... to think that most MNers live in a bubble?

[frgr]

Seriously, the amount of times I read on here about "oh we earn 70k a year but we're really struggle to provide for little Jacob's polo lessons this year" (or some other such shite).

In real life, the average income of my family and friends is probably circa the national average. I know for a fact that my BIL is on around £6/hr and works 42 hours a week, I know that my best friend's total family income is about 22k because she was talking about mortgages a month ago... I'm talking about hard working people who go out come rain or shine and do their day's work, to provide for their families.... and then I log on here and find out MNers are posting trivial shit about being unable to afford XYZ and feeling hard done by on their incomes of "only" 3x the national average.

I don't know if I've become more sensitive to this crap since starting re-posting on here last year (after a break of about 3 years), but it seems to me that certain members of MN are totally and utterly oblivious as to what the average family is having to endure during this recession.

It's fucking unbelievable, it really is.

In your opinion, why are so many MNers out of touch with reality? Does this site cater to a different class than me? Are avg MNers just generally deluded - do I even belong here any more, with our 21k combined income, worrying about where the next school trip fee is coming from despite the fact that both of us work?

Christ.

But even Knightbridge has its cleaners and office admins and apprentices all earning sod all compared to people on 90k a year.

Or 70k, or whatever it was people were using as a reference Point.

Why is it that people earning such huge sums of money seem to think that they are the only ones with massive outgoings which are uniquely inflexible?

Isn't it also true that those earning just above the "Help" Threshold (say, 30k a year) also live and work in the same Areas of the Country?

I live in London, I still pay my cleaner £10 an hour (maybe I'm cheap? She seems happy anyway). Is she on the breadline or moaning about how her outgoings mean she has very little left? Not the last time I Checked. Can someone explain that?

I Really don't Understand that bit.

Maybe this was the Point people were trying to make about "shipping in Workers from the Ghettos"

(when the benefits Cuts were being Discussed)

3 month's

What is wrong with me. 3 months of course.

Yes it is more beneficial to claim the car allowance ( in my company you get a company car and fuel paid for, or £650 a month) but this is for people whcih do less than 5000 miles business travel a year. I do more than that so I have to have the car.

To beh onest it works out brilliantly for me, I have only been driving 2 years so my insurance is astronomical. Plus is nice to have a brand new car and no worries about any associated costs. It is taxed quite heavily but it's not that bad.

Thanks for the clarification GOML.

As I say I didn't give up work either, although I did go PT after having DS2. I am still on a low wage. A lot of that has to do with where I live though, it is a rural area with a high proportion of graduates so competition for the few graduate jobs which are around is very high. I could move, but both DH and I have family here (which also serve as emergency childcare!) and I don't think we'd be as happy anywhere else.

FWIW I don't feel that we are "poor" on our income. We bought our first house 10 years ago so the mortgage isn't too high (our house would cost well over £200k now and we wouldn't be able to afford to buy it). We have a 4 year old car, DS1 has piano lessons, DD rides, we go to Center Parcs on holiday and I am sitting here wearing a Boden cardi. So in no way, shape or form am I living on the breadline.

It does amuse me though when people on what seems to me to be very high incomes complain about struggling to make ends meet. As others have said, struggling to make ends meet is when you go without food so that your child can have new shoes. Not a dilemma of whether you can afford DD's tennis lessons as well as DS' clarinet lessons!

Yes, I wouldn't say i am struggling. I have struggled in the past, I remember pretty much living on rice and soy sauce as I was at work, forking out more on childcare than rent, and I had no bloody money! I used to watch coronation street of an evening and wish i could but the chocolate bars on display in Rita's Kabin

I think an awful lot of people are spectacularly missing the point of this thread.

OP argues that "most" Mumsnetters are living in a bubble.

I strongly disagree, I think "most", not all, but "most" Mumsnetters are intelligent and with an awareness of the world around them and just because they might happen to have a very high or low income, they can put themselves in the shoes of someone living in very different circumstances.

mamatomany - that's very simplistic. Some people work in respectable industries where, no matter how "driven" and "qualified" and "in demand" they are, they will never be very highly paid. Publishing, for example.

What I do think is true is that people adjust their expenditure to their income, and so outgoings which seem "essential" are actually more of a case of regular outgoings that you are used to.

I'm amused by the people who point out that earning over 70K can actually be a struggle because you may have a huge mortgage. Yes, indeed, but property owning is not a right.

That's where demand comes in again Riven, not saying scientists aren't valuable of course they are but you know there's no money in it so if that's your chosen path you're not going to get rich.

That said, you do have to learn to live within your means.

In the other thread re private school fees, i would in no way consider sending dd to a private school because, frankly, I still think we couldn't afford to have the lifestyle we have and send DD to a private school without struggling. The person on taht other therad patenetly couldn't afford her mortgage and to educate a child privately, she should have thought her finances through before sending her there.

Depends surely which part of science you go into - pharmacuticles drugs Companies make very good profits on the whole.

DH made 250 people in the UK redundant from a pharma company in 2007 and then he was paid off himself, spent a year looking for a new role and gave up, set himself up.
I doubt they'll be any money in drugs for another 5 years.
Certainly very little R&D going on at the moment.

Maybe that person also overestimated how much £70000 a year actually is after tax?

"I doubt they'll be any money in drugs for another 5 years"

If only that were true....

Mamatomnay - in the short term Companies go through chnages but I'd still say on the whole pharma companies pay better than pure research - my point is you can choose which job to accept. If you have qualifications and a job isn't working out / paying well then you can look for other jobs.

Depends what side of the law you're on as well. I'm pretty certain there's still quite a lot of cash in the drugs smuggling business. Cash in hand too, no tax or NI.

So £70k after mortgage and child care and tax i £300 a week and no income at all and not having to work but of coures lokoing after a child is £100 a week. It's not a massive difference and yet if you see £70k and you're on benefit you think wow they're very very rich. That was the comparison in which I was interested.

Some of the peopkl on £70k a year have an interest only mortgage so aren't really paying towards paying off a house.

However the better comparison is between those no onver £200k a year and enefits or working poor when of course there is a massive difference.

So why do some on here earn more than others? That's the interesting point,. Plenty of us are clever so it's not just brains nor looks. Why am I worth more than my cleaner is paid?

lequeen I think you are basically saying the same as me. Hard work is worth nothing if you have bad luck and luck is worthless if you are not prepared to work to make the most of these opportunities.

People would be right in thinking I am not prepared to take the burden of abandoning my dd to move to the other side of the country without her. I really don't see how that would make me a bad person or lazy. TBH right now I would be quite happy to earn the average wage.

duchesse - I think the 10 year stretch has always put DH off but he probably had £20k street value of drugs in the boot of his S type on any given day, thank goodness nobody knew.

xenia, sorry for stating the obvious but I assume that not many people can do what you do professionally, and clearly someone is willing and able to pay a premium for your labour.

Pretty much anyone who is able-bodied can clean, and plenty of people offer the service. That's why you earn more. Market forces, innit.

Somewhere along the line you made a Good Choice wrt what line of work to move into. Which is part intelligence, but also partly down to luck (who knows what will be in demand in 20 years time?).

I think it's the risk taking attitude that makes a big difference with building your own business. You can work very hard in a salaried job and be very ambitious, but you need that additional risk-taking attitude to translate that into being self-employed. And then of course a bit of luck helps.

I work very hard (I'm on leave today writing something, not skiving at work :o), and I am quite well rewarded for it. But I am enormously privileged to be able to work in a job that is financially and intellectually rewarding. I think it is a lot easier than working 45 hours a week in a supermarket. So I don't think what you earn is related to how hard you work, I would find working in a supermarket or restaurant a lot harder. (Not because I live in a bubble and have no idea what those jobs are like, I did them as a student and found it much more exhausting than office-based work).

It is part luck, part intelligence, part being able to take a risk and part talent which I think is different from intelligence.

To answer Xenia's question about why she is worth more than her cleaner, I think it is because most people can, after a fashion, clean and therefore in simple supply and demand terms it isn't worth very much. Xenia however obviously has a talent for her area of the law which very few people have. Again, in supply and demand terms, there are very few other people able to supply her 'product' and therefore she can command a high price.

You can be very clever but not have a talent which is lacking in most other people and therefore you won't command such a high price.

However, that doesn't explain why research scientists get paid so little. Why is what they have a talent for not worth as much? This is where the risk-taking comes in. I am just pondering but maybe because it doesn't produce a profit in the short and medium term and because if you are working for a university, your research is of no use outside of the furthering of scientific knowledge until a business can take a risk on investing in the idea and to turn it into a commercial product which can start to produce an income. Not much use to the university research scientist who don't work for a business and therefore don't see the benefits of their work.

Actually, what will be in demand in 20 years time? Or 10 for that matter?

I think the OP is daft to say everyon elives in a bubble who earns well...of course we don't.

However, I do hear maoning all the time from a certain section who really think they ought to be living better then they are.

This is particularly common in the world of publishing and media.

These folk went to smart schools and lived in lovely homes. They often had a SAHM.
They assumed life would be the same for them.

However, they spectatcularly failed to take into account the hike in houseprices and the cost of living generally.

They also went into the entirely wrong profession to earn the sort of money one would need to attain the lifestyle they want.

Niecie are research scientists poorly paid because so many people want to do it and are willing/able to accept a comparatively rubbish wage?