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

@HaveringWavering

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.

Agreed. There seems to be a general lack of awareness of just how many professionals are now paid 100k.

Wow, what a fucking horrible thread.

I love how one poster in particular some posters are wedded to the idea that all high earners must be grafting away at 11am. Someone on the PC with me manages a chain of funeral parlours; another is a surgeon. I've not long come back from a 'meeting' in the village hall car park about the roof of the sports pavilion. 10:30am; Friday. Curiously, neither left saying said 'Well, must to get back to the grind; where there's muck, there's brass, etc etc'.
How curious to have had such limited life experience, and/or imagination, that such scenarios are unthinkable.

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.

If you look at the list of critical workers on the government website, there are a lot of finance/banking roles that are looked down on MN, very highly paid and still fit in the "critical worker" category.

Many of us also work to pay the bills, as long as it's not completely against my moral values, couldn't care less if the role not important, essential. The pay check does make it worthwhile .

For me it’s not about believing them or not. It’s recognising that high earners make up a very small percentage of the population.

I earned a bit over 50k for a while (I don’t now!) I did that calculator thing as to where your earnings place you in the population and I came out as being in the top 10% and that was on 50k. 100k plus is going to be an even smaller %

I don’t care whether those people claiming they earn 100k plus are telling the truth or not. It doesn’t affect my life in the slightest. What I do care about is people recognising that they are privileged if they are in that position. Yes they may well have worked hard. So do plenty of people on minimum wage. But you do need that sprinkle of “luck” to really make it. Knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time, or having a spark of an idea that pays off. It isn’t “just” hard work.

MN does seem to be a bit money obsessed at times and yes I do think some people boast whether truthfully or not. Through my work and personally I’ve known wealthy people down to homeless people and everything in between. They’re all just people in the end. Some nice, some not. None have been immune from problems.

A recruitment agency, eh? Funny, this is exactly what the person in the Daily Mail article claimed to do and to earn.

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7

I don't think high female earners are rare, or a very small minority. Over £100k was a crazy amount when I was growing up, and I didn't know anyone who earned that, and didn't even know it was attainable. However probably about 40% of my friends do now - we are mid thirties. Most of my peers on a similar level do. There can be busy periods when we are working late, but ultimately its not crazy long hours. I think its really amazing that more women are becoming high earners

Oh, OK. You don't think it some therefore it must be true. There is plenty of accurate and trustworthy data out there collected by ONS of you need convincing

@JessicaaRabbit

Clearer picture for the doubters ✌️

What the fuck are you doing posting that? That's the cringiest thing I've seen on here in a while.

@Rukaya

Nobody's missing the point 😂😂😂

There are multiple posts asking for help in finding the point. Which they missed.

The point isn’t whether people work hard. It’s why we aren’t prepared to believe that a large number of women can be such high earners?

There are enough posters who are shocked/horrified/in uproar at the idea of someone working evenings and weekends, not having the right "balance", who accuse someone to try to avoid family commitments by "working", and "would tell their boss like it is" if they ever mentioned working during annual leave or after 5.01pm...

to understand the concept of being hard working is quite fluid on MN.
SOME jobs means keeping your mobile phone on, and working on your time off. It's easy to bang on about luck when you refuse to look at the commitment involved.

Any career that pays £100K+ a year, would permit very little spare time/leisure time.

This simply isn't true. There are many people earning six figures who run their own businesses and have lots of free time and very little stress. We need to stop perpetuating this myth that earning a high salary involves working ridiculously long hours.

It proves absolutely nothing though! You've not shut anything down, just made yourself look like a twat.

Any career that pays £100K+ a year, would permit very little spare time/leisure time.

it's not just that, it's not understanding the flexibility that can be asked.
Especially when working with different time zones.

You can be on a high salary and take 2 hours to have your hair done in the morning, but be working until midnight because that's when someone expects a reply.

It's usually more basic roles who are not allowed to have their phone on, stick to their hours and can't go on MN during business hours.

If you are high enough, no one cares!

Isn't the point of the thread that when people give their salary, half the people on here kick off and accuse the high earners of lying?

Which is...exactly what has happened here, proving the OP's point?

Bloody hell, Jessica, what's all that about? I'm embarrassed for you 😂

I agree OP. I earn a pretty good salary (IT consultant) it's only a couple of times I've stated my salary on a thread and both times it's been followed up by negative comments. I don't mind if ppl don't believe me, it's me that actually has the money after all.

Strongly disagree. As someone brought up in 'Side by Side by Sondheim', I know he wasn't all 'Send in the Clowns'. I think 'Being Alive', 'I'm Still Here' and 'Could I Leave You?' are solid gold examples. And could in fact be MN anthems . . .

on. I was never in Side By Side by Sondheim, sadly. Although I've always been a big Millicent Martin fan.

There’s an evil part of me that reads all of the replies on the early pages of this thread that say things like ‘OP is a liar, that sort of money isn’t achievable, you need to come from a wealthy background etc’ and thinks ‘... great, you think that. Keep living your life as if that’s the case. I’ll navigate around you and get the money instead. Less competition for me’.

The non-evil part of me reads the replies and thinks ‘It’s a damn shame these people think like this. They’re limiting themselves. It’s different if they aren’t interested in money, or are in a career they love/is flexible that is worth the lower pay but otherwise...’

As someone has mentioned above, it isn’t even the case that the higher paying jobs are all unholy hours or high stress. I’ve found it to be entirely the opposite. The most stressful job I ever had was when I had little control over what I was doing and I didn’t really click with the people I had to work with directly, earning £80K less than I am today. I found myself stressed every day. The answer wasn’t ‘at least I’m not earning more so I don’t get more stressed’ it was ‘I need more control over how I perform a job, and I need to become more senior and develop a certain skill set to get there’.

Sorry to offend your fragile eyes. I frankly couldn't GAF.
You clearly do. You care very very much about impressing randoms on the Internet, and you're getting flouncy when they remain unimpressed. Shame.

@Freshprincess

On those how much do you earn/how much is your mortgage threads it’s always always super high earners with massive mortgages. Rarely is there a carer on NMW with a tiny house. It’s easy to see why you’d assume people are lying because in real life the people on £100k plus are few and far between and probably not posting MN in the middle of the working day.

I don’t actually agree with your point that people on £100k wouldn’t be on mumsnet in the middle of the day I often find that many high earners have a great deal of flexibility because most of their work is office based. There is ample time to post on MN particularly when most of these people are in jobs which involve the use technology. My sister has a high powered job and often phones my mother in the middle of the day to chat about nothing in particular

I do agree with the Op to an extent, because whether posters want to believe it or not, there are individuals earning huge sums of money. How do I know this?My husband is an accountant and manages their accounts.
I have been house hunting in recent months and have been shocked by the number of one million pound plus house that have been sold.
Obviously, someone must be earning the big bucks and why shouldn’t they be posters on MN?

@EmbarrassingMama

Isn't the point of the thread that when people give their salary, half the people on here kick off and accuse the high earners of lying?

Which is...exactly what has happened here, proving the OP's point?

yeap