AIBU to think that the majority of people on here are middle class and high earners?

[Kaylasmum49]

Just curious.

And I speak as someone who has, in their orbit, a family with a 14 year old DC who is given £1000pcm spending money

but that's the point, you really think that an income of 85k is enough for everyone to give £1k spending money?

People are completely deluded about real costs of life.

And that's exactly the problem: if you think that once you earn £85k you are rich, you will be bitterly disappointed.

Shops like Primark and Aldi do not deliver for a start... so it's easy to say you should stick with those, not everyone can.

I work in recruitment, regardless of my own income, I can assure you that £85k is not much, and higher salaries a lot more common than people pretend.

Anyone working in fields like tax, accountancy, estate agencies.. will tell you exactly the same.

Nobody with any decency discloses their income to anyone, far less total strangers on the internet. It’s akin to grabbing a passing stranger on the street and blurting it out. Just odd.
Equally odd are the people who invent an income for themselves. Odder still, is the fact that they feel aggrieved when fellow posters are not inclined to believe them.

I also find it hard to believe that people who are not overly familiar with punctuation, work in positions which reward them financially to an oh so astonishing degree!

Very working class here. I lurk rather than post as a rule though.

Janegrey333
It's an international forum. I have a degree for example. English is not my first language, you could assume anything from reading my posts, you wouldn't have a clue of my background or situation just based on my spelling and grammar.

I do agree with you when someone uses "I should OF done something though

but regardless, I don't agree with the OP, there are posters from all levels on here, clearly

but the ones who are working probably pay commuting charges or need a car, childcare costs etc. You can't just compare net salaries there are also outgoings

Someone earning £12k is as likely to need a car or having travel costs as someone earning £100k. Why would you think they wouldn't?

In fact, given the current situation, I'd argue that those on low incomes are possibly now more likely to need a car...you can work retail/caring/factory jobs from home whereas many high earning office based roles can be.

I'm middle class - parents professionals, privately educated - but have a tiny income as I live on disability benefits and UC. The UC people agree that I will never work again so I don't have to prove anything. I have felt very lucky during the pandemic as at least my income is entirely stable and predictable.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

And I speak as someone who has, in their orbit, a family with a 14 year old DC who is given £1000pcm spending money

but that's the point, you really think that an income of 85k is enough for everyone to give £1k spending money?

People are completely deluded about real costs of life.

And that's exactly the problem: if you think that once you earn £85k you are rich, you will be bitterly disappointed.

Shops like Primark and Aldi do not deliver for a start... so it's easy to say you should stick with those, not everyone can.

Of course I don't think that. That wasn't my point at all. That family are the super rich. The spending money doesn't even include the clothing allowance. It's just pocket money.

My point was about you comparing someone on £85k - whatever their geographical location and disposable income - to those who are living in such poverty that they have to rely on Free School Meals. They couldn't have a delivery in many cases anyway, even from Aldi, because they can't afford the £40pw or whatever minimum spend on food, or justify wasting pounds on delivery charges, let alone on clothing, even inexpensive clothing.

I can assure you that £85k is not much, and higher salaries a lot more common than people pretend

The most basic overview of UK incomes (Google it, there are plenty readily available) will tell you that £85k salaries are incredibly high and relatively rare when compared to the general population.

If £85k is on the lower end of the type of salary you see in your recruitment role, surely you don't need a stranger to point out that your role must deal with the higher end of the spectrum - and that your limited experience doesn't mean these salaries are common or representative of most earners in the UK?

I think it's an interesting topic because this is a female dominated site & we know it's harder for women to earn the higher salaries. Do I think some posters lie & stretch the true? Yes. For one there are not a lot of women who earn over 120k statistically so 50% of them are not on MNs.
People think a 100k salary is not high because even though it's puts them in the 1% (not sure exact %) there is huge extremes within that. For example DH earns a good salary but works with people who earn 1.5m. Then there's the fact that earning 100k today if you're young is unlikely to give you the same lifestyle as someone older who earned nowhere near that.
However they are genuine posters & I think it's important to talk about jobs. I've discussed what family members earn as teachers for example & been told I was lying. There's also a lot of disparity within industries, a lawyer in a high street firm up North may earn 40k whereas one in a Magic Circle firm can earn 2m.

Average earnings in Sheffield
www.payscale.com/research/UK/Location=Sheffield-England%3A-Sheffield/Salary

I am fully aware that head teachers, hospital consultants, managing directots, senior partners in law firms etc are on much higher salaries, but I don't personally know any. Most of our friends are retired.

@Janegrey333

Nobody with any decency discloses their income to anyone, far less total strangers on the internet. It’s akin to grabbing a passing stranger on the street and blurting it out. Just odd. Equally odd are the people who invent an income for themselves. Odder still, is the fact that they feel aggrieved when fellow posters are not inclined to believe them.

Discussing this out salary is indecent? Very odd way to measure decency and a very odd relationship with money.

I think several posters have gotten it right when they say many of us live in bubbles with others who have similar incomes, education, and values, and Mumsnet may be the only place where we encounter people who are different. Because of that, the posts that seem to describe an unknown and sometimes incomprehensible world can stick out to the point of being difficult to believe.

To me, Mumsnet seems oddly and quite unbelievably populated with women who live next to criminally antisocial neighbours and with useless men who keep their finances separate and won’t pay for a takeaway for their pregnant partner. Often these women seem, rather implausibly, to accept their lot or even find it amusing. (A woman who found it amusing that her partner had come home drunk and peed in the kitchen springs to mind.) I’ve never seen anything remotely like this in real life and just don’t believe there are women who put up with all this, so these posts stand out to me, and I might therefore overestimate the proportion of posts these comprise.

My guess is that there are people, perhaps paid by Mumsnet to increase traffic or perhaps just bored, who post as either rich, clueless gits or ridiculously low-class basket cases to get us all worked up, which can make the site seem more skewed to middle- or lower-class women, depending on which ones grab your attention.

To me, Mumsnet seems oddly and quite unbelievably populated with women who live next to criminally antisocial neighbours and with useless men who keep their finances separate and won’t pay for a takeaway for their pregnant partner. Often these women seem, rather implausibly, to accept their lot or even find it amusing. (A woman who found it amusing that her partner had come home drunk and peed in the kitchen springs to mind.) I’ve never seen anything remotely like this in real life and just don’t believe there are women who put up with all this, so these posts stand out to me, and I might therefore overestimate the proportion of posts these comprise.

Agree with this I've lived a very class- and location-mobile life, having started out in a very impoverished WC home, gone to an elite university where I met a lot of people from higher social classes and wealth, have moved around the world a lot, and now work in a professional job, so I'm not someone who's lived a particularly sheltered existence, and socially I know bin men and Honourables but I don't recognise the useless men narrative that's so common on here. I've had drug dealers and a crack house next door in two different countries, and lived in a squat, but never had the kind of batshit neighbour situations so often written about on here.

On the other hand, I thought the kind of woman who obsessed about being houseproud and for whom unannounced visitors were a horror and assumed to be judging her floors was a Mn fiction in the 21st century, until I moved to a Midlands village and met them at baby groups. They're real.

To me, Mumsnet seems oddly and quite unbelievably populated with women who live next to criminally antisocial neighbours and with useless men who keep their finances separate and won’t pay for a takeaway for their pregnant partner. Often these women seem, rather implausibly, to accept their lot

I agree. And they then go on to tell us that they are TTC/pregnant/planning more children. Why?

if you haven’t grown up with wealth it’s hard to change your mindset. Our lifestyle will change for sure but we aren’t rushing into any major changes and are doing boring things like overpaying the mortgage in the meantime (we managed to buy before the change in income). It works for us [shrug]

Some things ring true and others not.
People growing up very wealthy with no idea of how poor people struggle is one thing but anyone saying 'I've pulled myself out of that but don't want any of the benefits I'll still act poor' is something that I've never seen in rl. Why would you? What's the point then in a bigger income and possibly more stressful job.
Yet on mn the common theme is we're rich but no one knows, we still live like scruffs, never heat the house, drive a falling to bits car etc etc.
People in rl use the money to improve what they have. That's why most people want to achieve in the first place to improve their and their families lives in some way. I know two people from rough places who have done very well for themselves and the first thing they did was look for a nice home in a nicer area. They are still in touch with some of the people who still live there and haven't changed in themselves but took opportunities like they did in their careers. Not many people are ambitious in one area of their lives but not the other.

While MN is definitely MC, it stands to reason there will be few actual high earners and quite a lot of Belinder Bullshitters - the internet draws out fantasists like nothing else.

The attitude to money is, generally, hilariously deluded though. Like this thread comparing someone on £85k to a household having FSM.

Then there was a recent thread when a poster asked if her DH was right to worry they only had £1.5k a month disposable. This was the best reply:

It seems quite a generous amount of pocket money. I think a lot of people will wonder how you have high paid jobs, if you really have the low level of critical thinking and empathy that your post indicates.

i think that MN is very skewed towards London and SEast which is very expensive. E.g. we have 7k coming in per month after pensions/taxes but - but 5k goes straight out on mortgage, childcare, commuting. What does that make us? If I look at my friends who live outside London our lifestyle is frankly pretty rubbish but on paper, we make decent money.

Nobody with any decency discloses their income to anyone, far less total strangers on the internet

I totally disagree. Disclosing salary where relevant is critical to ensuring that women in particular do not have their salaries suppressed though opaque recruitment and salary negotiation processes.

Disclosing ones salary can make you feel vulnerable but actually it’s a decent thing to to do as it breaks down barriers.

There is a poster on this thread being accused of being a fantasist thanks to achieving a good salary by 30. When the reality is that law firms and consulting firms are stuffed full of 30 years olds earning 6 figures. If you don’t know this is a possibility then you can’t strive for it.

Pay bands can be incredibly broad in private companies. The people that do well out of them are those that understand their worth and unfortunately those tend to be the middle class white men (and of course the company). Women would do well to get informed and use that information to their advantage.

E.g. we have 7k coming in per month after pensions/taxes but - but 5k goes straight out on mortgage, childcare, commuting. What does that make us?

Extremely well off. Out-earning most peoples wildest dreams.

Do you think it makes you something else?

@SimplySusanna

E.g. we have 7k coming in per month after pensions/taxes but - but 5k goes straight out on mortgage, childcare, commuting. What does that make us?

Extremely well off. Out-earning most peoples wildest dreams.

Do you think it makes you something else?

I think you missed the point. Salaries are relative to where you live. Someone earning £100k in London probably lives in accommodation that is worse in quality and size than someone who earns half of that in the north. Many times salaries are a reflection of where you live rather than an indicator of your lifestyle. That said, where you live has an impact on your future prospects. Someone earning £100k in London is more likely to get to £500k eventually than someone earning the same in the north.

@SimplySusanna - not to get into the details here - but the point is that despite our salary - we can only afford a two-bed place, our kids share, our mortgage is very high and very long for a rubbish house. Our car is very old etc.

At our age - 40s a lot of my friends outside London - now have a very small mortgage and their childcare bill seems tiny. And most have a lot more disposable income than us and cant fathom how we can live somewhere so small and rubbish whilst for us this is absolutely the most we could ever afford

and am in no way sayig that we are poor. ..we are not, but our basic lifestyle does not reflect our wage packet

@littlepattilou

The thing is that the 5% you mention is taken from HMRC PAYE earnings. Most people earning that type of money or more, know how to arrange it so that their earnings dont show up at all. There's an army of accountants and financial advisors dedicated to this sole purpose. It hides the true wealth and earnings of the well off.