To feel like I live in a completely different world to most mumsnetters?

[FloozeyLoozey]

No one I know can afford to be SAHM. Wages over 20k are seen as damned good, not disparaged. Anything over 30k makes you well off. I don't even know where Lancashire's private schools are, or anyone who hires a tutor. Nannies are another urban myth that don't exist around here, it's all after school clubs and nurseries. I feel completely alienated from this place at times. Am I just a common northerners out of place on mn who should migrate to netmums, because the shockingly snobby attitudes at times tell me I should.

From what I've read on here some peope are SAHM because they can't afford to go back to work, not because theycan't afford not to.

Mumsnet is very londoncentric. There's a large contingent of guardian reading Oxbridge educated types with nannies in half a million houses with mortgage paid off, 3 holidays a year, spend hours pontificating over what and where
the better private schools are, whilst peddling socialist views at same time: sometimes piling in on threads to support benefits claimants, saying " not their fault" whilst in real life they'd cross the road to avoid them...I've met and worked with people like this.

Golddigger she has:

Wow, didn't expect this thread to take off in the way it has! Admittedly I'd had a few vinos last night and went OTT and it is worded in quite an inflammatory way. Apologies for it seeming like I'm stereotyping vast swathes of people. I know society is far more complex than that.

Ah yes. Missed that. Fair enough.
That is the trouble with letting a genie out the bottle!

Isn't the average wage across the UK about £28k?

So anything under that would be "less than average" and over "more than average"?

Not that it matters though. It's totally subjective. Some one with 5 children in an expensive area would struggle on £30k whilst someone young, free and single in a less expensive area would probably be just fine.

What someone earns has no bearing on what they are like as a person. Neither does their method of childcare, where they shop or if they use tutors or nannies. I have friends who are very wealthy and friends who are struggling to make ends meet. What they earn doesn't determinethe type of people they are

I do object to your "Oop North we all earn 1 shilling a week and don't even have schools, let alone private ones"

I live in the North. It's beautiful and has lots of private schools, multi-million pound houses, people with nannies and cleaners. It also some very deprived areas and lots of areas in the middle

Just like the South

There are different kind of averages. Mean wages are much higher than median wages, which are what is usually used.

I thought the median wage was more like £22,000.

It's odd, because not long ago someone posted a link where you could see how well/badly off you were in comparison to everyone else. DH and I have a joint income of about £40,000 and this out us in the top 15%, or something.

Very different to other calculators.

Or do you mean household income?

OP, I know how you feel but do think a lot depends on which threads you're reading eg stop reading aibu and chat and go to budget cooking and you'll find more like minded people in the same boat. That's what I do anyway when it all feels a bit mc/waitrose/3 hols a year etc etc

I meant wages I think, just because that what was the OP referenced but I agree median wage would be more accurate

Either way, what you have coming in is very subjective in terms if it is a lot or a little.

Yes I think very rich people drag the mean up unrealistically.

I think a lot of it is perspective, too.

Me and my husband are late 30s/early 40s - had our kids late 20s and I carried on working. We've been in the same work for 19 and 27 years respectively and worked up the ranks to get to where we are now.

If it was 25 year old me reading about me, I would think "how the fuck can people afford new cars and cleaners and holidays etc, I'm juggling credit cards to make sure we're fed".

The fact is, you can't compare yourself to other people so laterally - everyone is at different life stages or took different life choices, or life dealt them a shitty hand or not.

I've always thought I'm working class as that is how I was brought up, my husband was council estate working class - we are now in a very good financial and life position and people at work call me Hyacinth because I am so middle class it hurts (I'm not, I hasten to add - they're taking the piss!).

What I'm trying to say is we've all so much more in common when you strip the bones off it - all our kids have the same sorts of problems, and we all share the same basic angst, having a window onto other lifestyles can bring you back to earth with a bump or give you an aspiration to what you could achieve - it's all there on MN warts and all.

Just because I'm a SAHM and my hubby earns a good wage, doesn't mean I didn't start off life supporting him in his £55pw apprenticeship by working 60 hours a week in a factory.

So yes, we are very lucky to be in the situation we are now, but life wasn't always like that for us.

Thank you for coming back and posting, OP !

I don't spend as much time on here as others, but have never noticed that much snobbery in the traditional sense, but have noticed TONS of inverted snobbery. Much earlier up thread someone mentioned there's a lot of 'competitive frugality' on here and I totally agree.

Also I think MN isn't so much 'middle class' as the 'educated class'. Posters here tend to be very intelligent and articulate, although there seem to be a real mixture of educational backgrounds and paths followed.

Can I just say I'm completely fed up with the Northern thing too. My husband is from S Yorks, I'm from the SE, and when I'm up there visiting his friends and family I'm never allowed to forget it. I have an extremely ordinary background and yet they all assume I'm dead posh. But that's a rant for another of the quite frequent north vs south threads.

This thread had really pissed me off. I live in Cheshire, Hale, and it is not all cotton mills and coal mines up here. Most people I know got kids in private schools, tutors, cleaners, gardeners, nannies and shop at Waitrose.

^ALTRINCHAM has the ninth most millionaire-rows in the country and is the most affluent area in Greater Manchester.

With 61 ‘million pound streets’ Altrincham is up there with London, Sevenoaks and Guildford as one of the most expensive places to own a property.^

www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/9059269.Altrincham_s_million_pound_streets/

And yes, we DO wash every day

Alderley Edge, Wilmslow etc are right posh aren't they Enian?

Hale is actually the poshest place I have ever been. I have never felt like more of a contemptible bumpkin than when I parked my 2002 Ford Ka in the street there and paid £18 for sausage and mash.

hackney

Yes. It is annoying when it's that it's assumed you are posh and well off by middle class Northerners just because you are from London. Chippiness is so boring

I'm a northerner, dh earns less than av wage, I am sahm, have tax credits, private tutors, live in Lancashire.
I like diversity and being unconventional tbh. Would hate to be on death bed thinking about what a sheep I had been. Oh I hate beige, boden, and all the non descript bland things.
I call a spade a spade. Was born and bred in Cheshire yes some people are snobby arses but you get that everywhere.

I live in the Midlands.I'm not sure where I fit in.

I'm in Cheshire too. Where I live is 20 mins or so away from Wilmslow etc and people here are poor as fuck one side of town and well off the other. It's like that everywhere though. North and South both have poorer places near richer places. It's daft to make it a North/South thing.

What's the word for it when people can't empathise with people of a different income? Not snobbery, something else. Anyway there's been a bit of that on this thread so maybe that's what OP means about snobbery? Like this "I dont get the issue about cleaners. You can psy as little as 20pounds a week. Or every two weeks like my friend. It is less than what people pay for a friday pizza delivery." It's like people are completely clueless that for some families £20 is the full weekly food shop and pizza deliveries and take aways are things of myth and legend. Maybe that's what OP means rather than thinking everyone is/are snobs.

I am Midlands too usual, and I am well posh. i get out of the bath to have a wee and everything.

OP has a mahoosive greasy Northern chip on her shoulder.

Out of the bath to have a wee

You have a point, OP, but as people have said a lot of this comes from the areas people live in. Where I grew up there were very few nannies, independent schools, etc, as we were in the middle of nowhere. Where I live now it's much more like an extension of London and lots of these things exist. So I would say your situation is geographical rather than social.