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

@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

I read your op, then skim read some of the responses

🙄

Sadly absolutely to be expected that the usual sad fucks would only put digit to keyboard to write something “clever”

I knew what you meant by your post, and you’re not wrong

I will however point something out.

I was someone who had a high flying career, then got taken out by a fucking awful little man to the point I was really struggling to now where I’m absolutely content and happy with my lot.

Let me tell you that working hard, really fucking hard is NO indication of what a salary will be.

I used to work fairly hard for a lot of money

I then worked very hard for very little money

And I’m aware there are plenty who work way harder and for a lot less..

Never fall into the trap of thinking money = clever or effort.

@NCforthispurpose London is diverse. Talk a walk around south east London. Take a bus. Look around you. You just don’t have a diverse group of friends.

**However probably about 40% of my friends do now - we are mid thirties. Most of my peers on a similar level do.

Due to the nature of your work or other circumstances you meet many other people in high paying jobs and so you come to believe that:-

I don't think high female earners are rare, or a very small minority.

Simply because you meet or know many others in a similar situation.

I started a thread a few months ago, talking about a similar topic here:-

Sorry, but £80k a year in London really is a large salary

If you are earning over £100k a year that puts you in the top 3% of all earners in the UK - including men.

So, just stop and put that in context. The next time you walk down the street or go shopping 97 out of every 100 people you see will be earning less than you (in fact 85 of them will be earning one half or less than you do).

Just to put this in context, to be in the top 10% or male earners in the UK you need to be earning £65,900 and to be in the top 10% of female earners you need to be earning £52,800

Now if you are working in inner London then, yes of course, salaries are higher but even so the figures still show how rare it is for women working in inner London to be earning those sort of salaries.

For males working in inner London you need to earn £107,000 to be in the top 10% and for females you need to earn £78,400 to be in the top 10%

So a woman earning over £100k, even in London, is very rare indeed.

All figures extracted from NOMIS**

@nickymanchester

What a superb post!!

If your a high earner, good on you. But it’s the posts that say oh I earn 95k and husband 75k and we just get by. Now that’s annoying, try living off the minimum wage. A combined salary of 170k is a huge salary wherever you live.

That sort of thread always attracts the high earners like bees round a honeypot, so the posts will be skewed to reflect that.

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

If you notice the attitude towards well-off people on this thread, there is all good reason to still not talk about private finances.

What do you do now op. Well.done on getting out of poverty trap xx

@PegPeople I fully agree it looks odd (and boring and sad) from the outside to only be mingling with people in similar jobs, but in our situation it’s a function of being more comfortable spending time with people from the same country who speak the same language. Very lazy I know and probably missing out
No idea what my friends earn in my home country as we never talk about money. Talking about money is culturally taboo in our country!

I didn't get to the end of your long winded OP.

[quote NCforthispurpose]@PegPeople I fully agree it looks odd (and boring and sad) from the outside to only be mingling with people in similar jobs, but in our situation it’s a function of being more comfortable spending time with people from the same country who speak the same language. Very lazy I know and probably missing out
No idea what my friends earn in my home country as we never talk about money. Talking about money is culturally taboo in our country![/quote]
Bit silly to blame it on London not being very diverse. More than a bit actually.
London...

We are in that top end bracket, and we did it from working class backgrounds and with a lot of hard work, lots of luck and being in the right time at the right place.
But i would say most importantly from not pissing money up the wall when we were young on holidays and fast cars. It would have been so, so easy to do as we were earning well as the years progressed and at a time when money was easy and cheap to come by.
We started on the property ladder early and kept remortgaging again and again and buying more properties that were shit holes and doing them up and remortgaging and buying more. And at that point all our money was ploughed back in to the properties (rather than hols and cars) and it was all done on a bit of a wing and a prayer.
We have made so many sacrifices and i honestly don't think that many people would be prepared to do what we've done - we haven't had a holiday with no work for 20 years - we are constantly on call/email.
We still get our hands dirty, but the difference is that now we do have a good lifestyle, so it's easier to bear.

Sadly i don't think that with all the hard work in the world we would be able to do the same thing again - it's so hard to get mortgages now - when we started out, we took out cash on 0% credit cards for deposits!

I'm proud of what we've achieved, but we've missed out on stuff over the years and our children has certainly been through the wringer with it at times!!

I would also say that whatever you earn, it never feels enough - but that is because you earn more and you spend more. Private ed, private health, bigger mortgage etc etc. I still shop at Lidl and do my own cleaning and ironing though.

I really appreciate all we have, because i've been on the other side. My goal now is to try and teach my children the same value of hardwork that i and DP have - and that is surprisingly hard to do when money isn't a real issue.

Oh what a naive way of looking at it !

@GreyhoundG1rl

London is extremely diverse.

It isn't diverse in the industries that poster was talking about.

It's very white, male and - generally speaking - upper class.

Having said that, if a woman can do well in that environment then she is likely to be able to do very well indeed.

@XingMing

And of all the people in fields you know, from beauticians to doctors and plumbers to entrepreneurs, there's a wide range. In general the best earn most. The hairdresser renting a chair in a salon in my little town doesn't have the same talent for making people look good or setting trends as a top stylist with their name on the marquee in the West End. There are top surgeons and lesser surgeons. A good craftsman locally is always in demand, and earns well, but can only sell his or her time once. A successful business manager creates a model within which a product or service can be rolled out, replicated and scaled up to multiply profit.

Absolutely true My builder is extremely successful and has his two kids on private school He is bloody fantastic at his job and is probably raking in about £200k

I’m general counsel at a large MNC.

I took this job after I sold my legal/tech company. I’m working for the opportunity now rather than the money.

I’m hoping to move into a portfolio NED career. I have one role under my belt but after decades of being able to walk into pretty much any legal role I chose, it’s a tough transition.

I haven’t shared salary details with friends or had them share them with me but you can take a reasonable guess from house/car/school fees/class of travel/ holiday destination/and shopping habits.

@nickymanchester I'm not saying that women earning over £100k are really common across the whole of the UK, and I'm aware it's somewhat different for London. I was responding to the many posters who made high earning women sound like mythical unicorns. And saying that I know quite a few who are in the age brackets of being parents or ttc and might be on mumsnet. None of those would be lying about their salaries.

I think its important to discuss earnings because women in general are historically underpaid. For the stats you gave, not everyone is paid via PAYE either, so this only captures a proportion

Something that is sadly lacking in society is financial education for young people. It's not taught in schools and I believe it should be. I really had no notion about money (saving, investing, budgeting etc.) when leaving school and I think that contributed to me making some really poor financial decisions in my younger days. I don't remember anyone (parents, teachers etc) ever discussing with me the financial implications of choosing a particular career. My parents never spoke about money to us growing up either and that's something I'm doing differently with my own children.

The lack of aspiration of some of the posters in this thread is disappointing and I find it strange that it's mostly women here assuming that other women must be lying just because they make good money. If we were men on a male oriented forum I doubt anyone would blink an eye. There are always going to be fantasists on any forum, but there's no reason why women can't be earning the amounts alluded to AND living a balanced lifestyle with time for posting on Mumsnet too.

It isn't diverse in the industries that poster was talking about.
The poster in question was taking about her friendship group, which seems to consist solely of work colleagues.

Not London's fault 🤷🏻‍♀️

OP - I absolutely love your attitude to life! Well done you and keep at it girl. World is truly your oyster.

I work as a HCP in the private sector supporting adults with behaviour that challenges. I earn 40k I will never make loads of money but I enjoy it I really enjoy helping getting people into the community and doing the detective work as to why someone might behave like that .

I don't really understand why people, on an anonymous site, want to talk about how much they earn.

It is really nobody's business but one's own.

Clearly, some like to lie and big themselves up and, yes, there will be a few on here on extremely high salaries. But, so what?

I do think that one can try to earn a lot by targeting certain professions etc where a high salary is possible. However, I also think that luck (good and bad) plays a very large part, as does having a head start from one's background.

All in all, I shut up about my earnings and am grateful for my reasonable success in life. The worst thing is bragging and/or smugness.

It's a British thing not to discuss money/salaries it's very normal in other cultures to discuss it.

I do laugh when Me and my husband with our 3 kids are on a combined income of 30k including benefits (dd is disabled) and although we sometimes struggle I feel incredibly lucky and that we do very well then you see a mumsnetter complaining that there combined income of £100/150k is such a struggle and I’m like wow really?

I’d quite like there to be some sort of realization that yes some people work the sort of jobs that allow you to earn 120k plus and that’s not that unusual, but equally the world would not function if every single person aimed for a corporate high paying job. My most senior colleague in social care is probably on 75k and she seems loaded to me but she couldn’t afford a massive house and private school, she’s just bloody good at her job and it’s a good job she is too!

So when a poster says get a job that pays more, ok great, I’m sure my bachelors and 2x masters degrees will allow that, however I love my job, I make an actual difference in the world and we don’t need more people working in finance or marketing.