Does everyone on MN earn loads of money!?

[whatsausername]

for context, I earn 27K per annum and so does my husband. We have one DC. We are early 30s.

I just feel all the posts I read on here more or less everyone is loaded. Don’t get me wrong we can comfortably pay our bills but we have to save for anything big (holiday Xmas etc)

we still private rent. I’d love a mortgage but it’s not gonna be in the next 5 years for us.

everyone on MN seems to have huge houses, loads of holidays and multiple DC’s 🫣

I thought I was a high earner until I saw what most Mumsnetters seem to earn.

I have found my people!

The demographic is wide, MN has been around for 24 years back then being online was most definitely for better off folk because of the cost of being online. Access to the internet was more limited, many were still on dial up, mobile phone usage was expensive, the first I phone wasn’t released till 2007 some companies were still doing quite a bit of stuff paperbased or had stricter access to the web because of costs. It may be a hangover from those times. MN was I feel most famous when the Gordon Brown biscuit question hit the National Press in 2007.

We have never earned six figures but do have friends who do. We were in top 5% of earners for quite a while, The most either of us has ever earned was 70k when DH was head of dept. DH has 3 friends and 2 relatives who earn this sort of money. He went to Cambridge and in those days it really was a golden ticket hence the friends having really well paid careers. What was great for us is we both worked in Universities up North, the pay would have been pretty much the same anywhere. At one point DH had the chance to work in London at Imperial, great for his career but we would never have been able to retire early which was our plan which has now come to fruition.

@CoralOP @whatsausername

I agree with most of your post but I just wanted to say that in certain professions, a salary of 100k is really nothing to get excited about where I live. I find it strange when you say in all your HR experience you have never come across this.

After years of professional qualifications etc for my career, it really is expected that at 44 (my age) 100k should be standard.

A quick look on LinkedIn can easily show you this.

Pay scales for Managers at my workplace start at 65k as an M1 (level 1 Manager) and there are 4 levels of Managers so you can extrapolate accordingly.

I am not saying this to show off - but I do find the "I don't know people who get paid this much" a bit disingenuous. Locations, industries, qualifications - all these things make a big difference.

The good news for anyone who thinks people are showing off is that 100k in London is almost meaningless due to house / rent prices, transport costs, etc. I wont even mention things like nursery fees, after school clubs, holiday clubs, etc

FYI 1 room in an 8 person house share in Zone FIVE of London is no less than £1100 per month. For ONE room. I know this because I have been looking for my sister.

The truth is that there are some really wealthy people in the UK, probably concentrated in some very affluent areas. There are also a lot of people benefiting from generational wealth. There are also people at different life stages posting on Mumsnet. There are people who raised their DC without paying a penny towards childcare while some of us bankrupted ourselves paying for it as we have no family help etc. Some people get huge amounts of help with house deposits meaning they get good deals with the bank that makes their mortgage manageable. Etc etc. I could go on.

I think judging posters on their comments without considering a much higher cost base / differences in job roles / differences in qualifications and/or job titles / differences in circumstances / differences in starting points / etc is a bit misleading and comes across as either envy or accusing people of being dishonest.

It would be quite weird to lie about your salary on an anonymous forum.

I don't think I've made one judgement, i said I don't think people are lying, maybe some are but it's more like posts about money attract people interested in money. 🤷‍♀️

I live in the North East but covered recruitment and HR for sites in Aberdeen, North east and worldwide.
I worked in a FSE100 company specialising in oil and gas so lots of niche, high paid workers. The Finance Director was on about 70k, software engineers 45k, scientists and engineers 40-50k, this was a few years ago, I exoect it would of went up about 15/20% since.
These are the highest paid jobs I have come across in recruiting. all needing great qualifications and knowledge. We paid above average for the area and it was closly monitored. I would absolutely expect Finance jobs in London would be way more than this.

@CoralOP

I in no way was trying to question your recruiting experience. I am sorry if it came across that way.

I have just seen a tax analyst job offering £60K on my LinkedIn. Analyst is the starting level in professional services / banking.

I was just trying to say generally that personal experience doesn't always demonstrate lived reality. Aberdeen is a world away from Canary Wharf right? I think we both agree.

All I was saying is that I find it weird that people only rely on their own personal experience and expect that to translate fully into entirety and then seem unable to stretch their minds to envisage other wholly different scenarios.

It is tiresome being bashed for being a "high earner" on this forum with no context applied.

My post was directed to OP @whatsausername as well as to all the wide eyed posters on this thread, especially the ones who think people would lie.

@CoralOP I didn't mean to offend you. I am sorry if I did.

I don't think people are lying, or at least the majority aren't.

I do think that people who post massive salaries and complain about things being tight are in complete denial about the reasons for their struggles. It's done to poor choices and bad money management.

Some people seem to think they are entitled to the massive house, two new cars, private schools and housekeeper, gardener etc.

They absolutely refuse to cut their cloth accordingly and live within their means.

Don’t worry it’s not everyone! I’m definitely not loaded but actually earn more than the average salary, especially for my part of the UK,
but reading Mumsnet makes me feel rubbish sometimes!

Ha-ha I wish. DH is the clever/talented one!

Haven't read the whole thread but has anyone recommended the ifs tool yet. It will tell you where your household sits relative to rest of UK. Depressingly my 90k + salary doesn't take us into top 20% as DH low earner and kids expensive. So there must be a lot of high earners somewhere - obviously on Mumsnet.

https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in

We have loads of dcs but not all the other stuff!!!I personally think mn is more lower wages- people with money get eaten alive and told to read the room which I don’t think is fair, everyone should be able to talk about their issues

Oh it's a while since I've done it - we are barely over the 50% mark.

Totally agree on the misleading point, and there's a lot of disingenuousness on this issue. MN does a very nice line in people who love talking about how they have a lower wage than the more highly paid person complaining about COL and leaving out that they got on the property ladder in 2003, get UC top ups, had parental help with a deposit etc.

And I live in a cheaper area so the London thing is no skin off my nose.

@DoYouReally please may you read my posts.

I am sorry but you are exactly the kind of poster that I am talking about. People who have "high salaries" can still have financial woes. Context is everything.

Where in the UK do you live?

I am absolutely not bad at money management but life is still a struggle for me even though on paper my salary looks high.

My salary is high but my costs are also high in accordance because of where I live, my personal circumstances etc.

Things like school fees are personal spending choices which I fully understand but there are also a lot of people who earn less than me who make personal spending choices that I literally cannot comprehend and would not make.

I hate your type of post - it's so judgemental and at the same time shows no realisation that people have different lives. And sometimes life can be hard for anyone - no matter their contracted salary.

Yeah it's a strange world on here it seems to be extremes. I often feel like I live on a completely different planet. I genuinely can't imagine spending monthly/weekly what some people are.

I don't know that many people in real life that are high earners. Those I do have definitely lost touch. That's not to say all do.

Well I currently earn around £300 a month but one of my DS's did get those results so please let me brag about something!!

Wow! That makes interesting reading.

Our only housing cost is council tax as our mortgage was paid off years ago, so we are actually in the top decile in spite of our lower than mumsnet average incomes.

Not here! I'm a lone parent on 25k and live in rented HA accommodation.

I'll allow it.
DD did achieve a first class degree at a decent university, so we are equal 😄

As my name suggests I work in Information Security and am in a leadership function where high salaries are very achievable even from entry level. I’ve attached a salary guide which gives indicative benchmarks across the U.K.

One issue is that many people think 80k now is the same like 80k in 2005.
Another is that many don't realise that col hit everyone and if your mortgage was already large a month on 2%, on 5% it's quite a difference. That rent increase 10% is shite for anyone. And so on.

It's a same issue for someone on 80k as is for someone on 30k if they were set up to the average 30% income on mortgage, for example.

It's a valid moan on any pay scale imho. Especially in expensive areas.

Everyone is losing here. And no. I am not high earner. I am just aware of money and budgets.

No. I work 20 hours a week on minimum wage and am currently in receipt of UC. I barely scrape by every month and rely heavily on my overdraft and sometimes use a credit card. It’s brutal. I have always worked but always around DCs and exH. He had a decent job with an ok salary. He had an affair and left 6 years ago so now I’m feeling the consequences of never putting myself or career first. I still do all childcare and his partner usually does the lions share when he has DC so he can still work. I’ll have my chance to better myself once the youngest DC is at high school and hopefully be able to earn a better salary but even then I don’t think I’ll ever be on mega bucks!