to think 40k isn't *that* high a salary?

[HexagonalQueenOfTheSummer]

Someone I know is constantly boasting that their DH earns 40k per year. Every time I meet up with her (she is in a group of friends), she will drop it into the conversation at every available opportunity. If someone admires something she's wearing she will say something like "well it was from X shop but I can afford stuff like that as DH earns 40k a year". It's difficult to explain how she does it, but somehow she manages to mention it several times each time I've seen her, not just to me but to everyone.

Now I know 40k is a decent wage compared to some, but its not that good really is it? Certainly not a wage to boast and brag about. By the time they've paid their rent (it's 1k per month, she's told us all that several hundred times too), bills and other things I wouldn't think they're left with a huge amount.

I really couldn't give a monkeys what anyone else earns but I'm just surprised that she seems to think its so unusual and so worth bragging about.

RuleBritiania Possibly you bought a house when they were cheap. I expect by your definition, my life is dull on what I earn.

I think sometimes it is high prices and sometimes it is money management/expectation. Anyone been watching the programme superscrimpers? This series and the last one there were lots of people who had high incomes who felt like they didnt have much, totally underestimated what they spent on luxuries and were still managing to run up debts.

Only in the UK could the term 'new money' (ie earning it as opposed to just being given it for doing nothing of any worth) be something derogatory...

True Molly, very true. Scrimping can't be done properly unless it becomes a real necessity and then you get to become a bit of a pro

Backforgood These are graduates from my university who mostly go on to work in very lucrative fields (banking, oil etc), usually in London. May not be average nationally, but do a degree which is in demand from a respected university and it is far from unusual.

I found the post that we are what our ancestors planted quite 'interesting' :) :)

A friend recounted a study that suggested women can multi-task better than men because the cave man focused solely on hunting while the cave woman took care of everything else. :)

The reason why oriental students do so well is that many are here because their parents worked two jobs each to get the money together. So they are kind of more motivated than your rugby playing, beer drinking student loan Brit.

thetasigmamum - I loved my previous career. . I suffered from quite severe depression for two years after my diagnosis of epilepsy due to the fact that there was just no way of continuing with it. I trained hard, paid childcare for my eldest dc while training, and worked my socks off to get where I did - and I felt for quite some time that being diagnosed with epilepsy basically stole my wonderful life, my beautiful home (as I was the higher earner, by quite some way, we ended up getting our 3-bed house repossessed when our savings ran out), and even, in the end, my future.

Eight years down the line, I have come to terms with my current life, with the fact that I will never earn much more than NMW, that the life I will lead going forward from here is very different to the one that I would have had. Acceptance takes some years and quite a bit of counselling. I had to, in essence, grieve for what was no more, and accept what was to be.

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accept the way my life is currently, due to the cuts in the Welfare system, that have directly affected my quality of life. The stress and worry that I may lose my Housing Association house when the benefit cap comes in is causing my seizures to increase in frequency. The only suitable (for me personally) epilepsy drug that I can take as an adjunct to my current one to try to gain better seizure control has been refused by my PCT on the basis of cost, and I am waiting for a tribunal date to try to get what is, basically, essential medication. I will have NO representation because they have cut the legal aid budget, and the CAB in my local town is so overwhelmed that they cannot help everyone, and due to the waiting list, they have practically guaranteed that there will not be anyone available to help me.

So yes, I might seem 'bitter', or jealous when listening to people say that £40K isn't a high wage - but that's because, compared to the vast percentage of people in the UK, it IS a high wage. It took disability and the loss of my previous career to have my eyes opened to this. I'm quite sure that eight years ago, I would have told you that £40K isn't that high a wage, when you are trying to pay a mortgage in the SE and raise a young family. I was wrong. And I bitterly regret my 'It's all right jack' attitude. Believe me, karma finds everyone in the end!

I agree hunty.

All a bit weird OP - she sounds a bit bonkers :o
£40k isn't a big salary, especially if she's a SAHM. After tax it's only £2,400 so a mid range mortgage, car, household bills would take a fairly big chuck of that without even thinking about holidays or pension payments etc.

Heartrending and moving though your story might be Hunty (and it is) no-one on this thread has said 'I'm alright Jack'. No-one.

To a family living on £45k, trying to downsize to living on £15k would probably be a massive problem. To a family living on £210k, trying to live on £70k would probably be the same sort of problem. It would probably entail loss of homes, schools, etc.

As many posters have said, what you need to live on depends upon how many dependents you have, where you live, where you work, if you work etc

But that is precisely what some people that ARE on £15k (I wish ) have had to do. TheRhubarb talks of her DH having to accept a MUCH lower paid job than before or face redundancy. Quite a lot of people that would have been earning a higher wage have been put on 'short hours' here, and are earning less than half their normal, full-time income.

And, Quattro, Just because someone hasn't ever HAD an income of £40k, it doesn't mean that they are so blinkered as to be unable to see what the material benefits of an income that high would be. Like not worrying about whether you can prevent your electicity meter from running out, or whether you can feed your dc that night, or whether the benefits caps will 'entail loss of homes, schools etc', to use your words. Or do you think that only those on incomes above a certain figure worry about those things? IME, it's usually those (and I include my 'previous' self in that) that are earning OVER £40k that are blinkered to the effects of trying to SURVIVE (not live, survive ) on less than £12kpa before tax.

TBH I started this thread thinking that £40k is alright, not a bad salary, but not worth bragging about.

I appreciate now that I am spolit and have been for, well for ever I suppose. Because while I don't think that we have a huge income in that we don't have a massive house, or private schooling, or lots of foreign holidays, I never think about turning the heating on, buying petrol, having a night out, buying presents for birthdays etc.

I still think that no one should brag about money as boasting about anything is unattractive. However, I think some people should show a little humility when considering what they are able to do with their incomes when compared to what others have to do with theirs.

HuntyCat I'm so very sorry about what has happened to you. I have friends and one relative (in law) with epilepsy and I know what that can mean for quality of life and just ability to do 'normal' things, quite apart from the obvious physical manifestation of seizures. :(

Again though, I would point out that I have not said that I think £40K isn't a good wage(although I have suggested that most people woukd define good in terms of What Things Cost which is not uniform across the whole UK) in fact I have mentioned that it is around the threshold of higher rate tax - which implies 'higher' earnings, and I have also mentioned friends who were ecstatic when they reached that amount of earnings. I also didn't describe you as bitter. I described TheRhubarb as bitter, and insulting, which her repeated claims that people who earn big salaries only do so through dumb luck rather than hard work, and her suggestions that people who grew up on council estates (as I did) can't earn such salaries, certainly we're.

I don't really get why she keeps mentioning it? £40k and £1k per month doesn't leave her with much. Never, never anyone?

thetasigmamum - I wasn't saying that you personally had said those things, or even that other posters had said them to me, but it has been insinuated or stated outright to other people that have been replying to people like TheRhubarb, and other posters that try to point out the difference between £12k and £40k. That's £28k for anyone who is interested. A lot of the population of the UK are trying to cope every day on an income of £28k LESS than some posters on this thread are saying is a 'piffling amount'. And while I DO think that, no matter what your background are, hard work is a major part of the wage you are capable of earning, luck also plays a very big part in it.

Just say my husband is on £72k a year but for some reason it's just not something I talk about. Friend of mine used to brag about her husbands high wage until one day she mentioned how much she got in family tax credits......she has been lying of course. I took great pleasure in telling her we didn't qualify as my husband wages were over the threshold limit. Crass yes but it felt goooooooood ha ha

There would be no point bragging where I live, my DH earns £80k plus bonuses but thats nothing in this area.

HuntyCat Some people are lucky. People who have inheritances. People who have wealthy parents. People who have living parents (OK that's just me that thinks that, I know). People who win the lottery But you are not automatically 'lucky' if you are not obviously 'unlucky' to people who don't know your entire life history. You might be luck neutral. Or, you might have been very unlucky in your life but people don't know because you overcame that misfortune. Labelling everyone who has ever 'done well' whether that is measured in financial terms or creative terms or job satisfaction terms as lucky is really very rude. Just as rude as labelling everyone who doesn't pay 40% tax or 50% tax as lazy or stupid.

I find this constant cringing away from "vulgarity" in Britain very strange. Without vulgarity, I think we'd live in quite a boring world actually.

WE earn less than 30K gross combined, we struggle big time

If anyone ever asks me what I earn...I say "I couldn't possibly tell you as you would be embarrassed".

I tend to find this covers "oh, she must earn shit loads" to "oh I don't want to ask as it may not be much"

What's profoundly depressing about this thread is the polarisation between haves and have nots, where both think that the other is not seeing their point.

Actually there is another profoundly depressing thing about this thread, which is that the vast majority of posters have posted about their husband's earnings rather than their own ...

I don't think that's necessarily true, Quattrocento - I think legallyblonde and I came to some mutual rich/poor understanding.

Quattro
I pay my husband £6000 and he pays me £6000
and then in a good year we give each other dividends
nicely equal!

I grew up on a council estate and now earn in excess of 40K. I worked hard to that , very hard but it was luck that allowed that hardwork to pay off. It was luck of exam questions, luck of jobs coming up at the right time, luck of people competing against me in jobs who did not do as well as me.

I have also been tremendously unlucky at times and to be honest very stupid , but that does not mean I have not been lucky at other times.

I do think society can be quite polarised, I spot this when I visit family and realise how far removed their lives are from mine and the people I socialise with.