to believe the Mumsnet High Earners?

[LigPatin]

Every time there's a thread about earnings, there's always multiple posters who claim that most people on the thread must be inflating or plain lying about their salaries.

Whilst I recognise that people lie, especially on anonymous forums, I find it quite sad that people prefer to dismiss these posts as lies rather than take inspiration/education from them (or just not care).

I come from a poor background - we never had enough money to the point that food and electricity use was rationed. We weren't on the streets, but that was a looming possibility. We lived (mostly) within the midlands.

I fell into nannying as a career (having dreamed of being a primary school teacher) and my first job was in Kensington. The housekeeper had been gossiping about the rent on the house we worked in - it was £3k a WEEK. This was 2012-ish. I remember wondering how on Earth anyone could afford paying £200k+ a year on rent alone, when - in my mind - earning just £50k was amazingly rich.

I remember walking through Kensington and Knightsbridge and Chelsea and seeing thousands and thousands and thousands of these houses, all huge and grand and all presumably commanding similar rent or sale value than the one I worked in. They were all clearly lived in and used.

Perhaps it was arrogance, or naivety, but I figured that if there were enough people who could afford to pay £1k, £2k, £5k+ a week on rent (or buy million pound houses), then there must be a lot of money out there to be earned, and I couldn't see any reason as to why I couldn't find a way to get a share of that money.

That's sort of how I feel about these earning threads - hundreds of people are posting about their high salaries and instead of scoffing that they must be sad-sacks who hang out on Mumsnet to lie about their lifestyles - I think it's inspiring and encouraging to see so many women out there making amazing money and securing their futures.

FWIW - I was 21 back in Kensington, amazed at the £3k a week rent. I'm coming up to 30 now and my average yearly income is about £120k. I remind myself every day of how lucky I am, and how 21 year old me would have been incredulous. Though I'm, of course, absolutely nowhere near being able to rent a £3k a week house

Nah it's like a bloody trigger to me. I see it almost every day and it winds me up because its my job to protect people from themselves basically, but it's so hard to do that.

@ClarkeGriffin I totally get your point. Apologies for being harsh earlier.

I'm pleased that so many women are now high earners. I'm sad that so many posters don't believe it is possible, think that any job that pays over 100k can't be enjoyable, and think that any woman earning that much can't have anything else in her life. Views like that limit our ambitions, and will limit the ambitions of our daughters.

I've never told my friends how much I earn.

Don't bother OP. MN is like the four Yorkshire men sketch

@Palavah

What a phenomenally long-winded way of telling us you now earn £120k pa

Haha exactly.

I don't see any point in people posting about the amount of money that they earn. It's a private thing if they earn big,or if they have lower salaries.

I was outside the village shop a few days ago,and two young women were chatting together, one said to the other, oh, how you doing these days,not seen you for ages, the other said,, we are doing great, I have just had a great salary increase, now on £120.000, and Hubby now on £190.000,so we are doing great.. This was the starter conversation, of two people who had apparently not seen eachother for some time.

There was no little small talk going on at first, like how are your children going on,or has your Mums health improved, or have you had the vaccine yet etc etc, just money talk all the time.
I wasn't eaves dropping here,we have to wait outside the little village shop here,as only two people can go in at a time at the minute.

I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to live the lifestyle of someone who earned a 6 figure family, and some families have both partners as high earners.
I'm also aware that many of these people couldn't imagine what it would be like to relish in my lifestyle, or even want to.

These threads are fascinating.
I have no idea of what level or title earns a particular salary/ package.
Although, I'm aware of hierarchies.

I run my own business and make lots of money.
My peers in the industry will be able to guess the ball park, because my work is fairly public.

I’ve been able to still enjoy a great family life - 3 kids and LOTS of foster kids.
I’m not a slave to work.

My dh is a very high earner, I no longer work. I find it very very annoying that if I were to write how much our household income is no one would believe me yet if I were to say I earned £18k no one would say anything!

I am a high earner from a modest background, normal schooling but got to oxbridge and that got me into consulting - a job that none of my extended family would have recommended I go into, I had certainly never heard of it before uni

Now further down the road I see there are many other high earning careers I could point my DC towards that I had no idea existed

But my friends have no idea how much I earn and thar would be a weird and massively awkward conversation. They can likely know we are doing fine, but would likely be far off on our household income now. We live relatively modestly, our DC are not at private school, we don’t own a car etc.

@LadyofMisrule

I'm pleased that so many women are now high earners. I'm sad that so many posters don't believe it is possible, think that any job that pays over 100k can't be enjoyable, and think that any woman earning that much can't have anything else in her life. Views like that limit our ambitions, and will limit the ambitions of our daughters.

I've never told my friends how much I earn.

Bless you, this is lovely. When I'm working I love what I do and apart from being able to pay the bills, I don't care what I earn. It would be just as enjoyable with 6 figure salary as it would 12k

There's nothing wrong with being ambitious for a higher salary, or better prospects etc. It's a personal choice, no right or wrong.

I am a pretty high earner now but worked up to it pretty gradually. I am 48. I am an IT Systems Engineer. I did a Science degree and then an IT Masters (first BSc got me on it) which then got me onto a grad scheme on about 28K. Left on 38K and then went to another company in the early 2000s and was on 50-60K for years, left on about 70K to go contracting. Did that for about 7 years. Hard to quantify contracting as you are on a daily rate and much of it sits in the company as you get taxed so much to get it out. I guess earning circa 100-115K most years, went back to permanent about 5 years ago in a slightly different field.

Moved into a commission-based role at this point and did a lot of new training (lots of long night, weekends, self studying) and went up from there from about 100K to about 250K now which is about the peak for me and where I'm happy to stay, hopefully for awhile. I feel like I came late to being a high earner and should really have got here younger, but I did have 4 kids and 4 mat leaves which did slow it down a bit at the 50/60K level as that company (wankers) really put me on the "mummy track" for a long time until I got hacked off and left to contract.

I feel very lucky to be earning 250K pa before I hit my fifties though, despite the delay, for me it was a combination of hard work (and continuous self-learning) land luck of the draw in terms of roles I took going badly/well - like it is for everyone, even the top lawyers, whatever they say, there is an element of luck. One thing I will say is that the universities I went to definitely opened doors for me, I always got an interview at every role I applied for and I think that was, at least initially, because I had "impressive" unis on my CV.

Very few posters on these threads such as the 'goal Salary' one the other day, actually name their jobs.

I want people to actually name it.
So that I can tell my ds's career wise maybe you should do this!

@MODAR now THAT is an inspiring story with lots of helpful info. Well done on your success and doing it all while raising a family. IT is such an interesting field in my opinion and something I wouldn't mind learning more about at some point. Although you say the name of your university helped, you sound very highly skilled as well!

Several posters have said they know people in RL who earn 6 figure salaries. I don’t doubt that at all but wonder how they know!

It's pretty obvious how much people earn when you know what they do.
You might not have the exact figure and package, but you know the average salaries, or business income.

oblomov I own a film and TV production company.
I basically was a very successful TV writer and though I earned great money I could see that my producers earned more.
So I set my own up.

I don't disbelieve those posts - there are probably always some untruths told, but there probably always are on every thread about any subject.

People are inspired by different things. Some people's interests are just not particularly profitable, others are. The thing is, with more money comes greater expectation. I think a lot of people on very good salaries feel financially squeezed because they have a huge mortgage and other large expenses. A lot of people live up to their means, not necessarily comfortably within them.

Well done MODAR. I'm on the mummy track at £150k but tbh I don't mind not having stress :-)

oblomov

I posted down thread, I'm a marketing lead for technology companies.

I do have a degree and masters but not in a related field (in humanities). I was lucky to work my way up in one company then I worked at a couple others as a marketing manager then went freelance and charged a high day rate. I've been doing marketing for 10 years now.

The tech field is excellent pay and lots of opportunities and perks, companies like Google and Facebook lead the way in a company culture that values good packages. I would always recommend this industry, I think it's great.

I know multiple people who earn over £100k. The highest earning person I know is a woman, she was being paid a ginormous salary. So what? This thread is weird.

OP many people work incredibly hard and never manage to get above NMW.
You have worked hard and been incredibly fortunate.

Not a bad place to be though at that salary level.

My job is not too stressful. Stressful moments and projects etc of course but people are generally friendly and reasonable. Long hours, mainly due to the continuous learning element, but also flexible hours and home working so you can schedule things to nip out and watch the school play etc. I have NC for this post but I browse/post on MN most days/evenings in between work. I agree that technology might just be the sweet spot between salary and stress.

I'm always pleased to to see women making it the higher ranks of their professions and commanding high salaries alongside men.

Why shouldn't they? I don't get why folks assume they would be lying?

I have had the salary conversations IRL - a long time ago - but it was a faux pas. It's a normal discussion in the USA, and a lot of friends are military so the pay grades are published openly and there's no secrets. Hence I didn't think the ancient taboos still applied.

Hence I didn't think the ancient taboos still applied.

I don't think the topic is taboo I just honestly don't think it's any of my business what my friends and relatives earn so it genuinely would never occur to me to ask.

Equally I don't think any of my friends and family would be remotely interested in knowing what I earn, it's hardly riveting conversation.

I no longer work but am degree qualified and at my peak earned £50k.

My DH on the other hand left school without qualifications and worked his way up in a sales role, after 15 years he became discontent with earning morning for someone else, set up a successful recruitment company and 15years later is now well into the top 0.5% of high earners, he just has the gift of the gab!