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

I sort of see what you are saying OP, but also think you are being U.

I am a high earner but I never get involved in the discussions about how much do you earn / what’s in your pension etc - what’s the point? I also don’t tell my friends what I earn. How is it relevant and what would I be hoping to achieve other than to look like a dick? I know I am lucky: there’s lots of reasons why I have ended up where I am, and me writing about my salary on mumsnet isn’t going to inspire anybody to earn more. I do sometimes post on discussions about career choices, kids subject choices at school etc. as that can be relevant.

But I do also spend time on Mumsnet in the day. To think high earners can’t be on mumsnet is ridiculous! I’m currently on zoom in a boring meeting that I have to be at but the subject right now is not relevant to me so I am mooching online in the background. When I’m in the office the only time I get left in peace is if I’m in the toilet, so sometimes I hide in there for 20 minutes to get a rest, and go on MN and Twitter 😂 - it’s a good way to switch off my mind.

You just can’t talk about money. It only brings out the worst in others and makes them think the worst of you.

I like the story, and it is logical:
“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.”

Saying “I worked hard to get here” doesn’t mean anyone making less does not work hard. It means OP wanted to be a high earner and focused her energy on finding a way to increase her salary. But of course that’s not how some sensitive people will read it. And earning a high salary isn’t everyone’s goal, anyway.

I think OP means to be helpful, but if you want to help women in their careers it’s best to find a way to mentor in real life; find women who want to be mentored.

@TatianaBis

I understand exactly what you’re saying OP.

While on any subject on this forum - salary, children, husbands. health, chickens - you name it - a % will be lying because it’s the internet and people are weird. By and large when posters discuss salaries, outgoings etc, I reckon many if not most are telling the truth.

The naysayers seem to be from posters who don’t know many high earners.

What a load of bollocks.

I know a number of high earners who live in my village. Professionals, hard-working professionals with their nose to the grindstone, and a busy, stressful, career... I know at LEAST a dozen of them, in my little village alone.

And they certainly don't have the time OR the inclination to chat shit and post tall stories and bullshit on mumsnet. In fact, they don't go onto ANY message forums blathering bollocks about how much they earn.

And as I said, they would be at work at 11 a.m. on a weekday!

It's hilarious that @LigPatin thinks people would believe her.

She hasn't posted on here since a few minutes after she posted the thread.

She has posted this for attention and to get people riled up.

I'm out. I am not wasting any more of my time on this stupid fucking thread, and I'm hiding it!

Hope you are enjoying your work @LigPatin But maybe you should try getting some hobbies... Coz this kind of shit is boring. Been done too many times before!

I don't think the OP is still a nanny, though, is she? Surely the narrative is - 'I was a nanny in my 20s; marvelled at how much money my employers had; resolved to get me a piece of that by researching what it takes to become absolutely minted; did that; am now a high earner in my early 30s, looking back on my nannyingly life and singing a Sondheim-esque showstopper about how far I've come.'

What I find really fascinating is that from living in the south and north, it tend to be those in London and areas surrounding it who are most fixated on how much you earn and how much your house is worth.

Posts like this reminds me so much of the apparent difference in lifestyle values held. Having the most expensive house/job doesn’t necessarily equal to best quality of life in terms of happiness.

@LobotomisedIceSkatingFan

I'm not at all surprised to find a high earner posting at 11.52 am on a work day. She might not be in the UK; she might be on annual leave. But most of all because highly-paid jobs are also very often high-discretion jobs. If you're a receptionist for Big Pharma, you'll probably get a bollocking for SM use at 11:52 am. Someone pretty high-up? Not so much. They're probably not monitoring her in the same way, now, are they? I'm sure she gets her work done.

Exactly. I think that there is also an unwillingness to believe that someone in a high-powered job could still be interested in parenting issues or CF and parking threads because they would have ahead full of spreadsheets and board meetings.

I’m posting today because my 100k+ job is only 4 days a week. I work in the City, have professional qualifications and 20 years + experience. I’m actually quite underpaid.

@ProfessorPootle

I agree. It is possible with enormous amounts of hard work. My dh and I own companies worth in the region of £15m (£27m pre COVID) built from nothing, it’s taken 17 years of hard work, long hours (100+ per week), 7 days a week, paying ourselves absolute minimum just to keep a roof over our heads and pay bills while constantly reinvesting any profits back into the companies. No holidays or treats. I went to Uni, dh didn’t, he’d come to the UK with nothing, just a change of clothes and started working as a labourer on construction sites. He learnt a lot though and we started a construction company with just him, me doing the paperwork, a van, my credit card and my job which paid for our living expenses for first 4-5years while dh earnt nothing. Then when dc were born I went on mat leave and never went back, continued doing the paperwork for very little / no pay.

Pre COVID we were working much more normal hours, Saturday afternoons and Sundays off work. this last year we’ve had no household income at all as we’ve prioritised keeping company from going bankrupt, taken out massive loans, tons of debt but we’ve survived, just about. Were ready to sell the house last autumn but luckily didn’t need to in the end.

Things are looking up though, should hopefully get back to where we were in the next 2 years and be able to pay off the remortgage money we invested into the company. Dh says he wants to stop at 50 and sell up, he’s 42 now , I don’t know if he actually could sell everything, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

^ now that’s an interesting, inspiring post. It would scare me and I couldn’t live like that though! Too much risk and pressure involved!

I know plenty of people on similar salaries; not that they discuss it openly, but we live in central London and if someone owns a property worth £1,000,000+, a second home in the countryside and has multiple children at private school it pretty obvious. But I also know there are fantasists who make stuff up about fabulous and interesting lifestyles on here, and they often give themselves away with inconsistencies or by over-egging it (I remember a poster once claiming her 18yo partner was earning £50k as a graphic designer, straight out of school...) Why do people do it? Because they’re bored and they can.

I don’t really care either way, unless they start claiming they’re not actually that wealthy (compared to an ogliarch, maybe) or that they work much harder than anyone else.

@LobotomisedIceSkatingFan

I don't think the OP is still a nanny, though, is she? Surely the narrative is - 'I was a nanny in my 20s; marvelled at how much money my employers had; resolved to get me a piece of that by researching what it takes to become absolutely minted; did that; am now a high earner in my early 30s, looking back on my nannyingly life and singing a Sondheim-esque showstopper about how far I've come.'

She's now apparently running a recruitment agency but judging by the time line this is a very recent change and she has infact been nannying for 10 years.

I run a recruitment agency for childcare professionals and before that I worked as a Nanny for 10 years.

I'd be curious to know how much she was making as a Nanny and what the salary jump was between that and running the agency.

Not everyone is inspired by six figure salaries and it's not everyone's definition of success. If you were inspired/educated by high-earners, then that's great for you, but not everyone thinks the way you do, so don't feel sad for them

Exactly. Just bacause you make £120K a year, it doesn't mean your job is important, essential or even worthwhile. The pandemic has shone a light on that.

I do know some very high earners IRL. Sorry op but I expect a lot of (not all) it is exaggerated on MN. I don’t doubt that some earn well but I think they probably have high household incomes with considerable input from partners. That’s just being realistic. I have known a few very high earning woman (with dc) and the idea that they could devote even a minute of their time chatting on an Internet forum is preposterous. Every minute of their day is planned and most of their time revolves around the job, everything else home wise is outsourced. I don’t know any high earners who have a good work life balance as so many MNetters seem to have, with enough time to engage in endless forums chat. I’m sure these jobs do exist but they must be incredibly rare.

YANBU - I think some people have an inability to imagine the sheer enormity of the scale of people out there all having different lives, incomes and experiences, and they also strongly underestimate the number of hits and views these threads are getting from the (still enormous) scale and variety of people who look at mumsnet

@LobotomisedIceSkatingFan

I don't think the OP is still a nanny, though, is she? Surely the narrative is - 'I was a nanny in my 20s; marvelled at how much money my employers had; resolved to get me a piece of that by researching what it takes to become absolutely minted; did that; am now a high earner in my early 30s, looking back on my nannyingly life and singing a Sondheim-esque showstopper about how far I've come.'

I hate to quibble but Sondheim’s style is very much the antithesis of the linear showstopper number. You’d have been better off referencing Rogers and Hammerstein.

@Ponoka7

"From experience, earning that amount of money is a blend of hard work, picking the right industry at the right time and a very large slice of luck."

With nepotism and being helped out from the teen years, added in.

That meme is good of the man declaring that no-one had ever helped him. Showing the difference a good start and not having to get a job straight from school and help out with family finances makes. Plus life was slightly easier pre 2011, University was only £4k a term and free before that.

Good for them. Nothing wrong with parental help and a bit of nepotism. Who wouldn't give their children a leg up? I don't have much of a leg up to give mine* but am glad for those who do. They in turn can do the same for their children.

*Maybe a little one sometimes.

@littlepattilou sounds a little loopy loo.

@pinkearedcow

Not everyone is inspired by six figure salaries and it's not everyone's definition of success. If you were inspired/educated by high-earners, then that's great for you, but not everyone thinks the way you do, so don't feel sad for them

Exactly. Just bacause you make £120K a year, it doesn't mean your job is important, essential or even worthwhile. The pandemic has shone a light on that.

It's very often the reverse - the most important jobs that keep society functioning are the poorest paid and least valued.

Judging by how useless most recruitment agencies are, I'd suggest that running one is definately not an an essential function....

I’m with @LigPatin on this one.

I had a similar ‘lightbulb momenta’ in my early twenties when I met some consultants (I was in a £16K junior role - my first job) and realised they weren’t particularly bright, they just had useful skills and said the right things at the right time.

I thought ‘I want a bit of that’ and started learning the bits of tech and buzzwords and moved my way up and now I’m still in my twenties but earning over £100K as a consultant. And I’m not particularly bright, either!

So I totally get the OP encountering people who pay £3K a month rent and it suddenly ‘clicking’ that that sort of money is out there, and it’s not all inherited. It can be motivational.

I also find it inspiring to read and it has me trying to figure out ways I can get a bit of that pot myself!

Currently a Leasing Negotiator for a small firm, making £21.5k a year doing that, aged 28. Would LOVE to be earning more of course. No potential for pay rise at the moment - been there three years and nothing. No opportunity to progress with it either

I went to uni and did a year of law degree and then ended up dropping out (for a huge variety of reasons I regret). I know I need to get some form of qualifications behind me to get more money just no idea where to start

My sister and her husband earn 300k combined. They work incredibly hard but so did I, harder I'd say as I was a cleaner which was gruelling.
I have retrained and I am applying for jobs around the 30k mark but do you know what ?that's ok. Its still more than a lot of people earn.
I will never ever ever earn 6 figures my brain won't accommodate the skills needed to get such a high salary and that's ok too.

@pinkearedcow

Not everyone is inspired by six figure salaries and it's not everyone's definition of success. If you were inspired/educated by high-earners, then that's great for you, but not everyone thinks the way you do, so don't feel sad for them

Exactly. Just bacause you make £120K a year, it doesn't mean your job is important, essential or even worthwhile. The pandemic has shone a light on that.

I’m not sure that everyone earning that money believes themselves that their job is all that important or worthwhile. My job is pretty pointless to anyone except the employees of our business. I’m at peace with that because it pays well.

well, just go on right move. Check the price of rental and for sale 5 or 6 bedroom +++ detached houses in most areas.

People can believe what they want. Somehow it's not so rare for people to have enough cash or a big enough salary to get a big mortgage. You can make a chicken last for as many months as you like, the bank is asking for a bit more than that...

Thing is, the idea that high earners (100k) have more stress than lower earners is just not right. I'd way rather be in investment banking than (eg) teaching, law enforcement or social work, from a stress point of view. It's a myth perpetuated through the media (books and films) whereby there is the stereotype of the lonely workaholic who has no time for anything else.

Any career that pays £100K+ a year, would permit very little spare time/leisure time. And as if women with a high flying career, that pays £100K+ a year, would be chatting shit on mumsnet, in the precious few hours per week they get to themselves..

When I earned a six-figure salary, I was on mumsnet as none of my female colleagues had children and I didn't have time to socialise outside of work/DC. MN was the only place I was able to connect with other working mums.