To ask you all how much you get paid?

[UnderWorkedOverPaid]

Name-Change if you want to - I have. AIBU to be curious what other people earn?

I am a nurse. Qualified 6 years. Work 30 hours a week.

I earn about 25k (with unsocial hours etc added in)

Forgot to say I dont work, I'm a SAHM

i am a Nurse and I work privately for myself, I earn £35000 - £4000. I work most weekends away from home and a couple of evenings a week locally.

And to avoid being a hypocrite... I don't work as DH earns enough so that I have the choice to be SAHM to our 3 v young DCs. Before DCs I was a magic circle lawyer where the hours were v long. DH earns more than I did and does v reasonable hours. I expect I will go back to work when DCs are older, most likely in-house.

However, I certainly don't feel that anyone should be criticised for whatever choice they make. After all, what's it to you? Despite the tone of my post, not actually looking to enter into a debate - need my sleep.

£46k + car allowance. I know my salary is typical for what I do (in-house lawyer outside London) but it's half what I was on in London. However, worked out that my final salary pension is worth £30k (ie that's what I'd have to save if I was on defined contribution scheme).

DH is on the same.

Looking at the vast range of salaries, I wonder who on here would be considered the "squeezed middle class"?

I disagree with Xenia's statement that no amount is ever enough. We earn more than enough in our household (well mainly dh does) and feel very fortunate.
I don't feel the need for us to have more all the time and am very happy with what we've got. We live well within our means. Always wanting more is a very bad state of mind if you actually have quite a lot.

Yeah we have more than enough, we live way below our means and this means there is plenty of buffer/oh fuck! money.

another lawyer, in-house counsel, 120K + bonus. it's stressful and I have a lot of responsibility - in our business I can cause a lot of damage if I make a mistake, literally 100s of millions.
But I don't do mad hours, rarely ever work evenings or weekends (just checking the Blackberry for any emergencies). I have previously also worked in a law firm and certainly prefer my current career.

Not sure of the point of this thread except that it demonstrates a wide spread of income / employment. Which you'd expect, surely?

Hospital doctor, 13y post qualification, approx £95k at current exchange rates. 10+h days, one night a week 24h on call, one weekend every 2 months 48h on call.

Would I choose this job again? definitely, in spite of hours I have a much better work life balance in NZ. Would I recommend it to my children? Yes, but I'd advise them to steer clear of the UK for training and junior jobs.

I'm a vet, working part-time - about 3 mornings a week but including most Saturdays - gross about 11K. (£100 for a 'morning', which is usually 9-2 - ish). I've been qualified 21 years but only worked full time for 4 of them. The big plus of being a vet is that it is very easy to work part time IME, compared to most other professions (so go for it, catdoctor upthread!), and I have always been pretty much able to choose how much I've worked. Neither of my daughters wants to be a vet, though, and considering how much student debt is involved now, compared to the potential earnings, I think I'm glad.

teacher, work half a timetable, earn £21800 pa. works well for me.

I work 2.5 days per week as a local authority psychologist. I earn about 24.5k for half time at the top of my scale. Sometimes I do independent work- can be well paid (£700 per day) or free, depending on who I'm doing it for.

DH works as a lawyer in the city so earns much more than me. His other colleagues wives don't seem to work. They think I'm perculiar!

I wasn't being too serious about it never being enough... in fact I've usually been pretty content with what I have. I do think the thread illustrates the importance of people having information and giving it to their chidlren - career X after 20 years you might rise to £30k, career Y £300k.

Xenia - Oh good!

I find this thread quite sad reading in places - so many of us trying to keep our heads above water. I don't have kids and this thread makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to afford to have them or if, if we do have them, I'll end up terrified about money. DH and I feel really lucky and comfortable with the money we've got and neither of us make more than minimum wage, so it really brings home to me what my mother keeps banging on about, that it'd be irresponsible for us to have children.

I was really hoping you weren't making a serious comment, you see!

I agree with Xenia.

My parents are academics and were always terribly encouraging about going off for years to learn dead languages.

It was dumb luck, really, that I fell into a lucrative career.

I will be encouraging my DDs to go into law, finance, mining or green technology (which is where I imagine the really big money will lie in 20 years), retire at 40 or 45 and then spend their retirement poring over Homeric poetry or whatever takes their fancy.

okay this hasn't turned into a bunfight

i earn a lot of money in a career that i now hate £100k+pa+bonus

so i'm retraining to do something much more suited to me now

i didn't realise that getting to the top of my career would leave me knackered bored and wondering what all the fuss and hard work was about
no one ever tell you that

32k.

I know it's not huge but it seems a fortune

DH is also earning reasonable money these days after years of not. Hence the improvment in our circumstances.

Rannaldini, I work in a job I really really enjoy.. but am close to the top of where I can go.

I didn't realise that getting to the top of my career would leave me worrying about whether I could ever afford a 3 bedroomed house or run a second car .

I don't think any of us really "get" the implications of any of our choices when we're young, do we? Pros and cons to everything that are only seen truly with the benefit of hindsight.

I've been a journalist at a local newspaper for 22 years and earn £21,000 pro rata - I work three days a week and come home with £980 a month after tax.

I've name-changed

I work in an investment bank doing middle-officey stuff

6 years of studying (incl. GDL and LPC) but not working as a lawyer. 4.5 years into my career - £55k + not particularly exciting bonus + pension and some benefits (e.g. medical insurance)

I work around 45 hours p/w, no working on weekends, very occassional evening. It is quite interesting, but I'm getting bored with what I'm doing, but have no clue what else I would prefer. I am thinking of qualifying as a lawyer (didn't do it when I finished my studies), but the hours would be longer and we're planning on moving country, so I would have to do more exams, which I don't really feel like at the moment (though, may do in future).

Solicitor (criminal defence, duty). Two years PQE. £35k pro rata, I work two days a week atm. Overtime available for out of hours police station and court work but I rarely do any. I'm not loving it at the moment and will be giving it up soon when we move for DH's job.

DH earns about £60k plus bonus. We are very, very fortunate and we know it.

We won £10 on the lottery on Saturday and spent most of dinner yesterday discussing what to treat ourselves to!! We're obviously far too sensible in our spending!
Do find it interesting that some people find life a struggle despite their 6 figure earnings, yet others are content on just above minimum wage.

Having a baby changed our lives massively - no more frittering away money on clothes/CDs/DVDs/weekends away. Every single penny counts now - especially as we had to save up for fertiility treatment for no.2. But I wouldn't change it for the world - seeing the way my bosses spend makes me feel ill - would rather see my family than have lots of money and will do whatever I have to to make that happen in the next year. But that's us and that's what makes us happy - each to their own I say.

I adore what I do and it's very well paid so I'm terribly lucky but I think teenagers do need to think about money as well as what they enjoy. Most people whoare my age (40s) and well off and still work even if we don't need to are doing it because we like it (or because they ditched the first wife for the 20 years younger young secretarial blonde and have another brood of children to educate I suppose).

I do remember borrowing a book from the library as a chidlren on What people earn )no internet the). I wanted to buy an island etc and I usppose also be able to replicate the private education for my children that I had. Most children don't do that but parent can explain to them which careers pay more than others. The programme about How People get Jobs on television recently showed children who didn't even know what some jobs were from very poor homes and children from different families who knew all about better paid jobs. If the school says plumber or hairdresser rather than which Oxbridge college would you prefer you might well be choosing to set hair for life if you can get even that.

Money doesn't matter to lots of peopel of course and no one should not have a baby because of it. They just want love. Our lot are none the worse for 100% of their baby clothes being from Oxfam and I think some weren't even paid for as the local church jumble sales ladies seemed to hand some of them to my children's father in advance for nothing. You can sleep in a drawer not a cot etc etc. Child rearing can be relatively cheap. people slip shifts and don't use child care etc. It's all possible.

Certainly do what you like and perhaps as I've encouraged mine, try to pick something where you can also later work for yourself or set up on your own as that does suit a lot of people.

I have a work-life balance - pick my youngest children up from school and only work term time

worht its weight in gold that kind of job is

I'm very impressed this thread hasn't descended into a huge bunfight.

Have to say though how surprised I am at how few of us seem to be earning less than £20k. I though Mumsnet represented a broader demographic than that. Those who do earn low salaries seem to be married to mega-earners.

Why is that do you think (genuine question!)?

nine, I have to say I find that a bit depressing! I'm started on one of those careers that don't pay particularly well despite a shedload of training and it pisses me off when people ask why I didn't just work for more money then do it as a hobby when I retired. There's nothing like the sense of satisfaction you get from doing something you love, and are good at, and doing it as a hobby when you couldn't look forward to a full career-time getting more and more into it, sounds really dull.

Not saying it's necessarily wrong for everyone, but it just seems a shame that if your child wanted to do 'Homeric pottery' or whatever, you'd steer them away from it for the sake of the money.

My uncle's spent his life working very hard at a job he chose because of what it pays - he planned to retire at 50 and do fun things. He has now retired, and we've just heard he's divorcing his wife of 30 + years and is very dissatisfied. It makes me wonder a bit!