Is everyone rich?

[Led921900]

Is it just me or is everyone minted? I think I’m the only one of my friends bar a sahm who isn’t on over £100k?! We were talking about kids free hours and we seem to be the only family able to qualify, everyone else earns too much.

My partner earns £38k and is by far the lowest earner I know.
I come from merseyside, it’s not like any of us come from money.

When did everyone get so rich?
And yes I’m totally jealous!

my sister is on 32k and i thought she was on a mint wage 🤣 we are definitely not like that here. sahm for me and dh is on 27k

Your parter earns over the median income which is around £33k so you must move in well off circles

Apparently so!

£100k+ is very common among London professionals a few years into their career. Unless you couple up with someone earning similar you can’t buy a decent house (which start at £700k if you want to stay in Zone 1-3). So while it seems ‘rich’, it actually isn’t.

Comfortably off in London is a household income of £300k if you have kids, £200k if no kids.

Exactly the same. Sahm and DH ft work altogether 27.5k. I too would be happy with 32k wage😆

Yes, they are, but this is totally dependent on your age and location surely! Not sure anyone on this thread has pointed it out yet. The cheapest tiniest house in the town I live would be over £600k, so you wouldn't live here if you weren't. My friends are all 50+, with degrees, living in a posh town, so yes, everyone I know earns at least £80k. We didn't when we were 30 though, or had young families, we were still making our way up the ladder at that point.

These are all late 30’s with children that are preschool age (hence the discussion around earning too much for 30 free hours!)

I'm on £31k, DH £25k which on paper gives us an above median household income, although we definitely don't feel better off. I only know one person who is on over £100k and they are self employed in financial services. We're in the SW.

We live in a middle class area and have got to know many of the families from the school. There are many families where both parents are doctors or both parents are solicitors. I'm sure they're all on £150 - 200k per couple. I work part time earning about £14k per year! Haha! Having said that DH earns well.
Outside of this neighbourhood I know plenty of people who earn £30 - 40k. That seems to be the norm amongst many of my friends.

I'm sure a graph would exist showing salary vs age. It's gonna be a line with an upward gradient. All of us at 20 were in graduate schemes, most below the national average. Then we worked our way up. Unless you're in a NMW job, most people's careers would progress salary wise with age and experience.

Different careers progress at different rates, and it’s important for young people to know that so they know what they’re letting themselves in for.

An ex got into an accountancy graduate scheme which at the outset paid less than his sister’s graduate job in fashion design. Within a few years he was out-earning her by double, and now it’s more like 3-4 times, because like most creative jobs the earnings curve is much shallower than for professional jobs.

Your pay is often less to do with how hard you work and more about the career you choose.

It does depend on the circles you move in. All of DH friends are in top 5% of earners that still does not put them all in the 100k bracket though two will be easily. My friends are a definite mix but with most on an above average income which is currently 36k for an adult.

We are all grammar school educated so maybe that’s a thing. One is a patent solicitor, one has a phd and now works in pharmaceuticals. My sister works in aviation safety but she is a hard worker and gets on very well with everyone she meets and got promotion after promotion. My other sister is a managing director, is 41 and earns over a million! I know she’s an outlier but still!

It will all change due to 'levelling up'. Labour want to abolish grammar schools. That'll teach those aspirational working class people!

I have a handful of friends earning that sort of money but the majority are not. Most of my friends and acquaintances are teachers or work in the NHS.

Nope.

The average salary is something like £35K.

So no it is not common for people to earn £100K.

Some people might also be fibbing or are in reality just paying for their holidays they can't really afford on credit cards...including on mumsnet.

People who are wealthy usually don't just get rich through their own salary...They have inherited wealth, including property and marry into similar families.

I'm gonna sound like a twat here, my partner earns120, I have my own business which isn't amazing as only just turning a profit after an incredibly difficult few years. But because of my husbands salary we have a decent house in a decent area but it seems that everyone else is entitled to 30 hours and I don't get how when their houses are worth over 1m (I know as we are all on the same streets). I don't want the 30 hours, don't get me wrong, I just mean that it makes me think these people maybe got the houses gifted, or massive mortgages or god knows what because how do you have a 1m house if your household earns less than 100k? But basically I'm saying I see the totally opposite thing here

Is Volvo a good car now then?

I thought this would be a thread on how rich we are in comparison with growing up in the seventies and eighties

So much stuff is so cheap now and we expect so much as a basic starting level.

But in my area people aren’t earning like your area- it’s your circle!

Not here. We are on low income. There are very few on £100k plus round here but this is rural Wales and not London. You can't really compare, as £100k isn't rich in London with the cost of housing. Round here you'd be very comfortable on that.

@fuckssaaaaake I'd say your salary disparity with your DH makes you an outlier. You could have two people on £135k each, paying £40K into their pension, they'd still get free childcare and they'd be able to get a mortgage big enough to buy a £1M house.

For the person who claims people who have PhDs and work in pharmaceuticals earn over £100K, I'd say you have to be very very senior to earn that, the average salary (even for PhDs) at my work is below that.

No, single mum here with a bit less than £60k coming in, which isn't high given the price of housing in Hampshire.

The differences I notice most are:

I go on very few holidays
I do my own decorating, make my own curtains
Buy secondhand furniture
Keep my cars for 12 years
Cook from scratch, never have takeaways
Feed an adult & a teen on £50 a week
No gym, no subscriptions, ParkRun & Freeview work for us
Budget for everything

But we are fed & warm and generally life is good so I'm not envious. The greasy pole can get very tedious.

Not rich here but comfortable - DH is quite a High earner (80K) but my yearly wage is only 6K so it's all relevant. He works 2 jobs so we don't see him often, I'm occasionally envious of our friends on a lower wage but Husbands that are Home more! Most of our friends are in the 30-50K bracket but we all struggle in different ways. Our mortgage payments are ridiculous, council Tax too because of the area we're in.

@fuckssaaaaake Ask any RAC man. Volvo has always been a good car. Whether it is trendy or not is a different question. 😀

@MintJulia haha I did think that after I wrote it that it probably is a decent car , I'm rubbish with cars. But I only know old and reliable people with them 🤣

The average full-time salary on Merseyside where OP lives is £25K, so to have an entire social circle all earning 4 times the average salary is quite phenomenal.