To wonder what it's like to earn £200k per year?!

[ABCD1000]

Friend's husband earns just over £200k per year, with an annual £150k bonus for the last few years! No jealousy (much!) just wonder what life would be like?!

careless what saddens me is when i come on a supportive website and see women being horrible to each other, for no good reason except perhaps you're having a bad day.

it's very easy to pronounce on what people ought to do from the outside, I'm sure airbiscuits is doing her best. Ways out aren't always easy to find - sometimes you're in something niche and if you started applying for totally different stuff, people smell a rat. Also my DC wouldn't love to be turfed out of their homes, schools, childcare routines because I wanted an easier life. These things aren't simple...

Want2b...I most certainly do. Don't make assumptions. Your life sounds shit for your kids. YOU may believe it was worth the sacrifice. Whether they do only time will tell.

By the time this ridiculous but compulsive thread is finished I will almost pity people on £200k

It's just for some here all about hoarding money, outsourcing their roles as parents. never seeing each other and saving for a future .

That amount of stress is also bad for your health.

But in many ways I'm better off because I get to spend all day with my little boy. Hopefully when he grows up he won't remember his crappy start in life

He won't remember this time period at all. What he will come away with is a deep sense of being unconditionally loved and cared for, which is the greatest gift any of us can give our children.

I hope that your luck turns.

maybe some of us working too hard are also doing our best for our children, as we see it and according to what we can do?

These debates about money never focus on all the ways in which we face similar challenges - parental guilt, trying to be the best parent you can, health, family worries about extended family, tiredness etc.

It never ends up in a consensus, but always higher earners being berated for their choices - nice.

i wouldn't berate someone on a lower income for their choices and bang on about how their children were sentenced to a miserable life, even though lower earners are equally likely as me to have made some bad choices to get to where they are - this thread was surely supposed to be light-hearted about what it'd be like to suddenly get a huge income boost?

careless We have two disabled DC. Their lives were never going to be easy. The money we have has bought excellent therapy. It's bought us the option of me working in a well paid role that would keep this all going should DH fall ill or pass away.

Careless You sound very bitter and angry that others have made different choices to you.

Children can grow up happy and secure in a number of different environments. I know a family who are both civil servants and who are posted all over the world with their jobs. Their DD went to the boarding school where my DD was a day pupil and they were good friends. The school was her security and the place she felt grounded as her parents moved around a lot. She is a lovely young woman now and has not suffered due to the choices made by her parents. It has made her independent and resilient.

I think you need to accept that what works for one family does not work for another.

On a side note, we give money to charities and I do quite of bit of volunteer work. Most recent project was for homeless veterans. Food scarcity is something I'm involved in. When I was teaching, I worked in a high poverty school, and we provided all sorts of things to students.

We have a lovely home with a view, newish cars, multiple large TVs, and we take nice holidays (when DH can time away from work). We know how fortunate we are.

While my DH does work insanely hard, a lot of people work very hard for very little money. He has the luxury of doing work he finds mentally stimulating and he is treated with respect, but a lot of people are trying to eke out of living with mind numbing or body destroying jobs while treated badly. His work stress is about deadlines and money, but also its about other people's jobs. He screws up, and people who really need their jobs can lose them.

Well I am surprised that anyone busy earning £200k + has the time to look at MN!

Considering there's not that many people who earn 200k theres an awful lot kn this thread! #dontbelieveeverythingyouread

I don’t get people who say ‘well you don’t feel it because your expenses go up ‘
Surely those ‘expenses’ are paying for nice things though ? A better car, a bigger / better house , school fees, nicer holidays ?

"Well I am surprised that anyone busy earning £200k + has the time to look at MN!"

I think this is a bit of a fallacy, that people with wealth somehow always work exponentially harder or more intensely. I know a few people on over £100k and they don't work three times harder than the people I know on £30k. Some of the hardest working people I know, in terms of both hours, conditions and physical strain, are those who are the lowest earners working several jobs, e.g. in cleaning.

‘well you don’t feel it because your expenses go up ‘

As my mum would say "Oh bless, are your diamond shoes too tight?"

Careless some of us have to "outsource" as you call it (I suppose using a clinical word like that makes you feel better)

I'm a single parent so I'm pretty sure I have no fucking choice

Some of the hardest working people I know, in terms of both hours, conditions and physical strain, are those who are the lowest earners working several jobs, e.g. in cleaning

yes. absolutely. Some of them have to work harder at all other aspects of life because of transportation issues, paying more for a needed item from the local shop rather than buying it in bulk at a less expensive (but less accessible store), doing their laundry in a launderette, and so on. Everything is harder, and many items actual costs more.

There's a great book called "Nickeled and Dimed" on the life of the working poor in the US. Absolutely shows Coyote's point that stress at the bottom is far worse than at the top, albeit there are different triggers.

For most at the top, if it all went to shit tomorrow, they'd have enough squirrelled away not to be unduly concerned beyond badly dented pride. For those at the bottom, not so much.

It's definitely stressful having no money just a different kind of stress to working all hours in any job. As I said I'm not working atm but it's still stressful trying to figure out where money's going to come from, constantly checking the bank to make sure nothing unexpected has come out etc

It's all relative to current income anyway. I know for a fact if I suddenly had £100 left a week after bills to buy food nappies etc I'd feel rich, because that's double what I have now. If I had the income some people on here have I'd probably still buy cheaper items because I'm so used to scrimping.

Actually a lot of high earners don't have much saved. To lose their job is devastating. It's very common to be laid off in your 50s when at the peak of your career. The family have probably just got themselves in an ok place and the rug gets pulled out from under them. This is another reason why we don't live to our means. We live like we make £120k between us. Not a lot when you factor in quality childcare.

careless I have 18 year olds. And I can assure you that how happy, healthy, rounded and independent their peers are, how they're coping with life's challenges, how they're thriving has nothing to do with whether they had two working parents when they were growing up.

Quite, and whilst its a comforting narrative to say that wealthy people have really stressful, miserable, workaholic lives and no work-life balance, it's not really true.

Sure, having money has a few challenges of its own (like the tension between generosity and looking flashy) but they pale into insignificance compared to the specific issues of poverty.

You can't really compare "does Jeff think I'm tight because I assumed we'd split the restaurant bill and I now feel like he was expecting me to pay?" with "I have a fiver to last a week and x needs school shoes."

want2b V sensible. I feel like our generation (I think we're roughly the same age) haven't quite got our heads around how long we're going to live and that what we earn now has to potentially last us 40 years of retirement (most of my friends are still talking about being out by 55). I'm afraid I do have a hard time feeling sorry for people who have earned 500k plus for years and years and then get laid off at 55 and go "oh fuck". Talk about squander your luck.