Anyone on here on an ‘average’ wage with an ‘average’ job living and ‘average’ life?

[Handcreamqueen]

Before I start, I want to say that I am not knocking anyone. I am just being nosey/inquisitive.

I’ve frequented MN since the birth of my ds, 18 years ago.

Back then I don’t recall people discussing their lifestyle and salaries etc (but maybe I was looking more on the baby topics to much!?).

So many threads these days start with ‘My husband earns over £100k+‘ or ‘We have a joint income of £160k+‘ and asking questions about luxury cars, private schools, exotic holidays etc.
It has me wondering if most Mumsnetters from high earning households these days?

I only work very part time, that’s mainly down to some health issues I suffer from and I also care for my mum who has dementia. DH works very hard as a road engineer and also covers the road gritting in the Winter to boost our income (he loves his job and has been doing it for over 30 years). We have an extended 4 bed semi (which dh built himself to save money), we both drive older (but paid for) cars, own a touring caravan so holiday in the U.K etc. All distinctly average.

Our 18 year old ds is training to be a bricklayer and 15 year old dd is still at school. Neither want or wanted to go to uni.

Before anyone jumps at me though, I’m not jealous or envious, I am happy with my lot and appreciate being a high earner is not all milk and honey (We have a few friends who earn ££££ and know how exhausted they are at times) but it often has me wondering, how many people on MN these days are regular, average earners living a regular life? The average household income is around the £35k mark which puts us just above but not by much. How many of us fall in that category?

Are many of you like us living an average life, not a super earner and have a ‘job’ as opposed to a ‘career’, with an ‘average’ car and ‘average’ house but are happy and content?

Hello to you if you are on here 😊

Very interesting thread @Handcreamqueen. To me it demonstrates the state of income inequality in this country and shrinking middle income families

We're below the household average due to being a single-earner household but my wage is slightly above the national average per person.

We live in a 3 bed, semi detched rented house. I have been looking at buying lately but due to being a single-earner household I don't earn enough to buy the size of property we would need.

I think we're pretty average, maybe slightly below average. We have just enough to last most months without needing to obessively count every penny spent but need to think about/save for bigger purchases.

I read posts and think..God they're not living in the real world but of course they are it's their real world. Mine was/is pretty modest..we had our own business but tbh would have been better off just working for other people. We had the occasional nice holiday but because of business constraints time off etc. not that many. We had a similar house to the OP. Built the extension ourselves, it was lovely. We weren't poor and the kids lacked for nothing but certainly didn't have every new thing that came along. They didn't expect it either. We drove second hand cars. We were perfectly content.
Now we're retired we have a small house on an estate, a little courtyard garden with lots of pot plants and 1 car between us. Husband does ad hoc driving and I volunteer in a charity shop. Our financial position is okay as long as we have no emergencies. Just a normal little life the same as most people we know.

Because they can finally come to a thread and feel smug they earn more than others while claiming they are struggling at the same time.

I think how you "feel" depends on the people around you. Higher earners who have been in that position for a while will generally tend to have higher-earning friends so they will feel average when looking at their peers.

I "feel" above average. I come from a very working-class town where there are few professional positions available. Most people are carers, cleaners, taxi drivers etc. Before Covid, I worked full-time in care. I've worked hard, often working two or three jobs at a time while studying to break into an entry level professional position. My friends are all still in care jobs (a job I loved, fwiw, but as a single parent I couldn't survive on zero hours, NMW).

im on the national average wage not the London average wage

im a single mum and despite many on here thinking you need to earn £100k plus to live in London I don’t (I do receive maintenance which goes towards the rent). I do have a flat that I rent out so feel lucky I have property. Not really earning from it but the value has increased

average life no holidays this years as money has been so tight but that’s the experience of many I know

i have a car that I have ended up paying well over the odds for as I could not get a loan but I try not to give that too much thought

has been a tough year but generally things are good

Lower than average here.

Single and never married.
Lone parent to young school age child (6) who lives with me 100 percent of the time.
I work full time in a regular ‘job’ rather than a career - I have actually gone backwards in that respect as I have a Masters degree and quite a few professional qualifications and have had higher earning jobs pre-parenthood, but this job allows me flexibility for school runs etc.. so works for now.
Earn around £25k p/a.
Contributing to a private pension.
Mortgage on a 3 bed home - bought through shared ownership so not a full home owner but on the property ladder.
Very old car. Just about drives.
Some manageable debts from household maintenance costs.

Not unhappy at all with my lot, but would like to work on a plan for bettering our situation.

So your household income isn't actually £22500 then. You would need to add the amount you get in Universal Credit even of it does all go to rent as it is still your income.
If you rented or owned a house and earned above the amount to qualify for Universal Credit you wouldn't say our income is £50000 but it is actually only £35000 because we spend £15000 on rent or mortgage a year.

Some of these posts remind me of Marie Antoinette and her attempts at playing a poor shepherdess. Lots of money but pretending or thinking they are poor. Weird.

Sorry its £27,000 then so still below average according to lots on here

My earnings are £18k as I work FT but only TTO.
I get UC top ups though and so my total income is £20k a year.

I live in a rented 2 bed home and have 1 child.

Obviously financially it’s not great and we don’t get to go on luxury holidays or anything but I absolutely love my life.

As my DD is getting older I am planning to get a better paid career but as a single parent I’ll most likely never have a high household income.

I have to believe that some people on here who say they earn £60k+ are fantasists as there seems to be a lot of them and I don’t know anyone in RL who earns that much, especially at the rate that seems to be on here.

I don't entirely disagree. In the sense that I think that it's clear from the thread that some people just don't seem to see anything beyond an entry level job as being "for them" and I really didn't realise how closed some people's worlds are.

I also agree that there will be lots of people earning decent salaries on Mumsnet.

but it's fair to say there are also some obvious fantasists on here.
(My next promotion should get me above £100k so I know it's not all "fantasy" and actually I like that Mumsnet helps me realise I can aspire to this and I have also had some excellent career advice from Mumsnet over the years which helped me climb the ladder rapidly even as a single mum with two preschoolers)

Yes, I'm quite average, don't earn huge salary. I'll join your bog-standard-average group.

I know one person who earns more than 60k p/a. I don't know how much more she never discusses her earnings with us but I know it is more. I would guess that she is on roughly £80k p/a. She's at the top of her field, working as a marketing director.

I've done a lot of research lately on which positions in my field earn highly. I'm currently working in one area and studying in another so wanted to check whether it would be financially "worth" changing my field of study to match my working experience (network engineer vs. software developer if you are interested) and I've found that although both fields claim to be one of the highest earning fields in the UK very few of the "top end" jobs pay more than £60-70k p/a ditto cyber security positions and CTO jobs. Although a few outliers earn more than £100k p/a they are few and far between and most people earn around £60k once they reach the top of the ladder for their speciality.

As there seems to be a lot of people on MN who earn £100k plus p/a and only a very small handful in the UK who actually earn £100k plus p/a I have come to the conclusion that either every single person on more than £100k p/a is a mumsnetter or a lot of MN posters are telling fibs.

Earnings vary but min wage plus commission so take home averages £1700pm
Single and live alone.

I have no idea if other posters are lying but in my field (law) working in London (in a "city" firm" you will be on £100k after a few years of qualifying. Same with other finance or accountancy etc roles. I make no comment on whether that's fair or not and I am not comparing my earnings to others and saying woe is me I am a high earner but struggle still. But the fact is that if you work in a certain field and stay in it long enough you will get to over six figures. Some of those people will be women and some of those women will post on mumsnet.

We are very average. Moved into our 3 bed semi last year (and managed to fix our mortgage just in time woohoo!) Husband earns about £25k NHS work but just took a promotion, I am just going back to full time work as a TA having been part time since first child was born and last one has just gone into full time work. Thoroughly happy as our life is.

I earn 22.5, dh earns 30K. DD joined the Navy in May so not at home now. DMIL lives with us, small 1 bed annexe on our 3 bed house. Mortgage of 120K and still 12 years to go.
We’re not struggling but not saving. I suspect we’ll massively downsize in 10 years.

This thread is very depressing as someone in their 20s. I'm seeing people earning in the £20k bracket with mortgages meanwhile I can't even get a mortgage and probably never will unless I use a scheme.

That could be the difference. I was looking at salaries outside of the South East/London.

You would have to pay me a fuck tonne more than £100k p/a for me to live in London. I've visited twice. I hated it both times. It's far, far too busy and I found a lot of the people there rude (nb I am northerner born and bred, we say sorry if we bump into inanimate objects and fight to give up our place in the queue to the person behind us).

Early 30s, married with one child, household income of £70k which does not stretch far at all due to being riddled with debt. 3 bed semi with a mortgage we can barely afford. One car, both adults working full time. One UK holiday a year. Don't understand how others do it.

Is a 4 bedroom house and caravan average? Not in my world. A 3 bed with no caravan maybe.

Sorry OP, I don't think you represent the average person either!

What I took from that thread was how unsatisfied they all seemed with their 150k incomes! None of them seemed to realise how incredibly fortunate they were which is quite sad for them really. It just goes to show you how it is never enough and the more you have, the more you want ….

I know a fair number of ‘average’ people but I think they will have a household income more like on MN than £35k. Median income is skewed down by pensioners and people who work part time or not at all, and I live in the SE where salaries are higher. I don’t know any SAHPs though and families with two adults working full time will earn over the median if at least one of them isn’t on minimum wage.