Am I being unrealistic? How old are you, and how much do you earn?

[adhdneedsajob]

Doing my tax return and depressed at how little my self employment brings in.
I have a degree in the arts from a RG university and over 20 years experience in the workplace I am 45 ffs and barely scraping £1200 a month
But am barely making any money

What do you do and how have you got there and how can I charge more for what I do?

42, Head of Marketing, £75k.

Agree with a previous poster that it's not about how much you know or how hard you work, it's about selling your brand and networking.

Ooo "specialist cleaner" sounds interesting. Hoarders? Crime scenes? Laboratories?

29 years old and earning £40k a year.
Degree from OU. I came in as an admin at the company I work for and worked my way up. In 5 years I went from £24k to £40k and that was with a year out for maternity.

FTE £27k. It hasn't changed much for most of the 20 years that I've been employed by my current public sector employer but they are accommodating to family life and wlb and luckily DH earns triple what I do and keeps us from further debt!!

I’m 42, I work full time and earn a base salary of £126k plus car allowance and bonus. Director in a health related organisation. Worked my way up from project manager and health finance and consulting roles. Have had two children in that time and just gone back to full time after 5 years working part time.

Forgot to say I'm early 40s

34. Buyer. My take home is £2300 ish a month for 30 hours per week.

28k i do about 10 hours a week give or take, for a family member. School holidays ill do the bare basic at end of month paperwork so 3 hours. Same salary

OP, PPs are correct that a list of our incomes won't help you unless they happen to be relevant to your sector.

What do you do?

Not sure age and incomes are going to help you but most graduates I know who did science degrees are at least on £40k in their 30s.

You are self employed, are you even earning minimum wage? If not do you expect your business to grow? If you're out of start up phase and not earning the equivalent of minimum wage it's not really a feasible living.

I’m 32 and would be £50k WTE but I work part time 0.6 so bring in around £1800 a month. DH same age earns £70k but recent due to a promotion.
It sounds a lot and we are proud of where we are but things are still tight as we have small kids and high childcare costs. Don’t feel bad as long as you enjoy your work.

I am middle 50s and earn £130k + bonus. Senior leadership in biotech.
That said, it took a long while to get to that level. First job in 1996 as a new PhD graduate was £19,500, 10 years later around £34k. 10 years after that, ~£55k (all specialised lab roles).
The break into senior management made all the difference.

40s, £27500 pa plus bonus of up to 10%. I didn't take the job for the salary though. My old job paid more but was slowly killing me. This job has more opportunities and I get to do a job I love, in an industry I'm passionate about(and I have a plan now I'm in the industry to do what was a childhood dream).

I'm 29, a manager in retail and make 63k a year. Started at the bottom, 9 years ago., done management apprenticeships paid by work when offered, a couple of lucky promotions here I am

33, DH is 38
Teacher and a technical role for a retail company.
combined is approx 81k before taxes

I’m planning to return to Uni to enter a medical role once I complete an access course if I can find a way to afford life on only his wage!

Ive been up and down. Earned £100k at 32 then nothing for 6 ish years as SAHM now late 40s self employed £60k ish but work when I want.

And this is why I'm not pointing my kids to degrees. I earn 85k, no degree. It will go up soon.

Wow.
Was not expecting so many replies.
I used to work in social media but now I write copy for small businesses

47. First class degree. Masters. Teacher. c£32k pa.

Not sure how that helps you though.

I'm a chartered co sec. Average salary for role I do is £60k in a FTSE250 company. I have a law degree and did the professional qualification whilst working. If I were the head honcho I could be on a lot more.

38 and on just over 100k as an in-house lawyer. Could be on significantly more if I'd stayed in private practice and/or pursued more senior positions - but work/life balance is more important to me tbh.

What do you do OP? Loads of my family and friends are self employed in arty/creative industries (everything from jewellery making to professional acting/dancing/singing to portrait painting to tattooing). I think the tattooists are the only ones on decent money - most of the others have to supplement their self employed income with eg bar work or similar. Is what you do anything along those lines ie arts/creative/music etc?

26, HR, 40k

2:1 from a Russel group. Pgce from a different Russel group. 11 years served as primary teacher Inc two maternity leaves totalling 12 months off. Deputy head on 55k. Take home not that high because still paying student loan and teacher pension contributions are about 10%. I'm 36 with about 13k still owed in student loans.

35 and £70,000.

It's tax free (I live abroad), so that helps.

Took a 7 year career break to have DC.

36- emergency services earn 43k , Hubbie the same- goes up 7% in sept