To ask if you earn a lot LESS than 50k per year?

[Afternooninthepark]

On the back of another thread which was asking about £50k + earners (and me being naturally nosy!) I just wonder if there are many on here earning a lot less and wonder what you do for a living?
I’ve been on Mumsnet for years and there does seem to be many very high earners on here with some very interesting careers.
I’m not one of them unfortunately. Dh earns around £35k pa (45 hrs pw) and due to some health issues I only work very part time. We are both in everyday kind of jobs not careers but we are very happy nonetheless.
Anyone else earning an ‘average’ wage in ‘average’ jobs?

I'm a live-in church caretaker & I earn £3,806 per annum. The job comes with a flat above the church hall but I pay all bills, Council tax etc.

How on earth do you manage it! That's a pittance.

Civil servant I earn £25,000 pa. My husband earns around £10,000 pa as a waiter.

Tbh I know it's little but it doesn't feel like it. I don't know anyone on a salary higher than £30,000 (granted out of a small group of about 20 people but saying that I don't know anyone I went to school with who would be on a higher salary) let alone even a joint income of 50k. I don't have a degree myself so it's as much as I think I should be earning. I have friends however with masters on the same wage or less than me, so that would anger me in their position.

It helps living in Northern Ireland where the cost of living is less. The average wage in NI is £525 a week so £27,300 pa.

The cost of living issue always comes up on these threads. And it's valid. Because we live in a society where age and region can make such substantial differences to housing costs. Some people's access to top up benefits is hugely different to that of others too, or if you prefer to see it that way, the level of access the same person might have at different points in their life.

There's also partners and, much harder to quantify but still really important, wider family/social support. Someone mentioned 11k always being a low income earlier. When I earned that, I was very comfortable, because I had a partner who also worked and free childcare from nearby family, and it didn't take me that many hours per week to earn it. So the wage easily covered my family's food and housing costs every month. As a single person paying private rent on the other hand, it would've been very tough.

There are of course people for whom this isn't the case, some incomes are so high that you'll be rich wherever you live, or so low that there's nowhere affordable you could go. But as a general rule, I'd much rather be on 30k in Northern Ireland or Newcastle than 40k in London or Brighton. And those on low incomes in the most expensive areas have a particularly hard time of it.

@Thymelord. I agree with that, for someone on an average salary with fairly low outgoings, as we are.

There will be a lot of people on very low salary / benefits where they have instability of housing and other struggles, but for someone in average salary with manageable outgoings, as long as they have their health, they can be just as happy as someone earning £100k+

Midsommar
I'm on 30k, working in the construction industry (office based)
I was SO shocked to see just how many neuroscientists and astronauts and other fantastic occupations seem to dwell in the depths of Mumsnet...a lot of little porky pies lurking I reckon!!

Jealous much?

NHS employee. Clinical. around £45K a year.

Nursery worker, 30 hours, earn about 12/13k a year

Just have a look at your local rightmove and zoopla and check the sold prices, that might give you an indication

I have never earned £50k a year and neither has my dp yet we have two rentals, a holiday cottage and our own home. In our case it was saving up and buying young, buying the right house at the right time, investing an inheritance, paying down the mortgage, never having debts, etc.

Cost of living is not valid. Do you really think people on lower salaries do not live in wealthy areas? Or if they were born there that they are not forced out of areas they grew up in because they can't afford to stay there?
My DP's family lived in a village for hundreds of years. Since 20 years ago none of them live there because none of them can afford to. I can imagine the well off people who have moved in on MN saying, oh we only earn 100k, but our outgoings are so high that we need to.
Meanwhile DPs family all live much further apart and in some cases have quite a bit of a commute to work.
Cost of living is always a bollocks argument.

BootShakin I'm the top Schwachfugologist at The Institute, currently on loan to NASA and earning more money than you can imagine (as a result of all my own non derivative hard work against all odds, having been found in a handbag as a baby and grown up with nothing, obviously) no matter how much you can imagine, and if you don't believe me that can only prove that you are jealous and not that I am enjoying indulging a little fantasy daydream life on the internet.

It really isn't. I have a lower income but a nicer standard of living than my friends earning much more in more expensive areas of the country. The only reason for this is that my cost of living is lower. Their choice, of course, but it is a fact nonetheless.

The problem with the cost of living argument arises when people try and use it to minimise the difference that income levels can actually make in many cases. It's equally daft to ignore either side of the picture.

A lot less !

Me and DP both earn about £13000 pa. I work 37hrs and dp works 40. I'm an admin worker for local council and dp works in a warehouse

I’m a university admin on £25k a year. DH is a postman and earns less than that.

We don’t have a lot of outgoings though (inherited his granny’s house outright) so we have a decent car, new phones, a couple of holidays a year, can afford to buy pretty much what we like.

I’m starting a full time PhD later this year though, will be living on a stipend so that’s going to be an adjustment. I’ll lose about £450 a month but we’ll get a council tax discount, my travel costs should go down, and I’ll downgrade to a sim-only phone contract in June. I still won’t be destitute!

alloutoffucks you've completely misunderstood what people are saying about cost of living on this specific thread. Obviously people claiming to be poor on 100k are being deliberately obtuse and lacking in imagination...

However how poor you are on 16k depends massively on multiple variables, including whether anyone else is propping you up (living rent and bills free with relatives, receiving free childcare, living in an inherited property mortgage free paying only bills, or paying high rent and expensive childcare. Or indeed a low earner married to a high earner.)

The thread was about which jobs people do within a certain salary range. There are plenty of TAs, veterinary assistants, receptionists, people doing 2 days a week for a charity and all sorts of other part time or term time only workers, especially women, on 11k who are married to high earners, working for a variety of reasons but not primarily to pay the rent...

Full time teacher, £35k

DH earns around £27k including bonuses each month. Works 40+ hours a week. Retail
Currently I'm on £12k a year. (Hca in community) Working 30 hours a week. About to start a new position next week (promotion) working 40 hours a week £23k

Car dealership
17.5k basic but around another 6k in commission (paid monthly) on a good month commission can be 1k, bad month nothing but usually it's around £600

21k, fulltime

Work in education (nursery)

@BootShakin not jealous at all as a matter of fact, I'm very happy with my lifestyle. I'm pretty sure I've seen similar comments from other users suggesting that a lot of people exaggerate and make stuff up on here. Welcome to the internet! Anyway I am not here for arguments, there is enough negativity in the world right now.

@anothernotherone can I join you in that astronaut fantasy please!

Deputy manager in nhs forensic mh unit £32k

I earnt half as much again working as a PA in the city 15 years ago ...

@posterMidsommar I feel sad whenever a woman especially says oh she can't be earning that much / be that successful, it's a fib. It's that kind of mindset that keeps people far from where they want to be. The ceiling is in your mind.

There are definitely bullshitters and fantasists on here, but they're not all pretending to be rich by any means. We've had a troll on here who was a fake trainee nurse and another who constructed a whole persona around living in a one bed flat with twins.