To feel depressed at financial talk on MN?

[FluffyPotato]

I understand that people sometimes have to talk salaries for context but I think some people just like to throw out numbers so that they show their middle class status to the rest of MN.

A thread I've just seen 'DH works 30 hours a week earning 60k' and someone commenting 'oh my DH earns 100k'.

I work bloody hard 40 hours a week and get about 1200 a month before tax.

AIBU to think that some MNers just like to boast their household income figures to others? Getting quite sick at how middle class mums net is.

Me too. But it's something I've had to learn and I see that it's something a particular section of society accept as a given.

I feel very strongly that all schools should be held to similar high standards. We can't just let bright poor kids rot or fail to achieve. We can't let poor kids who aren't super academic fail either - countries like Germany have nailed the non academic streams with good quality apprenticeship /technical vocational type streams. We need more of that, because right now far, far too many kids from WC backgrounds are being failed. They get told their only option is a degree, do a mediocre one and fail to get a decent job /have debt. Or they leave school and go into low skilled poorly paying work.

Where are the non academic skilled manual roles now? Gone mainly. Our carers, call centre workers, etc etc are paid shit wages, on precarious contracts and ha e no hope of progression. That's wrong. It damages individuals and it damages the economy.

If it makes you feel better OP I earn about £15k a year and I'm a single parent so mine is the only household income.

We survive OK with tax credit top ups and child maintenance from my ex. I couldn't imagine earning some of the salaries on here.

But equally I recognize that to be on a salary that high often takes years of hard work. I'm happy in a profession that pays less but I can go home and forget about at the end of the day. I work hard in my job but it's not my life.

I didn't post on the thread that I suspect prompted this thread - because whilst the question did ask for income details I find this all a little crass and uncomfortable. It doesn't bother me in the least if other posters wish to discuss it however (we are all different), I don't judge them, and I don't assume they are fantasists. I just don't read those particular threads because they don't pique my interest..

I have read quite a bit of this thread however, and frankly this thread is a bit chippy in places (other posters must be exaggerating their affluence), flirts with SAHM bashing at certain points and a few posters are quite niave (i.e. I don't earn that much, nobody I knows earns that much, ergo it is a fallacy that anyone earns that much)

Overall I am not keen on the disclosure of income etc...

(rambles on inconclusively and runs out of steam)

Oh dear Op - you sound a little bitter about people who earn more than you. Please don't be and I assure you - people on that thread were simply answering a question that was posed to them. It's not boasting to just answer a question - it bothers you because the salaries are high? My husband used to be in investment banking and he was one of the lower paid ones - we know people that made millions a year - but they didn't boast, it's just what they earned because of their position and expertise.

The OP does sound bitter about both people who earn more than them, and these "middle class" people. OP, I earn £55k, working about 50 hour weeks, I'm working class, my parents are both working class, I lived in a council house most of my life, (don't now, I have a mortgage) my parents still live there obviously, I didn't come from the "higher class than the impoverished working class", I came from the impoverished working class, there wasn't much luck going from that to where I am now, it was down to work, I don't believe in luck anyway.

I don't think when people say they work hard are trying to take it away from anyone else earning less than them, as if they're not working hard. Hell, I work hard for what I get, but still value people earning less than me.

Anat has obviously not been having building work done recently, but is spot on about the lack of opportunities for training in skilled trades. Years ago, when I did something else for a living, a client told me that if he wanted a team of time served bricklayers, or electricians, or plumbers who could also manage ventilation and AC systems, he'd have to wait weeks or months for them to fit him in, but if he needed lawyers or PR people he could make a few calls and have an orderly queue waiting outside the office by mid-afternoon!

Plastering is a good example: I have just waited four months to be slotted into my plasterer's diary. He's superb at what he does, and a lovely man who cleans up (and has reasonable taste in music); he charges towards the top end of the going rate locally, and desperately needs a strong young labourer to whom he can pass on his skill, but he can't find anyone that's been reliable, except a relative who's doddering. He's no longer young and working outside in the cold/heat day in and day out is causing arthritis that will curtail his fitness and ability to work well before he hits 67.

My mother said that discussing your income is vulgar.

oc sock

We built our own ;)

But yeah you're right. And you have to ask WHY can't he find someone? Is it because our current social climate looks down on any stream that isn't leading to a degree? Even though so many degrees aren't worth it? Yet plastering is a skill. There's a company who did some work for a colleague in Edinburgh - they restore the ornate plaster mouldings. Very skilled, very artistic work. Earn really good money.

Skilled trades can earn fantastic money. And why not? It's in demand, it takes skill and years of training and significant investment in tools. But it's seen as inferior somehow in the uk. Weird

I know plenty of people who earn loads more than me, when i hear the boasting about high salaries etc i ask myself 'But would i swap with them?' the answer is always 'Never in a million years!' . In my experience most people who earn a huge salary work extremely hard sacrificing family life etc etc, or they have taken risky decisions that have paid off ..for now...or they have very stressful responsibility, i
Or they have inherited vast amounts and are very ugly !!!

money is not the be all and end all. I know someone who just sold his business for £2m and was diagnosed with a terminal illness 6 months later. He has 2 years to live at the age of 52. I guess he would trade all his money for another 20 years.

I don't think salary is a good indicator of how talented someone is or how hard they work. Some of the most talented, hardest working people I know are broke just because what they are doing is not in a hugely profit making sector.

I don't think salary has much to do with class. I can think of a few mega bucks footballers who are never going to be seen as upper class!

I don't think salary necessarily has much to do with wealth. Some people can only earn their salary by living in a place where most of it is swallowed by rent, and they have no chance of buying.

I don't blame you for feeling a bit down reading things that make you feel worse off. We're only human.

The word 'chippy' is such a lazy way of putting people in their place, hmcAs. First heard it at university 25 years ago. Hated it then, hate it now.

I have never posted my income on here but it's anonymous so how can you show off to people you don't know?

I find it interesting to see what people earn, you can't talk about it in real life.

Who knows what's true anyway- I still fondly (and see around still) the poster who used a google image of a hotel bedroom and pretended it was hers on a thread.

TheNightmanCometh you came on to a thread that had an alleged lawyer on it and I was pretty sure that they were giving wrong advice, I was quite glad when you turned up and corrected it.

itshappening I agree. I have seen a few posts in this thread referring to how hard people work/train/progress for salary.

Some of us do all of that for a smaller pay packet.

I read the other thread and some of the figures leave me a bit but then I read about some people on the breadline or and feel grateful for everything I have. Namely a healthy family and a comfy life.

I think the UK is obsessed with money. Probably because of the inequality being rubbed in our faces by the media. Plus, having a Tory government doesn't help. I think the idea that we all have to be 'aspirational' is making people very unhappy.

I think having a successful career is having a job you enjoy. Having a successful life just means being happy with what you have.

Sometimes, I think about starting a thread on here because I am absolutely useless with money management, frequently overdrawn.

I would have to list how much we earn from our company though and where it goes and I know that I would get absolutely flamed if I posted the amount.

It's a shame really as I do think that MN gives amazing advice but I know what would happen.

I really hate the narrative that those who earn more work harder.

I was taught to never discuss money, I wouldn't share my income information on here or anywhere else where it wasn't actually needed. I also find it uncomfortable when some labour the point of how badly off they are.

I don't believe class relates to money at all.

I see where you're coming from OP. But I wonder if threads around salary are more likely to encourage higher earners to post, so they're skewed anyway?
Also, don't take things at face value. There was one thread asking how much people had in their bank accounts. My answer would have been £80k... However the full story is that that money was the first instalment of a self-build mortgage so it was really £80k of debt.

I totally understand why you feel a bit down reading about others salaries who work less hours than you. For example, I live in a tiny not v nice flat and my sister lives in a massive mansion and although I am really proud of what her and her husband have achieved sometimes it makes me wish I had achieved more and could afford a nicer home. But then I remind myself that I love going to my job everyday which is worth its weight in gold. And although our flat is not v nice, it is warm and safe and opposite my child's school. And whilst my sister might has amazing holidays in luxurious places, my daughter and I had four days in a b&b in Uk seaside town recently and I honestly don't think we could have had more fun anywhere else in the world! I am only going into this much detail because I really believe you can find joy in your own life in most circumstances and when you feel a little hard done by or down about other people's lives seeming better, just force yourself to focus on the positives in yours. Money doesn't always buy happiness. I know that is the ultimate cliche, but it really is true.

I think the UK is obsessed with money. Probably because of the inequality being rubbed in our faces by the media. Plus, having a Tory government doesn't help. I think the idea that we all have to be 'aspirational' is making people very unhappy.

I agree with this. Because what really grates with me is the idea that if you're not earning big bucks (or even worse, you're a SAHM) then you are some sort of parasite. There are a lot of ways to contribute to society and paying a lot of tax is only one of them. Some (not all, I hasten to add. Some!) very wealthy people have earned that money through very dubious means (eg running a company who cold calls people and bullies the vulnerable into signing up to pay for things that they can't afford). They have earned that money in a way that is legal. And they have probably put in long hours doing so. And they may have paid every penny of tax that they should pay. Does that make them 'good people'? Does it make them more morally upright than someone who is temporarily unemployed and reliant on benefits? Or someone who has forgone a career in order to care for someone else? Personally I don't think it does, but the commonly used narrative is that they are a better person because they pay high taxes.

LULZ at the person who wrote the 1st reply to this and said that class and income aren't related, presumably without irony. Some people love to pretend this is the case but it really isn't.

I'm not sure about the other threads but I am aware that we should all be much more open about money and salaries. The stigma in society is allowing a massive gender pay gap because women have been brought up to think its vulgar to talk about money or to ask for more of it. In Finland or Norway I forget which everyone's salaries are public because tax returns are public much harder to underpay people if everyone knows what everyone else earns

(Goes off on massive tangent...)

YABU. If a question is asked specifically about salary/money then posters will be answering. You don't have to read the answers.
Mostly I see threads where posters almost complete to be able to cope on the lowest salary.
Plus it's anonymous, who would you be boasting to?