To think £100k pa is NOT 'the squeezed middle'?

[ArsenicFaceCream]

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The article is very confidently attributing the definition to Danny Dorling, but did he really name this figure?!

These women are fools.

i know it's vulgar but it agree it does work in employers' favour.

Almost every job I see advertised is offering about 25-30K. Anything over than and you need a highly specialised skill or years of experience

Absolutely surely this isnt surprising? You dont just magically earn a lot of money without any relevant skills or experience (regardless of what profession you work in).

(Don't know what happened to the formatting there ).

It's vulgar saying "oh I earn sooooo much more money than you plebs, pass me my diamond pen please while I write a cheque for my caviar".

It's not vulgar to discuss salary, savings, pension contributions or investments. How else can you make informed choices about your own career or guide your children?

It's not exactly dinner party chat but one on one it's quite acceptable to talk about I think.

Pay secrecy only harms employees.

100k plus is definitely not middle, how ridiculous! Can feel squeezed - but definitely have lots more room for manoeuvre than most families. Me & DH have a joint income of a bit over 100k. We have had to tighten our belts considerably over the last few years, but then that's mainly because we now spend around 22k per year on childcare, and 3 years ago we didn't (because we didn't have kids). Anyone who gets a new 22k pa bill is going to feel it, right? Difference is we can afford for us both to work despite the crippling short term cost of childcare. No way we could afford private school for 2 kids though. I can't imagine how it must be to find yourself in a position where you literally cannot afford to work because the childcare/travel costs make it unaffordable. They're the ones who should be doing Daily Mail sadfaces.

I think that expectations have gone up in some ways (e.g. mass production has made new 'things' generally more available and commonplace) and remained stable in others (e.g. people quite reasonably expect to be able to house themselves affordably). Buying power has simultaneously gone down, leaving lots of people feeling like they somehow ought to have higher living standards than they do.

My MIL is always talking about how 'young people of today' expect to have it all without making sacrifices blah blah and I think she's perhaps right about the 'little' things like going out, takeaways, new clothes etc. But she conveniently forgets that she and her husband managed to get a mortgage on a 4 bedroom detached house in a nice area (in the north), on 1 salary, when they were in their early 20s - as well as owning 2 cars. And then send 2 kids to private school! I'm sure that they did have to sacrifice and save hard, but nowadays it's virtually impossible for any young couple to aspire to that even on the strictest budget. I for one would have been much happier to be super frugal in my 20s if it had meant I could have saved for a deposit on a house. Instead I had to be super frugal because I was just skint! DH and I are now in a very fortunate position and we are grateful for that, even if occasionally we sigh at the lack of funds left at the end of the month.

It's absurd middle class sensibilities nit to discuss money.

Where to find it. How to get it. How to make it work. This is information that makes people powerful!

Many years ago when I was very poor, the very rich father of a boyfriend told me how much he earned. He also thrust several brochures for city law firms under my nose and told me to apply, pointing out that they would pay me through law school!

polonium

I have a number of 'friends' who have whinged about losing child benefit

TheWord
I agree entirely. Once I found out about the City I knew I wanted to work there but I was almost luck that I got there as nobody in my family knew anything about it at all (first one to go to uni etc.) My DC will start in a much better place than me because I already know what options are out there and how to access them. I was stunned when I found out how much some people earned.

I don't discuss my salary with my family because the differential is so great that I know some of them would react badly. However, if one of my nephews or neices came to me asking for advice I would be more candid with them. (For example, I helped my DB understand the university application process when his eldest was starting 6th form so he help DN make the most of the opportunities out there).

Rufus, I suspect they are probably whinging about the way it's been cut, (i.e. single earning family on 60K lose it all, whereas double income earning family on 90K, split equally, keeps the lot), rather than the fact that it's been cut. I suspect that if the cuts had been made fairly, there would have been few complaints quite honestly.

I will reiterate

I have a number of friends that have complained about losing their child benefit, none of them care about the method and one (who is on well over 120k as a household) is particularly pissed off

I also have a separate number of friends who have complained about the method

I also know people who don't have a problem at all with the removal of CB

Hopefully that's a bit clearer

ihate

I do agree about the fair bit though, there would have been a lot less complaints!!!!

We lost our child benefit. I thought it was ridiculous that we received it at all.

I guess if you're on over 100k, you'd have lost it whatever method they'd used. Not sure you'd massively notice the loss on that salary anyway unless you had 10 children.

Chaz, your post reminded me of a story my DH told me. He was working as a roofer one very wet winter and sleeping in a caravan Monday to Friday and watched a programme about the city and the salaries it is possible to earn. He had never heard of such high salaries before and thought it was like a secret and different world. So he did an access course and then a degree because he said he wanted just a small piece of that life.

what does your dh do now, zillionaire?

Plenty of us earn 25-30k with lots of relevant skills and experience!

Which brings us back to Greengrow and her point about researching which career you want (and therefore enabling you to make a sensible decision about the skills and experience you need to get there).

My career path:

8 years ago, I was an R&D scientist (with a degree, PhD and 3 years post-doc experience). I earned ~27k on a temporary contract.

5 years ago I switched career and became a trainee patent attorney. I earned ~35k on my training contract.

Now I'm a qualified attorney and earn ~65k (plus bonus). I expect to get promoted to the next level within my organisation this time next year (which will mean a ~15% pay rise, plus share options).

I have friends who are still working as R&D scientists - typically they earn ~40-45k. Chosing to get new qualifications/experience has massively changed my earning potential.

Ah, I have known a good few scientists who became lawyers too. A firm I worked at recruited some with biotech Phds who potentially could end up equity partners on £500k - £1m. Very good people because they understand the technology as well as the law.

So I wonder what made me research pay as a teenager given I am not very materialistic? The school was suggesting normal boring stuff like librarian and teacher. I suppose most teenagers have a rough idea of which careers pay women the best. In fact I am surprised more mumsnetters didn't choose higher paid careers rather than the fact some did.

I have never however said money makes people happy. It is a perfectly legitimate choice to decide to learn less. The only thing I want for teenage girls is that they know what is possible for them and make an active choice with full knowledge.

Greengrow I seem to have done what you did! My teachers never recommended anything pragmatic...

My career path is as Greengrow just outlined. I did a science degree. Decided it wasn't going to be well paid so switched to doing something else which uses the same skillset but in a different way. It pays more, I am good at and enjoy it.

I was brought up in a small town near a few large towns/cities. I always intended to go into my current profession but what I saw of it from work experience was frankly the lower end of provincial work. I knew no one who worked in the city and had no idea what they did - this was pre internet of course. I worked my butt off and got into Oxford where I started to go to presentations from large city firms and I realised the money was much better than I'd get in my home town and the work much higher quality. And so I went that we as did many of my peers. I saw the money and I chased it. There has been some real poverty in parts of my family and I saw how grinding it was so being able to get a comfortable life with my worrying about how to pay the bills was an important driver in starting off the way did.

Me three. I specialised in a very obscure, R&D field of IT and when I realized I'd never be able to afford property, I moved to the financial services industry. It's worked out very well.

I got into my current job completely by accident, there was no big plan.

Indeed if there had been I'd have made sure to not get into something quite so specialized. It's lucrative but it's contracting with all the advantages and disadvantages of that and it doesn't seem possible to go back to the permanent world.

What did you switch to as a matter of interest novice after you did science, if you don't mind me asking? I am interested, as I did a science degree also and am thinking about other areas I could work / re-train in which might use a similar skill set. Would be very interested to hear.