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.

Tess123 - sorry but I don't agree that everyone lives to their limit. savings and practicality is very common amongst the MC, just look at the recent thread about levels of savings, many people felt uncomfortable saying an actual number, but said things like "we have a year's salary saved" or "we have 6 months mortgage and bills worth saved"

We're up to 8months worth, aiming for a year at least, and that would need to be a crisis to touch it.

@LucySky, your mention of domestic violence figures contradict something I read earlier (Theodore Dalrymple, if SerfTerf is reading!) in which he writes "the harvest of the sexual revolution has not been a brave new world of human happiness but rather an enormous increase in violence between the sexes". He links the influences of sexual liberationist views from Kinsey to RD Laing (inter alia) with "a huge increase" in DV injuries to women that he treated in Birmingham between the 1970s and the 1990s (when the article was published). I presume it would be possible to unearth more up to date stats to establish whether the trend has flattened and/or declined, as you suggest it has, but is there evidence that DV is on a downward trend you have seen?

Sorry, "the influence..." Reading back Lucy, which era did you have in mind when DV was worse? Statistically, the first half of the 20th century was probably safer than most of history, so that would be the benchmark from which TD is extrapolating. [Guessing].

Oh, so you'd prefer that everyone on mumsnet keeps shtum if they earn anything more than the £1200 a month you make?
It makes you feel inadequate does it?

you made your choice of career don't piss and moan about people who make more.

I'd suggest if you get so upset by it, then maybe keep away from them types of post.

"Accused of being middle class"

What's wrong with being middle class? (Or working class or upper class) it's not like you can help where you're born.

Quite! Never get the class loathing.

There is always going to be someone richer than you, better looking, clever etc.

Who cares? They have to lead their life and you have to lead yours. Being envious or bitter doesn't change anything. Besides, maybe they have a miserable life besides what you can see?

Silentpool quite right comparison is the thief of joy or something like that.

(It was certainly the case from about 1850 to now that many British men got drunk on a Friday night and came home and beat up their wife and children and police often in the past did not get involved. I would be surprised if it were more common now. It usedto be lawful to beat your wife in English law for a start.... anyway it's a bit of a side track. A lot of sexist men would love to say men beat women because of feminism so I woudl have to do a lot of research and digging to find out the real figures. Taking lead out of petrol for example has hugely reduced violence in the West for a start.)

I would imagine it can be galling if you are working very hard but are poorly paid. Someone has to take lower paid jobs but if you are struggling then it can be hard to see someone else earning more with a seemingly easier workload.

Then again I've just had three years of full benefits and am about to go back to work full time as a carer. I will take home around £1500 after tax which seems a fortune to me. I am beyond excited at such riches and I won't need benefits anymore either. One thing I have done as a result of this is join the local swanky gym at £50 a month! Unthinkable before but I will be able to afford it now....and it's my luxury treat to myself.

Many physically demanding jobs are low paid. As a society we value skill, and put a price on risk.

Highly skilled jobs pay more
High risk jobs pay more.

I should add that the skill needs to be a skill that is valued.

Yeah the skill plus how much it earns.

Or scientists would be rolling in it (and we aren't...)

Lucksky details here on the terrible history of violence against women.

http://www.historyofwomen.org/wifebeatingthumb.html

If you live in a world where your peers are all graduate professionals on £50k + salaries, then it's not boasting to state that your household income is £65k per year, or similar. It's just normal for you and the life you live.

And if some envious soul earning £15k a year has a problem with that, then I really don't give a shit.

I have a dabilitating illness and can't get out of bed most days. My salary is nil. I'd rather have my health than wealth. I have neither. I think you are all lucky. Life is about what you make of it, not what you make.

Jemima- nice. Just don't forget you won the lottery of life, as have I. It's just luck.

I think it would be utterly reprehensible for someone to go on a credit crunch thread or similar to mention their large income, but if it's context of a thread then it's a matter of fact, just like your income is a fact OP. Sometimes, people aren't just going out of their way to make people feel like shit. It is just their truth, just like your truth is your truth. It's never about you, always but them, whether it's their truth or their fantasy.

And if some envious soul earning £15k a year has a problem with that, then I really don't give a shit.

There are, always of course, exceptions and some people are just lacking the empathy gene.

Surely there's no reason to assume the number of women seeking treatment for dv accurately reflects the number experiencing it?

I once read that, when asked, most people would rather live in a world where they earned £50k, while everyone else earned £40k but the cost of living a nice life was £60k than earn £50k while everyone else earned £60k but the cost of living a nice life was £40k, which makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

They're saying they don't mind struggling as long as they're in a better position than everyone else and would prefer that situation to one where everyone had enough, but others had more than them .

Blingy, yeah just like some people have a too large envy gene.

Jesus, Jemima, maybe stand down a bit? I have one of those graduate professional jobs too, and I'm not personally affronted by someone who earns minimum wage thinking I've got it better than they have.

I'm not offended by them either, but a really need to recognize that everyone is different. I know of people who earn hundreds of thousands of pounds. I don't envy them, I just recognized that is their normal lifestyle. And I don't feel they are living that lifestyle deliberately just to make me feel inferior in a financial sense.

Of course people might but no different to when people do it in real life really. Sometimes it may be in context sometimes it might just be a brag either way I don't care.