To ask if you have a wage/income that would shock people?

[Newmumatlast]

Inspired by the tipping hairdresser thread, and a post on there about people having no idea what some people earn with an anecdote about a London cabbie earning twice what his nurse wife did.

I just wondered if anyone does a job where people would actually be shocked to know their true earnings based on stereotype- either way. For example cleaner earning loads or lawyer earning very little.

I am fascinated here by the No of female breadwinners , love it

Feel lockdown has seen a real shift in that regard

In my entire adult life, I don't think any of my friends or family has ever sent me a link to a job. The closest I've come is people that I know through work telling me that a certain employer in the industry is recruiting at the moment, or something like that. I find it fascinating that this seems to be a common thing!

I'm a specific type of nurse (not management) that earns 50k for only 24hours work per week.

Yes. And starting/junior salaries in the private sector can be very low.
A Marketing Exec might be on £22k and stay on that salary for years.
In fact, the only way I've increased my salary in the private sector is by bouncing from one employer to another. If you can't do that for whatever reason, you'

...ll most likely get taken advantage of by your employer.

(Pressed 'post' too soon!)

I have a job that typically pays well although I expect my family and friends would be surprised just how well I’m paid. None of this is particularly interesting. What is interesting is that despite having a typically well paid job and despite the fact that my DH has an obscure role where most people wouldn’t be able to guess how much he earns, most people we meet still seem to assume he is the high earner 🙄 Eg people are surprised we’re embarking on private school but then seem to assume it’s his income that’s paying for it. He earns a good wage but I earn more than twice his income.

Same.

I was talking to our neighbour about some work that we want to do to our house. The neighbour looked at DH and said "you just need to pay for it all now, eh".

I wanted to say "nope, I'll get the quotes, decide who we use, deal with the tradesmen throughout, and it will be my much higher wage that pays for it"!

Cheeky git.

Not all nursing roles are in the NHS 🤷‍♀️

Not necessarily.
My dn worked for a childminder so was paid as an employee.
Therefore the childminder obviously took more dc.

I think close friends and relatives would be shocked by how much DH and I earn. I am on the equivalent of a £80k salary, taking home £5k a month with an annual £4k tax bill, and DH's charges £50 an hour for his work, and works 40 hours per week, though isn't always fully employed all the way through the year. Currently he is earning £8k a month and it's looking like he might get a full year this year, excluding time off for holidays.

My outgoings are high though as I have a loan to repay from when I bought in to my business, so I don't have as much spare as I'd like. Only 12 years of repayments left! It's effectively a second mortgage, but my business is my pension currently. I bought in for £200k, but my share now is worth around £550k.

I grew up in a household that had annual income of around £12k, so my upbringing has meant that I don't spend as extravagantly as I can afford.

I am certain I will forever be buying cheaper, more inferior versions of something I can actually afford, just because I can't bring myself to spending the higher prices. I annoy myself in this respect!

I disagree. The only way that peoples can ensure that they are paid fairly and choose careers is with better wage transparency.

I do notice that strangers often assume that DH is the higher earner: even though I earn multiple of his salary.

I work in IT: not a senior or management role, and fairly stress free/ low responsibility and flexible with hours, and earn a decent amount.

I suspect most of my friends and family think I earn less than I do.

I know that strangers often do; talking to a lady on a bus one day and she suddenly asked “council or private?” I had no idea what she meant, and asked “do you mean for school for my son? We haven’t decided” and she laughed and said “no, do you rent council or privately” she seemed really surprised that we have bought our house.

family members from back home who have never seen my house will mention things to me like making sure I claim universal benefit/ child tax credits etc.

I don’t look particularly well off; don’t really go for a lot of grooming, and because I wfh mostly, I dress quite scruffily: so I think people assume that I’m in a low income family. When I dress nicely for going into the office; I think I actually get treated differently.

I'm a part time PA on £55k. My former full time job was related to education (not a teacher) and I was paid less than half that and did twice as much work.

I got some of my early jobs just through people that my mum knows.

Now, mid career, colleagues and ex colleagues send each other links to jobs that they think you’d be interested in

@Switchwitch we are the same. We don't have an income as high as yours but we clearly scream 'poor people barley scraping by' when we go into shops.

A sales man in a bed shop once came up to me and pointed me towards the 'budget range' of beds with a kind smile

I can't work out what it is about me tbf

I have had a well meaning acquaintance tell me about a job that would be great for me and pays about £20k per annum full time. I earn £90k per annum working from home very flexibly!

I am an artist and I'm certainly not as poor or starving as the stereotype assumes!

Absolutely. And I'd add that people should have more awareness of the different jobs you can do with the same skill set & how some judicious choices can massively boost earning potential.

One of my sisters wanted to do something with writing, decided that publishing was the path for her, spent 3 years on short term contracts and internships before getting a permanent position. Is now on c.40k with ten years of experience, and very little prospect of growth because there's an army of 20-something English grads ready to take her place.

DS2 also is very good at writing, editing etc, but went into corporate comms, specifically for companies needing English translations, and is on 60k with plenty of room still to grow. I'm also doing something that involves many of the same skills as publishing sister (commissioning work, editing, producing the final documents) but because I'm in a very commercial sector, and built up a niche skillset around communicating data to a wider audience, I earn about 4 times what she does. It's not a job that sounds glamourous or something that I'm hugely passionate about, but I work with nice people and like the financial security.

DH nets about 180k, but he is only a manager, I think his job title makes people think he earns a lot less than he does (which suits me just fine).

We are a bit scruffy, neither of us have much time to shop, I still haven’t lost weight after DD so not keen on spending money on clothes. We spend a lot of time tramping about in parks also it’s just not a big priority. Neither of us are overly bothered, we spend money on stuff we care about, I just spent about a grand on a pair of glasses I really liked. DC well turned out though, DH looks pretty smart for work. I’m clean and tidy, I feel no need to dress in a way that pleases others if it doesn’t please me. I’m also not bothered if I get judged for it.

UK veterinary nurse here, and on similar wage after being qualified for almost 20yrs. The public really have no idea how badly payed veterinary staff, including your average vet surgeon, are paid.
Work 40hr/week plus nights and unsociable hours. Can only dream of earning 30k. And no option to strike against our crap wages either 🙄

@Nannyoflondon yes maybe it's time for a career change, so tired of earning minimum wage for so much responsibility! Thanks x

It's a sales tactic. Point people towards the cheaper things. People who can only afford that will be more likely to buy as they won't be put off by the higher prices, and some people who can afford much more end up getting their backs up a bit and spending more because they want to 'prove' they're not as poor as the salesperson must think they are! Worked in sales for years, there's nothing about you trust me.

Yes, I think some of the people claiming to have been looked down on by sales people are reading a lot more into it than is actually there.

@Endofmytetherfinally that's brilliant, well done. How does one get into marketing?? I'm a lawyer with 10 years experience and earn less than a third of what you do

Interesting to know @Randomizer ! Thanks