AIBU to envy friends with wealthier husbands and easier retirements?

Not true. I have a relatively easy corporate job, earn £78k. Work from home most of the time and can finish at 5pm every day (if I chose to)

Yes, we pay £90 per hour for A level Chemistry tuition.

I have a friend who charges £45 per hour for tuition, and works 22+ hours during the week. A lot of that is done in her house, but also online (using zoom and bitpaper). She also tutors during the school day, for students who are home schooled, and for 16-18 year olds who may have free periods. What subjects do both you and your husband teach? Could you expand your tuition base, with a view to gradually reducing your school contact hours? I think my friend’s £45ph is actually a lot less than some others charge (maybe £75ph online for A level science subjects). It so definitely worth looking into. And get your dh to split the housework 50:50. If he is finishing work at 3.00pm, that is essentially part time hours. It would make your life more enjoyable :)

You still haven't explained where your monthly income has gone over the years such that you find yourself at this stage in your life unable to treat yourself to a meal out or takeaway and need to buy your clothes from charity shops.

I’m late 40s. I wish I’d known which careers were going to be high salary when I was in my 20s.

I was paid much much better in independent than state. The expectation and the pressure was higher though.

Why do you blame your husband for not being ambitious and not yourself? Mena do have pay advantages and perhaps more opportunities but not to the extent that he alone could have improved your financial set up, you still have time, why don't you find yourself another income stream

Private schools don’t necessarily offer higher salaries and loads of them have left the Teacher Pension Scheme.

honestly, a married couple who are both teachers should have been able to work up to a very nice joint income and a bloody brilliant pension - way better than a private one or most other occupational pensions. There really shouldn’t be any need for the OP to be so envious. Especially as it sounds like the woman she envies doesn’t even have a career of her own

Yikes.

The salary may reflect the long holidays, sure

But that's entirely different from those holidays being unpaid, as I have seen people claim on here

And the teachers I know do not work in school holidays. Yes they have told me this

Ah right.

That's more than I got as a PTC on .6, but I recall that there was a wage increase after I quit and - the way that the SPPA administers pensions - that helped my pension a bit.

Digression

As soon as I resigned, my HT had my post job-sized down to .5, in spite of the fact that it was the biggest faculty in the school and the school roll had gone up by more than 200 pupils. Bandit. I've been gone for nearly 8 years now and I've had 6 replacements in that time - all women. I can't prove that there's sexism afoot, but given that the other PTCs were all men with a smaller workload...

When I first got the job, it was advertised at .6. All the candidates were women. The day before the interview, I got a scrap of paper with a printed note telling me that it was only .5. (I was a PT for one subject prior to that - it was when the regions were shoving secondary departments together into faculties as PTs retired.)

I still have no idea how the region thought that they could get away with that...and it was literally a guillotined scrap, not even a full letter.

My faculty was the last in the school to be formed. I checked with the PTCs in the school, and they were all on .6 on the pay scale...so at the 'Any other questions?' stage of the interview, I raised the matter of the drop in pay. I was quite blunt.

The next day I was called into the then HTs office and was told that the region had agreed to restore the pay to .6.

The HT who cut the pay for all my successors was a different chap. To this day, I cannot fathom how the region got off with it.

If you really wanted to get paid better you could have looked at teaching in a private school or a grammar school or done tutoring on the side.

OP hasn't retired, it's the friend in the fancy house who is retired

Full time Scottish teachers get 40 days paid annual leave and 195 paid working days. The other 26 week days are not paid. Salary is normal paid over 12 payments but it is 10 months salary. It is in the contracts. Pay & Leave specifications are in the job adverts never mind the contracts.

If your goal was to be comfortable in life then you should have had a plan to accumulate wealth by looking at different careers, marrying someone else etc. There are lots of reasons why people become wealthy, successful business, inheritance, investments paying off.

I don't think we are disagreeing in principle, just the way we are commenting.

The salary reflects the amount of time in the classroom.
That's not the same as saying teachers are not paid for holidays.

You've gradually clarified your explanation and now it aligns with mine, which is what I've always known.
(It's not a case of my not understanding.)

The number of weeks holiday can be-
Summer - 6
Easter and Christmas - 2
Half terms - 3.
Plus occasional days.

It's not relevant anyway in terms of the OP's AIBU and envy. Unless she and her H find other work in the school holidays to increase their income.

At the end of the day we have to live with ourselves. " working class?" disgusting comment.

terrible isnt it, if everyone aimed that high then who would teach, clean, fill shelves in shops etc, empty the bins... see society without all those people being dubbed "working class careers" the snobbery...

Two full time teachers without progression should be on £45k each at the top of the main pay band. You benefitted from cheap houses in the 90s and are still paying a mortgage? Doesn't sound like your income is the actual problem.

Just because women give birth doesn’t mean they can’t be ambitious. I earn double what my husband does, I am the more ambitious one of the pair of us,
despite the fact I gave birth. Twice.