I earn a 6 figure salary...

[herehearher]

Just reading another thread and pretty much every post is going on about "6 figure salary" - as if this is some sort of meaningful marker.

But obviously there's a massive difference between someone on £100k and someone on £900k. So by "6 figure salary" are they just essentially saying they earn around £100k? If they earned £250k, how is it acceptable to describe that?

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps if all these posters claiming to be high earners are lying, they are low wage earners, then why are you getting so upset?

@23457gdsdv where did I say anything wrong with Swiss system?
But for your information, unlike NHS it's not free. Every person who lives there need private medical insurance.

@23457gdsdv I only talked about private sector and nurses as a response to an Op comparing these two professions. I didn't say anything about civil servants.

I don't know much about civil service and the value internal employees versus external consultants bring, so I can't comment on that.

Sorry I meant pp comparing. Op was a typo :)

@Lalalolol That's not actually true with regard to the swiss health service. If you are unemployed, the state pays for you. We also pay for the NHS through our taxes. But the Swiss example is excellent in pointing out that actually teachers and nurses can get paid a decent wage. A civil servant can be paid a decent wage.

Rich people who talk about tax being ‘disgusting’ is really not a good look.

Oh. This is a perfect reply!

toure so right. Strong and healthy means being able to do well. Not having to look after sickly parents or siblings means the same

its such a good point

I’m sorry

but no one who earns 100k is struggling…..

I agree that nobody should lose sleep over the more than £1,000 each week that I pay in income tax and NI. But once my slice of the next £1 earned is less than 50p, is it worth me making much effort to earn it?
When I wasn't earning what i do now, I still felt that beyond 50% it discouraged extra effort and boosted tax evasion.
Lord Sugar personally paid £163 million in tax last year, I think he deserves a monument for that even though it came about from accessing wealth previously wrapped up in his business empire and presumably shifts inequality a bit further.

Survival is more important and good health. A six figure salary is not helpful if you're going to eat steak every day and get fat. You'd better off claiming benefits and living on rice or spuds, and vegetables.

I sometimes post about my 6 figure salary but only because I want other women and their daughters to know it can be done. The negative comments on this thread show how hard some people find it to accept women can aspire to be and are high earners.

On the other hand, people saying £100k doesn’t go far should remove their head from their nethers and try living their lives on a bus driver or care assistants income. Of course a high income gives you more choices, what you do with those choices is up to you.

I don’t work harder than a nurse but I do have skills and experience in a sector which pays highly. I am not paid simply for the hours I do but for the fact that people can chuck complex, sensitive, expensive problems at me and I can help them solve it.

Although eating steak rather than junk food might well keep people healthy, not over weight.

On the subject of how to earn these higher sums it is worth talking to teenage daughters about when they are deciding GCSE and A level subjects and university degrees however so they can make an informed choice about lifestyle, aims, income, how they would like their life to be so they know what decision will result in one sort of lifestyle and what will result in another one.

Word fail me...

I earn six figures. I just live in Australia where those six figures equate to around just over half in uk money haha! Dammit!

I truly don’t believe that every person on here who does say they earn six figures is being honest anyway. And even if they do, so what? Definitely doesn’t make them a better person. They’re still chilling on mumsnet just like you and I.

An ex colleague of mine in the UK is now a yoga teacher and harps on on her Instagram about how she left her six figure salary in London to move to the countryside for her husband blah blah. She was on £27k pre tax. Must make her feel better though?

In the interests of transparency and given the subject of the original post I earn ~£160k plus bonus (varies with exch rate). Husband's earnings and rental income separate.

I just want to offer a slightly different perspective on the '6 figures really doesn't go that far' refrain.

I disagree, but I can see why people clumsily and ignorantly say that.

It's true that I feel we live an objectively modest life compared to others on lower salaries - one 10 year old car bought second hand (a vauxhall!), no designer handbags, no nice watch. No gym memberships (we make do with YouTube and dumbbells).

But in 'hidden' ways someone outside looking in wouldn't see, and we wouldn't necessarily be actively conscious of, we live a very privileged life: i have no idea what my latest energy bill was, it just comes out by direct debit - the money is always there. Same with credit card. I pop into grocery stores or the off licence several times a week and buy whatever I fancy without regard to the cost. I spent the weekend grabbing coffees at cafes with my book. I bought a new candle. We were having friends for dinner last night so I went to the fishmonger for fresh salmon.

Despite not having a mulberry bag I probably fairly absent mindedly spent about £150 this weekend on consumables without budgeting. Fripperies I wanted rather than needed.

And I'm not excusing the behaviour but I wonder if the people who say '6 figures doesn't go far' are in the same boat where they think because they don't have a BMW they aren't doing all that well, but they forget they were able to park £600 in their pension that month without even missing the money, and to buy two new bras just because their old ones were getting tatty, or that they don't even look at their credit card statement other than to check a refund came in.

Etc

This with bells on. Is exactly it. We are very similar to this poster. We buy our cars outright not brand new - deffo don’t do the designer gear. But I can do that - have a coffee, but a book, I’ve just spent £150 on things for our holiday.

i ironically bought bras last week.

I’m not sure that anyone pointing out that low earners ( minimum wage) often work as hard as high earners is being bitter.

I often think I’m very lucky ( and it is luck) to have had the breaks in life that mean I have a good job and good salary.

ive no doubt your husband works really hard, but he gets handsomely rewarded for it. Your husband has a choice. And there’s always cash to pay for holidays/ days out /creature comforts.

There are people working 17 hours who have no choice and have very different and real pressures - like not being able to pay rent or feed their kids if they drop the ball.

It is when you are going the food banks to put food on the table or leaving heating off in winter to save money.

Personally 45% is too low a sum tax wise. Should be more.

@Topgub

I don't think I quite said that.
However, that is correct if we were saints we would not care where we live and who we knew.
However, if you can afford to not live in a prostitution area, drugs area, knife crime area - why would you willingly?
If I live in a street of poorer families, what's the point I won't understand their hardships. I may not want to hear my neighbours problems as I can't relate to them.
If I live on a street where the main concern are the potholes that's more my level of neighbour discussions.
You have to live with similar people to reinforce your life values.

@Crystalvas

You've said nothing offensive.
You have merely stated that with 3 kids and living in London / south east apologies I can't remember your location, that £100k after tax doesn't go far.

To the people that are attacking her and families in similar situations - maybe sending kids to private schools isn't a lifestyle choice, maybe their local schools are knife crime ridden, full of racists and they want their children in safe environments where they won't be disrupted by ill behaved kids.
Maybe they want their kids privately taught by teachers that are not stretched and harassed. Why should they sacrifice their kids education and future because not everyone can afford to do it?!
(On a personal note all schools after primary are crap and kids should get a copy of the curriculum and teach themselves and get a personal tutor).

Why should £100k earners not have 2 cars? They're probably second hand middle range models - I doubt the OP and similar are Merc, Audi, BMW, Porsche drivers. Why should they wait around on buses and trains if they don't have to just to make people who can't afford to have 2 cars feel better?

These are hardly extravagant things.

Would you honestly say to a woman on benefits she shouldn't have had 3 kids?
She can't dye her hair, wear mascara?
No, you wouldn't.
You people are just jealous plain and simple.

Not everyone in this life is here to survive one day to the next.
Some people can afford to live and why shouldn't they?!

This thread wasn't about how far £100k gets you and if you should spend that money, it was about OP thinking people lie about earning that.
People have posted all sorts @Crystalvas is allowed to post her divergent take too.

BTW - I'm off work and have insomnia that's why I'm on Mumsnet!

I didn't go to a red brick university or a RG one - I thought I went to a poly technic - but it's worse than that - it was a former college!

@Crystalvas not OP

Translated - "You didn't try hard enough at school, and you are poor because you are lazy"

I don't care how much anyone earns,as long as they appreciate that most of us low earners are working the hardest we possibly can. Be nice to tradespeople etc.Money doesn't buy 'class' or decency,or even intelligence.

Hate to break it to you, but saving £24,000 a year makes you rich. Many people save for years and years for a deposit of that amount.

I just wrote a long post but lost it. 😞

I’ll just briefly sum it up. It’s simplistic to say people are just jealous, they’re being realistic. It’s true the the more money people have the more they tend to spend, so technically anyone can live in relative poverty but it’s crass to suggest people on £100k+ are struggling. It’s a choice to live in a house with a £2k mortgage, send your kids to private school and drive cars worth £50k+.