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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what your goal salary is?

601 replies

SmokeyApo · 14/04/2021 14:40

Hi all, just being nosey here Grin

I have been thinking a lot about career progression and asking for a raise lately, and that got me thinking about what my goal salary is. As in, the salary that I would like to earn at the peak of my career (let's say between age 40 and 50).

So I will ask: what would your goal salary be?

I won't share mine for now just because I don't want to influence the answers, but I will happily share it later on.

OP posts:
GreenGarden22 · 14/04/2021 21:57

I'm 40. Current salary £95k plus £20k annual bonus & benefits (medical, dental, life insurance, pension etc).

I'm happy where I am now as although I work full time I have lots of flexibility and can do school drop off and pick ups. Kids currently aged 3&5 so need me around at the moment. I'm happy to stay in my current role and level for about 5 years and will then look for a promotion. I'll be about 45 then, my next base salary would be £125k plus bonus and benefits. Promotion after that would be another 5 years, so age 50 and approx £150k-£180k plus bonus & benefits. That'll do me for my final 5-10 years.

nanbread · 14/04/2021 21:58

@speakout

I measure life success in terms of happiness, not earnings.
Me too, although I do concede that being penniless and stressed over money impacts happiness a lot.

If we had more income we could also get my children treated privately for their medical issues, and maybe even find private schooling to suit them as they're struggling so much at mainstream school. That would definitely make us all happier.

HEYBritneyAreYouReadyy · 14/04/2021 21:59

I would love to earn just 30k a year. (Currently working part time in retail and on 12.5k) I know that isn't a lot but me itd be amazing as i'm thick. Myself and DH are 31. He's on 80k and his next promotion would be at director level.

Jessica60 · 14/04/2021 22:00

@notalwaysalondoner

I'm 31 and earn about £150k including bonus, DH about the same. I'm about to have a baby and am quite comfortable taking a career hit to have a better work/life balance, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is my career maximum. In my industry top earners can be earning 7 figures. DH on the other hand is very ambitious and expects to make a lot from shares in his company and wants to be a CEO, so his limit may wind up being huge.
Omg. What career are you in?
DdraigGoch · 14/04/2021 22:04

I'm happy with the £34k I'm on. I do work overtime where I can though to enjoy the finer things in life and some of the staff benefits are worth their weight in gold too. It's more important to me to enjoy one's work. Why earn £100k if it's a job you hate?

LongBlobson · 14/04/2021 22:04

This has blown my mind. These sorts of salaries are just not on my radar!

I was a SAHM for a few years so we are set up to live off DH's income (which is a lot lower than what most people on this thread earn)! He works 30 hours per week.

I retrained in my 30s and now work part time in sth I absolutely love but it's not well paid. We still manage to save a bit each month, we live in a nice house in a nice area too, we've just always been careful with money and value our work-life balance and family time extremely highly.

Zalto · 14/04/2021 22:04

@GoryGilmore

These threads always amaze me. I live in an affluent area, mix with many local people through my work/children’s school and nursery and have plenty of friends and family living around here and yet I would say the majority are in jobs where they would be earning around the £30-50k mark which seems like nothing compared to the average wages people earn on here.
I’ve posted this before.

There are a huge amount of jobs that pay high salaries that people don’t realise.

To my neighbours, I work in HR, and my husband works in a bank. I earn £110k plus bonus, he earns £115 plus bonus plus car.

We tend not to tell people our exact job titles (to be fair, mine wouldn’t really give them an inkling as it’s an unusual one).

If you were to ask my neighbours what we earned, I think they’d probably say £30-50k too.

milkjetmum · 14/04/2021 22:12

Single income home here on 44k, next step on career ladder would probably take me to just over 50k so just aiming to get there then plan to hold and then serve out my days till retirement!

HelenHywater · 14/04/2021 22:18

Oh dear, I peaked in about 2004 when I was a senior solicitor in a city law firm.

Now (I am no longer a solicitor) I honestly don't have salary goals, but am very senior and love and am fulfilled by my job much more. My career goals are really different and are around things I want to do and achieve rather than money.

pregnantncnc · 14/04/2021 22:18

I'm finding this thread so interesting!

As someone who is self employed and married to a small business owner, I don't really think about goal "salary" but I do have a goal rate I'm aiming to reach (a goal amount I feel comfortable charging a client) which is roughly £7-8K at the top end, and would end up being around £100K pa if working "full time", could be more if I burned myself out. Given I've just decided to be a sahm for a while and will probably have to start from scratch when I restart work, it is unlikely to be for a long time, if ever.

DH has similar goals, wants to get his rates up so he can work less.

Our biggest goal is to have the earning potential to work more infrequently as we get older, but still be comfortable. Would love to be able to me more selective about work we take on rather than grabbing everything that comes our way.

pregnantncnc · 14/04/2021 22:23

@zalto yep! Not me but my parents, similar to you and your husband. Because they always lived in a normal area with a normal house and car etc, people (including me) didn't really realise how much they earned (joint income around £300K, probably more as both worked another 6 years after I last knew their salaries - I found out when I went to university applying for loans!). They still get a lot of questions about how they could afford to retire early.

Xenia · 14/04/2021 22:24

I started work full time as a trainee lawyer in a London firm in 1983 on £6250 (this is about £21k today, allowing for inflation) which is half what similar trainee lawyers get in London in 2021. I worked without a break full time since 1983, working until I went into Labour and back full time by about 2 weeks (yes weeks not months) after the births. So I am about year 38 of working full time without a break.

I hope I do 20 more years particularly as the first baby came in 1984 and the childcare was 50% of each of our net full time salaries and the youngest children still cost me £50k a year.

ToffeePennie · 14/04/2021 22:28

I currently earn about £12k a year. I would love to get that up to match my husband but it would be very very unlikely

Coachee · 14/04/2021 22:29

I recently hit £100k+ (age 40) which I guess was a goal of sorts. I work part time, full time salary would be £120k+ benefits and a decent bonus. I was under paid compared to some of my peers too, a recent-ish maternity leave definitely halted progress. Despite a good salary, my friends who earn much less but were gifted house deposits and had good financial support into their 20s are much more secure than I am.

My only real goal is to make sure that I am financially secure and that my DD has the advantages I didn’t. I grew up in a climate of money worries and going without, never had any help from parents, had huge debt in my 20s from uni/post grad study and it’s only now that I am really able to plan a secure financial future.

Butterflyfox · 14/04/2021 22:29

I’m no longer focussed on a specific salary as I earn a generous amount but now that I am 50 I’m instead obsessed with building a retirement pot. I read years ago that you need to have a million pounds in Pension and other investments to have a decent retirement at 60 . I am nowhere near that amount! That’s probably a whole new thread. !

Xenia · 14/04/2021 22:30

ToffeePennie may be you can out earn your husband. About 20 years after we married I earned 10x what he did (partly because of the work I chose when I was 14 - business law and partly because I always worked full time with no maternity leaves and finally because we left all family and moved to London for work - I am from NE England and he followed my career to London)

ImAlrightThanx · 14/04/2021 22:47

I'll be happy as long as I can live comfortably really. Being able to pay all bills and having enough left for fun/not having to add up as I go around the grocery shop.
Anything more is a bonus.

ThinkYouveHadTooMuch · 14/04/2021 22:55

I've got 100k in my head but I don't think I'll ever get there as a teacher! Currently on 50k due to added responsibilities but am only 35, so there is still time yet to try!

Nesski · 14/04/2021 22:57

We live in London, and have a combined salary of 250k. We both agree we earn more than enough, and could comfortably live on less.

Without sounding douchy, we have no idea what we should be doing with our money, saving doesn't make sense, and in terms of investing in things like shares gives us another thing to worry about. Maybe looking at a property purchase abroad but need to get my European ID (husband is European).

Personally I'm on 90k, and upon arrival of baby I will probably drop down to 4 days a week, hopefully forever, so I guess for my own personal goal is to get to 90k on 4 days a week, but we are comfortable enough to take the hit with no pressure to get to that.

sbhydrogen · 14/04/2021 23:09

I'd like to get to £85k in the next two years. I'm currently putting 50% into my pension, so could do with a bit more monthly disposable income.

I don't want the responsibility of the next-but-one level up in my profession, so I'll settle for senior :D

ArabellaScott · 14/04/2021 23:20

I don't want a salary, just a lump sum. £1 million.

Tr1skel1on · 15/04/2021 00:04

This is so eye opening. I'm 45, my income approx 18k, DH is 30k.

Tr1skel1on · 15/04/2021 00:08

You know what, we feel rich, we have a happy family life. I can buy school shoes when I need to.

It's completely beyond me to understand how a family earning at least 5 times as much might struggle. I'm very grateful for what we have. People who are really rich don't seem to be any happier

Lampzade · 15/04/2021 00:12

@Ldnmum7

When I started my career, I was desperate to earn 30k (this was in London). Then I got there and decided I wanted to get to 40k...and then I made it to 40k and decided that wasn't enough and I needed the promotion that would get me 50k... you can see where I'm going with this. My salary before I left my career to be a SAHM was just shy of 100k (inc bonus etc). I still wanted more and was never satisfied with what I was earning. Ironic now given I earn zero!
The same happened to me The goalposts moved
steff13 · 15/04/2021 00:12

I'm at $94k, I'd like to be at $100K. I should be in a year or so. I have 13 years until I can retire at my full pension, I expect to be at about $120K at that time.

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