lifestyles have not really been impacted. We did feel the squeeze of post-covid prices going up across a wide variety of goods and services: childcare being the most painful, but energy and food cost increases are keenly felt on a regular basis.

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20 posts were split to a new topic: Buying a new vs. used car [2025]

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Tracking all expenses for a month or two, and then making a budget will likely improve the situation. The first account that should get paid from salary is the savings account. You can’t spend what you don’t have (if you can’t control yourselves, get rid of your credit cards).

It is factually impossible to have no money for saving when earning this much. There are people earning much less and still managing.

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Certainly, and more broadly - though it sounds obscene as hell to non-financially conscious people and people without savings - I have found myself, and many foreigners with high salaries, feeling a ton more stressed in CH, and with a NW 20X what it was 5 years ago than I ever was when my account had 1000 EUR on December 1st. I’ve also commented here before that the Bünzli with 80k combined salaries appear far less stressed than foreigners with >>>XXXk salaries. I was told, correctly, that it can also have to do with having or standing to inherit properties valued in the millions, and of course it’s their country, they have networks, friends, family which us foreigners can’t have to anywhere near the same extent.

Feeling this way this year myself, I never budgeted but thinking about our large fixed costs (rent, health insurance, bills) I come with about CHF 1000 short each month, or actually - there should be 1k more left per month but there isn’t and I have no clue where it goes. I plan to sit down and do some proper looking at our costs for the whole year in Christmas and make a plan for next year.

I came in this thread to say that @rew342343 may be experiencing lifestyle creep, however after reding the post I agree it may be good time for a serious and detailed look at spending.

Same here, our trips are essentially the cost of gas and making sandwiches, we always make a point to go on a hike, short or long, every weekend - one of many joys of CH is that you can be in pristine nature more or less in 10-20 mins drive. We buy clothes on discount, big trips once per year, recently my wife discovered Brockis - ffs the stuff she’s found for 5-20 franks: prints costing 200-500 CHF, unworn shoes costing 200 CHF, cutlery and crockery anywhere between 200-300 CHF, board games costing 20-50 CHF for 2-3 CHF.

I once joked to friends that a side hustle with little hassle would be simply driving around Swiss cities and picking good stuff left on the pavement gratis, now I’d add trawling Brockis. I once spied a gaming chair costing upwards of 800CHF left on the pavement, it was perfect besides a tiny tear on the back of the chair. Came back with the car and it was gone :wink:

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You may have a double check on your taxes.

Not your case, but I had a colleague so financially unaware he was paying taxes at source in CH AND in his home country (cross border) without noticing a glitch. Has a family and all, but I guess it was okish for him since cost of living was a lot less there.*

And I have several examples of unoptimized wrongly paid taxes, over confidence in authority, accountants, etc…if you have a third party managing this, they may as well forget you have kids…

* he was a dick though, never ever said thanks, more like “the employer should have known better”, while it was 200% his responsibility, but since I was higher on the hierarchy I was quite the employer to him.

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This can be a big factor. With grandparents, here to help with kids, that would be a 72k saving for us in peak years. That’s just one financial aspect.

Now add in all the mental health, social aspects of having family and friends around.

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It sounds like you need to calculate your expenses. Don’t intend to sound condescending, but this is something that anyone on a path to financial literacy should do very early. This is different than budgeting, we are only at the clarification stage here.

I was calculating my expenses monthly for over 10 years, but few years ago I realized that it is not very helpful and I should calculate overall expenses of the household for a calendar year. Did it for few past years and am quite satisfied.

Here are some advices.

  • Open your favorite spreadsheet program.
  • Put your (both spouses) income first.

I use net salaries from the yearly salary certificates, IIRC, number 11 in it. If you want, you can start from gross salary and do social deductions yourself. Advanced level: add employer’s contribution to the pension fund and calculate the total pension contribution.

  • Put taxes you have paid for that year.

This is the part that is easy to miss and the main reason I think calculations should be done per year.

  • Put other expenses.

That is the difficult part. Categorize them the way you want, but put all of them. Find a way. Humbly beg your wife to give you her credit card and bank account statements if you have to.

  • Calculate what you have saved.

Now you can do all kinds of fun calculations such as what is your average tax rate and if you meet a reasonable savings rate of e.g. 20%. Well, let’s skip it for now.

As you say that you don’t know where your money are going, you would need to come up with some categories (child care, vacations, …) and go through the statements and put expenses into other spreadsheet(s) to calculate the annual total.

I also agree that you should be on top of your tax declaration and make sure that it is not only correct, but that you also have deducted everything you can.

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For us, Kita and after-school care costs are a killer (even with grandparents pitching in). This year, we will end up at approx. 23 KCHF (incl. summer/autumn camps, etc.) and next year, it will be approx. 28 KCHF. We are in BL which has incredible “child-friendly and supportive “ policies :roll_eyes:

We have friends in BS, who send their kids to “special” Kitas and childcare centres (everything is organic, even the wooden toys that the kids play with) on a full time basis (5 days from 0800 - 1800) and yet end up paying just 1.6 KCHF per month max per child as BS subsidises Kita costs.

As @PhilMongoose mentioned, eventually the children will grow up and these costs will ease, just got to grind until then (with gritted teeth :grimacing: ).

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Unfortunately, BL is pretty bad for childcare, taxes and healthcare costs. At least housing is cheaper than Zurich.

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And public transport. Only 824 CHF for whole Basel-Land including parts of Germany and Aargau.

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Are you tracking your spending?
That would give you some starting insights, which you could then think of action on.

For inspiration check:
https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/pants-down-yearly-spending

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Well, the public transport might be cheaper, but it is pretty useless: infrequent and slow. I’d take the Zurich transport system over Basel any day of the week.

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Exactly, without tracking spending, you are flying blind. This has to be a first step.

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Not really to that extent. It does sound a bit like an spending issue.

That 210k is gross? That might be some 180k in your bank account. Depending where you live taxes are maybe 40-50k? If you put that to the side, or pay during the year as soon as there’s enough in your account, that’d leave you with 130k to spend.

Many variables here, but just as an example, let’s go with monthly

  • Housing and utilities: 2k
  • Health: 1k
  • Food: 1k
    That’s 4k for the “essentials”. Maybe add
  • Various purchases and services: 1k
  • Leisure and holidays: 1k
  • Kids (where not included in other positions: 0.5k
  • Transportation: 0.5k
    That’s 7k a month, or 84k a year.

Of course, you can spend a lot more on each position, but I wouldn’t consider any of those as extremely frugal. That assumes no more child care or high rent.

I guess your questions was more on the sentiment, not actual numbers, but do you have a rough understanding where your money goes?

That’d still be 46k for savings (or positions where you need or want to spend more). If some of that goes to your 3rd pillar, you’d lower the tax bill.

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Especially “now” that they voted for a 365chf Abo. (I voted No.)

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IMHO this is the elefant in the room and the reason why you feel under pressure right now.

If we look at LIK, prices have risen by 7.5% from December 2020 to now (health insurance is not included in this figure!). Depending on the age of your kids, your expenses may have risen by much more.
During this period your combined (net?)income has fallen by 26%.

Obviously we don’t know the details, but could it be, that you spent something like 220k back in 2019-2021, which was comfortably within your means and now in 2025 still spend more or less the same or even a bit more, but with less income?

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No, in fact I spend more and more every year. Not much, but I have arrived at a salary and a NW where I feel I don’t need to aggressively save so much anymore.

My problem is how long can I keep going at this job to keep the good salary (nothing outlandish compared to some people here, but well above median and pretty good for my industry for roles that aren’t in senior management where I definitely don’t want to grind to).

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+1

For comparison, according to SRF (via BFSΣ), the average disposable yearly income for couples with children was around CHF 120k around 2022.

Here’s how you stack up (monthly numbers):

gr-e-20.02.01.00.13_b_2020-2021-COMPUTED_THUMBNAIL
gr-e-20.02.01.00.13_b_2020-2021-COMPUTED_THUMBNAIL1883×1223 160 KB

I’d have loved to see the numbers for median disposable household income, but it seems the BFS was not yet able to hire enough math PhDs to calculate the median.x̄

Ah, well.

The median is directionally probably lower, but I’m guessing in the same ballpark.[$]

Other cool graphs from the BFS, paid for with your own fair share of federal taxes:

image
image941×611 79.1 KB

Σ   Look for (downloadable) table Revenus et dépenses des ménages selon le type de ménage on their 2022 Household income and expenditure page. Here’s a screenshot:

image
image2926×1801 270 KB

x̄   Must be one of those last few unsolved math problems, like The Riemann Hypothesis around the mysterious distribution of prime numbers.

$   Of course, with that average income you probably already qualify for childcare subsidies in many cantons. E.g. in the canton of Berne you can make up to CHF 170k (not sure whether gross or net) to qualify for childcare subsidies:

Dieser Tage etwa hat der Kanton Bern beschlossen, die Subventionen für die externe Kinderbetreuung auszubauen: Die Einkommensgrenze für Familien, die vom Staat Geld erhalten, wird von 160 000 auf 170 000 Franken erhöht.
(Source)
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