Are the majority of people on here well-off?

[ThisBloodyNoiseInMyHead]

As the title says, are most people on here financially well-off?

I've read about a woman who earns £32k a year, another who decorates every year, one who has got 1 4 bedroomed detached house, anther who has got a "budget" of £1 million to buy a house.

I live in a 1930s semi (mortgage paid), my husband earns £25k, I don't work (recovering from being very ill last year)and we haven't decorated for about 6 years. Am I the only working-class -strapped for cash- person on here?

Broke as a joke.

I have nothing spare. Nothing saved. I couldn't even afford Christmas this year. Lucky my kids are only little .

We're an odd case as DH earns good money, I'm a SAHM, we live in a big detached house and are comfortable.

At the same time, our mortgage and bills are stupidly high, nursery fees are ridiculous and we can range from well off to extremely strapped for cash depending on what month it is.

I consider us to be in an ok position but certainly not well off.

We both have jobs and earn reasonable salaries. But have £200k left on the mortgage, pay £1k p/m childcare, have no savings and quite a lot of debt.

Others possibly would think we’re well off but we only just make it pay day to pay day.

@Darbs76

I guess that you’re probably going to find more middle class house wives that unemployed working class people on here. You can tell that by the kind of things posted.

I’ve probably been all those things (apart from mega rich). Started off as a teenage mum on benefits, my 20’s struggling with not seeing any value for promotions with the benefit trap, my 30’s separated from father of younger 2 children and now my 40’s more comfortably off on 45k a year. Which isn’t loads in the South East. Of course some people can lie but I’d say that many are on good salaries or have husbands on good salaries

You sound extremely impressive, Darbs!

On MN, a lot of children seem to attend private school, and lots of SAHM's with high flying DH

@notanothertakeaway

On MN, a lot of children seem to attend private school, and lots of SAHM's with high flying DH

75% of Mumsnet users are in full-time or part-time employment so not such a high % of SAHMs as you might think

Mumsnet is anonymous enough and troll friendly enough that it's basically impossible to know. There's loads of entertaining and interesting things but I assume that most of it is manufactured

@Halllyup17

I'm a carer for my disabled daughter. I get £270 a month. Thank fuck my husband shares his money with me because I'd be screwed if we took the stereotypical Mumsnet advice of keeping finances separate.

How so? Your daughter and the joint living expenses are a joint responsibility. Separate finances do not mean a fair contribution to costs based on income and the agreed split of domestic roles.

@Fizbosshoes

I notice on the earnings threads there's an awful lot of people who they /their DH/ both earn 100kor more. In RL I think that puts them in something like top 7%. However I think that it's possibly skewed by the fact that a lot of the very high earners are working at laptops or have a certain degree of flexibility in what they do with their time. People on NMW are cleaning/working in retail/care homes/driving for amazon/working in hospitality and won't have a phone on them to contribute to the thread. Similarly those on slightly higher but not massive wages might be teachers/police/nurses/vets/tube drivers etc who also wouldn't be online during the course of their working day.

But earning that doesn't make you remotely comfortable in much of the country, by the time you've paid rent/ mortgage, plus childcare to be able to actually commute to and keep said job. Particularly if you are a single parent.

When will people realise that what needs to go up is capital gains tax, not income tax and NI?

@Halllyup17

A 32k salary might be 'average', but I bet it's only average because one person on £200k offsets many people on £18k.

No. It's the median.

@hobstey

In real life, the high earning men I know are all married to high earning women. I even know women who out earn their husbands which seems very very rare on here

Yes I agree, everyone is married to someone with a similar professional job.

Indeed. Intelligent men generally want to find similar, independent, intelligent women with careers, IME. But that's based on my industry. In others, perhaps some just look for the "little woman" to be the maid at home. Not sure why anybody sign up for that though, rather than working on their own career and earning their own money!

It always made me sad when I see threadson here where it's all "my DH does this job". "My DH does that job". Women can do all of this stuff just as well!!!

No.
Lot's of people struggle just like anywhere else.

I think I recall reading some research on the site attracting a "middle class" demographic but I'm not certain. I'm not sure about wealthy but I would say people on here are generally more educated/intelligent than on other parenting forums just judging by the quality of many of the responses compared to other sites I used to frequent when my DCs were babies.

I come from a working class background but live a very comfortable life now. By your metrics yes we would be considered well off but it's more asset rich so you wouldn't necessarily know (i.e. not flashy with designer clothes etc.)

@ThisBloodyNoiseInMyHead

Yes, I own my house - we struggled for 30 years to pay a mortgage, as well as bringing up a family. We're in our 60s. Definitely not well-off, but I suppose we're better off than a lot of people.

Do you think you'd be anle to buy that same house now, with the same jobs you have 30 years ago, but the salaries they pay now?

Not a chance I'd say.

So yes, you have been incredibly lucky. The luckiest generation who have ever lived in this country.

Poverty eradicated, North Sea oil etc used to give you tax cuts, not paying nearly enough to fund your own pensions jence more tax and lower wages for the generations following you, much better healthcare but again deferring the cost onto those that came along later, huge wealth generated from capital because you actually had jobs that paid enough to save, and rising house prices, and could buy houses for a tiny multiple of average income, final salary pensions, free university education etc.

People took advantage of these opportunities to different extents. Some chose not to. But the fact remains that people of your generation had these opportunities if they did want them. And because of grammar schools and student funding and cheaper housing etc, it was possible for people from poorer circumstances to do so. Now it's much harder. Social mobility has decreased massively. Every single study shows it.

Not to mention that now our young people have also had their rights to work and live abroad and build a life that way stripped from them when the vast majority didn't support this.

@Rummikub

Yes agree

As I said previously choices are possible due to finances. Obviously people make different choices - spend most or save to live well later.

Ex was a teacher and I’ve had a lot of choices taken away due to divorce and it’s been hard to get back on track.
I tell my dc to be self reliant- never give up your own career.

Ok, your ex was a teacher. What do you do?

I find it so weird how many women on mumsnet talk about their husband/ ex'e job, rather than their own.

DH is in tech and the only people it pays that well for, here, are a handful of contractors.

Again not picking on your specifically but whyare so many of these posts about your husbands/ boyfriends and not yourselves?!

It's really depressing.

@fungh

DH works for a MC law firm where the partners earn 1.5m, but it's a tiny %

Again. What do you do?

I'm poor in every way.
Flat in a state of disrepair, no pension, no money, no car.
But I'm happy - oh, wait.
No, I'm miserable as sin!

@sammylady37

I’ve been accused of lying because I mentioned my salary of over €200k on a thread. I was told that no one who earned that would be on mumsnet. My response was to ask why wouldn’t they/I? My posts could be at any time of the day or night, as I frequently do overnight on-call so could be woken at any time and might then browse whilst awake, or I could be awake because I’m worried about a patient, so I browse mindlessly to relax, equally I could shut myself in my office with a cup of tea after a busy morning clinic and spend 15 minutes online. There’s no reason for me not to be posting here. When I pointed that out I was then told that I should have more fun and interesting things to do with my time given that I had such earnings to spend. But, the reality is that I still have to work, and work long hours with additional on-call commitments, I still have to pay a mortgage for shorter few years, I still have caring responsibilities for an elderly relative etc so it’s not like I have oodles of free time to lark about on yachts. I do go on luxury holidays (covid permitting) and I do spend on good quality high end clothes, bags, household items, furniture etc but at the end of the day I’m still fitting work, caring and other stuff into 24 hours.

Totally get what you mean. People think somehow having a high pressured job working many hours is easy and you're living the high life. When actually you are stressed, overworked, underslept, and also the salary earned is usually only possible because you have to live in a very expensive area to do so, which sucks most of it up. Not true of all professions - as a doctor actually you won't be subject to that. But most who earn significantly more than average have to live in expensive areas to do so. They are't rich, they are often far more broke than people like the OP living mortgage freein cheaper places.

@TheSmallestGiraffe

What do YOU do?

TheSmallestGiraffe - What is your point though? If you are married, of course your DH’s salary will affect how wealthy you are. Especially if you’re a SAHM.

We are comfortable but I wouldn't consider us as well off. I have a managerial job and DH works in retail so he doesn't earn as much as me.

We have a 3 bed detached oop north and should be mortgage free in 10 years (we are late 30s), we have an old car, and mid way through redecorating the living room for the first time since we moved in 14 years ago!

We've been far worse off though before my career took off. So for me this feels well off even though it's probably just normal!

High house prices / high mortgages = on a day to day basis, you may not have much £ left over each month. But, in future, you will own a valuable asset, so it's a bit disingenuous to say you're not well off

It strikes me most people in UK are relatively well-off compared with other historical periods or, indeed, present-day (world-wide) geographical locations.

However there does seem to be a fairly large-ish minority who are relatively poor. This looks to be fairly random; not many people actually deserve to be on their uppers, it just seems to happen that way.

A large problem with our society, so, is that the well-off are not prepared to share their good fortune; indeed most of this well-off majority actively wish to become even further away from hoi polloi (or the lumpenproletariat , 'the left-behind' , ... choose your epithet), rather than being willing to assist in improving the lot of their less-fortunate neighbours and fellow citizens.

We may have reached the point, indeed, at which the hitherto impoverished minority becomes the majority. Interesting times ahead, if so.

Karl Marx located all this as an ineluctable consequence of our economic system: the rich get richer (and fewer) as the poor get poorer (and more numerous). That may indeed be the case, but anyway from where I sit (comfortably well off but do not need (or want ) any more stuff or a bigger house etc.), it looks uncomfortably like simple unalloyed selfishness.

Evidence for this point of view? Election of Johnson and Tories etc., etc. ( 'Levelling up' ? -- Who is having a laugh?)

I take home £3300 pm and am always skint - high mortgage repayments (but that ends this year). Paying back a car loan (also finishes Christmas). Just paid off loads on Visa, which I had to use for emergencies. There is just me, no inheritance, no family, no partner. And the house is a rabbit hutch not a big one.