High Earners on MN?

[BitOfFun]

How? The actual leader of my county council doesn't earn more than £100K- where and what are all these super-maxed out occupations? I genuinely don't understand how mumsnetters (often relatively young) access these magic jobs I've never heard of.

YABU- they are there for the taking, you just made poor choices

YANBU- people here are very creative and there's an outside chance they may be lying exaggerating.

I enjoy my job as a lawyer. I have worked from home since 1994. It is like being paid to do jig saw puzzles in a sense. it is very interesting and the law changes all the time so it is never boring either.

Of course it is always a mixture of factors as to why someone earns more than someone else - no one says otherwise but you tend to improve your chances to moving to the places where high paid jobs are, having good exam results and qualifications most people cannot attain, working hard and smartly and picking something were salaries tend to be high and not going part time or taking a lot of time off to have children.

If some people want to believe you cannot help make your own luck that's fine as they can pass that on to their children and it will mean less competition for any of my children who want to get on.

@ToryAldi

It’s all too easy to dismiss achievement as ‘luck’ and privilege, so not something attainable. That is the fallacy and the disservice so many do themselves or their children. Damning with low expectations. That is not the fallacy that is what you chose to believe because it has worked for you - it is not based on any analysis of the general population.

No that’s true. Analysis would show privilege and advantage helped but it’s really unfortunate that so many buy into the ‘ its not possible for me or mine’ myth. It worked for me through wise choices, hard work and determination. It worked for many I know through hard work and determination. You don’t need to be a genius to get good qualifications and references; you need to work hard and sacrifice other things. It depends what’s important.

If some people want to believe you cannot help make your own luck that's fine as they can pass that on to their children and it will mean less competition for any of my children who want to get on. Absolutely - good for the individual, to hell with the community - that is where this has taken us.

@ToryAldi

If some people want to believe you cannot help make your own luck that's fine as they can pass that on to their children and it will mean less competition for any of my children who want to get on. Absolutely - good for the individual, to hell with the community - that is where this has taken us.

Ill agree with you that’s a horrible attitude.

@cherrypavola I never said it was impossible I disputed that ridiculous suggestion but just for you I'll repeat what I said about making it -That's ridiculous of course it's possible - you'll have a better chance if you are better, worker harder, white, male, middle/upper class, hetrosexual(usually) and be luckier than everyone else - but that is not impossible!
You live your life - you don't call it luck, why would you?...you can't think beyond your own existence, that's pretty common.

Luck? I think hard work is more reliable. I think academic success is more reliable. We agree people have advantage, but it’s not beyond the grasp of the majority to earn a good living. The tragedy is the fallacy that ‘it’s not my fault’, ‘I didn’t go to a good school’, my parents were not supportive or a host of other lame excuses.
Children need to believe they can and that there is a point to sacrificing things like Reading or parties in Sixth form for later advantages.

Given sufficient working grey matter and determination, most people can achieve a reasonably high salary over time. There will be the odd situation that is limiting- sever disability like Huntingdon’s but there are few things that cannot be overcome to reach your goals.

Nonsense.

Do you realise that a high percentage of disabled women live in poverty? Do you really think they choose that life - do you assume they are all lazy and unmotivated?

That is jaw-droppingly offensive.

You are incredibly naive or thick or privileged (or all three) to assume that the economic ramifications of disability are confined to "sever disability like Huntingdon's"

Your ignorant attitude is actively dangerous to disabled people, because it upholds the lie that if you just wish hard enough to 'overcome' the physical reality of your disabled body, you can.

Dangerous and disingenuous and in my case, did irrevocable damage to my body.

aAbsentmindedWoman or perhaps it’s you making assumptions?

@CherryPavlova you literally said there are few things that cannot be overcome to reach your goal and you cite Huntingdon's as a disease you suppose is an acceptable limitation

Your Pollyanna-ish sweeping statement perfectly showcases your own limitations vis-a-vis the impact of disability and illness on economic achievement.

I agree with a lot of what you say but I think it's harsh to blame people for not understanding at the age of 17 or 18 that there were options out there. I think at that age you should reasonably be expected to understand the value in working hard at school and doing well in your exams but if you don't have anyone who can provide advice, or who can give you some guidance, there is a world of jobs that you just won't know exist. Or if you are given bad advice, you don't know that it's bad advice until you're knocking your head against a brick wall wondering why you can't get a foot on the ladder.

I really admire women who have made it against the odds. But equally I recognise that a lifetime of being told 'those jobs aren't for people like you' does knock your confidence badly. I'm turning my life around in my 40s because I believe it's never too late. But it certainly wasn't laziness or lack of drive that led my career to stagnate in my 20s. It was falling for the lie that working long hours and keeping your head down and taking on more and more work would eventually be rewarded because management would see what an asset you are. The lightbulb moment for me was when my manager laughed at the idea of promotion and said 'but why pay you more when you're always willing to do more anyway?'.

I’m a decent earner but not anywhere like 6 figures

But my husband comes home and all his clients are earning millions

Each day he mentions how one has just had a 2million bonus this year, another earns a million there,
It’s huge sums of money that I can’t ever imagine and wouldn’t normally believe existed but there are loads of them!

Children need to believe they can and that there is a point to sacrificing things like Reading or parties in Sixth form for later advantages. But only a few will - it's a lottery - if they all worked as hard and were equally as bright, still only a few would make it through. I know you desperately want to believe something different but it doesn't make it so.

There must be loads of ordinary workers on mn, earning ordinary money, but threads like 'what do you earn?' always have the higher earners falling over themselves to post...

There hasn’t been much talk of job satisfaction on this thread and I wonder how many of these high earners really love their job?

Me! I absolutely love my job.

It wasn’t always the case and I left and got sacked from jobs before that I hated. Also had a job that caused me such stress that I didn’t work for a year after it. It was horrific.

I will 100% admit that I got where I am because of luck.

While my parents were well off, it was from the family business which is a traditional trade so I never had contacts in Big 4 or anything. I didn’t take my education seriously, and my parents didn’t really understand the world of career advice as they didn’t have much formal education so weren’t too upset when I left university to work full time. I returned to education years later, just so I had the qualification to match my experience.
I’ve also never worked in the area I grew up in so didn’t have contacts/the favour of the local bank manager etc.

I kind of floundered around for a few years in an industry I hated and wasn’t much good at (sales).

I then fell into another industry by accident. I joined a start-up in a temp role after having to take a year out of work. I just wasn’t in the mindset to go back to my old industry and figured at least temping for three months would bring in a bit of money and would help get my confidence back up. I actually fluffed my CV slightly to give the impression I had a lot more experience in this particular area than I did. Most of my experience was theoretical.

By sheer luck, I ended up being really good at the thing I was brought in to do and then figured out a way to make it much more streamlined and cost effective. I was taken on permanently, the start-up happened to become a successful household name, and my salary tripled over the course of about 8 years.

I’m lucky-

• I had parents who I knew could give me a dig out financially if things got too bad (and I built up a lot of debt when I wasn’t working but didn’t tell them and paid it off myself- but I’d never have been homeless).
• I had no impediments to my ability to work such a disability, or dependence on unaffordable childcare
• I struck gold with a start-up and was one of the first in so was swept up the ladder.
• I just happened to make a career out of the one tacit skill I have, though I didn’t even realise I had it.

Apart from that, I’m a hard worker and quite bright, but I’d imagine an awful lot of people are and don’t have the earning capacity I have.

I love my job because the work gives me a lot of satisfaction, but also because I realise that the odds of it all coming together as it did were minimal.

I’m really lucky. Haven’t always been, won’t always be, but I am for now.

I can’t see why people would want to inflate anything, perhaps I am naive but it is an anonymous platform.

"I can’t see why people would want to inflate anything, perhaps I am naive but it is an anonymous platform."

You must be new to the internet.

@BLASTPROCESSING 😂😂

@RainingBatsAndFrogs, I saw my first child on Saturday evenings and Sundays mostly. Left the house before she woke, got home after she went to bed. This went on until she was about 6, when I had another child and started working fewer hours. From then, I usually saw them in the mornings four or so days a week, one or two evenings a week and on the weekends - we had nannies too so this worked quite well. Then a few years later I started working for myself and now I'm so involved they can't get away with anything .

Do I regret not seeing my older child much when she was young? Yes and no. Fortunately she is very well adapted and I don't think it has affected her. She's very independent and confident - partly nature party nurture, I think. My husband worked far less than I during this period, so she has a great bond with him. I'm not as closely bonded with my older child as with my younger child though, which makes me a bit sad sometimes. But all that work set us up financially and set up my career. If I had my time over, I'd work slightly smarter and be less prepared to say yes to everything - but hindsight is 20/20 and I'd still have worked full time and then some.

I wasn't being horrible. It si just the local conclusion if someone will not accept the view point that you have agency and can do at least something to improve your situation. If you convince your children of this kind of pointless defeatism it will not help them so don't. That was the point. If you choose to drum into them they are useless and life is against them and there is no point even in trying to pass their exams because their place in life is low earner that does not benefit them and thus it benefits the children of those parents who think you can do better by doing things like working hard and smartly.

The net result is the same as if you feed your children good food or read them stories or love and cuddle them - they thrive and that gives them an advantage over others. It is not a moral wrong. It is what I call love and any parent doing that is not destroying others but doing what they should. Also almost every week I do something even if it is just a helpful email to help someone trying to get on so it is not as if I just sit here only helping my children but the bottom line is I will help them and love them more than anyone else''s.

If we could get more people thinking effort can increase your chance of reward (and of course luck etc plays a part too ) then we do everyone good which is why I come on threads like this - to do good, to show women yes lots of women on MN earn over £100k, yes it's possible so encourage your daughter to be a leading surgeon not to work in Tescos. Then people say someone has to work in Tesco. That is true and that's fine (my delivers groceries for a living happily and his choice), but if people want to earn a lot (not necessary everyone's ideal) then they need to know what choices they could make to make that more likely.

I have never felt unbonded to my children by the way probably because they hardly slept. if you are breastfeeding every 2 or 3 hours all night and leave for work at 8am and get back at 6pm (which was my compromise) only to have the baby put straight on to you (gorgeous sweet little babies...) then you feel pretty bonded. With the twins I was based t home other than for meetings and they were brought to me to be breastfed for a year + which was even easier as no expressing milk at work.

If you convince your children of this kind of pointless defeatism it will not help them so don't. Stop being daft - no one one tells their kids it's all pointless - but if you want to project about everyone else's parenting while their are having a general discussion about current issues - knock yourself out!

Stop being daft - no one one tells their kids it's all pointless

Really? I bet they do. Maybe not in those words but ‘that’s not for people like us’ isn’t an uncommon sentiment.

I think it is about expectations, set in school as well - in my school most children were expected to go and work in local factories, not become professionals/business owners, that was a very long time ago though so no idea if that has changed. I did not do well in a-levels and originally dropped out of my degree although i finished it later, i ended up earning 100k in IT Consultancy because I had a niche area that i was interested in and confident about, now i earn half of that but don't have to commute and can WFH., I hope I can increase that again as the children get older.

@essexmum777

I think it is about expectations, set in school as well - in my school most children were expected to go and work in local factories, not become professionals/business owners, that was a very long time ago though so no idea if that has changed. I did not do well in a-levels and originally dropped out of my degree although i finished it later, i ended up earning 100k in IT Consultancy because I had a niche area that i was interested in and confident about, now i earn half of that but don't have to commute and can WFH., I hope I can increase that again as the children get older.

All the kids around here are heavily encouraged to go to university - but it's the skilled trades that are in hot demand and they are earning very well, you have to beg them to come to your house.

I think there are plenty of high earners (mostly obviously older generations at the moment as they are further in their careers). I think it does depend on your field- I am a nurse which would be classified as a good solid job and I am a nurse practitioner so doing well within my field and very independent. The ceiling of my ‘band’ is around £45K (higher in London) which is a good salary but not great considering I’ve been working for a long time and as a specialist in my field. However when I chose to do nursing I understood salary would be limited and enjoy my job work part time and am happy. I do find it interesting though that people’s perception of money is so different. Our household income is around £70K but with a mortgage bills and childcare we barely have 2p to rub together at the end of the month. I’m not complaining that is absolutely fine but a recent thread about how people afforded kids to go to uni had parents of 3 teens similar household income and were told they earns loads and should have plenty to give to kids each month. It’s very dependent on your lifestyle, peers, how you grew up etc whether your income is seen as good or bad.