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?!

I've been thinking a lot about this thread and what I do that makes my earnings so much more than say, my assistant. 3 times in the last 15 years I have been the person in charge of the decision to keep or close an office or a firm - that means to take the jobs of everyone involved.

Time one: Office with 500 people, 150 of them lawyers. "Make them profitable or close them down" was my mandate. I made them profitable. It was 19 months of 18-20 hour days, 7 days a week, people crying in my office multiple times every day. No mass layoff but quite a few positions and people - I did the terminations. Heart breaking, but ultimately worth the effort for the vast majority of the staff and their families who relied on their wage. For them. I quit in the end because my soul was broken.

Time two: Firm with 4 offices, 600 people in all. Economy turned. Partners started leaving, pulling out their equity. I clearly saw that this spelled doom. Only options to merge or dissolve. We merged, but it took 3 years of struggle, reorganization, lots of fighting and crying and ridiculous daily stress. All but 17 of the jobs were saved in the end. I had to lay off all of my director team, my closest peers and allies. It was horrendous. The bulk of those people are still there, feeding their families on their wages. I merged myself out of a job.

Time three: Smaller firm. Two offices, 150 people. Founders aging, huge settlement, money arguments and retirements looming. Close the firm or reorganize. We closed one office but got everyone picked up by a peer firm, so generous severance and a job to go to the following week. Still heartbreaking. I face each person and tell them the news. They know it means that we have not chosen to keep them. That they don't matter, basically are not good enough. That keeps me awake at night. Have reorganized, fired biggest client because we could no longer service them, and rebuilt on a smaller scale. Now very stable, and future looks rosy. For now.

I'm the one who makes the recommendations, and executes them, for good or for bad. I don't get invited to the lunches or drinks or whatever, but that's okay. I get paid the ‘big bucks’ they say. I can’t wait to retire.

I don't think there is much relationship between earning a high salary and working hard at all. There are plenty of instances of people earning very well and having a very comfortable life, and also people working extremely hard for very little. It is more to do with education and opportunities early in life. Plus some good choices and some innate abilities. And pure luck.

We certainly earn a lot more than average, while probably working rather less hard than average to be honest!

Agree, generally the more I have got paid, the easier my job has become. But then I don't find taking responsibility or decision making hard. What I find hard is having to enact shit decisions that you know will not work.

a mortgage of 2k is 22% of your salery

I don't really think a mortgage of £2k is high anyway!

Wow! A mortgage of £2k a month is insanely high.

Let me be the first to say that I earn well above average salary and don't work particularly hard. I find having no major financial worries amazing and am grateful for that, and also trying my best to get myself financially secure for whatever life throws at me. High earners wondering why they have pissed all their money away can cry me a river. Most people don't have a choice in life, at least high earners do.

It's obscene. No one needs that much money. A mum of 4 died alone in her home because she was too ill to attend an interview and her benefits were stopped. Something very wrong somewhere.

If I earned £200k year, I'd want to just work for few weeks a year and live on £30k, tbh

If only jobs worked like that!
Although once you’ve reached a certain level in an industry, you can give yourself a ‘soft landing’ to retirement by taking on a few non-exec directorships

They typically pay £25-50k a year and require you to attend board meetings (with prep beforehand) plus oversee any projects/transformations relevant to your professional expertise

It’s definitely my plan to pick up 2 or 3 when I get to my 50s, and then wind down my day job...

Yes which is why rich people don't care about retirement age going up, it doesn't affect them.

Where I live, I would think most people earn at least £200 k, otherwise I don't think they would be able to buy a house.

DH used to be an options trader before setting up his own business about 15 years ago. He now employs about 300 people, as well as others in about 10 countries overseas. Some of them are on £250 k salaries.

People like DH (and he has a lot of very similar friends) don't really have what most people would call a normal idea of work/life balance. They are not likely to get to the point where "enough is enough". It's not about the money. Once you set a ball in motion, things snowball and take on a life of their own. His peers are all of a similar mentality. It's like an addiction really and they want to see how far they can push it.

So while they may feel momentarily pleased after a multi-million deal or sale of shares, they just reinvest in the "next thing". DH is obsessed with making a "generational difference". He has no interest in material stuff at all, though he has bought two Ferraris - that's it. I have to constantly remind him that he doesn't need to worry about our finances and that he's been successful because he doesn't see this. I try and persuade him to live in the here and now because it's not helpful to be perpetually focused on distant horizon. We have 3 DC and they are super lucky that they will never have to struggle-financially. I genuinely don't know what it would take for DH to be able to stop and "take stock" though. He is 47. Maybe one day!

sparechange That is my DH's plan too! Retire around 55/56 then do some non-exec roles.

I am mid 50s working full time.Looking forward to retiring at 67.

I used to earn just under half that (minus the bonus) and the earning potential going forwards (possibility of equity partnership in a law firm) was huge (probs around 400-500k a year, if not more) but I was literally expected to be available at all times. It was also a very stressful role which affected me mentally and manifested itself in physical symptoms.

I had a long hard think and decided having a family was more important so swapped it for an alternative job, part time hours. Irony is, no family yet, due to miscarriage but that was on first go so hoping it works out. Much happier now in terms of stress levels. I no longer have to check emails evenings, weekends, holidays, at my brother's wedding....

We still earn decent amounts - nice house (with a mortgage obviously!), 2 rental properties, lots of holidays, don't really need to think about what we put in the shopping basket, though I am sometimes envious of people who earn loads as sometimes feel maybe I shouldn't have given it up.

Plus, most of my friends are lawyers, all on similar amounts to OP person, but bloody hell they work for it. 1am most times, back in at 7am. Weekends and holidays are not theirs to do with as they please.

I think I mainly worry that we won't have enough for the future, which I guess you don't have to worry about when you earn as much as the OP person. That said, if I'd carried on the way I had, I might not have been here in the future.

'He has no interest in material stuff at all, though he has bought two Ferraris - that's it though'

Ha!

not as amazing as you'd expect. Different pressures, different expenses and for most still a fair amount of stress and worry about money.

OH COME ON!!! How can you ever compare this to a single mother trying to go down the back of the sofa to find the odd pound coin to add to the grocery list... OH your stresses must be awful, you poor, poor things. Try a real life! Try having an unexpected MASSIVE change in your life, due to no fault of your own, and bringing up two small children LITERALLY on the breadline... then, and then only might you actually begin to grasp the "stress" of it. You TWAT!!!

I said this. And not once in that post did I say anything about it being anything like being a single parent struggling for money. And for what its worth I was brought up on a really crappy council estate with parents each working two jobs and know full well what its like to be at both ends of the spectrum.

I simply said it comes with different expenses and different pressures and that level of income does not mean that you are immune to financial worries.

My husband and I earn about £60k between us. It's fine because although we live in London, I was lucky with buying property and we have ended up in a large 4 bed house with small mortgage. We feel pretty comfortable, even with 3 boys.

I do wish we had a secret briefcase of money for holidays though...that's about all I'd wish for.

I just don't see how you can compare the types of stress. Someone who doesn't know how their kids are going to eat - that's one thing. Someone who is working 18 hour days, no weekends or evenings, holidays cancelled regularly, huge amounts of money and other people's employment riding on it - that's another.

If you can't see how both are terribly stressful, just in very different ways, then you're being biased, sorry. For example, one parent worries she can't feed her child properly but gets to spend lots of time with him; the other might be able to feed him duchy organics for every meal, but worries that she never sees him, has to miss all his school plays and sports matches, lets him down on holidays and weekend arrangements.

news No-0ne on an income of £350K should be having any financial worries. Really.

Exactly silver & open pretty much everyone I know pays close to that as the norm.

Actually one of my friends who I think will turn out the wealthiest of us all works in the civil service. Got on the housing ladder in her early 20s so 10 years or so ago. Now in a property worth 850k with 600k equity. Went straight into the role after her a-levels & they subsequently paid for her degree. Managed to get in before they changed the pension rules so she's got one of those gold plated pensions. Having children hasn't really affected her career, she was able to drop down to part time but still gets promotions etc.

Research into stress shows that a lack of control type of stress, is the most damaging to your physical and mental health.

@Rebeccaslicker As I have said I have been both and I can tell you that being poor was more stressful.

Yes running a business is stressful and in a different way, but more stressful that chosing whether to heat or eat or if you are going to make that months rent? No.