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

[Kaylasmum49]

Just curious.

Land ❌
Labrador ✅
Earn c90-100k ✅
Private schooling ❌
Chalet/2nd home ❌
Long commute ✅
Nanny ✅
Cleaner ✅
High earning husband ❌
Red brick degree ✅
Aga ❌
Working class background ✅

Takes all sorts really

Yes, lots of rich people and I don't think they're faking.
I remember a discussion about what a 'decent wage' was. I was expecting people to say something like £10/h, but people were suggesting things like 60k.
Look at any thread about hosting guests. Not only do most on here have spare rooms, they even have guest bedrooms. I was confused for a while about all the talk of providing toiletries for guests because I thought 'why can't all the guests just use whatever's in the bathroom' then realised they are different bathrooms. Also the casual suggestion of asking relatives to stay in hotels - because the average here is well off they think nothing of it.
Look at the Style & Beauty threads or any threads about buying things and you'll see that they consider normal high street shops to be very cheap and expensive shops are often recommended, Boden being an example considered typically MN.
Of course, there are low income people on here, but the average is well off.
I remember a poster not so long ago saying she didn't know anyone who lived in a flat.

Mumsnet is very class obsessed ,and a lot of posters like to beleive they are working class when from what the write they are clearly living a very middle class life it's bizarre and meaningless

@Lily193

WorraLiberty Who's being naive? The point I was making is that there are people who save in excess of 3k every month and have 75k spare to invest and those people are on this forum.Why is that so hard to believe?

Yes, some of them will be.

Amongst the piss trolls, the period trolls, the underage sex trolls, the shit trolls and all the other trolls.

But if you think anyone with a spare 75K to invest is being anything less than serious, when they're asking a parents forum to advise them, you really are extremely naive.

I think the high earners are obvious when it’s threads about divorce, their immediate response is get all the financial info, savings, pension etc, huge amount of people live month to month with no savings.

@JorisBonson

As working class as they come, average salary. So no.

What do you mean 'no'? OP was asking about MN as a whole not you personally.

What's the point of pretending on an anonymous forum where only you know who you actually are?

Is this actually a thing?

It's as much a thing as contouring, extensions, lolas lashes and instagram filters.

The people who've got 4 or 5 ovens, and want to know how best to invest £75K they have spare, and who claim to make savings of £3K a month, make me laugh. In real life, these people don't exist.

People who really do have that to invest, know exactly where to go for advice and this place is not where they would turn to.

So yes, people who post for this kind of advice, will 9 times out of 10 be talking rubbish.

5 agas is such a useful feature for all that weekend entertaining.

🤣🤣🤣

@Lily193

The people who've got 4 or 5 ovens, and want to know how best to invest £75K they have spare, and who claim to make savings of £3K a month, make me laugh. In real life, these people don't exist.

Of course they exist and some of those people are on this forum. Stop being so bitter and jealous.

I agree with you. I think its jealousy.

I'm not in that category, but I don't doubt others are. I sometimes see lovely detached houses with luxury cars down the long driveway.... I love some of the designs and the houses are big..so of course high earners live there. High earners exist.

My therapist lives on a private road...all beautiful individually designed massive houses there.

I can't see why you'd lie about this kind of stuff on an anonymous forum.

What a load of shit. I agree with Lily. Not everyone posts bullshit.
I know of and I use the word of deliberately, more than 400+ people whose household income is very good.

I am still, after 13 years. Still friends with my original MN PNG and all of them earn 'reasonably'.

Both my boys play football which means that we are 'vaguely' friendly with 15 other families, from both teams, that's 30 and they'll earn reasonably.

We Probably are the lowest earners because I choose to work part time. We are very ordinary but live in a reasonably nice area.

My eldest son has probably been to 100 parties in his time at secondary. I have dropped him at at least 75 houses that are huge.

Why is it so hard to believe that people earn well. My closest friends are a partner of an employment law firm, a project manager, and a scientist- they will earn very nice salaries.

Why do you think everyone on mumsnet is lying? what a strange attitude.

Those that don’t think high earners exist and that everyone on MN must be lying, do you live in a cave? Do you have none of the following in your towns and cities - high school headteachers, GPs and hospital consultants, medium sized business owners, corporate managers, established tradespeople? Who do you think is doing these jobs?
Do you never drive past nice houses in your town, who do you think lives there, lottery winners?
What do you think high earners look like? Unicorns?

I avoided Mumsnet for a long time as I thought it was all middle class mummies with nothing else to talk about but their little darlings and dull husbands.
I still think that about some when I read some posts 😅

People who really do have that to invest, know exactly where to go for advice and this place is not where they would turn to.

So yes, people who post for this kind of advice, will 9 times out of 10 be talking rubbish.

Exactly @PhilCornwall1. It's not that they don't exist (every other kind of person does, so why wouldn't they).

It's about the sheer amount who turn up on Mumsnet, asking stupid questions under shiny new NNs.

Pretty obvious a lot of it is bullshit, just not all of it.

Oh. This has been eye opening. I’ve shared that I have lots of land. How exciting to be thought of as a fantasist.

Unfortunately all the slog that comes with tending to it is painfully real.

I sort of understand that some people pretend to have lives they don’t, but not everyone is full of shit, surely?

We are middle class but not high earners - I’m about average for a graduate and DP is on a stipend so quite low. I think MN probably does skew towards the middle class but people exaggerate their earnings. The kinds of threads you read about these things on are also quite self-selecting. It would be interesting to see a poll of all MNers!

@Lily193

WorraLiberty Who's being naive? The point I was making is that there are people who save in excess of 3k every month and have 75k spare to invest and those people are on this forum.Why is that so hard to believe?

If they are either wily or privileged why would they not consult a financial advisor or a friend in banking? Instead these smug twats just like to post this shit to make other people feel inferior.

Firstly, there is huge difference between salaries in different areas. £50k in london is very different to £50k in wales. Secondly, Mumsnet isn't the whole internet, i recall reading somewhere that younger mums are encouraged to join netmums while older mums are pointed towards Mumsnet. If the average first time mum here is in her 30s and 40s, she would have 10 years of earning before kids, that puts her in a different bracket to someone who had kids in early 20s- i see that a lot on netmums, not as much on Mumsnet.

I sometimes feel really inadequate, being a 28 year old owning a 2 bed flat in London when everyone else seems to think a 4 bedroom semi detached is an absolute minimum for having a baby but then I realize that most of the posters I am talking to are way older than me.

I just don't see this all the time on MN and I'm on here FAR more often than I should be. I'm not saying you don't get the odd snob (and one former poster managed to shoehorn the fact that her DH earned £400k pa into every single thread, including one on ironing 🙄) but I see a really broad mix in here, from people really struggling to those very comfortable. I guess the majority are somewhere in the middle.

But I suppose if you consider a combined income of £40k as a high income (which it isn't - statistically, it's below average), then yes, most posters will look like high earners to you.

I think it depends what threads you read. I read a lot where people don’t have savings and earn minimum wage. Hard to say what the majority is.

Definitely is a place for more middle class. It makes me laugh (in a cross way) when a poster says they are having some sort of relationship trouble or something, and people come along and say "just book yourself into a spa".
Sorry but I've not been to a spa in my life and if I did it would be a well earned special birthday treat or something, not just something you can just DO. I think most people don't have the income left at the end of the month for anything let alone a random spa trip.

@Kaylasmum49

I personally think that what you earn shouldn't define you. But my general feeling on here is that a lot of the higher earners/middle class people really look down on the lower earners. There was a thread on here recently about how someone would hate to be a "supermarket worker" as if that was an embarrassing job to do. Unfortunately in my job I see that attitude too often from more middle class people towards me. They look at me like I'm worthless.

How do you know they're middle class?

I think it stands to reason that so many high earners share about their income on MN. It’s anonymous. In the real world, it’s considered odd to ask or share how much you earn. Which is very British and a shame really. Americans for instance are lot more open and therefore appreciative of successful people. We need more of that rather than this bitterness and suspicion. Let’s have more women share how they got there because of its good for everyone to know about real life success stories.

I agree with the others that I don't think people are "faking" their wealth. Being a little crass by commenting on it - possibly. But there is a lot of wealth in the western world, so it shouldn't be a surprise that some of it is owned by the kind of people who post here on MN.

worra and lily I got spectacularly good financial advice on mn recently - hadn’t asked for it but read a thread which reminded me of a financial product and how to go about getting it sorted. Did my own checking etc.

There are tax advisors and accountants and wealthy amongst mners. So long as you do your own research etc I don’t see why you wouldn’t use mn as a resource ! I’ve had some great advice here.