If you are minted....

[FeralBeryl]

*What is your/ partner's career or job?
*
Not a TAAT more a TIBAT (inspired by a thread)

Someone has a monthly take home pay of £11k
Not going to lie, I fully intend to suddenly obtain the necessary qualifications overnight for whatever it is. sure there'll be an online course....

I know there will have been a great deal of sacrifice, no work home balance etc. I'm not wanting to judge at all-I'm enthralled

Please.

Don't get me wrong. I love London, but it does make me worry for people like me, or where I was in 1982 starting out in this city.

There is a good quote from Andrew Marr that after the big bang in the city that the houses that were in the price range of headteachers, ambassadors, solicitors were suddenly not.

There are so many people here with Filipina nannies / housekeepers it's very much the thing even if you are a SAHM with secondary school children. The families I know who have this kind of help the ladies are very much part of the family and stay with them for years. We had au-pairs for years but haven't for a couple of years. However, I think we will go back down that route next year as my business is getting very busy and I need someone around for my pre teen after school and for some mid week babysitting when I have evening meeting. I pay well, treat my aupairs well ( I have never had one stay less than 2 years) and we still keep in touch with the ones who have left us.

Before I left Manhattan, Tibetan nannies were the hot commodity among people who wanted a great, caring nanny.

As to female lawyers who are equity partners, I've only come across women without children, or women with children whose husbands, say, are school teachers or artists. I've actually never come across two lawyers married with kids at the top of their game.

I agree with namechanged's observations about proportion of senior women with children but that picture is very much changing. Back in 2011, when the Davies report was produced, women only held 12.5% of board or equivalent positions. Ime I was in a minority in having young children/babies or children at all. That number has jumped to approx 22.5% in 5 years, and my observation is that a large proportion of those women have children. We appear to be leaving the dark ages behind where women felt they couldn't have children and reach those senior positions.

I also agree with the observation that most high earning men aren't necessarily married to high earning women. Dh is only one of two men at his level in his company married to a high earner, and I see that in my workplace. Dh and I attended annual dinners at each other's workplaces where the spouses are thanked for carrying the burden at home.

I would be very interested to hear from people who work from home but also have nannies/ au pairs? I imagine this being far preferable to working out of the home?

Smallfox, the lifestyle for now might be similar, but the London people will be building up more wealth in the long term, both in terms of property and pensions in all likelihood. And a big house in a nice area of Leeds would be out of reach for most teachers if they were buying now without a significant amount to put down (unless they were both headteachers maybe). Property has become much more unaffordable outside of London too, just not to the same extent.

I didn't want to live in London (love visiting and appreciate the arts on offer but would miss the countryside too much), but even if I did want to I can't see how it would be affordable in my profession. Not with a family anyway. But professionally it would probably be more satisfying as the London companies/offices tend to get the most interesting projects.

namechanged DH works from home but we don't have any home childcare, mainly because DD is at school for an extended day due to her participation in sports and music clubs.

When she was younger, though, we had a FT nanny even though DH was at home. He liked having the flexibility to either look after DD or do some work when he wanted. What we found was that DD needed the routine of knowing when Daddy-time vs nanny-time was - it was confusing to her to not know when she was allowed to disturb him and when she wasn't.

blingy that is hilarious! I hope you blushed prettily.

My DP's colleagues are impressed that he is married to someone who even HAD a job at some point! Of course, this being oil & gas, all of his colleagues are men and a decent proportion on marriage 3 or more...

We've never used childcare much. Certainly no nanny or au pair. There were times when we could have done with one mind, but we're all too private - DH in particular.

I've always worked very flexibly and TBH my mum has always been very very happy to help ( though due to distance this only worked for pre arranged commitments ).

What we have always had is domestic help. We have a housekeeper who will do whatever we need, be that drop off dry cleaning, instruct workmen, put away a Tesci delivery. She is also extremely proactive so things don't get messy/overdue. She has strict schedules .

From what I can gather the Davies report made a difference because they said "do this, voluntarily, or we will impose quotas" :) good for them.

Also, they clearly articulated the business case: companies with a decent proportion of senior women outperform those without many senior women. It's not just a diversity issue, it's a business issue.

I should add that although my DC are now teens, we still like to be around for them. And DH is able to do so far more than when they were little ( assisted also by the fact that we now split our time so school days are spent in London where DH also works, thus he's home earlier, more easily).

We attempt to never be away at the same time. But last year we did have one clash where the DC had to fend fur themselves for 24 hours. But they were 16.

I've never found a decent housekeeper in the UK who keeps house as well as I would like. So I prefer to use a variety of service providers (cleaner, PA, delivery services, dry-cleaning services) to get the job done.

I have very exacting standards - even my DH doesn't always meet them!

The London question's an interesting one. We are at the more mature end of this thread. Although DH is the high earner (and a lot more than the initial amount quoted at the start) much of our capital stems from my first property purchase in zone 2 in 1982.

Having said that we have bought a 3,500 sq foot house with more than half an acre just 12 miles away for less than a third of what we sold the London house for - admittedly it needs 350k spent on it. Long term though, due to location it's a potential development plot so I think there's always an inner voice looking to turn a profit. Funnily enough I do feel better off out here than in London even though the house/lifestyle could be funded with less. It is much more homogenous and I'm ok enough not to miss London's edge. Can still get to Sloane Square in 45 minutes!

DH's job too only exists in London. Why did we stay? We loved London, the children were settled in schools, we had a strong community. Actually, I also think London is a great place to grow up in. Oh, and when DH was working his hardest, he could get to work in 25 minutes. He does more from home now - that would have been a no no 25 years ago. Also easier to work at home now the children are grown up.

Because I gave up work we didn't need a nanny but we had some very good aupairs when the children were small and later when they were 10/7ish. Being in London gave us our pick of the best ones.

I've actually never come across two lawyers married with kids at the top of their game.

one of my close friends is an anti-trust lawyer with a major firm in NYC. His wife is M&A partner in a different major firm. They have one child. It works for them because:

They met and married after they both made partner
They both love their jobs
They have just one child
Child has a day and a night nanny
Child spends 6-8 weeks in summer camp (by child's choice) since starting school.

They are all very happy, lovely kid, nice family.

Incidentally same friend told me that no one should do law unless they loved it as it doesn't pay enough (they must be bringing in upward of 5 million between the 2 of them). If you want to sell your soul for money (as in do a job you aren't mad about) finance is where you should be.

to those of you who are earning 80K +, how much would you say your personality and ability to gel or get on well with people has helped you in your career?

Im thinking of one particular friends of mine who is academically very bright, 2.1 from an "old"/excellent uni but suffers from anxiety and crippling shyness and works in a 19K (i think) job.

do you think she'd have soared up the career ladder if she didnt have these difficulties?

When you say hard work, on top of having great qualifications, do you mean people reading skills/networking skills help?

do you think people skills have played as equally an important role as your academic/qualifications?

My dh are middle of the road, and our joint NET income is over 5k pcm but not anywhere near 11k net pcm incomes on this thread.

My first supervisor was the first female partner in our firm and was married to another partner. Had three children. I believe they kept their relationship a secret until after she was made up (they now have rules about that sort of thing!) Lived in the Barbican so had 3 min walk to work. He was a total workaholic and they had a nanny but she did maintain a balance.

In house things are obviously slightly less pressured but lots of female lawyers have children without totally writing off their careers permenantly. Although still too few at the top.

budgets I think being easy going and friendly is a massive help (for lawyers at least). If you can still be easy going and friendly at 3am when someone makes a mistake which means you can't go home yet, even better!

I saw lots of extremely clever people go off the rails at university (and after university). Brian's certainly aren't everything.

Minipie I agree completely that we need to change the transparency in the workplace, wherever possible. I make it a practice to pay people equally for their position. More importantly, I tell every employee - at least annually - how they are categorized, who their peers are (what positions, not names), and where they stand related to current market analysis. We can't change what we don't know. It took my partners some time to be okay with this, but now they too see how much sense it makes. We rarely lose people just for money.

Interesting side note: in just the last few years I have had more women than men push for more money - and I applaud every one of them, even if it is not always possible to meet their demands. If you don't ask, you don't get does still apply oh too often!

budget my ability to work well with a range of people has definitely been key in my career. Nobody asks about my qualifications any more, but I'm an old bird and it's all about relevant skills and experience now. Hard to say about your friend but crippling shyness and anxiety will almost certainly have held her back. When I say that part of my success is down to hard work (and let's be clear, lots of it is down to luck too) I mean literal hard work - I've put myself out, worked long hours, taken on things I didn't need to and delivered my ass off in every job.

Budgets, I think it's all of those things. For me, the most important factors were the ability to work a grim number of hours in the early part of my career and have the resilience and foresight to recognise it wouldnt be like that forever, be easy going while always delivering a quality output. I think those who get the better opportunities are those who raise their heads above the parapets and seize opportunities as they come. Being able to talk to senior people without a panic is important, and find things to laugh about with them, without obviously looking like you're sucking up. Ime those who have been privately educated tend to have an advantage at this early stage of careers as they seem confident, as do men.

To give a good example. My coffee with some of our new starters yesterday...1 was a woman, the others were men. The opportunity to spend an hour with someone of my seniority is a rare one. The guys all made sure that they tried to make an impression by asking questions, feigning being relaxed even if they weren't feeling it. The woman didn't ask a single question, so in all honesty she didn't make herself memorable. If it were another senior person (a man), the next time a juicy project came up, they would in all likelihood only choose one of the guys who had impressed in that "informal" coffee and the opportunity gap starts from there.

Not me but a family member. Works in a city bank though not a trader. Bonus a few years ago was upwards of 70k. No idea of actual salary but you can extrapolate from the bonus it's pretty hefty.
I am the poor relation.

nane, in answer to your question above, I work from home and have nannies. Had Norland and very traditional maternity nurses but have moved onto non-British native English speakers with extra qualifications as well as nannying (teaching and nursing for ours) depending on age of child. Also have a separate housekeeper (non-British) and PA (British). Our situation is different as we live in rotation in two houses depending on time of year with most time in London, and two houses outside of the U.K. where we alternate school holidays.

We have a house staff and gardeners working at each of the other houses and alternative nannies who work weekends and travel with us. We also have a chef who is with us part time as we entertain a lot (work and friend entertaining), very important for my DHs work.

I grew up in a less affluent household but we still had a nanny/housekeeper (I'm one of many, she must have been exhausted) and a gardener, as both of my parents worked full time, so I grew up people in the home which I think many find difficult. We had assistance from grandparents though, which we don't.

QueenJuggler - I think that the outsourcing of housekeeping is fraught with potential pitfalls, wherever you are. Here is Paris some of my friends have spotless homes c/o housekeepers, but by no means all. I cannot stand having someone in my personal space and so, like you, prefer a variety of specialist professionals. The problem with that system is that it doesn't self manage. The shirts are ironed exquisitely, however :)

*brains

Not saying Brians aren't important, of course.

Bobo, that's interesting. I wouldn't expect many housekeepers did ironing, pressed sheets in houses of my experience similar to ours, all of that gets sent out.

Free, I think you work where I started out..