to be fed up of feeling poor, dh on 45k i'm a sahm, we have no debts and a good life, yet i still feel a bit poor

[dovebird]

we don't have money worries, our house is worth a fair bit more[40k at least] more than we owe on it, i'm happy being a sahm, we have a happy marraige on the whole,healthy as far as we know,nice car, been one one holiday abroad this year and 5 weekends away in uk.
we have a largeish 3 bedroom house which more than meets our needs
we get to have days out and meals out fairly often

i am surrounded by wealthy people though, with huge houses and very good lifestyles [ie gardeners, cleaners, never do their own d.i.y etc]

i'm fed up of feeling poor all time.

Being a sahm isn't a legitimate job at all- it's work, and it's a way to spend your day, but it's not a job in the true sense. You don't get renuneration, pay tax, have a job description, or any emplyment benefits or rights. It's a way to spend your day, like if I spent my day volunteering at a homeless shelter- it's busy and fufilling but it's not a job, in the true sense of the word.

I don't think that's a good salary for one person supporting a family. We both earn that and I wouldn't feel comfortable if only one of us worked (there is nothing left after both of us work, in fairness)

oh my goodness!, i've already made it very clear that feeling like this is not good, and am making efforts to change my way of thinking.
i'm not trying to convert anyone round to my way of thinking.
i've already accepted that right from the op.

i'm very happy with my dh, and wouldn't change him for the world.
i understand we have a very fortunate lifestyle and we are not poor at all.
yes i would like a cleaner and a gardener etc, but it's not the end of the world.
i choose to prioritise my children at this point in my life and accept that means less materially.

tbh alot of people comments have actually made me realise i'm not the only one with issues, and some people on here have the real issues, that they are not prepared to work on.

as for xenia i think you should listen to your own advice about, humility and acceptance,that really has made me lol!
you don't offer much of that to people who make different choices do you?
and as your modesty! also lol!, i personally find your constant boasting about how much you earn and how women should out earn their husbands rather vulgar and very ugly as if the only thing that matters is how much money you earn.

I don't think this needs to be a SAHM thread per se and I'm not going to flame you, dovebird, because I feel sorry that you are so unable to see what's so good about your life.

We have an income that's a lot higher than yours, yet in unguarded moments, I catch myself afflusneezing. Usually this happens when we meet dh's older colleagues, who would have been able to afford far better housing than we have and live in hugely sought after areas in beautiful homes, when they were the sole earner. Dh does the same job and is at the higher level at a younger age than these colleagues, but times have changed and despite us both working, we won't afford a similar home for our family.

You have regular holidays, UK breaks and limited debt. You are in a hugely fortunate position. Yet there will be many, many people with more. Your choices are simple: look at the positives or go out to work.

I would also recommend looking into the science of positive psychology as opposed to "Chicken Soup for the Soul" type books - Martin Seligman etc here. His books are somewhat cringe-inducingly American, but there is a lot of sense in how this movement breaks down wellbeing
Positive affect (feeling happy, positive temperament, mood etc)
Engagement - how engaged you feel with what you do
Relationships - how sustained you feel by your relationships
Meaning - how much meaning or higher purpose you feel you get from your life
Accomplishment - how successful you judge your life to be

It is perfectly possible to do almost anything and have a very high degree of wellbeing if the way you view what you do tallies with some of these indicators. An SAHM on a pittance can be just as happy, engaged etc as a high-flying career woman and vice versa, individuals just "get" what they need from different outlets.

You need to think either
a) my lifestyle, what I am doing as a SAHM and with my family engages me, sustains my relationships, I feel it has meaning and higher purpose and I feel it is accomplishing something important
or
b) I need something more in one of these areas, and I may need to work or to make a change to our current domestic/employment set up to achieve it.

Simple.

hi dove bird,

why do you go away 5 times year? cant you just stay at home? the more money you have the more aware of others money you are and there will always be someone richer than you.
is it possible you are bored at all? maybe if you got a little job (10 hrs a week) or did some vountary work and got busy you wouldnt have time to spend as much and maybe you would realise how wealthy you are.

as long as you have a roof over your head, enough to eat and the bills paid you are doing alright.

when i got paid last i earnt 740.00, i felt loaded, really very rich. i have about 130.00 left and ive paid all my bills, got my childrens new shoes, paid for his swimming lessons and i bought some discounted wool. what more do i need? WHAT do you think you need? or want?

its enough, you have enough.

A single salary of £45k isn't a lot nowadays. You can live a comfortable life if you watch your money carefully but it's certainly not the riches some people seem to imagine it would be.

You are too rich to get any benefits yet too poor to have the trappings of real wealth like a new Mercedes or your own gardener.

Where you live also plays a heavy part in your aspirations. If you live in an affluent area then indeed you will feel poor when compared to those people. But move to a council estate and you'll feel very well off.

I bet even Wayne Rooney feels poor when he goes to his millionaire resort and Bill Gates parks his yacht up.

Thanks for interesting and useful link 9while5.

I'm almost tempted to start another thread to find out where all these people work that earn 45 grand and think its normal/not much... and how I should do it! I have 2 degrees (one Oxford, one a first) and have been a philosophy teacher. My parents weren't aspirational in any sense so I was the first to do uni and haven't ever had career advice etc. I'm bright, academic, hard working, good at what I have done but must have missed something somewhere. I'm not looking to retrain into medicine or law but at 32 I'm obviously too old for graduate recruitment drives - any idea?!

I think there is something in this about the current cost of living. Years ago (70's) if a husband worked in a professional type career, the family would be middle class and that would mean a nice big detached house in a good area, a pony, SAHM, gardener, cleaner, possibly private school for the kids, a foreign holiday and even a holiday cottage in the UK.

Nowadays the conception of 'middle class' has widened considerably. Most people think (thanks to Thatcher) that they are middle class and wonder why on 45k they don't have the trappings. Partly it is to do with house prices, which are wildly out of step with earnings and partly that those type of trappings I would argue are now not the preserve of the middle class but the wealthy.

We have a family income far in excess of that and yet cannot achieve many of those trappings. I would estimate it would take an income in the 150-200k bracket to have that lifestyle nowadays. I blame Thatcher.

@Usingapseudonym. A salary of £45k is a great salary for most people and a decent salary in London. However as a family income it isn't the sort of money which will propel you into the trappings of middle class. I'd argue at that sort of level you are probably near the bottom of middle class range.

A salary of £45k is about £2700 per month. Out of that you have to pay mortgage, car, clothes for work etc. You won't get any benefits and in two years you can kiss your child benefit goodbye too.

It's certainly doable but i doubt you'll be going on many exotic holidays and at best you'd be able to afford a week, maybe two in Turkey.

pseud Teaching secondary school?

I think a most people want more than they have in some aspect of their lives - it's human nature.

The problem comes, I think, when you decide you want a whole lifestyle that is in a higher bracket than your earnings allow. It's all very well wanting a bigger house - there are ways you might be able to get one. Or a better car - again it might be achievable. But if you want a bigger house, a better car, more expensive schools for your children, more luxurious holidays, more help at home etc etc, then you are probably going to end up disappointed, in the short term at least. Obviously there are ways of working your way up (for some people in some jobs) to that lifestyle, but when you see people around you living it already then you are going to want it NOW and there isn't a way of making that instant jump.

We have some close family members who are very much about lifestyle and appearances. They are actually pretty well-off, and could have a wonderful lifestyle if they picked and chose what is really important to them. Instead they constantly look at those around them, those with the lifestyle they feel they are somehow entitled to, and want everything about those people's lives - the big house that is never big enough, the flash cars that are not quite good enough, the boat, the horses, the top-end schools, the luxury holidays. It is one new "want" after another and when they get the next new thing they find it isn't what they expected and lose interest. If they had saved the money they have frittered over the years on trying to achieve what they think they should have, they could actually have a lot of things that they genuinely would enjoy - they could have a tiny mortgage by now and lots of wonderful family experiences and memories. Instead, they have failed "project" after failed project and aren't actually very financially secure.

It's not realistic to tell you to stop wanting things. I think you really need to focus on a couple of things that are really important, and which would really improve your quality of life as a family, and work out a way to get them.

usinga, if you want to look at why some people earn more than others I always find that fascinating. I don't think most people are worse than I am so why do I earn reasonable amounts and others don't? Where do these people work who earn £45k you asked. I was with my daughters at the weekend and one met an old school friend. They were reeling through what all the girls they remember were doing. We had 3 solicitors (just qualifying presumably on to starting pay £60k), one girl is a commercial pilot (not sure what they earn - I would ilmagine £60k+, one a doctor in Scotland, one a vet, one in some kind of political office (which i assume is very badly paid butin theory you might be following the path of Cameron/Clegg/ Milliband in due course if you're lucky). What surprised me was that none of them seemed to be in badly paid work. So that may be (a) because they're clever (very selective school) and (b) because their parents are probably of the kind to recommend be a doctor (not a nurse).

In terms of people I know plenty of whom didn't even go to university who earn a lot though it is businses all the way. It's only since I worked for myself I've made more money. If you eat what you kll and keep what you earn and don't split it with anyone then you make money. If you can build up a business and then sell it you make even more money, much more than all these highly paid professionals do although most businesses fail so it's by no means as easy nor such a likelihood of doing all right as if you became a partner in London accountancy practice.

However back to the thread, the main issue is to be content with what you have and happy and not jealous. I never really want what others have. In fact I'd like fewer possessions. I was joking about my next birthday presents and suggesting the removal of items from the house rather than the igiving of more to me might be the best present. May be eventually I'll end up in a monastic cave on my island with nothing but everything. I remember being there with all the children 2 years ago and we didn't find the reputed treasure and thinking I have the real treasure here, all those lovely children.

Xenia, surely you of all people would understand that aspirations are reserved only for some, some people are born into shit and are never expected to get out. They might be victims of abuse, drugs addled parents or just simply not have a book in the house. Life isn't all selective schools and self esteem you know.

Thanks Xenia for the reply - I certainly am (hmm - was?) incredibly bright (academically anyway - sailed through school and Oxford with little effort and with little parental support). However had a crap family background and its only now at 32 I've stopped to ask myself these questions! I do get bored and would love a challenging career. Teaching A level was fascinating to begin with but I've got bored.

I think at 32 with a family it might be a little late to become a lawyer/pilot/etc however I certainly will encourage my daughter to "do well" and pursue dreams she is interested in. On the other hand if she decides to work in the public sector I'd support that too. My husband also made bad choices career wise, and although bright and hard working is a badly paid technician.I think ones background makes a huge difference.

Obit - yes I taught secondary, mainly 6th form. Considering starting my own thread - sorry to highjack this one!

So lots of women start a business in their 30s. JK Rowling wrote a book. Mumsnet was set up. The white company lady founded the white company. Women all the time set up businesses and they don't need training or qualifications so if you're really clever and happy to work hard can't you just think of something you could sell or market. Think of what we need a lot of - eg help for the elderly as that population segment is growing. Or one of the new Government programmes to get people off invalidity benefit or into work or whatever the current let us throw money at the problem Gover nment wheeze is and offer services realating to it having gathered a team of people with experience together to fulfil that role.

Yes, background make a big difference. I see women on mumsnet thinking someone is really really rich and done really well because they earn £30k as a teacher, rich beyond what they ahd ever imagined whereas in some families that might not be regarded as a high salary. Others will say wow she;'s a nurse whereas in another family it would; simply be expected the girl would not only be a doctor but also a consultant, never mind a GP.

Xenia, good point about bussiness involving elderly care.

What other areas/industries/businesses do you think that will be in need in the next say 5 years?

I wouldn't bother with elderly care, there's no money in it.

Friend want to open a care home for elderly gay men. It will be in Ibiza, clubbing mandatory and all carers young twinkies called Pedro.

Elderly care....scary. A friend of mine did a Phd about something in residential care, the carers would be told to tidy up, this meant putting hands on laps and such in the sitting room.

Xenia, perhaps more 'successful' women talking and mentoring in schools might help girls see that there can be more for them. In fact if there's one thing a true feminist success should do is pass it on, spread the word. I certainly hope you do.

I have often given talks in schools.

"Blackstone is thought to have made more than £1bn out of its ownership of Southern Cross. It sold NHP, a major landlord to the care-home group, to outside investors in March 2006 for more than £1.1bn, according to analysts, doubling the firm's £564m investment. It then floated Southern Cross in July of that year at another profit of about £500m."

So thre is 1 billion pounds made in the care sector. Southern C is the one in difficulties now but if you get your timing right in these things and do it well there is money to be made. It is certainly a growth market.

Areas likely to be needed in next 5 years? I suspect as a lot of public sector workers are going the provision of some outsourced people to sectors which have been chopped even though those are supposedly being cut back might be good. It costs Governmetn dept £3000 to buy a £300 PC so there must be money in there somewhere particularly if they seek to move from the bigger providers. I heard on the radio yesterday of provision of Ugandan guards in Iraq where they were paid £700 a month and the US Government was paying the company providing them £1700 a month per solidier (although may be most mumsnetters do not see themselves as arms dealers and providers of soldiers for hire abroad although why not, let's not be sexist some of those markets are very lucrative and nothing like enough women are in them - you cuold even make it your unique selling point - all female to be trusted competent mercenary provider as long as you don't end up in a Guinea prison I suppose... but for my sake avoid fashion and cup cakes)

ha ha ha ha ha

HA

That is all.

You need to get some perspective and variety in your life.

I recommend that you do some volunteering in your local community. Perhaps you could help at your local Children's Centre, I'm sure they have 101 things that they need capable, motivated people to help with.

Most of the parents you would meet will be pretty much like yourself. Some may have a bit more money, some a bit less. Some will be really struggling. But you'll all be able to support and help one another. You'll have a great time, meet some fab people and won't have time to think about your rich friends and neighbours.

Piprabbit I agree with your comment but what is a Children's Centre? We don't seem to have any in my local area.

op, just remembered this quote I read once and it sums us ALL up

"you spend your life learning, earning and yearning"

nothing wrong with wanting what you don't have, its human nature, but try hard not to let it consume you