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

Yes same. I don’t feel like I was given much guidance in my choices with going to uni and what course to choose, but on the other hand I don’t know whether I’d of listened. I wish I’d of gone into a vocational university course with a real, tangible skill at the end, rather then a broad subject. I’ve always ended up in bottom of the rung admin type jobs because I’ve not got a skill to work on and grow my knowledge in. Not blaming my parents for this at all as I know I could have retrained, but the motivation has just never been there.

I also know someone who had incredible insight as a teenager. In the early 90’s (or was it late 80’s, I don’t know), he bought the rights to lots of basic web addresses (think www.”insert name of nationwide supermarket”.com. He was a multi millionaire many time over by the time he was in his early 30’s.

Can I ask if there’s a reason you wanted to be a nurse, as opposed to a doctor?

I am the same as you. I went into nursing despite my teachers encouraging me to purse a career/ study IT as I was good at computing science and as they all said there will be a lot more money in it! I was only interested in nursing, I wanted to work with people and in a capacity that I was helping them etc. academically my loves were biology and English, not computing science.

Now looking back 30 years later, on the one hand i don’t have any regrets, I have had a very broad ranging and interesting career where I have never stopped learning and developing, but now even as a senior nurse on a high banding, my pay is crap and I do think maybe I should have chosen a career with better financial prospects, but not IT, that I don’t regret.

My advice to my children has been choose something you are interested in but makes sure it pays well enough!

So, DH also works in finance, but in something quite niche. He works 9-5 (not a speck of overtime) and isn’t stressed at all. Mid 30’s, £200k a year (so substantially less than your DH), but the work/life balance is great.

He researched careers thoroughly before picking his exact one, for exactly those reasons. I’ve always thought that showed astonishing foresight for a teenager. I certainly wasn’t thinking like that when I went to uni!

I could have written this word for word. Except swap Eastern Europe for Asia!

I used to give career talks at university - my old lecturer asked me to come back a few times for this talk after I graduated.

I remember being criticized by the lecturer and some student for talking about money. I did a poll of about twenty people from my graduating class and gave a rough idea to the students of career paths, salary and packages and working conditions (hours, pressure, pensions etc).

apparently I was materialistic😂.

@Navigatinglife100 Your grandad reminds me of the happy fisherman in Heinrich Böll's Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral (had to look that one up, German A level was a long time ago!)

I come from immigrant parents. They never uttered the words, ‘do what you want as long as you are happy’! And none of their friends did either. It was very much an immigrant work ethic to work very hard and get a professional degree and career. I never knew there was any other option.

I have no regrets and I’m glad I have my profession, stressful though it has been at times. I’m in my 50s now and the kids are at university. I have not pushed them in the same way. None of them are doing professional degrees. However, they know that a job is not just about loving it and being happy. They both want to earn enough money to live on but also seek careers where there is enough potential for career progression and salary increases.

In my view a job is not just about being happy. Income and financial stability matter. Especially when the going gets tough.

When I was growing up teaching was considered a good solid career. People encouraged their kids to become teachers. Now everything is so expensive and pay just hasn't kept up. The hourly rate, if worked out, for teaching at college is fairly close to the minimum wage now whereas it used to be almost 3x minimum wage. The most I can earn without taking on management duties is £34k. An inflation counter tells me that the salary I had coming in 20 years ago would be around £50k now. That is a significant drop in lifestyle.

My grandfather taught me a lot. He hardly left the village. He had an owned home on a beach slipway. Lived for his family, fishing and tripping and spent most of his days on the beach, and working. His income, along with taking in guests in the summer with Nan, was sufficient and he later lived on only a basic state pension. He was the happiest person I have ever known. That's not to say I should replicate it exactly, and we do live in more expensive times, but there is a huge lesson in there about opening our eyes not our purses.

I'm a child of very poor immigrants from Eastern Europe. Everything was about getting a job that makes good money when I was growing up. They drilled the importance of school, hard work AND money into me. At the detriment of hobbies, sports and things to enjoy....

My in laws (English) were/are the total opposite and all their kids are either civil servants or artists and now in our 30/40s are really struggling, while me and DH have an excellent lifestyle because of my money and career. They had much nicer first 30 years of life than I did though. It's all swings and roundabouts and no one can get it right.

I don’t think of teaching as low paid at all, taking account of all the benefits.

I also think you have to compare like with like. No use looking at incredibly successful people in high paying professions and assuming that’s the norm. The top achievers earn a lot (just as they do in teaching- haven’t seen Simon Henderson down the food bank). But even in high paying professions plenty of people aren’t earning mega bucks- lawyers on £30-40k etc, which is a similar salary to teaching without all the benefits.

And the average salary is around £37,500.

My parents told me nothing about careers as they didn’t think women should need one (I’m 62)! But they did support my interests and one of those was finance, so kind of by accident I fell into a finance profession and have done well and still really enjoy it.

my XH was also in finance and HATED it. He carried on out of obstinacy, and to compete with me, but the DC knew full well how very unhappy he was. So they have all gone into careers on the basis of what means something to them. They don’t blame either of us, they made their own decisions.

@PumpkinsAndCoconuts
Wouldn’t being working class (or at least from a background that meant being quite familiar with financial scarcity, which isn’t the same as being WC) lead to automatically recognising the value of money?

Yes, of course. But wanting money in an unfocused way is not the same thing as knowing how to go about getting it. That's one thing that's easier in the internet age, even though life overall is harder than it was when I left university (26 years ago this month).

I think my parents weren't anywhere near WC enough to know about playing the system to get a council house etc. (still a thing in those days) but certainly nowhere near MC enough to know about networking, CV points, internships, and how things generally worked in the professional classes. As far as hitting the class ceiling at Oxbridge or applying to city firms who recruit there, it makes no difference whether you're WC or LMC. You've either been to public school or you haven't.

Just a note - teachers are paid for 5 and a bit weeks holiday, the rest is unpaid, the salary is just spread evenly over the 12 months.

Great pension? 😬

My DM wanted to do A levels and go to uni to study medicine but her family prioritised the education of her younger brothers, neither of whom went on to higher education. She left school at 16 and became a nurse then midwife. After having children an a spell as a SAHM ( had 3 children in 4 yrs), she returned to work initially as a TA to accommodate family life, then returned to nursing, specialising in diabetes ( specialist nurse practitioner in today’s system).

She was determined that if she had daughters , she had 3, that they would not be denied an education. We didn’t disappoint and two of us are HCP, the third had 2 degrees and a PhD.

I chose a career in dentistry because it involved practical skills and was more 9-5 than medicine. I’d done my homework and realised, back in the early 80s, that was very difficult to have both a family and a career in medicine as a women. Obviously it’s different now.

I entered the profession just as things were improving, a decent maternity scheme meant that having a family and career was much easier. I had my own practice, although that wasn’t my ambition, more a case of it being an opportunity presented early in my career.

I stuck with the NHS and was able to retire at 60 with a decent pension in addition to selling my business. I worked part time when DC was young only returning to full time when he was in his teens.

We have always been comfortable financially but not overly wealthy. Life work balance was more important than material wealth. But it does mean that as a result we are probably now more comfortable now I have retired than when I was working. I still work one day a week, DS is at uni so it covers the cost. I now work on the private side, I’ve paid my dues to the NHS, and one day a week more or less doubles our household income.

I sometimes wonder if I should have moved to the private side earlier, but have always been a supporter of NHS dentistry. However, some nice our contract changed in 2006 NHS dentistry is no longer fit for purpose and I could no longer support it. I feel I am providing a much better standard of care privately, I can spend time with patients and it allows me to work at a more realistic rate. I suspect that this is the same across the NHS. The system of targets in place within NHS is damaging and it’s becoming a massive problem. It’s not about how much we are paid but much more about no longer feeling safe in our provision of health care. So much money is wasted on litigation when it could be used to give those vital few minutes more with a patient to avoid it in the first few lace.

I do nt remember my generation of dentists being motivated by money. The training was brutal and certainly weeded out those who didn’t have a fundamental vocation or practical skills. However, the massive competition to enter the profession has seen a big change. It does seem to be a career focused on material gain rather than patients. It is obvious from the huge increase in service cases ( dentists in serious trouble with the GDC) that money is now the driving force in the profession.

I did, and still do wave fees when I think they are disproportionate to the service I provide. For example charging someone extra to remove a single fragment of tartar and calling it a scale and polish is difficult to justify. I know plenty of younger dentists who are happy to do this. Maybe this is why I’m not super rich. However, it’s upsetting when I’ve spent an hour restoring a tooth with top quality materials, and achieving amazing cosmetic results for the patient to moan about the cost.

The average teacher salary in the UK is £51k plus 28% pension and 13 weeks holiday.

A lot of people would be happy with that!!!

Why do you have to be told things? You make your own decisions in life? The people I know who have married what you would call, well, also had good jobs themselves, before they jointly agreed one would be at home for the DC. It’s not either/or?

No one ever told me my best chance in life would be to marry well and a way to achieve that would be to go to university to meet a man.

Just because you study in a field that can lead to a lot of money does not mean that you will ever get there. I have a sibling who is highly educated who hides her qualifications because they are an impediment to promotion.

I have an uncle who earns over a million a year plus bonuses. The person who is living their best life is his wife who doesn’t have to work, doesn’t have to clean and spends her time travelling and doing what she wants.

I have a cousin who posts photos of her house in the Hamptons and pictures of he on Lake Como loving her best life.

I was never told to marry for money and if I knew it was an option I would have done so.

Op I feel exactly the same! My parents were total hippies and I wish that someone had drilled it into me that having a high paying salary is a good thing! I feel stuck in the profession and with 3 small children I have no hope of retraining any time soon. No advice just solidarity!

I just married the man who I came to love & fancied the pants off. I still love him &, after nearly 40 years, I still fancy the pants off him. We met when I was 21.

However if he'd been some alcohol dependent, druggie no-hoper I wouldn't have gone out with him in the first place.

He had a good steady job, his own <newish> car & took me out for dinners, drinks etc & always was prepared to pay, although I always insisted on going Dutch.

He respected me, we could (and still do) talk about music, politics, films whatever. We have a similar philosophy to life, the same attitude to life, the same ambitions & generally found that we have a lot in common.

It still rankles with him that I made him wait for 4 months before we had sex. 😂But, as I say, when we did - BOY was it the best?! He can't argue with that.

Wouldn’t being working class (or at least from a background that meant being quite familiar with financial scarcity, which isn’t the same as being WC) lead to automatically recognising the value of money?

I grew up with up seeing my mother struggle (financially) whilst also witnessing how my father had a very comfortable life as a solicitor. And I knew which life I wanted for myself. Even as a young teen…🤷‍♀️