Any 'average' Mumsnetters still lurking in the bowels of this forum?

[Armyofprawns]

I have been on MN since my ds was born 19 years ago and although it can be a vicious place at times (yes AIBU I am referring to you), in general I still love to come on here however as I find it entertaining and interesting but increasingly I am feeling like I don't belong here. More and more threads seem to be all about people's huge salaries of £100k+ which are often wfh and working just a few hours per week with talk of private education, nannies, cleaners, dog walkers, multiple luxury holidays per year, driving high-end vehicles and residing in luxury homes worth hundreds of thousands.

Can I get a shout out for those on here who live average lives like myself? GCSE educated, has a job rather than a career (never see anyone mention they work in Tesco/at the local bakers or care for a living), drives an older car, lives in a standard 3 bed semi, eats out (when they can afford it) at a Toby Carvery or Beef Eater. The people like me who know they will never earn mega bucks per year but even so, are actually quite happy with their lives as they are and am wondering if these people are no longer on MN?

And before I am slaughtered I am not meaning to be derogatory towards those who are earning well and can enjoy a luxury lifestyle in fact I am in awe that you have done so well for yourself and are reaping the fruits of your labour but I just wanted to know if there are others like me on here, you know, Ms or Mr Average?

Don't forget that women with higher salaries also:

• suffer from women's health issues, infertility and experience miscarriages
• have children with SEN and disabilities
• struggle with confidence and mental health challenges
• are stretched by the demands of elderly parents
• have husbands who don't pull their weight or have affairs

Let's stop trying to alienate and divide women by letting resentment about wealth get in the way.

I earn well (nrly £50k) but am on my own and living in London with an 18 year old who's in Y13 doing A levels. Housing takes up most of my wages, then bills, then food. I don't have much left over each month. I salute the folks living here with much less. Soon 18 yo will probably be going to a local university so she'll either live rent free with me or her father, though I'd love to move away and rent in a cheaper town. 18 yr old is looking for part time work. I work in Transport so get a hefty discount on annual train travel and other perks. So although I get a decent wage from a decent job I am not wealthy at all, I am getting by and putting at most £50 a month by in savings. I suffer quite a bit of stress from the money situation actually. So, average.

As upthread, women all have the same health, wealth and social issues regardless of class and salary, everyone either relies on a partner to meet the bills or, do work but their outgoings are just higher and for different things like private schools, staff and a Big Holiday each summer. All women have checks on their health, screening for cancers etc.

I would guess lots of the £100k/year posts are fake. Maybe alter egos of the life they wished they lived.

Can't believe how many posters are saying that women on here posting £100k salaries are making it up!
Way to go to support other women! Why would you suppose they aren't earning these amounts: lawyers/consultants/GPs etc?
Just because your experience isn't of these earners doesn't mean they don't exist or that people are making it up.
I hope you don't pass these opinions onto your daughters, we should be making these jobs/salaries achievable for the next generation of women. Not claiming they are out of reach/unusual.

Ordinary here -

Live in 3 bed semi, buy as much as we can second hand, very old car ( love my car though - suits me great!), job not a career mainly because I loved studying but somehow never liked working, which surprised me greatly, and don't have the desire or energy to rise higher.

I don't think people who said that would mean all . Some probably do make it up. That's some (not all)

Been here since 2004.

council cleaning job, council house, had loads of minimum wage jobs and just struggling to get by. I’ve had loads of shit in my life though and no support so I think I’m doing alright.

we are here

I suppose your personal definition of ‘average’ depends on your immediate circle and what the norm looks like in that?

My salary is roughly £130k which I think is great but in the industry I work in I’m considered average to low paid. Many of my colleagues come from wealthy backgrounds and privately educate their children. They live in large houses outside London and go on holiday to very exotic locations. As I’m from a working class background I sometimes marvel at their lifestyles (Nannies, gardeners etc) but they think it’s just the norm as that is what they grew up with. It’s just an average lifestyle as far as they’re concerned. Many are quite disconnected from real life and don’t know what an average set up actually looks like. They can’t understand the concept of someone earning £26k and genuinely think they are badly off because e.g. the VAT on private schools means they might only be able to go skiing once next year or ‘downgrade’ from the usual 5* in Maldives to somewhere in Europe.

I live in a bog standard 3 bed semi detached, usually holiday in Wales and drive an old car. Both DC at state school. I live below my means because I know what it’s like to grow up with very little.

I really don’t think they are making it up. Six figure salaries are fairly typical once you get into a circle of people working in the corporate world with further qualifications - lawyers, accountants, tech, engineers and also some academics, doctors and dentists of course.

So your household income is over a £100k literally the people the OP is talking about. Certainly not average household.

10 year old Skoda, 3 bed semi, I earn £24k pa. Feels like every other car here is a Tesla (always white ones though - why always white? Is white cheaper or something?) DC friends seem to live in houses 3 times the size of ours (one whose house I went to for coffee - her living room alone is bigger than my combined living/dining room for example & she has a dining room etc in addition to that it was eye opening to discover such places existed daft as that is). We have a roof over our heads, can have a holiday in the UK each year, can afford the odd takeaway or pub lunch and the kids are healthy so I feel pretty lucky tbh. I'd love a bigger house- space for the kids to play & space for a desk so I don't have to use the dining table every day (I wfh since my employer got rid of my local office). I'd say that I'm either average or below average (thinking about all those Teslas) for the area that I live in but on the whole I've got it pretty good!

Yes, this made me laugh. Peak mumsnet 'I'm average with my £130k household income'

Proves your point rather well OP 🤣

I think it does depend on where you live. DH and I are both on 70ishk per year....but we live in London and it feels like we're either distinctly average or below average. Just checked and median salary in London in your 40s is 42k so we're clearly above. However, most couples we know have at least one person on a 6 figure sum as few people I know got 30hrs free childcare.

We live in a two bed flat and my kids' friends always comment how there isn't an upstairs which he hates, buy most clothes/shoes on vinted and although DC does do quite a few hobbies, we only have one child. Unlike our friends and neighbours, we definitely cant afford a cleaner or gardener and have to DIY most things as getting trades in is expensive. So it feels like quite an average life - especially in comparison to everyone else around us.

I also dont think Mumsnetters are making up their earnings but maybe it's a bit more skewed towards Londoners. Most people on six-figure salaries are in London and the South East so you do get a disproportionate number of wealthy folk around here.

I think it does depend on where you live. DH and I are both on 70ishk per year....but we live in London and it feels like we're either distinctly average or below average. Just checked and median salary in London in your 40s is 42k so we're clearly above. However, most couples we know have at least one person on a 6 figure sum as few people I know got 30hrs free childcare.

We live in a two bed flat and my kids' friends always comment how there isn't an upstairs which he hates, buy most clothes/shoes on vinted and although DC does do quite a few hobbies, we only have one child. Unlike our friends and neighbours, we definitely cant afford a cleaner or gardener and have to DIY most things as getting trades in is expensive. So it feels like quite an average life - especially in comparison to everyone else around us.

I think the point is that the top 2% of earners seem to make up 50% of mumsnet users. It's not about trying to put women down etc, it's just that there seems to be far more on mumsnet than anywhere else. Maybe it's just the mumsnet demographic. Living in London is always bought up at the same time, but as mentioned they're still very high salaries, even for London. Mumsnet just doesn't seem to tally with real life.

Because quite simply it is skewed in a London/SE demographic. Hence higher salaries, bigger mortgages etc. So it follows that becomes more "average" in those areas than say in the NE of England.

I live in a London commuter town and I don't know anyone on over £100k 😂of course they are around but it still seems off

4 days a week isn’t a few hours a week. And that’s one thread. There are loads and loads and loads of posts from people on benefits or who are in debt or otherwise struggling financially. There’s a wide range of people on MN, some of them are better off than others but it’s certainly not the majority.

I'm not implying they are making it up, I know there are high earners here on MN, I'm just asking if there are any mumsnetters here who are on NOT on those kind of salaries and I am happy to see I'm not rattling around here on my own 😁

I've been here since about 2008 and would consider myself average. Dh and I live in a 3 bed mid terrace. Kids have both left home now. We are mortgage free because DH was made redundant and we used his payment to clear the mortgage. He is now retired on state pension and a small private pension. I still have to work to help pay the bills - can't retire for another 5 years! We have only ever driven old cars until DH used the balance of his redundancy to buy a new one which we plan will see us out. We don't, and never have, had big holidays. This year was a couple of nights (literally two nights) in an area of UK which had an event we wanted to see. Our dcs went to the local comp, one chose to go to uni, the other didn't. Although DH and I were considered 'university material', neither of our parents were in a position to let us go.
I have definitely noticed a change over the years. There is a lot of nastiness aimed at different groups of people with few people seemingly able to understand that people's lives and circumstances might be different to their own. On a recent thread about the wfa, quite a few posters were unable to accept that not every current pensioner would have had the opportunity to contribute to a private pension.

I know it's entirely unrealistic, but sometimes I wish there was a separate branch for the moneyed MNers to post their financial/lifestyle dilemmas on.

It's not that I resent them or dislike them, but sometimes their problems feel like a kick to the guts.

All those things are hard. But having money can definitely cushion some of those situations. Or rather they're even harder when you can't pay for any support, and/or are having to work very long hours or difficult shifts.

My friend has a child with extremely complex special needs. Her life is massively stressful and upsetting, and money can't change the emotions she feels. But she can afford to pay for carers for a little respite, for private therapies for her child, and for a cleaner/housekeeper to manage the house so that she can manage her child. It's a large house with a large garden (which is the only place where her child is calm).

I still would never want to swap places with her, but if she was in a two bed flat with no garden, and worked in Tesco on minimum wage, with no access to any of the things that give her some space and a little hope, her life would be even worse.

My post is far from alienating people or dividing women, why are you trying to insinuate that I am out to do so?

I have never been a high earner and I can tick off most of the points you have listed. Poorer women are likely to suffer more so and will have no spare funds to access private help/healthcare for also things either, believe me, I know only too well sadly.

It didn't take long for the responses to come on who suffers more.

This isn't a race to the bottom, it's a forum where individual women with individual issues should be free to seek support without judgement or stereotyping.

Whether you admit it or not there is a huge swell of resentment and stereotyping on here of higher earners.

Why do we always make it a competition about who is more worthy, who works harder, who suffers more with their issues etc?

Of course life is tough if you are poor, no one debates that. But it's pretty heartless to disregard or minimise a women's issues because you think she has money to throw at a problem.

There seems to be some illusion that the difference in salary between 30K and 100K is all disposable and therefore accessible to solve issues.

Salary isn't a talking point when you are in a support circle for mothers who lost their children through stillbirth.
The 100K salary wasn't relevant here.

Losing a limb in an accident.
Nope.

Didn't stop a family member committing suicide.
Nope.

I'm not asking for an argument.
Just empathy and kindness for everyone.

Me too. Been here since DD was born in 2003. Single Mum, work FT as a Nurse. Do ok but money can be tight. Was reading a thread yesterday about somebodies partner being on the rich list. Another where they early 180k and wanted to go PT but the H didn't like the idea.

Can't help but wonder how much of it it bullshit TBH?