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

Do you mind if I ask what your husband’s niche finance role is please?

I have made sure my DC understand what careers lead to what salaries. Ultimately they have decided/will decide what to do, but I wanted them to understand realities. DS25 is only two years post graduation and is earning well already as is his partner. Her parents are teachers so DS & GF will quickly out earn three of their parents.

I told my daughter to get some professional qualifications and to marry well. It's possible to do both.

My mother tended to impress upon me marrying well rather than having a career but it was a very long time ago now. Fortunately, I did both although DH was penniless when we met but had prospects. I couldn't have married a lazy bugger who was only interested in beer and sport and was without intellect.

This is true! There are also loads of opportunities to teach abroad (if you choose to do that) and explore different countries. Salaries are higher and still have holidays. No one is bound tied to the UK by force. I've seen loads of people go Dubai, China and Australia for example to teach then come back when their kids are GCSE age to qualify for Student Finance. Then, leave again lol.

Yep, I’m a social worker and I thought that choosing this path would provide a liveable income. £38k on paper sounds decent but I’m living month to month. My union have fought hard to increase this so it’s actually increased by £9k in 3 years!! However it still doesn’t feel enough. My job is hard, and I feel like I should have enough money left over to decompress or treat myself after doing my 50 hour week and never switching off. An annual holiday isn’t attainable. I can’t see me working in this role for much longer as it’s just not worth it. What’s the point?

Does anyone feel the same and do/will any of you be expressing this to your kids?

I did, almost by accident, end up in a career that paid well. My kids know this, and they know that they had very comfortable, well-to-do childhoods.

I'm telling them the opposite. Don't direct your life towards making money. You spend eight to ten hours a day working, and if you're not happy, you're wasting your time. You'll end up in a big house with a big telly, wishing you'd done something else with your life.

Do what makes you happiest. And if it makes you lots of money, that's great. And if it doesn't, mostly enjoying most of every day is a good choice to have made.

I agree with this. I’m an HE lecturer. My late DM would have thought that a great career, and I have had a lot of job satisfaction, admittedly. But we afford our lifestyle because my DH works in IT and earns far more.

I am a specialist midwife. I have had to do all the rotations and have had to work in areas I didn't like but I've found my little corner which I really enjoy. I actually do look forward to going to work most days.

It’s difficult because you likely have excellent private healthcare and don’t have to worry about being left to die by the NHS.

You can buy food you want to eat not what you can afford.

Your kids can have access to excellent schooling and a network that can get them a better job from university. They won’t have debt from university that cripples them for many years to come.

It’s a lot of security to sacrifice vs being happy potentially with no security.

The other option isn’t exactly good. Perhaps somewhere in the middle is key.

Why don't you go abroad and teach? Many countries will happily accept you. Some even provide accommodation. You get to explore different cultures and meet new people. There are so many British international schools, you'll be snapped up! You can also go onto be SLT, assistant head teacher or head teacher eventually.

Just googled this:

"The salary for an assistant head teacher in a UK primary school can vary, but generally ranges from £37,435 to £63,430. Entry-level positions may start around £21,382, while more experienced individuals can earn up to £63,430. Factors like experience, location (London salaries are typically higher), and school size can influence the exact salary."

Its the same in corporate, everyone's on lowish salary until they take management responsibilities.

I partially agree that the higher up you go the less day to day active work you do. I’m in a similar position.

However, it’s more nuanced than that. I’m now paid for my knowledge and experience and ultimately accountable so I still have to be across everything.

Ai has stolen my career. I would of needed a crystal ball to of known that. Then having children with additional needs (in the society we have) has trapped me somewhat. You really do need money to make money in many situations.

I wish I'd realised growing up about all the invisible leg ups people get. That I wasn't starting from the same start line as others. Many of the people I went to school with were bought cars helped financially through university introduced to contacts for jobs, had support and a place to fall back on.

I didn't get the wrong advice from my parents. I got no advice. They were very very absent. Life was about just surviving finding freedom and stability. I look back now and see a child who was never going to know how to enter a well paid career or have the self esteem to.

Our children are entering a whole different world with AI. I think adaptability will be a really important skill to have. Not niches(unless ai proof) but being able to successfully do many or short lived careers and pivot. I'm concerned what the future will look like.

No, if you prioritise money then the public sector isn’t the right career for you, it’s a vocation rather than a money maker (unfortunately). I choose to work in the public sector btw.

My eldest DS was really good at stem subjects (unlike me) so when he came to choosing what the study at uni, I gently encouraged him to look at dentistry, accountancy, pharmacy etc. Nope, he wanted to do fucking sports and exercise science. So he did, his life, his choice. He loved it, thankfully. During one of his holiday warehouse job stints he was talking to a recent civil engineering graduate from a good uni who hadn’t been able to find a job and I think the penny dropped for him that his degree subject didn’t have the greatest job prospects, and that if someone with a degree in a supposedly high demand subject couldn’t get a job, he was going to find it really difficult.

He did get a good job in a medical field thanks to the anatomical knowledge he gained so it’s all good now but I expect many of us don’t end up where we thought we would.

also to add, I once used to know someone who worked as a house manager for super rich people. She told me the one thing all her employers had in common in some form or other was that they were miserable and tended to not trust anyone. Not sure being super rich is all it’s cracked up to be.

Yes, my parents didn't give me any advice.
I didn't even know you could go to university and then change what you wanted to do afterwards. So I skipped Uni as I thought it would be an expensive mistake as I wasn't sure if I could work in textiles my whole life.
So I just have a low earning job now.

I mean private.

Please can I swap it with my job? Sounds lovely!

15k a year at 60 would be a dream for a lot of us who worked full time for the whole working life in public sector.

Yeah, I have a career with money. It is largely completely pointless and ridiculous. I work for 'the man' and am now a slave to my lifestyle.
I did do a teacher day for when the try and recruit teachers, I was totally in awe of the teachers and realised that I could never deal with having that sort of responsibility for so many young lives.
Money isnt everything, you get money, your lifestyle budget increases. So you work more, get promotions, and it cycles and you are on a treadmill with 5 weeks off a year.
Sure, I do love my career, but it is forced love, like making the best of long term relationship becuase breaking up would be a disaster.
I wish I had done somrthing else, followed a passion and forged a path with my heart.

I've not RTFT but I see the other side to this. My parents (teacher and old school IT bod who fell into it by being clever) pushed me to a professional role but actually I wish I'd had the chance to experiment a bit more, travel and find something I love. I am currently very comfortably off but have left my job due to stress and taking some time to consider my options. Money helps but it's not everything. Having hit 40 health and happiness suddenly feels more important.

The huge increase in the cost of living and housing makes formally 'middle income' earners very stretched, no one could have forseen that either. Teachers previously would have been fairly well off, good retirement etc...

I left investment banking to become a teacher.

£50,000 salary is worth the summers and other holidays with my child.

It's a decision I made and sometimes I do think, did I do the correct thing, but at the moment it works for us as a family.

I’m a business coach and I help so so many people leave not just teaching but also high paid corporate jobs to do their own thing. Yes for the money but also for the mission, there comes a point in so many (often mid 40s - mid 50s) where women think ‘is this it?’ I’ve given everything to my career, my family, my community - what about me and my joy for life - and living month to month financial isn’t joyful for a lot of people even if they love the work.

I recently helped someone set up a sort of indie online tutoring school thing there’s loads of ways to pivot what you know into more money without a complete retraining

I'm a teacher too and have no regrets. I decided I wanted to be one when I was 12 and am now in my 50s. When I meet up with old uni friends who went into finance, law etc I do not remotely envy them. My dad wasn't very keen on me going into teaching and, at the time, couldn't understand why I didn't want to do something more in the corporate world. He mellowed about that over the years and even did a bit of TEFL teaching himself after he retired.

Dh is in education too and earns about the same as me. We are pretty comfortable tbh. Ds 17 wants to earn big money. Dd 19 is not driven by it.

My parents were in their 40s when they had me they did a good job raising me and I'm not moaning but they were completely out of touch with current affairs. Absolutely no up to date knowledge of careers didn't even know what a GCSE was 😂

I work on the till in a shop haha

It's true that a lot of careers don't pay. But at the same time I don't want to insist my kids go for high paid careers - my oldest is very focused on a very interesting but poorly-remunerated and I think probably quite unstable career. They do recognise they will likely need a side-hustle to live independently so they are aware of that.

But mostly it's disgraceful that the economy has been allowed to slide in a direction where jobs don't pay enough to live on. Shareholders gotta get their dividends, never mind if swathes of the population will never been able to own a home or retire because so much of their income goes on basic living costs.