£150k salary aged 35 AMA

[RaeS345]

Mum of 2
Married, 35
AMA

Does the £100,000 cliff edge piss you off?
On your £150,000 salary a lot of that £50k must be subject to a lot of tax?

How is it feel to be such a bore?

Did you set out to be a high earner from.an early age and plan for it, or did it just kind of happen?

You say you live up North.
If I got the 7:15 train from Manchester, I would get in at 9:30 ish.
Do you work full time for that salary, or are you part time?
Or is your North further South (controversial North/South divide cut off 😆)

I am surprised you can turn off and not think about work at the salary you are on.
At half that salary and working in the defence industry (engineer), I was expected to be available at any time of the day or night. Don't get me wrong, I was paid if I got called out of hours (it was a salaried position) but the expectation was that I would answer the phone and go on site if necessary.

@RaeS345
OP I just want to talk to you about the couple of posters who have commented on you not doing a job that contributes to society. And you've commented about being aware of this yourself.
I'm 51 and have worked as a nurse since qualifying at 21.
I decided to go in to nursing because I wanted to do a job that helps people and contributes to society; this felt very important to me upon leaving university.
Fast forward 30 years and I struggle financially enormously. My pay is low beyond measure in comparison to my senior level of responsibility and accountability for people's lives. My salary was frozen by the government for over 10 years and in that time COL and inflation soared. Nursing salaries will never catch up or recover from the decade long pay freeze. Meaning that in real terms I earn less today after 30 years experience than I would be earning if I hadn't had my pay frozen for a decade. This in itself has eroded my self esteem terribly. I feel unvalued by government and by society. I feel a failure at how little I earn. I work incredibly hard non stop, I work long hours, I work through my lunch breaks and I finish work late because I deliver high standards of care and don't cut corners with patient's health management. I train young nurses up to high standards. And in return for this, I am struggling to pay my bills, my mortgage massive % increase 3 years ago has crucified me, I can't afford to pay for the house repairs needed, I'm driving a 15 year old car, I haven't been abroad for 16 years, we live in a tiny house only 85m2 total size which is minute, and worst of all I cannot save for my 2 DC who are now teenagers. I simply don't have any money left each month to save for them. We need what money we have to survive day to day. Not being able to save for my DC is a guilt I cannot make peace with. And this lifestyle is at a top senior nurse salary. This leaves me feeling like a bit of an idiot, to be frank. I feel like I'm a complete mug, and I feel like I'm having the piss taken out of me every time I receive my monthly pay. This in turn has eroded my sense of purpose. It has definitely eroded my sense of pride.
To add to this, I am burnt out at 51. Mentally, physically and emotionally. Nursing for as long as I have bleeds you dry in the end on all 3 levels. I have nothing left to give of myself outside of work. This has impacted on my mental health.
To make matters worse, I cancelled paying in to my NHS pension whilst my pay was frozen for 10 years because I had young children and all the expenses that adds so I couldn't afford the pension payments, and since then the COL crisis has meant I still can't afford to pay in to it because of increase in mortgage and utilities and food. So I'm facing a state pension only after a life of service, which terrifies me.
So what I'm saying is, good for you. Enjoy your marketing job and your salary. I'm here to tell you that you a life of public service holds nothing more than struggling financially and feeling undervalued and exhausted. Any good I contribute to society through my job is at the expense of my own wellbeing, I can tell you that for sure.
If I had my time again, I'd leave Uni and walk straight in to the corporate world, earn a high salary, take pride in paying my high taxes knowing that would be my contribution to society, enjoy my lifestyle, and I'd focus on being a good, helpful and kind person. These things would make me a far happier person than I am today.
You've made the right career choice. By far.

Well done OP. Great salaries and not overstretched.

However I'm going to give you a little warning advertising and marketing is very ageist. The cut off use to be 40 for CMO.

My friend who turned fifty has spent two years out of work. Her CV is blue-chip big brands.
She has just accepted a fractional contract role. Her last salary £180k plus bonus and profit share.

Put away as much as you can and think carefully about income insurance. Mine didn't pay out when I became ill.

We all have a peak and mine was at 35. My basic was £300k (MD Scandi pharma company) but I never got more in the twenty years that followed. Only female world wide.

I did work for a young company for free and got a percentage. That's being sold and I'll retire on the options. It will make up for all the roles I never got being a mum.

We all need luxury and entertainment don't feel guilty about that. When you reach 55 you can do something worthy!

Good for you OP. My DD graduated this year and landed a media relations role (political focus) in central London. At the moment she is only on minimum wage but it is a start. Good to hear you have done well for yourself, my DC are from a very similar background to you.

Well done op. You’ve worked out and it’s paid off.

🤔

Hey OP. Forgive me if this has been asked (and answered!) already, but I’m really curious what area of media you work in? My DH works on the advertising side for a media owner (corporate, big global name) - he has about a decade’s more experience… and doesn’t earn as much! The crappy economy is hitting hard, and marketing budgets are usually the first to be cut - and there seem to be a lot of people out of work at the moment, particularly for senior level jobs.

My background spans both publishing and TV so I’m pretty sure you can’t be in either of those sectors as the money isn’t great 😂

do you work for somewhere like google or Spotify?

Are you Netflix?

They wouldn’t lose 1.5k per month cash. Thats the whole point. They are essentially throwing away £10,000’s of free money every year they have nursery age children.

I suspect because they say they don’t have friends earning similar amounts that nobody has ever explained it to them. It is literally the first thing that pretty much everyone on that sort of salary does when they have nursery age children. Failing to do so leaves them working at effective 100% marginal tax rates, possibly more.

I earn beyond the point beyond where I can get myself out of this trap, but with two in nursery I’m losing £1,850 a month in childcare (!). I need to earn more like £3,700 a month extra (extra!) just to offset this.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow…

Do you like creme eggs?

OP is a net contributor and pays lots of tax. That is her contribution. So PPs claiming some high horse doing more meaningful jobs should just get off them. It’s these taxes that help to pay the salaries of those nurses in your families, the firefighters. It’s not OPs fault that the government takes the piss and underpays.

In any case those jobs such as nursing are far safer for longer than OPs job, which will be facing a cliff any day now so be grateful for that.

I could see the very obvious jump from agency to in-house in your salary timeline 😂

Same trajectory for me, pretty much.

Are you worried about the (let's be honest) overpaid-marketing-role bubble bursting? I'm constantly in an existential crisis about marketing these days, mainly down to the technologies available that have totally transformed what a marketing function does. Just feels like in 5-10 years marketers won't make the big bucks.

Are you worried about Ai obliterating the need for your career?

Not unless you have

• good pensions yourself
• full ISA each
• JISA

I've enjoyed reading this thread op - well done on doing so well in your career, and you sounds very grateful and aware of how good your salary is .

I think it's unfair people asking you about the morality of your job and does it help anyone etc. I work for a big corporate (although don't earn an awful lot as I in support services!) however, the social impact and volunteer team are hugely popular - lots of opportunities for mentoring secondary age kids, helping out in local schools with reading etc, fundraising for charities. Just because your actual doesn't directly help someone, doesn't mean people aren't dong that in other ways.

How did you move to brand marketing?

I see a lot of eg head of brand roles and they don't pay anything like 150k, was your job advertised?

Who picks your DC up from school?

If everyone worked in public sector there would be no money to pay for it. The millions of us working in private sector pay millions in tax. We also do charitable work and do some good through some of our actual paid work.

I don't earn more than my friends in NHS and they'll have huge pensions. I'll be on the breadline!

Don’t let people make you feel guilty. You’ve worked your way up and made a good life for yourself, enjoy it- life is short.

You sound like you’ve got a great plan, pay mortgage down, be debt free, have savings. Life goes quickly and you may not feel like working as hard in 15 or so years, therefore these plans will help.

Enjoy your success x

Us too! Didn’t realise I could have started a thread!

Do you think you earn a lot of money when compared with your contemporaries who work in Big Law of finance?

I’m surprised you’re on a 7.30am train if you’re up north.

i leave home 7.30ish, get into the office just before 9 and I’m in a London suburb with a great train service.

What time do you get to the office and what time do you leave?