To wish i’d known when younger the importance of going into a career with money

Yes, this is why it matters. But that doesn't make it ok - we can't really have a functioning society if everyone's a banker or a software engineer!

A teacher is not a bad salary, and a great pension, so all told OK.

If you are able to tell us what career you are in, that pays well, without long hours, and with a good work-life balance, that would be so helpful. It is so difficult to know how to advise my dc - the general feeling running across the majority of posts in this thread is that potential salary is so so important when making decisions.. but, in terms of going into finance or law (which seem to be the options with the big salaries), I am not sure it’s possible for a square peg to fit into a round hole… and I have been in the situation myself of having invested time and effort to get into a certain career, only to realise (early on, but with too many years already invested in study and training) that I found it unbearable, and incompatible with good mental health..

Given that teachers are ones educating and providing career advice it does feel like they should be more aware of different careers/expectations etc.

i do believe teachers work really hard and that it is a very valuable and difficult job but it’s crazy how so many teachers think they work so much harder and longer hours than everyone else.

something happens to teachers that they honestly seem to believe no one else works outside 9 to 5. It’s bizarre. And they become ‘holiday blind’

I think it’s because a lot of teachers haven’t experienced anything else. Life has gone school > university > back to school.

I worked in teaching and was miserable on £35k a year. I retrained as a lawyer in a niche I had an aptitude for, and less than 10 years in I am on well over £100k, rarely working over 40h weeks, with no trips away from the family, and a friendly and supportive team who don't make me feel like s**t. I came from a family full of idealistic public servants and so it was very much not modeled to me that it is acceptable or even desirable to leverage your earning potential to maximise your return for your efforts.

I don’t think career choice is as important as some basic financial literacy. Investing a few hundred a month over 20-25 years will give you hundreds of thousands in the bank due to compound interest.

@Nickisli1 how much choice do you have buying stock? I ask because I am good at envisaging what I will want long before it arrives in the high street. What I want to buy now/today won't be available for 18 months. Most merchandisers are catering to yesterday.

I agree and I’m a teacher too. No one in my family had been to university before so for me it felt aspirational. Now I’ve got friends earning 75-90K who work from home/hybrid.

I agree with others that it has become very different in the past 20 years or so - ie salaries have failed to keep pace with the cost of living so lots of people feel poorer. I think it is impossible to know what careers will turn out to be lucrative or what will decline. As an example I work in high street Retail buying which was better paid (relative to other jobs) 18 years ago when I started than it is now (retailers are struggling to make a profit). That was impossibly to foresee, but with hindsight I wish I was in a better paid industry!

I will absolutely be making my children aware of the difference in earning potential across jobs.

I grew up with very little money, parents worked very hard but didn’t earn high wages. Education and working hard was instilled in me strongly, particularly by my Dad. I was fairly high performing at school, but this wasn’t “rewarded” it was a given, going to uni was expected and doing something “professional” was also expected / encouraged.

I ended up in a career that pays well, but without long hours and there’s a very good balance. met my husband as graduates and I now have the life I could have only dreamed of as a child.

I will encourage my children to do whatever they want to do in life, but not shy away from being open that earning well can enable a certain lifestyle

Plus, a thought. if you are good at what you do, then you start to manage other people in the same line of work. You judge their skills and begin to represent them professionally. And bingo! you have a business. With a warning that it works for trade skills but not so well in intellect-driven occupations.

I think I might be the first poster for self-employment. It is definitely not for everyone. You need to be a self starter, who can get up early and talk yourself up. You need to be a risk-taker. You need to be your own financial planner and pension consultant. You need a rudimentary understanding of the tax code, and a willingness to read the financial pages to keep it reasonably up to date.

I don't think that DH and I are very special, but what has made us successful (not multi-millionaires though) is that we were willing and able to take the risk in the first place. I earned well in the 1990s and subsidised DH's baby business, and now it pays for me too.

IMHO self-employment is the best option. I really don't like not controlling what is happening or being told what I must do npw.

I tell my kids it’s ok to do a job you like (not love) if it’s well paid.

No one should do a job they hate, but it is always always sensible to think about salary when you pick what to study and your starting career.

I was not brought up with this message, my parents were working class and knew very little about university etc.

The holidays mean you don’t work the hours!

you work intense bursts but have much longer with no work at all.

my friend is a teacher and is very, very touchy about hours and holidays. She constantly tells us about the late night and weekend work. I do that too - emails through the night, phone calls while I am on holiday - managing a crisis while queuing for a flight. I just don’t tell her about it every time we met😊.

but she gets much, much longer holidays than I do.

something happens to teachers that they honestly seem to believe no one else works outside 9 to 5. It’s bizarre. And they become ‘holiday blind’.

No, no you do not remotely work investment banker hours. Investment banking is a mug's game if you ask me, so high stress and ludicrous hours. I'm not an investment banker BTW, but had a little time working with them and have friends.

Juniors will be in for 10-16 hours on 5 days and often working a day at weekends. They might get a call at 4 am to respond to immediately. They don't get teacher holidays, but they also respond to email on their reduced holidays, and it never lets up until they fully rise up the ranks. Then there's the risk of being thrown out for the smallest mistake, and everyone knowing everyone so you can't make a big error and work again. Some people thrive on being constantly needed, but they see little of their families, they have to be comfortable with the incredibly rough behaviour at work, and "hobbies" mostly involve client meetings... all to die early of a stroke. At least consulting relaxes more after the first few years with just the inconvenience of travel and random meeting times. Yeah, there's money in investment banking, and teachers don't finish at 5 (newsflash that few jobs do these days!), but it's really not remotely comparable and comes across that you simply don't understand.

Mind you, they're the hours I keep as a teacher too (except I frequently work until after midnight). Wouldn't mind £300k for it 😄 That said, I do get the holidays.

@JLou08 - Higher Ed actually pays worse than teaching. I’m a teacher but I’m 58 so I was able to get on the housing ladder and pay a sensible amount for childcare in the 90s. I love my job and between my DH and I we earn 100 k and have decent pensions. I went to Cambridge and don’t at all envy my financially high flying contemporaries. I love my job 30 years on. None of my children are particularly focused in finances despite having good degrees from Russell Group Universities.

It’s a bit outing. Particularly combined with stuff I’ve said on other posts, so I’d rather not. Which is probably rather irritating, so I do apologise!

Well said @GRex
I completely agree with you.

It's of no use to blame others OP, if you want a different life then take the steps to make that happen. Fwiw, I know a number of people who left teaching for alternative, successful careers. Just because you qualified as a teacher doesn't mean that you're forced to stay in the teaching profession for the rest of your life. You can start over at any age.

I always thought that GSOH (in dating columns, back in the day) meant “Good Salary Own Home”…

Money was tight when I was a child, which caused a lot of stress. I was determined not to need much money — not to be at its mercy. I went into a varied and interesting occupation that I loved, and earned about the national average. Most of my hobbies and entertainment didn’t cost much. It’s worked out fine.

Middle class here and zero financial education. Parents/school never mentioned it at all apart from the value of a steady job. We were students with no debt but very little cash so whatever a job paid, it seemed luxurious compared to student budgets.

Oh agree, totally. But I am also much more in control of who works for me, which means I can rely on them much more.

At some stage you need to take responsibility for your own decisions. As a teacher, you presumably got ok results and a degree, that opens doors. At any stage of life you could have looked into retraining and moved on. You've had the kids now so maternity breaks are over, so it's a decent time to build a different career if you want to.

Working careers span a theoretical 45+ years these days. Start now, so what if you're 10 years in when you hace 35 to go? Those of us starting other less fixed path type of careers researched and found jobs at 21, with far less life experience and barely any useful jobs on the CV. We researched, we applied, we got jobs, we worked up; you'll shortcut at least 5 years from comparing teaching experience with management, training, presenting, planning or whatever else. If you don't like where you're at, stop blaming others and fix it.