To be surprised about friend's household income

it can be stressful being married to someone with a high salary if the DH still expects you to split the cost of things but also demands expensive holidays and food etc because they can afford that kind of thing. makes life very expensive.

There's a LOT of fees to do exams, relocating for jobs prior to consultancy, a lot of costs in general to be a dr (plus pretty low wages to start off with). I don't think I've seen a consultant earn that much though! She probably has a lot of debt she's trying to get out of!

I would really question the motives of her dh telling you this. Is he trying to drive you away to further isolate her?

I have a friend like this. They earn very well, especially the husband. But she will insist on shopping at Aldi and buying clothes from Vinted or cheap high street shops. It’s all some weird pretence, like she’s embarrassed about how wealthy they are. It’s exhausting and tedious. They’re in the process of buying a £2m house but she acts like she doesn’t know what it costs and has nothing to do with their finances because the husband manages everything. Sometimes I think she does it because some other good friends are teachers and she thinks it’s awkward to be so much better off than them.

An old casual friend was married to an odious man. She worked full time bought everything for the children paid whatever he told her was half of the household income each month. He pleaded poverty all the time. When he died his kids were executors. They found so much money plus investments and a massive pension. it was very distressing for the whole family.

She is now a much happier person without the fear of poverty at the back of her mind and finally stopped working in her seventies

Wait until you find out what's going on for people on low incomes....

Its really hard for folk on high incomes. Labour has got it in for them. No wonder they're terrified.

It’s probably as a result of Labour coming for her wages. She must be terrified!

I'm always amazed that people on MN know their friends' salaries.

The ONS looks at median salaries of fill
time employees. This was £39,039 in April 2025. It’s not £27,000. Average is pointless as the vast number of part time employees pulls it down.

Also who actually tells a friend they earn £1/2 million knowing their wife spends next to nothing? My DH earned a lot but we never spoke of numbers to friends.

For a lot of high earners, take home income and household spending are two completely different figures. Money gets put away into investments, and income from those reinvested, while the budget for dw and dc sometimes doesn’t even keep up with inflation.

Just ask her? We can't answer this for you, but she can.

I know what I would say.

Jen, honestly you need to relax. Mike mentioned is salary last time I saw him. I nearly fell off my chair to be honest. You do realise you are married to someone who is in the top 2 percent of earners in the country don’t you? Average salary is 27k, your husband takes home £300k. Let that sink in. That’s on top of your salary, which must be way above average. Spoil yourself. Start buying clothes from M&S and not Oxfam. You are really wasting your life worrying. All this time you’ve been fretting and you must be beyond comfortable. I know I am, and it would take me ten years to earn 300k.

My Nana was always worried about money as she could see what was in the joint bank account and that it wasn't very much. She was allowed a set amount to take out weekly to do the shopping with and granddad paid all the bills and sorted out everything else.

She never told him about how much she worried as she didn't want to put pressure on him. I wish she had as then he would have told her about the several other accounts with massive stacks of savings, more than they'd ever need to cover a comfortable retirement.

He died at 80 and she lived another 15 years afterwards barely putting a dent into it. She had been worrying all those years over nothing.

It sounds like something similar is going on here. Either bad communication or financial abuse, or just ignorance.

Why are there so many posts like this on mumsnet? They all seem unbelievable scenarios. There’s no casual way of dropping in conversation you earn £500k pa

A retarded monkey would be able to tell you that you don’t need to be buying second hand cloths if you earn that

also there are relatively few people that earn this much. Amazing they’re all related to someone hanging about here all day

@CuriousKit So self employed? Or NHS? What do they actually do? Is it a salary or dividends?

What is 'healthcare?

Do you mean he is a qualified doctor, working as a consultant, doing surgery etc, or some sort of 'business consultants' in the health care sector ?

£500K pa isn't going to be unusual for a consultant dr doing private work.

Why would she? It’s her life, her money. Leave her be and watch your own life

If it were me, I would be inclined to do a bit more digging (if you care for your friend). All too often, there are posts / threads on here by women who have separate financial accounts to their husbands (who earn well), and who do not know what money their dh has, and who end up using their savings in maternity leave, and using credit cards to buy food and nappies, and also end up footing the whole set of nursery fees. There was a thread I was reading like this, this morning.

Can you be absolutely certain that their finances are pooled, and she has access to that amount of money? What if she is just on an average wage, pays for all her dc’s costs out of her income, and perhaps also contributes to food / bills / mortgage, and doesn’t know what her husband earns. I think you possibly have a duty of care, next time she mentions being financially stretched, to ask details about whether they pool resources, or if it is all separate. If she really is struggling, then this is financial abuse isn’t it? (I am not too familiar). There may be a lot she doesn’t know, and she may need your help after she finds out… I would absolutely not be able to stay with someone who was willing to see me struggle financially, while having such a large income, that they did not consider to be money to support their family…

Most people get a rough idea of someone's wealth by the house they live in, the car they drive.
Given the shock of the earnings mentioned, I assume they also live in a smallish home and have a small car ?

The OP acknowledges the friend earns well. Separately from what we know learn is her the husband earned half a million last year. Unless it is a pub brag and a crock load of nonsense. Or said in a ' I wish' way, and not to be taken at all seriously.

It’s the husband

Could be her husband is controlling her?

I've got an aunt like that. She was left a lot of money, but is still so frugal. Her house needs gutting, but she won't spend money on it or even move to a smaller place which would be so much better for her. The mind boggles.

Why did you say she earns £500k and now you're saying that's his earnings?

She might have separate finances to her husband so maybe that’s why. He’s probably financially abusive and she’s having to make do with what she earns because how can someone not be able to afford any holiday whilst earning over 300k a year.

OP said his earnings.