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’m self employed and earn £60k working 3 days a week. Others doing the same job employed by a school are earning less than half of that working full time…I work alongside them and they’d have a heart attack if they knew…

I'm an accountant for the NHS, this is definitely true. Some B2s do a huge amount of overtime/enhanced shifts.

One in financial services, the other in a niche business role in a niche industry where people generally wouldn’t be able to guess the salary based on the title.

We tell nobody about our finances. Our families know where we work and what we do but wouldn’t understand the market for those skills. My mum once told me it’s nice I’m able to work and have some pocket money for clothes for myself- I earn over £140k.

If acquaintances ask, we say we work in an office or in a bank and don’t go into details. We have a lovely house and nice cars so have had some comments over the years but just never get into it with people. I’d imagine they think we’re up to our necks in debt but the mortgage on our house is relatively low thanks to a substantial deposit, and the cars were bought new and outright. We don’t have any debt bar our mortgage.

Apart from the cars, we’re not flash and don’t really put a lot of info out there- no holiday pics on social media etc.

This is an 8a role wage.

I work for the HQ of a chain of QSR (quick service restaurants) in a senior marketing role and earn over £60K plus a very healthy bonus (25%) if we got certain targets, so taking me close to £80K. Most people think I work in the actual restaurant flipping burgers earning minimum wage. 😂🍔I don’t tend to correct them.

My teen sons’ friends think it’s amazing he gets this particular chain of fast food seemingly on tap. They think it’s free but it’s not, I have a staff discount.

My ex… on the other hand… works for a big tech company (nobody knows what he really does!) and his manager earned £25m last year. My ex earns enough to be talking about buying a ski chalet…

"Orangeis · Yesterday 21:33
I'm a nurse earning 50k and living somewhere very cheap, so I live well. I'm always a bit bewildered when people give off pitying vibes that I must be on the breadline."

Due to the current stories on the news channels, quite a lot of people assume that all nurses earn low salaries and many use foodbanks. That myth was perpetuated by unions etc to get people to support strikes. I have several friends who earn very respectable salaries in nurse manager roles.

So a bit more than just the odd night or weekend shift then?!

It;s interesting you’d jump straight to an accustom about lying when all you’ve done is google the NHS pay scale. What about the private sector? I can think of plenty of private sector nursing roles, not particularly senior, that would earn in excess of £50k.

We are relatively young and haven’t been earning this much for long, so we’re careful not to live to our means so to speak. Our house is nice and, although we will upsize, big enough for our family currently. We have both decided that we should live beneath our means and save/invest etc. We want our children to have the option of Uni without lots of debt, and to help them get on the property ladder, and we want to retire at just over 60, so it makes sense to us.

We do eat well - but mostly cooking at home and the odd meal out; we have a few holidays planned and we like nice clothes - just not obviously designer things. I have some lovely jewellery and our kids enjoy sport. You just wouldn’t necessarily know all that unless you knew us well.

I’m not sure if Scotland is different, but I’m a band 7 (pharmacist, not nurse) and I am at the upper end of the band and full time would earn just over 50k. This is based on 37.5 hrs. If I worked in community pharmacy I’d expect to earn somewhere between 60-80k but would have more unsociable working hours and less benefits than are provided working for the nhs.

Or private sector?

@CuteAsDuck surely you could make a fortune if you went private.

We have to pay for salt for my son, £75/hour and she's very booked up, demand outstripping supply by far.

I am a band 3 and earned 42k last year. Permanent night, copious amounts of OT and worked through most of my Annual Leave. It can be done with OT and NHSP shifts.

You have to be prepared to work on different wards/sites and put the hours in.

Yes definitely, would be when there are regular additional hours or enhancements. Some workers only work nights which increases their salaries. I was just responding to 100N. I have read back the thread, no way would they earn more doing the odd extra weekend shift.

Agree, all the posts about ‘oh we get ignored in show rooms but we are rich’ and ‘we are scruffy but earn more than anyone in the world’ make my cringe

As a nursery nurse, people assume that my wages are linked to their fees. In reality we get pence above minimum wage.

I earn c. £160k
All our friends think my husband is the breadwinner /career one. He works in the services so they could just google his salary.

If people find out I earn more they are astonished and seem to quickly forget/ignore.

We spend money on things that are good value. We do have lovely holidays and cars etc. A nice house. We don’t eat out much or get takeaways etc even though could afford it. I don’t have much designer stuff. If it is designer it’s not showy. We still do nice things just try and not be frivolous. Kids have what they want but we teach them the value of hard work & money/taxes etc.

I can work from home and so am often just in my active wear. I can look glam etc and people know I have a “proper” job (their words!) but really little clue how much I actually earn. I honestly think some of my friends think I earn about 70k.

My only expense other than clothes (which TBH I do regularly buy) is getting my hair done once every 4months.

I work in IT for an online retailer.

DS1 earns more as a supermarket delivery manager than DN1 who working as an assistant SENDCo. DN has a degree, DS doesn't 🤷‍♀️

@cruisingwater

any tips for getting in to that field?🙂

I have told close friends who live in the South that our joint income is £120k and have been met with very sympathetic looks…our income more than meets our needs.

Why is what others spend their money on your concern? And why do you make a judgement on what they are buying based on the fact you believe you earn more so therefore believe they shouldn’t be buying expensive things? What an odd mentality

I’m aware that it can be done. But not just with “the odd night or weekend shift” as @1000N claimed. I think you’ll agree you did a lot more than that to get your £42k!

I agree. Why is choosing to spend your money in order to maximise your enjoyment of life seen as a moral defect?

You can't take it with you, and many people don't live long enough to enjoy the hoards they squirreled away. I'd far rather see someone enjoying life and benefiting from the money they earn.

What I find baffling and granted it’s mostly bored ‘troll hunters’ who make the claim but apparently you can’t earn a good salary and post on mumsnet a lot. It’s not true, I worked my hardest as a junior and now I can work far less and earn more in my established career.

It’s dumbing women down to laugh at high salaries on here. I know there are fantasists but frankly you also have the crew who struggle to believe that any poster on here earns above 50k.

The ancient Volvo and moth eaten cashmere lot can a get in the bin though. It’s not a Jilly Cooper novel and no one believes that nonsense.

My cleaner is off to Jamaica for 2 weeks at the end of March. She went on a Caribbean cruise in December.