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.

wherearemymarbles, everything my DH and I have earned is joint, and that is the same for all married couples.

I'm sure you didn't mean it offensively but marriage assets are joint. Baby may not be communicating very effectively here but she isn't in any way comparable to friends of her DH they decide to be generous too, she is his wife.

To, not too, apologies.

There are loads of wealthy people I know and have known so I've certainly never experienced jealousy and if they pity me they never have said. Just choose better friends if people are jealous.

The things I valud most are hardly ever being ill and being very happy and that does not relate to what I earn as a lawyer. It relates to things like did I get 8 hours sleep. Have I drunk enough water? Did I go for a walk and eat well today? Those sorts of things have nothing to do with money on the whole but they matter an awful lot more than earnings.

Mind you I like my own company but never get enough time alone so I am not out actively seeking more social events. I seem to spend my life turning down 10x what I accept. It's all relative anyway. A lawyer like I am is not "minted" (not a word I use anyway) compared to the very rich. As people know I sold my private island and even that was not worth much so now I am just a jumble home owner.

we are moving soon to a completely different area. To be blunt a more affluential area

Do you mean affluential? Or affluent?

You sound very much like someone who I used to know-she said odd things like 'major players' and she boasted a lot about her husband who drove a very expensive car. He left her shortly after for a much younger woman.

I also find baby's assertions quite odd. I choose my friends according to whether I like them and get on with them. We deliberately don't flaunt our wealth, don't discuss our income and don't make deliberate shows of having money. Much as its lovely that your husband wants to treat friends every time you go out, it's a bit showy and a bit "look at me, I'm rich" surely the way to go is to go to places you can all afford? We certainly don't go around eating in fancy places every week and although we might treat another couple or have a party where we cover all food and drink it would be exception rather than rule.

When you move to a more affluent area make friends with people you click with, not with their bank balance and remember than not every one wears their wealth in their car, house or jewellery and sometimes it's a bit fur coat and no knickers and the true story isn't what it looks like on the outside

Our combined income is £140k, I'm a SAHM with a couple of sidelines, he's a director of old City firm. We are far from minted.

(baby is just a different sort of person; not worse or better, just different. People use different words and have different expectations. Vive la difference).

I'm a bit puzzled by the jealousy and friends question from Babylove. We are "minted" by the standards of this thread (although not in the league of some who have posted) and living in London with our house and nanny taking a fair chunk of cash each month, don't feel that well off, just very comfortable and fortunate not to have to worry about paying the bills. Most of our friends we made in our 20s (we are now early 40s) and life has taken us down a variety of paths. Some of us are now fairly senior City lawyers and bankers, some are consultant doctors, some are civil servants and some have small businesses that earn very little. Money really doesn't affect the friendships.

Thank you all, for your ability to properly read and comprehend my posts. And all the incredible assumptions. You guys really understand where I'm coming from. You nailed it. Well done!

But don't mind me and the fact I won't be reading or posting any further in this thread. You continue on...

Propertywidow,
Not meant to be rude, just an observation when Lady wrote 'when I am loaded' when from her post it seemed her husband was making the money. If she had said 'when we are loaded' when i would not have made that point.

But I/my my have witnessed people marrying into pre existing wealth and some remain largly unchanged and others seem to view their old friends as the'little people'
And that is highly unattractive - to me anyway.!!

Baby, I genuinely tried to assist you with an explanation you asked for and then answered your other question kindly, I believe.

wherearemymarbles, that's fine I understand now, thank you. I greatly object to women (or men) being spoken of basically as a parasite when they are married and have made a life with their spouse, no matter how much money the couple in question have, but I now know that wasn't what you meant. I hope we can continue the discussion kindly .

Hasn't been mentioned much but engineers can be high earners (think £110k plus, in mid-thirties), especially in the corporate world, and there are all sorts of extra bonuses and retention bonuses which add up too.

By engineer I mean someone with at least a Masters in engineering from an elite university. Sometimes when people hear DH is an engineer they think he's fixing the BT boxes on the side of the road, and that we're skint. Engineering careers don't get much public recognition in the UK countries but they really do have high earning potential.

As a scientist I could (if FT) earn around 50-65k in public sector, more in private.

We're very lucky, we're comfortable, but we have high outgoings (nannies, private nursery and school, help around the house). We're not at all flashy - fairly modest house, cars, holidays. Also have family money and assets (inheritance). I'd say most of our spending is invisible.

But you're right, it costs. Both of us work very long hours (no paid overtime in these sorts of jobs), are expected to be available for work telecons late in the evening, early morning due to working with teams around the world. We both have to travel. Haven't spent an evening with DH in weeks, we have to book in time together.

I don't have great health and I'd give up an awful awful lot to be in good health.

Bruce02

Absolutely important. I've noticed that if you can combine nerdy skills with soft skills, leadership, social skills etc, then you tend to do very well.

• Confidence
• Ability to get on with all sorts of people
• Ability to keep temper, negotiate, find workable solutions, influence
• Ability to communicate in the right way, for the different audiences, public speaking etc

Also very important is mental resilience, and physical stamina. DH has has both in spades.

To manage mine and DH's highly paid career we need a hell of a lot of help - cleaner, ironing service, washing service for bed linen. Plus PT nanny on top of school/nursery. If our garden was more than city centre minute we'd need a gardener too.

I'm not keen on live-in help, though we were going to have an au pair but that fell through and I was quite relieved. I don't mind having people I trust here during the day (I wfh often), but I did grow up with cleaners/gardener so used to having people around. Our help always ends up feeling like family, but I do like to be on my own.

II'd like to know for the ladies with a live in housekeeper. Are you paranoid about them going through your things? Do you keep them out of your bedroom? We plan on having a live in housekeeper for our next house move only because I want my beloved pets to be left at home with someone they know when we travel.*

I don't have live in staff... merely a lovely lady who cleans for 2h/week. She does indeed go into my bedroom and does things like fold my pants up neatly!

Wouldn't have anyone in the house I didn't trust.

I'm a carer for children with disabilities and OH is a bartender. Things are tough right now, but I'm proud of us and the things we have (both our families are mostly on benefits etc) and we both did miserably in school but we're both doing a degree now so we're both over achieving giving our life chances I'd say. Reading these posts is nice, I know we'll be in a better place if we just knuckle down for a couple more years then one day we'll be able to talk about buying our own house too thank you all for sharing, inspiration is good!!

Libby
Very best of luck to you and your DH. You are right to be proud of what you have achieved so far. I hope you fulfil your dreams.

In the past we've had live in help and although I was happy for them to clean my room I always did my own washing and sheet changing, it was just my thing.

Like a previous poster I grew up with live in help for most of my childhood plus we had a cleaner 3 times a week, a gardener weekly and an ironing lady, in fact my parents still have all that apart form someone living in as did DH and his mum and dad still have a housekeeper 3x a week so having someone around the house doesn't really bother us.

I grew up with a full time housekeeper - she did everything - but I hate having paid help, makes me feel very unfortable.

We have a full time (5 days a week) housekeeper and part time (3 days a week) cleaner. Our hk cooks, does laundry, ironing, errands and some light cleaning on the days our cleaner isn't here. Our hk has to go into our bedroom to get our laundry from our ensuite but our cleaner properly spends time in our bedroom. The last 2 weeks our dcs have been on half term so we brought in a second cleaner who did the cleaning and our normal cleaner did the laundry, ironing etc. which allowed our hk to just spend time with the kids. Trust is a big part. E.g. I have a diamond watch I wasn't able to find for a couple of weeks. My first thought wasn't "who has nicked it" but more "what have I done with it" or which box did our cleaner tidy it into. Our cleaner has been with us for 7 years, I had a previous one who stole from us and that was horrible.

On the question of friendships, my closest friends from 25 years ago (uni/school), are still my closest friends today. Same with dh. I also have good friends I have made through work over the years, who have a good idea of how much dh and I earn. My other set of close friends, I have made through mumsnet. As long as they don't treat me any differently, why on earth would I treat them differently? I don't want to be friends with people because we are similarly situated in life. I want to be friends with people because we value each other for kindness, support, humour, things in common.

I have had someone to change my sheets for over 25 years now, lucky me. I still like it. In fact thinking about nextg year when the boys leave home for unviersity and whether the balance between having someone in to clean v the disruption and having them around changes sheets has been a big issue. One child says he won't do his own if we didn't have the housekeeper/cleaner any more - lazy so and so (teenager not cleaner) and I'm certainly not changing an almost adult's bed. I think I could probably do my own and the towels, I will decide by next summer but part of that decision is wouldn't it be nice for the first time in 33 years (when we first hired a nanny - not live in ) not to have someone else in my house? First world problems. Mind you I've been up to my arms in oven cleaning this morning including videos of how to change the light bulb in there but in a way that's a choice. I ilke to try to fix things myself as much as possible.

There was a time when most middle clsas English houses had a live in servant. My parents' small detached builtin 1928 had a small bed room for the servant and even a bell which was still there though not working in the 60s when they bought the house, in the living room to ring for the servant. My grandmother went to India as a servant/nanny in the 1920s.

For me having no one around (something I never seem to achieve) is lovely. I even sold the island because fishermen kept landing on it so I never felt sufficiently away from other people. Si the idea of having more servants at home is not fun. I remember how much my mother hated having work men in and around the house (we had painters in for 8 weeks solid last summer and it was awful even though they were nice men). My mother gave up her cleaner as soon as we were teenagers as there was less to do and she also didn't like people around although as she wasn't tidy and hated cleaning (my father did a lot of it) I am not sure that was wise for her.

I also remember three children under 5, us both working full time, no money even for a clenaer, all baby clothes from Oxfam and 3 children in cloth nappies at night (lots of washing).

Libby, good luck. It sounds like you are trying to turn things around for the better. I think a lot of us on this thread have had some very hard times which makes us appreciate having a bit of spare money nowadays and understand what it is like not to have it.

We've gone slightly off thread and nearly up to 40 page maximum for posts but the original thread is what do you do. Lawyer in my case but lawyer who has practised without a break for 30 years plus. Newish lawyer (like my daughters) would not have the spare money for some of the material things on the thread. My teenagers and their friends are applying to university now and having to think about careers. It is very hard for people that age to know what to choose and also what you are going to want in life tends to change over your life too.

This thread has made me wonder.
Whilst we certainly don't earn that amount of money, my parents do.
Discussing with them and thinking about my own experience, I think there is a point where earning more money doesn't give you more iyswim.
I think that when you have reached a level where you can get more or less everything you feel is essential/you really want, then what else will money get you??
I know my parents don't spend half of what they earn. They are retired, go away when they feel like it (which yes is very nice), don't think twice about buying X or y if they really want it but most of the time, they don't actually feel they need the latest phone/holiday in paradise/whatever you think money could buy you.
I personally feel that if we were able to earn about £1k more (so small increase compare to what we are talking a pout here), I probably wouldn't feel we need more either.
So it makes me wonder, what do you think earning that level of money is giving you that you wouldnt get if you were earning, let's say £6k a month instead of £11k a month?

It is an interesting topic. The difference between £6k net a month and £11k in my case woudl have been the difference between 5 children at fee paying schools (£50k total a year - over £4k a month whilst paying over £7k a month mortgage) and children in the state system. So yes huge luxuries - school fees. Now I only have two children left at school to support I could earn less and indeed I've stopped doing most work travel, the trips abroad forwork up at 4am etc which I never liked (although I appreciate some people would see free foreign travel for work as a perk).

Most people at most income levels find as their income increases what they see as needs increases. I always have tried to make sure I keep the basics as cheap as I can - Tesco not Waitrose, eating in, not out so that if we were short of money I could easily manage on much less. I think it's important to remember what needs are rather than wants. Eg we are in a gym. That's a luxury not a need and I could easily cut it if we had to.

There isn't much I don't have that I want but that's probably more to do with my having simple needs and I would once the children are off my hands like to get some decent savings. But then I'm not really minted in the sense some people are.

As their income increases, what they see as need increases

Interesting point.
I can only say this didn't happen with my parents.
Maybe it depends on the reason why you started on that high earning path in the first place. My parents wanted to ensure they were financially secure, ie they would have enough money when retiring and if possible be financially independant before that. Not because they wanted the big house or the flashy car. It's simply still not the case now.

I suppose that if you see money as a way to evaluate success or as a way to show your abilities and your worth, then it's a different situation.

And then, you have the issue of fitting in too.