To think there is very little benefit in earning more than 50k

[ReallyTired]

Loss of child benefit and now reduction in pension tax relief makes hardly worth bursting a gut to earn over 50k. People who earn just over 50k are generally the work horses in skilled jobs that ecomony needs to grow. Given that such people will be saddled with high student loans in the future, what will senior teachers, doctors gain from all their hard work?

What is a better life depends on the person. For most of us the fact we are not ill and are happy mentally is top of all our lists whether we are rich or poor. I value those things above most other things and always have.

"Would you for example have been able to do what you did if you'd experienced extreme difficulties in pregnancy? Had debilitating PND? If one or more of your children needed round the clock care? All of which are out of your hands, and very much in fortunes gift to give and take away."
When you are fairly well off you tend to be able to manage things more easily and indeed care for your children better. Nicola Horlick could work whilst her child was ill with cancer and of course as I would have done rushed to the hospital after work night after night. Cameron and his wife worked when their child was ill. There is no reason given my socio economic position and income I would not hvae been the same. Also in a sense plenty of how we are in life is reaping what we sow. I had a baby at 22 so of course didn't haev the problems older women have. I've never let myself get fat so I've not had the problems other have. I don't eat junk food so I am not depressed and don't have the life problems those who drink or gorge on foods which gives them immediate highs and huge lows. In other words whilst you cannot entirely eliminate all risks of things going wrong you can have a strategy and plan and work around the difficult times in life as indeed I hvae. I have no charmed perfect life any more than the next man. i've had divorce, deaths and all the rest. It's how you cope with the difficult things that matters, not whether they happen.

If anyone wants a route to happiness I can give advice... start by eating less; secondly only drink water; then get outside every day; walk a lot more. Get to bed by 10 every night; don't drink any alcohol; don't eat processed foods. These things cost no money. They make you happy.

"Cameron and his wife worked when their child was ill." During which time they claimed DLA and had significant NHS help. Also its a fairly poor example to hold up of how people are able to work, the immensely privilieged Camerons, who are the son and daughter of multi millionaires, yet who also recieved state help? Must have been tough to do eh? Had the Cameron's been trying to build a career from scratch (without the benefits of connections, family money and the state to help them too) things may have been very different.

The other one you quote is also quite priviged too (privately educated etc) and was immensely well paid so yes money made it happen.

But again your mantra is "hard work" and it isn't just down to that and your failure to acknowledge so is blinkered and your attitude patronising.

"Hard work pays for everyone though as if you turn up at work late and skive around you get the sack "

No, that's not hard work paying, that's just skiving leading to getting the sack. Not getting the sack isn't really a reward for hard work. Also, it again comes down to skills, people with very specialised skills will be given the benefit of the doubt if they turn up late occasionally.

I don't eat junk food so I am not depressed and don't have the life problems those who drink or gorge on foods which gives them immediate highs and huge lows.

Your post was so full of shit, I really wanted to quote all of it.
You selfish, smug, insufferable sod. People often become unwell through no fault of their own. How dare you post this kind of bulkshit.

Don't rise to it, just think about how much fun Deo is at dinner parties.

Deo

You are so funny, why on earth do you think that people on low incomes aren't happy with their money, power and control.
I think I have enough of all of those things, ta. Why would I need to kid myself, because you think I'd like to be like you? Your idea of success?
I think you are a great role model, I really do, for people with the same goals and aspirations as yourself. I think you've done tremendously well and I bet you're brilliant at your job.
But, I wouldn't swop lives with you.

It's how you cope with the difficult things that matters, not whether they happen

Dear lord - you might be blessed with intelligence and a well paid job but you weren't front in the queue when the empathy was being doled out were you?!

I was a high earner. A really high earner with a degree and two professional qualifications and a gold plated CV. I am lucky because that helped me keep my head above water when the shit hit the fan. And the shit really did hit the fan.

When my child was 3, I dropped him off at my mum's to play for an hour whilst I popped into A&E with a rash which looked a bit dodgy. That started a chain of events - emergency admission, life threatening auto-immune condition which didn't respond to treatment, very dark days and even darker nights. One treatment was found which worked - hurrah! It was high dose steroids - boo!

I was finally let out of hospital - hurrah!

But they hadn't realised that I had silently contracted two other autoimmune conditions which went untreated for a year. The steroids had resulted in me putting on massive amounts of weight (would love to hear how you smugly cope with "I don't gorge on junk food" on 150mg of prednisilone). I was on such high doses that I had to carry a medic alert card. Then the weaning off of Prednisilone and resulting steroid withdrawal (grim).

Then dealing with sleep apnoea so severe that the sleep clinic consultant said it was the worst he's ever recorded - most likely due to the weight gain caused by the Cushings syndrome which was caused by... yup you've guessed it... the steroids.

Before diagnosis I thought I was depressed (no doubt from the junk food I ate ) and very embarrassingly fell asleep in work literally as I was typing on the computer at least once a day.

The combination of the falling asleep in work and the other symptoms of sleep apnoea and the child who having started with separation anxiety (having been adopted 2 years before) was now velcro child and getting increasingly stressed at being left with anyone else meant I decided that I couldn't continue working and I quit my job.

I lived on thin air and savings until I realised that my health and my child were unlikely to cope with me working full time for some years to come and I took a relatively low paid job working part-time, downsized to a smaller house and ditched my plans for a second child.

And now I work for myself - kind of full time but flexibly - in return I make about a third of what I did before but the extra flexibility is worth it to deal with the extra school meetings I have to do with DS's additional needs and his difficulty being left with other people even now.

So we get by. And we're happy. And I'm not earning £50k, but I'm still happy even though I'm fat and eat junk food, go figure

I can;t imagine how hard that all would have been without the luxury of a previously high earning career. I would have lost the house very quickly as the mortgage was high.

Yes I have worked very hard at times in the past, yes I have sacrificed things to get a step up that ladder which others might not have been prepared to do. But I don't kid myself that some of the key things which helped me get there were anything but pure luck - being born with brains into a family focused on education (albeit in a working class family in a working class area many miles from the bright lights of London), a degree of mobility and support in doing what I wanted to by my parents. Not to mention going to university in the days of no student loans and benefitting from huge house inflation.

I have no regrets at pootling along now on a wage which is unlikely to see the higher rate tax bracket... who needs heating, I have my empathy and my fat to keep me warm.

That looked a LOT shorter when I was typing it...

I'm with you on the evils of steroids Kew!

I was hospitalised out of the blue, found out I needed emergency surgery but not before they could bring the inflammation down.
I week in hospital on a steroid drip & various other drips I came out half a stone heavier despite being 'nil by mouth' (so definitely not gorging on junk food!). 8 months of pred and being bed bound later I was 4 stone heavier and my formerly very active life was gone.

Diagnosed with bi polar shortly after I was not allowed to continue in the forces so was discharged after 20 years service (completely disposable, just a number not a person).

I went from £40k per annum to £13 per week ESA.
Split up from husband soon after and have to leave the married quarter as no longer entitled.

I went from having it all (health, husband career & home), to having none of those things all within 12 months.

You don't realise what you take for granted until it's gone.
It's all good though, still breathing, still here, still fighting and still have my boys - it's a new beginning.

Glad you're doing good too

There is a pychological theory that human beings have a hierarchy of needs. It requires a very basic income to insure that a person has enough food and shelter. Infact benefits are enough to keep someone alive and meet the needs of food, shelter and the majority of benefits claiments are safe.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Love and belonging are harder to meet. Loneliness is not easy to solve. Certainly money cannot buy love or true friendship. Self esteem and self actualisation mean different things to different people. A cleaner with a good employer and a loving family can feel very satisfied with life.

There is a differnt theory to Maslow's hierarchy

Bunny when the consultant said to me "great news the steroids are working, bad news it's the steroids that are working" I had no idea what he was talking about. They saved my life so I can't complain!

I also discovered that you can;t jump when you're on high dose steroids. Little known pointless fact.

And if memory from my degree serves me correctly - Maslows hierarchy of needs reinforces what I've been saying that once one level of need is fulfilled then the next layer up because your motivator. Thats why you/your DH aren't motivated by the extra money, it's because you have enough (whatever your definition of "enough" is and you have moved higher up the pyramid to other factors eg social needs becoming more important.

It's not because of the tax position.

Steroids suck cock.

I hope I never get put on them again, big old moon face and stones of weight that I'm still lugging around.

This is my year though, I have decided.
Last year was my annus horriblus (like the queen!), this year is where it all picks up.

I've just been accepted for university too, to study in a completely different direction so am very excited for the future.

I think the tax position does have an affect. If dh got to keep the entire extra 9k then it he would probably consider it worth his while to go into London. The cost of commuting is 5k and if he had 4K left of the extra money left over he would do it. The reality is after income tax, national insurance and the high earner child benefit charge he would only see a fraction of the pay rise. The amount extra in his pay packet after the additional costs is not enough to make the extra effort worth the extra money. You are right that the higher level needs than money might suffer.

A happy family has everyone's needs met. Even if working long hours and never seeing your children gives you fulfilment, does it make your children happy? Certainly there is no reason that a man cannot reduce his hours to spend time with children if that is what he wants. Provided a family has what they need, there is no need to slog your guts out for more money.

Linking earning power or career with self esteem can cause problems when retirement or maternity happens. The loss of identity can cause depression. Self actualisation is realising that you are more than a money making machine.

You are right that the higher level needs than money might suffer.

to be fair - it wasn;t me who was right but Mr Maslow.

It really isn't the tax - if you are desperate for the money (say you have gambling debts) then any extra £10 is worth having even if it started off briefly being £20. If you aren;t desperate for the money then other needs will come into play.

If your DH was offered an extra £2000 with no incremental tax at all to travel an extra 50 miles, would he take it?
If he was offered an incremental £20,000 taxed at 50% so net £10,000 would he take it?

You see it really isn;t the tax, it;s the trade off of money vs other factors, everyone hygiene/motivation factors are different.

And sometimes more money gives you more time, not less with the children. Due to my position I am able to fix meetings to fit around child things when I want to. I also am sure everyone on the thread would agree that what the state and all doctors say about some of your life choices having an impact on health and mental health are correct. Just because some people get sick due to bad luck does not mean that there is no point in people avoiding being 20 stone as they might get ill anyway. We all know that.

Like many high earners I hace a very balanced life with the things that matter being happiness and freedom from illness, good relationships with family, my hobbies and all the rest. The myth that the better off are miserable or bad parents keeps the less financiall fortunate happy but it doesn't change the fats that many high earner women and their families are perfectly happy.

(I only mentioned the higher earners who pay for child care for children with disabilities whilst keeping working is because I was asked what would I do if I had had an issue like that - I would have done what they do).

No you mentioned the Camerons et al because you thought it gave a good example of "earning" money and being able to overcome difficulties, when what you actually did was prove the point of privilege over hard work.

Please never quote Cameron as an example of where hard work gets you, if he'd been born on a council estate in Newcastle he'd still be there.

Deo, your pronouncements on everything really remind of the Highgate mum's twitter feed, you are quite lacking in awareness aren't you.

I think for some families it works better with both parents working. The additional income enables them to buy in help. It also gives the parents a break from care.

For us DS is hard work. We talked about me stopping work and I am so happy I managed to secure a 16 week sabbatical. I was paid 20% of my income but only if I returned to work. After the third week in I realized that there wasn't the real benefit i thought there was going to be from me staying home. After 16 weeks I happily went back to work have had the benefit of experimenting with being a SAHM.

Whatever I do it works and all those women who write to me all the time saying how they are inspired by and helped by me make it all worthwhile. Gather hither and learn......

It was suggested above that had I had a disabled child I might not have been able to work. I said people at my income level tend to be able to work when their child is disabled - that's all. The money that women earn in fact not only benefits them, ensures equality in a relationship and ensures the family has spread the financial risk and taken financial pressure off the other spouse but also means they can often help their children too.

Anyway we got slightly off topic, albeit all interesting stuff and what a boring UK it would be if we were all the same. My 5 children are all very different and I think that's wonderful. A world of socialist produced clones would not be good.

We are though more responsible for our own fate than many people realise and they can take practical steps to improve their lives if they wish to rather than just let life be something that happens to them rather than something they manage at least in part to control.

Deo

Some of us manage the above without high earnings though.
I've yet to hear any evidence from you that proves a higher income is better than a low one, except the ability to buy more stuff.
If you aren't interested in stuff there's hardly any incentive to work if you don't have to.
you mention more money can buy you more time, only if you don't spend any of your time working, surely.
You just seem to think that only people on high incomes can do what you do, quite puzzling really.

"gather hither and learn"

Don't make me laugh. I have nothing, utterly nothing to learn from you.

You may have made the point you say, but you used utterly useless examples of it.

"We are though more responsible for our own fate than many people realise and they can take practical steps to improve their lives if they wish to rather than just let life be something that happens to them rather than something they manage at least in part to control"

Yet again the personal responsibility clap trap, there is an element, but its not the be all and end all, you've had the flaws in your argument pointed out many times and have failed to rebut them adequately, your use of personal experience and badly thought out anecdote doesn't count.

Deo, do you understand that some children's care needs are so extensive that even your pockets wouldn't be deep enough? Can you see that if you'd had a disabled child, particularly in your very early days where you were only just earning enough for childcare for NT child/ren, that could have put the kybosh on you getting to the megabucks stage?