Do you have a good work life balance and earn a good salary?

[hayre]

My cousin works in London as a lawyer and he earns lots and lots and lots of money. However, he is ALWAYS working, to me it seems dull (he agrees), he doesn’t see his wife much, and they can still only afford a fairly grotty flat in an OK area. The guy is super bright.

His brother was never quite so bright, and worked up in an insurance firm in Wales and now earns less then his brother. However, he sees his partner, they have an absolutely gorgeous house, lovely lifestyle, enjoys the work and has free time. I’d say he has the right work life balance.

What career do you have that provides a good salary but you don’t work every hour under the sun?

If he earns lots and lots of money he is clearly choosing to spend it on other things.

It doesn't sound like it's so much about their careers and earning potential, but the cost of living where they have each chosen to?

I don’t think he does, I genuinely thinkt the price of living there is just so high. He has to live nearish in order to get to the office at short notice

It’s certainly cost of living, but there are jobs that provide the same pay for fewer hours. Sure that doesn’t get you a nicer house, but does overall make you happier

Define good salary?

Law is particularly awful for work life balance.

I don’t know anyone with a good balance. I mean people with school age kids.

Most people who have enough money have to work too many hours, have too much stress and hardly see their kids etc to get the money.

Most people who are able to spend time with their families and don’t have stressful jobs have to worry about money.

It’s not a good set up for anyone.

What do you mean by good salary?
I work in HR based at home, flexible hours, 4 days per week. Salary £75k pro rata but I do work funny hours sometimes due to everyone being in different time zones. I still use after school club and holiday club I never am doing childcare and work at tye same time. But I can take them to school every day and gp to every school event

Yes (well I think so anyway) I’m in Ireland and a primary teacher (wage is over 38k) hours are 9-2.40 so I am home with my own children by half 3/quarter to 4. Childcare bill is approximately 82-100 per week.

I think good salary = living without stress
Eg, washing machine breaks. Ok no problem to go and buy a new one. Car breaks, bill of several hundred, no problem. Want to go on holiday? Can go where and when you want, no money stress. Need new clothes, furniture, vacuum, whatever: you can just go and get it.

It doesn’t matter the actual salary figure, it matters whether it’s enough for your family.

I am happy with my lot. I'm a Specialist Nurse (in child and adolescent mental health). While my salary is not much compared to many people on mn, we live in a cheap part of the country (rural northumberland) and I earn enough to support my family. I have quite a lot of flexibility and I enjoy what I do. While my dc were tiny I worked fulltime hours over 3 days, which was tiring but I valued the time with the dc. I've recently moved to a mon-fri job which suits us now the dc are older.

I did have to put in the years as a more junior nurse and things were harder then. There wasn't the flexibility, and I had to pick up extra shifts each month just to pay basic living costs. I had to study various qualifications alongside work to get where I am.

We have a good lifestyle and work life balance now, although we don’t have kids.

We earn good salaries for outside London, but we absolutely have to go to where the work is for DH. This can be a bit trickier, but has worked out well for us with the latest role.

I think a good salary (IMO!) for outside of London is £100k+, if both partners in a relationship earn that.

£200k household income would probably be the top 2% of earners?! Maybe 1%?! I can't imagine two people each earning £100k have a good work life balance but happy to be corrected

50k/person is a very high percentile compared to avg earnings.
Not merely 'good'.

It is not always so immediate. Balance can be over a longer term.

It could be work hard for 15 years, get the London flat, climb up the career ladder, then retire at 40 or 45 sell up and move out to the sticks, spare change left over, doing two days a week consultancy at £1,500 per day, sailing the boat or going away for long weekends.

Some people can cope with sprinting, others a marathon and others a 40 mile walk.

I think 100k is massive!

But you say your brother has it right and presumably his household income isn't £200k!

Oh gosh!! I should have been clearer, I meant if both partners together earnt £100k+
aka one at £50k and one at £60k

What do you do and earn, OP? How's your work-life balance?

I earn £45k as a senior teacher, dp earns around £30k. We have a good work life balance, but not really much cash flowing about.

@hayre I forgot to add my DH’s salary is 54k so we are approximately 90k and I feel it is ample. We currently save 1k a month but we live quite simply if I’m being honest. For example we don’t have a tv (or the related bills) and as I have come to realise an extremely low childcare bill. I don’t really see how any of this helps you though?

I lived in London for a long time, working in professional services, earning 3 x what I earn now. The reason I left was precisely what you describe; the choice in terms of buying property was somewhere small (think 2 bed flat max) in a not very nice area, or a bigger property in the burbs but with a soul destroying commute. I tried that for a few years but was getting up so early and home so late I had pretty much no life. I now live in a provincial town far from London, earn MUCH less, have a lovely big house and although my job can be stressful and I'm home late at times, my commute is only 25 minutes door to door. I really do think it's London that's the issue, but if you want a massive career then it's necessary, at least for a while. I knew I would never stay there but it enabled me to earn a lot of money for a time and I had a lot of life experiences and opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I’d roughly agree with those numbers for where we live (expensive city in the South West). We have a combined salary of 100k - soon to be 108k thanks to a promotion - and manage to save a nice sum. I don’t think we would manage as well in London for example.

We benefitted from moving abroad and working on expat salaries for a number of years, which included rent, bills and food. Apart from flying home once a year, we had no expensive holidays, so saved a significant amount that we’ve invested.

75k ? 😱